Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer from Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, Week thirty seven. I'm back working from home.
Speaker 1: That's still the case for many. It was a holiday
Speaker 1: short and trading week where we had another dose of
Speaker 1: vaccine news as the world, thanks to rising virus cases
Speaker 1: and hospitalizations, was reminded repeatedly that we will be dealing
Speaker 1: with COVID for months to come. With that in mind,
Speaker 1: coming up this hour, how to make sure COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: never happens again. We're gonna head to the Bloomberg New
Speaker 1: Economy Forum check in with the CEO of Maderna, the
Speaker 1: CEO of Welcome Leaf, and the chief epidemiologist at the
Speaker 1: Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Also bringing transparency
Speaker 1: to the childcare and daycare markets with the co founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Upfront Plus. We are in worse shape
Speaker 1: right now than we were in March because we are
Speaker 1: now not heading into the summer where everybody was expecting
Speaker 1: that things would get better. The CEO of Travago on
Speaker 1: the travel industry being back where we were in this ring.
Speaker 1: We begin though, with what was one of the most
Speaker 1: read stories on the Bloomberg reported for Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: about something that we were all trying to get back
Speaker 1: in this spring. You know, you were trying to do this.
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy. And now, even though there's more than
Speaker 1: ever before, guess what, there's still not enough out there
Speaker 1: for the US. We're talking about lysol and how we
Speaker 1: just can't get enough of it. Let's get more from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News team leader for US Healthcare Drew Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. When you didn't see it,
Speaker 1: you know, immediately hoarded it and it was one of
Speaker 1: the great hoarding items. Um And you know, back then,
Speaker 1: there were a couple of stories like that that I
Speaker 1: was really interested in, and you know, one was three
Speaker 1: m you know, how do you make how do you
Speaker 1: make more? In masks? Yesterday? And we did that one
Speaker 1: as a cover story, and the Lightshol one just stuck
Speaker 1: with me because I was like, boy, I'm really curious
Speaker 1: how you make more lysol? And Drew Armstrong actually happened
Speaker 1: to have that same kind of urge and came back
Speaker 1: with a fully realized story that is one of my favorite.
Speaker 1: It's from sort of pandemic times, Drew, how do you
Speaker 1: make more Lisolf? So yeah, I started asking that question
Speaker 1: UM earlier this year, you know, for exactly the same
Speaker 1: reason you guys, because I couldn't find it anywhere. And
Speaker 1: you know this company that makes a record UM then
Speaker 1: Keyser it's a London company. They're a big consumer conglomerate.
Speaker 1: But one of the things you find from UM reading
Speaker 1: about this is that you know, they're in this massive
Speaker 1: company with huge resources, but you know, they have this
Speaker 1: relatively thin, delicate supply chain that's stretched all over the
Speaker 1: US and all over the world. And when the pandemic
Speaker 1: really you know, did two things. One just put their
Speaker 1: demand through the roof for this product, but to you know,
Speaker 1: just absolutely upset all of the kind of global trade
Speaker 1: and even the U. S trade and you know, all
Speaker 1: the kind of things that you need to make stuff
Speaker 1: in a factory in the world that we live in.
Speaker 1: It it really jumbled their world. And so they were
Speaker 1: they were great about opening the door and telling us,
Speaker 1: you know how they did everything from like flying seven
Speaker 1: forty seven full of chemicals from Europe to the US
Speaker 1: as they can make more whites and lightsol spray um.
Speaker 1: At one point, they were starting to run out of ethanol,
Speaker 1: which is one of the main ingredients of lisol. So
Speaker 1: it happened that Americans weren't driving as much because they
Speaker 1: were all staying home, and ethanol the important gasoline additive.
Speaker 1: So they retooled a ethanol plant in Nebraska and makes
Speaker 1: ethanol for gasoline and just shipped plane cars with these,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty thousand gallons tanks of ethanol to their
Speaker 1: factory in New Jersey. It's just fascinating to hear about
Speaker 1: all the things that they did in order to, you know,
Speaker 1: keep this stuff flowing and still have not been at all.
Speaker 1: This is one of those stories, man, you know, you
Speaker 1: could just sit down and talk about for a long
Speaker 1: time because it's just interesting facets something we take for granted, right,
Speaker 1: but you really dug into kind of the nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts of it. Tell Us though, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: on our planning call this morning, we were all getting
Speaker 1: into it. Tell us about Mr Lysol and Flushing Meadows. Sure.
Speaker 1: So there is a guy at a record called Joe Robino.
Speaker 1: He has been he has worked on Lifesol for thirty
Speaker 1: five some years through its previous owners. He's a microbiologist. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's a little red banner on
Speaker 1: the lysol can which says kills nine nine percent of germs.
Speaker 1: And you know that's that's comproms. Everyone has to look
Speaker 1: at the chloroxy is. Everybody makes the same claim. But
Speaker 1: they were actually the first people to do the research
Speaker 1: to show that. And one of the things that they did,
Speaker 1: um in the early days of this product back in
Speaker 1: the in the very early sorry I did really to
Speaker 1: the product, but back in kind of his early on
Speaker 1: in his career in the early nineties, they would do
Speaker 1: stuff like coat a toy ball with a harmless virus
Speaker 1: and put it into a daycare and they go around
Speaker 1: swabbing everything to figure out, you know, where did this
Speaker 1: virus go. Um, they did the same thing in hotel
Speaker 1: rooms with people who had cold. They're really tried to
Speaker 1: understand the microbiology aspects of what their products could kill.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that they studied was, you know,
Speaker 1: just how you know, if you have basically a plateful
Speaker 1: of you know, germ to microbes, you know, viruses or bacteria,
Speaker 1: how much does it actually kill? And you know, he
Speaker 1: was talking to me as he was explaining as one
Speaker 1: of many conversations we had, he said, well, we had
Speaker 1: a you know, a three log or four log or
Speaker 1: even a five log reduction, and what that actually means
Speaker 1: is nine point nine. Um. The marketing folks took a
Speaker 1: look at that and they said, people love the idea
Speaker 1: of we gotta put this on the camp um and
Speaker 1: that's kind of the history of where that number comes
Speaker 1: from and disinfecting. UM. If they were the first to
Speaker 1: make it, now everybody, everybody does it actually does a
Speaker 1: lot more than that. But you know, there is a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of research quotes, scientific and consumer that goes
Speaker 1: on behind these products. UM to figure it out. You
Speaker 1: mentioned Flushing Meadows, my favorite place in this whole story.
Speaker 1: They light Bulb makes a toilet bowl cleaner, and um.
Speaker 1: You know, if you make a toilet ball cleaner, you're
Speaker 1: always changing and tweaking your product. You're introducing new you know, formulations,
Speaker 1: things like that. You have to test it and if
Speaker 1: you sell your toilet bowl cleaner around the world, you
Speaker 1: have to test it in toilets around the world. They
Speaker 1: have a room. It's Room A one five four in Montvale,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and there's a hundred four toilets brought in
Speaker 1: from around the world. There's a UK road, there's a
Speaker 1: European Union row, there's an American row of toilets, there's
Speaker 1: an Indian row of toilets, and they have a back
Speaker 1: room where they actually replicate the water conditions from around
Speaker 1: the world to match those places. That was definitely an
Speaker 1: inside look at Lysol from, of course, Bloomberg News team
Speaker 1: leader for US Healthcare Drew Armstrong and Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: editor Joel Webber. Check out that story and more in
Speaker 1: the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine on newsstands online,
Speaker 1: and oh ways, on the Bloomberg terminal coming up. Americans
Speaker 1: clamoring for lysol, you just heard about that, and the
Speaker 1: world clamoring for a vaccine and a year that we
Speaker 1: hope we never see again. Some thoughts on how we
Speaker 1: get there. That's coming up next on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol
Speaker 1: Masser from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the
Speaker 1: recent highlights from our daily radio broadcast and podcast. In
Speaker 1: a week where we got an update from Astra Zeneca
Speaker 1: and the University of Oxford on their vaccine. Now, the
Speaker 1: race for a vaccine was part of a discussion that
Speaker 1: I moderated from our recent Bloomberg New Economy form a
Speaker 1: panel that really looked at how the world can ensure
Speaker 1: that we never ever have another catastrophe like COVID nineteam.
Speaker 1: That panel was with Stefan Bonsell's chief executive officer at Maderna,
Speaker 1: Regina Dugan, CEO at Welcome Leap, and Dr Woo Zoo,
Speaker 1: chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Speaker 1: We began by hearing from Aderna's CEO on their vaccine.
Speaker 1: We announced that the first of face free study as
Speaker 1: the study of Fluty Father and Pice fronts so the
Speaker 1: most ninety five percent if because see but the piece
Speaker 1: that makes me I'm most more excited is the fact
Speaker 1: that of the eleven people with severe disease, they were
Speaker 1: all on claus table, were none on the vaccine. And
Speaker 1: so if you think about it, what does that mean.
Speaker 1: I mean that once we get the final data, we
Speaker 1: should be able to see if this is confirmed that
Speaker 1: if you get all vaccine we have a ninety five percentation.
Speaker 1: So having you know this is and if you get disease,
Speaker 1: you will have mild symptoms, I mean, do not have
Speaker 1: severe disease. And as we know, has really been a
Speaker 1: big impact in terms of hospitalization for a patient during
Speaker 1: the worst I see you for passion during the world's
Speaker 1: death and on the impact it has had, but only
Speaker 1: a human life, of course, but on the mental health,
Speaker 1: on the economy. We think this could be a game changer.
Speaker 1: And so what we're doing now is getting the final
Speaker 1: data all locked up, submitting these two regulatory agencies around
Speaker 1: the world, and hopefully I hope getting the vaccine approven
Speaker 1: the emergency use before the end of a year. We're
Speaker 1: making as much product as week and then we said
Speaker 1: we will have before the end of twenty million. Does
Speaker 1: is ready to ship as soon as we have regulatory report,
Speaker 1: all right, So that's certainly some upbeat news. Dr who
Speaker 1: I want to bring you in to this conversation. When
Speaker 1: you and I spoke over the weekend, I believe you
Speaker 1: were in shin Jong or had been in shin Jong.
Speaker 1: China has done and I think most would argue that
Speaker 1: as among the biggest, the most developed country, you guys
Speaker 1: have done a good job in terms of containing the virus.
Speaker 1: But even so there continues to be breakouts. Where are
Speaker 1: we in China when it comes to COVID nineteen. I
Speaker 1: just come back from a sin John. Now back to
Speaker 1: the Beijing. We are just controlled another outbreak in Kashka
Speaker 1: shinjian Wi Autonomous Region. The epidemic has started in the
Speaker 1: letter of October and brought under control in the November.
Speaker 1: In the China, I think, what do we did is
Speaker 1: to have very stronger civilians and peaked control the epidemic
Speaker 1: as a war. So go back to the earlier respond
Speaker 1: to the initial outbreak in Oha. Most of the people
Speaker 1: suspected China delayed or does not responded very quickly. Actually,
Speaker 1: I give you two examples. We did a very bold decision.
Speaker 1: For example, when the outbreak first the notice by doctors,
Speaker 1: that's a last December twenty seven, and the national expert
Speaker 1: arrived in the Wuhan. They made a decision to close
Speaker 1: the seafood market. At that time they were only forty
Speaker 1: cases and the seven of them had examposure to a
Speaker 1: seafood market. Make that decision is a tough and the
Speaker 1: national expert and the local expert as different opening and
Speaker 1: the local or expert has gone against to achieve that decision.
Speaker 1: Another decision, it's a shut down Wahi's city. The decision
Speaker 1: was made in the general at that time, we'll only
Speaker 1: have about a five cases that is made had determined
Speaker 1: the scale of the over the ninety out of the
Speaker 1: hole China. The twot that he made, I think is
Speaker 1: the best of the philosophy. Prepare for the War's the
Speaker 1: scenario that's on at the principle. So we are responded
Speaker 1: to the COVID nine team very quickly. We're quite to
Speaker 1: remove all the right virus from the community to clean
Speaker 1: the up that makes society is say so now, China,
Speaker 1: I think it's the best to the zero local transmission. Now,
Speaker 1: oh boy, Riggin, I want you to come in on
Speaker 1: this too. What are you hearing from your network about
Speaker 1: kind of where we are in this process and in
Speaker 1: this cycle in terms of dealing with the virus. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to calibrate for a moment, because remember the
Speaker 1: normal time to go from an outbreak to a vaccine
Speaker 1: is something like five to ten years. So this achievement
Speaker 1: here is remarkable, unprecedented. The team at Maderna goes from
Speaker 1: virus sequence to first dosing in humans in sixty three days,
Speaker 1: and as Stefan is fond of saying, that's an advance
Speaker 1: a decade in the making. In fact, I remember a
Speaker 1: decade ago when m RNA based vaccines were first proposed
Speaker 1: and the critics said there was no evidence to suggest
Speaker 1: it would work, and others said, there is no evidence
Speaker 1: to suggest it won't. We should try and if we
Speaker 1: are successful, it would matter. And here we are today,
Speaker 1: in fact it matters. So I think what we're hearing
Speaker 1: now is how do we begin to work on the
Speaker 1: next pieces? So how do we shorten the clinical trial?
Speaker 1: How do we begin to get manufacturing underway so that
Speaker 1: we can couple the early warning with a rapid response.
Speaker 1: And there's still much more to do there. In my view,
Speaker 1: this is the spot Nick moment of our generation, right
Speaker 1: and in the same way that sput Nick inspired a
Speaker 1: space age, so to might this pandemic inspire a health age?
Speaker 1: Lots to do. I want to continue this conversation because
Speaker 1: now I want to kind of look forward a quick
Speaker 1: poll and a reminder to everybody who's watching the pull
Speaker 1: that's out there. We'd love to hear your response. The
Speaker 1: question we're asking, what are the lessons from Asia's successful
Speaker 1: response to COVID nineteen. Some individual freedom must be sacrificed
Speaker 1: for the public good. That's answer A answer B Early lockdowns,
Speaker 1: reduced overall economic impact, answers C more investment in digital
Speaker 1: health infrastructure, including contact tracing and d face coverings work.
Speaker 1: So having said that, we'll look for those responses. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you, how do we make sure this
Speaker 1: never ever happens again? Bloomberg New Economy said, there is
Speaker 1: no greater challenge for our global leaders and figuring out
Speaker 1: how to make sure this never happens again. Stefan, can
Speaker 1: we do this? Do we now have the playbook? I
Speaker 1: think we've learned a lot, And as Regina said, I mean,
Speaker 1: first what has been done this year by scientists alln
Speaker 1: the world and the collaboration we have seen. He's unprecedented
Speaker 1: in some of the spe but we've learned a lot
Speaker 1: as well. And I think that too that mentions where
Speaker 1: we should invest aggressively across the world in public private
Speaker 1: partnership to reduce the time to get to a vacuum,
Speaker 1: because as we know, you know, public measures are extremely
Speaker 1: important and right now, wearing a mask and social distancing
Speaker 1: are critical treatment are very important to take people in
Speaker 1: the hospital, but to really get back to normal, we
Speaker 1: need to vaccinate people. And as we know, the world
Speaker 1: is focusing on that vaccine. That was Stefan Bouncel's CEO
Speaker 1: at Maderna, Regina Dugan, chief executive officer at Welcome Leap,
Speaker 1: and Dr who Zoo, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention at the recent Bloomberg New
Speaker 1: Economy Forum. Coming up, the race to a vaccine made
Speaker 1: transparent out of necessity. Coming up next, We've got an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and the CEO of Upfront who is looking to
Speaker 1: bring transparency to a market that touches many Americans and
Speaker 1: their kids. That's coming up next on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol
Speaker 1: Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Well, American parents with children under
Speaker 1: the age of five check us out there spending more
Speaker 1: than forty two billion dollars for early childcare and education
Speaker 1: such as preschool programs. Now that from the progressive think
Speaker 1: tank Economic Policy Institute. Danta Levin Robinson. She's co founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Upfront. She's working to bring more transparency
Speaker 1: to the childcare and daycare market and then perhaps many
Speaker 1: more industries in the future. And like so many entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: creating her business, while it came from a personal experience,
Speaker 1: I had a baby. F peek of the New York
Speaker 1: City Week. Has been quite a year for me, you know,
Speaker 1: between starting the company and having a baby in the
Speaker 1: middle of it, you know, in the pandemic was just
Speaker 1: another extra twist, you know that I did not anticipate.
Speaker 1: But if you actually remember hearing the stories about the
Speaker 1: hospital separating the couple, we were the first couple separated
Speaker 1: by SINAI wow, that that must have been tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it must have been a little tough though, right, Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it was pretty devastating, you know because nobody, especially those
Speaker 1: of us who are pregnants that l A you know,
Speaker 1: nobody was expecting this to happen, you know, around March.
Speaker 1: But we did the best we can. And if anything,
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that I run a company that
Speaker 1: works with parents so closely, and now that I'm a
Speaker 1: parent myself, it really does you know, I always understood
Speaker 1: our users, but now that I actually I am a
Speaker 1: parent myself, it really does regonate. Well, all right, So
Speaker 1: talked about about this so many people who create companies,
Speaker 1: and I think i've um, you know, said this a
Speaker 1: million times. I bet you've told this a million times.
Speaker 1: But it's often when somebody goes out to start a company,
Speaker 1: it's often a personal story. We talked to the CEO
Speaker 1: of Compass Pathways. It was a company that went public
Speaker 1: this year. It was a personal story that got them
Speaker 1: going on their business. What's your story that again, you've
Speaker 1: probably told a million times, but what's the story that
Speaker 1: got you to to to create upfront? Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: personal story. So it actually wasn't with daycare sauce typically,
Speaker 1: but with weddings. So when I was engaged, I met
Speaker 1: with the florists, look through all the pretty photos, and
Speaker 1: then at the end of the hour got the pricing
Speaker 1: sheet and realized that she was never in my budget.
Speaker 1: And I remember being so frusted that I just wasted
Speaker 1: my time meeting someone that I should have never been considering,
Speaker 1: and started the speed got planted of like why didn't
Speaker 1: I know that? Why is this pricing hidden? Why is
Speaker 1: this information? Why do I get every single piece of
Speaker 1: information except what it costs? You know, And we're talking
Speaker 1: about a wedding here. You know, these are some big
Speaker 1: price tags. So really, you know, sort of the second
Speaker 1: thought came in of huh, you know, these prices are
Speaker 1: up there. People have used these businesses before, but nobody
Speaker 1: has really ever given that data a destination. So that's
Speaker 1: really what Upfront is about, and we really start with
Speaker 1: the philosophy the prices should be public information. You know,
Speaker 1: the parents that we talked to, the engage couples that
Speaker 1: we talked to. Budget is one of the top variables,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the top dimensions of how you
Speaker 1: make your decisions. Yet we're acting like it doesn't exist
Speaker 1: and it's not part of the conversation to begin with.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're collecting real numbers. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting and kind of ironic to some
Speaker 1: extent that we kind of kicked off our show talking
Speaker 1: about we went to a press conference with President Trump
Speaker 1: is about drug pricing and just you know, we've heard,
Speaker 1: we've all seen the stories about the lack of transparency
Speaker 1: of why one country pays this, why one other country
Speaker 1: pays this, you know, for the exact same drug, And
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're trying to bring that as well
Speaker 1: when it comes to daycare and childcare absolutely and you know,
Speaker 1: to us, daycarees is just the beginning, you know, and
Speaker 1: eventually we'd like to grow into weddings and funerals and
Speaker 1: private education. There's really no shortage of industries that operate
Speaker 1: this way, and we see no reason why that's the case.
Speaker 1: So is it essentially, um just the idea of no
Speaker 1: different from we travago on you know, travel platforms or
Speaker 1: you want to do you want to do something, so
Speaker 1: give me the options and I can look at them
Speaker 1: all exactly. I mean, consumers these days are so educated
Speaker 1: and anyone you talk to, you know, especially with daycares
Speaker 1: for example, location and costs are the pretty much the
Speaker 1: decision factors of how you choose a daycare. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't search for half of that conversation. So to us
Speaker 1: it makes absolutely no sense. You know. That's how you
Speaker 1: end up with people like me meeting enough force that
Speaker 1: they can't afford. I do wonder, Dana, as you look
Speaker 1: into this and you talk about, let's start with the
Speaker 1: childcare and daycare market, what have you found out in
Speaker 1: terms of the wide range of pricing and how can
Speaker 1: some greater transparency maybe reduce these costs costs for individuals,
Speaker 1: because we know for family this is often a big
Speaker 1: line item. Oh it's it's not just a big line item.
Speaker 1: It's often the second largest line item after housing. And
Speaker 1: I think not enough attention is given to that. I mean,
Speaker 1: in New York State alone, you're spending about of your
Speaker 1: average house the income. And that's just by the Economic
Speaker 1: Policy Institute, and according to our database, it's even higher.
Speaker 1: In New York City, the average cost is around twenty
Speaker 1: two d a month for a daycare. So these are
Speaker 1: crazy numbers, right, and to us, you know, pricing transparence
Speaker 1: you really represents one. You know, we're actually just saving
Speaker 1: you the time, time and a frustration, you know, going
Speaker 1: down this path, doing the work, going in these in
Speaker 1: person tours, which are now riskier than ever. Um, but
Speaker 1: we're also trying to let you discover some options you
Speaker 1: might not have known. We're around you. Thousands of parents
Speaker 1: are already searching, comparing, doing exactly what we designed the
Speaker 1: company to do. And we're hearing, you know, anecdotally, that
Speaker 1: daycares are actually doing just fine because people let the
Speaker 1: kids out of the house. So it's actually very funny,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone assumed that, Oh, nobody's going to send
Speaker 1: their kid back to daycare. That's not what we've heard.
Speaker 1: Everyone's working from home. They want the kid out. That's
Speaker 1: Dana Levin Robinson. She's got founder and CEO of Upfront,
Speaker 1: looking to bring more transparency to the daycare market. What
Speaker 1: it's like to create a business in a COVID nineteen world.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Speaking of transparency,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of that once again from the
Speaker 1: ce of Travago. We got his expectations for whether two
Speaker 1: will next be the year of travel. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We're bringing you some of our favorite interviews from the
Speaker 1: past week on our daily radio show and podcast, and
Speaker 1: that includes a friend of the show someone we've reached
Speaker 1: out to several times during the pandemic. Axel Heifer is
Speaker 1: CEO of the online travel platform Travago. Now, this week,
Speaker 1: the airline industry's main trade group came out and they
Speaker 1: said they expect losses to balloon further in one Now,
Speaker 1: you know, most business travel is down dramatically, and for
Speaker 1: Travago CEO and his team, well, they find themselves in
Speaker 1: a very familiar and unfortunate spot were we are basically
Speaker 1: back where at least in Europe, we are back where
Speaker 1: we were in April, whereas the US is still doing
Speaker 1: a bit better, but but obviously UM in that shape
Speaker 1: as well well. So what does that mean for you guys?
Speaker 1: And I know you have a global workforce. Um, you
Speaker 1: guys have been dealing with this from day one? Is
Speaker 1: does it feel like it was as it was back
Speaker 1: in April? For you guys? Have you made some adjusted
Speaker 1: justments or even just adjustments in your expectations about kind
Speaker 1: of how long it takes for the travel industry to
Speaker 1: get back to normal. Yeah, as a business, I think
Speaker 1: we are we are in much better shape because there
Speaker 1: is much more visibility what the next twelve months will
Speaker 1: look like. Um. We we have significant progress and vaccine
Speaker 1: development UM. The testing has become much much faster and
Speaker 1: and cheaper UM. And and we are almost one year
Speaker 1: in the pandemic and also have some data that we
Speaker 1: can rely on. So UM, we are quite positive for
Speaker 1: for our sustainable recovery starting really in early next summer UM,
Speaker 1: for our employees, and and I guess for for all
Speaker 1: of us Um. However, I think it's it's we are
Speaker 1: in worse shape right now than we were in March
Speaker 1: because we are now um, not not heading into the
Speaker 1: summer where everybody was expecting that things would get better,
Speaker 1: but we are adding into the winter where everybody is expecting,
Speaker 1: like in a normal flu waves, that things will get worse.
Speaker 1: So the emotional stress on our employees um is is
Speaker 1: greater than it has been in the first lockdown. I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of conversations with leaders about that. Specifically.
Speaker 1: We know it's a global health pandemic, but health covers
Speaker 1: so much right at your physical health as well as
Speaker 1: your mental health. So what are you doing to help
Speaker 1: out your employees? Yeah? So, um there there's there's only
Speaker 1: so much you can do. I mean, we are obviously
Speaker 1: trying to be very transparent, UM. So we've got very
Speaker 1: frequent all hands, everybody can ask any kind of question. UM.
Speaker 1: We've brought forward our strategy process for next year, UM,
Speaker 1: so that now everybody can prepare for next year and
Speaker 1: is looking forward. And I think that that is um.
Speaker 1: That is from psychological aspective, the most important thing that
Speaker 1: you have something to look forward to and that you
Speaker 1: have hope that things are getting better rather focusing too
Speaker 1: much on the present, which can be in particularly in
Speaker 1: Europe right now, will be quite depressing. Well, and it's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, from what I understand, you are among
Speaker 1: the group that really think that we've got to as
Speaker 1: a member, you, as a member of the travel industry,
Speaker 1: have to kind of remind everybody that it's not art
Speaker 1: to push everybody back to to think about traveling, that
Speaker 1: we've got to be smart about kind of where we
Speaker 1: are so that we can get this under control. Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: So I think there there are basically two things that
Speaker 1: are really really important. One is to um to manage
Speaker 1: the number of infections and for that obviously traveling is
Speaker 1: not good and and any kind of social contact is
Speaker 1: not good, and that's that's where most of the European
Speaker 1: countries currently are in. But it's equally important also to
Speaker 1: give some hope and something to look forward to. And
Speaker 1: there we as a business look forward to the summer,
Speaker 1: which is obviously our peak season, and are they're quite confident.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also important for for the society
Speaker 1: overall to be able to look forward to something, to
Speaker 1: a significant improvement, and for that the last two weeks
Speaker 1: and particularly I think I've been good in particularly with
Speaker 1: the with the news about vaccines. Yeah, let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: because it's something we've seen, certainly when it comes to
Speaker 1: the travel industry, specifically the hospitality industry, we see stocks
Speaker 1: moves specifically on that news. Having said that, as soon
Speaker 1: as we get the news, you know, about two weeks
Speaker 1: ago from Fightser initially and Fightser did file with US
Speaker 1: regulators for an emergency use authorization of its COVID nineteen vaccine,
Speaker 1: But as soon as we got the news from Fiser
Speaker 1: and Maderna quickly. Also were many stories that followed that said, hey,
Speaker 1: we got to slow down, there's logistics, there's getting it
Speaker 1: out there. Um, there's just a lot of questions too
Speaker 1: about the efficacy or or how long lasting that efficacy is.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's still a lot of questions. We got
Speaker 1: about a minute, then we'll come back and talk more.
Speaker 1: How do you see in terms of the vaccine, Yes,
Speaker 1: so so the I think it's it was clear clear
Speaker 1: for quite some time that there would be vaccines available.
Speaker 1: The positive news to us is that the the effectiveness
Speaker 1: is much greater than than what a lot of people
Speaker 1: had hoped for. Having said that, the likelihood that it
Speaker 1: will have a real impact on the first half of
Speaker 1: the year, I think it's quite quite small, UM, given
Speaker 1: that it will take some time and it will first
Speaker 1: focus obviously on the high risk groups. So accel. When
Speaker 1: we get on the other side of this, what do
Speaker 1: you think travel will look like? I think you said,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe when we get into some of the
Speaker 1: early sea summer season next year that we start to
Speaker 1: kind of feel a little bit more more normal. But
Speaker 1: what will that normal be like when it comes to
Speaker 1: the travel industry? Will it be a little bit different?
Speaker 1: I do think it will be different. UM. So the
Speaker 1: first thing that we've seen this year, and I do
Speaker 1: expect the same for next year, is that there was
Speaker 1: a very very strong trend towards local travel, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people will still not be comfortable to go
Speaker 1: very far UM with the experiences that quarantine requirements and
Speaker 1: being imposed on a very short notice this year. UM.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I do think there will be
Speaker 1: some difference because all the governments globally will have had
Speaker 1: one year of experience, and UM will probably have a
Speaker 1: better regime in place to allow for some international travel. UM.
Speaker 1: The least recovered segment. We do expect to be into
Speaker 1: continental travel. I mean that that will recover probably not
Speaker 1: next year but the year after. Interesting and is that
Speaker 1: I mean you look lot of leisure travel, but leisure
Speaker 1: business business. Is that something that's a few years off
Speaker 1: to getting back to normal. Yeah. On business, I think
Speaker 1: there's there's a very different discussion. I mean the the
Speaker 1: on business. We don't expect that business travel will go
Speaker 1: back to where it was coming from. And the key
Speaker 1: reason is that, UM we are all shifting a lot
Speaker 1: more towards remote work, and when you do remote work,
Speaker 1: you do accept that you can be very productive without
Speaker 1: being in the same room. And that also has an
Speaker 1: implication on how many business meetings and how many business
Speaker 1: trips you need to do, both internally within your company
Speaker 1: but also externally. So UM I do expect the business
Speaker 1: travel recovery to follow a similar pattern then in the
Speaker 1: last couple of crisis, but not to reach the same
Speaker 1: level that we've seen before. They structural change when it
Speaker 1: comes to visibility. I think you guys have said that
Speaker 1: you anticipate I think maybe your CFO had said that
Speaker 1: you're going to be down about this year in terms
Speaker 1: of revenue compared to that's pretty much. That's it, right,
Speaker 1: It feels about it feels about rate unfortunately. I mean therefore,
Speaker 1: for the remainder of the year, you cannot really expect
Speaker 1: that much. I'm Europe is pretty much UM and a
Speaker 1: complete stands still UM. In the southern hemisphere there there
Speaker 1: is some summer activity and also quite something quite strong
Speaker 1: summer activity, and the US I think is somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: With the rising and factions. It's it will be a
Speaker 1: bit up to the reaction of the government how to
Speaker 1: how to control the situation and what that will that
Speaker 1: mean for the travel activity. But yeah, we don't expect
Speaker 1: any any significant business for the remain of the year.
Speaker 1: So when you say local travel and which is what
Speaker 1: you were already seeing, I knew We've talked about that
Speaker 1: before and you expect more of that. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that in particular, again, like the type of trips I
Speaker 1: know we've talked with lots of individuals to about, you know,
Speaker 1: things like hiking in parks, like you know, places where
Speaker 1: people felt spread out. We're certainly in demand. Is it
Speaker 1: that type of traveling that you think continues to be
Speaker 1: in demand? Absolutely? So for the summer. What we've seen
Speaker 1: this year is that whenever the situation was under control
Speaker 1: and and and there was a general sentiment that is
Speaker 1: safe to travel, the first trips that that really picked up.
Speaker 1: We're nature destinations, so that the coast or the mountains,
Speaker 1: and and trips where that you would typically classify as
Speaker 1: as vacations to relax rather than cultural trips. UM. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, we we do think that in the
Speaker 1: second half of next year there will also be some
Speaker 1: return off city trips where you're more focused on activity,
Speaker 1: going to the museum, to the opera, or just going
Speaker 1: to nice restaurants. But for summer um it it's clear
Speaker 1: that that and I think this yearly or next year
Speaker 1: the need might be even greater because we will come
Speaker 1: out of a longer difficult situation to just get arrest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that pent up demand, man, I can't even wait to
Speaker 1: take a trip. Um Talk to me. I want to
Speaker 1: switch gears a little bit, but talk to me about
Speaker 1: the Google European Union antitrust case, because you guys have
Speaker 1: been involved and you have been part of the group
Speaker 1: of tech companies who have written to the EU competition
Speaker 1: chief and talked about Google and that how they favor
Speaker 1: their own services in web searches. Talked to us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that and your concerns here. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's a very interesting topic with
Speaker 1: the European Commissioner has looked into various practices of some
Speaker 1: of these mega platforms for quite some time. But from
Speaker 1: my perspective, what has changed over the last that's only
Speaker 1: the last year, but but but for sure over the
Speaker 1: last two to three years, is that there seems to
Speaker 1: be now general consensus even globally amongst pretty much all
Speaker 1: the tech companies that UM, these mega platforms are getting
Speaker 1: too powerful and and that they are leveraging their control
Speaker 1: over certain stages in the overall value chain to to
Speaker 1: then dominate UM subsequent activities and subsequent products and UM.
Speaker 1: If you if you look at Google specifically UM in
Speaker 1: the European Union, they have more than market share in
Speaker 1: general search and UM. They expand their value add of
Speaker 1: the over all ecosystem by adding more and more products
Speaker 1: that are displayed in a favorable way UM versus competing products.
Speaker 1: And for us specifically, that has been the hotel search product,
Speaker 1: I mean hotels. Hotel price comparison is something that was
Speaker 1: innovated by by Travago and invented by us UM. But
Speaker 1: over the last couple of years, the visibility of the
Speaker 1: competing products has been increased quite significantly. UM. And if
Speaker 1: you just compare how our ads on Google are displayed
Speaker 1: and how the Google tell Finder is displayed, you can
Speaker 1: see that it is factor six or seven times bigger
Speaker 1: and much more appealing in the display. And UM that
Speaker 1: that is that is I think very tangible example. UM
Speaker 1: how how they are really leveraging their control over one
Speaker 1: UM one product into another. That's actual heat for CEO
Speaker 1: of the online travel platform Travago. That wraps up the
Speaker 1: first hour of the weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser. More ahead in our
Speaker 1: next hour, including the global pandemic, giving a boost to
Speaker 1: the fifteen minutes City plus line stop, maybe venture capitalist
Speaker 1: Susan Lyne on the COVID trends that will leave their mark,
Speaker 1: and doubling down on toys during the shutdown with Mattel's President,
Speaker 1: and finally art imitating life in the new HBO drama
Speaker 1: series Industry. That's all coming up on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Pierrol
Speaker 1: Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol mass are coming
Speaker 1: up in our second hour of the weekend edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. Highlights from our daily radio show and podcast,
Speaker 1: including stories in the magazine and some of our favorite interviews.
Speaker 1: That includes this hour venture capitalist and former president of
Speaker 1: ABC Entertainment Susan Lyne on the venture capital scene, tale
Speaker 1: of two cities during the pandemic. Also another business that
Speaker 1: gets a boost during COVID nineteen. We talked toys with
Speaker 1: Mattel's president and to London bankers skip out on finance
Speaker 1: to create a new HBO drama series, Industry Let's Get Things.
Speaker 1: Star did this hour with a recent story in the
Speaker 1: magazine that coincided with the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. The forum,
Speaker 1: which I mentioned last hour, is all about building a
Speaker 1: better future and the global cooperation needed to do it.
Speaker 1: That includes building stronger cities and keeping with that, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: City Lab reporter Laura Bliss explored what's known as the
Speaker 1: fifteen Minutes City. Here's more from Laura and Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week editor Jill Weber. It really fulfills sort of the
Speaker 1: urbanization pillar that of any f um, there's several pillar
Speaker 1: pillars and that's that's what this one falls in. And
Speaker 1: it's this idea that I think has really become um
Speaker 1: uh caught on with urban planners in certain cities around
Speaker 1: the world that what if you could live in a
Speaker 1: in a city where everything that you needed in your
Speaker 1: daily daily life, from your job, to your kids school,
Speaker 1: to where you get your groceries, etcetera, etcetera, was basically
Speaker 1: in a fifteen minute radius of your front door. Um.
Speaker 1: And once you do that, you know, you don't have commute,
Speaker 1: so you don't have cars, and it's can sort of
Speaker 1: totally transform uh quality of life as well. And that
Speaker 1: idea is when that boy, it sounds really appealing to
Speaker 1: me at least, Um and Laura, I'm curious, how is
Speaker 1: this taking shape around the world. Yeah, thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for having me um and just smiling listening
Speaker 1: to you praise the article. Joel, So thank you so
Speaker 1: much for that. Um, it was really fun to work on.
Speaker 1: So this is, you know, a fifteen minute city as
Speaker 1: you've been describing it, right, I mean, it's it's really
Speaker 1: not a totally new idea, right, I mean I think
Speaker 1: we can think back to how cities were laid out
Speaker 1: before the twentieth century brought us the automobile and zoning code,
Speaker 1: which you know, divided up our cities into different kinds
Speaker 1: of zones and you know, put a lot of residential
Speaker 1: neighborhoods pretty far away from commercial districts and you know,
Speaker 1: shopping districts and so forth. You know, in the past,
Speaker 1: what you could walk to was was what was around you,
Speaker 1: right UM. And so in some ways this is an
Speaker 1: idea to sort of return to that time. UM. And
Speaker 1: there our cities like Paris, you know, Barcelona, Milan, European
Speaker 1: cities that sort of he a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: that older model that UM have actually been working on
Speaker 1: this for for some time. UM. And also here in
Speaker 1: the US, Portland, Oregon is one example of the city
Speaker 1: that's really been working on what it calls complete neighborhoods
Speaker 1: where you have your shopping, your library, your health services,
Speaker 1: your daycare, your your school, you know, within a fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty minute walk or bike rider or transit trip. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think it's really kind of taken
Speaker 1: off this year, partly because of the pandemic which which
Speaker 1: I'd be happy to talk about more. Well, and let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. I have to say it sounds utopian.
Speaker 1: I think you say that it is utopian in many
Speaker 1: ways in your story, but in because of the pandemic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: use that as a backdrop and how we are thinking
Speaker 1: about this kind of concept for basically urban living and
Speaker 1: maybe not just urban living um, but even kind of
Speaker 1: smaller cities or more modern cities. That's right, I mean
Speaker 1: it is. It is a pretty significant departure from that
Speaker 1: the recent past, where you know, certainly here in the
Speaker 1: United States, I think we can we can also relate
Speaker 1: to that the model, or at least outside of New York, right,
Speaker 1: almost any kind of trick you're you're getting in your car,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think the average actually like US
Speaker 1: trip is something like ten miles um, you know, whether
Speaker 1: you're going to work or or just to grocery shop
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be. So this is a really
Speaker 1: different kind of idea for for that model of city.
Speaker 1: And indeed it is pretty utopian when you think of
Speaker 1: how far cities will have to go and like how
Speaker 1: many you know, decades of infrastructure investment that really will
Speaker 1: have to be unearthed to create cities that are more
Speaker 1: in this kind of European walkable model. So I want
Speaker 1: to bring up you know, you say utopia, and that
Speaker 1: also makes me think of the flip side, which is
Speaker 1: like for every you know, urban planning that had great
Speaker 1: intentions that also can often lead behind um um disadvantaged communities.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering how, how how that conversation is happening,
Speaker 1: um as you know, cities wrestled with this trend. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think the two main criticisms here are
Speaker 1: exactly what you're pointing, Fugele. I mean, if you have
Speaker 1: a deminute city, and that means you know, you can
Speaker 1: walk or bike to your favorite cafe, your favorite library,
Speaker 1: maybe even a coworking space whatever it may be, within
Speaker 1: you know, a really short distance of your home. Well,
Speaker 1: the question is who who is actually staffing? Um? You
Speaker 1: know those those nice cafes and grocery stores and so forth.
Speaker 1: Um are those people who are living in your neighborhood?
Speaker 1: And what if you live in a fairly high income neighborhood, Um,
Speaker 1: how how likely is that that you know everyone who's
Speaker 1: going to be kind of staffing and bolstering the economy
Speaker 1: in this kind of micro cosmic city that we're talking about, Um,
Speaker 1: are are actually able to live in that area? And
Speaker 1: so the question is then, you know, it is the
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes city kind of neglecting to think about transit systems,
Speaker 1: right that actually do succeed in moving people, moving commuters
Speaker 1: across large distances and cities and actually supply a really
Speaker 1: essential service in that respect. So how how does that
Speaker 1: How has the idea of fifteen minute city rustle with
Speaker 1: the realities of climate and climate change. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: really good question. Um, I mean I think I do
Speaker 1: think it. That's that question becomes especially interesting disc year
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, as we see cities all over the
Speaker 1: world grapple with this exact question of how are we
Speaker 1: going to keep our you know, sidewalk dining uh and
Speaker 1: like slow streets. Uh. They're I'm referring to how a
Speaker 1: lot of cities in the US have actually shut down, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, street street states for chrs to make way
Speaker 1: for fikes and pedestrians and perhaps increasingly all of this
Speaker 1: making way for the global cities of the future. That's
Speaker 1: Laura Bliss, reporter for Bloomberg City Lab along with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business editor Jill Weber, Well, innovation, Well, it's happening in
Speaker 1: our global cities, so too in our world at large.
Speaker 1: That from venture capitalist and former president of ABC Entertainment
Speaker 1: Susan Lyne. She's coming up next. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with GARYL. Masser from Bloomberg Radio. This week we
Speaker 1: welcome back venture capitalist Susan Line, whose professional background includes publishing,
Speaker 1: multimedia and of course venture capital. She's former president of
Speaker 1: ABC Entertainment, ran Martha Stewart, Omni Media, oversaw a o
Speaker 1: L dot Com, also Movie Phone. She also, of course
Speaker 1: today is president of the company she founded, BBG Ventures,
Speaker 1: and she, like the rest of us, saw a world
Speaker 1: like no other this past spring. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: other parts of the the finance industry, the VC ecosystem
Speaker 1: went um went quiet for a couple of months, I
Speaker 1: would say, from mid March to let's call it May.
Speaker 1: UM with most funds, most people who were either LPs
Speaker 1: and funds or who were directly investing in companies um uh.
Speaker 1: Everybody went internal and and essentially spend time looking at
Speaker 1: their portfolios um making sure that that the companies they
Speaker 1: were backing, We're gonna have enough capital to get through
Speaker 1: the worst of this. I think everybody, including BBG Ventures,
Speaker 1: spend time with each of our portfolio companies UM, and
Speaker 1: the message was pretty clear. Put together a plan that
Speaker 1: assumes you are not going to be able to raise
Speaker 1: any capital for the rest of the year. UM. And
Speaker 1: a lot of companies ended up well, everyone ended up
Speaker 1: cutting their their projections for the year. A lot of
Speaker 1: companies ended up doing risks of varying sizes UM and Uh,
Speaker 1: actually the investing really came back I won't say completely,
Speaker 1: but uh but quite strongly UM in the late spring,
Speaker 1: and it's been going strongly ever since. Well do you
Speaker 1: feel like that doesn't mean there aren't companies that have
Speaker 1: been deeply impacted by this, and we can talk about
Speaker 1: that well and forgive me, Yeah, continue along that because
Speaker 1: I am wondering how what's happened, you know, does either
Speaker 1: impact you know, your thoughts on some of maybe your investments,
Speaker 1: or just it's just companies that just aren't going to
Speaker 1: make it through. UM. There are definitely companies that are
Speaker 1: not going to make it through. Yeah, no question about that.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's it's really sort of a tale to
Speaker 1: sit right. There are some companies that have had incredible
Speaker 1: tail winds as a result of of UH the pandemic UM,
Speaker 1: and some of those are you know, fairly obvious. At
Speaker 1: tech has been a huge arena UM. Certainly companies that
Speaker 1: were enabling telehealth. UM. We have a mental health startup
Speaker 1: that has been UH certainly accelerated by by UH by
Speaker 1: covid UM not for positive reasons, but but certainly the
Speaker 1: services are are needed now more than ever. UM. And
Speaker 1: anybody who was involved in UH in work from home. Right,
Speaker 1: So if if you were enabling companies to continue working
Speaker 1: because you were doing teleconferencing or anything to do with UH,
Speaker 1: with virtual teams, UM, those companies have done extraordinarily well. UM.
Speaker 1: And certainly some aspects of e commerce continued to be
Speaker 1: very strong. UM. And I'm leaving out Amazon and the
Speaker 1: the obvious b mus here but UH. But certainly UM
Speaker 1: people have taken advantage in larger numbers of the ability
Speaker 1: to order online than to get things delivered. And we
Speaker 1: were talking about you know what companies you know, and
Speaker 1: how this whole environment, Susan maybe changes things longer term,
Speaker 1: and you talked about a talent of two cities. You
Speaker 1: were talking about telemedicine, you were talking about e commerce. Yeah, so, UM,
Speaker 1: I think one of the most interesting things to come
Speaker 1: out of all of this is how quickly people adopted
Speaker 1: new behaviors, right, So, I think we we sometimes assume
Speaker 1: that the change is slow, that that people have sort
Speaker 1: of ingrained habits and it's going to take a decade
Speaker 1: for any real movement to take place. But there were
Speaker 1: several really interesting things you could point to that that
Speaker 1: occurred over the past six eight months. UM. One was
Speaker 1: definitely the acceptance of telehealth. So last year, I think
Speaker 1: about eleven percent of of people had tried telehealth. By
Speaker 1: June or July of this year, it was up to
Speaker 1: forty six percent of all consumers. And uh, now we're
Speaker 1: hearing that of those people who who were were adopting
Speaker 1: telehealth during this period planned to keep using it after COVID,
Speaker 1: so they discovered that they could actually get a lot
Speaker 1: done safe time, maybe saved some money by using telehealth. UM.
Speaker 1: Another area where we saw real change is UM was
Speaker 1: in brand loyalties. So seven or seven percent of consumers
Speaker 1: are using new channels to shop and they're buying new brands.
Speaker 1: Now some of that was uh was actually forced by
Speaker 1: the fact that maybe their their favorite brand was was
Speaker 1: not available. But again they are saying when you you
Speaker 1: survey them now, they say they're going to stick with
Speaker 1: this new buying behavior of post covid um and that
Speaker 1: opens up a ton of opportunity for you know, new
Speaker 1: consumer product companies to really um, really innovate. Well, so,
Speaker 1: then how much do you think we heard that we
Speaker 1: held the Bloomberg New Economy for him last week and
Speaker 1: each day was a different vertical and on the vertical
Speaker 1: that was climate. Alan Job of UNI Lever was on
Speaker 1: and he talked about jen zennials, which wasn't a term
Speaker 1: I had hurt yet, and he basically said, listen, if
Speaker 1: you have a brand, you know it's not gen X,
Speaker 1: gen y millennials. Do you need to think about Gen
Speaker 1: zennials the ones that are going to be your future
Speaker 1: consumers for decades to come, and they care about things
Speaker 1: like your impact on the environment. They are going to
Speaker 1: determine how they shop based on who you are as
Speaker 1: a brand. And I do feel like I don't know
Speaker 1: that something is really changing, and I know I look
Speaker 1: at things like that. I know my seventeen year old
Speaker 1: definitely looks at things like that, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: how that shapes what you guys do in terms of
Speaker 1: investing and how you look at the world. Absolutely accurate,
Speaker 1: and it has, uh, it has become a real focus
Speaker 1: for us. You know, we've had we've had a focus
Speaker 1: on gen Z for a couple of years now, largely
Speaker 1: because I've been through enough generational shifts to know that
Speaker 1: when uh, new generation becomes the dominant consumer, um, they
Speaker 1: want their own brands. Man, that is so true. Just
Speaker 1: ask my seventeen year old daughter and avid consumer. They
Speaker 1: think differently about brands that Susan Lyne, founder and president
Speaker 1: of BBG Ventures. All right, coming up, speaking of new ventures,
Speaker 1: the seventy five year old toymaker mattel It recently launched
Speaker 1: a new platform. We get details from mattel president Richard Dixon.
Speaker 1: That's coming up next on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We'll check it out. Decorations are going up, yep. The
Speaker 1: holidays are here. And one company that's synonymous with the holidays,
Speaker 1: it's Mattel. It is now in its seventy five year.
Speaker 1: It recently launched a new platform called Mattel Creations. Mattel
Speaker 1: President and chief operating Officer Richard Dixon dropped by to
Speaker 1: talk about it virtually, of course, and to talk toys
Speaker 1: which check this out, are being snapped up big time
Speaker 1: in the COVID shutdown. The good news, as we try
Speaker 1: and find it in today's you know, uh, challenging times,
Speaker 1: is that families are obviously spending a lot more time
Speaker 1: together result to obviously, you know, the pandemic, and in
Speaker 1: fact it's reinforced the importance of play and toys. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole toy industry has continued to search.
Speaker 1: We had a great third quarter overall in the industry,
Speaker 1: and we're incredibly proud of Mattel's performance, which outpaced actually
Speaker 1: the overall market. We've been gaining share and ultimately really
Speaker 1: obviously responding to our consumers and providing the right toys
Speaker 1: and the right assets, if you will, to occupy during
Speaker 1: these challenging times at home. What have you seen in
Speaker 1: terms of trends in terms of the types of purchases
Speaker 1: people are buying from. From my understanding, people were buying barbies,
Speaker 1: they were buying hot wheels. What what were people buying?
Speaker 1: Were there any interesting trends that you noticed in the buying? Yeah, well, certainly. Again,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, the whole industry was up. Almost all
Speaker 1: categories posted growth and within the Within the industry, of course,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, Mattel is leading and in our portfolio,
Speaker 1: we've just had, you know, enormous success with of course,
Speaker 1: categories like dolls. You know, Barbie has had an incredible
Speaker 1: run for the year. Uh, you know, great great increases,
Speaker 1: terrific new product reflecting obviously diversity and inclusivity, great new toys.
Speaker 1: The game's piece of our business has also been incredibly successful,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously families spending time at home using games
Speaker 1: as a way to occupy their time. You know, the
Speaker 1: number one card game in the United States. I love you,
Speaker 1: you know, can I just say love it? Love it?
Speaker 1: Love it? Right? We love hearing that, and many many
Speaker 1: other people do love you. You know. In fact, um
Speaker 1: Uno is going to be celebrating it's fiftieth year, if
Speaker 1: you can imagine that next year, which we've got a
Speaker 1: lot of excitement and new new product coming. To keep
Speaker 1: those new fans going, we play kind of a hubo
Speaker 1: un version at the beach. My brother has created a
Speaker 1: version that's just ramped up and it's just a riot.
Speaker 1: We played for hours. So, um, that's good to hear
Speaker 1: fifty fifty years. So I do wonder, Richard, do you
Speaker 1: anticipate that the trends that you're seeing, Because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about the holidays and I'm thinking it's been a rough year,
Speaker 1: and you know, I wanted to be a good holiday season.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be around a lot of family, um,
Speaker 1: And I do wonder what you anticipate for the holiday season. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, um that the toy shopping, as we
Speaker 1: see at the outlook for the fourth quarters is strong.
Speaker 1: In fact, toy shopping has already been planned earlier than
Speaker 1: last year. And with the um you know, surge with
Speaker 1: online and e commerce, the ability to shop early is
Speaker 1: more enticing than ever. Uh. You know, our research shows
Speaker 1: almost shoppers planned to start holiday shopping even even just
Speaker 1: before November. And obviously we're already in November, and with
Speaker 1: everything that's going on with the pandemic, some families are
Speaker 1: actually planning on making these holidays, you know, truly extra
Speaker 1: special for their kids. It's it's been a really challenging year.
Speaker 1: Uh four kids in many in many aspects, and I
Speaker 1: think parents are recognizing, you know that the simple rewards
Speaker 1: of toys and and fun. So there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of uh I think excitement around the industry and certainly
Speaker 1: in the Mattel portfolio for the fourth quarter. Have you well,
Speaker 1: what's your supply chain been like during this process? You know,
Speaker 1: it's an asset for Mattel. You know, we we have
Speaker 1: an incredible group of dedicated people and facilities around the
Speaker 1: world that have been working tires lee certainly under the
Speaker 1: current you know, restrictions that have been in place in
Speaker 1: verous different places, but ultimately working to supply the demand.
Speaker 1: You know, given that there's been such a great surge
Speaker 1: uh in the industry and in particular for our brands
Speaker 1: and toys, our supply chain has been working incredibly well.
Speaker 1: And as you know, in any business, it's about execution,
Speaker 1: and our execution has been really, really terrific. It's been
Speaker 1: a great year of excellence in performance driven metrics for
Speaker 1: the company. So in any kind of so, I found
Speaker 1: that fascinating your supply chain, like so any of the
Speaker 1: manufacturing that was needed to be done, Um, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: a lot of it happens outside the United States. None
Speaker 1: of that stopped. Well, you know, we certainly had gaps,
Speaker 1: but if you look at when the timing of the
Speaker 1: most restrictions based on where our facilities were, primarily in Asia,
Speaker 1: that really took place um at the end of last
Speaker 1: year and in fact the beginning of this year, if
Speaker 1: you were called January in February, and and in terms
Speaker 1: of production, the slow side of our business where we
Speaker 1: really ramp up in production is UH in UH in
Speaker 1: the start of the second half, where restrictions were lifted
Speaker 1: and we were able to resume much of the workforce
Speaker 1: and UH and working patterns. And that's a reminder of
Speaker 1: how COVID differentiated when it came to businesses. Some were
Speaker 1: definitely hurt during the pandemic, others actually got a boost.
Speaker 1: That's Mattel President and CEO Richard Dixon. Well, from creating
Speaker 1: toys that kids love to creating content that we adults want.
Speaker 1: We check in with the creators behind a new HBO
Speaker 1: drama series. It's right up the alley of our Bloomberg audience,
Speaker 1: straight ahead on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg, This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We're gonna wrap up this week with something that seems
Speaker 1: just about perfect for a Bloomberg Business Week listeners. It's
Speaker 1: about a new apart series set in a fictional investment
Speaker 1: bank in London. It was released on HBO earlier this month.
Speaker 1: Created by two former British bankers, it's pilot was directed
Speaker 1: and executive produced by Lena Dunham. It is called Industry
Speaker 1: and Full Transparency. The Bloomberg Terminal Well, it's got a
Speaker 1: recurring role in this series. We headed to the UK
Speaker 1: to check in with Mickey Down and Conrad k writers,
Speaker 1: co creators and executive producers of the new series. We
Speaker 1: met at university where we did like basically nothing. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were supposed to be there to work and we
Speaker 1: we just made each other laugh quite a lot. We
Speaker 1: worked a little bit by the end and you know,
Speaker 1: we got You got to the end and you're doing
Speaker 1: the finals and you think, well, I need to get
Speaker 1: a job because everyone needs to have one. And you
Speaker 1: look around and particularly everyone had a job in banking assumed.
Speaker 1: So it was a mixture of fear and peer pressure
Speaker 1: that pushed us into that world. Um and Conrad's fathers
Speaker 1: and banking as well, so maybe there's a little bit
Speaker 1: familiable pressure, but we know after yeah, you come out
Speaker 1: and you have that pressure and then you you just
Speaker 1: I mean I would speak personally. After about a year,
Speaker 1: I realized I was very ill suited to it, but
Speaker 1: I sort of liked the world. They're like this sort
Speaker 1: of the weird, the sort of the paraphernalia of the place,
Speaker 1: and Conrads had been there for morng Stannard for three
Speaker 1: years when I started trying to pull them out of
Speaker 1: it and say, come on, let's right together. And the
Speaker 1: first thing we wrote together actually was a banking based
Speaker 1: script which was more of a cathartic exercise for us,
Speaker 1: and it was a very good at all, but it
Speaker 1: sort of wasn't an opportunity for us to see if
Speaker 1: we could write together. And then we sort of put
Speaker 1: that aside for a bit, and then we were doing
Speaker 1: some other staff we were developing other TV shows, and
Speaker 1: then we met this producer called Jane Tranter, who's the
Speaker 1: head of the company Bad Wolf, who made industry actually said,
Speaker 1: you know, have you ever thought about writing something said
Speaker 1: in the World and Finance, because obviously you guys were
Speaker 1: in there. We said, yeah, we have and it wasn't
Speaker 1: very we wasn't very good at all. She said, well,
Speaker 1: have you thought about writing from the respective of the
Speaker 1: perspective of the people right at the bottom, which is
Speaker 1: you guys? And thought, okay, well, actually that's probably a
Speaker 1: better idea than a derivative version of Wall Street, which
Speaker 1: is what we were trying to do before. And that
Speaker 1: was sort of what unlocked the whole thing for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, we wanted to write at that time,
Speaker 1: we were we were much younger, so we wanted to
Speaker 1: write of mid mid twenties relationship show, characters driven relationship show,
Speaker 1: and it was it was a way of doing that,
Speaker 1: but said in an ecosystem in the world that we
Speaker 1: could we we thought we could render very authentically. I
Speaker 1: don't get into those relationships, but I'm curious, Um, Conrad,
Speaker 1: did you not like the world of banking as much
Speaker 1: as Mickey didn't? Um? I struggled with it, really, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was the thing about that thing about the industry
Speaker 1: is you're you're kind of you, You're you're forced. Especially
Speaker 1: basically I was doing a kind of like a role
Speaker 1: between research and sales at an American in pescent bank,
Speaker 1: and then I was forcing into American exity sales um
Speaker 1: and I what I realized very quickly is that I
Speaker 1: had to basically pick up the phone and speak to
Speaker 1: people about stocks that they'd been they've owned for like
Speaker 1: ten fifty and twenty years. I'm supposed to tell them
Speaker 1: something new and interesting and give them a bit of
Speaker 1: edge to invest in these stocks. And then you you know,
Speaker 1: they had a sound academic knowledge and I basically was
Speaker 1: just reading a research and I'm parking to them, and
Speaker 1: I felt super out of my depth, and I felt
Speaker 1: super uncomfortable calling them because I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: even though I had a very good um research department
Speaker 1: above me, I just felt I felt I felt very insecure.
Speaker 1: It was like, so it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: you have to imagine calling up an expert and telling
Speaker 1: them preclaiming that you have an edge on something that
Speaker 1: they know everything about, and then just trying to bluff
Speaker 1: your way through. I just, I don't know, I felt
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable doing it. So I wasn't very good at it,
Speaker 1: and probably that's probably why I got fired. But what's
Speaker 1: really fascinating, and I've been reading about this about the
Speaker 1: series as well, is that you know, you really have
Speaker 1: a diverse cast and when I think, forgive me, um,
Speaker 1: but most people would agree that when I think about
Speaker 1: the financial community, certainly here in the United States, it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel very diverse and nicky. It feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: is that how it is in London. It's weird. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a mixture because we we wanted to
Speaker 1: write from a sort of unexpected advantage points the show,
Speaker 1: and obviously that's what led us to writing from through
Speaker 1: the device of the people coming out into it for
Speaker 1: the first time, you know, the grads, But we also
Speaker 1: just wanted it wasn't very cynical. We wanted the great
Speaker 1: characters that you wouldn't have, you said, expected in that world,
Speaker 1: where that's the way, that's the way, and that would
Speaker 1: be that would be the most interesting that shared. I
Speaker 1: mean like, I worked a really sort of quite blue blooded,
Speaker 1: very old investment bank in lots of the European firm
Speaker 1: and my my, my, my sort of direct line manager
Speaker 1: was a black French women. So I felt like and
Speaker 1: you know, there were there was a long one was diversity,
Speaker 1: and I think these places that get credit for and contracting, well,
Speaker 1: I mean like trading flows or they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they sell themselves as meritocracies, and you know,
Speaker 1: we can pick whether that's true or not as to
Speaker 1: the cow's going to have come home. But I think
Speaker 1: they are quite international places, so you do get a
Speaker 1: quite diverse range of people. So one thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to get into with you guys is how much all right,
Speaker 1: let me take a step back. I've talked with the
Speaker 1: creators and the folks behind Billions, and they really tapped
Speaker 1: into the financial community, talked with hedge fund guys and
Speaker 1: and individuals to really kind of put as much reality
Speaker 1: into the show. So how much of your own kind
Speaker 1: of world? How often do you, you know, call up
Speaker 1: somebody within the financial community and it'say, I need a
Speaker 1: couple of stories just so that you can, you know,
Speaker 1: you could include it in the series. And I just wonder, Conrad,
Speaker 1: let me start with you, how much of that may
Speaker 1: be kind of made its way on screen? No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously quite a lot. I mean, between me
Speaker 1: and Mickey, we have i'd say four years in the
Speaker 1: industry ourselves, so a lot of the ways people talk
Speaker 1: to each other and you know, certain cadences of the
Speaker 1: language and and the jargon was very very important to us,
Speaker 1: like I mean, me and Mickey big fans of any
Speaker 1: kind of films that feel a bit inside baseball, and
Speaker 1: so so as to come to you know, having experienced
Speaker 1: the world, to not do a version of it that
Speaker 1: felt very specific and very authentic would have just been
Speaker 1: to do a disservice. Um. So we felt confident writing
Speaker 1: the way people speak to each other and the way
Speaker 1: traders talk to sales people sells. These people thought to traders.
Speaker 1: But then in terms of the actual storylines, obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: there were their aspects of it which we we brought
Speaker 1: to ourselves, but in terms of the kind of the
Speaker 1: wider making sure every things checked out, I mean, we
Speaker 1: know we have a very big episode in episode for
Speaker 1: where are, one of our lead characters makes a mistake
Speaker 1: around a um a sort of you know, a dollar
Speaker 1: she has she's running a long dollar stiling position into
Speaker 1: into non farm payrolls. And you know, that was stuff
Speaker 1: that we didn't feel very comfortable modeling or even beating
Speaker 1: out in terms of stories. So we had a couple
Speaker 1: of consultants, Yeah, exactly right, and we had a. We
Speaker 1: had a consultantly worked in UM Foreign Exchange of JP
Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan's family who sort of worked on the
Speaker 1: show with us, who was a former managing director there
Speaker 1: and he basically, you know, just you know, it was
Speaker 1: very important to us to not only get the story
Speaker 1: beats right between her covering her trading error with like
Speaker 1: back office and stuff like that, but also making sure
Speaker 1: that when we were doing all the price action on
Speaker 1: the bluebook screens, that the director happened to be filming
Speaker 1: on the day, that all of the price action was
Speaker 1: modeled correctly, and that the you know, the guys who
Speaker 1: are working on all the graphics on our on our
Speaker 1: side from a production point of view, knew exactly what
Speaker 1: they were doing because Linda gets parted up with us.
Speaker 1: But we were really you know, we were Adam and
Speaker 1: that whatever wherever the camera was on the floor on
Speaker 1: the day was picking up stuff to start really incredible
Speaker 1: to the trading floor, and that all just came from
Speaker 1: me and Nicky working very closely with her consultants. Had
Speaker 1: been an industry for twenty years, right, full disclosure. The
Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal does UM maybe not the storing role, but
Speaker 1: we think it's a storing role in the series. But
Speaker 1: but listen, no, you know, Mickey, this is so true.
Speaker 1: Like we talk about it when we watch something that's
Speaker 1: you know, a drama on the financial industry, like oh man,
Speaker 1: they got that so wrong, or they're like they were
Speaker 1: spot on. I mean, getting the authenticity into it. It
Speaker 1: really makes a difference at Mickey and telling the story absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean it was a watchword for us the entire time.
Speaker 1: We just kept saying, we want to be as authentic, authentic,
Speaker 1: authentic as possible, you know. I mean, like one of
Speaker 1: the things me and Conrad said when we were trying
Speaker 1: to sort of work out with a bit or star
Speaker 1: of the show was at one point you said, and
Speaker 1: we wanted it to feel like if you just brought
Speaker 1: a camera into a training floor, which I think might
Speaker 1: have been slightly less interesting what we've come up with.
Speaker 1: But I mean in terms of like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: because obviously we've got amazing from Bloomberg to give us
Speaker 1: all their their equipment, and like we we had amazing consultants.
Speaker 1: But you know, me and Conrad now the business for
Speaker 1: ten years, maybe seven years, and we needed to speak
Speaker 1: to people who have been in it now. So we
Speaker 1: actually did also speak to we have we've got lots
Speaker 1: of peers and friends from university that is still in it.
Speaker 1: And then we also we spec to people, you know,
Speaker 1: we spec to sort of first second year analysts at
Speaker 1: places to see actually what is um? What is the
Speaker 1: attitude to it through it now? Like who's what kind
Speaker 1: of person is going into finance? What is the what
Speaker 1: are they hoping to get from it? Is that? So
Speaker 1: are the smartists brains from university going to it or
Speaker 1: are they going to tech or what are what sort
Speaker 1: of Yeah, what is the what are the attitudes towards
Speaker 1: and what is it? And the people who are not
Speaker 1: in it, um, what is their attitude to you when
Speaker 1: you decide, when you decide when you say you're going
Speaker 1: into it? So like we need we did. We didn't
Speaker 1: really sort of have to speak the sort of gen
Speaker 1: Z recruit. The main reason we wrote it actually was
Speaker 1: nothing to do with finance. It was to do with
Speaker 1: the five characters and of we are the inception for
Speaker 1: the show, And it sounds like a bit of the cliche,
Speaker 1: but it was always about it was a character drama
Speaker 1: before it was a workplace drama and was about the
Speaker 1: five people who are entering this world. And the only
Speaker 1: reason this shows to us was interesting and maybe probably
Speaker 1: to the an average view would be interesting, is it
Speaker 1: was it was about an outside of lens on a
Speaker 1: very insidery exclusive world and the world that people think
Speaker 1: they know that we we've literally picked five characters in
Speaker 1: the outset is follow that from some were sunburnt of
Speaker 1: an outsider, either on a socio economic level, or agenda level,
Speaker 1: or a racial level. And that was the only reason
Speaker 1: that it became interesting. Just another example of art imitating life.
Speaker 1: That's Mickey down and carrade k, writer's co creators and
Speaker 1: executive producers of the new HBO drama series Industry. And
Speaker 1: that wraps up the weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Thinks so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: Carol Masser. Be sure to tune in daily to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall
Speaker 1: Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also hear more
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Speaker 1: director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He's
Speaker 1: got a new book. It's called The China Nightmare, The
Speaker 1: Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State. That book kicks off
Speaker 1: with this sentence. The geopolitics of the twenty one century
Speaker 1: will be defined by an intensifying strategic rivalry between the
Speaker 1: People's Republic of China and the United States over the
Speaker 1: future of the world order. Some great weekend reading Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Have a safe weekend, everyone, Happy Holidays. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg