Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. As we await
Speaker 1: the heightening geopolitical tensions as a result of Russia's moves
Speaker 1: on Ukraine. Let's not forget that people actually live there
Speaker 1: and they are trying to figure out whether to stay
Speaker 1: to flee. Their future definitely can be at this kind
Speaker 1: of time, feel very much up in the air. And
Speaker 1: next guest has nearly three d employees in Ukraine. Uh
Speaker 1: and he's joining us with what are you seeing and
Speaker 1: what they are doing? We welcome Andy Kurtzig. He's founder
Speaker 1: and c of Just Answer. It's a site that connects
Speaker 1: people with doctors, lawyers, vets, mechanics, all kinds of experts. Seven.
Speaker 1: He is with us on the phone from San Francisco. Andy,
Speaker 1: nice to have you here with Creedy and myself. How
Speaker 1: are you and how's your team doing? Who are on
Speaker 1: the ground in Ukraine. It's a nice to nice the
Speaker 1: secret here as well. It's a terrible situation in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Our team is suffering, the people of Ukraine are suffering,
Speaker 1: and it's a very difficult time right now. So what
Speaker 1: are you doing? To prepare walk us through that process. So,
Speaker 1: so that we've been in Ukraine's two thousand and ten
Speaker 1: and that was when Jennakovich was president, basically prudent control
Speaker 1: of Jennakovic we were, So we were there while it
Speaker 1: was under Russia's control. We were there during the made
Speaker 1: On Revolution in two thousand and fourteen, which was another
Speaker 1: trying time. And then we've been there since then with
Speaker 1: Russia invading Crimea and fighting on the east, and so
Speaker 1: we've had some time to prepare and we've mambled to
Speaker 1: put together lots of plans that we are now implementing
Speaker 1: to keep our folks safe and to keep operations as
Speaker 1: stable as possible. So you meant you mentioned it's obviously
Speaker 1: a difficult situation for your employees. I'd love to go
Speaker 1: back there, and can you can you drool down a
Speaker 1: little bit for us in terms of specifically what your
Speaker 1: team members in Ukraine are dealing with at this point
Speaker 1: of course, So, so Putin is a obviously bullying Ukraine
Speaker 1: and is a master of propaganda and misinformation, and and
Speaker 1: so the kinds of things that he's doing to our
Speaker 1: folks on the ground is that you probably saw that
Speaker 1: the bombing of the kindergarten about a week ago, and
Speaker 1: since then he and his folks have been calling in
Speaker 1: bomb threats at schools all over Ukraine, including our employees
Speaker 1: kids schools. And you know, with that actually happening, right,
Speaker 1: that's a real threat and everybody has to drop everything
Speaker 1: and run to school and pick up their kids. And
Speaker 1: it's happened multiple times in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: So give us some an example, give us some numbers,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of time horizon on I think
Speaker 1: this it's just so rare to have someone actively kind
Speaker 1: of works out some of these logistics when it comes
Speaker 1: to the employees. What kind of time horizon are you
Speaker 1: kind of preparing for? Are you forecasting for? What does
Speaker 1: it look like on the ground. Well, so what we've
Speaker 1: been able to do over the years has put together
Speaker 1: are at a large document was essentially desk con level one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: and at each all the actions that we're going to
Speaker 1: take to keep our employees safe and to keep our
Speaker 1: operations as an intact as possible. And so, for example,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we're actively doing right now
Speaker 1: at the level level where we are is moving our
Speaker 1: employees from the east of Ukraine to the west of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and we've given them multiple options. We're putting them up
Speaker 1: in hotels, We're helping them rent apartments, we're giving them
Speaker 1: paid time off to to make those moves and to
Speaker 1: pack things up. And that's actively happening now as one example.
Speaker 1: So I'm also curious, Um, in terms of the situation
Speaker 1: that that your employees are dealing with. One of the
Speaker 1: stories we talked about UM earlier, Andy is the cyber
Speaker 1: attacks that are happening. And we reported that Ukrainian government
Speaker 1: agencies and banks were hit by what's called a d
Speaker 1: d O S. I don't know if I'm saying it correctly,
Speaker 1: but it's a distributed denial of service attack, right, Um.
Speaker 1: And and a lot of this is to really kind
Speaker 1: of chip away at the sense of security among the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian people. What signs are you folks specifically seeing of that. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: we called this DIDOS attacks and no problem And and yes,
Speaker 1: one of our our bank in Ukraine is was one
Speaker 1: of the banks that they took down with the details
Speaker 1: attack a week ago. And how does that affect us
Speaker 1: and our employees. Well, you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: we need to do is we need to protect them
Speaker 1: and make sure we can pay them on time. And
Speaker 1: so if Russia were to continue to do that, we
Speaker 1: need alternative ways to pay our employees because they gotta
Speaker 1: pay for groceries and pay the rent and do whatever
Speaker 1: they need to do in order to live. And so
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that we worry about. The
Speaker 1: other thing, uh, and so we've got all kinds of
Speaker 1: plans for that. We've got money that we put in
Speaker 1: a bank in Poland, we're thinking about even using crypto
Speaker 1: if if if there even starts to devalue in a
Speaker 1: major way and becomes useful with lots of different alternatives there.
Speaker 1: So the other things we need to worry about, and
Speaker 1: and and very likely and I've already been happening frankly,
Speaker 1: are putin taking out communication systems, PUDEN taking out power
Speaker 1: systems and so you know, on the power system side, uh,
Speaker 1: we're getting diesel back of generators for our two offices
Speaker 1: there so that people can can can can have access
Speaker 1: that for communications. Every time the Internet goes down and
Speaker 1: they are doing datas attacks on different I S T s.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how that feels to live in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: Because you know that's one of the first steps. Right
Speaker 1: the minute war starts, Putin is going to take out
Speaker 1: your communications. And so if you're sitting there at home
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden your internet goes out, you
Speaker 1: think wars started. Can you imagine that feeling of constantly
Speaker 1: sort of any moment your country is going to be
Speaker 1: invaded by Russia, And so we've got to do all
Speaker 1: kinds of things to combat that. We're getting satellite phones,
Speaker 1: We're getting multiple different I s p s, so if
Speaker 1: one goes down, we've got another one. We're using all
Speaker 1: kinds of different chat communication methods in case one goes down,
Speaker 1: with backs as to others. So these are the kinds
Speaker 1: of things we're dealing with. Yeah, anecdotally, I've heard that
Speaker 1: a lot, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: We and totally have heard that a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been trying to move their their funds, their savings
Speaker 1: out of Ukraine when it comes to um well, essentially
Speaker 1: their life savings, pulling it out of bank accounts, investing
Speaker 1: in real estate in Western Europe. You mentioned operating through
Speaker 1: a bank in Poland or even crypto. Are those kind
Speaker 1: of things you're thinking about as well? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: we were at US based company. We're based in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: so most of our assets are here and we don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about that where we sent money over
Speaker 1: in order to pay them, and then we paid them
Speaker 1: and then it's just reserves left in the bank account
Speaker 1: until the next time we need to pay them. So
Speaker 1: so that's not an issue for us as mine. But
Speaker 1: we've got to make sure we can pay them. Hey,
Speaker 1: and you just got about twenty seconds left. Do you
Speaker 1: ultimately anticipate you might need to pull these people if
Speaker 1: they want to completely out of Ukraine, depending on how
Speaker 1: this plays out. I sure hope not, but you know
Speaker 1: that is an option for sir, depending on how how
Speaker 1: this plays out. We need to keep our employees safe
Speaker 1: and we're going to do whatever it takes to keep
Speaker 1: them safe. And I just want to end with one
Speaker 1: quick thought, which is I don't think it will come
Speaker 1: to that, and we're certain planning for the worst, but
Speaker 1: we're hoping for the best. And our intention is to
Speaker 1: stay in Ukraine. We are committed to Ukraine, and in fact,
Speaker 1: we're going to try to grow in Ukraine. Alright. Gonna
Speaker 1: leave it on that note, Andy, Thank you, so much.
Speaker 1: I know this is a tough situation. I know you've
Speaker 1: got your your plateful, certainly taking care of your folks
Speaker 1: on the ground in Ukraine. Andy Kurtzik, He's founder and
Speaker 1: chief executive officer of Just Answer, on the phone in
Speaker 1: San Francisco,