Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Over the next
Speaker 1: two hours, we'll bring you news of the week, insights
Speaker 1: from the magazine, and more. It is week twenty two
Speaker 1: for many of us still working from home. My co
Speaker 1: host Jason Kelly off this week on vacation in his place.
Speaker 1: Great to have Bloomberg TV and Radio anchor Alex Steel
Speaker 1: with me and this as we talked a lot about
Speaker 1: the virus this week. In fact, Bloomberg Business Week this
Speaker 1: week is a special vaccine issue, looking at the biggest
Speaker 1: challenges and promising solutions on the path to a COVID vaccine.
Speaker 1: It's a must read to understand the many headlines we
Speaker 1: get every day on the virus and how close we
Speaker 1: are to get in control of it, and the many
Speaker 1: moving issues surrounding the virus. What's radical about some of
Speaker 1: these vaccine approaches, Where is the manufacturing going to come from,
Speaker 1: and what are the political implications? Also where we are
Speaker 1: in the process. Why work is pursuing a slow and
Speaker 1: steady approach and vaccine nationalism. Yes, it's a thing that
Speaker 1: dominated our coverage this week, so too did this. I
Speaker 1: have no doubt that I picked the right person to
Speaker 1: join me as the next vice president the United States
Speaker 1: of America. Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News political contributor Jeanie Zano on what a Biden
Speaker 1: Harris ticket means come November. We begin this hour with
Speaker 1: the magazine's deep dive into the path to a COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen vaccine. Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News US healthcare reporter Riley Griffin talked with us about
Speaker 1: the issue and coverage, as well as Riley's story and
Speaker 1: drug giant MERK taking its time to develop a vaccine
Speaker 1: and approach that's paid off. Before Joel kicks it off,
Speaker 1: there's got no Biggert story in the world right now,
Speaker 1: and that's sayings have been considering. You know, we've seen
Speaker 1: social unrest, we're about seeing an election, but uh that
Speaker 1: that clearly a lot of hingers on. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think we've all been fixated on um on everything
Speaker 1: around the vaccine to the point that you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're all becoming sort of better scientists and understanding, Um,
Speaker 1: how even approaches to vaccines can work, let alone you know,
Speaker 1: the trials that all of them entail. So we figured,
Speaker 1: let's like look at this on the biggest level that
Speaker 1: we can, but not just look at it in terms
Speaker 1: of like the companies and the horse races, so much
Speaker 1: as all the other things that have to happen around
Speaker 1: a vaccine. It's like getting a vaccine is ultimately getting
Speaker 1: a formula, right, but you have to get production distribution,
Speaker 1: there's politics, there's a whole bunch of other stuff. So
Speaker 1: we've really devoted a lot of this issue to looking
Speaker 1: at all these facets. But let's not forget the foot
Speaker 1: race either, right. Thing that Um was really captivating about
Speaker 1: Mark in this context is a lot of the big
Speaker 1: vaccines that have come to civilization in the past decades
Speaker 1: have actually come from murk. And while other approaches are racing,
Speaker 1: like you said, Carol, to get this thing done quickly,
Speaker 1: Marcus in you know, we're not gonna be the first
Speaker 1: out of the gate, but we're we know what we're
Speaker 1: doing when it comes to vaccines. Uh. And that's what
Speaker 1: Riley was able to write about Um and Reley talk
Speaker 1: to us more about what Mark Why Mark sets the
Speaker 1: bar where it sets it when it comes to vaccine development. Yeah. Absolutely, Well,
Speaker 1: I'd love to take you back a few months actually,
Speaker 1: to the final weeks of Mayo and Mark first announced
Speaker 1: they would be pursuing two coronavirus vaccines and an anti
Speaker 1: viral treatment to be frank. News came rather late at
Speaker 1: the time. The coronavirus had already swept the US, and
Speaker 1: within days of that announcement we marked more than one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand deaths in this country. UM. At the time,
Speaker 1: though we were thinking through Mark, which has more than
Speaker 1: a hundred years dominating the vaccine space, it had to
Speaker 1: have something brewing. In fact, I had UM. It's spoken
Speaker 1: with the director of the National Institutes of Health at
Speaker 1: the time, Francis Collins, who it's said to me, don't
Speaker 1: count Mark out quite yet. And I think you'll find
Speaker 1: that those who know the vaccine world well always hold
Speaker 1: that opinion. Don't count Mark out because though they might
Speaker 1: take a more conservative approach to vaccine development, they have
Speaker 1: quite the track record, as you mentioned. And to talk
Speaker 1: about that track record briefly, I mean Mark is responsible
Speaker 1: for the first US inoculations for chickenpox, marbella, measles, and months.
Speaker 1: In fact, that month's vaccine is the quickest to go
Speaker 1: through the development to market in a matter of four years.
Speaker 1: Nobody has since beaten that record. Most American kids now
Speaker 1: get Mark produced vaccines for all four of those things.
Speaker 1: And to top it off, the company of Pioneers Vaccines
Speaker 1: for HPV and Justice has December bibola and that was
Speaker 1: the first vaccine ever approved for that virus. So they
Speaker 1: have scheme in the game. They know how to do
Speaker 1: this work. And even though there are more than a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty vaccines in various stages of development for
Speaker 1: the coronavirus, twenty six of those which have entered human trials.
Speaker 1: Mark is coming later. But you've got to watch Mark
Speaker 1: closely because they know what they're doing. So when we
Speaker 1: talk about like a slow roll of slow rolling vaccines, like,
Speaker 1: what what does that mean? Do they just like do
Speaker 1: more testing? Is it more trials? Yeah. So we've spoken
Speaker 1: with top researchers and executives at the company and their
Speaker 1: goal right now is to have global impact. So they
Speaker 1: started their development process later, but they're taking a threefold approach.
Speaker 1: They want to have a shot that's effective in a
Speaker 1: single dose. That's notable because some of the front runners
Speaker 1: that we see today they take a two dose approach,
Speaker 1: a vaccine plus a booster. They also want to make
Speaker 1: sure it can be easily distributed around the world, and
Speaker 1: last they want to rely on tread in true technology.
Speaker 1: So they're employing this kind of old school approach that
Speaker 1: they have for decades um now augmented with genetic engineering
Speaker 1: to add COVID specific proteins are arena. They've settled on
Speaker 1: these two candidates, once based on their epola vaccine and
Speaker 1: the other based on an existing measles vaccine. So it's
Speaker 1: a at that in perspective. In terms of timeline, the
Speaker 1: measles vaccine is going to launch into human trials later
Speaker 1: this month. The e BOWLA trial, meanwhile, will kick start
Speaker 1: in the fall. And again the fall is when we're
Speaker 1: hearing some companies say they're gonna gonna seek an emergency
Speaker 1: youth authorization. The market is just starting some of their
Speaker 1: human trials at that point in time. One executive, speaking
Speaker 1: in a congressional hearing said we shouldn't expect them to
Speaker 1: come to market with a vaccine until at the earliest,
Speaker 1: but their goal here isn't to be first, it's to
Speaker 1: be best. And that story by Riley Griffin and Robert
Speaker 1: Langworth includes Mark CEO noting that those who suggest that
Speaker 1: any vaccine candidate might be broadly available before the end
Speaker 1: of the year is doing the public a disservice, a
Speaker 1: reality check, you might say. Coming up, Business Week Economics
Speaker 1: editor Peter Coyd goes all weird science on us as
Speaker 1: he looks into what it will take to beat the virus.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. This week a special vaccine issue,
Speaker 1: and we are highlighting some of the stories in Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week magazine as it looks at the biggest challenges,
Speaker 1: the promising solutions, and really the weirdest science from the
Speaker 1: molecular level on up. We go really, really deep when
Speaker 1: it comes to the path to a COVID nineteen vaccine,
Speaker 1: as does Bloomberg Business Week Economics editor Peter Coy. He
Speaker 1: makes us all so much smarter. He writes about where
Speaker 1: we are in the process to a vaccine. Business Week
Speaker 1: editor Joel Webber joining us once again as well. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we have many, many different attempts under way here, and
Speaker 1: it's all on attempt to really just have something that sticks,
Speaker 1: because the especially in the US, we have utterly failed
Speaker 1: at containing this thing, and the vaccine is really starting
Speaker 1: to basically be the only way out of this madness. So, Peter,
Speaker 1: you talked to many, many, many people um for this article,
Speaker 1: and I'm just curious, like, what were the what were
Speaker 1: the things that really stood out to you when you
Speaker 1: spoke to people who work on vaccines for a living,
Speaker 1: Just the creativity that's going on now. Vaccines have been
Speaker 1: around for centuries, really going back to the cow pox
Speaker 1: vaccine that stopped smallpox, and yet in the last few decades,
Speaker 1: thanks to biotechnology, genetical engineering, there's just a profusion of
Speaker 1: new concepts, entirely different ways of producing a vaccine. One
Speaker 1: of them, I think is so cool, actually take some
Speaker 1: of the nucleic acid UH that produces the the vacs,
Speaker 1: the virus when it reproduces itself, and you put that
Speaker 1: into the human body. The human body produces a portion
Speaker 1: of the vaccine, just some of the proteins, which is
Speaker 1: not harmful but does stimulate the immune system, so the
Speaker 1: body becomes the factory for making the vaccine. I want
Speaker 1: to know the question that I can ask Peter Core
Speaker 1: that he won't know the answer to. Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't have it. I never have it, right, So, Peter,
Speaker 1: I guess when we try and look at the vaccine
Speaker 1: through then the economic lens and through the market lens,
Speaker 1: Like what's the reality of one in a company says, hey,
Speaker 1: this vaccine works in phase three and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, everyone's great and everyone's good and we can
Speaker 1: travel in life is normal again. Well, today, I guess,
Speaker 1: if you believe what came out of Russia, we already
Speaker 1: have a vaccine. Uh well, it hasn't even started phase three,
Speaker 1: So maybe we take a pause. Yeah, exactly. So I
Speaker 1: think we're going to probably see more of these popping
Speaker 1: up in different countries around the world. Thing, we got
Speaker 1: one to go out in my gotlin, and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna have to step back and say, is this trustworthy?
Speaker 1: Because you really want to see a vaccine go all
Speaker 1: the way through phase three for both efficacy and say
Speaker 1: before you're gonna want to like put it into yourself
Speaker 1: or your kids or your parents. Yeah, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: be months. That's gonna be months, probably twenty either late
Speaker 1: this year or early next year. Now, the hope is
Speaker 1: that there are so many of them that even if
Speaker 1: no one of them is perfect, they'll collectively give us
Speaker 1: the amount of protection we need to be back this pandemic.
Speaker 1: You know, Peter, the part of this that I think,
Speaker 1: you know goes to what you're saying Alex about you know,
Speaker 1: a timeline and stuff, is is that there's a cost
Speaker 1: associated with the pandemic. And obviously that is what's generating
Speaker 1: headline after a headline every day. And it's also what's
Speaker 1: you know, allowing UM scientists to sort of expedite some development.
Speaker 1: And you know, Peter, do you have a big number
Speaker 1: here which I think, what was it, three hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five billion dollars, billion dollars for every month. That
Speaker 1: is an insane amount. So when you think about the
Speaker 1: economic implications of this and why vaccine is so relevant,
Speaker 1: can you kind of help help make sense of that
Speaker 1: for us? Yeah, So if you're thinking why should we
Speaker 1: put money into this looney idea as somebody's got um
Speaker 1: the answers you probably should because even if there's only
Speaker 1: a small chance of its paying off, it's it's enough
Speaker 1: to justify a fairly big expenditure. And the same thing
Speaker 1: goes for manufacturing. Why would ever build a factory to
Speaker 1: make a vaccine if we don't even know if it's
Speaker 1: going to work well, because if it does work, you
Speaker 1: don't want to be having to wait around while the
Speaker 1: factory gets built. You want to be able to go
Speaker 1: into production right away. And this whole attitude, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's quite enough of it. I think the scientists understand.
Speaker 1: I don't think funders fully grasped it. There is some
Speaker 1: pretty generous funny, but we could afford to be doing
Speaker 1: even more, and it's unleashed, just as I said before,
Speaker 1: a profusion of creativity, which this makes this sort of
Speaker 1: a golden age for vaccinologists. So, for everything that we've
Speaker 1: gotten wrong here in the U. S. Peter, perhaps the
Speaker 1: strategy of of actually throwing billions of dollars around it,
Speaker 1: or millions of dollars at various companies is maybe the
Speaker 1: right way. Yeah, it actually it is billions. Uh it is.
Speaker 1: It is exactly the right thing to be doing. So
Speaker 1: that's one case where um I mean, as I said
Speaker 1: in the article, someday, when there is a vaccine or
Speaker 1: actually probably multiple vaccines, assuming that they actually do what
Speaker 1: they're supposed to do, We're gonna look back on this
Speaker 1: as these these scientists all over the world, from India
Speaker 1: to China to the US to Germany, We're going to
Speaker 1: thank them. We're gonna thank them for essentially saving our society.
Speaker 1: Would be a happy day. Well. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a Debbi downer, but I mean you do point
Speaker 1: out and the magazine, the magazine has talked about this
Speaker 1: before that we still don't have a vaccine against HIV.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, this is a complicated virus that
Speaker 1: impacts people differently. That is so true. All right, So
Speaker 1: I guess you did kind of bring down the optimism
Speaker 1: I was trying to inject into the conversation just thirty
Speaker 1: seconds to to react to that debut down. Very true,
Speaker 1: we still don't have an HIV vaccine. This several other
Speaker 1: viral diseases for which there are no vaccines. This one
Speaker 1: is looking though, as if it does seem amenable to
Speaker 1: a vaccine, and uh, in fact, again multiple vaccines using
Speaker 1: different avenues. So something's probably going to work, maybe not
Speaker 1: as well as say a small box actually maybe more
Speaker 1: like the influenza vaccine, but it will have something, probably
Speaker 1: within a year. And as Peter mentions, of course, we're
Speaker 1: hoping to have some kind of vaccine, hopefully by the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Many of the guests that we
Speaker 1: talked to on our daily radio show, we get all
Speaker 1: kinds of scenarios. Some are optimistic, like Peter and his reporting,
Speaker 1: and that we will have something but the end of
Speaker 1: a lot of others say, though, it's more like a
Speaker 1: one story. And keep in mind that experts warn, as
Speaker 1: Peter reminds and his story, that the new vaccines may
Speaker 1: provide only some protection and only temporarily, more like the
Speaker 1: annual flu vaccine that we get, rather than a knockout
Speaker 1: vaccine that we have for polio and measles, So something
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. Also, as Peter noted, there's still
Speaker 1: no vaccine against HIV, so getting a vaccine for COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen it's not an easy path, as we all know. That,
Speaker 1: of course, was Bloomberg business Week editor Joe Webber. Also
Speaker 1: Business Week Economics editor Peter Coy highly recommend you check
Speaker 1: out peter story, as I mentioned we all get smarter
Speaker 1: when Peter stops by coming up next. What we're seeing
Speaker 1: is countries really having this in general, just this resurgence
Speaker 1: of nationalism. We talked about vaccine nationalism. Yes, it's a thing,
Speaker 1: and it is making this deadly disease even worse. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and this is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Our special issue of the magazine continues.
Speaker 1: We're looking at the path to a vaccine, a COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen vaccine, something we covered throughout the week on our
Speaker 1: daily radio show. These stories important even as news about
Speaker 1: the virus continued to cross the Bloomberg and evolved, and
Speaker 1: that included a story about another disturbing aspect of COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: and that is vaccine nationalism. Bloomberg News Projects and Investigations
Speaker 1: reporter Vernon Silver joined us from one of the hotspots
Speaker 1: when it came to the virus. We're talking about Italy
Speaker 1: Rome specifically, and he talked with us about how the
Speaker 1: race for a vaccine has resulted in the jockeying of
Speaker 1: governments to secure doses of promising candidates for their citizens.
Speaker 1: He joined us along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Jill Weber.
Speaker 1: What we're seeing is countries really having this in general,
Speaker 1: just this resurgence of nationalism, and that's now manifesting itself
Speaker 1: around how they're approaching the vaccine. And as countries are
Speaker 1: digging their heels in to sort of do everything by themselves,
Speaker 1: it actually makes the whole situation worse because through collaboration,
Speaker 1: we might have been able to pull resources and maybe
Speaker 1: maybe reach a cure or vaccine quicker than we otherwise
Speaker 1: might and benefit more people. And what I think Vernon
Speaker 1: really found that was so interesting was being in Rome,
Speaker 1: you know, which was one of the first places affected
Speaker 1: by the pandemic. Uh. It really felt like Italy was
Speaker 1: at sort of the forefront of this conversation. So so Vernon,
Speaker 1: what was the Italian perspective on all of this? I mean,
Speaker 1: what we did was started following the vial literally of
Speaker 1: how the vaccine were being produced. And the first strand
Speaker 1: came in just ten little vials that were sent from Oxford,
Speaker 1: UH to Rome to this company that was going to
Speaker 1: make over ten thousand doses for the trials. The very
Speaker 1: first large scale trials of the vaccine in the world, um,
Speaker 1: and by happenstance um. The you know, the initial supply
Speaker 1: of that vaccine was within the borders of Italy, and
Speaker 1: the politicians here latched onto it and it kind of
Speaker 1: it kind of steam, you know, it was a snowball
Speaker 1: where you had more deals being made and more kind
Speaker 1: of nationalist rhetoric coming out of the mouths of the
Speaker 1: leaders here who needed a redemption from having been the
Speaker 1: worst hit at the outset um and the the end
Speaker 1: result is that we've got about, you know, a quarter
Speaker 1: of the supply of the Astra Zeneca Oxford vaccine now
Speaker 1: being bottled within Italy's borders. And how it plays out
Speaker 1: in the end is one of the questions that that's
Speaker 1: been left open as they balanced, you know, let's all
Speaker 1: cooperate with well, we do have it here. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you brought that part up because I was wondering
Speaker 1: what the nationalism part means. Does it mean that you
Speaker 1: provide the money to the company to make the scene
Speaker 1: that you then buy all the vaccine. Does it have
Speaker 1: to be a local company that's making the vaccine, or
Speaker 1: is it the distribution like the vials and the manufacturing part. Like,
Speaker 1: there are lots of different angles to it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the best way to understand it is it breaks down
Speaker 1: into two areas that the bad actors and the bad planners.
Speaker 1: And the bad actors are, you know, the accusations against
Speaker 1: the Chinese and Russian governments that they've been hacking the
Speaker 1: Western efforts. The bad actors are. We already saw it
Speaker 1: in March when protective equipment was being blocked by different countries.
Speaker 1: Ninety different countries blocked equipment that would have been of
Speaker 1: use during the pandemic. Those are the Those are the
Speaker 1: bad actors, and we kind of know about those the
Speaker 1: bad planners. It's sort of just the splintering of where,
Speaker 1: you know, are you going to throw a lot of
Speaker 1: money at it? You know, the Trump administration is throwing
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars at this operation warp Speed that sucks
Speaker 1: up supply poorer countries. Then you are trying to pull
Speaker 1: money to buy their own supplies. That drives up prices.
Speaker 1: And these come pans that are trying to you know,
Speaker 1: save the you know, save the world and also makes
Speaker 1: the money or trying to find solutions. And Astra Zeneca
Speaker 1: was a great example, because they've decided they need to
Speaker 1: fight the nationalism by creating the supply chains on four
Speaker 1: different continents. If everyone's going to fight over it, give
Speaker 1: everyone their own darned supply chains. The Russia has a
Speaker 1: supply chain of the Oxford vaccine, and Brazil will have one,
Speaker 1: and there's the one in Italy, and there's a billion
Speaker 1: doses being made in India. Okay, best laid plans, right,
Speaker 1: we create vaccine or vaccines and the world has equal
Speaker 1: access to it. And then there's reality. Is there vernon
Speaker 1: the possibility the likelihood that we're going to see people
Speaker 1: ordering the vaccine, but then there's going to be countries
Speaker 1: who are not going to let it cross their borders. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's what That's what the companies are planning for. That's
Speaker 1: what the governments are planning for. That's why you try
Speaker 1: to get a clear idea of how these these orders are.
Speaker 1: Who goes first? You know, in the UK said, you
Speaker 1: know it's been developed at Oxford, We're going to get
Speaker 1: the first doses for our people. How does play out
Speaker 1: in the end, And that's that's sort of what we're
Speaker 1: looking at next, is that borders have become the battle
Speaker 1: lines in this nationalism of the vaccines. That's Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: We get it. Or Joe Weber and Bloomberg News P
Speaker 1: and I reporter Vernon Silver. What Vernon had to say
Speaker 1: about borders becoming battle lines. It's a reminder that this
Speaker 1: really is a war, a fight against the virus, and
Speaker 1: some troubling and disturbing aspects as concerns about access to
Speaker 1: a vaccine or something we might have to deal with
Speaker 1: in the future. One more note, I want to point
Speaker 1: out in Vernon's story that Astra Zenica has committed to
Speaker 1: creating autonomous supply chains for the Oxford shop that it
Speaker 1: is working on on four continents. It's a frank acknowledgement
Speaker 1: that it isn't counting on a normal flow of goods
Speaker 1: and really looking to create independent supply chains that will
Speaker 1: enable full access to the vaccine around the world. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Still to come the head
Speaker 1: of the largest healthcare provider in New York State on
Speaker 1: getting through the crisis and making sense of the NonStop
Speaker 1: news of COVID nineteen north while Healths President and CEO
Speaker 1: Michael Dowling is straight ahead. This is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Master. My co host Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly is off joining me this week. Bloomberg Television and
Speaker 1: Radio anchor Alex Steele plenty ahead for you in this
Speaker 1: hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, as
Speaker 1: the world continues to deal with the problems and inequalities
Speaker 1: revealed anew we don't want to hand out, we do
Speaker 1: want to hand out. Solomon Alee, head of the advisory
Speaker 1: firm bearing his name, on why black wealth matters, Food
Speaker 1: insecurity is on the Rise, the CEO of Feeding America
Speaker 1: on the country's growing hunger crisis. Plus Roun CEO and
Speaker 1: co founder Nate check It's on how digital main streets
Speaker 1: are evolving amid our new world order. We begin with
Speaker 1: the top story this week, Democratic President nominee Joe Biden
Speaker 1: choosing California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News political contributor and professor of political science at Iona College,
Speaker 1: Genie Zano, has more in the reality of a running
Speaker 1: mate on election outcomes. These picks don't tend to change
Speaker 1: a lot of votes. But what they do is they
Speaker 1: really give voters a sense as to the decision making
Speaker 1: of the person at the top of the ticket. And
Speaker 1: I think in that respect, Joe Biden has done himself
Speaker 1: a favor here. He made a sober pick after a
Speaker 1: very intensive screening process, and I think he has now
Speaker 1: made it very difficult for the President's team to attack
Speaker 1: somebody like Kamala Harris in the way that they want to. Um.
Speaker 1: We were just looking at some of the attack videos
Speaker 1: that have come out from the Trump campaign on Harris.
Speaker 1: Then they try to painter as being far left, and
Speaker 1: of course that doesn't fit very nicely for somebody like
Speaker 1: a Kamala Harris. So I think he's made it tough
Speaker 1: for them to attacker, but they think more important than that,
Speaker 1: he has sort of done what he promised to do,
Speaker 1: which is picked somebody who was prepared to govern if
Speaker 1: needed at at a moment's notice, who would do no
Speaker 1: harm for the ticket, because he is leading in many
Speaker 1: of the wing states at this point, and whom he
Speaker 1: personally has a relationship with that goes back many years,
Speaker 1: and of course, given his age, somebody who brings in
Speaker 1: a new generation at fifty UM Kamala Harris obviously, um
Speaker 1: is you know, several decades younger than Joe Biden, and
Speaker 1: you know one of the things he would like to
Speaker 1: do is bring in some younger voters. So from those perspectives,
Speaker 1: I think it was a strong pick on his part.
Speaker 1: So do we I mean, are we going to be
Speaker 1: looking at Kamala Harris on the top of the ticket
Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party? And I'm just wondering how Wall
Speaker 1: Street thinks about that. I do think it's possible. You know,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden at one point indicated he is a one
Speaker 1: term president should he win. Then he later pulled back
Speaker 1: on that and talks about himself more as a transitional person,
Speaker 1: transitional candidate. So I think there are many people who
Speaker 1: suspect he may do one term if he does win,
Speaker 1: which would mean Kamala Harris would be at the top
Speaker 1: of the ticket. Um And I do think there are
Speaker 1: questions about what, you know, what Wall Street, for instance,
Speaker 1: is going to think about a pick like Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: We you know, when we think about her relationship with
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, a lot of that was built on her
Speaker 1: relationship with his late son, Bo Biden and what they
Speaker 1: did together was really take on the big banks in
Speaker 1: the wake of the housing crisis, and she talked about
Speaker 1: that in her book. UM. And so not only the
Speaker 1: story of her relationship with bo Biden as Attorney General,
Speaker 1: but also the work she did in terms of challenging
Speaker 1: the big banks. I think that wall Street is going
Speaker 1: to have a lot to say about that. I think
Speaker 1: also she is somebody who has done particularly well fundraising
Speaker 1: on behalf of the president and who has a record
Speaker 1: in the Senate. UM. So there's a lot to chew
Speaker 1: on when it comes to Kamala Harris. And she also
Speaker 1: has somebody who has slipped on a few issues that
Speaker 1: are key to people, including the issue of healthcare, which
Speaker 1: made her you know, really was a challenge for her
Speaker 1: during her campaign. So there's a lot to look at
Speaker 1: in terms of her record as both a prosecutor an
Speaker 1: attorney general and also in the Senate and as a
Speaker 1: candidate herself. Repress, Jennie, what about the Trump campaign do
Speaker 1: we anticipate? I know that there was some talk at
Speaker 1: one point that maybe, you know, Mike Pence wouldn't be
Speaker 1: on his ticket. Should we assume that he will be
Speaker 1: or does you know Biden's pick maybe maybe push the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign to reconsider having a different running mate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's such a good question. I think we thought,
Speaker 1: you know, initially, that maybe he would move away from
Speaker 1: Mike Pence. I think it is becoming very late to
Speaker 1: imagine that he does that at this point. So I
Speaker 1: think he's going to stick with Mike Pence. But to
Speaker 1: your point, you know, there is quite a difference between
Speaker 1: a Kamala Harris and a Mike Pence, both substantively in
Speaker 1: terms of their policy perspectives. I just want to see
Speaker 1: the debate debate, I mean, that's exactly. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so fascinating. They're just two people who are completely different,
Speaker 1: you know, areas, and so that's going to be fascinating.
Speaker 1: But I think it's too late for Trump to move
Speaker 1: to somebody else at this point. You never say never
Speaker 1: with Trump. But well, I don't want to see the debate.
Speaker 1: I want to see Stephen Colbert's monologue about the debt.
Speaker 1: So I guess I guess my question we were trying
Speaker 1: to get it this earlier too. Is it if I'm
Speaker 1: a voter and I voted for Trump last time, and
Speaker 1: I'm considering voting for Biden this time does this mean
Speaker 1: anything for me? I, you know, I am of the
Speaker 1: old school that I don't think you we see historically
Speaker 1: a lot of movement among voters because of a vice
Speaker 1: presidential pick. Now she is that, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to say, she is, you know, the fourth woman historically
Speaker 1: on this kind of ticket. She would be the first
Speaker 1: vice president female obviously vice president if elected, the first
Speaker 1: African American, the first um, you know of of of
Speaker 1: Asian descent. Um. So there she does, you know, hit
Speaker 1: a lot of those first that maybe would make her
Speaker 1: attractive to people to move to her, But we don't
Speaker 1: usually see that. Usually people judge the ticket on the
Speaker 1: top of the ticket, and that's still going to be
Speaker 1: Biden versus Trump. So I think she helps people give
Speaker 1: him the second look if they're not quite certain, But
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they move over because of her. I
Speaker 1: do feel like Genie two, it's a political campaign. Listening
Speaker 1: to what's going on among the broader Public's good point. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think you know, for that reason, she you know,
Speaker 1: really does fits some of the time here. But again,
Speaker 1: I'm not certain that that makes people in terms of voting, say,
Speaker 1: oh I did vote for Trump, but now I'm over
Speaker 1: to Biden's corner. I don't see that. I think, if anything,
Speaker 1: it would be something like his handling of, say the pandemic,
Speaker 1: that would get independence, saying in Michigan or Wisconsin. Maybe
Speaker 1: to give Biden the second look. That's Bloomberg News political
Speaker 1: contributor and professor of political science at i own A College,
Speaker 1: Genie Zano, reminding us that the running mate maybe not
Speaker 1: so important to voters come November. It's more about the issues.
Speaker 1: But keep in mind Biden's trace of a running mate.
Speaker 1: Another step toward more representation of women in politics. Coming
Speaker 1: up next, upping the representation of blocks when it comes
Speaker 1: to wealth creation. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. This week a
Speaker 1: special COVID nineteen vaccine issue, and one thing that came
Speaker 1: up during one of our daily radio conversations between Alex
Speaker 1: Steele and myself was a reminder of the inequalities that
Speaker 1: we saw once again because of the virus, with minority
Speaker 1: communities being hit the hardest. It was a reminder too
Speaker 1: of how minorities and blacks in particular have been left
Speaker 1: behind when it comes to wealth creation. In an environment
Speaker 1: where not a single CEO of a major US bank
Speaker 1: is black. Solomon A Lee who has his own advisory firm,
Speaker 1: is taking steps to reverse inequalities and create black wealth.
Speaker 1: Access to capital for minority so people that look like
Speaker 1: me is system it UM. It's been allowed for a
Speaker 1: very long time, and when you block us out or
Speaker 1: deny off access to capital, it just makes it a
Speaker 1: little bit more difficult. When you look at from the
Speaker 1: other side, we are the largest consumers in the United
Speaker 1: States out of all the various UM nationalities, so we
Speaker 1: have a lot to contribute UM to business and we
Speaker 1: do a lot of the work, but unfortunately we're just
Speaker 1: not being given the opportunity to get capital. So one
Speaker 1: of the things that we tried to do is demystified
Speaker 1: UM access to capital and what that actually means and
Speaker 1: what it looks like and how to actually get it
Speaker 1: for people of color. So what's the transmission mechanism that's
Speaker 1: broken that's preventing that from happening right now? Basically the
Speaker 1: whole are trying to fix. Well, the whole we're trying
Speaker 1: to fix is very simple. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: legislation that's been done many years ago before you and
Speaker 1: I UM, and we weren't included. People who look like
Speaker 1: me weren't included. And when they began to try to
Speaker 1: include us, they had people who were making policies that
Speaker 1: were i will use the words not sensitive to who
Speaker 1: we were and what our needs were, because they didn't
Speaker 1: want us to live next door to them. They didn't
Speaker 1: want us to have access to capital because they felt
Speaker 1: like we would be competing for the same capital that
Speaker 1: they were trying to achieve. And that's why you have
Speaker 1: approximately thirteen thousand publicly played the companies and you have
Speaker 1: fewer than fifteen black own managing um publicly traded companies.
Speaker 1: And you would say, well, how could that even be
Speaker 1: in the day's age. Well, so talk to us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that and what's happened and why it
Speaker 1: hasn't opened up more. Hello, it hasn't opened up more
Speaker 1: because they don't want it to open up. Now. Who
Speaker 1: they are is very simple. The establishment has a set
Speaker 1: of rules together. It's not the bank's fault, it's not
Speaker 1: even current policymakers falk. But at some point these rules
Speaker 1: have to be revisited that they are actually inclusive. UM,
Speaker 1: so that we included because if you want minorities to
Speaker 1: have access to capital, UM, you can get minorities to
Speaker 1: have access to capital by regulating very simple. You know,
Speaker 1: you give us. We don't want to hand out, we
Speaker 1: do want to hand up. So if you could just
Speaker 1: simply imagine UM helping someone up to create jobs. According
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Government, most jobs are created by
Speaker 1: people who look like themselves. So if I'm an employer,
Speaker 1: I'm hiring someone that looks like me, and that's why
Speaker 1: unemployment amongst blocks or so is so high, especially amongst
Speaker 1: black males. So I can totally see then how you're
Speaker 1: connecting all the dots right, because if you don't have
Speaker 1: minority own, black owned businesses, then you're not going to
Speaker 1: have the people who hire other people who look like them,
Speaker 1: which then creates more wealth in the community. Getting the
Speaker 1: government to do anything right now on this except for rhetoric,
Speaker 1: I just I can't imagine that's going to happen. So
Speaker 1: you're actually putting your money where your mouth is and
Speaker 1: you're actually trying to help support that. What kind of
Speaker 1: concrete steps have you been able to take to help
Speaker 1: give access to capital UM to black owned businesses. Well,
Speaker 1: we've put a group of various investors together and we
Speaker 1: helped to fund different deals and transactions. Recently, we helped
Speaker 1: to find a lab out of Georgia energy company technology companies.
Speaker 1: So we go through the whole gaming. We don't go
Speaker 1: in to borrow, mine or anything of that nature. We
Speaker 1: use our own resources and we rely on our own
Speaker 1: network UM to do this. And so what we look
Speaker 1: for is companies that have between three to five million
Speaker 1: dollars that will be very much overlooked and a poise
Speaker 1: to actually grow, but they lack the capital and sometimes
Speaker 1: even a strategicness to actually develop and grow the company
Speaker 1: and take it to the next level. So we come
Speaker 1: in and we provide the capital and some strategious planning
Speaker 1: to help them to grow and scale their business. Solomon,
Speaker 1: help me understand though, how you get to that three
Speaker 1: million dollar thresholds, Like, what about the people under that?
Speaker 1: How do you help them? Well, basically what we do
Speaker 1: is we help provide to provide a strategic planning for
Speaker 1: their merger's, acquisitions and just strategies on how to grow
Speaker 1: and scale their companies. And then we work with a
Speaker 1: group of investors um that will loan them money and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. I've been doing this for about
Speaker 1: thirty something years, being an entrepreneur and accessing finance. So
Speaker 1: again we try to domestify what that actually looks like
Speaker 1: and brain companies in minority companies, people that look like me,
Speaker 1: and just help them to buy strategic planning and by
Speaker 1: getting them access to capital and arranging for funding so
Speaker 1: that they can grow and normally what that will allow
Speaker 1: them to do. It helps to provide them with the
Speaker 1: working tools that they need for that strategic planning, for
Speaker 1: exit strategy out because as we know, before, the largest
Speaker 1: investments that most Americans had, especially African Americans with their homes,
Speaker 1: and now that we have even less homeownership than we
Speaker 1: did previously, the largest investment that they have is their savings.
Speaker 1: And African Americans are saving far less than their counterparts
Speaker 1: of whites and things of that nature, so we have
Speaker 1: less disposable income, we have less income them, and so
Speaker 1: trying to teach them, one business at a time how
Speaker 1: to make the shift and redirect some of their resources
Speaker 1: into their business so that they can also hire people
Speaker 1: that look like Bill that Solomon Ali, head of Solomon
Speaker 1: RCLI Corporation, And as he told us, blacks don't want
Speaker 1: to hand out, they want to hand up, and that
Speaker 1: requires many including the federal government, realizing it's been unjust.
Speaker 1: He kept reminding us too that you know, blacks, they
Speaker 1: are a huge consumer community in the U s. They
Speaker 1: have a lot to contribute, and they are a group
Speaker 1: that really need to have more recognition. Check out that
Speaker 1: full conversation. It's on our podcast feed. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week coming up. If things don't change, we're
Speaker 1: on a trajectory to see food insecurity rates in the
Speaker 1: country go all the way up to fifty four million people.
Speaker 1: Feeding America is out with a new report on hunger
Speaker 1: in the United States and it's not good. We'll hear
Speaker 1: from CEO Claire Babineaux Fontaneau. This is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Nearly thirty million in the US recently reported
Speaker 1: to the Census Bureau that they did not have enough
Speaker 1: to eat, and according to Feeding America, child hunger is
Speaker 1: at an all time high due to COVID nineteen and
Speaker 1: rising unemployment. Feeding America goes on to predict that over
Speaker 1: the next few months, eighteen million children could be food insecure.
Speaker 1: Long term harm results when kids do not have enough
Speaker 1: to eat, while that includes adverse educational, health, and economic outcomes.
Speaker 1: Feeding America CEO Claire babinel Fontano talked with us and
Speaker 1: gave us the startling statistics and situation of so many
Speaker 1: If things don't change, we're on a trajectory to see
Speaker 1: food insecurity rates in the country go all the way
Speaker 1: up to fifty four million people. Um. Beneath that huge
Speaker 1: number is that there are certain uniquely vulnerable communities who
Speaker 1: are being really really hard hit right now, um by
Speaker 1: this food crisis that's come along with the health crisis
Speaker 1: that we're all uh having to deal with. So how
Speaker 1: do you deal with it? Well, uh, they say, how
Speaker 1: do you eat an elephant? Gotta be one bite at
Speaker 1: a time, right, So, UM, we're doing lots of things
Speaker 1: as a network. I'm really proud of of our members
Speaker 1: who are out there on the front line making certain
Speaker 1: that even at the risk to their own safety. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we put in place some precautions to try to
Speaker 1: make it safer. But the reality is that there are
Speaker 1: risk associated with the work that they do. They get
Speaker 1: out there consistently improvide this food to people when they
Speaker 1: need it. The reality though, is that this has to
Speaker 1: be an all in fight. So we've done some some
Speaker 1: recent a recent study with Mackenzie. Even with all of
Speaker 1: the interventions that have already happened, there's been some good
Speaker 1: news in terms of bipartisan support for some assistance to
Speaker 1: our network. We've put that in play, factored it into
Speaker 1: this number. We still have a gap over the next
Speaker 1: twelve months that we're estimating unless something serious changes, it's
Speaker 1: going to be an eight billion meal gap for people
Speaker 1: side of that. I mean, they're almost twenty million children
Speaker 1: are caught up inside of that gap. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: pretty extraordiny. I have to say, like it just it
Speaker 1: gets me so upset because here we are, you know,
Speaker 1: a very origination. We've all seen the stories during the
Speaker 1: pandemic of milk being you know, spilled out, and I
Speaker 1: understood why there weren't workers necessarily, you know, or there
Speaker 1: was just overproduction, but it was just hard to get
Speaker 1: my head around that happening. Wasting food, throwing it out
Speaker 1: versus people not having meals to eat on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: how do we fix this? Claire, Yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: it's there's more than one thing to do. So the
Speaker 1: first thing, let's talk about that which you just described. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the good things that probably
Speaker 1: frustrates all of us is that our issue in this
Speaker 1: country isn't that we don't have the wherewithal to produce
Speaker 1: enough food to feed our people. We just there's been
Speaker 1: a significant matching challenge though, so part of what's happened
Speaker 1: and you've seen fewer headlines around milk being wasted. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it's because we have a long,
Speaker 1: deep relationship with farmers and in in the immediate aftermath
Speaker 1: of the health pandemic, Uh, there was a big, big mismatch.
Speaker 1: We've done a much better job of coming together and
Speaker 1: matching that food up with people who need it. But
Speaker 1: we're gonna need policy changes, that's the bottom line. So
Speaker 1: I am. I hope that everyone within the sound of
Speaker 1: my boys were to reach out to their members of
Speaker 1: Congress and tell them get back at that bargaining table,
Speaker 1: because there are some people who are in desperate need
Speaker 1: of help, and Congress is uniquely positioned to help them.
Speaker 1: If I could just tie up something. A conversation Alex
Speaker 1: and I had yesterday and we talked about farm subsidies specifically,
Speaker 1: and we talked about you know, money, tax money, various
Speaker 1: subsidies and programs that come through the government's uh, federal
Speaker 1: and I guess other you know, state maybe in local
Speaker 1: to that support various industries. And are you talking about
Speaker 1: things like farm subsidies that you know we have government
Speaker 1: support and yet you know, when we need people who
Speaker 1: need to be fed, you know, somehow that chain needs
Speaker 1: to be kind of completed. Yeah, that's a part of it.
Speaker 1: So a part of it is certainly we do already
Speaker 1: have relationships with with farmers that includes some of the
Speaker 1: subsidies go towards food purchases that then go into the
Speaker 1: charitable food system UM and their issues around making making
Speaker 1: that easier, and we're going to continue to work with
Speaker 1: USDA and with farmers to try to make that easier.
Speaker 1: But there's some other policy interventions that that really for
Speaker 1: me are no brainers. And in this climate where everything
Speaker 1: themes partisan, this is something that shouldn't be And it's
Speaker 1: the Settle Nutrition program that includes initiative like snap. Snap
Speaker 1: is formally referred to as food stamps. So we know
Speaker 1: for a fact that's SNAP for every one meal that
Speaker 1: our remarkable network can provide, SNAP can provide nine. We
Speaker 1: know from the pre from the previous recession that it
Speaker 1: is highly stimulative to the economy. If you provide someone
Speaker 1: who have such limited means with the resource that's only
Speaker 1: valuable to them if they use it, it's going to
Speaker 1: have a stimulative impact providing resources. That's something we've heard
Speaker 1: from a lot of our guests here at Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week and how that really impacts their life in so
Speaker 1: many different ways and something that ultimately is important to
Speaker 1: the overall economy that's feeding America. CEO Claire Babineau Fontano,
Speaker 1: you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, we check
Speaker 1: into consumer habits how they are changing during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: We'll do that with ROHWN CEO and co founder Nate Checkets.
Speaker 1: This is Foomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. There have been
Speaker 1: lots of stories about what it means to dress for
Speaker 1: work today, especially with all of us working from home.
Speaker 1: You know, we've heard about the Zoom shirt, that's that
Speaker 1: shirt that's always hanging nearby on a hangar from where
Speaker 1: you're working at home, just in case a virtual meeting
Speaker 1: with your boss or perhaps a client comes up. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of yoga ware and athletisia ware being
Speaker 1: worn at home t shirts. And you know, our next
Speaker 1: guest knows about all of this firsthand. He's a friend
Speaker 1: of the show. He's rown CEO and co founder Nate
Speaker 1: check Its, and he joined us to talk about how
Speaker 1: consumer habits are changing and what they are seeing in
Speaker 1: terms of trends, what people have been buying since they've
Speaker 1: been home. He began though, with how his world has
Speaker 1: been upended too because of COVID nineteen. Like everyone, this
Speaker 1: is a roller coaster that feels like it's been UM
Speaker 1: two years uh and and in some ways, you know,
Speaker 1: it feels short, in some ways it feels long. But
Speaker 1: you know, when when the pandemic initially started, it was
Speaker 1: a very scary time for not just people with health,
Speaker 1: but you know for us as as retailer and as
Speaker 1: a as a young growing brand in the consumer space.
Speaker 1: UM caused us to look at just about everything and certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, we've we've come a long way, and categorically,
Speaker 1: I think we're insulated in a lot of ways. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been quite the experience navigating this so
Speaker 1: so literally, like what are people gonna wear? I mean,
Speaker 1: I joked about David Weston. So he's an anchor here
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Television. He covers politics, I mean, and he would
Speaker 1: wear a suit every day, uh, and used to be
Speaker 1: ahead of ABC News. He's that way, um, And I'll
Speaker 1: say that with a lot of love, Like he'd take
Speaker 1: his jacket off when he would get at his desk
Speaker 1: and then he'd literally get up to go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: he puts the jacket on, like he's that kind of guy,
Speaker 1: and he's rangeans to work. So like, what's my new uniform? Well,
Speaker 1: I I think there's no way, you know, let's let's
Speaker 1: say that we could snap our fingers and we were
Speaker 1: back at our everybody was back at an office tomorrow.
Speaker 1: There's no way that the last few months won't impact
Speaker 1: wardrobes in the future of work, attire, etcetera. You know,
Speaker 1: people are this is a this is a very long
Speaker 1: sustained level of comfort and kind of wearing whatever you
Speaker 1: feel like we're wearing. And so you're gonna see dress
Speaker 1: codes be relaxed across the board. Um, and people are
Speaker 1: gonna there's gonna be a continue to push for comfortable
Speaker 1: work attire. And you know that's what Rome has always
Speaker 1: been about. Um, you know, not just making great stuff
Speaker 1: active for the gym, but making stuff that you can
Speaker 1: wear to and from work and and look great and
Speaker 1: so you know, performance fabrics and the work sweatpants, so
Speaker 1: to speak. But I do think that you're going to
Speaker 1: see some yeah, some relaxation of dress standards, even for
Speaker 1: a guy David. I'm gonna say, we're going to actually
Speaker 1: mention it to David. I've got to say I would
Speaker 1: like this conversation. Well, and I mentioned I've been living
Speaker 1: in jeans and yoga gear and a few Rowan items
Speaker 1: as well, because they are incredibly comfortable. I want to
Speaker 1: also ask you, because I want to get into, um,
Speaker 1: maybe any of the pivots that you've done. But one
Speaker 1: thing that you have done is, and forgive me if
Speaker 1: I don't say it correctly, is it brands times better?
Speaker 1: You have brands for better. Yeah, tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about this movement. Well, so you know, in the
Speaker 1: early stages, I was, I was looking around, and uh.
Speaker 1: It really started with the fact that I sat my
Speaker 1: three boys down in the room and I said, all right,
Speaker 1: we get to spend this amazing time together. It could
Speaker 1: be a couple of weeks, it could be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: even as much as a month. And of course I
Speaker 1: was dead wrong on my long term estimates. But is
Speaker 1: there something that you guys? I want you to pick
Speaker 1: a skill that you want to learn, and we're going
Speaker 1: to go and learn it together. And ultimately we landed
Speaker 1: on skateboarding. I ever really learned how to skateboard. They
Speaker 1: wanted to learn how to skateboard. Um. And so I
Speaker 1: went and I looked, and I tried to find, you know,
Speaker 1: a skateboard brand that was part of this kind of
Speaker 1: new digitally native movement. UM. I did not want to
Speaker 1: go to Amazon and just buy something, because you had
Speaker 1: heard that all of online transactions were shifting towards Amazon,
Speaker 1: Walmart and these big players of what I called lowest
Speaker 1: common denominator shopping platforms. And this new digital main street
Speaker 1: that had been built up because regular main street and
Speaker 1: retail main street had really been killed off. But the
Speaker 1: digital main street that had evolved with these amazing brands UM,
Speaker 1: we're being challenged in a very real way. And so
Speaker 1: I wanted to go and find a skateboard brand and
Speaker 1: I searched for like thirty four five minutes online and
Speaker 1: I couldn't find one and UM. But what I did
Speaker 1: see in that process of looking at all of my
Speaker 1: peers in this digital main street is everybody across the
Speaker 1: board was doing what they could to contribute UM positively,
Speaker 1: to to you know, to fight this pandemic. Whether it
Speaker 1: was encouraging employees and their team and their retail teams
Speaker 1: to to be safe. UM. You know, some were shifting
Speaker 1: their supply chains to make masks. Many were giving a
Speaker 1: percent of their sales to UM to nonprofits even as
Speaker 1: their sales were declining. And I thought, you know, it
Speaker 1: would be great to stand in solidarity with a lot
Speaker 1: of these brands, and so I just started reaching out
Speaker 1: to friends in the space and we accumulated over a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty brands, digitally native brands, and everybody agreed
Speaker 1: to donate UM two plus percent of their sales or
Speaker 1: ten plus percent of their proceeds to a nonprofit fighting
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And UM over the course of two months,
Speaker 1: we raised you know, three and a half million dollars
Speaker 1: um to to to fight and you know, to contribute
Speaker 1: to PP. And it also gave consumers a choice because
Speaker 1: we said, you know, we're brands that stand for treating
Speaker 1: our employees better, stand for treating our supply chains well,
Speaker 1: and we will always try and do what's right first,
Speaker 1: you know, above and beyond simply trying to turn a profit.
Speaker 1: And uh and it was a great, great initiative and
Speaker 1: we had a great experience in building it well. Interested
Speaker 1: that you said that, because I wonder also how much
Speaker 1: are you thinking differently about all of that now? Like
Speaker 1: you have the relief effort, you've over a hundred forty
Speaker 1: brands who all helped raise that money. But as a company,
Speaker 1: are you also rethinking how you do stuff either sustainably
Speaker 1: or how you deal with workers, or any kind of
Speaker 1: work life balance that exists in any part of the
Speaker 1: world like does does Did COVID make you rethink any
Speaker 1: of those things? I think it's made us. I think
Speaker 1: it's made us at the very least examine everything. Um
Speaker 1: And you know, in particular, I will say, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a very flexible PTO policy relative to most
Speaker 1: of corporate America in the fact that we don't have
Speaker 1: a formal um, you know, vacation days. If you join
Speaker 1: our company tomorrow, we don't say all right, it's your
Speaker 1: first year, you get ten vacation days. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it is unlimited p t O as we as we
Speaker 1: describe it, um. And it's actually worked very well for us.
Speaker 1: But you know, part of the challenge that has come
Speaker 1: with that, and especially in this consistently connected environment, people
Speaker 1: are not taking enough time off where they're just you know,
Speaker 1: eliminating screens and walking away. And so we've had times
Speaker 1: where we are forcing screen breaks um and uh. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's you know, there's been there's certainly been
Speaker 1: ways where we're thinking about what does collaboration looked like
Speaker 1: when we come back is it is it a five
Speaker 1: day work week in the office? Um? And there's you know, again,
Speaker 1: forever is a very long time. So when I hear
Speaker 1: people say that the you know, we're never ever going
Speaker 1: back to an office, well, forever is a very long time.
Speaker 1: But I do think the workplace will be changed for uh,
Speaker 1: for a considerably long time in the coming years. I
Speaker 1: did want to ask you that, Nate, because it's interesting.
Speaker 1: We had a CEO on last week, Who's who's a
Speaker 1: die hard New Yorker lived there, work their offices. UM
Speaker 1: has created, like you, has a great heart and you know,
Speaker 1: giving back to the community, and basically said we're done,
Speaker 1: we're done with New York and we've been working so
Speaker 1: well and he's got a company that can work really
Speaker 1: well virtually, and and so on and so forth. But
Speaker 1: he said, we're done with New York, but you don't.
Speaker 1: And I think you make a really good point. I
Speaker 1: think right now it's easy for us all to say
Speaker 1: we're done. But but long forever is a long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you know they going back and looking
Speaker 1: at the Spanish Flu and the you know, the Roaring
Speaker 1: twenties that followed it. You know, it's it's certainly easy
Speaker 1: to to think that this is you know that this
Speaker 1: is going to be forever impact. But there's there is,
Speaker 1: there is an impact, and we have to acknowledge that. Um,
Speaker 1: I will never be done with New York. Um. We
Speaker 1: love we love the city, and I think it's going
Speaker 1: to take I think New York is going to come
Speaker 1: back better and stronger, and um, but you know, when
Speaker 1: it comes to being in the office at least, as
Speaker 1: far as I can see, for the next two years,
Speaker 1: we will not have five day a week office days.
Speaker 1: I can. I can envision a scenario where it goes
Speaker 1: down even to to office day week and the rest
Speaker 1: because our team is so effective. Brune CEO and co
Speaker 1: founder Nate Check it's and Check got that full conversation
Speaker 1: in case you missed any of it, that is on
Speaker 1: our podcast. Fore you gotta say, I love what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I love what he's doing when it comes to Brands
Speaker 1: for Better, which is a new movement in how brands
Speaker 1: are more thoughtful in their treatment of customers, teams, and suppliers.
Speaker 1: So if you go to their website, he's really put
Speaker 1: together these like minded brands and they've gotten together and
Speaker 1: they're actually giving back to those affected by Good nineteen.
Speaker 1: You heard Nate talk about it, but it's really a
Speaker 1: great movement. All right. That wraps up the weekend edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. I'm Carol Masser. Be sure to tune
Speaker 1: into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday starting
Speaker 1: at two pm Wall Street Time, And if you can't
Speaker 1: catch us live, get our daily Bloomberg Business Week podcast
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and of course you can
Speaker 1: get the full conversations such as the ones we had
Speaker 1: with Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling and also Feeding America
Speaker 1: CEO Claire Babineau Fontane. And be sure to check out
Speaker 1: our extra podcast for full interviews you will not hear
Speaker 1: anywhere else. And this week it's kiss We President CEO
Speaker 1: Mike Shable on helping ESPN, the p g A and
Speaker 1: the NBA and many more create inclusive fan experiences through
Speaker 1: streaming and the cloud. We just always thought that, gosh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people at home. They watch this
Speaker 1: content all the time. They're getting you know, the younger
Speaker 1: people are mostly on a digital based platform. They want experiences.
Speaker 1: They don't want to just lean back and watch. They
Speaker 1: want to get in, they want to participate, They want
Speaker 1: to be with each other. Our company is and just
Speaker 1: focused on creating the platforms that enable that. Here that
Speaker 1: conversation wherever you get your podcasts, and you can also
Speaker 1: watch the show live on YouTube. Just search for Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Global News and you can get this week's edition of
Speaker 1: the magazine that is on newsstands now we'll be back
Speaker 1: next week. At the same time, this is Bloomberg