Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelley. We're right here every day bringing you the
Speaker 1: latest news from the world's of business and finance, plus technology, politics, economics,
Speaker 1: all harnessing the power of Business Week reporters and editors
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Speaker 1: Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube
Speaker 1: by searching Bloomberg Global News. We do want to get
Speaker 1: an update on the virus too, and someone who has
Speaker 1: seen other outbreaks and um pandemics is our next guest.
Speaker 1: He's Tolbert nin Swa and he's the Senior Research Associate
Speaker 1: at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health UM
Speaker 1: and he's former Deputy Minister of Health for the Republic
Speaker 1: of Liberia. He has seen a lot, of course. The
Speaker 1: Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: founder of this Namesake Network and Tolbert joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Smyrna, Delaware. Tolbert's so nice to have
Speaker 1: you here with us, um. I have been so looking
Speaker 1: forward to talking with you. Tell us about your experience
Speaker 1: and what you've seen in the past with ebola and
Speaker 1: other viruses, and how it compares and to today's pandemic
Speaker 1: and what we can learn. Thank you, go after and
Speaker 1: hope you're keeping safe. Yes you too, Yeah, great, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They think is we've learned a lot. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I think that is in our toolbox to
Speaker 1: be with COVID nineteen is the issue of contact trazing.
Speaker 1: It's been done played, but it's an important too because
Speaker 1: contact trazy was a very key part of the sixteen
Speaker 1: Ebola outbreak, which I was the incident manager. And what
Speaker 1: contact trazing does, it can help end COVID nineteen because
Speaker 1: the objective is to identify exposed persons and prevent secondary infection.
Speaker 1: If people in the first generation of cases of infection
Speaker 1: cannot generate addition of cases, then you can end the outbreak.
Speaker 1: Then we can all open up and be happy and
Speaker 1: move along. So but the terrible thing is that one
Speaker 1: one missed contact can keep this outbreak going and going,
Speaker 1: and so contact RAS is an important tools. Not one
Speaker 1: of the lessons that we learned in the ePol are
Speaker 1: outbreaking West Africa. It brought the outbreak under control. Very important.
Speaker 1: So October it's interesting to hear more and more about
Speaker 1: contact tracing. We also know from surveys and polls that
Speaker 1: some people are either skeptical about it or resistant to
Speaker 1: it and impart based on who's going to be in
Speaker 1: charge of it. How is the best way to sort
Speaker 1: of create a system that people will not only believe in,
Speaker 1: but will effectively follow and participate in. So thank you
Speaker 1: they are they are contactories in person ports. The first
Speaker 1: thing we must know is that contact trasing is not new.
Speaker 1: It's a public health for all public health interventions that
Speaker 1: have been used to manage major public health academics. Number one,
Speaker 1: you know the words eradicate a small pox, baclasses, so
Speaker 1: they have been used, facialist hien is vaccine preventable. In
Speaker 1: this there are legal business person ports and contact trasing
Speaker 1: that's a legal authority from public health intervention. Even in
Speaker 1: the U S. Constitutionist laws clauses to protect the public
Speaker 1: welfare as well are common law and general person imports.
Speaker 1: One thing that can encourage the population of the United
Speaker 1: States is probably helps me to be protected. We require
Speaker 1: our children to tect vaccines, to attend schools, to protect
Speaker 1: the communities, to protect hell and safety. And if you
Speaker 1: have tobacco losses, for example, and you refuse to take
Speaker 1: your medication, you can be required to do so. But
Speaker 1: it have the partner of these country, so you cannot
Speaker 1: affect other people the same way with COVID nineteens. So
Speaker 1: contact trasing to make it simple. This is where together
Speaker 1: we saw the audience to limit the spread of COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: The Johns Hopkins bloomers who are public at all, the
Speaker 1: bloom that we designed this course so that people can
Speaker 1: understand what it is and it's free. Is online, right,
Speaker 1: It's interesting I've seen that, and um, you're right. It's
Speaker 1: a course for people who want to just understand it
Speaker 1: and know how it works or possibly get involved in
Speaker 1: helping the process. I do want to ask you one question,
Speaker 1: how do you do successfully in the right way contact
Speaker 1: tracing as well start to reopen the economy. Can they
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. The My fear is that from
Speaker 1: from an expert point of view, the COVID nineteen the
Speaker 1: kid fatality rate is lord the number those right now,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a number in the in the sevent days,
Speaker 1: thousands Americans close to that, if not in a thousand
Speaker 1: right now. We're looking at it data shortly. But you
Speaker 1: don't want there was a reason why we're close up,
Speaker 1: the reasoning we're closed up and lockdown people for social
Speaker 1: distances and order that it was because of an infection
Speaker 1: imagining they our break started with a single kise, a
Speaker 1: few k fewer cases copping to come online. Now, if
Speaker 1: you open up without getting to appreciate your ball euro
Speaker 1: cases and don't know all of their contact, it is
Speaker 1: inconceivable that we are giving the virus a blank check
Speaker 1: to engulf us and continue to exist. Every parable loss
Speaker 1: that posted as a stent ship threat to make kind
Speaker 1: and reopening prematurely for me will cost more damage than good.
Speaker 1: So we have to make sure that it is don't
Speaker 1: carefully we look at its size and the data which
Speaker 1: district which community have an infection and tomport you. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, we're also integral in the response to
Speaker 1: Ebola in West Africa a few years ago, and I wonder,
Speaker 1: given that experience and in anticipation of maybe a second
Speaker 1: wave of COVID nineteen here in this country in the fall,
Speaker 1: what have we learned, both from your past experience and
Speaker 1: from what we know so far about COVID nineteen about
Speaker 1: how we deal with this when it comes back. So
Speaker 1: thank you Jackson. A look time time is very very
Speaker 1: centual for for disease outbreaks. During the Bola epidemic in
Speaker 1: West Africa, our slogan was it is not over until
Speaker 1: it is over, so we were looking after every single
Speaker 1: case testing in creasing their contact. Moving on, we need
Speaker 1: to be aggressive, take aggressive action for testing suspected and
Speaker 1: provo cases and robust contact crazing to concur, to conquer,
Speaker 1: storry COVID nineteen, ramping up tests, increasing of the contact,
Speaker 1: assolating the sake we help significantly to stop COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: And this is where some of the things that we
Speaker 1: need to do is people need to go the course
Speaker 1: that is being supported by the university by the blombers
Speaker 1: who are public helped the contact raising course. This is
Speaker 1: just six hours to complete and about the basic information
Speaker 1: of the virus fundamentals of contact creasing. So as how
Speaker 1: to define that case, identify their contact, calculated the number
Speaker 1: of time the contact was in assolution you goin to
Speaker 1: do and we anticipate for another wave of the outbreak
Speaker 1: even we haven't got out of the Hoosier. So it's
Speaker 1: even difficult to talk about another way we have to
Speaker 1: beat this thing down. Well, you know, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you say that, because I think you know, part of
Speaker 1: the process, right is educating everyone. There's so much information
Speaker 1: floating around, and your point is we all have to
Speaker 1: understand how contact tracing works so that we can essentially
Speaker 1: buy into it. Um. Because rightfully, so that's a way
Speaker 1: of really getting hold of this virus. Having said that,
Speaker 1: I do wonder then, as you see in the United
Speaker 1: States States reopening, the process of coming back, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: not equal across the country. Do you think the process
Speaker 1: that's being done right now of reopening and people doing
Speaker 1: different things in different places, does it make sense or
Speaker 1: is it dangerous? It's it's a huge race. It's a
Speaker 1: huge race. Um. I'm seriously concerned after dealing with refraction
Speaker 1: disease like ebola, don't the magnitude and the the fatality
Speaker 1: is not the same the keys fatality rates for ebol at,
Speaker 1: which is about fifty of the people that will get
Speaker 1: the disease with COVID nineteen, that is less than two
Speaker 1: But in that COVID nineteen is still effecting and killing
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans, and so I would be very
Speaker 1: very cautious as signed sound is warning that it is
Speaker 1: very much premature to open up this country when you're
Speaker 1: having huge infection states without America is one country. This
Speaker 1: is one country. So whether a state in a zero
Speaker 1: cases and another state is having a disease, which would
Speaker 1: be prepared to label the disease on let's somewhere, is
Speaker 1: telling me that we are now give up, that this
Speaker 1: is an endemic disease that we're going to live with.
Speaker 1: Okay with people, but once there is no note your
Speaker 1: new vaccines to open this country while you're port in
Speaker 1: the population of the United States are very very serious, right.
Speaker 1: This is why, this is why we are in forming
Speaker 1: the public. It's important. Part of the course is skills
Speaker 1: for effective communications, increasing processes such as what it means
Speaker 1: to be an active listener and how to deal with
Speaker 1: the common challenges that arise will be investigating cases, so
Speaker 1: contact raising is very important. Testing is important. Let us
Speaker 1: get to zero, then we know that we're making a progress. Right.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we really appreciate your time today. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Tolbert nian Swa is Senior Research Associate
Speaker 1: in the Department of International Health, Chance Hopkins University, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: School of Public Health. Also importantly the former Deputy Minister
Speaker 1: of Health for the Republic of Liberia leading the Abola outbreak.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, Carol, it strikes me in
Speaker 1: having this conversation that if you say to people here
Speaker 1: in America, this is like Ebola, we have lessons to
Speaker 1: learn from me Bola, maybe that will sort of grab
Speaker 1: people a little bit more and understand how critical these
Speaker 1: things are. Right now, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly, Carol Masster, and I believe a coughing Joel Webber.
Speaker 1: Hopefully he will catch his breath there and join us
Speaker 1: in a second. He is the editor of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: joining us on a remote line from Brooklyn. Also Sarah Fryer,
Speaker 1: tech reporter for Bloomberg and notably the author of the
Speaker 1: fantastic new book No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram,
Speaker 1: the number one new release on Amazon. I noted yesterday,
Speaker 1: Sarah Joins is on the phone from San Francisco. She's
Speaker 1: back hard at work pumping out great stories for the magazine.
Speaker 1: So I have to start with you, Joel. It was
Speaker 1: a you coughing there you go, thank you? Was not
Speaker 1: it was one of our producers. Sorry, John, didn't need
Speaker 1: to call you out. It's okay, Joe. We'll still like
Speaker 1: you if you're coughing on air, It's okay. Uh So
Speaker 1: this story started actually with some amazing little tweets that
Speaker 1: I saw Sarah doing, and it was sort of just
Speaker 1: her asking people in Silicon Valley of like, hey, as
Speaker 1: as companies announced that you don't need to come into
Speaker 1: the office between and into the year, what are your plans?
Speaker 1: And the moment I saw her tweets those questions, I
Speaker 1: was like, whatever these answers are, I want to know
Speaker 1: about them, and Sarah, what did you find out? Well,
Speaker 1: it was I just got this influx of replies from
Speaker 1: people who said, you know what, if I can take
Speaker 1: my text salary with me and I don't have to
Speaker 1: go into the office, I want more space. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be paying three thousand to four thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in rent for an apartment isn't even close to my office,
Speaker 1: but isn't even giving me the space I need to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable. People with young children were feeling like they
Speaker 1: could really use a backyard right about now. And with
Speaker 1: that salary that you make in the tech industry, you
Speaker 1: could live, You could buy a house pretty much anywhere
Speaker 1: except to the Bay Area. The Bay Area has had
Speaker 1: this incredible affordability crisis over the last few years, and
Speaker 1: even these tech workers really can't can't buy there if
Speaker 1: they're early in their careers yet, and that makes them
Speaker 1: a whole lot more mobile. I gotta say, Sarah, I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about all these grand tech campuses, right. Apple
Speaker 1: just built a whole new headquarters, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: if you know, as you say in your story, these
Speaker 1: companies are known for being very office centric, and yet
Speaker 1: maybe this will be a big change for them. I
Speaker 1: don't know what are you hearing from the companies. It's
Speaker 1: funny because they're building these tools for us to connect
Speaker 1: with each other remotely, right, but they are they are
Speaker 1: so office centric. I mean, you've seen get parodied in
Speaker 1: in HBO Silicon Valley. You've seen you've seen people just
Speaker 1: care so much about the perk wars, you know, are
Speaker 1: they going to give me laundry that, Are they going
Speaker 1: to give me yoga? Are they going to give me
Speaker 1: uh these offsite retreats that we've heard about in the
Speaker 1: tech industry, it really has been a tool for recruiting.
Speaker 1: But guess what, when people go back to the office,
Speaker 1: they're not going to have those shared shuttle buses. They're
Speaker 1: not going to have the cafeterias where anyone can serve
Speaker 1: themselves around food. They're not going to have these wide
Speaker 1: up and wide open places to gather indoors. Because companies
Speaker 1: are already talking about changing things up for coronavirus and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll go back to cubicles, maybe we'll go back
Speaker 1: to glass dividers, and and I just think that the
Speaker 1: experience everyone's saying not only is the experience is going
Speaker 1: to be so much different, but companies are realizing that
Speaker 1: all of those investments that they made in their office
Speaker 1: and that culture, it's their employees are still being productive
Speaker 1: from home. And they wouldn't make announcements like this if
Speaker 1: they if they weren't going to see uh similar level
Speaker 1: of productivity from their staffs. I think we're going to
Speaker 1: see a very dramatic change in the investment in the
Speaker 1: office culture. Okay, so, Sarah, if if if I'm a
Speaker 1: tech worker and I can live anywhere and do my
Speaker 1: job remotely, that sounds pretty great, especially if I can
Speaker 1: keep my salary, right. But a company might look at
Speaker 1: that and say, you know, you know what, now that
Speaker 1: you're remote, Um, maybe you don't deserve as much as
Speaker 1: before when when the expectation was that you were on
Speaker 1: on campus. And maybe there's even something that we might
Speaker 1: be able to pay less. Um. How is how do
Speaker 1: you foresee that playing out in two directions because employees,
Speaker 1: once they move, maybe not for this job, maybe they'll
Speaker 1: get to keep their their salary for a couple of
Speaker 1: years while coronavirus is still an issue, but for the
Speaker 1: next job, for the next gig they're trying to find
Speaker 1: after that. The head of people at Twili, one of
Speaker 1: the tech companies I talked to you for this, said,
Speaker 1: it's probably bad business practice for us to pay those
Speaker 1: people the same thing that that we would pay them
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. And by the way, because these
Speaker 1: workers are working from anywhere, maybe we can recruit from
Speaker 1: anywhere too. Maybe our next engineer doesn't have to come
Speaker 1: from San Francisco with the salaries. Maybe they can come
Speaker 1: from Nashville right right there, labor pool right if you
Speaker 1: think about it, their potential, they can go anywhere they
Speaker 1: want potentially. So, Sarah, you know you wrote about so
Speaker 1: eloquently in your book No Filter, The Inside Story of
Speaker 1: Instagram Bight wherever you get your books, Um, you wrote
Speaker 1: about so well about the culture of Facebook and the
Speaker 1: culture of Instagram. So many of these cultures, one could argue,
Speaker 1: do rely on the culture of Silicon Valley. And as
Speaker 1: you say, it's been parodied in Silicon Valley, it's been
Speaker 1: celebrated in movies like The Internship. My son and I
Speaker 1: watched that just the other night, and it's a very
Speaker 1: attractive but also very collaborative way. It does encourage a
Speaker 1: certain vibe. How much did these companies worry about losing
Speaker 1: the things that made them so special? They certainly worry
Speaker 1: about it. And that's one thing that really came through
Speaker 1: in my reporting of the book is that employees really
Speaker 1: cared whether the Instagram office looks different than the Facebook office,
Speaker 1: whether they were able to build their own vibe, their
Speaker 1: own brand, UM be as design centric in their own
Speaker 1: way as they wanted to be. And I think that
Speaker 1: after this, we are still going to see an emphasis
Speaker 1: on on office culture, but it's going to take a
Speaker 1: long time to get back to normal, and it won't
Speaker 1: go back to how it was. There will have to
Speaker 1: be a completely new normal. And I think that you're
Speaker 1: going to see culture evolved, just like we're seeing the
Speaker 1: way we communicate evolved. We are not able to you know,
Speaker 1: I went to a Zoom wedding over the weekend. I've
Speaker 1: been to a Zoom baby shower. Like things are going
Speaker 1: different for a long time. Um, okay, So I want
Speaker 1: to also have one more follow up, Sarah, And I
Speaker 1: know you didn't go into this in the story, but
Speaker 1: I'm really curious if we see this influx or exodus,
Speaker 1: I guess tech exodus um from California to other places
Speaker 1: in the country, could we potentially see they're being sort
Speaker 1: of like a small business boom as company if people
Speaker 1: leave big tech companies, could there be sort of a
Speaker 1: small tech movement that comes out of the pandemic. And
Speaker 1: so I got about forty seconds here. You're certainly going
Speaker 1: to see the potential for the next great startup to
Speaker 1: come from anywhere, and you're also going to see some
Speaker 1: justification in these towns that are getting this influx of
Speaker 1: workers with high faleries. But maybe it'll loose their economies
Speaker 1: on the flip side. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be
Speaker 1: fascinating to see, all right. Sarah Frere Friar, excuse me.
Speaker 1: Sarah Fryer, great story tech reporter for Bloomberg. Also the
Speaker 1: author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. It's great,
Speaker 1: quarantine crop at Amazon, great reviews. Yeah, it's all over
Speaker 1: the place. So it's so good you're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: business Week and a personal experience set Our next guest
Speaker 1: on the path to creating a global management and services
Speaker 1: medical company in a way disrupting how we approach healthcare.
Speaker 1: She believes the pandemic may do the same. Sigel Ottsman
Speaker 1: is founder and CEO of Medics Global and joining us
Speaker 1: on this Thursday on the phone from Tel Aviv, Israel. Um,
Speaker 1: see y'all, so nice to have you here with us. Um.
Speaker 1: First of all, I hope you're doing okay, your family,
Speaker 1: your team doing okay. Yes, I am. We're keeping safe,
Speaker 1: putting all the efforts in it. And thank you so much,
Speaker 1: care of for having me today and what's it like.
Speaker 1: Give us, you know, one of the things as we've
Speaker 1: talked to people around the world, you know, is telling
Speaker 1: us how the virus is impacting them and what you're
Speaker 1: seeing on the ground there in Tel Aviv. Tell us
Speaker 1: just what's going on right now. So it's been a
Speaker 1: crazy journey. Actually, I traveled really till quite lately, and
Speaker 1: and it's been interesting to see different responses by different
Speaker 1: cultures and different people. I came back from Singapore, then
Speaker 1: traveled to Dubai, from there to Israel. So in Singapore
Speaker 1: people were quiet, laid back, no one almost square masks
Speaker 1: up to eight seven weeks ago, and then in Dubai
Speaker 1: UM stress levels were going up slowly. And then I
Speaker 1: came back to Tel Aviv, where I was put in
Speaker 1: quarantine actually for fourteen days because I just came in,
Speaker 1: which was quite an experience. UM. I was quarantined UM
Speaker 1: and I had my office set up in an apartment,
Speaker 1: which was an interesting experience. I think everyone, how around
Speaker 1: the world, is really feeling the same. UM. Everyone is
Speaker 1: looking at how to keep safe, how the economy is
Speaker 1: going to recover, when all the vaccines going to come,
Speaker 1: and how are we actually going to consume and be
Speaker 1: provided health care services in the future. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of questions, um, a lot of stress and
Speaker 1: trying to be disciplined in keeping safe. And so it's
Speaker 1: such an interesting point because I feel like we are
Speaker 1: learning a lot about ourselves to your point, and sort
Speaker 1: of what we need and what what we don't need
Speaker 1: when it comes to certain services, and maybe more importantly,
Speaker 1: how we expect those services to be delivered. One of
Speaker 1: the questions that we're constantly asking to folks, especially in
Speaker 1: your business and the broadly defined healthcare and technology businesses,
Speaker 1: what is temporary and what is lasting? Do you have
Speaker 1: a sense of that, and what's your prediction. I think
Speaker 1: what we've seen in the last twenty years is gone.
Speaker 1: We're going to really, um significant re evolution. I don't
Speaker 1: call it a revolution, but the re evolution of the
Speaker 1: health care systems. Going to a doctor, to a GP
Speaker 1: clinic is history. Most people, I want to have accessive,
Speaker 1: immediate accessibility, an implementation of speaking to a doctor online,
Speaker 1: having access to data analytics of how we're people with
Speaker 1: my same symptoms diagnosed and how are they treated and
Speaker 1: how did that work out for them? UM. So I
Speaker 1: think that going to see doctors is going the numbers
Speaker 1: are going to go down. People are gonna look at
Speaker 1: accessibility and it's going to be immediate. Digital health, artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence is the future. What we've seen until today is
Speaker 1: never going to come back. Really, I I really believe
Speaker 1: that telehealth using digital tools and artificial intelligence are really
Speaker 1: going to change the landscape. Um. If you know, when
Speaker 1: I meet a lot of CEOs and we discussed how
Speaker 1: is this going to reinvent healthcare systems? We all think
Speaker 1: that you know, in the future, instead of going to
Speaker 1: see a doctor who's going to give his personal opinion
Speaker 1: before discussing with the doctor, you would probably push a
Speaker 1: button and get okay with my symptoms and my genetic
Speaker 1: makeup and my medical background. Nine million and whatever, hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people with the same symptoms and the
Speaker 1: same conditions have been diagnosed with this and this and
Speaker 1: have been treated with that sort of solution. So before
Speaker 1: you see a doctor, you would go with data. You
Speaker 1: would be more educated, and you will be able to
Speaker 1: make more evidence based and more objective decisions before even
Speaker 1: getting out of your house. And you will be able
Speaker 1: to do that from the comfort and the safety of
Speaker 1: your own home. It almost sounds like some screaming before
Speaker 1: you like, I mean, because what's the next step? I
Speaker 1: mean if I have a doctor who needs to have
Speaker 1: a lot of E N T things, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm often scoped in my throat, so you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, where does that fit in? I can't scope myself,
Speaker 1: so I'm just wondering, then what's the next step? I mean,
Speaker 1: what's the procedures? So first of all, the decision of
Speaker 1: how often do you you need to be scoped is
Speaker 1: a big decision, right, So more data about how necessary
Speaker 1: is my treatment? UM? How what's the outcome of an
Speaker 1: additional potential UH test or scope or any other test
Speaker 1: or treatment? Right? Is it really useful? But that's a
Speaker 1: very specific you know, going to have a scope is
Speaker 1: a very specific outcome of of some different consultations you've had. UM.
Speaker 1: I think really that accessibility now and immediately UM is
Speaker 1: going to be on everyone's request. I also feel that
Speaker 1: a lot of other things are going to change, so
Speaker 1: we will see more investments in healthcare. UM. We will
Speaker 1: have to see more spending on healthcare a percentage of
Speaker 1: GDP in a lot of different countries. If you look
Speaker 1: specifically at the always see the average where between eight
Speaker 1: point eight and ten the US is closed to which
Speaker 1: is a significant concern. But with this pandemic, we're going
Speaker 1: to need more in patient bits, We're going to need
Speaker 1: home care. We're going to have to invest in those fulkliners,
Speaker 1: those doctors, those nurses. Right, you know that didn't get
Speaker 1: the attention for so many years. Well, you know it's
Speaker 1: funny because Segall, we've been talking about disruption for health
Speaker 1: care and it's really dragged in many ways. And I
Speaker 1: think the way this pandemic is playing out is causing
Speaker 1: people to rethink a lot of those systems and figure
Speaker 1: out how to make it a more productive and more
Speaker 1: accessible system. I'm Segal, thank you so much, really appreciate it,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Medics Global BROC Journal. Now, but you
Speaker 1: let me drive, No, no, no, no, drive home, honey, please,
Speaker 1: I'll do the right drivel. I want to drive. Just drive.
Speaker 1: It's the questions trying. This is the drive to the
Speaker 1: globe than radio. All right, is time for the drive
Speaker 1: to the close. And Well, it's been a tougher year
Speaker 1: and month for the y CG Enhanced Fund. It has
Speaker 1: let's be fair for a lot of funds. The fund
Speaker 1: is though still beating just about all of its peers
Speaker 1: longer term. Over the past five years, it is in
Speaker 1: the S percentile, with gains of more than eight percent
Speaker 1: on average annually. Great to have back with us the
Speaker 1: manager of the fund, Brian Yackman, his chief investment officer
Speaker 1: at Portfolio and portfolio manager of the fund based in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: which is where we find him. Brian, good to have
Speaker 1: you back with us. I'm glad to be back. How
Speaker 1: you doing. I'm doing fantastic. How are you guys doing
Speaker 1: being in New York? Okay? I mean, it's it's strange
Speaker 1: that I mean, you know, we're coming to the end
Speaker 1: of week nine of you know, broadcasting remotely. Carol's at
Speaker 1: her home, I'm at mine. We've got, you know, producers
Speaker 1: spread all over, creations, some back in the office, and
Speaker 1: you know, this is the sort of way of life.
Speaker 1: I do wonder. I mean, you're in a state that
Speaker 1: is at least tentatively kind of coming back to life
Speaker 1: a bit. What is it like in Austin. Well, you
Speaker 1: say that, but I think you know, traffic patterns I
Speaker 1: think are essentially the same whether you're in a lockdown
Speaker 1: place or if you're open in Sweden. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: still working from home. I have six children and they're
Speaker 1: all doing school from home, so and we're still ordering
Speaker 1: everything in Yeah. So you know, I don't think that
Speaker 1: behavior actually necessarily changes just because the regulation changes. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's certainly something that that I feel like we've seen
Speaker 1: have a lot of family down in Atlanta and they're
Speaker 1: saying the same thing. Man. I was joking with my
Speaker 1: cousin this morning. His birthday was yesterday, and she joked
Speaker 1: to me over text that, yeah, she wasn't going to
Speaker 1: go out to go bowling and get a tattoo, which
Speaker 1: of course is you know, sort of the joke about
Speaker 1: Atlanta that they those were the first things to open,
Speaker 1: where the bowling alleys and the tattoo parlors. In any case,
Speaker 1: um as an investor, exactly essential services, exactly as an investor.
Speaker 1: How do you look at this though, Brian, Because you
Speaker 1: know you've looked at this market for some time. You
Speaker 1: see opportunities, I would imagine, help us understand it? Well,
Speaker 1: I think what keeps coming back to my mind is
Speaker 1: it's just a time of unprecedented uncertainty. And so then
Speaker 1: I think you really need an unprecedented amount of humility,
Speaker 1: because nobody really knows how things are going to shake out.
Speaker 1: I think people are acting like, oh, for sure, the
Speaker 1: market is going to retest the prior lows. H On
Speaker 1: the other hand, our country is doing more stimulus than
Speaker 1: anybody else as a percentage of GDP. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's well as I would put it. You're either I think,
Speaker 1: being ignorant or just a lot of hubris to be
Speaker 1: able to believe that you can accurately predict these market fluctuations.
Speaker 1: I mean, just think like if at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the year, I said United Airlines is forecasting this month's
Speaker 1: May revenue to equal a single day of revenue from
Speaker 1: May last year, you'd think I was crazy, and particularly
Speaker 1: was one of the most stable growing statistics UM and
Speaker 1: then just you know all this and certainly negative oil
Speaker 1: and stock price is now celebrating when the economy is
Speaker 1: in absolute dumpsters. I mean, the disconnect makes it tempting
Speaker 1: the time. But I think the problem is not only
Speaker 1: do you need to accurate actually predict future events, you
Speaker 1: need to be able to predict how much of that's
Speaker 1: already baked in, So you're essentially anticipating what the average
Speaker 1: opinion expects the average opinion to be. And I just
Speaker 1: I think it's difficult to do. Well, that's interesting. So
Speaker 1: you still have to make investments, right, you guys have
Speaker 1: to stay invested. So what do you do in environment
Speaker 1: like this? So I think the best way to always position,
Speaker 1: particularly in an environment like this, is you want it
Speaker 1: to be as we put it in Global Champions. But
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking of here dominant franchises that they tend
Speaker 1: to be uh networked globally in some way, and those
Speaker 1: work effects make them such dominant franchise as that gives
Speaker 1: them enduring pricing power. And I think over the long run,
Speaker 1: COVID is certainly not something that I think this will
Speaker 1: become a thing of the past, of course, And well
Speaker 1: I have confidence in in humanity to make it through
Speaker 1: and to innovate and find ways to deal with it.
Speaker 1: How that actually happens, I don't know. And of course
Speaker 1: things can't really come back to a semblance of normality
Speaker 1: until fear of that volatility subside. But as long as
Speaker 1: you're in a business that's conservatively capitalized so that it
Speaker 1: can avoid blow up risk and avoid any form of
Speaker 1: dilution risk. Then if you're in a dominant global champion
Speaker 1: that hasn't during price and power, then I think the
Speaker 1: reality is where else are you going to hide? Right, Bond?
Speaker 1: I mean, so give us some examples of that, Brian,
Speaker 1: Who who are some champions you like? Here? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: as I was saying, there needs to be a huge
Speaker 1: amount of humility. You know, normally I would tell you guys,
Speaker 1: some of the best investment opportunities are right where the
Speaker 1: fire is. You know what people are saying, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is dead money in the short run, but in the
Speaker 1: long run, I see this will work out great. And
Speaker 1: I still think that that there is some truth to that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, that doesn't mean pile into
Speaker 1: those bets. So you know, if you look at our
Speaker 1: at the YGE Enhanced Fund portfolio, the whole thing is
Speaker 1: chalk full of these global champions. Some of them are
Speaker 1: performing well in the crisis, like m s c I,
Speaker 1: which to subscriptions to. You know, it's the largest international
Speaker 1: index provider UM Microsoft Moody's VARIUSK, they do insurance data.
Speaker 1: We have some consumer staples. So these are balanced, are
Speaker 1: doing well, but we're wanting to rebalance them to trim
Speaker 1: them into some of these underperformers that still have that
Speaker 1: great future and some of these that I am thinking
Speaker 1: of that are you know, again, globally, networks businesses are
Speaker 1: like MasterCard co part which is the largest auto salvage
Speaker 1: auction platform in the world. And then booking, which you
Speaker 1: know is definitely in the heat of the fire. So
Speaker 1: I think it's import to have a large, diversified portfolio
Speaker 1: that can be robust in various outcomes. Yeah, we've talked
Speaker 1: with Glen Fogel over booking. I mean they you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're figuring there in the red hot center of
Speaker 1: the fire. I mean in many ways, right, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I had to say to say, what go ahead, Brian,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, I mean, you have global
Speaker 1: air traffic down and and then of course hotel bookings
Speaker 1: massively down there. Their strength is this massive network effect,
Speaker 1: particularly in Europe where there's all these boutique hotels they
Speaker 1: depend on to um to book hotels and right now,
Speaker 1: of course nobody's booking, but they are, I mean, they
Speaker 1: are well positioned net cash position They could survive with
Speaker 1: no revenue for probably a couple of years um and
Speaker 1: and that's that's zero revenue, right, and they can pull
Speaker 1: back on advertising. Well, I have to say we always
Speaker 1: appreciate talking with you, UM, and it's really you sound
Speaker 1: humbled by this marketplace, and I think it's a really
Speaker 1: we've been calling this reality check week, and UM, you
Speaker 1: can certainly hear that in your explanation about kind of
Speaker 1: what's going on and trying to figure this out. Brian Yackman,
Speaker 1: great guest, Chief investment Officer at y CG Investments, on
Speaker 1: the phone from Austin, Texas. Thanks so much for listening
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