Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week Week
Speaker 1: twenty nine, mostly working from home, full of politics and
Speaker 1: policy talk, job cuts and setbacks, more concerns about the recovery,
Speaker 1: and businesses and education finding their way back. Jason, we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about that, also how to forge better
Speaker 1: paths to getting back. Yeah, the getting back and the
Speaker 1: better paths. I feel like really stuck with us this
Speaker 1: week because we had a lot of smart thinkers joining
Speaker 1: us to underscore the fact that things are going to
Speaker 1: be different. They're already different. And in fact, we caught
Speaker 1: up with the author of a new book. Her name
Speaker 1: is my l gave the book Trampled by Unicorns, big
Speaker 1: text empathy problem and how to fix it, a really
Speaker 1: really important subject. Absolutely. Plus one thing I've learned is
Speaker 1: that in crisis, that's a great opportunity to learn and
Speaker 1: grow and you have to lean into it. Whole Foods
Speaker 1: Market CEO and co founder John Acky He too has
Speaker 1: a book out Conscious Leadership. So staying with this theme,
Speaker 1: it's all about elevating business through humanity. And then we
Speaker 1: also caught up with PBS PRESIDENCYO Paula Kerger Band. They
Speaker 1: are getting ready to celebrate a big anniversary. But first
Speaker 1: let's take you to the cover story. It's all about testing.
Speaker 1: Where we've been, where we're going. Check it out with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Health reporter Michelle Cortez and Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: editor Joe Weber. We set out to do this story because,
Speaker 1: you know, we've we've spent a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: about vaccines and the hope that they could the hope
Speaker 1: that they can get us out of this mess right
Speaker 1: and give us back a semblance of the life we
Speaker 1: had before the virus and what we what we also
Speaker 1: started to realize, what was that, you know, if we
Speaker 1: actually got our act together and got um some abilities
Speaker 1: to do accurate fast testing, there's a way to actually
Speaker 1: have a semblance of normalcy again before that vaccine, which
Speaker 1: still could be a ways off. And that was sort
Speaker 1: of what Michelle and her co author Drake Bennett dove
Speaker 1: into for this week's cover story. It was sort of like, what,
Speaker 1: exactly how close to having a decent fast test are
Speaker 1: we exactly. And you know what what implications could that have?
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to go to restaurants and send
Speaker 1: my kid back to school and all those great things,
Speaker 1: and like what you know, is there a version of
Speaker 1: reality that might look like that? And and how do
Speaker 1: we get there? Like now? And Michelle, why don't you
Speaker 1: pick it up there and and tell us how close
Speaker 1: to a version of reality like that are we? So
Speaker 1: we do see that there is ways where things can
Speaker 1: happen somewhat in a semblance of normalcy. Right any of
Speaker 1: these sports events that were watching, we can see that
Speaker 1: they are on top of it. They know who's positive,
Speaker 1: they know how to knock it down, you know, put
Speaker 1: everybody under quarantine and whatnot and keep it under control.
Speaker 1: The question is do you do that for an entire
Speaker 1: country of three and thirty million people? And the answer
Speaker 1: is that it is theoretically possible, but it is going
Speaker 1: to take a huge amount of effort on behalf of
Speaker 1: our government, on behalf of the diagnostic test makers who
Speaker 1: are now starting to bring all these very cool new
Speaker 1: products to the market, and honestly, on behalf of American
Speaker 1: people who maybe don't want to wear masks. But if
Speaker 1: you get a positive test, You've got to stay home, Michelle.
Speaker 1: This is about seeing the spread of the virus, you know,
Speaker 1: and anything close to real time. This is what we're
Speaker 1: shooting for, right I do wonder though, with everybody so
Speaker 1: obsessed and focused on getting a vaccine rightfully, so, you know,
Speaker 1: do we have the wherewithal among regulators, the f d A,
Speaker 1: and then the companies that need to produce these things,
Speaker 1: you know, in mass quantities. There is absolutely going to
Speaker 1: be a huge lift when it comes to this. The
Speaker 1: the industry that's working on it, of course, they this
Speaker 1: is what they do, and that's what the story goes into.
Speaker 1: And you know, Joel and h and Drake Bennett, what
Speaker 1: a fabulous writer he is. Um did a really great
Speaker 1: job in making sure that we not only look at
Speaker 1: what is happening here, but what also has to happen
Speaker 1: in order for it to come to fruition. I don't
Speaker 1: I personally don't think that people are gonna are gonna
Speaker 1: not do it. Like I think there's questions about whether
Speaker 1: or not people will get vaccinated, but if there were
Speaker 1: tests available, I think the vast majority of Americans would
Speaker 1: take one as often as we give it to them.
Speaker 1: So the industry I think is going to do it.
Speaker 1: The question is is how cheap can it be and
Speaker 1: how can we get available to everybody who needs it
Speaker 1: in order to make a difference with the amount of
Speaker 1: virus we have in the country. And that's the point,
Speaker 1: And Michelle, let's I want to dwell on sort of
Speaker 1: the technical aspects of what these rapid COVID tests look like.
Speaker 1: They're not the same thing as you know, putting a
Speaker 1: swab up your nose, right, Like. The whole point of
Speaker 1: this is that actually there's a there's a different way
Speaker 1: that we could be testing and that that's what allows
Speaker 1: us to do it cheaper, better, faster. What is what
Speaker 1: are the mechanics of this testing look like? Well, the
Speaker 1: beauty of this story actually is that it looks broadly
Speaker 1: across all the different technologies that we're talking about. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I was most frustrated about
Speaker 1: in terms of how people have been covering testing generally,
Speaker 1: is that there is kind of this pollyanna ish approach
Speaker 1: of if we were just willing to make the effort,
Speaker 1: we could do it, and in fact that's not the
Speaker 1: case when it comes to what you're talking about. Jason,
Speaker 1: I think you're talking about the lateral flow tests, which
Speaker 1: are like the pregnancy test, and in fact, what we
Speaker 1: have right now, you still do to do a nasal swab.
Speaker 1: But the thing is you could do it yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: you put it up your nose. That's what adds bynex now,
Speaker 1: is you put it up your nose, you stick it
Speaker 1: into the pregnancy test, you exquise a little bit of
Speaker 1: buffer on it, and which is a liquid, and then
Speaker 1: that just carries that little spiral, you know, the genetics
Speaker 1: from what's inside your nose that carried it along with
Speaker 1: the little strips, and if there's antigen essentially the virus
Speaker 1: in that sample that you took, it carries it down
Speaker 1: that pathway towards the towards the towards the antibodies that
Speaker 1: would normally be fighting a virus if it was in
Speaker 1: your body, but they've instead just attached it to the strips.
Speaker 1: And if those two things clicked together, a little flag
Speaker 1: popped up, a little nanoparticle of gold appears, and then
Speaker 1: you know you're positive. And that was Bloomberg News Health
Speaker 1: reporter Michelle Cortez and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber
Speaker 1: coming up more on the virus from someone who looks
Speaker 1: at it through two lenses as a doctor and also
Speaker 1: head of a school. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Carol,
Speaker 1: so many headlines when it came to COVID nineteen. This week,
Speaker 1: President Trump and the first lady testing positive for the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: This after one of their top aids, Hope Hicks, was
Speaker 1: confirmed positive as well. You saw that news first via
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Global confirmed deaths topping one million. London at
Speaker 1: a tipping point because of an uptick in cases, and
Speaker 1: we also saw an increasing cases in parts of New
Speaker 1: York City. So we turned to one of our experts,
Speaker 1: several experts across the week, but this particular guy, Dr
Speaker 1: Sandro Galia. He's the dean of the Boston University School
Speaker 1: public Health. He talked about that public health aspect and
Speaker 1: how important it is. And we should note we talked
Speaker 1: to Dr Galia earlier in the week before that positive
Speaker 1: test was revealed on the part of the president. But
Speaker 1: we as a university have been reopening cautiously, carefully, with
Speaker 1: a lot of testing, a lot of contact tracing a
Speaker 1: lot of isolation as needed, and really working hard to
Speaker 1: keep the community safe well also working on our mission
Speaker 1: and continuing teaching and containing our research. And it's a
Speaker 1: tough balance. I think it's a tough balance for everybody,
Speaker 1: and and it's part of I think a broader societal
Speaker 1: place where we are at, where we are recognizing that
Speaker 1: we are living with COVID for some time now and
Speaker 1: uh and we cannot afford to keep our world slow
Speaker 1: down because there are important things that we have to do.
Speaker 1: And so give us a sense of that balance, Dr Galia, like,
Speaker 1: what is something where you feel like you've found it
Speaker 1: in terms of either staffing or class size or doing labs, Like,
Speaker 1: give us an example of where you feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well this this feels about as good as we can get. Well, Jason,
Speaker 1: I think I don't think I feel confident telling you
Speaker 1: anything as good as a camp. I think I think
Speaker 1: everything is a working progress. Don't let's talk at bit
Speaker 1: about what we're doing. So we as a university are
Speaker 1: testing people extensively, about five to six thousand tests a
Speaker 1: day happening, so students are tested multiple times a week.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of people who are involved able
Speaker 1: in the testing, but then also somebody tests positive and
Speaker 1: the contact racing to see who they've been in contact with. Right,
Speaker 1: So the idea is, and we had discussed this before
Speaker 1: in our previous conversations, the idea with testing is that
Speaker 1: you catch a case early so that it does not
Speaker 1: become a cluster that does not then continue the atack.
Speaker 1: So you find the case, you do contact tracing, you
Speaker 1: find the people around that case, you quarantine those people,
Speaker 1: and you isolate the case. And of course all of
Speaker 1: that is superimposed over a very strict regiment of building hygiene,
Speaker 1: and by that I mean ventilation and the building wiping
Speaker 1: down surfaces, a very strong public campaign for people to
Speaker 1: remain safe, wearing masks, making sure that people are not
Speaker 1: in if they're sick, and every day doing symptoms screens
Speaker 1: for everybody. So it really is a fairly comprehensive effort,
Speaker 1: and it is in some respects I think the challenges
Speaker 1: that it's a comprehensive effort that has to happen now
Speaker 1: and has to keep happening really for weeks and months
Speaker 1: until there is a definitive vaccine for COVID. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about contact tracing, because I feel like we are
Speaker 1: getting very mixed results, mixed reviews in terms of people
Speaker 1: essentially saying yep, I'm not going to cooperate, it's voluntary.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you either I don't want
Speaker 1: to get in trouble because I was at a party,
Speaker 1: or I feel like it's an invasion of my privacy.
Speaker 1: How do you manage that? Well, in some respects, I
Speaker 1: think it's easier to manage that within a closed system
Speaker 1: of one institution versus in the general population. Right so,
Speaker 1: in our in our system, in our system, we have
Speaker 1: been very clear that this is part of the cost
Speaker 1: of citizenship. If you're if you're going to be part
Speaker 1: of the community, you have responsibility to work towards keeping
Speaker 1: others safe. And part of that responsibility is if you
Speaker 1: test positive, is that you talk to the contact traders
Speaker 1: and you tell them who you've been in contact with,
Speaker 1: so that they can reach out to those people and
Speaker 1: make sure we keep them safe as well. It's harder
Speaker 1: to do that in the general population. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of reports about fifty people in general population answer
Speaker 1: and talk to contact traitors. That's that's in the general
Speaker 1: population where I think there isn't as much of a
Speaker 1: sense of shared responsibility from one another there should be.
Speaker 1: I'm just reflecting on probably what's going out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that's a big part of it. I mean, Jason,
Speaker 1: you and I've talked about it. And when my daughter
Speaker 1: got together with some classmates at the end of the
Speaker 1: summer and we had kind of quarantined her for months,
Speaker 1: you know, we as families went into it saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: what have you been doing, Who's getting tested? You know,
Speaker 1: like there was this sense of community to make sure
Speaker 1: everybody stayed safe. And I feel like, you know, there
Speaker 1: not everybody's on the same page with that. Also, to
Speaker 1: be fair and Dr Glaire, you understand that not everybody
Speaker 1: can be on the same page. There are some people
Speaker 1: that you know, if they don't go to work, they
Speaker 1: don't get paid in it, they're in a tougher predicament.
Speaker 1: And I just, you know, I just well, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why, this is why Carol, I
Speaker 1: think the reopening is so important. I think it's a
Speaker 1: you know, the data are very clear, for example, that
Speaker 1: your chances of being able to work from home are
Speaker 1: much higher if you're in the top quartile of income.
Speaker 1: So people who are who are who have to go
Speaker 1: to work are people who are already making less income.
Speaker 1: We know that it overlaps with race, right. We know
Speaker 1: that the disproportionate burned off COVID in many respects was
Speaker 1: because we expose people that low income, people of color,
Speaker 1: often to work before we understood how COVID works. But
Speaker 1: the the economic shutdown, I feel like the public conversation
Speaker 1: about the economic slowdown hasn't been fair because to be
Speaker 1: to be frank, it's been it's been directed by people
Speaker 1: whose lifelihoods that not really at risk from economic slowdown
Speaker 1: because they can work from home. But the fact is
Speaker 1: more than half the population cannot work from home. So
Speaker 1: if we if we if we say, if we take
Speaker 1: the premise that's well, we should reduce the risk of
Speaker 1: COVID at all costs. Well, do we really mean at
Speaker 1: all costs or do we mean at all costs to
Speaker 1: somebody else? I think we need to be honest with that,
Speaker 1: and and and economic slowdowns hurt people who are already
Speaker 1: at the low end of making income, and that is
Speaker 1: something that we as a society have a responsibilities try
Speaker 1: to avoid as much as possible. To get back to
Speaker 1: our conversation with Dr Sandra Galia, dean at the Boston
Speaker 1: University School of Public Health, also the author of the book,
Speaker 1: pained uncomfortable conversations about the public's health. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the public's health, Dr Galia. What can we be
Speaker 1: doing before we get to the other side of this.
Speaker 1: What should we be doing to ensure that we don't
Speaker 1: lose sight of these inequalities that have been laid bare
Speaker 1: by this pandemic All Jason, I think what the pandemic
Speaker 1: has shown us, and I like your use of the
Speaker 1: term laid there. It has shown us the inequalities that
Speaker 1: existed already before the pandemic. The country is really shaped
Speaker 1: by deep socio economic inequalities and deep racial inequalities, and
Speaker 1: those inequalities have held analogs just like we have haves
Speaker 1: and have not. We have held haves and have not
Speaker 1: around those two acts. Now, the the pandemic revealed that
Speaker 1: we have Black Americans have two and a half times
Speaker 1: greater risk of dying during COVID than white Americans, and
Speaker 1: that is largely due to the double whammy of one
Speaker 1: greater burden of disease among the Black Americans had convered
Speaker 1: to white Americans, and number two that a disproportionate number
Speaker 1: of them work in what we came to call sort
Speaker 1: of essential work, frontline work, work that exposed them to
Speaker 1: get in COVID. So to my mind, what COVID is
Speaker 1: now letting us see what was already there for us
Speaker 1: to see how to be looked for. And that's Dr
Speaker 1: sandro Gal. He's also the dean of the Boston University
Speaker 1: School of Public Health. Love catching up with him because
Speaker 1: I feel like he twists the prison just a bit
Speaker 1: for us, Carol, getting us beyond the headlines and to
Speaker 1: really understand some of the underlying economic effects that we
Speaker 1: need to be concerned about. So, Jason, he's talking about realignment.
Speaker 1: So too is our next guest. We'll hear about Trampled
Speaker 1: by Unicorns. It's a new book about big text empathy problem.
Speaker 1: We'll talk with the author. That's coming up next. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser
Speaker 1: and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Carol, I'd like
Speaker 1: to think there was a little bit more humanity in
Speaker 1: a lot of our conversations this week. We talked a
Speaker 1: lot about economics and business, but also talked about things
Speaker 1: including empathy. Yeah, we did, and that more human elements
Speaker 1: certainly came through. With one of our guests, we caught
Speaker 1: up with global tech executive my El Gave just get
Speaker 1: a new book out, Jason Trampled by Unicorns, Big tex
Speaker 1: empathy problem and how to fix it. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to have to really big conversation. I would want to
Speaker 1: have a conversation about where we are right now, because
Speaker 1: I felt like a lot of what I was reading
Speaker 1: in the media or in books was extremely one sided.
Speaker 1: It was usually UM saying either tech is amazing or
Speaker 1: tech is horrible, and I was reading all of that
Speaker 1: and saying, no, there's some good, there's some bad, and
Speaker 1: there's some ugly. And I'd like us to have a
Speaker 1: really exhausted view on where do we stand, what are
Speaker 1: the good things that happened, and what are the things
Speaker 1: we need to fix, and really try to go to
Speaker 1: the core of why we have a deficit of empathy
Speaker 1: in the technical system. And then once we uh, we
Speaker 1: align on how we got where we are and why
Speaker 1: um and and and why we are where we are uh,
Speaker 1: then I wanted to really focus on solutions. I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a solution oriented person. I'm very optimistic in general,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to have a conversation about what we
Speaker 1: can do and we being a very broad we like
Speaker 1: we the tech executive, tech employees that the group I
Speaker 1: belonged to, I mean worked in tex for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: But we as also as users, we as investors, we
Speaker 1: as governments and regulators, and I thought that there was
Speaker 1: a role for every one of us to play in
Speaker 1: really making tech um an instrument to advance humanity even
Speaker 1: more than it has been so far. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the deficit if we can have the starting point,
Speaker 1: Because you know what you point out in this book,
Speaker 1: we have all really seen, I feel like, come to
Speaker 1: the four in a troubling way, especially over the past
Speaker 1: few years. Even before I think we entered into this
Speaker 1: broader social and societal reckoning around inequality, we knew there
Speaker 1: was a problem in tech. How do we get here? Well,
Speaker 1: that's a big question, UM. I think that we got
Speaker 1: here through a complex set of um of things related
Speaker 1: to tech. I think tech is very insular from a
Speaker 1: cultural perspective, was very strong tribal myths. I talked in
Speaker 1: my book about many of them. One of them is
Speaker 1: what I call the Steve Job syndrome. UH, this idea
Speaker 1: that to be a genius you somehow have to be
Speaker 1: a jerk. Like the two are kind of really related. Uh,
Speaker 1: this idea that technology is neutral, UM, the myaths of
Speaker 1: perfect meritocracy, Like if you raised throughout the ranks of technology,
Speaker 1: it's because you're that good at your job, and if
Speaker 1: you're not, this is because you're not that good at
Speaker 1: your job. And so that really created an industry which
Speaker 1: in many aspects is very closed UM and has a
Speaker 1: hard time because of a lack of diversity, has a
Speaker 1: hard time to be empathetic to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: And when you're not empathetic, it's a big it's hard
Speaker 1: for you to really understand the impact that you're having
Speaker 1: on the world. So that's one very strong, very strong issue.
Speaker 1: The second one I've just mentioned it is the lack
Speaker 1: of diversity, women represent less and absurdive management UH and
Speaker 1: tech roles in big tech UH and racial minorities in
Speaker 1: general less than ten percent of management UH and way
Speaker 1: less than ten percent in text so tech tech jobs.
Speaker 1: And then I think the last one is UM what
Speaker 1: I would call a lack of accountability UM and it's
Speaker 1: because we we as as tech people we be we've
Speaker 1: so strongly that we were on our path on the
Speaker 1: past to change the world, that if there were some
Speaker 1: bumps on the road, if there were some mistake made,
Speaker 1: it didn't really matter because we were working towards the
Speaker 1: greater good. And I think because of that, and then
Speaker 1: also the fact that the regulator didn't always understand what
Speaker 1: it is that we were doing, and I think the
Speaker 1: users got really a maze by all the free services
Speaker 1: that they get that they got. I think the combination
Speaker 1: of all of that created this environment where uh tech
Speaker 1: companies could pretty much do anything they wanted without having
Speaker 1: to really be accountable. And that's obviously changing now. But
Speaker 1: I think if you combine this cultural installarity, the lack
Speaker 1: of diversity, and the lack of accountability, you end up
Speaker 1: where we are right now. So somebody like a Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg good bad, how do you see him? Um? I
Speaker 1: think every person has some good and some bad. I
Speaker 1: think it's clearly a business business genius, and it's really
Speaker 1: strong at building a want in a lifetime company. I think,
Speaker 1: to use the wording that one of my previous company,
Speaker 1: BCG used, there may be some areas for improvements around
Speaker 1: empathy and connection to people. And that's my El gave
Speaker 1: her new book, Trampled by Unicorns, big text empathy problem,
Speaker 1: how to fix it? Really a key part of our
Speaker 1: theme this week, Carol, because we're all wrestling with where
Speaker 1: we go from here. We know we as a society,
Speaker 1: we as individuals are changed by what we have seen
Speaker 1: and experience through this pandemic and through a lot of
Speaker 1: the things going on in our world. It's going to
Speaker 1: change how we work. You're right, Jason, and folks like
Speaker 1: my El gave, she may have been inspired by another leader.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Whole Foods Market CEO and co founder
Speaker 1: John Mackie. We're going to get through this, and probably
Speaker 1: a lot sooner than people think. Mackie's got a new
Speaker 1: book out, Conscious Leadership, Elevating Business through Humanity. Jason, We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about that. That's coming up next. It's
Speaker 1: a fun conversation. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: In the magazine. This week, we've got another edition of
Speaker 1: Business Week Talks with John Mackie. He's CEO and co
Speaker 1: founder of Whole Foods. Whole Foods Jason as you know
Speaker 1: now and it's third year as a part of Amazon. Well,
Speaker 1: John's got a new book out. It's called Conscious Leadership
Speaker 1: Elevating Humanity through Business. We started off though, talking about
Speaker 1: some of the challenges of the pandemic twenties the weirdest
Speaker 1: year of my life. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely the wordest year. And I mean Whole food
Speaker 1: has done a lot better than other businesses because we
Speaker 1: weren't we weren't shut down. We were an essential business,
Speaker 1: and we saw our sales go up and our online
Speaker 1: sales went way up. But it's been incredibly stressful in
Speaker 1: the company. Make no mistake about that. People didn't lose
Speaker 1: their jobs, but it's been we have we've had to
Speaker 1: go to mask for everybody's wearing mask and we've had
Speaker 1: we we haven't been able to connect with the team
Speaker 1: members as much because you know, lockdown, not traveling, not
Speaker 1: being able to visit the stores, A lot of safety
Speaker 1: measures been put in place. Um it's been you know,
Speaker 1: we just did a cultural compass survey and we see
Speaker 1: that it's been very stressful in the team members. So
Speaker 1: that has been a challenge for us, but again less
Speaker 1: of a challenge for whole foods and many like a
Speaker 1: restaurant owner who's more or less been put out of business,
Speaker 1: so very very difficult times. And I will tell you
Speaker 1: I am very much looking forward to COVID being done
Speaker 1: when that will be, But it will be I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be celebrating along with everybody else, that's for sure. So John,
Speaker 1: I guess, on the subject of your book and sort
Speaker 1: of synthesizing all of this, what's the key leadership lesson
Speaker 1: UH coming through this? And we're not through it yet
Speaker 1: by any stretch. But what have you learned about leading?
Speaker 1: What have you learned about how to lead? Uh in
Speaker 1: a situation like this? You mean in COVID. In COVIDH gosh.
Speaker 1: I mean COVID is a great example of, UH, how
Speaker 1: you can learn and grow in a crisis. In a crisis,
Speaker 1: the general reaction people have when they're in crisis to
Speaker 1: sort of look for a safe place, a safe harbor,
Speaker 1: someplace that uh they don't they're not going to be
Speaker 1: um safe. But one thing I've learned is that in crisis,
Speaker 1: that's a great opportunity to learn and grow and you
Speaker 1: have to lean into it. You have to kind of
Speaker 1: instead of going back to a safe place, you've got
Speaker 1: to open wider to see what lessons are there. And
Speaker 1: you have to face your fears. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I learned is that Whole Foods has a
Speaker 1: very deep culture because we we've been making cultural deposits
Speaker 1: for a long time, and but during COVID we've been
Speaker 1: making a lot of cultural withdrawals. But we're not bankrupt
Speaker 1: because we've got so many deposits that have been made. However,
Speaker 1: as COVID goes on longer and longer, and we're not
Speaker 1: able to make more deposits. And in connecting with people,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I mean, a company is ultimately
Speaker 1: about relationships and about trust and about partnership. And the
Speaker 1: hardest thing in COVID, I think has been the difficulty,
Speaker 1: other than virtually to connect with people. And uh we
Speaker 1: we we read all about people working at home them
Speaker 1: and and a lot of corporations are not going to
Speaker 1: go back fully, but I don't believe that. I mean,
Speaker 1: more people may work at home when COVID's over, But
Speaker 1: in reality, if you're going to maintain a culture, you
Speaker 1: have to have people connecting with each other, and there's
Speaker 1: no real substitute for doing that in person. So I've
Speaker 1: learned that clo culture is resilient, but I've also learned
Speaker 1: that it's we we need. We need that personal connection
Speaker 1: to no. I think you were right about that, you know, Jason,
Speaker 1: I've had John so many different conversations because we're seeing,
Speaker 1: certainly the financial community it seems like really stepping up
Speaker 1: and really kind of urging their teams to come back
Speaker 1: to work in New York City. But I think it's
Speaker 1: a comfort level and people are just not comfortable. And
Speaker 1: it's not that people don't want to be working with colleagues. Um,
Speaker 1: we're social creatures. But I think there is a fear.
Speaker 1: I mean we for most of us, right, we have
Speaker 1: never seen something like this. It's true, Um, and maybe
Speaker 1: people won't be comfortable until we have vaccination that people
Speaker 1: feel safe and taking. But in truth, I think the
Speaker 1: concept of herd immunities it's beginning to work its way
Speaker 1: through the United States. It's worked its way through Sweden
Speaker 1: at this point. If you look at their recent death rates,
Speaker 1: there's just a few people a week now, not not
Speaker 1: not hundreds or thousands of people days, three or four
Speaker 1: a week. So we're going to get through this, and
Speaker 1: probably a lot sooner than people think. I'd be very
Speaker 1: surprised if a year from now we have not returned
Speaker 1: to semi normalcy, and people will be afraid. But as
Speaker 1: as their friends go out and report back, Hey, it's
Speaker 1: safe out there. Nobody's people aren't getting sick, and and
Speaker 1: people will start to tentatively venture out, probably being wearing
Speaker 1: masks more. But uh, that might be a while before
Speaker 1: people are completely back, but they will be because we
Speaker 1: are who we are. We're social creatures. And you know,
Speaker 1: I remember, I'm old enough to remember I had lots
Speaker 1: of friends, not lots. I had a few friends back
Speaker 1: in elementary school. They got polio. Um, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, John, I mean, here we are a few
Speaker 1: years in, you know with Amazon, how's it going? What?
Speaker 1: What has worked really well for you? It's going very well.
Speaker 1: A big merger between two big companies is a little
Speaker 1: bit like a marriage. I like that metaphor, And I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been married for thirty years and I I blot
Speaker 1: my wife and I love, you know, maybe of everything
Speaker 1: about her, and I'm not too fond of and I
Speaker 1: think a merger similar. I mean, Amazon has a different
Speaker 1: culture than Whole Foods. We overlap in some areas, and uh,
Speaker 1: we love most things about Amazon, and they probably love
Speaker 1: most things about Whole Foods, but you know, not everything.
Speaker 1: And and what's worked really well is Amazon thinks long
Speaker 1: term and they're enabling whole foods market to think long term.
Speaker 1: We've had three major price reductions were beginning of fourth um.
Speaker 1: They're making investments in technology for Whole Foods that I
Speaker 1: think will be transformative, although I'm sorry I can't talk
Speaker 1: about those. And they've been respectful of our culture. They
Speaker 1: haven't tried to just turn us into Amazon. So if
Speaker 1: I that the best way to ask that question is,
Speaker 1: is John, if you could do it all over again
Speaker 1: when you make the same decision and the answers, yes,
Speaker 1: we make the same decision. It was the right decision
Speaker 1: for us. I have to tell you A listener is
Speaker 1: writing in and said, could you just ask John Mackie,
Speaker 1: could they please please please open the Whole Foods in
Speaker 1: the Hampton's in the Hampton's. Yeah, We've We've received a
Speaker 1: lot of requests for that. It's it's a very seasonal
Speaker 1: sort of market out there, and Uh, we'll get there eventually.
Speaker 1: He go that the question answered, Well, one thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you, I think our team was was
Speaker 1: curious about, is you guys Whole Foods. I spent a
Speaker 1: couple I spent I did kind of a deep dive
Speaker 1: into your company a few years ago and with Walter
Speaker 1: rob who is co CEO at the time. I spent
Speaker 1: time with a forager just how you guys work with companies,
Speaker 1: support companies to help them build out either production, you know,
Speaker 1: so that they can you know, once you find an
Speaker 1: item that you want in your stories. You guys have
Speaker 1: such a value system, you know, and and you really
Speaker 1: stick to selling just certain types of things. And to
Speaker 1: be fair, if you go onto Amazon, you can buy
Speaker 1: just about anything, um it feels like and that they'll
Speaker 1: sell just about anything to anyone. You know. How have
Speaker 1: those values clashed if at all? You know? And how
Speaker 1: do you kind of get your head around that. I
Speaker 1: don't think those values half clashed. And I think you're right.
Speaker 1: Health Foods is we're very um, you know, we're very
Speaker 1: stakeholder oriented. We care deeply about our suppliers, were partner
Speaker 1: with them, and we are proud of the fact that
Speaker 1: We work with lots of small producers and help them
Speaker 1: get distribution, and a lot of them grow with us
Speaker 1: over time. And they start out with one store, and
Speaker 1: then one region, and then multiple regions, and then across
Speaker 1: the whole country, and and then maybe they sell their
Speaker 1: company or or take a public I mean a great
Speaker 1: example recently was Vital Farms Eggs. Whole Foods was the
Speaker 1: first customer Vital Farms ever had, and we we made
Speaker 1: it over tome I had a ten million dollar investment
Speaker 1: in their company as well, and they just did an
Speaker 1: I P O and there and their market capitalizations one
Speaker 1: point four billion dollars right now. So it's that's a
Speaker 1: great example of working with a small supplier and helping
Speaker 1: them expand across the country and eventually they've become a
Speaker 1: very very successful company in their own right. We prode
Speaker 1: we pride ourselves on that. There's there's really dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of similar examples like that. And Amazon,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a different business and one hopefully it's
Speaker 1: just doing there There the retailer, they're the everything store.
Speaker 1: As you say, I if I want something, I generally
Speaker 1: just go to my iPhone or my iPad or my
Speaker 1: computer and I just call up Amazon, I order it,
Speaker 1: uh and it comes shows up usually within twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: So that's an amazing thing Amazon does. It's it's changed
Speaker 1: most people's lives. It certainly has changed my life. That's
Speaker 1: very different than what Whole Food is doing. But Whole
Speaker 1: Food is you know, Amazon wants to be a bigger
Speaker 1: force in grocery, and the Whole Food is key to
Speaker 1: helping them do that. So I think that's why they
Speaker 1: ultimately wanted to acquire us. So, John, you know, you're
Speaker 1: very thoughtful in your books, and and this recent one
Speaker 1: is no example. I mean, I do wonder what's ahead
Speaker 1: for you. There's been a lot of speculation that you know,
Speaker 1: you could go on and keep writing books, and you've
Speaker 1: executed this great, as you say, new marriage between these
Speaker 1: two companies. And I'm only going to give you about
Speaker 1: ninety seconds in this question. But what's next it Do
Speaker 1: you foresee that that maybe you hand over the rain soon?
Speaker 1: You know? I like to think I read recently Warm Buffett.
Speaker 1: I read that Warm Buffett. He's he's his of Warren
Speaker 1: Buffett's wealth has been generated after the age of sixty.
Speaker 1: I would like to think that of my contribution in
Speaker 1: the world will be generated after I'm sixty five. That's
Speaker 1: my that's my goal. So I don't have any plans
Speaker 1: on leaving anytime soon from Whole Foods. But hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting older. We all we all have to pass
Speaker 1: from the scene eventually, and I'm there are many other things.
Speaker 1: I'm a very much a doer. I have many projects
Speaker 1: in life I want to work on. That's Whole Foods
Speaker 1: Market CEO co founder John Mackie. You know, we talk
Speaker 1: all the time care about like, oh, merger is sort
Speaker 1: of like a marriage, and He's like, no, seriously, it
Speaker 1: is like a merriage, Like you gotta work on it.
Speaker 1: Just like that. That wraps up the first hour of
Speaker 1: the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelly. That was one of my favorite parts
Speaker 1: of the interview. I'm Carol Massler Moore. Ahead in our
Speaker 1: next hour, including PBS President CEO Paula Kerger. They're getting
Speaker 1: ready for big anniversary. This is This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly, plenty of head for you.
Speaker 1: In this hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: we're talking k shape recovery with economist Ali Wolf. Will
Speaker 1: also here from PBS President Paula Kerger on pivoting with
Speaker 1: the likes of Ken Burns during the virus and this
Speaker 1: reopening in New York means so much. Friend to the show.
Speaker 1: Chef Daniel Blue New York City dining out again, he
Speaker 1: joins us. First up, though, We've got to get to
Speaker 1: a story in the magazine, and this had to do
Speaker 1: with the Cleveland Clinic. It hosted the debate this week.
Speaker 1: Cleveland Clinic, Jason, It's thriving, but it's black neighbors. They
Speaker 1: are not. We got up with Bloomberg News senior Trade
Speaker 1: and Globalization reporter Sean Donnin and Bloomberg Business Week getitor
Speaker 1: Jill Webber. Sean has spent a fair amount of time
Speaker 1: going to places um that I think are really important,
Speaker 1: um in part for the election, but also in part
Speaker 1: of the bigger story that is sort of upon America
Speaker 1: right now, and Cleveland has actually figured into that reporting
Speaker 1: a lot. This is sort of part two of the
Speaker 1: Cleveland series that he's been working on and it's specifically
Speaker 1: about the Cleveland Clinic, which is sort of a renowned
Speaker 1: medical center. Um. But what's actually been interesting, and this
Speaker 1: kind of gets right to the heart of of Sean's story,
Speaker 1: is as the clinic has thrived, basically, the black neighbors
Speaker 1: and the black neighborhood that surrounds the Cleveland Clinic has
Speaker 1: actually seen its health deteriora. Seohn picking up from there,
Speaker 1: What what did you discover during your reporting? Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Cleveland Clinic is this world leading health institution.
Speaker 1: If you are going to get a high bypass operation,
Speaker 1: this is probably where you want to go. It's the
Speaker 1: place where they really perfected it in the nineties sixties,
Speaker 1: and they've built it a whole fortune, a real thriving
Speaker 1: business on the back of this. The Cleveland Clinic last
Speaker 1: year at ten point five billion dollars in revenues. UH.
Speaker 1: It's going to open a new hospital in London later
Speaker 1: this year. It's also in the Middle East. It's opening
Speaker 1: a new hospital in China in in the next couple
Speaker 1: of years. Uh. It's become this world renowned institution, and
Speaker 1: it's also become a great example of what people talk
Speaker 1: about when they talk about the EDS and meds economic
Speaker 1: development model for cities. You know, after manufacturing left a
Speaker 1: lot of cities like like like Cleveland, people were looking
Speaker 1: at alternatives and and they look to education, and they
Speaker 1: look to the health care sector. And we've seen institutions
Speaker 1: like the Cleveland Clinic thrive in recent decades. The problem
Speaker 1: is that you go to Cleveland, you step out beyond
Speaker 1: the main campus. There's a hundred and sixty five acres
Speaker 1: in the middle of Cleveland, uh, and you walk not
Speaker 1: even a couple of blocks. You walk a block, and
Speaker 1: what you discover is you are in neighborhoods that have
Speaker 1: some of the highest poverty rates in a nation, and
Speaker 1: where a kid who's born today is gonna it has
Speaker 1: a life expectancy that's twenty years less than a kid
Speaker 1: who is who's born a fifteen minute drive away. And
Speaker 1: that really, right now, in the middle of an economic crisis,
Speaker 1: illustrates this kind of American paradox that we have in
Speaker 1: terms of inequality. You can have world beating institutions like
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Clinic, and right next door you can have
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods that are just really just being left behind.
Speaker 1: There's no other way to describe it, alright, So describe
Speaker 1: to us though, what the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic
Speaker 1: told you. I mean, I gotta read the quote. Cleveland
Speaker 1: is in our name, he says, But we cannot thrive
Speaker 1: as an organization unless the communities in which we reside
Speaker 1: thrive with us. So there they see at front and center.
Speaker 1: How are they dealing with it? What are they doing
Speaker 1: doing to change this conversation? Right? So that CEO, Tom
Speaker 1: Halovitch is a Croatian born heart surgeon who took over
Speaker 1: as a CEO of the clinic in and he says
Speaker 1: he has made raising up the neighborhoods around the Cleveland
Speaker 1: Clinic one of the one of his priorities. And he's
Speaker 1: recognizing tacitly by doing that that they haven't done enough
Speaker 1: in the past to do that. And so they're starting,
Speaker 1: and we should say they're starting slowly to to invest
Speaker 1: in different things, whether it's adding to their work in
Speaker 1: community health centers. And there's a big project that's about
Speaker 1: to get launched right next door to the Cleveland Clinic.
Speaker 1: It's a project called Innovation Square. It's being run by
Speaker 1: Community Development Corporation there. It's gonna cost about three hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars over the next five years to really redeveloped
Speaker 1: a neighborhood and bring back grocery stores because we're talking
Speaker 1: about food deserts right right around the clinic there, bring
Speaker 1: back new new housing there. And the Cleveland Clinic says
Speaker 1: it's going to get involved in that project. We don't
Speaker 1: know how much, but we need to put that all
Speaker 1: in perspective at the same time. So we're getting this
Speaker 1: kind of good will from the Cleveland Clinic, but there's
Speaker 1: this three million dollar project next door, and you put
Speaker 1: that in the context of of the business that is
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Clinic. Over the next five years, if they
Speaker 1: keep going the way they've been going, they're gonna make
Speaker 1: something like fifty billion dollars revenues. That entire three million
Speaker 1: dollar project is zero point six percent of revenues. They're
Speaker 1: also sitting on one point five billion dollars cash in
Speaker 1: hand at the end of June, which means that they
Speaker 1: could effectively just write a check for this entire project,
Speaker 1: and and and they're not. So it's a complicated story.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's tough because the institution is recognized
Speaker 1: as the problem. It clearly is trying to do something,
Speaker 1: but there's big questions about whether they're doing enough. So Sean,
Speaker 1: synthesize this with some of the other work you've been doing,
Speaker 1: because there is a political undercurrent to all of this.
Speaker 1: You are describeding one of the key economic questions of
Speaker 1: this entire presidential race in this election here in many ways,
Speaker 1: all these things that have been laid bare by not
Speaker 1: just the coronavirus crisis, but this overdue reckoning with race
Speaker 1: and inequality in America. How does this fit in with
Speaker 1: some of the other things you've seen as you've been
Speaker 1: doing reporting about some similar places that illustrate inequity in
Speaker 1: this country. Yeah, well, look, I mean, we we know
Speaker 1: that President Trump was writing at what he considered a
Speaker 1: healthy economy into uh into this election year, and that
Speaker 1: the pandemic upended all that. But what the pandemic really
Speaker 1: did was it shown a spotlight on these real structural
Speaker 1: inequalities in the American economy right now. And that was
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Senior reporter Sean Donn and Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: editor Joel Weber the Cleveland Clinic Carrol a bit of
Speaker 1: a theme developing here in this hour We're talking a
Speaker 1: lot about the K shaped recovery. We are, indeed, and
Speaker 1: we've got two guests coming up on that really looking
Speaker 1: at some of the systemic economic problems in our society.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're back here
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Business Week. Carol Master, Jason Kelly and Jason
Speaker 1: two interviews that really got to the heart of our
Speaker 1: systemic economic problems. One was with an economist. She watches
Speaker 1: housing and the consumers. She talked a lot about the
Speaker 1: K shape recovery. She did, we're talking about ali wolf
Speaker 1: and that K shape. You and I have really been
Speaker 1: leaning hard into this. We spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with Peter Atwater. He coined the term ali wolf. She
Speaker 1: needs the data to figure out how to model where
Speaker 1: we are, but also where we're going. Check it out
Speaker 1: as we do look at the data. The economy is
Speaker 1: holding up. I know that there's a lot of talk
Speaker 1: that it's losing momentum, but it is holding up. All
Speaker 1: things considered, We're still in the middle of a pandemic.
Speaker 1: And as Dave Powell said at his press conference, we're
Speaker 1: learning to live with the iris. And as I talked
Speaker 1: to some of my co workers across the country, they say, life,
Speaker 1: depending on where you live and depending on how you're
Speaker 1: thinking about the virus, looks pretty normal. But the concern
Speaker 1: at this point is that the easy games have been made.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned with the jobs, Yeah, we're still adding jobs,
Speaker 1: but we're eleven point five million people shy of February
Speaker 1: and the labor force, and that doesn't account for the
Speaker 1: three point seven million people that have just ultimately left
Speaker 1: the labor force since February. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things because a lot of people are stepping out
Speaker 1: for childcare reasons. So let's talk about something that we
Speaker 1: have talked a lot about on this program, and I'm
Speaker 1: dying to get your take on it, Alley, which is
Speaker 1: the K shaped recovery. It when you said, uh, something
Speaker 1: a minute ago about sort of depends on who you are,
Speaker 1: where you live, what your job is. That calls to
Speaker 1: mind this idea of the K shaped recovery. Give me
Speaker 1: your reaction to that notion and that description of this
Speaker 1: recovery that we're in, whatever it may look like, the
Speaker 1: K shape is the reason we do not have another
Speaker 1: stimulus deal, because if you look at the stock market
Speaker 1: and you look at the unstoppable housing market, there are
Speaker 1: parts of the economy that why do you need to
Speaker 1: give them additional money? And I think a lot of economists,
Speaker 1: myself included, said, oh gosh, watch for the end of July.
Speaker 1: We're going to really see the economy tanks and it's
Speaker 1: held up all things considered. So that's been one of
Speaker 1: the biggest issues. But as we're seeing today, Pelosi and
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary revolution are looking at maybe getting closer to
Speaker 1: a stimulus deal, but they have to be careful because
Speaker 1: I agree with the Republicans we don't need another two
Speaker 1: to three trillion, because we already have trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: slashing around to the economy. But I agree with the
Speaker 1: Democrats that it needs to be targeted because if you're
Speaker 1: in a K shape recovery, don't keep giving money to
Speaker 1: top half of the K and expecting a different result.
Speaker 1: You need to make sure that that bottom half of
Speaker 1: the K is getting the right money when they really
Speaker 1: need it. Well, how portant, and let's talk about this,
Speaker 1: that bottom part of the K. How important is it
Speaker 1: ultimately to the US economy. We you know, add nauseam
Speaker 1: talk about the importance of small business owners and small
Speaker 1: businesses to our economy. You know, are we providing enough
Speaker 1: aid for that part of our economy. No, we're not
Speaker 1: providing enough aid right now. And I think another one
Speaker 1: of the issues is if you look at the savings rate,
Speaker 1: if you were in the bottom half of the K
Speaker 1: and you were getting that extra six federal federal stimulus.
Speaker 1: We know the stats about six people were earning more
Speaker 1: money by being on that unemployment insurance. They've been able
Speaker 1: to save some of their money. So when you look
Speaker 1: at the personal savings rate, that looks okay, But that's
Speaker 1: going to start coming down. And that's coming down partly
Speaker 1: because the top half of the K is going out
Speaker 1: and spending money, but partly because the bottom half of
Speaker 1: the K is now starting to run out. They're starting
Speaker 1: to tap into their savings accounts. And that's not unlimited.
Speaker 1: That's not going to go on indefinitely. So we have
Speaker 1: to look at, uh, what's the top up to the
Speaker 1: unemployment insurance. I know there's that joke about the lazy
Speaker 1: economy giving the six hundred, so okay, fine, do the
Speaker 1: three hundred, But make sure you're also giving money to
Speaker 1: the state and local governments too, small businesses, the people
Speaker 1: on the rent and mortgages so they don't end up homeless.
Speaker 1: So there's still is just needs to be a really
Speaker 1: really targeted effort. What happens if we don't get that?
Speaker 1: What does it look like and how soon do we
Speaker 1: see it? Alli, Well, the economy is kind of backpedal,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to happen that quickly. Again, that's
Speaker 1: kind of been the lesson learned to all of us
Speaker 1: is when you throw three trillion dollars into an economy
Speaker 1: that only slowed for two months, that actually can keep
Speaker 1: you going for a while. So I don't think we're
Speaker 1: going to see that backpedal. We'll see the savings start
Speaker 1: to go down, We'll see the amount of people unable
Speaker 1: to pay the rent or pay the mortgage start to increase,
Speaker 1: but that's gonna be a slow burn, maybe the next
Speaker 1: six months. That was alle Wolves chief economist, Admer's research
Speaker 1: and Jason. Another interview that we had this week that
Speaker 1: got into what is our economy? It was with Roger Martin,
Speaker 1: Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at University
Speaker 1: of Toronto. He has a pretty cool new book out
Speaker 1: he does. It's called When More Is Not Better, Overcoming
Speaker 1: America's obsession with economic efficiency. You and I gravitated to this,
Speaker 1: and even more so once we got to talking to him,
Speaker 1: because he's a very lively guy and really willing to
Speaker 1: kind of put it out there that we're all trying
Speaker 1: to figure this out. For the first two hundred years
Speaker 1: of American's history, UH, the median family, the average family
Speaker 1: in in America in almost all years, moved forward smartly economically. UH,
Speaker 1: And that changed around by centenary, so that middle incomes
Speaker 1: have stagnated terribly for forty years, a greater stagnation than
Speaker 1: America has has ever seen. So that family that thinks
Speaker 1: that it's children aren't going to be better than they
Speaker 1: are is getting closer and more right than wrong if
Speaker 1: they are a rich family in America. So that the problem,
Speaker 1: and I think what that leads people to start questioning,
Speaker 1: is is this system working for us or is it
Speaker 1: just working for a very small tail end of the
Speaker 1: distribution of high income folks. But that's what the book
Speaker 1: is about, saying why that's happened, what's changed? Uh, in
Speaker 1: the in the last this last period, this last forty years,
Speaker 1: and what we can do about it. It's not as
Speaker 1: though this has always been been the way. No. Something changed,
Speaker 1: and what changed was we got so obsessive about efficiency,
Speaker 1: about getting the last drop of efficiency out of whatever
Speaker 1: system in the economy we were thinking about. So Carol
Speaker 1: loved both of those conversations. And I have to say,
Speaker 1: you're the economist in this duo. You really understand this
Speaker 1: stuff much more holistically. But those two, I feel like,
Speaker 1: are really bringing it to the masses like me, helping
Speaker 1: me understand kind of the data side of this, but
Speaker 1: also these di sparities, these disparities that we know about.
Speaker 1: Once you can measure them, then maybe you can start
Speaker 1: to fix them. But they're also both talking about things
Speaker 1: that maybe we're just looking at it wrong for a
Speaker 1: long time exactly. That's a really great point, Jason. And
Speaker 1: the thing is the data is they are showing that
Speaker 1: these gaps, these inequalities are just increasing. We're not fixing it,
Speaker 1: we're not figuring out ways to make it better. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like that conversation we had with Bloomberg reporter
Speaker 1: Ben Steverman last week, you know, talking about the Harvard
Speaker 1: economist as well, who's looking at this specifically and coming
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that basically, you know, kids are not
Speaker 1: going to be in a better situation than their parents,
Speaker 1: which was a long held belief. So what these two
Speaker 1: got to is how to think about the economy differently,
Speaker 1: how do we get on a better path. You can
Speaker 1: check out both of those conversations in their full form
Speaker 1: on our podcast feed. Well, you're listening to Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week and still ahead. Everything the Public Broadcasting learned over
Speaker 1: its first fifty years have come to bear over the
Speaker 1: last six month. PBS is celebrating a big milestone. But
Speaker 1: how are they pivoting when there is so much competition
Speaker 1: for content? We'll hear from the network's president and CEO.
Speaker 1: This is whooperg. This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Carol, whether
Speaker 1: it is PPS kids, whether it's cooking shows, whether it
Speaker 1: is documentaries that change the way we think about American history,
Speaker 1: feels like we all have a relationship with PBS. That's
Speaker 1: so true, Jason, this is a broadcaster that's been part
Speaker 1: of our life for half a century. They are now
Speaker 1: getting ready for the next fifty years. We talked about
Speaker 1: that with the CEO and president of PBS, she is
Speaker 1: Paula Kerger. October four will be our fiftieth anniversary. That
Speaker 1: is the day, October four, vent that we signed on
Speaker 1: the air as a national system with Julia Child in
Speaker 1: the French shift. And when and when you think about it,
Speaker 1: you know, think about the world before Julia Child. You know,
Speaker 1: there was really no you know, there was I mean,
Speaker 1: there were some cooking shows, I guess, but she changed
Speaker 1: the way that we thought about food. You know that. Um,
Speaker 1: she changed the way that you know, French cuisine, which
Speaker 1: which seems so you know, fussy, could be pretty accessible
Speaker 1: and you know it's okay if that chicken falls off
Speaker 1: the counter, you know, you just wipe it off and
Speaker 1: you keep going. And I think that and and that personality, Um,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's one of the She's one
Speaker 1: of the people that I think really defined us. You
Speaker 1: think about Fred Rogers and Fred is having Uh, he's
Speaker 1: had an amazing year. Um, you know, as people have
Speaker 1: really thought about what he meant to them. You know
Speaker 1: the fact that he could look into the into the
Speaker 1: camera and you felt that he was looking at you,
Speaker 1: telling you that you were special and really encouraging you
Speaker 1: to be yourself, and you think about, you know, as
Speaker 1: you flash forward, all of the different personalities. So we
Speaker 1: thought the that's how we would celebrate and UH, and
Speaker 1: then the the pandemic hit and suddenly we were not
Speaker 1: thinking about fifty years and celebration. We were really thinking
Speaker 1: about the public service piece of who we are that's
Speaker 1: at the P and the S and TBS stands for,
Speaker 1: and what we could be doing during this time. And
Speaker 1: I have talked to our stations, I've talked to others
Speaker 1: involved with public broadcasting, and I've said to them and
Speaker 1: I and I believe this, UH, to the very center
Speaker 1: of my soul, that everything that public broadcasting learned over
Speaker 1: its first fifty years have come to bear over the
Speaker 1: last six months, and that we were built for this
Speaker 1: moment with the children's programming that we have put together
Speaker 1: that's all built around core curriculum, with the work that
Speaker 1: we've done with teachers and classrooms that we distribute to
Speaker 1: a broadband used to be just their teachers, now to
Speaker 1: families who are taking up lesson plans and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to engage kids with the trusted news
Speaker 1: content that we've built up through the extraordinary journalism of
Speaker 1: people like Jim Lair and Gwen Eiffel and Charlie Hunter
Speaker 1: Galt and all of the people Judy Woodrift. Now I'm
Speaker 1: about all of the people that have gone into building
Speaker 1: the News Hour as a trusted source for for fact
Speaker 1: and information. To UM, the documentary programs that we've created
Speaker 1: over the years. You know, when the baseball season was delayed,
Speaker 1: Ken Burns called me and said, why don't we put
Speaker 1: baseball up? Why don't we make it available? Um And
Speaker 1: and he said, and as we talked, he said, let's
Speaker 1: look at the probram the kinds of programs that I've
Speaker 1: produced that are in my library that would have been
Speaker 1: on the kids curriculum, you know, for the spring, and
Speaker 1: maybe we should find some programs that, you know, could
Speaker 1: help remind us all of those times when we came
Speaker 1: together and you know, we discovered our own better angels.
Speaker 1: So we thought about the Rose Adults and the World
Speaker 1: War Two documentary and the National Parks documentary America's Greatest Idea,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, and then George Floyd was murdered
Speaker 1: and we suddenly found ourselves looking at Okay, what can
Speaker 1: we produce, but what is what is in our library
Speaker 1: that we can bring forward that can help people understand
Speaker 1: where we came from? How did we get to this place?
Speaker 1: Looking at everything from Skip Gates, recent series on reconstruction,
Speaker 1: going back to the Great Henry Hampton's Eyes on the
Speaker 1: Prize and so all of the work that we've been
Speaker 1: doing over these last months, leveraging our library but also
Speaker 1: creating new content and building on relationships and the trust
Speaker 1: that we've built, has all brought us here. And I
Speaker 1: think this is the best way to celebrate our fifties
Speaker 1: anniversary is actually being in service to the public. Hey, Paula,
Speaker 1: one thing I wanted to ask you is the content
Speaker 1: that is out there today. There's so much of it,
Speaker 1: thanks largely to the explosion of streaming services. We've got
Speaker 1: just a few new ones really kind of in the
Speaker 1: last year. There was a time when it was only PBS.
Speaker 1: It felt like that did those deep dives, did those documentaries, um,
Speaker 1: did those really thoughtful series, you know, and now there
Speaker 1: are others doing it, And I just wonder, how does
Speaker 1: that change your focus or PBS is focus, or how
Speaker 1: you plan for the future and how you compete in
Speaker 1: a world where everybody's competing for all of our eyeballs,
Speaker 1: you know. So we've been down this past before. Um
Speaker 1: obviously when we moved from an environment whether it was
Speaker 1: just broadcast television, into a plethora of cable channels and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a time when so many of
Speaker 1: the of the upcoming cable channels were really designed on,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to emulate or copy public broadcasting. And
Speaker 1: that's PPS President and CEO Paula Kerger. I have to
Speaker 1: say one of my favorite parts of that interview was
Speaker 1: the quick flex where she's like, yeah, there's a pandemic
Speaker 1: going on. I got a call from Ken Burns. He's like,
Speaker 1: remember that amazing thing that I did. Why don't you
Speaker 1: show that? Listen PBS Like so many others, Jayson learning
Speaker 1: to pivot and provide content that made sense during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: temper to pivot the restaurants. They have been among the
Speaker 1: hardest hit during the virus. We're gonna hear from one
Speaker 1: of the best known names in the industry. We're talking
Speaker 1: about Danielle Blue. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So it was a big week for New York City restaurants.
Speaker 1: After six months pandemic and do shut down restaurants in
Speaker 1: the city. They were allowed to reopen indoor dining with
Speaker 1: some restrictions on capacity, and it's going to still make
Speaker 1: it really tough for them to run financially. And We've
Speaker 1: gotten to check in a number of times throughout the
Speaker 1: pandemic with Danielle Blue, one of the best known chefs
Speaker 1: in the world. Here's what he had to say. This
Speaker 1: reopening in New York means so much because we have
Speaker 1: been stranned for eight months with no restaurants inside. Thanks God,
Speaker 1: the city up and up the streets and gave the
Speaker 1: opportunity to have a sidewalk cafe. We did our best
Speaker 1: with that at the restaurant Danielle with Danielle Bully Kitchen
Speaker 1: and the reopening inside, I felt that I wanted to
Speaker 1: also try to set up a mood which was maybe
Speaker 1: a little different, a little more disrupting and and and
Speaker 1: maybe a theme where I didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: go to the South of France this summer, and every
Speaker 1: year I go to France and I always go to
Speaker 1: the south of France, but so it is many many Americans,
Speaker 1: and you know, destination vacations the mediterrane always make people dream.
Speaker 1: So I felt that I should do a restaurant who
Speaker 1: expressed a little bit of a journey to the Mediterrane
Speaker 1: through the flavor of the dishes and through the mood
Speaker 1: of the restaurant. So we transformed the restaurant into Buris
Speaker 1: Bullied by the Sea as my last name. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it, I love it, and so Danielle, I mean,
Speaker 1: what's been so interesting in sort of keeping up with
Speaker 1: you throughout this is that this has obviously challenged you
Speaker 1: as as a chef and in many ways, but it's
Speaker 1: really challenged you, I feel like, as a businessman in
Speaker 1: many ways and as a manager of your people. So
Speaker 1: tell us about some of the sort of key decisions
Speaker 1: that you felt like you had to make for your business.
Speaker 1: Of course, I mean that we'll all locked down, and
Speaker 1: all my colleague lockdown. Little by little, we started initiative
Speaker 1: to bring back our staff and um about the months
Speaker 1: and a half after lockdown, we started Food First Foundation,
Speaker 1: an initiative with sl Green, my new partner in a
Speaker 1: new restaurant, Le Pavillon at one Vanderbilt, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to really help me start to make meals for New
Speaker 1: Yorkers and bring back some of my staff in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: But he also wanted to help many of his standards
Speaker 1: around town to be able to reopen their kitchen and
Speaker 1: support their tenants through UH Food First and today we
Speaker 1: have distributed almost four meals gifted to many many charity
Speaker 1: including City Mill on Wheel and UH in New York
Speaker 1: and World Central Kitchen at the beginning of our mission
Speaker 1: and and Barry Barry mission as well, and and they
Speaker 1: were I think that was the first initiative. Then from
Speaker 1: that we did the take out at restaurant Danielle, and
Speaker 1: then we opened the terra us at Babu and Danielle
Speaker 1: and through daniel Bully Kitchen UH takeout division as well.
Speaker 1: And today we are opened inside and it felt very
Speaker 1: good last night. I feel that people are still a
Speaker 1: little anxious and there's a mix of anxiety and excitement
Speaker 1: and for us as reopening inside, but at the same
Speaker 1: time we make sure and you know, it gave us
Speaker 1: a chance to bring back more staff. So fifty employees
Speaker 1: we had we had now up to plus and that's
Speaker 1: really growing. So it's good. It's a good sign. And
Speaker 1: we haven't reopened all our restaurant, only you know, the
Speaker 1: West Side Barbau and Danielle and Danielle, let's talk about
Speaker 1: New York City and specifically Midtown if we can, Carol
Speaker 1: and I in normal world, in the before times, we
Speaker 1: went to Midtown Manhattan. Literally every day we would do
Speaker 1: our show from there. We were denizens of that, you know,
Speaker 1: into the evening, and so many people who we know
Speaker 1: are like that. What is Midtown like? Now? What do
Speaker 1: you expect it's going to be like over the next
Speaker 1: six to nine to twelve months. Well, I think over
Speaker 1: the next six months it will improve us. I think
Speaker 1: many institutions, UH Bank and other institutions of maybe mad
Speaker 1: they stuff to stay home until the end of the
Speaker 1: year and coming back in January. So some of the
Speaker 1: company I've already bring back, brought back staff on on
Speaker 1: alternative schedule. Now, I mean, of course New York will
Speaker 1: come back New York. It's evident. And some people may
Speaker 1: have lost their job, lost stability in New York and
Speaker 1: had to live town. But for the most part, the
Speaker 1: town might be a little deprived right now of its worker,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna have to come back to work because
Speaker 1: no company can run at a distance like this forever.
Speaker 1: And um, I believe that you know, by spring one,
Speaker 1: even after the holiday, New York shill come back strong.
Speaker 1: I mean, we feel that there's a lot of New
Speaker 1: Yorker back, but they they come back, they go back
Speaker 1: and forth. Right now, we feel and I am positive
Speaker 1: New York City is New York City, and I think
Speaker 1: it will take more than COVID to make it really
Speaker 1: a challenge city. But we have we have a restaurant
Speaker 1: Midtown and because of Broadway, we if we don't have
Speaker 1: the culture, if we don't have the art, if we
Speaker 1: don't have the tourists, it's abused. And the town is
Speaker 1: also suffering, and so hospitality in general hotels and restaurants
Speaker 1: are suffering. And um, and we need also the workers
Speaker 1: back to really have this life during lunch Midtown. So
Speaker 1: I am positive we're opening a restaurant in Midtown at
Speaker 1: forty second and one Vanderbilt next year is that pavilion
Speaker 1: the pavilion, And I'm positive that you know, it will
Speaker 1: be a good time to open a restaurant in the
Speaker 1: spring of twenty one, and at the same time, we
Speaker 1: have taken all the measure possible to make sure that
Speaker 1: people feel them they are in a very safe environment.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, it's just has been, um Daniel
Speaker 1: right for most Let me ask you, because I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how many people we have come on in.
Speaker 1: Even real estate guys are like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: everybody's leaving New York City, everybody's leaving these major cities
Speaker 1: and so and so forth. I mean, I've been in
Speaker 1: New York City a long time too, and I've heard
Speaker 1: the demise of the big cities over and over again.
Speaker 1: How do you see it? I see it? And a
Speaker 1: lot of people, as I said, feel very stressed right now,
Speaker 1: and I feel comfortable being out. But they're gonna be
Speaker 1: so bored and so missing out with everything that I
Speaker 1: think they'll be back to New York. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a New Yorker at art and if I'm going
Speaker 1: to leave the city, where am I going to go
Speaker 1: back to France in my small village? Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But I'm also I've been a New Yorker involved with
Speaker 1: the community and involved with my profession and having a
Speaker 1: credible support from our customer and we still feel it,
Speaker 1: we still get it. I mean, our customers are so
Speaker 1: positive and so happy that we are here and we
Speaker 1: are continuing. And I can see I can see them
Speaker 1: coming back all the time. Are they going to spend
Speaker 1: as much time in New York City and they used to?
Speaker 1: Maybe less, but they still come back and support us.
Speaker 1: And so, Danielle, what is something like this due to
Speaker 1: the next generation of chefs coming up? You know? I
Speaker 1: mean you have seen so many promising chefs sort of
Speaker 1: come through your kitchens and the kitchens of your friends.
Speaker 1: I do wonder about this next generation and how they
Speaker 1: will adapt and what advice you might be giving them.
Speaker 1: And and many young chefs left me to go to
Speaker 1: smaller city around the country. UM. It has been struggling
Speaker 1: challenge for them to wherever they are uh in UM
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, in California, in uh in Florida or other
Speaker 1: part Texas. It's it's not easy to UM, it's not
Speaker 1: easy to start a business. And then too, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you start your new place, you have
Speaker 1: that you have you you might do very well, but
Speaker 1: you have to pay back the investment. And I think
Speaker 1: for younger for young chef who want to start a business.
Speaker 1: What's important is to not be in debt to the
Speaker 1: point where they can never pay back or lose their business.
Speaker 1: Now for young chef learning to cook, I think, um,
Speaker 1: there's there's going to be opportunity in the food business,
Speaker 1: maybe different than what they envision. But for me, we
Speaker 1: have been very creative at expanding into other directions in
Speaker 1: in the food world, such as UH national distribution with
Speaker 1: Gold Belly of daniel Buddy Kitchen for dishes for home.
Speaker 1: So that brought me. It gave me a chance to
Speaker 1: bring more stuff. We do yours of the takeout in
Speaker 1: New York City with daniel Blue Kitchen and that brought
Speaker 1: me more stuff, and um, expanding into catering, more catering.
Speaker 1: I have a catering company, but we're expanding into most
Speaker 1: services like that. And so I think we tried to
Speaker 1: stay very creative, very engaged with opportunity that maybe needed
Speaker 1: right now and may change later. And that's chef Danielle Blue.
Speaker 1: Of course his eponymous restaurant here in New York City.
Speaker 1: It is a beacon in many ways he's been pivoting
Speaker 1: like crazy. Really good to catch up with him. Yeah
Speaker 1: and check it also Kate Creator, who is our food
Speaker 1: editor for Pursuits here at Bloomberg. She has some great
Speaker 1: stories this week about the industry in the sector trying
Speaker 1: to reopen up. And that wraps up the weekend edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Master.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our daily radio show that's
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday starting at two pm Well Street time,
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Speaker 1: to check out this week's extra podcast. It's our conversation
Speaker 1: with Joe Lonsdale, very timely. He's a co founder of Palanteer.
Speaker 1: He worked at PayPal as well. We talked to him
Speaker 1: on the day that Palentteer went public. That's right, Jason,
Speaker 1: A great story and great insight about kind of where
Speaker 1: we are when it comes to the tech world. Don't
Speaker 1: forget too. Were also on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News,
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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg,