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. Its
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes.
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, everyone, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Tim. This week I
Speaker 1: thought about this a lot. It's been a milestone as
Speaker 1: I've been keeping track. In fact, my calendar book, every
Speaker 1: week I write, Okay, what week it is that we
Speaker 1: have been or many have been working from home? It is,
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's a week that I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of memories play out on social media, on
Speaker 1: text message chains with family. One year ago this week,
Speaker 1: you know, the last time stepping foot in a restaurant,
Speaker 1: the last time visiting family. Um, it was a year
Speaker 1: ago this week that the world completely changed. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: Friday March the last time we had a guest actually
Speaker 1: in our Bloomberg Radio studio. And I just remember, you know,
Speaker 1: our managers and like we want to be safe, we
Speaker 1: want a home. We're sending you with equipment, like we
Speaker 1: just want to make sure everybody safe. Hard to believe it.
Speaker 1: It has been a year, no shortage of virus headlines.
Speaker 1: This week it's still, of course top and center for us.
Speaker 1: Here the CDC issuing its first set of guidelines Carol
Speaker 1: on how fully vaccinated people can safely visit with others.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say people are feeling good about reopenings,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, we keep talking to various
Speaker 1: members of the medical community, like listen, we still have
Speaker 1: to be really, really cautious. And I gotta say on
Speaker 1: that we've got the person that last spring was done
Speaker 1: by the New York Times, the CEO at the center
Speaker 1: of New York's coronavirus crisis. And we've got a new
Speaker 1: crisis brewing cyber security. Lucky for us though, we just
Speaker 1: happen to have on Tom Siebel, founder of Cebel Systems,
Speaker 1: also c three AI, just as we learned that hackers
Speaker 1: broke into thousands of security cameras, exposing testless suppliers, jails,
Speaker 1: even hospitals doest you feel like cybersecurity. It's one of
Speaker 1: those stories people keep saying, you know, you guys aren't
Speaker 1: talking about it enough. It's a big, big story. It's
Speaker 1: getting lost in the other headline, it's terrifying. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right, So all of this to come. Let's begin
Speaker 1: though with this week's issue of the magazine. It features
Speaker 1: a deep dive into equality, and that includes him. The
Speaker 1: cover's story, which was among our most read on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg It is about Dorothy Brown. So Dorothy Brown, she
Speaker 1: she spent her career as a law professor documenting racism
Speaker 1: in a tax system that's supposedly color blind. In fact,
Speaker 1: she thought it was color blind until she really started
Speaker 1: doing research onto this years into her career. Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Personal Finance editor Ben Steve Berman wrote all about it right,
Speaker 1: and Ben joined us along with Bloomberg Business Week editor
Speaker 1: Joel Weber. Joel kicking it off though by talking about
Speaker 1: the overall equality issue we have. We launched a vertical
Speaker 1: that UH at Bloomberg called Quality that will be sort
Speaker 1: of the home for our ongoing coverage, and we wanted
Speaker 1: to help make a splash at Business Weeks as we
Speaker 1: launched that that initiative and that and that project, and
Speaker 1: so we really kind of like pulled together across the
Speaker 1: global news room to try and bring as many of
Speaker 1: of these stories to life as we could. And there
Speaker 1: were a couple in particular that stood out to me
Speaker 1: that we're a little bit more US centric that funny enough,
Speaker 1: both had to do with taxes, and we heard about
Speaker 1: Jason Grotto's story on on property tax um and how
Speaker 1: it's effectively like a regressive tax. And there was another
Speaker 1: thing that caught our attention, which was Ben steveerman Um saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, do you guys know about Dorothy Brown,
Speaker 1: who's got a book coming out? And I said, I
Speaker 1: have never heard of Dorothy Brown. Tell me more. And
Speaker 1: with that I'll segue is over to Ben Um. This
Speaker 1: is a professor, a legal illegal tax expert, Um, a
Speaker 1: law professor at Emory UM. And she spent decades basically
Speaker 1: examining the U. S. Tax code. And and Ben, that's
Speaker 1: where it gets provocative. Where does she found Yeah, So
Speaker 1: she's um an interesting person even before she became an
Speaker 1: eminent professor of tax law. She's grew up in the
Speaker 1: bron She worked at Drexel Burnham Lambert back in the eighties.
Speaker 1: She's had a long career, but Um, since the nineties
Speaker 1: she's been looking at different parts of the tax code
Speaker 1: and saying and really analyzing what is the impact this
Speaker 1: has on wealth, um, especially on the wealth of black
Speaker 1: people and the wealth of white people, and what the
Speaker 1: part of the question is, you know, and we've had
Speaker 1: a racial wealth gap between black and white in this
Speaker 1: country that really hasn't narrowed at all. So you see
Speaker 1: many more black people going to college, incomes uh going up,
Speaker 1: but they're the wealth of black folks is not keeping
Speaker 1: pace with well, it is keeping pace, but it's it's
Speaker 1: waste away behind um the wealth of white families. And
Speaker 1: so what she's concluded is that the tax code has
Speaker 1: a big part in that, especially the US income tax,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these carve outs in the income
Speaker 1: tax for retirement and homeownership and all sorts of other
Speaker 1: things that have been built into this supposed the progressive
Speaker 1: system did really end up in a situation where a
Speaker 1: black person and a white person with similar incomes, uh,
Speaker 1: the black person can end up paying significantly more. How
Speaker 1: did she get there to this point because initially I
Speaker 1: think her thinking, according to your story, is that you know, thought,
Speaker 1: you know, tax code, it's going to be color blind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that was her assumption when she decided
Speaker 1: to get into tax you wanted to escape the whole
Speaker 1: issue of racism. Her original plan was to be Um
Speaker 1: following the footsteps of Theurbid Marshall. And then she, you know,
Speaker 1: civil rights lawyer, and she said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: deal with that in my professional life. I just want
Speaker 1: to focus on this this what seemed like this color
Speaker 1: blind system of all these intricate rules and tax code
Speaker 1: doesn't even mention race really. But she she Um was
Speaker 1: part of a movement of people who back in the
Speaker 1: nineties who really started to say, hey, there's these other
Speaker 1: areas of the law. They were written, All these laws
Speaker 1: were written by white people, generations of white people, Um,
Speaker 1: And and you know, is there some hidden racism there?
Speaker 1: And what she's really showing in her book is that
Speaker 1: the generations of lawmakers have built the system that's really
Speaker 1: optimized for white wealth, for people, for white people that
Speaker 1: are already wealthy. The stories in this week special Equality
Speaker 1: issue reminding us that so much work still has to
Speaker 1: be done. That was Bloomberg News Personal Finance editor Ben Steveherman,
Speaker 1: also Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber. Be sure to
Speaker 1: listen to the full audio version of the story on
Speaker 1: our podcast feed at Bloomberg dot Com. Hey and Tim.
Speaker 1: By the way, Dorothy Brown's book, it's entitled The Whiteness
Speaker 1: of Wealth, How the tax system impoverishes Black Americans and
Speaker 1: how we can fix it. That book coming out later
Speaker 1: this month, and she's gonna be joining us in a
Speaker 1: few weeks on air to talk about it. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited for that interview. The book not even out yet,
Speaker 1: already making a splash exactly. Coming up more on the
Speaker 1: equality issue and once again involving taxes and racism. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes
Speaker 1: Tim Stenovik from Bloomberg Radio. So we continue with coverage
Speaker 1: of this week's equality issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine.
Speaker 1: Another story Tim, having to do with taxes and racism,
Speaker 1: more specifically about how in cities across the US, unfair
Speaker 1: property taxes are keeping black families from gaining wealth. To
Speaker 1: set it all up, here's Bloomberg's Reneed a young She's
Speaker 1: got the story of one woman from Detroit. I feel
Speaker 1: like there is no safe place for me to have
Speaker 1: this conversation because I'm gonna get judge one way or another.
Speaker 1: That's delicious. Scott from Detroit. She was over taxed on
Speaker 1: what was once her home. She became a proud homeowner
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, a dream because she always wanted
Speaker 1: stable housing for her kids, something she's never known. But
Speaker 1: when Scott lost her job during the Great Recession, she
Speaker 1: fell three years behind on her property tax payments, and
Speaker 1: those payments shield were much higher than she should have been.
Speaker 1: Then Wayne County took her home away and auctioned it
Speaker 1: off for less than ten percent of what she paid
Speaker 1: for it. I feel betrayed to last year to learn
Speaker 1: that I was over taxed by five thousand. It makes
Speaker 1: me stand, It makes me depress, It makes me feel
Speaker 1: like a failure. For years, the city of Detroit used
Speaker 1: inflated valuations of Scott's house to calculate her property tax bills.
Speaker 1: She now rents that same home for twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: more than she once paid for the mortgage. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just a rental property. This is my home right.
Speaker 1: I raised my children in the space. Scott is not
Speaker 1: alone and her story is not unique. Her home was
Speaker 1: among tens of thousands in Detroit's lower income black neighborhoods
Speaker 1: that the city's assessors routinely overvalued, and this happens all
Speaker 1: across the country, where nationwide data show local officials have
Speaker 1: also systematically undervalued home and affluent areas, reducing the taxes
Speaker 1: those homeowners paid. Ban Behaves Brown leads the nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: Georgia Advancing Communities Together, which focuses on affordable housing and
Speaker 1: community development. She says, the entire real estate system has
Speaker 1: a role to play in equitable housing, and it all
Speaker 1: starts with training, not just your training to get your
Speaker 1: license and you're training for renewal, but to also go
Speaker 1: deeper into ethics, trainings that look at in turn racial
Speaker 1: biases and how to overcome them. In many cases, real
Speaker 1: estate investors profit off of unfair tax burdens, but for
Speaker 1: the people who they weigh on, like Delicia Scott, it
Speaker 1: leads to a vicious cycle of unpaid bills and property
Speaker 1: seizures and ultimately destroys the best chance for families to
Speaker 1: build generational wealth. For more on this story, subscribed to
Speaker 1: the Paycheck podcast from Bloomberg, with a new season focusing
Speaker 1: on the racial wealth gap. You can find Paycheck on
Speaker 1: Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That was
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Rnita Young. Now let's get more on this story,
Speaker 1: which was among the most red on the Bloomberg this week,
Speaker 1: with the reporter who wrote it. It's Bloomberg News Projects
Speaker 1: and Investigations reporter Jason Grotto. He joined us, as did
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber, who began by talking
Speaker 1: about disparities. I think the unfairness is the thing that
Speaker 1: um really stings about this one. And you know, everybody
Speaker 1: hates property taxes to begin with, but then to have
Speaker 1: unfair qualities kind of layered on top of it, I
Speaker 1: think is the thing that can definitely provoke some outrage.
Speaker 1: And it is one of these things that sort of
Speaker 1: hidden in plain sight. Um, but it does affect people
Speaker 1: of color, especially black communities, disproportionately. So, so Jason, help us.
Speaker 1: You've been through so much data on this one. Help
Speaker 1: us break down what you found. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. Everybody, Um, well, so
Speaker 1: you know, the thrust of the story is actually based
Speaker 1: on a mass of study out of the universe. See
Speaker 1: of Chicago Hair School of Public Policy. A professor there,
Speaker 1: Chris Berry, analyzed twenty six million property tax records over
Speaker 1: a ten year period and all over the country UM.
Speaker 1: The analysis found the same pattern, and that is lower
Speaker 1: priced homes being overassessed and higher priced ones being under
Speaker 1: assessed relative to the market value of those homes. And
Speaker 1: of course all property taxes are based off of these valuations.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of bad data in, bad data out.
Speaker 1: And the result is it just excused the entire property
Speaker 1: tax um uh and places a much greater burden on
Speaker 1: those who can support it, makes it regressive. So tell
Speaker 1: us the story of Delicia here. So you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Delicia is someone who you know, I've been talking with
Speaker 1: for many, many months. Uh. You know, obviously it took
Speaker 1: a lot of bravery for her to come out, um
Speaker 1: and actually talk and put her story out there. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of game that goes on here. But essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, she bought a home back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five after working at a corporate cafeteria. She doubled
Speaker 1: her income when she got a job at a domestic
Speaker 1: violence shelter and was able to qualify for a mortgage,
Speaker 1: and and things were going along fine until the Great Recession,
Speaker 1: when she lost her job, and it took her a
Speaker 1: couple of years to get a job back, and she
Speaker 1: missed a tax payment and once you followed behind property taxes,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult you know to get back, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: caught up with those because there's so many fees and
Speaker 1: fines that get ladled on and so she just couldn't
Speaker 1: catch up. Um, the Wayne County, the county you know
Speaker 1: for Detroit, foreclosed on the home and an auction it off,
Speaker 1: as your story mentioned, And since then it's been sold
Speaker 1: two more times while she's been renting the home. So
Speaker 1: the last sale was for eighty four thousand dollars um,
Speaker 1: you know, far more than she paid originally. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of the reason why the value has gone up
Speaker 1: because her rents have gone up because now you know,
Speaker 1: it's an income producing property and the cash that it
Speaker 1: that it throws off every month is keeping the value high. Well,
Speaker 1: the investment, right, there's a whole investment angle into that,
Speaker 1: and and I wish we had more time. But one
Speaker 1: thing I do want to get to is this whole
Speaker 1: idea between you know, tax assessment being overvalued and private
Speaker 1: appraisal sales being undervalued. And as you say, you know,
Speaker 1: Christopher Barry's research. It's not just Detroit you talk about
Speaker 1: it an example in Brooklyn. Oh yeah, it's all over
Speaker 1: the place. We we spoke with a woman Carmen Daniels
Speaker 1: in East New York, you know who. You know. The
Speaker 1: really hard thing here is m Daniels her property, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a single family home. Um. She felt like
Speaker 1: the valuation that the New York City Department of Finance
Speaker 1: put on it was pretty good, you know, she thought
Speaker 1: it was pretty fair. But then she learned that, you know,
Speaker 1: three miles away in Clinton Hill, there's a condo that
Speaker 1: someone bought for three million dollars and the tax you know,
Speaker 1: it's taxed as if it were, is only one point
Speaker 1: two millions. So even though that home the market value
Speaker 1: is eight times greater than hers, the actual tax bill
Speaker 1: is only a thousand dollars more for that prop higher
Speaker 1: price property. So once again, the burden of it is,
Speaker 1: you know, tilted unfairly. There's something called the effective tax rate,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure everyone knows about. That's what gets skewed
Speaker 1: because of these valuations. That was Bloomberg News Projects and
Speaker 1: Investigations reporter Jason Grotto and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber.
Speaker 1: Check out more of Business week special equality issue. It's
Speaker 1: on newsstands, online, and on the Bloomberg still ahead. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: for New York City, it seems to be anomalous compared
Speaker 1: to a lot of the declines we're seeing in the
Speaker 1: rest of the country. We check in with the CEO
Speaker 1: of New York Presbyterian Hospital. One year since the COVID outbreak. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've made some progress, but there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: costs for concern. There really is. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital
Speaker 1: of the world Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one,
Speaker 1: to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius
Speaker 1: XM Chado one nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. So, as we mentioned at the top, this
Speaker 1: week marked the one year anniversary when the World Health
Speaker 1: Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, which meant
Speaker 1: tim we know this for so many of us, the
Speaker 1: beginning of working from home and a real complete disruption
Speaker 1: of our lives. Friday thirteenth, we're talking about Friday, March thirteen,
Speaker 1: tim that was the day we last had a live
Speaker 1: guest in studio. I think for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: including our next guests, there were signs that this was
Speaker 1: going to be worse than we thought, even earlier then
Speaker 1: March thirteenth of last year. Dr Stephen cor Went, President
Speaker 1: and CEO of New York Presbyterian Hospital, who, as you
Speaker 1: might recall the New York Times calling in the Ring,
Speaker 1: the CEO at the center of New York's coronavirus crisis.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for New York City, it seems to be anomalous
Speaker 1: compared to a lot of the declines we're seeing in
Speaker 1: the rest of the country. What we've seen was a
Speaker 1: secondary surge that started in that December time frame, and
Speaker 1: we still have a lot of COVID patients in the
Speaker 1: hospital and a lot of sick COVID patients in the hospital.
Speaker 1: So although we're about thirty to thirty five percent of
Speaker 1: where we were at that horrendous peak in the April
Speaker 1: time frame, we still have a lot of patients in
Speaker 1: the i c U. We're still living with the virus,
Speaker 1: and the positivity rate in New York City still is
Speaker 1: hovering in that five percent range. So it still doesn't
Speaker 1: really feel good in terms of what our emergency rooms
Speaker 1: and I S users seeing. So hopefully with the with
Speaker 1: the vaccine, as we get more people vaccinated UH, the
Speaker 1: quicker we get people vaccinated, the less likely one of
Speaker 1: these variants UH will escape the vaccine and we can
Speaker 1: get back to normal. But right now we're seeing a
Speaker 1: plateau at a level that we're not really happy with.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, that's some really disconcerting news.
Speaker 1: And my question is is why. I mean, we did
Speaker 1: learn today that new virus variances account for fifty of
Speaker 1: New York City's COVID cases. That's what health officials said
Speaker 1: at a briefing on Wednesday. We know that these are
Speaker 1: more infectious than older strains of the virus. Is this
Speaker 1: why this is happening in New York? I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, all of this becomes speculative because
Speaker 1: we're not testing every single sample, but it looks like
Speaker 1: the British variant is the dominant variant. We've seen some
Speaker 1: South African variant with our own genetic testing when we
Speaker 1: do sampling. Um So, I think that that's probably it.
Speaker 1: The more disturbing thing is that the percentage in the
Speaker 1: i c US has gone up, and that means that
Speaker 1: you know that the number of people who are quite
Speaker 1: critically ill has gone up. Um So, even with the
Speaker 1: south to get variant with Johnson and Johnson vaccine, people
Speaker 1: did not end up in the hospital and did not
Speaker 1: end up in the i c U. So I think
Speaker 1: that's going to be the critical thing, making sure that
Speaker 1: people don't end up in the hospital, even if the
Speaker 1: positivity rate is high. Dr. Coroner the demographics the same
Speaker 1: as it older people, is it minorities in terms of
Speaker 1: the more severe cases or the majority. It's a somewhat
Speaker 1: younger skew in part because I think that, thank god,
Speaker 1: the nursing home patients and a lot of elderly patients
Speaker 1: have already gotten the vaccine. So that's good. Um And
Speaker 1: we're you know, uh, I know that younger people are
Speaker 1: at lower risk, but we see a lot of young
Speaker 1: people in the i c U. So everyone's got to
Speaker 1: be particularly people young people who are have high body
Speaker 1: mass indexes or are obese or prediabetic and diabetic. So
Speaker 1: so that's that's a concern. You know, I heard you
Speaker 1: two anecdotes about what you recall. My recollection of that
Speaker 1: day was, you know, in March eight, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: March eighth of last year, we had four COVID cases
Speaker 1: in our entire health system, which has thirty six undred beds.
Speaker 1: By March fifteenth, we had sixty six patients. By March
Speaker 1: two we had five nine patients, and by Marche we
Speaker 1: had patients. So you call that dramatic slope and for
Speaker 1: those of us in New York, how absolutely horrific it is.
Speaker 1: But my recollection of that week was actually this very day, Uh,
Speaker 1: my chief Operating Officer, Dr. Laura Freese called her contacts
Speaker 1: in the archdiocese and said, you don't really plan to
Speaker 1: go ahead with the St. Patrick's Day parade, do you?
Speaker 1: And if you recall that Friday before the St. Patrick's Day,
Speaker 1: they canceled it. Uh And um, you know we all
Speaker 1: sort of rolled into it thinking let's hope for the best,
Speaker 1: and it was really horrific. Listen to him, that's something
Speaker 1: we've heard over and over throughout the pandemic. That was
Speaker 1: Dr Stephen Corwin, President n C of New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Speaker 1: And we know that even though vaccines are are rolling
Speaker 1: out him, We've heard from everybody, still got to wear masks.
Speaker 1: You's still got to do some social distancing. We still
Speaker 1: have a long way to go. Yeah, we certainly do.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week up next, Always be well,
Speaker 1: increasingly that is the case. Somebody is watching a Bloomberg
Speaker 1: exclusive involving the breach of thousands of surveillance cameras inside hospitals, companies,
Speaker 1: police departments, prisons and more. Totally creeped out. All right,
Speaker 1: what our team uncovered that's coming up next. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Big Bloomberg
Speaker 1: exclusive this week. We were all over it when it
Speaker 1: crossed the Bloomberg terminal. It was about a group of
Speaker 1: hackers that say they breached a massive trope of security
Speaker 1: camera data collected by a Silicon Valley startup and tim.
Speaker 1: In doing so, they gained access to live feeds of
Speaker 1: what about a hundred and fifty thousand surveillance cameras. They
Speaker 1: were inside everywhere, hospitals, companies, police departments, prison schools, even
Speaker 1: a testless supplier. But talk about serendipity. When this news broke,
Speaker 1: we actually had Tom Siebel, founder and chairman and CEO
Speaker 1: at C three AI on the air. You were talking
Speaker 1: to him. Tom is also, of course founder of Sibel Systems.
Speaker 1: I think the threat associated with US cyber threat okay
Speaker 1: from bad actors at nation states including Russia, China, North Korea,
Speaker 1: Iran is existential. I mean, these people have the ability
Speaker 1: to shut down the United States, a great power, great infrastructure,
Speaker 1: the financial system, the healthcare system, you know, with a
Speaker 1: cell from from the other side of the planet, and
Speaker 1: they can do it tomorrow. This has been very very
Speaker 1: well documented in books that have been recently published, such
Speaker 1: as The Perfect Weapon and this is how they tell
Speaker 1: me the world ends. Uh. And this is very various
Speaker 1: here stuff. The National Security Commission for Artificial Intelligence published
Speaker 1: its report for years in the making, then concludes that
Speaker 1: today the United States government is not organized or investing
Speaker 1: to win the technology competition against the committed competitor, nor
Speaker 1: is it prepared to defend against AI enabled threats and
Speaker 1: rapidly adopt AI applications for national security purposes, that we
Speaker 1: are exposed there are bad actors out there, and this
Speaker 1: is very scary. Well, you know, it just reminds me
Speaker 1: of It's like I've seen this movie before. We saw
Speaker 1: it in the form of the health pandemic. Lots of
Speaker 1: warnings for years, and yet we weren't prepared. And I
Speaker 1: feel like we're setting setting up for something like that again.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, I'm reading this story and
Speaker 1: they say, um, they breached massive trove of security camera
Speaker 1: data collected by a Silicon Valley startup, Ricata. They gained
Speaker 1: access to live feeds of a hundred and fifty tho
Speaker 1: security cameras inside hospitals, companies, police departments, prisons, and schools,
Speaker 1: able to view video from inside women's health clinics, psychiatric hospitals,
Speaker 1: and the offices of this company of Ricata itself. Um.
Speaker 1: And they were using in some cases, some of these cameras,
Speaker 1: including in hospitals, were using facial recognition technology to identify
Speaker 1: and categorize people captured on the footage. UM. I think
Speaker 1: about this. You are so in on the AI world.
Speaker 1: You talk about us not being prepared for Listen, there's
Speaker 1: great things to be had by it, but there's also
Speaker 1: a downside. We're not ready for it or not prepared
Speaker 1: for it. When you get into cyber security and info
Speaker 1: sect this is just very scary stuff. I mean, the
Speaker 1: Chinese went into the Office of Personal Management in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And it walked off of like twenty million
Speaker 1: records of everybody it's ever been considered for a security clearance.
Speaker 1: I mean, the you know, the Russians were in there
Speaker 1: within the last month and no telling. Nobody's him in
Speaker 1: telling the story of how thoroughly they penetrated the United
Speaker 1: States government. I mean, the Emperor has no clothes either.
Speaker 1: This is not on the national agenda. And this is existential.
Speaker 1: If these people to turn off the US power created,
Speaker 1: which they could do in a second, nine out of
Speaker 1: ten people in the United States die. So this makes
Speaker 1: the whole COVID pandemic look like a common cold, you know,
Speaker 1: compared to I mean, this is very very serious stuff.
Speaker 1: This is existential stuff, and it's not on the national agenda. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it says. Another video shot inside the Tesla warehouse and
Speaker 1: Sayghai says workers an assembly line hacker, said they obtain
Speaker 1: access to two cameras and Tesla factories and warehouses. Well,
Speaker 1: this is your world. You're having conversations with people who
Speaker 1: are tapping into and working with you. Guys, you provide
Speaker 1: you know, enterprise AI software, UM is anybody kind of
Speaker 1: aware of how to do this in a responsible way.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is your world. Yeah. I would say
Speaker 1: the organizations that are most equipped okay and have the
Speaker 1: greatest levels of security as it relates to AI and
Speaker 1: cybersecurity are the banks. I mean, these guys have have
Speaker 1: security regiments for their information systems are completely aero gapped,
Speaker 1: they're tested, they have security protocols that are incredibly vigorous.
Speaker 1: While they're dealing with the US banks or the European banks.
Speaker 1: These people have done us a perlative job, and the
Speaker 1: people in the United States government could go to school
Speaker 1: on that. They look like, you know, candidly, they look
Speaker 1: like cub scouts compared to the way the banks handling
Speaker 1: information security. You've been kind enough to indulge us as
Speaker 1: we were breaking down these headlines on this major hack.
Speaker 1: You know, listen, Tom, You've been in the technology world
Speaker 1: for a long time. You've seen it evolved. It's gotten
Speaker 1: much more sophisticated, it's got a lot more invasive, it's
Speaker 1: gotten a lot more useful, and it's such a part
Speaker 1: of everything that we do. AI specifically talk to us
Speaker 1: about kind of what's front and center right now in
Speaker 1: terms of where it's going, who's using it, where it's
Speaker 1: going to be the most productive. Well, leading corporations around
Speaker 1: the world are using AI and smarting analytics, precision medicine, aerospace, manufacturing, telecommunications, banking,
Speaker 1: and they're using AI to deliver better products and services,
Speaker 1: to deliver safer, cleaner, more reliable energy. They're using AI
Speaker 1: to secure data, data assets from cybersecurity attacks. They're using
Speaker 1: AI and defense and intel agents. This is the largest
Speaker 1: this is you know, we look at enterprise AI software.
Speaker 1: This is a third of a trillion dollars market in
Speaker 1: say so, this is the largest growing enterprise application software
Speaker 1: market in history. Okay, and we serve all segments of
Speaker 1: that industry, from banking to tel go to healthcare to government. Listen.
Speaker 1: So give me AI for dummies, because I feel like
Speaker 1: we throw around, certainly not you, but we throw around
Speaker 1: the term artificial intelligence a lot, and I think people
Speaker 1: have a grasp of it, but I don't think they understand,
Speaker 1: especially as you go through that list of basically our world,
Speaker 1: to be quite fair, whether it's military, whether it's you know, medical,
Speaker 1: whether it's energy, um where the use of AI is
Speaker 1: making things so much better. What is the AI for
Speaker 1: dummies if you had to explain it to somebody, great question. Okay,
Speaker 1: so AI and so many to strip away all the
Speaker 1: all the mystique and all the noise, AI is an
Speaker 1: area that would call predictive and where we're able due
Speaker 1: to kind of advances in information technology to solve problems
Speaker 1: that never been able to solve before. Where we can
Speaker 1: predict things before they happen very accurately. Heart failure okay,
Speaker 1: diabetes Okay, it's a failure of a transformer in New
Speaker 1: York City. Okay, the failure of a jet engine, so
Speaker 1: we can predict these events, or the failure of a
Speaker 1: critical piece of equipment on an offshore or rig, say
Speaker 1: for world Dutch Shell, where we can predict these events,
Speaker 1: you know, say days or months in advance, and replace
Speaker 1: the transformer in New York City and prevent the electricity outage. Okay,
Speaker 1: intervene uh clinically and prevent the heart failure. Okay, you
Speaker 1: do some intervention on the machine and present the aircraft
Speaker 1: failure before it fails. That in a nutshell, that's what
Speaker 1: enterprise AI is all about, is predictive ant relication. That is,
Speaker 1: accurately predicting events before they happen. And we're able to
Speaker 1: do that today with very high levels of precision. Well,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to something like healthcare, Listen, we
Speaker 1: have all been obsessed with our health care because our
Speaker 1: lives depended on it in the last year. And understanding
Speaker 1: we all got I think safe to say, somewhat smarter
Speaker 1: in understanding how vaccines are developed and the complications of
Speaker 1: you know, a virus and and all these things. When
Speaker 1: it comes to healthcare specifically, you talk about AI like
Speaker 1: we can predict heart failure. I mean, is this an
Speaker 1: area that we have yet to explore in a big
Speaker 1: way when it comes to a I yes, I think
Speaker 1: this is well. This is a field where we apply
Speaker 1: AI to healthcare. This is what we call precision medicine.
Speaker 1: This will be the largest commercial application of AI. And
Speaker 1: for example, we can take the genome sequences and the
Speaker 1: health care records of say the population of the United
Speaker 1: States or any population, okay, and apply seene learning algorithms
Speaker 1: to these data and predict with very high levels of precision,
Speaker 1: who is going to be diagnosed with what disease? Okay
Speaker 1: in the next five years, heart disease, lung cancer or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, and then intervene clinically and avoid
Speaker 1: the diagnosis. Well, you combine that with telemedicine to reach
Speaker 1: previously unserved UM members of the community, and the economic
Speaker 1: and social benefit of this is staggering. Then you have genomes,
Speaker 1: specifical medical protocols where where we you know, have tailored
Speaker 1: medical protocols to the individual genome which are highly much
Speaker 1: going to be much more highly efficacious at a much
Speaker 1: lower cost. So these are examples of a I applied
Speaker 1: to medicine. This will be again the largest application of
Speaker 1: ai UH in any field. That was Tom Siebel, founder,
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO at C three AI. He's also author
Speaker 1: of the book Digital Transformation, Survive and Thrive in an
Speaker 1: Era Mass Extinction. That wraps up the first hour of
Speaker 1: the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanivik. More ahead in
Speaker 1: our next hour, including our Women's History Months special Hour,
Speaker 1: a look at prominent individuals and finance, tech, venture capital
Speaker 1: and innovation who just also happened to be women as well.
Speaker 1: That's right, are all female lineup includes the CEO of
Speaker 1: work Board and why diversity is so important, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to venture capital. Also the CFO Estate Lauder
Speaker 1: on global growth and consumers what they're buying lipstick not
Speaker 1: so much skincare. Yeah, I definitely bought a lot of
Speaker 1: skincare during the pandemic. And also coming up Verizon Business
Speaker 1: CEO on supporting women owned small businesses and female entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: And grab your favorite snack, but ditch that plastic cutlery.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have the president founder of Habits of Waste
Speaker 1: on how you can help combat climate change by making
Speaker 1: these simple changes in your life. Doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: an organic snack. I don't know, but it's gonna be easy. Okay, deal.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg for those fortunate enough to help the
Speaker 1: person who has always been their hero find the care
Speaker 1: guides you need to help at a a ARP dot
Speaker 1: org slash Caregiving brought to you by a ARP and
Speaker 1: the ad Console. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from
Speaker 1: the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted
Speaker 1: business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news as
Speaker 1: it happened, Sloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser.
Speaker 1: And in the second hour of the weekend edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Weeks, some of our great guests on International
Speaker 1: Women's Day, leaders in tech, innovation, branding, and the environment,
Speaker 1: who just happened to be women as well. We're going
Speaker 1: to hear from the CFO at Estate Lauder on how
Speaker 1: the global cosmetics giant and its consumers around the globe
Speaker 1: have been shopping during the pandemic. Yeah, the trends have
Speaker 1: changed a little bit. Also, a friend of the show,
Speaker 1: Verizon Business CEO Tammy Urin, on where we stand in
Speaker 1: the fight for equality. Little hint, We've got a long
Speaker 1: way to go. Yeah, we certainly do. Carol, you also
Speaker 1: had a great conversation with the president and founder of
Speaker 1: Habits of Waste. She's spreading the message about small, everyday
Speaker 1: changes that we can make that would make a big difference.
Speaker 1: This was a favorite interview of mine. First up, though,
Speaker 1: let's get to the entrepreneur who has founded and led
Speaker 1: three tech startups, sold one to IBM ran a high
Speaker 1: growth business at IBM. We're talking about dadre Park not
Speaker 1: she's CEO and co founder of the Enterprise sas company Workboard.
Speaker 1: They work with Comcast, Cisco, g E, S, tra Zenica,
Speaker 1: so many companies, And she is definitely no stranger to
Speaker 1: the VC world. This is my third company where I
Speaker 1: thought funding and got funding a CC world and I'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, with some embarrassment that it hasn't improved much
Speaker 1: a few decades that I've been working on it. I
Speaker 1: think part of it is, um, we don't look like
Speaker 1: what the prototypical founder should look like, right, the architect
Speaker 1: that people have in their heads. Now, that's changing, I
Speaker 1: think now in very meaningful ways. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of organizations driving chains, including for example, all Rays, and
Speaker 1: what you see today which you just wouldn't have seen
Speaker 1: five years ago, much less ten years ago, is women
Speaker 1: partners at really every quality firm has real women partners
Speaker 1: making real investment decisions, uh and driving those investment decisions
Speaker 1: in in the VC firm. So I think we well,
Speaker 1: it takes a bit of time. I think we actually
Speaker 1: finally turned a corner on getting women partners in the
Speaker 1: venture firms that actually fuel those startups. Well, that that
Speaker 1: gives me hope. Um. What about corporate boards though, and
Speaker 1: I know this is something that you've certainly been keeping
Speaker 1: an eye. Corporate boards still mostly white? Uh white? Are
Speaker 1: eight in ten directors at Spies at least are still male.
Speaker 1: What's going on with corporate boards? Why is it so slow?
Speaker 1: Especially when we you know, we know the research when
Speaker 1: it comes to diver City Mackenzie's done at so many
Speaker 1: others have done at that. When you've got a diverse board,
Speaker 1: when you've got a diverse senior leadership, you do better financially. Yea.
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of things that are shifting
Speaker 1: there and that will accelerate some sense of sort of
Speaker 1: accelerate post But a couple of those. One is you know,
Speaker 1: I just added to women independent directors to my board,
Speaker 1: Margot Geo Judgis, who was a former CEO of Ancestry
Speaker 1: and Kathy Bengko, who is a former vice chair of Deloitte,
Speaker 1: both really senior talented women, And as I was doing
Speaker 1: the search to add them to the board, I used
Speaker 1: a search firm that was focused on women executives. And
Speaker 1: so what they've done, which is something I think hadn't
Speaker 1: been done in the past, is actually build the database
Speaker 1: of candidates, build the pool so that when you want
Speaker 1: to find talent, you're looking at a pool that is
Speaker 1: enriched by women leaders and women executives versus the same
Speaker 1: old data is of the same old pool that looks
Speaker 1: the same old way it's always looked. And that's what
Speaker 1: people and that's what's going on still on a lot
Speaker 1: of companies right everybody's going back to the existing pools,
Speaker 1: the old ones exactly. But I do think that executive
Speaker 1: search firms are now quite mindful of opening the aperture.
Speaker 1: The other thing, and probably more interesting, is in my
Speaker 1: work with senior leaders, most of them are looking beyond
Speaker 1: their own sector for expertise, for insights for how other
Speaker 1: people are changing the game, and most of them are
Speaker 1: acutely aware of the extreme disruptive opportunities and frankly risks
Speaker 1: and face their business. And I think that what we'll
Speaker 1: see is this enormous generation of direct to consumer leaders,
Speaker 1: many of whom are women, who have created fantastic companies,
Speaker 1: grown them have real go to market leadership skills and
Speaker 1: are very disruptive thinkers. If I were the CEO of
Speaker 1: a mainstream company looking for diversity of thought provocative ideas
Speaker 1: in a way to enrich the conversations I was having
Speaker 1: at the board, I would look to those disruptive leaders
Speaker 1: coming out of d C, DTC, what for, what forgive me?
Speaker 1: And what is it about d to see that you
Speaker 1: think really puts them out there ahead of ahead of others.
Speaker 1: Their business models, the way they think about reaching their customers,
Speaker 1: the way to think about serving those customers. It's a
Speaker 1: a lot of it is just blank slate, right, not
Speaker 1: bogged down by the way we've always done it, and
Speaker 1: started instead with what would be awesome? Like what would
Speaker 1: what could we imagine? And then that's a pool of
Speaker 1: many many women in those organizations as co founders, as
Speaker 1: CEOs and clos and CFOs right, women in different roles there.
Speaker 1: So I think it creates a pipeline of diverse talent
Speaker 1: that has the kind of disruptive thinking and phenomenal success
Speaker 1: that you'd want around you in the board room. Because
Speaker 1: I do wonder too, and you probably have a lot
Speaker 1: of experience that this are are a great person to
Speaker 1: talk to about this is that you know, money always talks,
Speaker 1: and I do wonder if there's at some point somebody's
Speaker 1: going to be like, Wow, look at this company, uh,
Speaker 1: the diversity that they've got, and look at how well
Speaker 1: they're doing, and so what's the common denominator? What is
Speaker 1: it that's getting them to that point? And I know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors at play that make a
Speaker 1: successful venture or institution or company, but we but we
Speaker 1: know the research, and I do wonder at some point
Speaker 1: is it just people are like, this is the smart
Speaker 1: thing to do financially, especially if you're publicly held or anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think until its leaders perceive CEO is perceive it
Speaker 1: as the smart thing to do financially, until they perceive
Speaker 1: it as when I bring those different voices on that
Speaker 1: different experience to my table, I'm a smarter leader. That
Speaker 1: was dadre Park, no CEO and co founder of the
Speaker 1: Enterprise Sas Company Workboard. The full conversation on our podcast feed.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up, the CFO
Speaker 1: at St. Lauder and what global consumers are buying that's
Speaker 1: up next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Spinovik from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. St. Lauder is a behemoth when it comes
Speaker 1: to the cosmetic, skincare and fragrance world. They are, tim
Speaker 1: one of the largest in the world, selling in some
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty countries. They own a portfolio brand,
Speaker 1: some created internally, many others like Lamaire, Bobby Brown, glam Glow,
Speaker 1: Mac and others. They bought them. A great person to
Speaker 1: find out what's going on around the world and answer
Speaker 1: the question of what consumers are buying is Tracy Travis,
Speaker 1: Executive Vice president of Finance also CFO of s day Lauder.
Speaker 1: The consumer, UM, you know, based on what we've seen globally,
Speaker 1: you know, is still UM supporting obviously prestige beauty. I
Speaker 1: mean our our sales, you know, are are recovering UM,
Speaker 1: you know, every every month, every every quarter. Certainly we
Speaker 1: just reported our our second quarter results UM, and we
Speaker 1: returned to growth UM for uh, you know, a quarter
Speaker 1: earlier than what we had expected. UM. But the consumer
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, is gradually UM you know, coming
Speaker 1: back to I think spending UM in in the categories
Speaker 1: that that are important to to her like like beauty.
Speaker 1: How did consumer spending shift during the pandemic? Consumer UM
Speaker 1: spending shifted very much UM to online. First of all,
Speaker 1: so you know, we were one of the companies that
Speaker 1: um our our distribution was deemed to be non essential globally.
Speaker 1: You know, we sell only prestige beauty, so we sell
Speaker 1: in a lot of department stores and specialty stores UM
Speaker 1: which closed UM initially during during the pandemic UM and
Speaker 1: then reopened. But you know, TRACK has been been a
Speaker 1: bit light UM and has gradually been building. So we
Speaker 1: saw a tremendous shift to online and we were prepared
Speaker 1: for that, you know, with our own brand dot com
Speaker 1: sites UM, with our retail partners and UH and their
Speaker 1: sites as well as some of the platforms in pure
Speaker 1: play UM sites that that we sell on UM. We
Speaker 1: saw a tremendous UM you know, UH shift to UM
Speaker 1: to looking for her favorite skin care products, whether it's
Speaker 1: Lamaire or Clinique or or Essay Lauder UM or some
Speaker 1: of the other skincare brands that we UH that we have.
Speaker 1: We also saw UM a pick up in fragrance UM
Speaker 1: and again no surprise, more people working from home people
Speaker 1: UM were UM. We saw our our bath and body
Speaker 1: category grow as well as our home fragrance category grow. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know, those are are some of the trends
Speaker 1: that we have observed during the pandemic. Makeup has been
Speaker 1: the most impact of no surprise, given given the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, many people are working from home and
Speaker 1: those that are going out many are wearing masks as uh,
Speaker 1: you know, as instructed, and so that does have an
Speaker 1: impact on particularly the largest categories of makeup, foundation and lips. Um.
Speaker 1: And those are categories that we expect, certainly as the
Speaker 1: vaccine rollout um, you know continues to progress uh and
Speaker 1: uh and we start to see people migrating back to
Speaker 1: work and back to school and resuming some of their
Speaker 1: social activities. UM, we expect to you know, to have
Speaker 1: a strong, strong makeup recovery at that point in time. Tracy,
Speaker 1: I feel like you've described me. I spend so much
Speaker 1: more on skincare uh in the last year or so.
Speaker 1: UM then then you know, certainly on you know, traditional makeup.
Speaker 1: And it's just very interesting you talked about though, you know,
Speaker 1: shifting to online and I do wonder we've seen just
Speaker 1: an increased digitization of our world when it comes to retail.
Speaker 1: Not just you guy is but everybody and you know,
Speaker 1: folks that had strategies that maybe they were going to
Speaker 1: roll out over the you know, next three to five years,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden did them overnight? What has changed
Speaker 1: in terms of your digital strategy specifically because of the
Speaker 1: pandemic and just you know, seeing how this is how
Speaker 1: an increasing number of consumers want to shop. Well, we
Speaker 1: had a very strong UM focus on on online for
Speaker 1: for many years. Actually we started our online sites more
Speaker 1: than more than twenty years ago UM, and we were
Speaker 1: focused at was our fastest growing channel heading into the pandemic.
Speaker 1: What we've seen is an acceleration of the penetration of
Speaker 1: of online. Certainly more consumers, a lot of new consumers
Speaker 1: that we had not seen purchase online previously started to
Speaker 1: purchase online. Obviously when when UM brick and mortar UM
Speaker 1: you know, became less less attractive to shop in UM
Speaker 1: during this pandemic. And so we expect that we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to see those those trends coming coming out
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Clearly, we expect that consumers will return
Speaker 1: to brick and mortar. But those that you know have
Speaker 1: developed the habit of shopping online we expect will continue
Speaker 1: and we have added quite a bit of functionality to
Speaker 1: our online site that have many of our retail partners.
Speaker 1: We've added virtual try on in terms of makeup UM,
Speaker 1: we have a virtual diagnostic for our clinique brand UM.
Speaker 1: We have live streaming events. We've added a lot more
Speaker 1: video content and how too, and we've actually seen which
Speaker 1: is one of our encouraging signs for makeup, We've seen
Speaker 1: more consumers actually access those videos and uh UM you know,
Speaker 1: with an interest in learning more about skincare treatments as
Speaker 1: well as UH as well as makeup treatments as well.
Speaker 1: This is this is a business where people like to
Speaker 1: try before they buy UM, and you know, they do
Speaker 1: that in person in stores. I'm wondering how the in
Speaker 1: person experience is going to change on the other side
Speaker 1: of this pandemic. We think that you know, again, uh
Speaker 1: you know, we have tried to add as much consultation
Speaker 1: to our online sites as as possible, but we also
Speaker 1: know that people miss that human interaction UM and that
Speaker 1: ability to actually buy now, get now, and so that's
Speaker 1: something that you know, certainly an in store experience provides
Speaker 1: an addition to as as you mentioned being able to
Speaker 1: physically physically try on product. You know, we have sanitary
Speaker 1: practices at you know, all of our counters and in
Speaker 1: our freestanding stores. UM. So you know, as consumers return,
Speaker 1: you know, we are are making sure that um that
Speaker 1: they can try comfortably. And and you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of the behavior's post post pandemic, you know, we do
Speaker 1: expect that. You know, we ended last year with our
Speaker 1: online business, UM, you know at a twenty penetration. You know,
Speaker 1: we certainly expect grow from from there going forward, as
Speaker 1: vaccines continue to roll out, they're expecting more business. Of course.
Speaker 1: That was Tracy Travis, Executive vice president of Finance also
Speaker 1: CFO of St. Lawder. I gotta say I find it
Speaker 1: interesting too, you know, and I'm not surprised. We've seen
Speaker 1: shopping trends changed dramatically over the past year, what people
Speaker 1: are buying, how they're buying, uh, and what she talked
Speaker 1: about kind of a focus on skincare. I've seen that
Speaker 1: in my own world. You know, you're not buying lipstick,
Speaker 1: You're not doing the things you were doing when the
Speaker 1: world was opening, you know, was opened up. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: makes sense if you're wearing a mask you're not necessarily
Speaker 1: buying what you'd be putting on your face. You seem
Speaker 1: like a mask kind of guy. Wait, I was I
Speaker 1: was thinking of Like, I wasn't thinking of that. I
Speaker 1: was thinking of like overnight masks. I mean, I wasn't
Speaker 1: thinking of overnight masks, That's what I mean. I was thinking,
Speaker 1: as you're also like, you know, my my nine that
Speaker 1: I'm wearing around the office. That's what I'm thinking. Well,
Speaker 1: you're that too, But I could see you like, I
Speaker 1: didn't think, yeah, sure, sign me up, give it to me,
Speaker 1: all right, still to come up Bloomberg Business Week. I
Speaker 1: think what we're now seeing as a sense of hope
Speaker 1: and optimism. Verizon Business CEO Tammy Irwin on helping women
Speaker 1: and female entrepreneurs succeed. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the
Speaker 1: financial capital of the World Bloomberg eleven Frio in New
Speaker 1: York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one
Speaker 1: O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to
Speaker 1: the country Sirius XM Chado one nineteen and around the
Speaker 1: globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. Carol recently Verizing Business announcing
Speaker 1: an effort led by our next guest. It's all about
Speaker 1: championing women and confronting the ongoing crisis of women leaving
Speaker 1: the workforce at unprecedented rates due to the impact of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. We see it everywhere. Tim, She's a favorite
Speaker 1: voice of mine to check in with. We're talking about
Speaker 1: Verizon Business CEO Tammy Irwin, who I've talked with several
Speaker 1: times throughout a pandemic, and this time around again that's
Speaker 1: where we started. We've talked so much about how people
Speaker 1: have reacted and responded, and now we're really in that
Speaker 1: phase where people are beginning to reimagine what the workforce
Speaker 1: of the future looks like. We're calling that work forward
Speaker 1: at Verizon, which is how will we work and what
Speaker 1: does the new norm look like? You know, Carole and
Speaker 1: I have talked about some of the challenges that women
Speaker 1: have faced throughout the cod and I think what we're
Speaker 1: now seeing is a sense of hope and optimism, a
Speaker 1: sense that kids might be back in school in the fall.
Speaker 1: So I would just tell you, I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: resiliency and we're seeing the hope as people begin to
Speaker 1: look to what the workforce of the future might be
Speaker 1: and how that will give women a little more time
Speaker 1: to lean into their career and people a chance to
Speaker 1: get out and live life well. Having said that, you
Speaker 1: guys at Verizon are very specific and deliberate when it
Speaker 1: comes to initiatives and programs. Talk to us about the
Speaker 1: most recent effort and some of the work that you
Speaker 1: guys have done, whether it's mentoring, whether it's working with
Speaker 1: small businesses. Tell me a little bit about what you
Speaker 1: guys are doing right now. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1: We are really proud of the work that we've done
Speaker 1: to really put a spotlight on so many thanks. Carroll
Speaker 1: and I have talked about the fact that when COVID hit,
Speaker 1: we said our number one priority was taking care of
Speaker 1: our employees, followed by our second stakeholders, which is making
Speaker 1: sure customers have all the connectivity in the services that
Speaker 1: they get and relied on from Verizon, and then third
Speaker 1: caring for shareholders, and forth caring for society. And as
Speaker 1: we've looked at how we really lean in and care
Speaker 1: for all four of those stakeholders, we've really put a
Speaker 1: lot of time into how do we make sure that
Speaker 1: women have a chance to be successful. We know in
Speaker 1: January alone, two hundred and seventy five thousand women dropped
Speaker 1: out of the labor force. We know that women are
Speaker 1: coming into the workforce more educated than ever before, but
Speaker 1: following out. So what we've done is a number of
Speaker 1: things building off of things we did in We successfully
Speaker 1: launched a program last year called Women in Business and
Speaker 1: it was a series of seminars, and it was a
Speaker 1: seminar that really focused on a number of different its vertical,
Speaker 1: so whether you were in the healthcare, whether you were entertainment,
Speaker 1: whether you were in a public sector of finance, you
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to do say what are other women
Speaker 1: doing them? What are the things I need to do
Speaker 1: to be successful? Those summers are reviewed two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: times because what we know is that working women view
Speaker 1: employee sponsored resources. It's an important aspect of how they
Speaker 1: do it all, how they've battle this work personal that
Speaker 1: they're trying to do. We're really building out that phone
Speaker 1: and we said that's great for yesterday, but what can
Speaker 1: we do in one And we've launched a new program
Speaker 1: we announced on Friday called the Rizon Collab and It
Speaker 1: was really intended to be a collaborative career engine platform
Speaker 1: that we're going to invite others to participate on. As
Speaker 1: we talked with women about the things that they need
Speaker 1: to do to be most successful, as they reimagine UM
Speaker 1: and an environment posts COD and we think that's really important. Terry.
Speaker 1: One thing I want to ask you, especially because you
Speaker 1: at Verizon in your team, there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: programs that you put out there, what really makes a
Speaker 1: difference in terms of giving UM a woman, a woman's
Speaker 1: the support they need, the leg up, the ability to
Speaker 1: kind of aspire for more, you know, where they maybe have,
Speaker 1: you know, financial responsibilities at a firm, you know, to
Speaker 1: take on more. What what are the programs? Is it mentoring?
Speaker 1: Is it? You know, we had a great story on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg specifically at a European bank who said, you know,
Speaker 1: what really makes a difference is child care enable you know,
Speaker 1: enabling women to then take on more. So what is
Speaker 1: it specifically that you find packs the biggest punch when
Speaker 1: it comes to helping women advance professionally and really get
Speaker 1: to those higher echelons. Yeah, listen, I think there's several
Speaker 1: critical things. One you touched on, which is caregiver programs,
Speaker 1: whether it's caring for children or caring for aging parents,
Speaker 1: making sure that companies offer programs to give families choice
Speaker 1: as to how they take care of those responsibilities. So
Speaker 1: that's one we've really taken a leadership position, and the
Speaker 1: other one is really making sure that women have the
Speaker 1: right kind of competent skills and capabilities to compete in
Speaker 1: the in the work environment. I started a program in
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen that I'm super excited about. It's called WOW,
Speaker 1: which was Women of Wireless we translated into Women of
Speaker 1: the World. It is a program deployed across Verizon. At
Speaker 1: this point, we've got six thousand women who have graduated
Speaker 1: from that program, and it's really designed to say, help
Speaker 1: women learn great confidence, how do I define my personal
Speaker 1: brand as a woman, compete for jobs, have good communication skills,
Speaker 1: and learn to network, all things women are great at,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they need a little encouragement. Sometimes they need
Speaker 1: to be taught how to affectively do that. That was
Speaker 1: Rising Business CEO Tammy Irwin cutting up. Most people don't
Speaker 1: even want it, so it's a win win. And by
Speaker 1: the way, restaurants are saving a ton of money. Our
Speaker 1: next guest successfully convinced Uber to change settings in their
Speaker 1: applications so that no one no one receives forks and
Speaker 1: knives plastic forks and knives unless they ask for it. Wow,
Speaker 1: talk about a change maker. This is the president and
Speaker 1: founder of Habits of Waste. Coming up next. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes.
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Tim, we have talked a
Speaker 1: lot about the climate, certainly on air and about climate
Speaker 1: change in the past year. Some good blue skuys animals
Speaker 1: coming out seeing mountain ranges for the first time as
Speaker 1: our society was shut down because of the pandemic. Not
Speaker 1: good that it was shut down because of that, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless the environment came back in a big way. Right
Speaker 1: is Bloombergreen reported last year as many as two point
Speaker 1: six billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. It's about
Speaker 1: eight percent of the estimated total for the year will
Speaker 1: never be admitted into the atmosphere. That's according to estimates
Speaker 1: by the International Energy Agency pick any world shaking event
Speaker 1: twentieth century history, none has produced a bigger decrease in admissions,
Speaker 1: and that's the good news. But Tim, you also smartly
Speaker 1: remind us that we've also seen single use garbage to
Speaker 1: move up, plastic utensils, masks, and a lot more because
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Masks on the ground, loves on the ground,
Speaker 1: you still see it everywhere. Yeah, exactly, Well, looking at
Speaker 1: how we can create all of us can create better
Speaker 1: habits that help the environment and climate. Is Sheila more
Speaker 1: of body. She's president and founder of Habits of Waste,
Speaker 1: and we began talking about what the past year has
Speaker 1: been like for her. It's been quiet. I have to
Speaker 1: say I've been Um. I was living a very intense
Speaker 1: life prior to the pandemic. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: I did it. I mean I was a classic person
Speaker 1: that was burning the candle at two ends, and the
Speaker 1: pandemic just forced us into a very different lifestyle that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, really made me think a lot of about
Speaker 1: a lot of things. So, um, the environment is definitely
Speaker 1: at the top of the list. Well, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic. As I mentioned, Uh, and the
Speaker 1: inswer to this is that like all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we talked about with people not driving to work and
Speaker 1: planes not flying, uh, the environment got a lot cleaner.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have been using a lot
Speaker 1: of single use items, whether it's uh, plastic cutlery and
Speaker 1: plastic bags or you know, masks one time. So it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of this dichotomy of of different things going on. UM,
Speaker 1: tell us about what you are trying to do with
Speaker 1: habits of waste, especially when I feel like we've all
Speaker 1: had a past year to really think about our impact,
Speaker 1: our footprint on society. Absolutely, UM, So I come into
Speaker 1: environmentalism with a little bit of a different angle. I
Speaker 1: studied sociology at U c l A and found it
Speaker 1: fascinating to understand human behavior and how to shift the
Speaker 1: behavior of the masses. So throughout the pandemic, UM, food
Speaker 1: delivery applications went through the roof. So the increase in
Speaker 1: food delivery orders was about So what I realized is
Speaker 1: if we were able to convince people to only receive
Speaker 1: plastic cutlery upon request, how could we decrease the forty
Speaker 1: billion pieces of plastic cutlery that are entering our waste
Speaker 1: stream every single year. So I was able to convince
Speaker 1: uber Eats, Postmates, and grub Hub to swap that default setting,
Speaker 1: so it's no plastic cutlery comes out anymore unless you
Speaker 1: ask for it. We're still waiting on DoorDash to jump in,
Speaker 1: and it's imperative that they join us because they had
Speaker 1: about of all food delivery orders. In that being said, um,
Speaker 1: we used technology to get to this point. We had
Speaker 1: an email campaign on our website at Habits of Waste
Speaker 1: dot org where users could come in send an email
Speaker 1: and it would go directly to these food delivery applications.
Speaker 1: And I felt that if the food delivery apps knew
Speaker 1: that this is what we wanted. We have this junk
Speaker 1: drawer everybody has in the kitchen that they feel horrible
Speaker 1: about throwing away, yet it built to the rim with
Speaker 1: plastic cutlery. I mean, ask anybody they've got one. So
Speaker 1: luckily these emails worked and we sent about ten thousand
Speaker 1: emails to date, and now we're just holding out for
Speaker 1: DoorDash and then we'll have it all done. Amazing. How though,
Speaker 1: like I've got to say, we've gotten used to it
Speaker 1: and not getting cutlery and don't miss it. I'm actually
Speaker 1: kind of grateful. That we're not getting it, and silly
Speaker 1: for us for not kind of saying earlier on like
Speaker 1: don't you know, don't put it in. But it became
Speaker 1: such a habit right of all the takeout places, right,
Speaker 1: and it's really about choice architecture, Like, how is it
Speaker 1: that we're just being bombarded with these habitual behaviors of
Speaker 1: waste without really getting a chance to even do better
Speaker 1: or bypass it. You know, I spearheaded the first plastic
Speaker 1: straw and cutlery ban in history, which was in the
Speaker 1: city of Malibu, and unfortunately, banning plastic straws was a
Speaker 1: lot easier than banning plastic cutlery. So here we are
Speaker 1: trying to at least have it only upon request, and
Speaker 1: most people don't even want it, so it's a win win.
Speaker 1: And by the way, restaurants are saving a ton of money.
Speaker 1: I'll give you this one really interesting fact. Postmates announced
Speaker 1: that within a year they saved a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: two million packs of cutlery from entering the environment, and
Speaker 1: that was an equivalent of three point two million dollars
Speaker 1: in savings for restaurants. So, you know, plastic is really important,
Speaker 1: But the next most important thing that I've ever done,
Speaker 1: probably in my whole entire life, has been um, trying
Speaker 1: to get more people to eat plants. Well, well, the
Speaker 1: almost important thing we need to do right now, Sheila,
Speaker 1: let's talk about I'm up on your website and I
Speaker 1: was looking at it earlier today as well. There's a
Speaker 1: form you can fill out to join a challenge that
Speaker 1: you have. It's called hashtag eight meals. What's that about? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so um. Actually, it's a brand new app that we
Speaker 1: have and it's available in the app Store under Habits
Speaker 1: of Waste and eight Meals was basically born because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very much involved in environmental work, yet one thing
Speaker 1: I've yet to, you know, be able to commit to
Speaker 1: fully is going fully vegan and eating every single meal
Speaker 1: plant based. Is just something that I felt was impossible.
Speaker 1: If I feel this way, I can guarantee that many
Speaker 1: of your listeners probably feel the same way. And I
Speaker 1: felt very dissuaded by the whole thing, and always like I, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try this week, but then I'd fall
Speaker 1: off the bandwagon. I came across the study by this
Speaker 1: University of Michigan and two lane talking about how Western
Speaker 1: cultures must decrease their animal protein and take by fort
Speaker 1: at the very minimum in order for us to even
Speaker 1: have a chance that climate change. It is the number
Speaker 1: one thing individuals must do to make an impact. So
Speaker 1: I thought about that and I said, okay, well, how
Speaker 1: do we translate that for the everyday person to be
Speaker 1: able to adopt this idea into their daily lives. So
Speaker 1: three meals a daytime, seven days a week, twenty one meals.
Speaker 1: What's that that gives us eight meals? So that's the goal,
Speaker 1: is that we all want to try and increase our
Speaker 1: plant based meals by eight meals a week, and we've
Speaker 1: created this new application to help everyone do that by
Speaker 1: providing recipes, linking your meals. You want to plug in
Speaker 1: into your calendar, you can check out how much of
Speaker 1: a carbon reduction you're making, because by eating eight meals
Speaker 1: a week, it's actually carbon that you're reducing, which is
Speaker 1: the equivalent of driving a hybrid car a week, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: a hybrid car for a year. So eight meals a
Speaker 1: week for a year is equivalent. Um, don't you don't
Speaker 1: you almost feel like like I think about this year
Speaker 1: where we as individuals global citizens learned a lot about
Speaker 1: obviously a health pandemic, but also what it takes to
Speaker 1: create a vaccine, Like we peeled back the layers. And
Speaker 1: I almost feel like food production is a thing where
Speaker 1: I don't think we all really understand where a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff comes from or the impact it has. We've
Speaker 1: we've done a lot of stories here at Bloomberg about meat,
Speaker 1: meat production and what it does for the climate and
Speaker 1: the environment. Um, you know, what what do you think
Speaker 1: about in terms of what we need to do though
Speaker 1: to also educate people about food. I mean, we understand
Speaker 1: organic versus not and things like that, but the mass
Speaker 1: production of food, you know, not so much, although we've
Speaker 1: got a glimpse of it, right when all of a
Speaker 1: sudden the supply chain started coming undone during the pandemic. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, one fact that always sticks, um, is when
Speaker 1: you keep it really simple. So for example, creating one
Speaker 1: pound of beef is the equivalent of eight thousand gallons
Speaker 1: of water. So just thinking about these small things that
Speaker 1: you know, just like tidbits of information. And by the way,
Speaker 1: eating a plant based meal eight times a week is
Speaker 1: not so you know, impossible for many people, and in
Speaker 1: fact you feel better and it's less expensive. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of winds in there for your health, for
Speaker 1: your wallet, for the environment. So if we can just
Speaker 1: look at it like, Okay, I'm not going to commit, Fine,
Speaker 1: maybe you will. You never know. After eight meals, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are like, I'm kind of grossed up
Speaker 1: by me. I don't even need it. Great, But my
Speaker 1: my whole mission is to educate with as much small
Speaker 1: bits of information that would interest the everyday person that's
Speaker 1: not in the environmental world. Because people are living their lives.
Speaker 1: They're busy, they just got to get dinner on the table,
Speaker 1: and they've got work in school and a million other things,
Speaker 1: especially this past year. So um, yeah, this is my
Speaker 1: philosophy that you know, if you can just give small
Speaker 1: bits of info, it's great. What do you think it's
Speaker 1: holding people back the most from doing things? Little things
Speaker 1: like you say, these habits, uh, you change them. If
Speaker 1: everybody starts to change a little habit that's a significant one,
Speaker 1: you can you can kind of alter the outcome of
Speaker 1: our climate. What's holding keep up back? I think people
Speaker 1: just aren't aware that their impact matters. So it's just
Speaker 1: that everyone says I'm just one person. I'm only one person,
Speaker 1: But if we all said that, then nothing would get
Speaker 1: done in the world. So this is an opportunity. Our
Speaker 1: whole website, our whole mission on Habits of Waste dot
Speaker 1: org is really about inspiring people to know you do
Speaker 1: matter and your actions do add up and so and
Speaker 1: then taking away obstacles. So for example, the eight Meals
Speaker 1: app is an opportunity for us to make it really
Speaker 1: easy and fun um and interactive to try you know,
Speaker 1: increasing your plant these meals or cut out cutlery. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: companies want to do the right thing for their consumers
Speaker 1: um and if the consumers speak up and are heard,
Speaker 1: then it's a beautiful synergy. So with again back to
Speaker 1: the you know, cut out Cutlery campaign that we did,
Speaker 1: the applications, you know, they're like these emails, can you
Speaker 1: stop sending them to us? So they're listening. It's not
Speaker 1: it's working. It's just a matter of again not shaming,
Speaker 1: and it's just positive and just understanding that we all,
Speaker 1: we all can make an impact. It's so true, we
Speaker 1: can all make an impact, each and every single one
Speaker 1: of us. That was Sheila Moravati, President and founder of
Speaker 1: Habits of Waste. The nonprofit is focused on reducing environmental footprints.
Speaker 1: Really love her points about doing small things that can
Speaker 1: make a big difference. It's a great way that we
Speaker 1: can think about accomplishing goals too. Right, you can start
Speaker 1: moving the needle, all of us, just a little step
Speaker 1: at a time. Alright. Be sure to check out that
Speaker 1: full conversation. It's in our podcast feed. And that wraps
Speaker 1: up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: I'm Tim Stanivik. Be sure to tune into our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week daily show Monday through Friday. It starts at
Speaker 1: two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can
Speaker 1: also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube just search Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Global News. Also check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast.
Speaker 1: You can find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple or
Speaker 1: where ever you get your podcasts. And that's we will
Speaker 1: also find our extra podcast this week. It's Theresa Peyton,
Speaker 1: former White House Chief Information Officer, in fact, the first
Speaker 1: woman to have that position, and CEO at the Cybersecurity
Speaker 1: Advisory and Strategy Firm for a list. It's of course
Speaker 1: timely considering that Bloomberg exclusive on the group of hackers
Speaker 1: who breached a massive trove of security camera data, and
Speaker 1: you can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake, available at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt and streaming platforms like Roku,
Speaker 1: Apple TV, Samsung TV and more. Bloomberg Business Week, it's
Speaker 1: available on newstands now are special Equality issue also finding
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg Terminal. Have
Speaker 1: a great weekend everyone. This is Bloomberg