Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Over the next couple of hours,
Speaker 1: we're going to bring you some of the most important
Speaker 1: and informative coronavirus conversations we've had throughout the week on
Speaker 1: our daily radio show. And Jason, we finished the prior
Speaker 1: week talking a lot about mixed messages and that seemed
Speaker 1: to permeate again this week in what was week eight
Speaker 1: for many of us still working at home, even as
Speaker 1: around the U S some states were easing restrictions and
Speaker 1: there was more talk of reopening the economy, and throughout
Speaker 1: the week, Jason, I felt like it was two steps forward,
Speaker 1: one step back when it came to developing a vaccine
Speaker 1: and how best to safely reopen and also protect what
Speaker 1: was left of our economy. And this as economic data
Speaker 1: continued to shatter previous readings and as more companies as
Speaker 1: we know, dropped their guidance for the year. The visibility
Speaker 1: it's just not there. Well, it was a series of
Speaker 1: conversations I feel like as I think back across the week,
Speaker 1: where we were sort of a two minds, this notion
Speaker 1: of like what are you doing to protect? What are
Speaker 1: you doing to shelter? Remaining that conversation remaining, but also
Speaker 1: looking ahead, looking short term, looking mid term, and looking
Speaker 1: long term. And that has to do with the medical side,
Speaker 1: but it certainly has to do with companies. Companies who
Speaker 1: know that they as institutions and maybe more importantly, the
Speaker 1: people who work for them and the leaders that we're
Speaker 1: talking to are going to be forever changed. And the
Speaker 1: implications of that are not easy to get your head around.
Speaker 1: But we did our best over the course of the week. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we know some companies and industries have been hurt disproportionately.
Speaker 1: Some have actually seen a surgeon demand, and that included
Speaker 1: Blue Apron president and CEO Linda Kozlowski. I mean, they
Speaker 1: talked about how demand they couldn't even meet it all initially,
Speaker 1: and they had to think about protecting workers, which they
Speaker 1: already do because they're in the food industry, but also
Speaker 1: how to get their kids out to consumers. First up,
Speaker 1: though we go inside the magazine, we get a firsthand
Speaker 1: look at testing for the virus. This has been a
Speaker 1: massive question. It's on all of our minds. You can
Speaker 1: write about it in the abstract. But Bloomberg News writer
Speaker 1: Stephanie Baker she had for antibody tests herself, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: she's still not sure if she had COVID nineteen. You know,
Speaker 1: I did this because I realized that I, like many
Speaker 1: other people, had, was wondering whether or not I might
Speaker 1: have had it UM. And I think I realized a
Speaker 1: lot of other people were in a similar situation. And
Speaker 1: I had written about antibody testing, as you know, being
Speaker 1: trumpeted by politicians as a way out of lockdown, but
Speaker 1: had talked to scientists who had criticized these antibody tests
Speaker 1: as being unreliable. So I thought, well, if I throw
Speaker 1: myself into this world, UM and really do some research
Speaker 1: and test it on myself, I'll get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of of you know, how reliably reliable these tests are. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, I thought, well, maybe it will be
Speaker 1: really boring and I'll just get you know, a bunch
Speaker 1: of negative results that the earlier story and then UM.
Speaker 1: And then so when when I started out, I got
Speaker 1: a negative test, and I thought, just what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to get a bunch of negatives and
Speaker 1: I won't have a story or much to say. Um,
Speaker 1: And then the next test was positive, and I was
Speaker 1: really confounded. The third test was also positive, so I figured, well,
Speaker 1: two out of three, you know, the first test must
Speaker 1: be an outlier. By the time I took the fourth test,
Speaker 1: which was negative, I thought, well, two positives too, negatives,
Speaker 1: I have no clue whether or not I've had it.
Speaker 1: And then I started and you have a story, definitely
Speaker 1: have a story. That have a story. I started to
Speaker 1: take a closer look at these tests. Why would I
Speaker 1: be getting, you know, differing results. You know, there's obviously
Speaker 1: a lot of these companies are claiming incredibly high almost
Speaker 1: perfect specificity, very high sensitivity rates. But what I realized
Speaker 1: is that some of them are testing different antibodies to
Speaker 1: different parts of the virus. Some tests just for antibodies
Speaker 1: against the so called spike protein, which is a sort
Speaker 1: of call in card of this novel coronavirus. Others test
Speaker 1: for antibodies against something called the nucleo capsid protein, which
Speaker 1: are far more abundant and easier to detect. Some tests
Speaker 1: for both, and I think that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why they're I got so many varying results. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: so many questions. Because what's key about this, right Stephanie,
Speaker 1: is that so many world leaders, and you write this
Speaker 1: in your story, have said that we need these antibody
Speaker 1: tests to determine who has had the virus, who has immunity,
Speaker 1: so we can reopen up the economies and so everybody
Speaker 1: can feel safe. But what I got from your story
Speaker 1: is that there are tons of different types of tests
Speaker 1: out there, and there are some differences between what's done
Speaker 1: in a lab versus what you can do kind of
Speaker 1: a rapid test. And the problem is there's a lot
Speaker 1: of variation, right, So I feel like there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of certainty that comes out of these antibody tests. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And and look, you know, one of the things I
Speaker 1: should say at this, at the start here is that
Speaker 1: scientists don't know if you have antibodies how much protection
Speaker 1: they actually provide. You know, many people, many scientists that
Speaker 1: it will give you at least a few months of protection,
Speaker 1: perhaps several years. But the virus has only been around, um,
Speaker 1: you know that we're aware of since January. Still still
Speaker 1: so much to learn, UM, And it's hard to see
Speaker 1: to study how long immunity laughs, and and and what
Speaker 1: level of antibodies really provides you any protection. But my
Speaker 1: takeaway from this very unscientific little experiment I did was
Speaker 1: that these tests, by and large are not ready for
Speaker 1: prime time. And UM, I'm surprised at the overwhelming number
Speaker 1: of messages I got from friends and contacts and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: users saying, UM, I got a test, is it correct
Speaker 1: or I'm going to get a test and what do
Speaker 1: you think? Um? And you know other people who like
Speaker 1: who said, well, I took two tests and I had
Speaker 1: a similar experience to you. I got conflicting results. So UM,
Speaker 1: I've surprised at how much this story is kind of
Speaker 1: captured what is on so many people minds right now. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think there needs to be a lot more
Speaker 1: research into antibodies and how to detect them before we
Speaker 1: can think about rolling this out on a wider scale.
Speaker 1: And that's Bloomberg News is Stephanie Baker normally on the
Speaker 1: financial investigations Beach. She's done some amazing work around Paul
Speaker 1: mana Fort, the Ukraine and Russia angle to everything going
Speaker 1: on here in the United States. But this was a
Speaker 1: very personal story. Carol. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting, Jason.
Speaker 1: I mean, she really hits something with all of us.
Speaker 1: We've all had those conversations with friends, neighbors, ourselves about
Speaker 1: I think we had the virus. And you know, what
Speaker 1: we're finding out is that there are so many questions
Speaker 1: about the accuracy of these rapid antibody tests on the market.
Speaker 1: But you know, we need these to reopen the economy,
Speaker 1: and yet which she found out, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: false results and it really raises a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about how do we reopen safely? Well, it is the
Speaker 1: big question, and it's one of the questions that we
Speaker 1: posted the President and CEO of Providence Health. He had
Speaker 1: a stark reality check for sure. That's coming up here
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg Pas is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Today we're bringing you some of the most important and
Speaker 1: informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: radio show, all about the coronavirus, all about the state
Speaker 1: of the world, the state of our lives. Carol, and
Speaker 1: this is a medical crisis at its core. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I've got to say, one of our go to voices
Speaker 1: certainly has been this next guest. They were home to
Speaker 1: the first known case of the virus in the United States.
Speaker 1: Dr Rod Hochman. He's the president CEO of Providence Health
Speaker 1: and you know, they really have been dealing with this
Speaker 1: from day one, and it was great to get his
Speaker 1: thoughts about again the path forward and again we're finding
Speaker 1: it's difficult. I think it starts out with, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to get better at treating this virus. So
Speaker 1: you saw with from Visivier now being approved and you
Speaker 1: know we are first page it that we had in
Speaker 1: the United States. We actually treated with m jusiver three
Speaker 1: months ago. And what we're going to see are some
Speaker 1: other medications that are going to be added to that
Speaker 1: in kind of a cocktail to see if we can
Speaker 1: really improve patients that get sick and hopefully prevent death.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing that I think the public can
Speaker 1: start to say, well, that's a good tranche of research
Speaker 1: and work that's going on. On the other side of
Speaker 1: it is the race for the vaccine, where you know,
Speaker 1: there's probably more than fifteen trials that are ongoing, which
Speaker 1: is fantastic, and we have a lot of cooperation going
Speaker 1: on between the scientists with the different trials out there,
Speaker 1: and to kind of explain it to listeners, it's it's
Speaker 1: picking different parts of the virus and seeing which one
Speaker 1: of those parts is gonna give you immunity. And so
Speaker 1: that's in simple terms, you know, why would there be
Speaker 1: fifteen different trials because they're also all looking at different
Speaker 1: aspects of the virus to see which one seemed to
Speaker 1: be as I would say, the most immunogenic and the
Speaker 1: ones that can confer immunity. So and then there's an
Speaker 1: issue of whether you use DNA or RNA, which from
Speaker 1: your biology from high school has all different consequences. There
Speaker 1: are some companies that are looking for a faster turnaround
Speaker 1: on their vaccine. Uh, we're still we're cautiously hopeful about that,
Speaker 1: but you know that remains to be seen, you know,
Speaker 1: so that the most optimistic estimates are sometime in the
Speaker 1: late hall towards the end of the year, and the
Speaker 1: most realistic are probably in the first quarter of next year.
Speaker 1: UM for a vaccine, that's what that's what most of
Speaker 1: us are looking at in the in the clinical and
Speaker 1: scientific community. And so Dr Hakman, as you look across
Speaker 1: the country and and you drawing the experience that you've
Speaker 1: had there in Washington State. You see this sort of
Speaker 1: checkerboard that we keep describing different states, sort of coming
Speaker 1: back at different times. But part of that is a
Speaker 1: response to how the virus has played out in different geographies,
Speaker 1: different urban areas versus suburban versus rural. What makes the
Speaker 1: most sense in terms of the medical side and in
Speaker 1: terms of what we should be doing before we have
Speaker 1: a vaccine? What what makes the most sense? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just talked to the Business Roundtable on Friday. We're trying
Speaker 1: to make some sense for the cdeos around the country
Speaker 1: about what they should do. And it's all very very
Speaker 1: dependent upon your geography and your density. So when I
Speaker 1: think about, you know, giving advice to different organizations companies,
Speaker 1: the first question I asked, are where are you in
Speaker 1: the country, because it will make a different depending on
Speaker 1: where those states and localities are on the curve of
Speaker 1: number of cases. And then the second thing that's really
Speaker 1: important is the density of the work environment. So are
Speaker 1: you able to spread people out? Can you spread customers out?
Speaker 1: And you do some of that which will help really
Speaker 1: really decrease risk and exposure. So it's almost you almost
Speaker 1: have to go through a checklist of the things that
Speaker 1: you do in your business or where you are to
Speaker 1: kind of understand what the best practices are, and some
Speaker 1: of us are. We're actually putting together kind of some
Speaker 1: of those guidelines so that these are the things that
Speaker 1: you look for and these are the things that will
Speaker 1: decrease your risk significantly. And then a little bit of
Speaker 1: this is gonna be we gotta see what happens in
Speaker 1: the country. We're gonna learn a lot. Certain places will
Speaker 1: teach us a lot in our in our environment. Alaska's
Speaker 1: wide open and open for business. Um, you know, again
Speaker 1: not a lot of density, but we're also going to
Speaker 1: learn a lot by doing that. What are the things
Speaker 1: that we have to look out for? What about something
Speaker 1: like mass transportation in a city like New York, how
Speaker 1: do you see that moving forward? Wow, that is a
Speaker 1: tough one. That is a really really hard one to
Speaker 1: think about, because those are the situations where you know,
Speaker 1: if you ask me as a physician, that worry us
Speaker 1: the most. When you've got a crowded subway car that
Speaker 1: has few hundred people in it in close proximity, how
Speaker 1: do you do that? And I don't know whether it's
Speaker 1: going to take limiting some of that transportation. Obviously everyone
Speaker 1: wearing a mask, because there's no question that if everyone
Speaker 1: wore a mask, it will decrease significantly the transmission rate
Speaker 1: of this virus, even if they're not masks that people
Speaker 1: have on. So some of that, and then you know,
Speaker 1: you know, not touching anything. If I got on a subway,
Speaker 1: as soon as I got off, I'd be you know,
Speaker 1: washing my hands, doing all those kinds of things. So
Speaker 1: I think we're going to have to make some accommodation
Speaker 1: and probably limiting you know, we can't have a packed
Speaker 1: subway car. So are there ways that we kind of
Speaker 1: limit the number of people. But those are going to
Speaker 1: be some of the tough ones that we're going to
Speaker 1: have to solve. That's Dr Rod Hawkman. He's the President
Speaker 1: CEO of Providence Health. As we've been reminding everybody home
Speaker 1: to the first known case of the virus in the US,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a vaccine, that's what the conversations are
Speaker 1: all about. But as he reminds us, this virus, we
Speaker 1: are still learning so much about it, and so that
Speaker 1: complicates getting a vaccine. Well, the other thing that I
Speaker 1: really took away from his conversation. I felt like it
Speaker 1: for many conversations we had subsequently, was this notion that
Speaker 1: how you come back depends on density and geography. Density
Speaker 1: and geography. I feel like I want to like write
Speaker 1: it down on everything that I talked about when it
Speaker 1: relates to the comeback. Remember, we asked him about how
Speaker 1: do you open up mass transportation in New York City
Speaker 1: and he goes, well, that's a tough one. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: felt like that out. I felt like he actually said,
Speaker 1: brought that up, and uh, for those of us who
Speaker 1: live in the Tri state area and commute to New
Speaker 1: York City, that's a tough answer. Yeah, exactly. All Right,
Speaker 1: you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up conversation with
Speaker 1: Blue Apron President and CEO Linda Kozlowski. I'm keeping workers
Speaker 1: safe and keeping up with the surge in demand. This
Speaker 1: is Whoomer. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser
Speaker 1: and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some
Speaker 1: of the most important and informative conversations we had throughout
Speaker 1: the week on our daily radio show, and of course, Jason,
Speaker 1: all of it had to do about the coronavirus, and
Speaker 1: it also tapped into those companies who have had to
Speaker 1: ramp up their businesses to meet increased demand for all
Speaker 1: of us sheltering at home. Well, we know life has changed,
Speaker 1: our daily routines have changed, how we eat certainly has changed,
Speaker 1: and what we eat. We spoke with Linda Kauzlowski. She's
Speaker 1: got a fascinating background. She was a high level executive
Speaker 1: at Etsy, she worked at ever Note, she's the relatively
Speaker 1: new president and CEO over at Blue Apron. That's been
Speaker 1: a challenging company. But this virus has put things in
Speaker 1: a slightly different perspective. Well, I think there are sort
Speaker 1: of two main ways that we had to think about
Speaker 1: operating slightly differently. One is when it comes to how
Speaker 1: we actually handled the demand. Obviously, there was a very
Speaker 1: sharp increase in demand when um when coronavirus orders started
Speaker 1: to go into play, as far as people going to
Speaker 1: shelter in place, et cetera, and restaurant closures, and so
Speaker 1: we had to make a few decisions on how to
Speaker 1: streamline operations in order to try to make sure that
Speaker 1: we could get as many boxes out to people as possible.
Speaker 1: And we did that through consolidating some of UM, the
Speaker 1: recipes and UM and looking at ways that we could
Speaker 1: just simplify the pack lines and and UM and and
Speaker 1: reduce complexity. Then the other aspect of it was really
Speaker 1: about the safety peace. UM. We're already very, very obsessed
Speaker 1: with safety and sanitation. We're an FDA regulated center. We
Speaker 1: have an SQF certification, which is considered to be one
Speaker 1: of the highest standards in the world, and so we
Speaker 1: already take a lot of precautions on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis, but we layered on top of that in UM,
Speaker 1: even in early March before we were starting to see
Speaker 1: any kind of change in demand, to say, let's let's
Speaker 1: get some other things in place around additional handwashing, additional
Speaker 1: safety precautions, social distancing, and eventually you know, face masks
Speaker 1: and all of our facility. So we we wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that that our employees were safe, but also
Speaker 1: that they had the tools and the understanding of how
Speaker 1: to continue to be safe throughout this time. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting because I think we all went through
Speaker 1: a period of like, wait, can I get outside food?
Speaker 1: Is that safe for me? And I think we came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion for the most part that it was okay,
Speaker 1: and I think in many ways that it was about
Speaker 1: keeping workers safe so that they didn't get the virus
Speaker 1: from kind of working next to each other. What was
Speaker 1: physically the setup? Did you have to spread everybody out
Speaker 1: in a warehouse? So it's it's thinking about the production
Speaker 1: floor itself and how do you add social distancing UM
Speaker 1: in the production floor. But it's actually way beyond that,
Speaker 1: because you have break rooms, you have the parking lot,
Speaker 1: you have UM. You know, people taking breaks from from
Speaker 1: their shifts, and you want to make sure that they
Speaker 1: understand the impact of social distancing across the board. And
Speaker 1: so we we now require masks at all times in
Speaker 1: our facilities, not just on the production floor, to make
Speaker 1: sure that people have that additional layer of protection. So
Speaker 1: we at a part of microwaves where people might heat
Speaker 1: their lunches up and and that sort of thing to
Speaker 1: make sure that people did not need to to to
Speaker 1: you know, come in contact with each other even off
Speaker 1: the production floor as well. And in terms of the
Speaker 1: supply chain. You know, we heard as recently as this
Speaker 1: afternoon from the President meeting there with the Governor of
Speaker 1: Iowa about you know, what's going on with meat. What
Speaker 1: are you saying, Well, we actually have very very high
Speaker 1: animal welfare standards and for our proteins, and very high
Speaker 1: quality standards for our produce, so we have a very
Speaker 1: tight supply chain in order to manage that, and we
Speaker 1: do not want to compromise on those standards because one
Speaker 1: of the things we're known for is the quality of
Speaker 1: our ingredients, and our supply chain UM when it comes
Speaker 1: to those types of proteins has not actually been impacted
Speaker 1: um from from those concerns that have been coming out
Speaker 1: in the media. We don't We don't source from those
Speaker 1: particular suppliers, and we have pretty tight control over our
Speaker 1: chain to make sure that we're not only adhering to
Speaker 1: our own safety standards, but that our suppliers are adhering
Speaker 1: to those safety standards as well. So we've had fairly
Speaker 1: minimal impact on our supply chain. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we also have such a variety of recipes and flavors
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis that we're constantly sourcing from different
Speaker 1: people anyway, so we can move between suppliers as well
Speaker 1: as needed to ensure that the supply is safe. You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you had seen a sharp increase in
Speaker 1: demand sort of that growth in demand help us understand
Speaker 1: can you quantify that and is that sort of are
Speaker 1: you seeing that sort of hold as we get deeper
Speaker 1: into this stay at home world? Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: what we said that we saw was when you compare
Speaker 1: the first three weeks of March to the first three
Speaker 1: weeks of April, we saw about a twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: lift in demand UM in those sort of early weeks,
Speaker 1: and of course that demand, we think there's more out there,
Speaker 1: and we continue to UM to try to make sure
Speaker 1: that we're serving people as best as possible. We had
Speaker 1: to UM. We couldn't meet all of that demand at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the cycle, but we felt that it
Speaker 1: was important to compare or at the beginning of March
Speaker 1: to the beginning of April as opposed to looking year
Speaker 1: over year because so much other dynamics change throughout the
Speaker 1: year that are unrelated to COVID and UM And that's
Speaker 1: really where we saw the sharp increase, and it came
Speaker 1: from a combination of our existing customers ordering a lot more,
Speaker 1: as well as customers coming back into the service that
Speaker 1: had previously canceled and brand new customers coming into the service.
Speaker 1: At the same time, and that's flue aprin CEO Linda
Speaker 1: Kazlowski really enjoyed that conversation in part because they know
Speaker 1: a lot about their consumer. This is a business that
Speaker 1: was already trying to rate itself in some ways, and
Speaker 1: they're facing something as all of us are that no
Speaker 1: one anticipated. And you talked about how you do it,
Speaker 1: how do you come back? And they already are doing
Speaker 1: social distancing on the production line, on the production floor,
Speaker 1: but they also talked about even in their break rooms, right,
Speaker 1: they've got to make sure all their workers are kept
Speaker 1: apart to make sure that they are staying safe. So
Speaker 1: it gives us an idea of what our life is
Speaker 1: like when we get back. You're listening to Bloomberg this week.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we hear from one of the founders of
Speaker 1: Mullis and Company, Todd Wadler. We're not talking banking, We're
Speaker 1: talking boxing. We are indeed, this is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Today we're bringing you some of the most important,
Speaker 1: we hope informative conversations Carol and I had on our
Speaker 1: daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show all about the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: Where we are and where we go from here? And
Speaker 1: this was one guest that you know really well, and
Speaker 1: that's Todd Wadler. Yes, he helped co found Molis and
Speaker 1: Company the investment pick. But what's interesting is what he's
Speaker 1: doing right now. He's the co founder and CEO Box
Speaker 1: Union Studio and that fitness world Jason, We've talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who play into that industry. They
Speaker 1: had to pivot pretty quickly, uh, and increasingly it meant
Speaker 1: going digital. First of all, let's take a step back
Speaker 1: remind us what box Union is. Box Union is a
Speaker 1: fitness boxing brand that my co founder, Felician Alexander, and
Speaker 1: I started back in two thousand seventeen. We have two
Speaker 1: fitness boxing studios in Los Angeles, and crazy enough, we
Speaker 1: were about to open our third in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks when the COVID nineteen uh kind of came about
Speaker 1: and our view going back was that um and was
Speaker 1: supported by the data, was that the category was really
Speaker 1: poised for growth at the right offering came by. We
Speaker 1: felt that what held the category back with a lack
Speaker 1: of accessibility. I don't know how many boxing gym's you've
Speaker 1: been in, but for the most part they could be
Speaker 1: pretty intimidating. So we really worked to reinvent uh category
Speaker 1: and re event what the offering was from everything we did,
Speaker 1: and that was whether it was the environmental which obviously, Jason,
Speaker 1: you've seen in person, but the probably the biggest place
Speaker 1: we spent our time was on the product itself and
Speaker 1: the workout. So what we created was what we call
Speaker 1: Box to the Beat, which means everything we do we
Speaker 1: do to the rhythm of the music in the room.
Speaker 1: It gives us NonStop movement and it really makes the
Speaker 1: work out more fun and more engaging. And as we've
Speaker 1: taken the business into the digital world, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that, I think that's really really important. So well,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious in your moved to reinvent and make
Speaker 1: it less intimidating. Has it worked, Like what's the demos
Speaker 1: on it versus maybe what a traditional boxing gym might have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great question, Carl. So when we looked at it and
Speaker 1: why we got so excited through the data was that
Speaker 1: Boxing for Fitness showed way more men versus female, and
Speaker 1: it also showed um an older demo amongst the males
Speaker 1: and it and the two of you, who are obviously
Speaker 1: very involved in the boutique fitness world. No, that's not
Speaker 1: what the boutique world like. So we actually ended up
Speaker 1: with exactly the opposite of what we saw and that
Speaker 1: was what really excited us. And part of that was
Speaker 1: not only the workout, but we really lean heavily into
Speaker 1: the man mind and the mindset and we think that
Speaker 1: that plays a critical role in the fitness journey and
Speaker 1: boxing sets up really well for that. And we just
Speaker 1: have the reviews and the emails from the customers to
Speaker 1: show that, especially in a time like COVID nineteen with
Speaker 1: anxiety at all times. So what does that mean? Lean
Speaker 1: into the mindset and you know you're tapping into your
Speaker 1: right Jason and I are very much into this world.
Speaker 1: We're very much into mental health as well as physical health.
Speaker 1: So when you lean into the mindset, what do you
Speaker 1: what do you mean specifically? Yeah, So in our in
Speaker 1: our classes, we're looking to inspire and motivate you, and
Speaker 1: part of the way what we're doing that is through
Speaker 1: our words, getting you to be able to achieve more
Speaker 1: than you could otherwise do and think about not in
Speaker 1: an intimidating way, but in a way of really unlocking
Speaker 1: that inner fighter. We say it in our classes as
Speaker 1: find your Inner Fighter, and it really has helped people
Speaker 1: deal with some of the things that you deal within
Speaker 1: the mind, most notably things like anxiety, and that is
Speaker 1: combined with honestly just punching a bag, which is obviously
Speaker 1: very safe, but there's a release that comes with that,
Speaker 1: and so we've been able to really really tap into
Speaker 1: that as part as part of our brand. Let's continue
Speaker 1: our conversation with Todd Wadler, co founder CEO of Box
Speaker 1: Union Studio, joining us on the phone from Lake Tahoe.
Speaker 1: All right, Todd, so we set the table with what
Speaker 1: the workout is, what it feels like in the studio.
Speaker 1: There is no studio at the moment for any of us,
Speaker 1: including Carol and me, who are talking to you from
Speaker 1: our respective homes. We don't even have our own studio
Speaker 1: to broadcast this radio show. So what does a virtual
Speaker 1: version of this look like? Great questions? So when we
Speaker 1: The good news is that when now? We had always
Speaker 1: planned to have a digital offering, so that is something
Speaker 1: the team and I were working on all along. Clearly
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen sped that up for us, and what we
Speaker 1: what you have to make sure when you launch an
Speaker 1: offering like that is is that the physical world in
Speaker 1: the virtual world still need to come together. You can't
Speaker 1: have two different brands. So we tapped into what we
Speaker 1: felt were our core competencies as a brand, which is
Speaker 1: what we discussed. We need to be accessible, we need
Speaker 1: to be fun, we need to have boxing. And then
Speaker 1: as we kind of looked at through that lens, we said,
Speaker 1: what else do people like? Well, they like the live
Speaker 1: nature of what we're doing, So our platform offers live classes,
Speaker 1: but how do we extend the brand a little bit
Speaker 1: to make the offering even broader for more people. And
Speaker 1: what we did is we came out with what we
Speaker 1: call is Trained like a Boxer, which means the platform
Speaker 1: has all the boxing content you're ever gonna want from
Speaker 1: a beginner through an advanced boxer. But as we know,
Speaker 1: boxers trained, and any athlete trains and more than just
Speaker 1: what the sport they're doing. So we have cardio workouts,
Speaker 1: lots of different hit based workouts by body part. We
Speaker 1: have jump rope, we have strength based workouts with weights
Speaker 1: and no weights. We have mobility and recovery. You know, look,
Speaker 1: as we get older, right, it's more part of the
Speaker 1: part of the battle is just recovering. And then we've
Speaker 1: also offered are about to launch our Mindset offering, which
Speaker 1: we're really excited. We're bringing a best selling author who's
Speaker 1: going to be what I call topical and purposeful meditations
Speaker 1: and they're and they're kind of based on what's going on.
Speaker 1: So I'll give you a quick example, which is dealing
Speaker 1: with anxiety during COVID nineteen. That would be an example
Speaker 1: of the types of meditations. So we have extended the
Speaker 1: brand but kept it rhythm based and giving the consumer
Speaker 1: many different ways to work out in our platform and
Speaker 1: build their community there. Todd, I am curious too about
Speaker 1: the growth that you've seen in digital. It has been amazing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the first as we launched, at the first
Speaker 1: step of what we did is we went to our
Speaker 1: members and the adoption rate was was really fantastic. But
Speaker 1: what I've been quite frankly blown away by is how
Speaker 1: we are on five continents already and it's not just
Speaker 1: one person. He's gotten and it has been unbelievable how fast, Um,
Speaker 1: the word has gotten out and the only way you
Speaker 1: can do that is word of mouth. Right. Well, that's
Speaker 1: what I was going to ask you, Todd, is like
Speaker 1: everybody and you know, I mean not to be overly glib,
Speaker 1: but like everybody's going virtual. You know, you know you
Speaker 1: had Equinox launch their thing. You know, you've got some
Speaker 1: big players who are going after this. How do you
Speaker 1: stand out in this type of world? Yep, that's a
Speaker 1: great question. And look, I think any successful online platform
Speaker 1: will have to have certain key elements. I think the
Speaker 1: number one thing is you've got to have engaging content.
Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time with built in chat
Speaker 1: features and elements like that. To be able to supply that,
Speaker 1: you've got to have your mix of live and on demand.
Speaker 1: But the most successful ones and the ones some of
Speaker 1: the ones that you're talking about and some of the
Speaker 1: ones that will be launching, you have to develop a
Speaker 1: strong community. And in order to do that, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: you really have to have a direct relationship with the
Speaker 1: customer with a clear point of view. They have to
Speaker 1: know why you are there and why you exist and
Speaker 1: why they want to do what you're doing. And I
Speaker 1: think the way we've communicated the brand, it's really compelling.
Speaker 1: The second element I would say is I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anybody in the fitness boxing world that has compelling,
Speaker 1: accessible content in boxing. So I think it's a newer category,
Speaker 1: just like it was in the studio physical location side,
Speaker 1: in the virtual world as well. And that's what we're
Speaker 1: seeing and that's why I think our numbers have been
Speaker 1: have even amazed us when we've launched this. That's Todd A. Lart,
Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO Box Union's studio, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting first of all, just getting you know,
Speaker 1: his thoughts on how they reinvented the boxing workout right,
Speaker 1: making it less intimidating, but also you know, making sure
Speaker 1: folks could tap into the workout at home while they're
Speaker 1: sheltering in place, and also helping others deal with anxiety
Speaker 1: right his program about mindset offerings. I love that he
Speaker 1: was thinking about physical health as well as mental health. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and this is a workout. I've done it out in
Speaker 1: l A. It is pretty intense. It's very hard, but
Speaker 1: very worthwhile, and as you say, they've thought a lot
Speaker 1: about how they position it and this moment in fitness
Speaker 1: is going to tell us so much about going forward
Speaker 1: This is a week where we heard blockbuster earnings from Peloton.
Speaker 1: So if you can figure out sort of how to
Speaker 1: get to people not just in the gym or in
Speaker 1: the studio, but also at their homes, there's a huge
Speaker 1: opportunity there because we're all going to be thinking about
Speaker 1: our bodies and our minds and staying healthy. And we
Speaker 1: know being healthier has certainly been something that helps you
Speaker 1: fight this virus even more so, so maybe something we
Speaker 1: think about even more so for the future. All Right,
Speaker 1: that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly
Speaker 1: and I'm Carol Masser. Plenty coming up in our next hour,
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from the well known lawyer and
Speaker 1: arbitrator and the go to guy when it comes to
Speaker 1: crisis management. We're talking about Ken Feinberg on a possible
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen compensation fund. We're also going to head down
Speaker 1: to Atlanta check him with Frank Patterson. He is the
Speaker 1: Pinewood Atlanta Studios CEO. They are carefully reopening for business.
Speaker 1: Hearing a lot about what's next in entertainment and speaking
Speaker 1: of what's next, We talked to Paul Rabel, the co
Speaker 1: founder of the Premier Lacrosse League, on what's next for
Speaker 1: his league and and really gave us a very detailed
Speaker 1: insight into what it takes to bring sports back. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be easy, but he's doing it. Plus
Speaker 1: how Instacart wasn't quite ready to be an essential service overnight.
Speaker 1: It's this week's cover story in the magazine. I love
Speaker 1: this story. What was happening inside the company as demand
Speaker 1: just tick off. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. Today we're bringing you some of the most important,
Speaker 1: we hope informative conversations Carol and I had on our
Speaker 1: daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show all about the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: It makes its way into every single conversation that we have,
Speaker 1: but it's getting more complicated, more nuanced in some ways,
Speaker 1: especially as we figure out what's going to happen next. Right,
Speaker 1: so many moving parts and so many things to consider
Speaker 1: to make sure everybody is kept safe. We're going to
Speaker 1: hear from one voice, Ken Feinberg, certainly well known to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Radio audience. He's a go to crisis management individual.
Speaker 1: He's been talking with members of Congress about a possible
Speaker 1: compensation fund for those impacted by the virus. But again,
Speaker 1: it's not an easy call. So we're gonna hear from
Speaker 1: him directly. Also, we're gonna hear from Frank Patterson. He
Speaker 1: runs Pinewood, Atlanta Studios. If you've seen a Marvel movie,
Speaker 1: you've seen their work. We're talking about the studdeo where
Speaker 1: Avengers and many more movies were shot. And Paul Rabel
Speaker 1: the goat. That's right. We talked to Paul Rabel, the
Speaker 1: co founder of the Premier Lacrosse League. He's bringing back
Speaker 1: a two week self quarantined tournament, Jason, but it's not
Speaker 1: easy in terms of making sure that everybody stays safe.
Speaker 1: Could set the model for other sports, It remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. First up, though, let's get inside the magazine
Speaker 1: and the cover story. It's about how instat cart wasn't
Speaker 1: ready to become an essential service. Overnight, we heard from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business Week editor Joel Webber and one of the
Speaker 1: co writers of the story, Ellen Hewitt. You know, perhaps
Speaker 1: to Ellen for making it especially great. Um As well
Speaker 1: as her Cobilan on the on the story was that Chapman,
Speaker 1: you know, we put this the story in motion. I
Speaker 1: think it was pretty close to like six weeks ago now,
Speaker 1: almost right at the very beginning of everyone being stuck
Speaker 1: at home and suddenly being like, how are we going
Speaker 1: to get groceries? And you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people, especially in cities,
Speaker 1: have been turning to is obviously instat cart And this
Speaker 1: is sort of in that genre of like companies, um,
Speaker 1: you know, finding ways to meet the moment, and you know,
Speaker 1: in in some ways, like you know, Instacarta had laid
Speaker 1: a lot of this groundwork in advance, but what they've
Speaker 1: actually been able to do or are in the process
Speaker 1: of doing, is hiring a ton of people to do
Speaker 1: more deliveries. Um. But the catch there is that their
Speaker 1: gig workers not full time employees, which I think is
Speaker 1: going to be just become again part of the kind
Speaker 1: of societal issues going forward. UM. And and I think
Speaker 1: you know, the company has just seen a surgeon interest
Speaker 1: um and Ellen when you when you talk to them, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the CEO that lead anecdote is just amazing, UM.
Speaker 1: How they kind of like fell into this moment. You
Speaker 1: want to share that amazing bit of reports. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: so the you know, we opened the story with this
Speaker 1: anecdote that. Um, when Latte and I heard it, we
Speaker 1: were like, this has to be the lead. Um. What
Speaker 1: happened was it was um, instat carts first, all hands,
Speaker 1: that was remote, so done over resume. This is you know,
Speaker 1: had been a week or so since they required all
Speaker 1: the employees who usually work in like Toronto and San
Speaker 1: Francisco to work from home, and the CEO of Poor
Speaker 1: of a Meta, you know, was prepared to give this
Speaker 1: big speech meaning to sort of rally the troops and
Speaker 1: tell them, you know, this is our moment. This is
Speaker 1: going to be a really intense time for the company
Speaker 1: because so many people are going to turn to instacrat
Speaker 1: to get groceries during this pandemic, and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: providing an essential service. So everyone has to be ready.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the sort of our noble mission. It's wartime.
Speaker 1: And five minutes before the call starts, his apartment buildings
Speaker 1: fire alarm starts going off. They're they're running a test.
Speaker 1: There's not a fire, but um, you know he can't
Speaker 1: mute himself, which you know is what we would normally
Speaker 1: do in that situation. And because he's one presenting, he
Speaker 1: has to get this speech. So he talks for like
Speaker 1: thirty minutes while there's this alarm shrieking in the background,
Speaker 1: and in hindsight, you know, people think about you know this,
Speaker 1: there's being sort of a siren warning, like there's an
Speaker 1: emergency going to happen for this company, because the next
Speaker 1: two months have been a pretty wild ride for them,
Speaker 1: good ways and bad. Well, let's talk about that, Ellen,
Speaker 1: because man, there's so many things I've highlighted in your
Speaker 1: story because you talk about, Man, their volumes just you know,
Speaker 1: surpass their end of your goal, the goals two. I mean,
Speaker 1: their volume was just growing, um so much. But along
Speaker 1: the way, all of a sudden problems started to come
Speaker 1: also to the forefront. And you talk about instacart eventually
Speaker 1: or instacart became eventually card because for any of us
Speaker 1: trying to tap into it, Man, we did too when
Speaker 1: our regular services weren't working and it was like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: we're not going to get that for what a week
Speaker 1: and a half? Um, So what happened? What were the
Speaker 1: problems that were unearthed? Well, so the huge spike in
Speaker 1: demand was kind of a blessing and accursed, right, So,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this company is dealing with the
Speaker 1: type of demand that they were hoping for, you know,
Speaker 1: a few years down the road, when they might have
Speaker 1: time to be prepared for it. Instead, it came in
Speaker 1: a matter of we That meant that their technology systems
Speaker 1: were not ready. They had to do all sorts of
Speaker 1: UM shenanigans to you know, move on to five times
Speaker 1: as many servers as they had before. They were dealing
Speaker 1: with double the traffic to their website every week, which
Speaker 1: is a lot you know, that compounds very quickly. Their
Speaker 1: engineers were pulling late nights during data migrations and and
Speaker 1: just trying to keep the sites up really and then
Speaker 1: they were having this huge issue with UM just getting
Speaker 1: their main service to work right, like, there was so
Speaker 1: much demand from customers. They didn't have enough shoppers stores
Speaker 1: grocery stores themselves were out of stock of all sorts
Speaker 1: of things given people were buying you know, the whole
Speaker 1: shelf in a panic that they were really unable to
Speaker 1: deliver on the same day, which they used to be
Speaker 1: able to do and deliver just the things that people
Speaker 1: wanted to buy, So as you mentioned, yeah, they started
Speaker 1: extending the delivery window out to thirteen days, which actually
Speaker 1: means predicting what might be available at that period of time,
Speaker 1: which is very difficult. They were hiring all sorts of people,
Speaker 1: but it takes a while onboard onto onboard well, so
Speaker 1: it's just in sort of a frantic time for the company.
Speaker 1: And that's reporter Ellen Hewitt, co author of this week's
Speaker 1: cover story, as well as magazine editor Joel webber teeing
Speaker 1: that all up for us. This is, as I said
Speaker 1: in the conversation, a classic business week So and I
Speaker 1: love how instacart became eventually cart as they said in
Speaker 1: the stories. Ellen said in the story because of the
Speaker 1: delays that customers saw when they were waiting for their orders.
Speaker 1: But the surge also unveiled weaknesses in the model, especially
Speaker 1: when it came to keeping workers safe. So so many
Speaker 1: moving parts to this. It's a mus street. And as
Speaker 1: we said, it's the cover story. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: this week. Coming up, we talked crisis management with the
Speaker 1: one and only can find Burg. This is Bloomberg, So, Jason,
Speaker 1: we're bringing everyone some of the most important and informative
Speaker 1: conversations that we had throughout the week on our daily
Speaker 1: radio show. Of course, so much dealing with the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: the impact, where we are and how do we move forward? Right?
Speaker 1: And part of moving forward is figuring out potentially how
Speaker 1: to compense eight people. This is a week where we
Speaker 1: learned that more than thirty million people have lost their
Speaker 1: jobs just over the past eight or nine weeks. We
Speaker 1: got a blockbuster in a bad way monthly jobs report.
Speaker 1: So what are the consequences of that? We turned to
Speaker 1: an expert in crisis management and the expert in the aftermath.
Speaker 1: He worked on on eleven, he worked on VP, He's
Speaker 1: worked for going we're talking about ken Feinberg. Where are
Speaker 1: we in this crisis? What is new and different about
Speaker 1: this global pandemic versus some of the major things you've
Speaker 1: worked on, be at TARP, be at nine eleven. I
Speaker 1: could go on and on. Well, of course, the isolation
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, the tragedy of nine eleven, the foreign
Speaker 1: terrorist attacked everybody, All citizens came together, very bipartisan way
Speaker 1: social cohesion. After the BP oil spill in the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Mexico, the Obama administration came together with the American people,
Speaker 1: immediately drafted a compensation plan of action. The trouble with
Speaker 1: the coronavirus and mother Nature is that solutions involved isolation,
Speaker 1: and you don't have that social reinforcement that you would
Speaker 1: normally have after a most unfortunate tragedy. That makes this
Speaker 1: particularly difficult to cope with. Yeah, and to get to
Speaker 1: the other side of it. We have constantly kind of
Speaker 1: talked about this, you know, kind of objectiposition of different
Speaker 1: forces of wanting to get back to work, wanting to
Speaker 1: get back to normal, but we also also also want
Speaker 1: to be safe, and so I don't know, how do
Speaker 1: you see it? How do you see some of the
Speaker 1: programs that have been implemented, whether it's stimulus programs that
Speaker 1: kind of help us get to the other side. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, in order to get to the other
Speaker 1: side with stimulus programs of any type, whether it's thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars or trillions of dollars, there are two critically
Speaker 1: important variables that I've learned about over the years. First,
Speaker 1: any resolution must be bipartisan. You cannot cope with a
Speaker 1: disaster like the coronavirus unless everyone comes together in an
Speaker 1: a political way. And to the credit of the Congress,
Speaker 1: the trillion dollar plus stimulus packages that have emanated from
Speaker 1: the Congress so far and from the Trump administration largely
Speaker 1: have been bipartisan, with a minimum amount of polarization and opposition.
Speaker 1: So that's good. But the second thing I've learned, often
Speaker 1: to my detriment, hard, hard lessons learned, you better get
Speaker 1: the money out fast and efficiently. Because all the talk
Speaker 1: in the world lapping yourselves on the back about a
Speaker 1: great thing, this is if you don't deliver what is
Speaker 1: promised via by undercutting the expectation of the American people,
Speaker 1: the program is going to be tarnished and every bit
Speaker 1: more important than enactment of stimulus or enactment of any legislation. However,
Speaker 1: bipartisan is that you get the money out, you get
Speaker 1: it out fast, and you get it to the right people,
Speaker 1: and expectations are met, and if they're not, you are
Speaker 1: laboring with a real, real obstacle. And so it does
Speaker 1: feel like Kenneth Feinberg that some things were done in
Speaker 1: haste in order to sort of get it out. Uh,
Speaker 1: mistakes were made. I think most people would concede. Uh.
Speaker 1: That point is that just to be expected given the
Speaker 1: velocity at which this happened, or were there things that
Speaker 1: could have been done and maybe can be done better
Speaker 1: or in the future in order to ensure that it
Speaker 1: gets out and gets out in the right way these funds.
Speaker 1: Well that that's a tough question on the one here
Speaker 1: and there has never been anything quite like this coronavirus
Speaker 1: stimulus in the trillions. I mean, I can empathize and
Speaker 1: sympathize a little bit with administrators with responsibility for getting
Speaker 1: the money out, but that may be in mitigation, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't solve the problem because, um, it doesn't help
Speaker 1: if as an operational matter, whether it's the rollout of
Speaker 1: Obamacare or whether it's this or any other number of programs,
Speaker 1: if you if you tout a solution and then there
Speaker 1: are problems in delivery, in administration, in operations, so that
Speaker 1: the money is going slower or not going to the
Speaker 1: right people. That's a real problem that's got to be
Speaker 1: corrected fast, or uh, the citizen disapproval will simply grow.
Speaker 1: And it's not just a approval, right, it's also just
Speaker 1: there are people out there that absolutely no safety net,
Speaker 1: and we're you know, we know these problems were out
Speaker 1: there Kenneth. But I feel like the virus has certainly
Speaker 1: laid them there even more so um, and we really
Speaker 1: have left people out there in the cold. Oh. I
Speaker 1: think that's right, and it's it's what magnifies the problem,
Speaker 1: of course, is what we spoke about five minutes ago.
Speaker 1: People are out there in the cold alone. There's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of social cohesion when it comes to
Speaker 1: the virus because you have to suffer basically in private,
Speaker 1: in an inn in isolation where you don't have that
Speaker 1: social reinforcement from friends, colleagues, fellow employees, etcetera. And that's
Speaker 1: Attorney Ken Feinberg. And I feel like attorney never really
Speaker 1: captures what he is and what he does. He has
Speaker 1: been involved in some of the most difficult, emotional and
Speaker 1: financially fraught compensation conversation that have been had in this
Speaker 1: country and globally for the past twenty years. That's right.
Speaker 1: Nine eleven tarp BP, Deep Order Horizon. Also after the
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon bombing, and also he was brought up by
Speaker 1: Bowing to oversee compensation for the seven seven Max victims
Speaker 1: families and many many more so when it comes to
Speaker 1: kind of figuring out a situation and how folks can
Speaker 1: be fairly and rightfully compensated. He's the person to talk to.
Speaker 1: And what I took away from that conversation is it's
Speaker 1: not a straight line. It's not straightforward in this case,
Speaker 1: particularly who gets compensated. What constitutes a frontline worker who
Speaker 1: was putting their lives on the line. We know many
Speaker 1: people were, But where do you draw that line and
Speaker 1: how do you fund it? I gotta say it was
Speaker 1: a very very thoughtful conversation. All right, you're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business Week coming up. Another conversation thoughtful as well,
Speaker 1: with Frank Patterson, and he's the CEO of Pinewood Atlanta Studios,
Speaker 1: and he talks about how the movie industry can bounce
Speaker 1: back after the pandemic. But Jason, he says, really, until
Speaker 1: we get a vaccine, it's going to take more time
Speaker 1: and it's going to cost more. Talk about complicated. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. Imagine being fired because of who you love,
Speaker 1: Imagine being denied medical treatment because of who you marry.
Speaker 1: Imagine being evicted because of who you are. Millions of
Speaker 1: Americans don't have to imagine this. They have to live it,
Speaker 1: because in thirty one States, it's legal to discriminate against
Speaker 1: LGBT people. Get the facts that beyond I do dot Org.
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the Guilt Foundation and the AD Council.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Today. We're bringing you some of
Speaker 1: the most important and informative conversations we had on our
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week daily radio show, all about the coronavirus
Speaker 1: and really a focus Carol on what happens next? How
Speaker 1: do we deal with this when life gets back to
Speaker 1: what more and more people are calling the next normal,
Speaker 1: right and thinking about what is the next normal? Is
Speaker 1: certainly the movie in entertainment industry, and one of the
Speaker 1: industry is trying to figure out what is the way back,
Speaker 1: Jason is the movie and entertainment industry productions right, which
Speaker 1: have been shut down as a result of the virus.
Speaker 1: We caught up with Frank Patterson, the presidency of Pinewood
Speaker 1: Atlantis Studios, who is thinking about how you do it.
Speaker 1: How do you keep the actors safe, how do you
Speaker 1: keep the crew safe? Here's what he had to say. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, as you've probably seen that we have so
Speaker 1: coming out a little bit more from their homes than
Speaker 1: I know personally, My wife and I have begun to
Speaker 1: sort of venture out into the neighborhood and um uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to see our neighbors out again. But
Speaker 1: you know, there's still a lot of caution. You can
Speaker 1: tell that. Um, while some of the activities have been
Speaker 1: opened up, a lot of us are still being quite cautious.
Speaker 1: And so what does it mean for the business, Because
Speaker 1: you guys are stacked up, I mean just by you know,
Speaker 1: just by the numbers, and you know them obviously better
Speaker 1: than I do. But I mean we're talking about eighteen
Speaker 1: sound stages. We're talking about seven hundred acres, a million
Speaker 1: square feet under one roof. I mean, the second largest
Speaker 1: purpose built studio in North America. I mean this is
Speaker 1: you know, this is a busy place. Where are you
Speaker 1: in in terms of getting back up and running? Yeah,
Speaker 1: as you as you as you mentioned we were packed
Speaker 1: when the virus hit. Uh, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: work to be done. You know, Historically we've never seen
Speaker 1: this kind of money spent on the production of entertainment
Speaker 1: content in the history of our industry, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Wall Street has been pouring more money into the pipeline.
Speaker 1: Then we've had the capacity to produce in recent years,
Speaker 1: obviously because of all the developments with the streaming technologies,
Speaker 1: So we were really busy. Productions began to shut down
Speaker 1: as you might imagine in March, and we just said
Speaker 1: about the business of uh my team on the ground
Speaker 1: at Pinewood Atlanta, you know, creating what we think are
Speaker 1: going to be the next next new best practices and
Speaker 1: protocols for getting back to work because we believe, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the summer productions are gonna want to return, and
Speaker 1: of course we have to be prepared. So we've been
Speaker 1: putting a lot of work into what, as everyone says
Speaker 1: these days, you know, our new normal is for productions?
Speaker 1: What does that? What are those processes at this point? What? It?
Speaker 1: Just quickly, yeah, quickly. We focused on three areas that
Speaker 1: I think everyone's concerned about. One is just sort of
Speaker 1: studio access and lot management, Right, how do we manage
Speaker 1: the work on on the lot and manage the way
Speaker 1: people work together? And then what kind of improvements can
Speaker 1: we make to our facilities to make them healthier and safer.
Speaker 1: So for example, air handling systems and swanky hand washing
Speaker 1: stations and electrostatic spray technology, you know, the new kinds
Speaker 1: of technologies that we can put in place in our
Speaker 1: facilities to make the you know, the work processes safer.
Speaker 1: And then the last is just what we call better
Speaker 1: practices and protocols for how we're going to work together,
Speaker 1: how our crews are going to work together. We've been
Speaker 1: collaborating with studios and gilds and unions and associations to
Speaker 1: try to come up with a best practices, uh set
Speaker 1: of guidelines you know, in the next days. That's the
Speaker 1: EO of Pinewood Atlantis Studios, Frank Patterson and Jason You know,
Speaker 1: when you think of movie studios and productions, you probably
Speaker 1: think about the West Coast, but Atlanta has a huge,
Speaker 1: huge set up there. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, if you've
Speaker 1: seen an Avengers movie of late, you have seen their
Speaker 1: work in action. One of the things I thought was
Speaker 1: so fascinating about him is he actually said a big
Speaker 1: blockbuster movie in some ways is easier to film than
Speaker 1: maybe sort of a smaller sort of film. And we
Speaker 1: hearken back to our conversation a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 1: with Jane Rosenthal at Tribeca obviously one of the producers
Speaker 1: of The Irishman, and it's interesting to think about what
Speaker 1: types of movies get made, but also to talk with
Speaker 1: him about what it looks like to go see a
Speaker 1: big movie, a big, blockbuster, tent pole type movie on
Speaker 1: the other side of this. And I will say one
Speaker 1: of the things I took away he said, it's going
Speaker 1: to be more time and money until we get a
Speaker 1: vaccine in terms of doing production costs. So yeah, we
Speaker 1: gotta figure this one out alright. Also figuring it out
Speaker 1: is Paul Rabel. He's the premier lacrosse lead co founder
Speaker 1: also arguably the best known person ever to play lacrosse.
Speaker 1: He's coming up. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer
Speaker 1: and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So we're bringing you
Speaker 1: some of the most important and informative conversations we had
Speaker 1: on our daily radio show throughout the week. Of course,
Speaker 1: Jason everything talking about the virus, kind of where we are,
Speaker 1: the impact, and then what life looks like post COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and that includes the sports industry absolutely, And this
Speaker 1: is something very close to my Aren. I'm a huge
Speaker 1: sports fan. I also love the business of sports and
Speaker 1: for more on that, you can actually check out the
Speaker 1: Business of Sports podcast, which I was hosting this week
Speaker 1: with Michael Barr and Evan Novie Williams. And one of
Speaker 1: the things we were talking about there and I was
Speaker 1: excited to talk about on our show, Carol, was lacrosse
Speaker 1: Paul Rabel. He's the co founder, he's the chief marketing
Speaker 1: officer of the Premier lacrosse League. He's got a plan
Speaker 1: and it is ambitious. Check it out. We're excited. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing because we're all sitting here on May
Speaker 1: six and it's challenging and they're still very difficult times
Speaker 1: that and a long road ahead of us. But as
Speaker 1: we look at our businesses collectively, whether you're in the
Speaker 1: media business, auto retail in our case, sports, you try
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to get your skilled workforce
Speaker 1: back in a very medically safe way. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to sports in the sports industry, there is such
Speaker 1: a macro impact for networks, for media companies, for advertising,
Speaker 1: and for brands, and just like a number of sectors
Speaker 1: that benefit from the game getting back on and in
Speaker 1: our case, being able to provide an opportunity for our
Speaker 1: players to play. UM. We went down started going down
Speaker 1: this path as soon as eight weeks ago when the
Speaker 1: World Health Org had identified and officially declared this a
Speaker 1: global pandemic with COVID nineteen. And the more we uncovered
Speaker 1: with our colleagues across commissioners and other sports leagues and
Speaker 1: ownership groups, and then getting access to CDC, w h
Speaker 1: O as well as the White House Sports Committee Task Force,
Speaker 1: it became a foregone conclusion that fans wouldn't be at
Speaker 1: games for the foreseeable future. And then it became about
Speaker 1: how can if we do play, play in a safe
Speaker 1: environment where players aren't at risk. And for us, we
Speaker 1: started going down the path of building a fully quarantined scenario.
Speaker 1: And we're able to do that partly because of the
Speaker 1: nascent stage that we're in and that we only have
Speaker 1: seven teams we started last year was six. We expanded
Speaker 1: in our first off season and UH and the reason
Speaker 1: that matters is if you look at a fully quarantined model,
Speaker 1: there are only a handful of locations out there that
Speaker 1: can take on every player in the league across all
Speaker 1: the team's key personnel, medical as well as ops production
Speaker 1: and so on. And in our case, like really stringent
Speaker 1: medical protocol. Everyone arrives to a location, they check in
Speaker 1: and go through the right testing, it's approved, and then
Speaker 1: we're playing and no one's leaving until it's done, and
Speaker 1: no one's coming in until it's done. And uh, and
Speaker 1: that's what we vetted out. We ended up partnering with
Speaker 1: NBC and and finding the time that h you know,
Speaker 1: provided itself as as attractive to us, and that was
Speaker 1: the Olympic window that was previously scheduled that post end
Speaker 1: of August and we're in the July and early August,
Speaker 1: and just made that announcement today. We think that it
Speaker 1: will be a model for other teams sports, so long
Speaker 1: as they can figure out their total quantity of participants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how does that impact things, right in terms of
Speaker 1: how many players you can bring in, how many you
Speaker 1: know safely. Yeah, So it definitely changes the model a
Speaker 1: bit because traditionally you would have a full regular season
Speaker 1: and your playoffs in championship, and you have time in
Speaker 1: between games. So this is gonna look more like a
Speaker 1: World Cup or a March Madness, where it's a lot
Speaker 1: of games in a condensed period. So we've we've expanded
Speaker 1: our player rosters, so we were originally addressing eight teen players,
Speaker 1: not twenty two. So you've got to take into account
Speaker 1: more play and potential injury and fatigue and so on.
Speaker 1: Um and then and then you look at the format itself.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna play twenty games in sixteen days. It's
Speaker 1: a three week total quarantine. So we can talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the medical protocol, but essentially there's a
Speaker 1: mini camp that leads into it, and then we and
Speaker 1: then we start playing. And the first week, like the
Speaker 1: World Cup, is group played for ced and then the
Speaker 1: second week is a single elimination tournament for a champion.
Speaker 1: And so what does this do? And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this on the other side
Speaker 1: because we've got to get to some news and things
Speaker 1: like that, Paul Rabel, But briefly, in in thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: sponsors are going to be happy with this, right yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So right now, if you look at our industry in sports,
Speaker 1: your conceding, tickets, concessions, parking, merchandise, on site, local sponsorships.
Speaker 1: So if you're making a run at this, you've got
Speaker 1: to look at the viewership place, your distribution and then sponsors,
Speaker 1: and if you figure out viewership, you can recoup your
Speaker 1: commitment from your sponsors and potentially get more. And so
Speaker 1: that's how we're looking at this is the viewership, distribution
Speaker 1: and sponsorship move Something I have to ask about your
Speaker 1: plans here to do um this two week tournament. When
Speaker 1: you said that you're going to be playing like some
Speaker 1: I think you said twenty games in sixteen days, and
Speaker 1: you talked about very stringent medical protocols, are you saying
Speaker 1: that the teams that are going to be playing are
Speaker 1: all going to be in lockdown as well? Yes, so
Speaker 1: that that's yeah, that's the key difference between what we're
Speaker 1: seeing the NBA and Major League Baseball even explorers getting
Speaker 1: everyone to a geography and then maintaining some level of
Speaker 1: hygiene between where the players stay in the facilities. What
Speaker 1: we're saying is we think it actually needs to be
Speaker 1: more defined and safe than that. So everyone will will
Speaker 1: be on the same campus in different dormitories, and then
Speaker 1: we'll have practice facilities and abilities for teams to function
Speaker 1: independent of each other as they prepare for games, and
Speaker 1: independent locker rooms and film study rooms. But then there's
Speaker 1: a game field and so everyone. It's going to be
Speaker 1: like a mini Olympic village, and that includes our production
Speaker 1: team and NBC's talent. They're going to be there during
Speaker 1: the full quarantine as well. So how do you how
Speaker 1: do you scale this up? And I do think about
Speaker 1: the Olympics right there, trying to figure that out, you know,
Speaker 1: and whether or not they can really go ahead, And
Speaker 1: I guess it does depend largely on a vaccine, But
Speaker 1: I do wonder how do you think about and the
Speaker 1: conversations that you said, you know, you're all you know,
Speaker 1: accessing the CDC and w h O Sports Task Force.
Speaker 1: What are the conversations about how you scale us up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the biggest piece to even be able to get
Speaker 1: there is knowing that there are no positive tests. So
Speaker 1: before everyone from players to our participants broadcast members arrived,
Speaker 1: we have three phases. There's gonna be an at home
Speaker 1: phase of testing where the results will be in, and
Speaker 1: there's going to be a quarantine phase during that at
Speaker 1: home moment. And then when people commute to the site
Speaker 1: will all arrive during the same time period and go
Speaker 1: through the same COVID testing again to identify any discrepancy.
Speaker 1: And then there will be another short quarantine period and
Speaker 1: there will be a final test during in between the
Speaker 1: group play and the single elimination. So that's been recommended
Speaker 1: by our community that would put together that includes external
Speaker 1: infectious disease specialists and internal medicine doctors UM. And then
Speaker 1: as far as the value in communicating with the White
Speaker 1: House and the CDC UH and the w h O
Speaker 1: is that they've given us evidence that indicates that we
Speaker 1: will not be purchasing tests away from other UH states
Speaker 1: or UH you call it patrons in need based on symptoms.
Speaker 1: So we're making this announcement here on May six. What
Speaker 1: a lot of leagues are trying to figure out is
Speaker 1: if they can come up with a model that works,
Speaker 1: how do you get access to testing and that testing
Speaker 1: being preventative because right now we're still in a very
Speaker 1: shortage of testing. So what we have been told and
Speaker 1: advised on from the groups that I had mentioned is
Speaker 1: by the middle of this month, you're going to see
Speaker 1: more states like California give point of care access testing
Speaker 1: UM and then by the first of June that should
Speaker 1: be deployed close to nationwide. So we're our tournament at
Speaker 1: the end of July, and that's a critical piece. Otherwise
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have pushed play on. This is because we
Speaker 1: don't despite all of the benefits you can get from
Speaker 1: finding a safe environment and playing games distributing those games,
Speaker 1: we do not want to interfere with the public testing protocol, right, So, Paul,
Speaker 1: I have to ask you. You know, and the last
Speaker 1: time you were with us was right around the time
Speaker 1: that the Olympics were postponed a year. Uh. Now here
Speaker 1: we are May six. As you say, you've got a
Speaker 1: plan going forward, other pro leagues were still sort of
Speaker 1: waiting on hearing. What's your prediction for you have figured
Speaker 1: out a solution, as you and you talk to a
Speaker 1: lot of other commissioners and as you say, owners of
Speaker 1: teams and owners of leagues, what's your prediction for the
Speaker 1: rest of here? Yeah, so that's a great question. There
Speaker 1: there are a number of variables, I'll say that. So
Speaker 1: we're all in conversation and we've all been comparing notes.
Speaker 1: So I think everyone agrees that for leagues that want
Speaker 1: to play this summer, the quarantine model is ideal. There
Speaker 1: are two big factors that we're going to find out,
Speaker 1: and this comes down fans and consumer confidence. Because the
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins has said they laid out of schedule. But
Speaker 1: you know what, we look at his history of stars
Speaker 1: and consumer confidence, back to back to retail, and if
Speaker 1: you look at COVID, well, what are the parallels. Well, first,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a Drugger treatment that's introduced, an easy,
Speaker 1: get FDA approved and provided at scale. We don't know
Speaker 1: when that's going to come, but that will come before vaccination.
Speaker 1: We know a vaccination in the best case, isn't gonna
Speaker 1: be here until. I don't believe that leagues unless you're
Speaker 1: the NFL that prevents that presents a really strong uh
Speaker 1: you know, I think like a strong um indication for
Speaker 1: a lot of fans who just sometimes will go because
Speaker 1: they're that passionate about it. I don't see a world
Speaker 1: where a consumer is going to spend on a ticket
Speaker 1: and an opt into potential exposure to a virus when
Speaker 1: there is in a vaccine and especially when there isn't
Speaker 1: a Drugger treatment for it right now. So until we
Speaker 1: get to that place, I see a world where sports
Speaker 1: are going to have to figure out how to play
Speaker 1: without fans and then focus on how you can create
Speaker 1: an environment where it's safe for your players. So they
Speaker 1: can feel comfortable. And that wraps up the weekend edition
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. I'm Carol Master. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our BW Extra podcast with Patrick McGuinness, who is
Speaker 1: the creator of fomo. Yeah, he actually coined the phrase
Speaker 1: it's legit. I'm Jason Kelly. Be sure to tune into
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week Radio catch a lot of these interviews
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Speaker 1: at the same time. Bombork