Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - April 11th, 2020

a turnaround in the fight against it. I think a big theme this week, we decided as a result of this fear versus greed, worries about COVID nineteen remain, but talk of reopening the economy was starting to push some to possibly take on risks well, And it really was a week of versus right, because the other thing we talked about was markets versus medical and this notion that

there's enthusiasm in the markets. Part of that is owing to this notion of getting back to work, maybe the economy opening up, the administration certainly pushing that, but also just some really really grim statistics and real human stories coming out of our backyard, New York City especially which has remained the epicenter. But we did get to speak to a bunch of CEOs, investors, geo political experts, authors about how they're handling the coronavirus pandemic and maybe how

all of us should be thinking about what lies ahead. Yeah, leaders from all walks of life, medicine, tech, streaming, media, sports, and more. These conversations with leaders in their fields happening in real time throughout our week as news concerning COVID nineteen and its impact continue to break and shape our daily lives. So who are we talking about. We're talking about Meg Whitman, she launched a new company this week. Susan Lyne, notable investor in the venture capital world, also

a media mogul in her own right. Larry Murlough he is the CEO of CVS and John Wortheim. Love that guy talking sports. Yeah, we really touched on so many different aspects of our world. First up, though, we spoke with Bloomberg's Drew Armstrong. He is the team leader for

US Healthcare at Bloomberg News. He is really the architect of the coronavirus coverage here at Bloomberg, working NonStop and really keeping us informed when it comes to the various treatments, the potential of vaccines, everything that we needed to know

about the virus. Here's our update. I think the big thing that people are watching right now, and this has really been you know, the thing to watch all along is what are we seeing in new US cases in the various outbreaks here, And that's I want to be clear, you know, looking at the number of new cases is a leading indicator, but it's also a very imperfect one, just because of the significant problems in the US with broad comprehensive testing for this disease that you would like

to do. I'm sure a lot of your listeners have read stories, none of them written by us, about some of the problems with getting enough test out they are getting everybody tested and who needs to be tested and so on and so forth. But you know, right now, as a leading indicator, it's kind of the best thing

that we have right now. And we've seen a number of, you know, indications that in New York and New Jersey, which are two of the hottest outbreaks going on in the United States, that new infections imperfectly counted as they made be appear to be slowing, and that, you know, is overall good news in terms of when can somebody's restrictions on movement and on business being open and on

people having to stay home begin to be loosened. There are a ton of caveats attached to that, but if you were looking for good news, this does feel to be a little bit of that, right. Global cases tapping one point thirty nine million death succeeding seventy nine thousand. Those are the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins. You know, you speak of um imperfect models, Drew is China the model from a health case basis the right model to

be looking in terms of the trajectory. You know, I think there are some things that China tells us and some things that don't. There's there's two ways to think about. Like when we look at what happened in China and Wuhan, we've seen the exact same dynamic play out in other

locations around the world. You know, I mean and I and I and I mean that from the standpoint that you know, there are some significant screw ups and then problems and then consequences that happened there, there's happened everywhere else. I mean, you know, first in China, we had basically the authorities say, hey, this isn't that big of a deal. We have this well in hand. You know, I think they were even saying it doesn't appear to be human

human transmission. And then we entered a period where they didn't really have enough testing capacity and so it seemed like cases will only rising a little bit. But in fact we had no idea how big the outbreak was there because they didn't have great testing capacity. Then all of a sudden they got it. Cases exploded, and then by the time that happened, the healthcare system in Wuhan got overwhelmed and they had to build immense new capacity. They had a lot of excess death. Um. Those that's

exactly what happened in Italy. Um, that's that's that's very similar what happened in the United States. I mean, we had, you know, federal leadership here that was saying this is well contained, it's not that big of a deal, and then we had a massive problem with testing, and then all of a sudden, this thing was out of a

little I mean, we've seen the same exact dynamic play out. Um. What I think the lessons we can't take away from from China are you know, one, they did a lockdown that I think would never be allowed in a democracy period. I mean, people were physically unable to leave their homes. In many cases there were reports of house to house searches to find sick people and um haul them off

to quarantine centers. Um. You know, it may look similar in some respects, but I think that there are some aspects of that that were much more um uh severe. And you know the other issues that we've seen reports from you know, the U. S. Intelligence community that they appeared to have significantly undercounted, um or underrepresented the severity

of the of the outbreak there. And so I think we still have some missing pieces of information from China, uh that we really don't know how that it was that that may have influenced how the world thought about this disease as well. I mean, you know, academics and healthcare folks, they're they're early understanding this thing was really relied upon by what we heard coming out of China. And it's possible that we've got a very imperfect picture

of that. And that's Bloomberg's Drew Armstrong, Carol, as you said, the architect of all of our coverage. You know that guy from his attic. He's doing everything from assigning editing, writing, going on our network and others to keep people up to date, because he is at the epicenter literally and

physically and figuratively of our coverage here. Well, in such a big part of the stories treatment versus cure, treating those who have the virus while we're also fighting really hard to find a cure for it, and sometimes those are at war with one another. Right, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, We've got the president and CEO of CVS talking to us about how they are

wrapping up virus testing. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some of the most important and we hope in formative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show this week about the coronavirus. Carol, that's right, Jason, And this week CBS launched a new rapid testing site in Lowell, Massachusetts.

We caught up with CBS Presidency el Larry Murlow about one week ago to talk about the crisis for our Business Week Talks. It's featured this week in the magazine. Here is our conversation. Well, Carol, we are in a unique position to help address the pandemic, given our physical presence in communities all across the country and the ability

to reach millions of consumers with local solutions. There's no question the health and safety of our colleagues and the customers that we serve is our number one priority, and you know, we're taking the necessary steps to ensure their well being and I could not be more proud of

the work that they're doing. There is a strong purpose in our colleagues wanting to play an important role in helping their communities managed through this, and every day we ask ourselves a question, you know, is there more that we can do? And in that mindset has led to several actions focused on access solutions as well as the safety and health of those were serving well. Larry, tell us about some of those, because, as you alluded to, and as we all know, this is a fast moving situation.

Feels like every day, as you say, presents new challenges. What are some of the steps that you've taken in the more recent days to sort of ensure worker safety specifically. Yeah, certainly, as I just mentioned, none of this happens without the extraordinary commitment of our employees, and you know, we have done a number of things to provide some peace of

mind and help them navigate through these times. And you know, we're providing cash bonuses to our pharmacists and other healthcare professionals who are on the front lines, our store associates and managers and other individuals that you know are are important in terms of their work being site based. Uh. You know, we have been launching a new offering to help employees that you know have dependent care needs while providing sick leaves to part time employees for the duration

of the pandemic. And like many others, we have been working around the clock to provide ppe and other safety measures in including protective panels at our pharmacies and our front store checkouts. Uh, you know, just to name a few things. And uh, and again, I couldn't be more

proud of the work that they're doing. Yeah, and and um, from what I'm hearing is because I know you guys are going out, um, Larry as well, and you're looking to hire I think about fifty thou full of part time workers just to meet demand, because you've got delivery in store distribution jobs that need to be filled because of the rise in demand that you're seeing well, Carol, that that's right. We announced a goal of fifty thousand full time, part time and temporary roles across the country.

That that includes some open job requisitions that we had, you know, but it also includes making sure that we're providing our frontline workers the relief that they need. And you know, we've been working with with companies, uh, you know across the country, you know, companies largely and travel hospitality uh, in terms of transitioning employees. Uh. You know, that makes up a lot of the temporary staff. And we've expedited our hiring as well as our onboarding process.

And you know, we've gotten tremendous cooperation from those employees. And look, it's it serves a need for us during

this period of time. Uh. You know, they want to continue to work, and you know, and I'm sure as their companies, uh, we get past this pandemic and their companies get things back online, I'm sure there'll be an opportunity for you know, those temporary workers to go back to the companies that you know that they're committed to and Larry, it sounds like then for all of your existing workers going into this virus that you are keeping everybody employed and there, and so you're taking care of

those workers. They will continue to get a salary um, they will continue to get paid, they will continue to get healthcare. These are your workers, These are our workers, Carol, and that's absolutely right. You know, our workforce is approximately three hundred thousand across the country. About a hundred thousand of those colleagues work uh in office based locations. And you know, our technology team has also done a wonderful job. We have about eight of those you know, office based

workers who were working remotely. The balance, you know, they make sure that the lights are staying on for you know, our call centers as well as our stores. And you know that leaves about two hundred thousand colleagues who are you know, frontlines. And again they're doing terrific things in in in supporting the needs of our clients and customers.

And so Larry, just staying with the workers for a second, what what have you What are you hearing back from them in terms of what they're seeing in the stores? You know, as as you have mentioned, I mean, you guys have eyes on this in ways that that many don't mean. There are numerous cbs is in my community, I think in Carol's as well. What are they saying back to you in terms of what they're seeing in

the stores. Well, Jason, there, first of all, they're greatly appreciative, you know, of the role that you know that we're playing. And I think you touched on this just a minute ago. You know, one of the things that we've done for our customers is, you know, to increase access to medication. We have waived charges for home delivery of prescriptions and related products, as well as relaxing the limitations in terms of you know, people getting prescriptions refilled early, especially those

with chronic disease who were on maintenance medications. And you know, we've seen a tremendous increase in the utilization, uh in the need for home delivery. You think about you know, seniors not wanting to go out of their home, and you know they're appreciating that service. And larry on on the point of pharmaceuticals and and folks stocking up on prescriptions.

We certainly have heard about that anecdotally. Are you experiencing any shortages on that front in terms of medicine specifically, we all know about shortages of toilet paper and other sunduries. But when it comes to medicines, are you seeing any shortages in the system at this point? Now, it's a great question. And with respect to the pharmacy supply chain, we have not experienced any disruption to date. You know, we have been in in constant contact with our suppliers.

You know, they tend to carry about a three to six months supply and you know, you think about prescriptions that are dispensed today across the country, about of all prescriptions are generics. And you know, we have the size and scale with our partnership with Cardinal Health in the creation of a company that is called Red Oak Sourcing, And as a result, we have been able to diversify our generic supply chain so that we are not dependent

on any single manufacture for a product. So I think Americans can be reassured that you know, the pharmaceutical supply chain is in good shape and that CVS CEO Larry Murlow, obviously, if you think about leaders at the center of this, this is someone who's been in touch with the White House.

Obviously a front law line of front lines in terms of dealing with consumers who are worried about getting tested and probably still worried because those testing sites not exactly spreading across the country, but having to take care of employees and customers alike. Care. Yeah, exactly two front lines right, both of its consumers and its workers. And you know they're thinking about the first responders, the healthcare workers so much going out. So I'm glad he was able to

carve out some time for us. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, Quimby CEO Meg Whitman, and we talked about the launch of the Quimby mobile only streaming platform. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with

Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations that we have from all walks of life, so many different industries on our daily radio show, and of course all of it related back to the coronavirus this week, Jason well and even new companies launching in the midst of this their plans radically changed by the virus, its outbreak and all of the social behavior that changed. That was

certainly the case with Quimby. We caught up with Meg Whitman. She of course well known to many of our listeners out there. She ran HP, she ran eBay. Now she's got quimby partnership with Jeffrey Katzenberg. Here's what she had to say about the big launch. You know, listen, it was a hard decision to decide to launch, right, I mean, this is a terribly you know, disruptive time for everybody.

But we ultimately said, you know, we're not medical professionals, we're not first responders, but maybe we can bring a little joy and levity to people's lives with the content that we have. And so we decided to go for it, and we had to change everything about the launch. As you can imagine. We had a physical um launch event with a big red carpet. But guess what Our biggest TV buy was launch week the n C Double A Finals, so we had we had all bought everything on March madness. Okay,

that all have to be scrapped. So there's been challenges, um, but but we've you know, the team has been great, and our production partners have been amazing because many of them are daily essentials, are all being produced you know from home. Well, and I've been remiss you're doing well, your family, your colleagues, everybody doing okay, Yes, yes, very much. So when I have, um, you know, I live in l A now, but my husband is a medical professional.

He's a neurosurgeon, and so I'm sheltered in place in Sacramento where he's at u C. Davis and Sacramento. Wow, So I decided to come up here because he's you know, he's on the front lines every single day. How he's doing great. But it's you know, it's pretty tense out there, honestly, it really is. And what do you you know, Meg, You you've obviously been very politically active in a candidate for high office before you understand the collision of political

and economic and business and all of that. What do you make for from that perspective as a leader of some of the responses that we've seen, I mean, Governor Newsom is you know, getting some some decent reviews, more than decent reviews there in California and do you look across the country and we're a little loft topic here, but what do you make of the response? Yeah? Well, listen, this is unprecedented, right, No one, no governor, no president, no one has had to deal with something quite like

this before, well maybe in venteen or something. Um, so it's a completely different and I think, you know, they're feeling their way. I think Governor Newsom was doing a very good job. He jumped on this early. He had us all, you know, sheltering in place. The curve appears to be flattening here, but but we'll see. Um. You know, I think it's a very challenging environment for leaders, you know,

in the pot atmosphere. Well, and you know what's interesting is, you know, we talk a lot meg um about how things are changing. Like I think about you were really wonderful. I did a breakfast of Corporate Champions with you about the breakup of HP and your panel, the panel, your colleagues that helped in that breakup and and what went on. And I just think, remember, yeah, and I think you know how things change, right and who would have thought HP the breakup, but it did happen, and we been

a different environment. I do wonder how you see today's environment, um, how it will impact the virus, how it will impact our world going forward maybe longer term. Yeah, I think that's a really very interesting question. I mean, don't you wonder whether work from home has changed from forever. Yes, Um, I think it may have. We've all learned how to

do this. I mean I've been going into an office for forty years and all of a sudden I've had to figure this out, which, you know, it's been pretty easy. I'm happened to be a tech exect. But still, you know, and it's pretty efficient. So I wonder if that will have changed. I wonder if this will have changed how

families communicate. I mean every weekend, now we're on with you, both my husband's family and my family for an hour and a half, you know, doing a zoom call if you never did that before, right, So no, I think that. I think that's totally true. Well, and and Meg, you know you've been, you know, elbow neck deep in the creation of a new media company. How do you think media changes going forward, both in terms of this inflection point but also wrapping at in you know, the whole

notion of this virus. Well, I think, um, listen, you know, Hollywood is a surprisingly um uh, entrepreneurial place. Think about it. Every time you start a movie. Okay, a movie is a startup. It's not different from a startup in Silicon Valley and uh so they are adapting really fast to um this entirely new environment. And I think you may see different kinds of content. I think how it's consumed

maybe different. Um. You know, you wonder where everyone comes pouring back into the movie theaters or you know that's fundamentally changed. I don't know, but people are exploring new ways to consume content. Um. We were excited because we thought, you know, if we could make watching um holiday Hollywood quality content on your phone, UM terrific. You know, that would be something that hadn't been done before. It was

technology enabling a new way to tell stories. And I think you're going to see a lot of that, you know, in part because the situation in which we find ourselves, but also the normal march and time of technology and its advancement. And that's Meg Whitman, the CEO of Quicky. Good to catch up with her. I was glad she took my curveball when I asked her about other response there in California, because listen, she has sat right at

that nexus of politics and business. She ran for the U. S. Senate there, and it was just great to catch up with her and just you know here about their plans and how their plans were changed rather dramatically. Absolutely, you're listening to Bloomberg Week. Coming up, we hear from an old friend, Jamie Metzel. He's a senior fellow over at the Atlantic Council. Also has his book out in paperback, Hacking Darwin. We're trying to hack everything these days. This

is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio, and today we're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show, all about the coronavirus again, all walks of life, everyone dealing with this crisis. Carol, that's right, And Jason, we had the opportunity to catch up with really a friend

of our show, Jamie Metzel. He's a technology futurist, former director on the U s. National Security Council and the State Department and on the Foreign Relations Committee. He's now senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He really gave us a snapshot of how our world might change as we know it. Yeah, So that's this crazy experience that we're having now, is that all of these trends that we thought would play out over ten twenty years are happening

now because we're in this crisis. So you and I, Carol were both said, Jason, we're all here in New York and we the number of cases is overwhelming our health care system, and not only that, our healthcare providers

are in themselves being infected. So we're relatively quickly going to come to a point we have more patients and not enough doctors, and so we're going to have to shift so that at least the first point of care is going to have to be artificial intelligence, so that if you have a symptom um, you you go online and you have an artificial intelligence agent basically a program, and everybody will have a home kit of a thermometer and a scale and a blood pressure cuff and a

few other simple things, and you'll put in your symptoms and you'll put in your readings from home, and then you'll get a differential diagnosis. And if it's just um, here are some things you should just stay home and have chicken soup and liquids and rest a. I will tell you that if you need to be escalated, then the AI will refer you to a telemedicine general consult and then perhaps to a specialist telemedicine consult and only

then to a human. So this whole thing now where you feel a symptom and go to the doctor, it's great for normal times, but it's probably not going to be possible in crisis times likeness. And so I guess one of the questions, Jamie, is what of crisis time will become normal in normal time. It's such a great question, and people, a lot of people have this feeling that what we're experiencing now is kind of like a snowstorm,

that it's a big storm. We sit home, the plows come out, plows gets rid of the snow, the sun comes out, everything melts, and then we just go back to our lives. Old lives that we've had are never coming back in so many big ways. And so this shift to virtualization that we're all experiencing, it's going to happen. It's going to going to continue, not just in healthcare but in everything else. And our companies are taking a beating.

They're not going to bring all these employees back. In expensive real estate across the economy that we're going to see big, big changes that are going to change the way we live and the way we work, and certainly the way we experience healthcare. Yeah, I mean we you know, we've had so many conversations about what will be lasting.

It's interesting because here we have gone through this phase. UM. You know, we certainly have it in our office as you know, these open environments where all teams can walk into one another, you know, conversations across different parts of the business, UM, and that has seen as an advantage. But we are finding to some extent that we can do a fair amount of that through our virtual world,

right absolutely. And on top of that, we're not going to go back toward anything that even feels normal until there's a vaccine. And I know we're hearing this, uh this twelve months as a as a possibility, but that's the ultimate dream scenario. That's everything going right with an order of magnitude better performance than we've ever had in the history of healthcare. UM. So it could be that it's eighteen months two years until we're able to be

in those same kinds of physical environments. I was doing a Denver radio interview the other day and I told them that I didn't think it was very likely there was going to be a full stadium NFL football game anywhere in this country until and these guys they were planning on going going to the opening day later this year. And it's it's it's really, this is really big change.

It's so hard to fathom where we're heading. So, Jamie, when you hear the president or other officials or even business folks start to talk about reopening the economy, you say, what not even close? Well, it depends on what we mean. We can't have we can't be totally hunkered down like we are now forever um. But we're not going to be able to just say everybody goes back, because again, until there's a vaccine, if we all go back to normal, um, we're going to have this same kind of explosion. What

we're talking about is with is this exponential growth. So do I how will it work? Maybe some people will go back, Maybe we'll have some groups of kids who will go in small numbers to schools, maybe Monday, Wednesday, Friday group and a Tuesday, Thursday Saturday group, and and

businesses will have to work that way. And somebody in the government very tragically is going to be doing a calculation about how much we opened the economy versus the number of people who at least until there's better treatments and a and a vaccine are going to die. And that's I mean that that's the you know, I'm sure you've had cast Sunstein on your on your your program, but that kind of calculation. The government does it all the time when they say, well, what should the speed

limit be? They increase the speed limit, people go faster, but you'll have more fatalities. And sadly this calculus that we're going to tragically have to do. You know, Jamie, I wanted to pose a question to you that that came to me earlier when we were talking to our colleague Andy Brown, who runs our New Economy program, a New Economy forum that happened last year over in Beijing or just outside of Beijing. You are a China expert.

I mean, you're an expert on men any things as we have laid out, um, but you know so much about China and specifically the relationship between the US and China, and I do think this has thrown that thrown that relationship which already was to say the least complicated over

the trade war into a whole other category. What do you make of it right now, especially at a time when man and I know I'm being a little pollyannish about this, but if those two superpowers could get together, I do feel like we could make some progress on this, right Yeah. So, well, the good news is on the scientific level, our scientists are actually working pretty closely together,

and that's positive. But I was on a big, a big global call where we had scientists from China, scientists from Italy, and scientists from the United States and elsewhere, so that that is happening. But in terms of big

power politics, I mean, this is really really dangerous. I mean, first there was all the name calling, and I think that it's just undoubtedly true that China's massive failure at the beginning of this, you know, helped exacerbate this, uh, this problem in a very very big way, and we're

all suffering as a result. Um. But the total failure of the Trump administration to prepare, even when we had the warning signs out of China in January and US intelligence was raising the alarm that the reason why so many people are dying here in New York and elsewhere. Is not just because of China, it's also because of the total failure of the U S response. That's the starting point, but we have to work together to get

there from here. I was just hearing and when I was waiting to come on about Tim Cook having supplies made, uh and Apple having supplies made that are going to save people's lives here. Where are those supplies being made? You didn't mention in your report, but I would bet anything They're not being made here in the United States, are being made in China that has figured out a

better way than we have to address this problem. And if we don't learn from China, in spite of all of the problems that we have in our relationship, we're going to harm ourselves. So I totally agree with you, Jason.

We have to find a way to collaborate well. And I think you know China in particular, um, Jamie, they have had to deal with other health issues before, right, I mean, you know, this was a society a country that has dealt with similar things, whether we go back to stars and some other you know, health situations, even just dealing with their air, you know. So I feel like they were certainly well ahead of us in kind of understanding, you know, how this can disrupt kind of

your life as you know it. That's exactly right, and that that was one of the problems. You mentioned. My background in China and Asia. So when this thing first started happening and I was seeing the alarm bells coming out of China, I talked to my brother, who's a doctor here in New York, and I said, look, this is really big deal. Found the alarm and he went and spoke to to the one of the doctors, the infectious disease guy in his hospital, and that guy said,

oh no, this is all overblown. This is just the flu. And I think the problem was in China and in across Asia, when they had this experience, they fought stars and they mobilized right away because they knew how scary stars. We were spared a lot of the pain of stars, so we thought flu, and because flu was our paradigm, we weren't. We weren't ready for it, and that's I think we're still suffering as a result of it. That's Jamie Metzl, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, catching up

with him. He was in New York. Jason He's often our go to person when it comes to things in the government, uh technology, watching how our world is changing, and I really felt like he had some really big ideas about what it looks like on the other side of the virus. Well and timely too, because his book out in paperback this week. You want to pick that up.

It's a good quarantine in many ways, Hacking Darwin all about artificial intelligence sort of where we're going because we are trying to figure out the human body, of the human genome, all sorts of things to cope with crises. Just like this. All right, that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Mass. Are plenty coming up in our next hour, including we hear

from Susan Line, longtime media executive. She's now investing in female run companies. Will catch up with her, talk to her about her portfolio, and just also about the world at large, how media might change as a result of the virus. Absolutely in, Peter Gleistein may be lesser known to many of our listeners, but if you know anything about Wall Street, you know this is a guy who

has been in the midst of crises before. He was a right hand man to Jimmy Lee at JP Morgan through so many amazing moments in Wall Street, right in the midst of the credit crisis that we're experiencing right now. And then, of course, if you know anything about the world of sports, you got to know John Wortheim, he's executive editor, senior writer for Sports Illustrated, contributing correspondent for CBS sixty minutes. What he had to say about how

our world changes. That really stayed with me. All of that coming out. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Today we're bringing you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations we had this week on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show, Carol and Jason. One of the conversations both of us we're looking forward to was John Wortheim, he's executive editor, senior writer for

Sports Illustrated, contributing correspondent for CBS sixty minutes. We both wanted to ask him how the world's going to change when it comes to sports. Also, Susan Lyne. We loved catching up with her as well. She ran ABC Entertainment. Now she's investing in startups around technology, a little bit of media and man, uh, that world has changed. But first up Peter Glystein. He's the CEO and c I O over at a g L Credit. They are in

the midst of the credit piece of this crisis. But he's also a guy who's worked on Wall Street for four decades. He's seen some things and he has some lessons to share. Listening in the business that we're in, in the asset classes that that we manage is designed to write it out and and has historically. But we don't know what this storm is going to be like. I do think it's in In over the four decades that I've been in credit UM, nothing remotely approaches the

extent of the crisis that we're facing. And and and that's I think mainly because it's being driven by human behavior. It's not being driven by UM a manufacturing plant laying laying off expercent of its employees and demand being curtailed, or the FED rising interest rates. This is behavior driven and we don't know how far this is the pandemic is going to drive behavior, how it's going to change behavior.

And we also don't know how how um deep and long the recession will be UM So those are huge unknowns. And I would just add that unlike prior recessions and market crisis, this is much more multifaceted in terms of what's happening and what could happen. I mean, we've never really faced the situation where whole industries are confronting revenue evaporation, not revenue decline, but evaporation. So it's quite serious, right, Peter, to make the comparison to the financial crisis isn't accurate,

is it? I don't think so at all. Um. The the financial crisis was stimulated by engendered by a lack of liquidity and financing. So the global financial system was in the financial crisis rapidly decapitalized money. Capital was sucked out of it by so many assets being on a market value basis and and losing their value, and banks and other institutions being overextended and they were threw credit. And there's a lot of forse selling, a lot of leverage,

and a lot of force selling. Here we have the opposite, we don't have in the sense of the strength of the financial system and the banks, UM, they're in a very strong position. UM. But every kind of person, business entity, including not for profits, are confronting, UM a huge curtailment, if not cessation of activity for an unknown yet unknown period of time. So what the what added the surface level, what I'll call what the kind of traditional recessionary effects

of that are remain unknown. But even more seriously I think is what what longer term including structural um damage and change UM you know, will be wrought by all of this. UM. I do think clearly that we'll get through it and there will be some maybe long term, some some good effects, some good things might come out of this trauma. But between now and then, there'll be a huge amount of change disruption, right uh. And and Peter, would you say structural change? Are you talking about sort

of economic structure in terms? Because I feel like that goes back to your initial point about human behavior, Like we don't know exactly what the structural changes are going to be because so much of it is going to be dictated by how we act as consumers and businesses, right exactly. So I'm not the first person to make this point. But UM, a couple of things could happen.

First of all, it's possible that people will love sports and entertainment even more than before, but they may only they may decide in the future of the only experience that virtually as Yeah, for we're all learning how effective. So a g L is working fully remotely and very effectively, and um they're terrific tools that enable that. So we all may think of offices differently, and if we do that,

what's going to happen to commercial real estates? So there's just so many unintended consequences that we don't understand yet. And I'll lead on to say that, UM, I think the all the markets will continue to be very volatile because with this degree of unprecedented uncertainty one UM analysts and others can't really create the dimensionality around which you can create models to valuation purposes. They're just there's just too many variables and interacting differently and they defy they

defy being modeled. So we will have will have instability until things settled down and we can reach reach that stage. And that's Peter Gleiston, the CEO and c i O at a g L credit it and Carol, this is a guy you just want to hear from at a time like this. Very calm, He's seen some things. He's got great perspective, and I really appreciated some of the comparisons that he made to crises that we've seen before. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, we're going

to hear from longtime media executive Susan Line. She now runs her own shop BYBG Ventures. She's investing in a portfolio of companies run by women. So what she had to say about the media landscape and also check in with how her businesses are doing. A smart conversation that's coming up. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.

We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations that we had throughout the week on our daily radio show. Of course, all of it relating back to the coronavirus, and we were really pleased to catch up with Susan Line. Carol, someone you've spent a lot of time with. She's the founder managing partner over at BBG ventures a long history in the media space. She ran

Martha Stewart's Empire, she ran ABC Entertainment. She's done a lot out there in the world, so she understands media certainly, but also a good conversation about how life may change on the other side of this, you know, this is the giants question out there. UM. I think we know the near term impacts, I think uh, and I'm happy to talk about some of the things we're seeing. I think the the more interesting piece of this is whether

it will create UM behavior changes over time. How much of what we are are being forced to do now will actually become part of our work lives or as you say, learning lives or um or just the way we live UM. And that I think will take time to really understand. But there are certain things that that I have to believe will never or completely go back.

You know, I can't imagine that companies are going to go back to spending as much on business travel, for example, because everyone has been forced to figure out how to do business across country using Zoom or whatever, uh, whatever video product your company h uses. UM, And there's a ton you can get done, There's no question, and it can be very intimate in fact, so uh, things like that, I think you're going to have, um, a much bigger impact than just keeping us in for a couple of months.

And what do you Let's let's continue to talk about that, because this is the most fascinating piece of this to to me. Honestly, Susan and Carol and I talked about it on air off air all the time. We talked about it within our company because we are seeing things differently, uh, you know, working from home candidly, spending more time with our families in many cases, I I hope, you know, more balanced parenting in some ways, they'm not so tired anymore.

So what's the net effect of that, you think? I think that, Look, I hope it's going to have um uh lasting impact on things like co parenting. That would be a beautiful thing. UM. And certainly I think there's a lot of men out there who are realizing, UM, there's great pleasure in doing a lot more with their their families and maybe they were able to do when they were working sixteen hours a day. UM. I do think that there will be more working from home, just

no question about it. There's a um there's value in it. For companies. Uh, maybe not full time and certainly not for your entire team as who are forced to do right now. But there's a lot of job that can be done remotely, and there are a lot of days in the week I think when you could organize things to do your work from a home office. So I do think that is going to have um uh runover effect um and I think there's going to be demands

on both sides of the table for it. I think there are our companies who's who are going to realize they can be more efficient by doing this, and I think there are people in all levels of jobs who are going to say, you know what, I want to

work from home two days a week. Well, listen, like I think even you know, TV, television, radio, who would have thought you mean, Jason and I are both you know where a state apart, where forty miles apart, and we're doing you know, a co anchored show and television. We've all seen people from their homes who would have thought that we would be able to do. I'm not saying that the you know there were the most important into tree hardly, but it would have been one of

those things you're like, no, you can't do that from home? Well, yeah, we can. Yeah, absolutely, And I think it's um. Someone said to me the other day that that they've seen the inside of people's homes and apartments so much more frequently in the last three weeks than they ever had in their lifetime. So there's there's definitely things you learn about your coworkers too, when, uh, when you're operating like this. So Susan line back with us. Susan, thanks for hanging on.

Gotta ask you, you know, given all of your experience in the media world, what do you make of the media world right now? We're at such an interesting inflection point and we're testing all these different things given everybody streaming and consuming in a different way, what do you see out there? Yeah? Look, I think this is a really interesting moment um, certainly for as you said, streaming media. I think it's obviously much tougher for for scripted media.

For entertainment, Um, there's tons of it being consumed right now, but until and unless they can get back to actually producing, um, it's going to be far more difficult. But there's no question moments like this, uh make people hungry to understand what's going on. In the world and hungry too, you know, be entertained to laugh. And there are so many options

for for viewing at this moment. I think the mainstream media, what you can see just by the ratings numbers, UM, they've doubled their audience in some cases even more than that for what we consider mainstream media, things like cable news UM. And I think that will continue for a while. But I think the issue is is how do you

keep that kind of UM. I would say, solution to what people need, what people want on a daily basis, once they're not completely isolated and uh and once they're UM, they're no longer concerned about the immediate health threat and that Susan Line, founder managing partner of BBG Ventures. Man, I just really got a lot of that conversation. I have to say I was thinking about it a lot afterwards. Carol Well, and she's so thoughtful, she really thinks before

she answers her questions. I mean, this is someone who, as we said earlier, president of ABC Entertainment to Ran Martha Stewart Omnimedia oversaw a o L directed the board of Guilt Groups. She's now investing, you know, venture capital into companies that are built by women. She said some thoughts about Quimby. We caught up with Meg Whitman earlier about how you monetize these streaming services, but again I'm so glad we got more time with her. You're listening

to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up Joe Lonsdale, partner at eight VC, co founder of Palinteer. We talked with him about how Silicon Valley is trying to rise to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations that we had throughout the week on our daily radio show. Of course, all of it

relating back to the coronavirus. And we were really pleased to catch up with Susan Line. Carrols someone you've spent a lot of time with. She's the founder managing partner over at BBG Ventures. A long history in the media space. She ran Martha Stewart's Empire, she ran ABC Entertainment. She's done a lot out there in the world. So she understands media certainly, but also a good conversation about how life may change on the other side of this. You know,

this is the giant question out there. UM. I think we know the near term impacts, I think, UH, and I'm happy to talk about some of the things we're seeing. I think the the more interesting piece of this is whether it will create UM behavior changes over time. How much of what we are are being forced to do now will actually become part of our work lives or as you say, learning lives or UM or just the way we live UM. And that I think will take

time to really understand. But there are certain things that that I have to believe will never completely go back. You know, I can't imagine that companies are going to go back to spending as much on business travel, for example, because everyone has been forced to figure out how to do business across country UM using zoom or whatever, uh, whatever video product your company h uses UM, and there's a ton you can get done. There's no question, and

it can be very intimate in fact. So uh, it seems like that I think you're going to have UM a much bigger impact than just keeping us in for a couple of months. And what do you Let's let's continue to talk about that, because this is the most fascinating piece of this to to me. Honestly, Susan and Carol and I talked about it on air off air

all the time. We talked about it within our company because we are seeing things differently, uh, you know, working from home candidly, spending more time with our families in many cases, I hope, you know, more balanced parenting in some ways, I'm not so tired anymore. So what's the net effect of that, you think? I think that. Look, I hope it's going to have um uh lasting impact

on things like co parenting. That would be a beautiful thing. Um. And certainly I think there's a lot of men out there who are realizing, um, there's great pleasure in doing a lot more with their their families and maybe they were able to do when they were working sixteen hours a day. UM. I do think that there will be more working from home, just no question about it. There's

a UM there's value in it for companies. Uh. Maybe not full time and certainly not for your entire team as who are forced to do right now, but there's a lot of jobs that can be done remotely, and there are a lot of days in the week I think when you could organize things to do your work from a home office. So I do think that is going to have um uh runover effect um and I think there's going to be demands on both sides of

the table for it. I think there are our companies who's who are going to realize they can be more efficient by doing this. And I think there are people in all levels of jobs who are going to say, you know what, I want to work from home to day to week. Well, listen, like I think even you know, TV, television, radio, who would have thought you mean, Jason and I are both you know where a state apart, where forty miles apart, and we're doing you know, a co anchored show and television.

We've all seen people from their homes who would have thought that we would be able to do I'm not saying that, you know there were the most important industry hardly, but it would have been one of those things you're like, no, you can't do that from home, Well yeah we can, yeah, absolutely, And I think it's um Someone said to me the other day that that they've seen the inside of peoples homes and apartments so much more frequently in the last

three weeks than they ever had in their lifetime. So there's there's definitely things you learn about your coworkers too when, uh, when you're operating like this. So Susan line back with us. Susan, thanks for hanging on. I got to ask you, you know, given all of your experience in the media world, what do you make of the media world right now? We're at such an interesting inflection point and we're testing all these different things, given everybody streaming and consuming in a

different way, what do you see out there? Yeah, look, I think this is a really interesting moment um, certainly for as you said, streaming media. I think it's obviously much tougher for for scripted media. For entertainment, Um, there's tons of it being consumed right now. But until and less I can get back to actually producing, um, it's

going to be far more difficult. But there's no question moments like this, uh make people hungry to understand what's going on in the world, and hungry too, you know, be entertained to laugh. And there are so many options for for viewing at this moment. I think the mainstream media what you can see just by the ratings numbers. UM, they've doubled their audience in some cases even more than that for what we consider mainstream media things like cable news. UM.

And I think that will continue for a while. But I think the issue is how do you keep that kind of UM. I would say, solution to what people need, what people want on a daily basis, once they're not completely isolated and uh and once they're UM, they're no longer concerned about the immediate health threat and that Susan Line, founder, managing partner of BBG Ventures Man. I just really got a lot of that conversation. I have to say I was thinking about it a lot afterwards. Carol Well, and

she's so thoughtful. She really thinks before she answers her questions. I mean, this is someone who, as we said earlier, president of ABC Entertainment to Ran Martha Stewart Omnimedia oversaw a o L directed the board of Guilt Groups. She's now investing, you know, venture capital into companies that are built by women. She said some thoughts about Quimby. We caught up with Meg Whitman earlier about how you monetize these streaming services but again, I'm so glad we got

some more time with her. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up Joe Lonsdale, partner at eight VC, co founder of Palanteer. We talked with him about how Silicon Valley is trying to rise to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations that we had on our daily radio show about COVID nineteen

this week. And we were so excited Carroll to check in with John Wortheim. You know, normally would be a few months kids before we talked to him. We'd be out on the grounds of the Billy Jene King Tennis Center there in Queens. But we had to get to him sooner because the world of tennis, the world of sports, it has changed. Check it out. Well, we're not in a great place, honestly. I mean, one of tennis's great

virtues is it's global cast. But in this case that is a liability, and so this is a sport where everyone's on a plane almost every week, and players come from all over and it's really been tough. I mean, there's no guaranteed contracts, there's no players union. Um, Roger Federer's gonna be just fine, Serena Williams is going to be just fine. But there are a lot of players who are run of the mill, you know, very respectable, serviceable pros, that are really feeling the pinch right now.

And I think the big question too, and I think we see this in all sports, is just the uncertainty and if you blow out your knee, the doctor will say, here's your rehab schedule, and if everything goes well, you'll be back by September. And if you have a rain delay, you can look at the weather map and you can

prepare when the baseball game is going to resume. I think just the fact that there is no endpoint here has really been something that's been very destabilizing to to a lot of athletes who I think have lost some some sense of purpose here and they're just not quite sure how hard to train. It's it's been very strange time, and certainly uh ted tennis players among them. So what kind of assistance could be coming their way is being

asked for. I think about you know, each of these individual athletes to some extent are kind of a mini small business potentially, and I do wonder. You know, we've certainly got gotten small business assistance, you know, from the federal government, but I'm just curious if there's any kind of assistance, you know, coming their way. It's certainly I'm assuming, is being asked for. It's a great question. I've thought

about that too. You're absolutely right. I mean, these players are basically that they're independent contractors, and you're right, there's they're basically small business owners, and I wonder about their eligibility. There has been talk about setting up some kind of a fund for players. I mean, the good news is that they're not incurring expenses. So it's very expensive to fly all over the world and employ a coach and a trainer and a physio and get massages and rackets strong.

I mean, the good news is that none of them, none, none of the players really have those expenses right now. But it's unclear. I mean, both both tours, the a t P, which is the men's tour, in the w T which is the women's are allegedly coming up with some sort of a relief program. There's also the question of how deep does this go. I mean, there are more than a thousand players that have rankings. Do you fund the guy rank number five hundred or do you limit this to just the kind of players that you

and I would see at the US Open. Uh, so far, it's been a lot of discussions and not a lot of check being cut right, And and I guess one of the questions sort of kind of synthesizings of this together is we don't know what what the endpoint is. We saw the French Open come out and sort of make their move, We saw Wimbledon get canceled all together. We're still waiting, I believe, to hear from the US Open. How much did the French kind of to put not

to find appointent sort of mess this up for everybody. Yeah, we should point out that the French Open, which is traditionally uh starts around Memorial Day. The French Open said we're canceling, and then a few days later they said, oh, and by the way, we're going to grab this date on the calendar in late September and early October, and uh, everybody else in tender said wait a second, you can't do that, and the French open said we're going to

offer fifty million dollars in prize money. Um, it's interesting. I mean, I don't know if you saw the UFC, how's this mystery I land where they're gonna hold Kate. I said that it's fascinating because it's honestly, yes, sort of say this is crazy, this is borderline irresponsible, and by the way, why not. And I think tennis actually is in a position. Look, you've got two players are on the other sides of the net. You don't have the social distancing issues you have with contact sports or

sports like basketball. You need about five cameras to cover tennis. And I'm taking tennis actually lends itself to some creative problem solving here. So I don't know if we're gonna see Roger Federer on a private island, but I wouldn't be surprised if people got sort of entrepreneurial about tennis

here pretty fast. So we talked tennis, we talked a little bit of UFC there, John, the whole world of sports though, I mean, we think about the NFL, we think about the NBA, we think about Major League Baseball, all sorts of contingency plans being made, the President speaking with the big commissioners last weekend. What I mean, you're talking to people all the time about this. What happens next? When it comes especially to professional sports, it's a great question.

I mean, usually in times of crisis, sports bring us together, and whether it's nine eleven or Katrina or war, sports have this sort of unifying quality. In this case, I can't think of anything worse since but I mean, you've got this communicable infectious disease, You've got this terrible virus, and what could be worse in putting sixty people in one place and telling them to all stand uh in tight quarters and then all go down the same escalator

when the game is over. Um. So it's really problematic. I mean sports are sort of about about the worst thing you can do for this virus. UM. I think the big question is just how creative are sports willing to get? And somebody said, hey, we should play the NBA playoffs on a cruise ship. Well, I don't know if that's such a ridiculous idea. I mean, the sports f really been moving towards the viewer at home. The viewer on their phone and away from the family arena.

The media rights matter more than ever. Maybe this will accelerate that, But I think this, I think sports are going to sort of have to decide how creative they're willing to get. And we keep hearing about this closed door scenario where games are played, um, not in front of fans, but just so that they're TV cameras and we can all watch these at home. I think sub sports are sort of lending themselves to that more than

other sub sports are. Pre the NFL, they're only eight home games though, Yeah, but put the put the games on TV, and doesn't matter if they're fans in the

stands are not. There's some logistical you know, there's some logistical challenges there, but I just you know, we keep talking about flattening the curve and when we're gonna get back to some symbols of normalcy, I think sports are gonna be about the last thing, uh to resume, just because the idea of packing twenty fans into an arena to watch a basketball game is about the worst thing

you can imagine. So it's it's really interesting and I think, um, you know, we we've obviously never had anything like this. But I think sports are going to have to figure out sort of how how creative they're willing to get because you know, the the NFL starting the first Sunday in September doesn't seem particularly likely right now, right So, John, so this is something in terms of the sports world,

at least in your view. Do you anticipate that in one easily We're still dealing with the after effects of it on the sports world. You know, I'm reluctant to sort of speculate too much. I mean, I feel like we all need to kind of respect the unknown here. Ideally, you know, when when there's a vaccine, I think it's a different ballgame. But I don't know. I mean, we would you let me, let me turn this on you guys, would would would you guys go to a game or

game in the fall? Yeah? A lot of people have to say yeah, exactly. And you know, and we we know this, We know this from how we got into this message. It only takes one person, and you know, the idea of of standing in road twenty three for three hours thousands of other It's just I don't know, even if the games are held, I'm not sure how many people actually show up anyway, But I think, you know, it's who knows what's going to happen, But I think

could be a wash basically. Yeah, well it's been interesting to see you know, we talked about tennis, but also to see golf trying to deal with this, which I feel like it goes back to something you said at the top of the conversation, which is, you know, very

international sport. You think about putting something on like the Masters, the concern is as much for the players right as the fans, So you play it without fans, but you've still got people coming from from all over the world, and while you're not you know, like doing a lot of physical interaction with each other, and there're still you know, there is still is some sense of proximity. But I guess there's also a huge amount of money on the

line here, and the economics get pretty complicated. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a sort of a classic struggle right between between health and and finan I mean, we see this in our our daily uh you know, in our daily presidential press briefing, tension between public health and this this economic crisis and health crisis. But I I think you made a sport linked golf, a sport like tennis.

There's only one locker room. And a tennis player made this point to me, and I think it's a really good point, which is, listen, we all want to get back out there, we all want to be making money. This has been financially devastating. But it takes one player's racket stringer who is on the back of a flight from Slovenia. I mean, it's just the flukiest interaction, and you're talking about dozens and dozens of players all in one locker room, and you know it, it just takes

one positive. And we saw this with you know, with with the soccer game in northern Italy. It just takes one positive. And I think you're right. Even if there are no fans in the stands, you still have You've got players, you've got officials, someone's kind of operates those cameras, someone's got to be in the broadcast. And suddenly, even in this this closed door scenario, even without selling a single ticket, you're still talking about hundreds and hundreds of

people on the ground. Um. So yeah, I think that the threshold for when is it healthy enough and when are we economically desperate enough to something that's gonna be really interesting the Monitor, and that's John Wortheim, executive editor of Sports Illustrated, also a contributing correspondent to sixty Minutes. We were so excited to catch up with him, and man did he deliver, Carol, really thought provoking. That was

one of those conversations that I got off air. I went down, I had dinner with my family and said, all right, I've got some thoughts. Well, I have to say when he was talking to us, I was jotting all these notes about how could be a wash when it comes to sports, and then he just said, our world at large, it's a pivot point in history. And that really stayed with me as well. Alright, pivot point in history. That's a good way to wrap up the

weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Be short of tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time, And if you can't catch us live, get our daily podcast wherever you download your podcast. You can also watch the show live on YouTube. Just search for Bloomberg Global News. You can get this week's edition

of the magazine. It's on newsstands now. We'll be back next week at the same time. This is Bloomberg m