Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Now, I want to
Speaker 1: bring in Phil Orlando. You probably know him, the chief
Speaker 1: equity market strategist and head of client portfolio management that
Speaker 1: federated hermes Um. Phil, you have a couple of decades
Speaker 1: at least of experience in these markets, and I wonder
Speaker 1: what you think about where we are right now, because
Speaker 1: it feels frothy, it feels um toppy, but so many
Speaker 1: people are still incredibly bullish this equity market. Well, um,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 1: It's four decades of experience, so I've got plenty of
Speaker 1: gray here and I've seen obviously more than a couple
Speaker 1: of cycles. Um. Interesting question, because we were down about
Speaker 1: four percent or so from the middle of February into
Speaker 1: I guess it was last Friday, and the concern was
Speaker 1: that the federal reserves, accommodative policies were leading to inflationary pressures. Uh.
Speaker 1: It really hasn't manifested itself in the core CPI and PC,
Speaker 1: but it's absolutely manifested itself in a lot of the
Speaker 1: nominal metrics. We look at agricultural commodities like corn, wheat
Speaker 1: and soybeans, crude oil, copper, lumber, these prices have gone
Speaker 1: vertical over the last you know, eight or nine months
Speaker 1: as we've come out of you know, the deepest recession
Speaker 1: in history. And and it's it's our feeling. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of folks believe that over time this
Speaker 1: will filter into the core numbers, and they are in
Speaker 1: fact starting to move up. So I think investors took
Speaker 1: you know, four percent of chips off the table over
Speaker 1: the last fortnight or so. And then the question was
Speaker 1: what's going to happen next? Well, the numbers, the data
Speaker 1: is coming in pretty good. And we just saw the
Speaker 1: I s M number for February, UH, strongest number in
Speaker 1: three years. UH. Last week, the personal income and spending
Speaker 1: numbers were very strong. The adorable goods and cap goods
Speaker 1: numbers were very strong. So that the the recession in
Speaker 1: our mind ended last mayor June that that we're in
Speaker 1: this powerful recovery that if anything, is going to be
Speaker 1: enhanced with the sugar high associated with the next iteration
Speaker 1: of fiscal stimulus that that President Biden is looking to
Speaker 1: put on top of this. So as I look out
Speaker 1: over the balance of this year, we think that we're
Speaker 1: we're you know, GDP is probably going to be you know,
Speaker 1: five or six percent or perhaps higher. Sp things pretty good,
Speaker 1: I mean, Bloomberg Bloomberg Intelligence. UM says, I think seven
Speaker 1: point four percent in Q four that's what annual GDP
Speaker 1: is gonna look like. UM, the highest since Night three.
Speaker 1: And the concern, of course, Phil, is that this brings
Speaker 1: with it the inflation that we're starting to see you
Speaker 1: point out in commodities, and that brings UH and about
Speaker 1: face by central banks by the Fed to raise rates.
Speaker 1: And our most read story of the day, UM quotes
Speaker 1: a guy called Sam Cecilia who runs a pension fund
Speaker 1: in Melbourne, Australia. He says that's wrong. He says in
Speaker 1: deflationary forces are bigger in his opinion, and he says
Speaker 1: in five to ten years time, people are gonna look
Speaker 1: back and say we should have bought stocks at twenty
Speaker 1: times earnings. What do you think, Well, I agree that
Speaker 1: we should have bought stocks at twenty times earnings. Last
Speaker 1: March was an awesome by point. You've got treasury yields
Speaker 1: which are still very low. I'm a big seed model guy,
Speaker 1: So the reality is that you should be willing to
Speaker 1: pay twenty to twenty five times earnings given how low
Speaker 1: interest rates are. But but you're the gentleman that you're
Speaker 1: just quoting made a very interesting point that that I
Speaker 1: would like to circle back to. Even though you've got
Speaker 1: these nascent nominal inflation concerns bubbling, you know, out there
Speaker 1: on the horizon, the Federal Reserve is not going to
Speaker 1: address that at any point over the course of this
Speaker 1: calendar year. And and for a reason for that, in
Speaker 1: our view, is just a matter of practicality. J. Powell's
Speaker 1: term as the Federal Reserve chairman expires January of next year,
Speaker 1: and he would very much, in my opinion, like to
Speaker 1: get reappointed. There is zero chance. But he's going to
Speaker 1: scale back quee or begin to come off a zero
Speaker 1: bound funds rate, which potentially would would harm his chances
Speaker 1: of being reappointed by by President Biden. So so this issue.
Speaker 1: Are we're gonna scale back queie and we're gonna start
Speaker 1: to raise interest rates? Might be a twenty two or
Speaker 1: twenty three issue, but it's certainly not a twenty one issue.
Speaker 1: Al Right, Phil, you have been bullish for a long time.
Speaker 1: You have been right for a long time. What's your
Speaker 1: biggest concern in the marketplace here for your bullish call? Well, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the one of the key reasons
Speaker 1: for a bullishness is the fact that we thought we
Speaker 1: would get a series of vaccines that would be efficacious,
Speaker 1: and that the rollout, you know, at roughly a million
Speaker 1: a day, would get us to critical mass and herd
Speaker 1: immunity by the middle of this year. We thought that
Speaker 1: by the time we got to the fourth of July
Speaker 1: Independence Day, we'd be on the other side of this
Speaker 1: thing and could start to begin to normalize the economy.
Speaker 1: But suppose that's wrong, all right, Supposed we stumble on
Speaker 1: the rollout, Suppose these variances that we're seeing out of
Speaker 1: South Africa or the UK render less efficacy with the
Speaker 1: with the vaccines that are out there, and and then
Speaker 1: that throws our thesis into uh into disarray. So we'd
Speaker 1: like to believe that we're on the right path here.
Speaker 1: But but certainly the healthcare related issues are the things
Speaker 1: that probably keep the awakeed night more than anything. Hey, Phili,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: As always again, you've been consistently bullish UH, and you've
Speaker 1: been consistently right, and the folks that invested Federator Hermes
Speaker 1: reaping the benefits. The Phil Phil Orlando, chief equity market
Speaker 1: strategist and head of Client Portfolio manager Management at Federated
Speaker 1: Hermes based in Pittsburgh, p A. When you go to Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: the first stop as to sell side analysts, you've got
Speaker 1: to stop in and see the folks that Federated. They're
Speaker 1: big across asset classes. They see market trends on a
Speaker 1: global scale, and we appreciate having them come on. I
Speaker 1: want to continue our focus right now on UH. On
Speaker 1: what's going on UM from a Bloomberg opinion perspective, in
Speaker 1: terms of President Biden's UM UH sort of melding of
Speaker 1: the polarized America. You know from here in Germany, UM,
Speaker 1: it seems pretty bad and it didn't seem like we'd
Speaker 1: had a real improvement UM. After the after the inauguration.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in Jonathan Bernstein, who's a politics columns to
Speaker 1: talk about what's going on in terms of the healing
Speaker 1: of America. Jonathan, how how do you see, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the state of US health right now? Well? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a situation where the out party, the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: is not accepting a lot of people in the republic wary,
Speaker 1: not accepting the results of the election, and that the
Speaker 1: former president Donald Trump is still you know, claiming without
Speaker 1: any evidence that the election was stolen. So that's a
Speaker 1: you know, that's something that we have not had for
Speaker 1: a long time, and it's dangerous, you know, the the
Speaker 1: idea of a democracy requiring past that at this point.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that was the case, and there
Speaker 1: was this horrible act of violence, um insurrection at Congress,
Speaker 1: but I really haven't heard many people mention it in
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. Aren't we have we moved
Speaker 1: on from that point? Well, you weren't listening them to
Speaker 1: the big conservative meeting over the weekend the Spas where
Speaker 1: where Donald Trump gave a speech, and where most of
Speaker 1: the speeches, you know, kept talking about this mythical election
Speaker 1: fraud and all that kind of thing. So, you know,
Speaker 1: and you need the party for democracy to work, you
Speaker 1: need both parties to accept that elections happen and the
Speaker 1: winner takes office and the loser loses. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the long term, as we're looking at, you know,
Speaker 1: the health of American democracy, it's a real big deal
Speaker 1: that Republicans, a big chunk of Republicans are not accepting
Speaker 1: election results. Now, you know, day to day, does that
Speaker 1: matter on Capitol Hill? Well, you know, Joe Biden is president. Um,
Speaker 1: but in terms of the sort of health of American democracy,
Speaker 1: that's a huge problem going forward, Jonathan. Are there any
Speaker 1: undecided voters in America anymore? Yes, but there sure are
Speaker 1: a lot fewer, you know. Um, if you look at,
Speaker 1: for example, Joe Biden's approval ratings and disapproval ratings UM.
Speaker 1: So far, his approval ratings are basically normal for recent presidents.
Speaker 1: He's around fifty approval UM. That's much better than Trump
Speaker 1: was originally. Uh, it's a little behind where Barack Obama was.
Speaker 1: He was unusually popular. But the other presidents, from saying
Speaker 1: Nixon on it's it's basically they were all in the
Speaker 1: mid fifties give or take at this point. But his
Speaker 1: disapproval rating UM is thirty eight percent, which is other
Speaker 1: than Trump would have been the record high. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you look back in the mid century, UM, mid
Speaker 1: twentieth century presidents beginning of the polar era, most of
Speaker 1: them started off with disapproval ratings under ten percent. Have
Speaker 1: all of them under ten percent, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: in that era, Lennon Johnson, they were under ten percent disapproval.
Speaker 1: When new presidents came in, most people who didn't you know,
Speaker 1: who weren't their supporters, said let's give him a chance.
Speaker 1: We don't have an opinion yet about how they're doing nowadays.
Speaker 1: That's not true. Um. All the recent presidents have started
Speaker 1: with higher disapproval ratings. But Biden's at you know, thirty
Speaker 1: eight percent now is much higher than where Reagan or
Speaker 1: Quarter or the Bushes were early on. I'm tempted to think,
Speaker 1: you know, we just had this obviously incredible period of partisanship. UM.
Speaker 1: The former president Donald Trump as well as his opponent, UM,
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, unbelievable polar rising figures, both very well, I guess,
Speaker 1: kind of partisan. Although I don't really think of Trump,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought of him at the time as
Speaker 1: a traditional Republican. But it's tempting to think of that
Speaker 1: that that happened because of those two are because of Trump.
Speaker 1: But um, you see it happening everywhere, Jonathan. Um. You
Speaker 1: see this polarization in the UK around Brexit, you see
Speaker 1: it in Eastern Europe around these authoritarian leaders. I mean,
Speaker 1: is this a global problem because of I'm tempted to
Speaker 1: say Facebook, rather than a problem of America because of Trump. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say in the United States it goes back
Speaker 1: a lot earlier than Trump. So you know, if you
Speaker 1: look at UM during the Clinton administration and all, you
Speaker 1: have this sort of strong um, especially on the Republican
Speaker 1: side of this refusal to accept that, oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: lost an election, and so Republicans, you know, what is there?
Speaker 1: What is their legislative program? It's to get more difficult
Speaker 1: for Democrats to vote and for them to set up
Speaker 1: elections to help um their own party. Um, it's harder
Speaker 1: to say globally whether it's all the same phenomenon. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, you see it happening everywhere, so it can't
Speaker 1: be just an American thing, right, or do you blame
Speaker 1: the Republican Party for you know, it's hard to tell
Speaker 1: whether that's whether there's something you know of the modern era,
Speaker 1: whether it's communications or something else that makes it more likely. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, traditionally the United States had a very weak
Speaker 1: parties and didn't have strong partisanship. That changed in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and so it's it's a more recent phenomenon
Speaker 1: in the United States, whereas in some place like Britain
Speaker 1: you always had sort of strong you didn't have that
Speaker 1: kind of weak parties. UM, week non ideological parties the
Speaker 1: United States used to have. All Right, So you're coming
Speaker 1: out of the Sea Pack UH gathering over the weekend.
Speaker 1: President Trump came away as the leading contender via poll.
Speaker 1: Is this still Trump's party going forward? You know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to tell exactly what will happen. UM. You can't
Speaker 1: really predict much off of the Sea pack straw polls.
Speaker 1: They've been wrong many many times before. UM. In a sense,
Speaker 1: Republicans still really like Trump, but whether they prefer Trump
Speaker 1: to other candidates is a little unclear. A lot of
Speaker 1: the seepack UM participants said, well, we don't act. About
Speaker 1: a third of them said, well, we don't really want
Speaker 1: him to run again. Um, what what I would say
Speaker 1: is that the attitudes of the party, the anti democratic,
Speaker 1: um maybe authoritarian strain of the Republican Party which preceded Trump,
Speaker 1: got stronger as a result of Trump and is very
Speaker 1: strong today. So even if it's not Trump, it's harder
Speaker 1: to see somebody like uh, you know, John McCain or
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney becoming the nominee that time, although we're still
Speaker 1: three years away, so you know, a long time that
Speaker 1: things could change. Hey, Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it as always. Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg News Opinion Calumnists. Uh,
Speaker 1: just giving us the latest lay of the land of
Speaker 1: the political estaplishment. But again, it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: the data that Jonathan cited in his column shows that
Speaker 1: the you know, the polling gate we look at the
Speaker 1: favorables and the unfavorables, really you know, crystallizing what we
Speaker 1: all kind of know, which is the polarization. The political
Speaker 1: polarization in this country appears as strong as it's ever been.
Speaker 1: And as Johnasons suggested about to see how it plays
Speaker 1: out over the next um, you know, four years until
Speaker 1: we get to the next presidential election cycle. But fascinated
Speaker 1: here Jonathan's opinions. I want to get to the blowout
Speaker 1: I s M numbers that we saw across the Bloomberg today.
Speaker 1: You can, well, if you're in the US, just type
Speaker 1: ECO go. I'll give you a hint. Anywhere else in
Speaker 1: the world, if you type w E C O week
Speaker 1: O go, you can pick from an assortment of really
Speaker 1: fun flags and if you click on it, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: week I'll go. Click on the American flag obviously the
Speaker 1: stars and stripes there, and you can see UM I
Speaker 1: s M coming out new orders, sixty four point eight
Speaker 1: prices paid eighty six manufacturing, which is the number we
Speaker 1: look the most closely at sixty eight. The survey was
Speaker 1: for fifty eight point nine, so a blowout number. Let's
Speaker 1: bring in Timothy Furies, the chairman of the Manufacturing Business
Speaker 1: Survey um AT I s M. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Why were these numbers so strong? What happened? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks pauling that. So this is our nine straight month
Speaker 1: manufacting expansion, which is leading the you As economy out
Speaker 1: of the post pandemic decline. So we had five of
Speaker 1: six industry sectors, which are our biggest industry sectors, recording
Speaker 1: indexes on their own over sixt So that's the primary
Speaker 1: point here is that we had strong industry sectors really
Speaker 1: eating us out this month, really good order levels, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, all the supporting sub indexes that support the
Speaker 1: new order number were very strong. Backlog being notable at
Speaker 1: sixty four highest number and about fifteen years. We had
Speaker 1: really good production output with the employment growing also, which
Speaker 1: is a good sign. We've had some difficulty unemployment side
Speaker 1: for a couple of months, and we continued to have
Speaker 1: headwinds on the input side with the fire deliveries and
Speaker 1: the inventories, so and that probably won't get resolved until
Speaker 1: the vaccine is widespread deployed. So really good month exceeded
Speaker 1: my exportations. As you mentioned, the economists we're thinking at
Speaker 1: the eight point nine really strong number. All right, So yeah, Tim,
Speaker 1: just great numbers. And is you know you've explained to
Speaker 1: us in months past it's really been the manufacturing sector
Speaker 1: that's leading this economy out of you know, those that
Speaker 1: shock we experienced early part of last year. Is there
Speaker 1: a risk here that the price for input prices could
Speaker 1: be problematic with some of these manufacturers maybe inflationary. Well,
Speaker 1: it's point I mean, it could slow things, but there's
Speaker 1: no signs of it at this point. On the general
Speaker 1: comments side, I'm receiving no comments that they're not able
Speaker 1: to push prices through their customers are normally. I would
Speaker 1: start to get that if they get headwinds. I think
Speaker 1: we're probably a couple of months away from that. You know,
Speaker 1: standard costs were set going into January. Variants are now
Speaker 1: being seen at the company cost level. Will be pressure
Speaker 1: on the sales guys to try to push those prices
Speaker 1: increases through. We'll see what happens, but at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, looks really strong. I don't see anything that's
Speaker 1: gonna stop us continuing to expand at some pretty high levels.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the UM commodity inflation that
Speaker 1: we've seen. I mean, you're in a unique position to
Speaker 1: answer this question because you've had management roles at U,
Speaker 1: TEX and UM. You were the chief of curement officer
Speaker 1: for Tousan Trump. So what does this mean to you?
Speaker 1: The jump in metals price, not just metals, but raw materials,
Speaker 1: soft eggs, I mean everything. Yeah, the biggest foundations here
Speaker 1: are basic chemicals, steal aluminium and plastic pellets. I mean
Speaker 1: that that tends to get into almost any manufactured product.
Speaker 1: And as a as a buyer, boy, I'm struggling like
Speaker 1: crazy right now because I'm seeing price increases. But generally
Speaker 1: what happens when you have input price growth, you also
Speaker 1: have margin expansion and the revenue expansion at the company level.
Speaker 1: So it may not be good for supply people, but
Speaker 1: it's generally good for the economy. I mean, I like
Speaker 1: to see prices go up when I'm sitting here, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at the analysis for the manufacturing side, but I
Speaker 1: don't see it's flowing anything yet anyway. And I think
Speaker 1: when we did our economic forecast where twenty one we
Speaker 1: predicted that we see about a three growth and input
Speaker 1: costs and we're probably on track to that. To you know,
Speaker 1: one topic that we don't talk that much about anymore,
Speaker 1: which was topic A for much of last year, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of trade tensions, supply chain disruptions, tariffs. Are
Speaker 1: the folks you talk to in the manufacturing in the heartland,
Speaker 1: what are they saying about China and just broader supply
Speaker 1: chain issues. Well, right now it's about getting product that
Speaker 1: the porch are still jammed up, so they've been jammed
Speaker 1: up up until the lunar New Year. We thought they
Speaker 1: might relax in the next few weeks, but most likely
Speaker 1: that's going to continue to be a problem right into
Speaker 1: the summertime. Transportation issues are really an extreme issue, primarily
Speaker 1: because we have so many part shortages that people are
Speaker 1: having to shift happen the trucks. I think of our
Speaker 1: supplier delivery comments were transportation related, so and that's been
Speaker 1: growing a month a month the prior month, prior months
Speaker 1: from that. So there's a lot of disconnections here in
Speaker 1: the supply chain. Manufacturing people know how to manage that.
Speaker 1: They have their handsful right now, probably more so than
Speaker 1: any recent economic growth that I can recall. But we're
Speaker 1: making good gains. I think the biggest issue here is
Speaker 1: really labor at the supplier facilities handless companies, and we
Speaker 1: saw some movement here and in the February time front.
Speaker 1: Hey Tim, thanks so much for joining us again. We
Speaker 1: always appreciate getting these monthly updates. Temp Fury, chairman of
Speaker 1: the Manufacturing Business Survey, the Institute for Supply Managements, and
Speaker 1: really blowouts wrong numbers coming out of Industrial America and
Speaker 1: is to mention we've had some pretty consistent performance there,
Speaker 1: and again that's a thirty percent of the economy. Uh
Speaker 1: so you flipped to the other sevent that services. That's folks,
Speaker 1: that's getting people back to work in a lot of
Speaker 1: those leisure industries. The expectation is that's part of that
Speaker 1: whole reopening trade that we're all looking forward to later
Speaker 1: this year. Now, I want to talk about UM because
Speaker 1: it is International Women's Day coming up. I think it's
Speaker 1: on the on the eighth, and because UM we're celebrating
Speaker 1: women I think I believe all month here on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Want to bring in Brenda Darden Wilkerson. She's president and
Speaker 1: CEO of anita be dot org, which UM, I guess
Speaker 1: strives to drive diversity, UM equality and inclusion across the
Speaker 1: tech industry. So tell us a little bit Brenda. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, welcome to the program. Thanks thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. Tell us a little bit about what Need
Speaker 1: to Be does and also why the tech industry. I
Speaker 1: was wondered this, why is it so sort of notoriously
Speaker 1: bad for gender issues? Well, thanks so much for having
Speaker 1: me again. Um So why the tech industry? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, the tech industry, we have to admit touches
Speaker 1: every aspect of every life globally. And that's why we
Speaker 1: exist to work within the ecosystem to make sure that
Speaker 1: the table where tech is created is as the birth
Speaker 1: as the people that it served. Now, why is it
Speaker 1: so notoriously in the status and it's it's all about history.
Speaker 1: It's all about pattern matching. Um. The history of tech
Speaker 1: started off largely with women and men, but there was
Speaker 1: this point in time when the narrative switched to only
Speaker 1: focus on what the men have done and not on
Speaker 1: what the women have done. And what we've been trying
Speaker 1: to work against is that very narrative from the beginning.
Speaker 1: And so that's what we do. You know, our our
Speaker 1: organization exists to make sure that the plate the people
Speaker 1: who create tech mirror the societies for whom they created.
Speaker 1: Has there been progress? What has been the progress say
Speaker 1: over the last five years brenda as relates to the
Speaker 1: tech industry, So yes, there's progress. You know, we are
Speaker 1: definitely glass testol around this this whole opportunity. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: our namesake, Anita Board, who started the organization some thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, had a goal which was fifty fifty. We
Speaker 1: obviously didn't make that and we actually actually did a
Speaker 1: little backsliding before we've gone forward. But yes, there are
Speaker 1: some strides being made. We have a Top Companies program,
Speaker 1: which is the only program that focuses on the equity
Speaker 1: around women in tech in great companies who are doing
Speaker 1: that work. And what we've seen is those companies who
Speaker 1: are willing to put in the work, who are willing
Speaker 1: to do those things that we know work. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't have to guess, we know what works. UM
Speaker 1: saw a great strides last year. We saw them move
Speaker 1: five percentage points versus the overall industry that normally hovers
Speaker 1: around just less than a percentage point. You know, I
Speaker 1: wonder how much the problem is in the link to
Speaker 1: finance in terms of successes Brenda, because you know, I've
Speaker 1: always thought of the tech industry as one where anyone,
Speaker 1: no matter what you look like or who you are,
Speaker 1: you can get into it because you're doing it usually
Speaker 1: from a computer and your mom's basement, right, so, um,
Speaker 1: no one sees you. But then, of course, when you
Speaker 1: come up with this idea, even if it's only with
Speaker 1: a couple of friends in the garage, you need some
Speaker 1: Wall Street banker guys to back you before you can grow.
Speaker 1: It is that why you've seen, uh, this inequality some
Speaker 1: of it, right, it's part of it. Yes, there's this thing,
Speaker 1: this insidious thing called pattern matching, where you know, in
Speaker 1: order to get backing, you've got to have this warm intro.
Speaker 1: And normally this warm intro comes from people that are
Speaker 1: in your network. And unfortunately a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have the money to invest um that our vcs um
Speaker 1: they all look alike and they don't do people that
Speaker 1: are in their network are the ones that end up
Speaker 1: getting the money. Um, it's actually a loss for them.
Speaker 1: Because we know that diverse teams, the diverse leadership the
Speaker 1: verse boards produced a better bottom line than those that
Speaker 1: are not. So what we're hoping is to be able
Speaker 1: to continue to beat that drum and help people understand
Speaker 1: that this is really in there. Um, it's in their
Speaker 1: favor to think about diversity and not only think about it,
Speaker 1: but to implement it. How is the pandemic kind of
Speaker 1: impacted women? We know that's been very difficult in terms
Speaker 1: of childcare and so on and so forth. Give us
Speaker 1: your thoughts on kind of what you've seen. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we know the losses for women across the
Speaker 1: board have been larger than that for men. We know
Speaker 1: that the job loss that the last the last month
Speaker 1: of last year, all of those jobs were lost by women. UM.
Speaker 1: Of course, intact we've seen you know a little different
Speaker 1: sort of UM impact because women are able to work
Speaker 1: at home and and and um be able to do
Speaker 1: their work UM in a way that allows them to continue.
Speaker 1: But the pressure has come. I mean, we're one year
Speaker 1: into this and we've seen that the pressure has come
Speaker 1: on women because they're doing triple duty. They were already
Speaker 1: doing double duty. Right now it's a triple duty if
Speaker 1: the kids are at home, UM, and they're teaching the
Speaker 1: kids at home, if they have older parents that they
Speaker 1: used to have support for. It's bringing pressure. And what's
Speaker 1: caught What what it's going to ultimately cause if we
Speaker 1: aren't careful, is a brain drain of these amazingly talented
Speaker 1: and experienced women who have to take a step back
Speaker 1: because of these additional pressures. Just quickly want to mention
Speaker 1: Grace Hopper, which is well, she is a famous UM
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess the original coder right from World
Speaker 1: War Two, from from from from the from the Navy.
Speaker 1: And it's something also that you do every year sort
Speaker 1: of deadicated while in Grace Hopper's name. Yes, absolutely. We
Speaker 1: have the largest Women in Tech conference UH in the world.
Speaker 1: We have one in the US, and we have the
Speaker 1: largest in Asia UM and we do dedicated not only
Speaker 1: in her name, but in the name of lots of
Speaker 1: other amazing women who really were the foundation of tech.
Speaker 1: They have a lot to do with a lot of
Speaker 1: the strength in tech that we enjoy today. Hey, Brenda,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us to really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Brenda Dartin Wilkinson, President and CEO of Anita be dot
Speaker 1: Or