Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - April 17th, 2021 (Podcast)

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. For those of you keeping track week fifty seven, working from home still for so many Tim and I though both in the office this week, and I have to say, over the last week both of us reminded that COVID is alive and kicking, and concerns about possibly getting it, putting us back home, each of us for a few days. Yeah it did. I mean a running nose is no longer just a running nose.

It's a running nose plus waiting a few days than a COVID test exactly, Fortunately a negative one on my part mine as well. Well. Speaking of the virus, US regulators pausing the use of J and J's vaccine as they await more information on possible complications coming up this hour, how that news may lead to more vaccine hesitancy. We'll talk with the EEO of Surgical Solutions and tim Even with the J and J setback, companies are plotting their

way forward. We'll hear from the CEOs of Imax, Hyatt Hotels, Tapestry, and Mozilla, and one of the founders of Jet dot Com, Nate Faust, on his new startup Olive. All of that to come, we begin with this week's Chip Summit at the White House. President Biden stop economic and National Security advisors hosted more than a dozen chief executive officers to talk about the administration's two and a quarter trillion dollar

infrastructure plan and the global semiconductor shortage. The President says there's bipartisan support in Congress for efforts to strengthen the U S supply chain and revamp batteries and semiconductors. Chin and the rest of the world is not waiting, and there's no reason why American should. Among those attending the CEOs of four GM, Intel, and Google. In a recent story in Bloomberg Business Week explored Intel's new hell Mary

with a twenty million dollar bet on US manufacturing. We talked with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber and Tom Giles, Bloomberg technology executive at look until has the money, UM. And they still throw off a lot of cash from their existing business. UM. So I have no doubt that

they're going to throw a lot of money at this problem. UM. The challenge for them is that they have slipped in production of the most advanced ships and just how quickly can you You can throw a lot of money at the problem, but how quickly can you get these new um fabs, these new chip production plants up and running, um, And how quickly can you fix the technology that they've fallen behind? That you know, making these chips smaller and smaller every cycle becomes harder and harder and harder to

do at the scale that Intel needs to do it. Remember, they're the main supplier to the to the to the servers and the computers around the world. UM. And the fact of the matter is other companies have just gotten faster and better than they are at cranking these things out at scale. And that's the that's the real chans

that they have right now. What's great about this story, UM, there's so much and I can only imagine the individuals you talk to it because there's so much insight into the different CEOs and the different stumbles that Intel did after just kind of owning I feel like the semiconductor industry you talk specifically, I feel like about a major blunder tom and that was the misstep it did with Apple by not linking up with them. How much did

that set them back? Yeah, So when it comes to mobile chips um, that is an area where Intel just tried and tried again many times to get a told in that market. One of the early one of the early instances that we talked about in the story is when the former CEO, a guy by the name of Paul o'dalini, was you know, this is before the smartphone introduction,

right in the mid two thousands. This is when Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, came to Intel and said, Okay, we want to cut a deal with you to make chips or our phone and Paul and Paul o'dalini just just balked at it. He said he wasn't pleased with the terms of that. That ended up being a really um, you know, really landmark decision and one that has worked against them, mainly because what it did is as this business went to other companies, first Stampsung and then later

this company in Taiwan called Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Will you win the contract to supply Apple? A lot comes with that, you get, part of you get, You get into this ecosystem, and you gained the ability to really be the point, the point, the supplier for this incredibly

you know, fast moving market which was smartphone. I mean remember what it was like when when you know, fifteen years ago, when these when this was taking off, everybody was just rushing to get these and that created a lot of business for the semiconductor industry. They us that moment which became sort of the beginning of the mobile revolution. Um and you know, as you as you both write in the story, you know Intel's predicament didn't come about overnight.

It's been a consequence of a decade. It's worth of missteps. One of my most favorite elements of this story, and what I think we do UM especially well with the magazine are these sort of like case studies and and this one really feels like a management case studies. So when when you step back and you know, having covered this company for years now, if you approach it through that case study, lens, what are some of the big management take takeaways? That you think. Um, you know, readers

will find most interesting here. And please talk about Brian Kay Sure. Well, before we talked about Brian credetit, you have to go back to Andy Grove. He was one of the original founders of Intel and one of its longest lasting cdo and he was legendary, um specifically for here. He was very demanding, um. He you know, he was, he was very discipline um. And he ran Intel. You know, he was seen as a one of the early management guru um, after whom many of the biggest tech executives

out there right now patterned their management style. That was Tom Giles, Bloomberg Technology Executive editor, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber. Intel is such a I feel like business school case study, and a lot of it has to do with management along the way. Yeah, thereof quite a shuffle of executives in recent years as well. Absolutely great story. Well coming up, US regulators maintain a pause in the use of Johnson and Johnson's vaccine because

of risks the impact on the public. That's coming up next. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week. With Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick takes Tim Stone of it from Bloomberg Radio. The virus a setback this week for Johnson and Johnson's vaccine as a CDC panel meant to talk about possible risks and decided to maintain a pause on the use of the drug. The move Tim reminding us that the path forward is

a winding one. I have to say when it crossed the Bloomberg bit of a shocker, it really was a shocker. Markets did seem to shrug it off, and to me, it was not just a story about Johnson and Johnson, but also a story about the other vaccines that have been approved for emergency use authorization, those from Fiser and Maderna,

the MR and A vaccines. Yeah, absolutely listen. And it's just a reminder, like everyone has said, we need a portfolio of vaccines to get through this, especially something like Johnson and Johnson. Great for emerging markets, it's an easier it's a one shot vaccine, but nonetheless a little bit

of a stumble this week. Well. For more on the virus and vaccine roll out one of our go to voices throughout the pandemic, ALYSSA wrapped the CEO of the healthcare solutions company, Surgical Solutions, It's really amazing that, you know,

we are very fortunate still to feel this way. Only twenty two point three percent of the country is fully vaccinated in thirty six four percent or one shot in for the CDC, and so we're still less than of the population those of us that can jump for joy and feel like we are at least, you know, good

to go for this round. So I feel really bullish that everyone who can get it, who is eager to get it, should and if it spies room there and it takes two shots versus one for at least a period of time, so be it do to two and

just keep going. Well, listen, how's this playing out when it comes to to your staff who is on the front lines, Because we have talked to you in the past about vaccine hesitancy among frontline workers, among healthcare workers, but we've also heard about data that show that when more people do get vaccinated within social circles, people start to get on board if they were hesitant in the beginning. How's it playing out for your employees? Um, we have

as you would imagine, it's an astute question. We have had pockets of perseverance and pockets of hesitancy. So some of the hesitancy has not surprisingly detailed with states or geographies that are more hesitant in general because of their political persuasions, and and where we've seen there being a lot of administration of the vaccine, like New York City, people are much less hesitant and much higher vaccination rates

even within our own firm. I think that what's interesting is is that how Corona continues to play out is also really geo focused. As factually said, it might be all along. We've got hospitals in Michigan that are already teeming with COVID patients again fearing the second variant is here, and there are other places that are like empty with COVID right now. It just isn't happening right now. Empty might be too strong, but but very low incidents of

COVID patients, So it's very varied. It's going to be endemic, right this is this is part of our world. I mean, I was talking to a bunch of CEOs for a Bloomberg event and they're like, we need to be ready

for the next one because it's coming. I mean, how do you guys, see, what are the conversations an Lissa, you guys are having around that conversations are get the first round of vaccinations, preferably preferably with the efficacy, because then to tweak around the margins for variants with boosters is much easier than if you're starting from phase zero and if you in and and of course if you have already gotten vaccinated, even if it is a variant

that isn't perfectly uh protected, maybe it will be a diminished immunal response. So you just have to hope that this first round of vaccinations is laying the foundation, which I actually genuinely believe it is. I'm still thinking about J and J here. Do you think this is the end of the J and J shot? Even if it if it you don't, Okay, So even if it don't, I'm not I have no insider information on jans Jan.

I'm not a board member. But they've administered six point a million doses and there were six cases and they were all amongst women who experience these low levels of blood platelets um in combination with their vaccinations. So do I think there will be necessarily additional screens and flags

when you should not necessarily get the J and J shot. Sure, but it's a it's a blood clot, you know, the cerebral venice sinus thrombosis c v s T, which hopefully they can research further and help screen better for the patients who would be a risk or tweet the vaccine to not cause that response. But again, I do agree

with Nate Silver, this is unfortunately statistically insignificant. And you know, the risk of getting COVID and having it newly adverse health reaction is higher than the risk of having an adverse reaction from J and J little and anything else. So but when I and when I say and, I don't mean that it will be permanently pulled or suspended.

What I mean is, even if it does get back to the point where the agencies are recommending that it be given in states, is there a chance that that ship sailed when the agency has made this decision to make this recommendation and it ultimately lead to people saying, Okay, well no thanks to the to the J and J. Instead, I'm going to go with the m R and A shots. It could, it could any other reality is we also don't know what else is in the on the horizon

to be for emergency approval. I know, Astrosonica on others that have been produced globly are not popular or used here yet, but there will probably still be additional innovations yet that can continue to protect Americans from COVID nineteen, this variant or others. So I'm I'm still to bet on the technology and the innovators. It's just how I'm

wired and what I believe in. But I do think that, you know, it's it's a tough position to be in for j J. I don't think it will be the last we see of their vaccine, but even so, whether it is or isn't, fortunately we have enough of the others being produced and so much more widespread distribution that really, you know, if people want to be getting these vaccines apprile after April nineteen, which we obviously hope they do,

they should have no challenge doing so. There are some states that are have much higher stats than the national averages I've given you fully vaccinated some states anyone over sixteen is be knowledgeable for a long time, less populous states, but there are states that are closer to herd immunity than the country as a whole, So let's all get

there as quickly as we can. How important is it all that we all get quickly globally, get there quickly globally ALYSSA in order to really getting ahead of this and beyond it. I think economically it's absolutely crucial, and I think pragmatically it's also really important. We live in a global marketplace and a global business enterprise, and the phony and false yet real I guess that's actually more on walls we've put up in this in this last year and a half in terms of freedom of movement

internationally have real consequence. I haven't been able to get my oparent from France. On a very personal note, I have friends who are not being able to see loved ones with the ease in Europe. Though, we need a solve globally for these vaccination schedules so that we can begin that freedom of movement and goods more easily, absolutely as soon as possible will be best for the global economy.

Otherwise the people negatively impact in the country's negatively impact by this are going to get even more acutely you know, impacted economically. That was a lista wrap. CEO of Surgical solutions, reminding us we need a global solution. It can't just be focusing on your country. I mean the borders, and the virus doesn't know a border. The problem is we do not have a global solution. There are still wide, widespread parts of the world that do not have access

to vaccines yet. I always think about our conversation with Nobel Laurie Joseph Steak Let's saying, listen, developed nations, you've got to take care of the developing world as well when it comes to vaccines and other measures. We'll still ahead. On Bloomberg Business Week, what do Amazon, Black Rock, Google, and Warren Buffett have in commoned, Well, they all signed a letter in opposition of any discriminatory legislation that would make it harder for people to vote. This is legislation

that is happening in almost every state, Carol. It was a corporate come together and to go to voice on leadership Yales Jeff Snenfeld on companies and those CEO is

banning together and those that don't. There are implications. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington d C Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. This

week Bloomberg Live hosted an event. It was called Disruption the New Economic Driver, and timis part did that event. I caught up with Jeffson and Felt, senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at Yale University School of Management. Well. He also spoke with US Carroll in our daily radio show about this week's published letter that was signed by hundreds of companies and executives opposing quote any discriminatory legislation, end quote that would make it harder for people to

vote well. Full disclosure. Michael R. Bloomberg, founder, Bloomberg ALP and Bloomberg Philanthropies was a co signatory. Here's more from yalees Jeffson and Felt on the action v CEOs is remarkable. It is it is a great affirmation of each other,

which is what we found on our weekend event. We had on forty eight hours notice pulled together these titans of industry on Saturday, and we invited a ninety of them came out and then while they're Kenn Fraser and Ken Chenault invited them UH and then invited them and their friends UH to join this petition that was an extension, of course, with the seventy two black executives that signed

a week earlier. And the response was thunderous and of it is um you know, it's it's it's kind of a strong affirmation of each other, but also a strong statements They're not going to be intimidated by anybody says give us your money and shut up. You know, it's

about taxation and representation. Do you say this unfolding in front of you, then yes, it It was kind of a if you don't mean to offend anybody politically, but if you take a look at these voter suppression rules, these laws going across forty seven states now it was forty two last week and now atty seven, is that it's seeing that as as a as a viral disease in itself counter it has been this gathering storm of

CEO support. UH. It is in fact a support of defiance in the eyes of those trying to intimidate them. It's happened before in Georgia. Some of the Georgia companies, like you know, Coke and especially Delta and others who got out front on gun safety issues and things suffered ridiculous reprisals for the positions they took in terms of selective regulator a taunts and actual selected taxation things that are unconstitutional, of course, but they still became issues they

had to wrestle with these things. Are CEOs are saying we're not going for that kind of like they did when Ken Fraser of merch stood out in front and stepped off President Trust's Business Advisory Council, and then then you saw that stampede where they all left. But the first first seven American history that the business community said

no to the commander in chiefs called action. I wonder though, beyond this statement, beyond this letter, and beyond what these companies are saying when it comes to actions and what these companies can do to actually compel the state legislatures not to move forward with these restrictions. Well, you know, that's a really good thing. It's easy, you might say, it's easy to sign on. It's really not that easy to get out in front and put your names out there.

It's still people will say talk is cheap. It's not cheap. There are repercussions, and it's really great they did this. However, what else beyond the talk enough with petitions, you know, can have a kaleidoscope of these petitions already is the next day age of this is you're seeing that there are economic sanctions. Nobody in Georgia wanted, you know, the Major League Baseball to move the All Star Game out.

We had, though, commissioned a morning console overnight set of interviews of a couple of thousand Americans, and what was astounding is that it is very popular in the country outside of Georgia, especially with avid baseball fans. And we saw yesterday Apple with Will Smith pull out in the entertainment sports filmmaking center of Georgia is very strong that these kinds of economic hits are profound. But there are other issues. There are legislative issues, and there are things

like you may have seen today. Brad Krp just announced, the chairman of Paul Weiss, that they have bounded together almost seventy of the nation's largest law firms for swat teams instant ready right now to go out to these states. Hey, Jeff, just quickly, and it's gonna be quick, only about thirty seconds. Is Delta making a mistake, Coca Cola making a mistake there in the state of Georgia by not being part of this petition or at least this signature um this letter.

Are they making mistake? Just quickly? Great, great question because you know Walmart, Doug McMillan has been very out these kinds of issues and said was Jamie Diamond and JP Morgan. Is the fact that some didn't sign and think, you know, we've been out there and we don't need to be the only ones that they don't know who else is going to be, so you know, there's no question about

where they stand on these issues. That's Jeff Snenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at Yale University School of Management. And I think what's interesting is tim, you know, I do wonder when we look back in a few years, how we look at companies and their leaders and how they weighed in on some really important issues of our time, whether it's wealth gaps, racism, inequities. I wonder how history

will judge them. And one thing that really stuck out to me about the interview was when you asked him about the companies that didn't sign this, because there were a lot of companies that that that didn't sign this that have been outspoken about this. Be sure to catch the full interview. It's available at Bloomberg dot com. And here more from that Bloomberg Live event all about disruption in the economic impact. You can find that at Bloomberg

Live dot com. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up next more on leadership and disruption and Carol, more from that be Live event that you hosted. Yeah, I gotta tell you, I had a dream team of leaders, the CEOs of Hyatt Hotels, Imax, Tapestry, and Mozilla, all coming from different industries and all very different types of leaders and some great interviews. If I may say so myself. Thank you. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business

Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio Bloomberg Live hosted a virtual event this week. Tim. It was about disruption as the new economic driver. It was a really very timely topic because we've all lived through so much over the last twelve to thirteen months and we're wondering how it pays off longer term. At the event, I got to talk with a diverse lineup of CEOs, the CEOs of Imax, Hyatt Hotels, Tapestry, Mozilla.

You talked about how disruption has led to change and innovation at the companies and across the industries. First up, though you've got their thoughts on the outlook some thirteen months in on the pandemic. We started with Hyatt CEO Mark Coplemasian. I would say that, you know, we've we've been enjoying some very positive momentum since the end of January this year in the United States. Um China went through a shutdown and has reopened again and is growing

significantly post reopening. But I would say that the as much as we see booking activity steadily increase, we're also positioned to be ready for potential retraction. And the only reason we are is not because I have crystal ball. The one thing I've learned over this past years that that's not possible. But we've become conditioned to just recognize that the path forward is not able to be predicted much past becoming weaker, so and so we remain ready

to pivot if we need to. There's no evidence that that's a problem at this moment. But you know, there are more surges that we're seeing due to the new variants um that are now the dominant caseload in many countries, quickly becoming the the primary one of the United States. So we we remain ready for a retrenchment, but so far we've seen positive momentum. Joanne Crave Voice Rot come on in on this. You're the c of Tapestry. Tell us about your brands, whether it's coach, Kate Spade or

Stuart Whitzman. What are you looking for in the next six months to a year. Well, I will say we're optimistic, but the the operative word, you know, over the past year has really been agility. Um, you know, echoing marks comments. We had very little visibility coming through the pandemic as to what the trends would be, and our focus as a as a company has been to get closer to our consumer, to lean into digital and data and analytics

tolls that are becoming more available. We were seeing some of these disruptions happened pre pandemic and really embracing that and then becoming a leaner and more agile organization so that we can be more responsive as we see these trends unfold. I will tell you that a year ago, we weren't talking about or thinking about the opportunity to see a vaccine roll out quickly, and we are here now. There has been a setback, particularly with the news today,

but we continue to be optimistic. You know. I think our customers are optimistic. They're they're looking forward to getting out and embracing the physical world again. And we've been encouraged by the amount of support and the amount of engagement we've seen all the way through the pandemic with our brands, and and we think we're well positioned and believe we're well positioned as we come out of the

pandemic to continue to serve our customers. Let's turn out a rich Gil Fund, he's the IMAX CEO, and rich you and into COVID early because of your exposure in Asia. How are things going? Are people going back to theaters where people feel safe, Carol, And in fact they are safe. They're coming back to theaters in some cases even in record numbers. So UM China, for example, we were we operate in eighty four countries and in China we typically do about ten percent of the Chinese box office on

one percent of the screen. So Chinese New Year is the biggest movie going time of the year in China. It's around February, and this year was up thirty over the record which was two thousand and nineteen. UM. In Japan we had a film called Demon Slayer, which became the highest grossing film in the history of Japan, highest grossing IMAX film as well, despite capacity limitations a couple of months ago. So there's no question in my mind where it's safe, it's going to bounce back, and it

already is in a big way. Um. You look at North America, we just had Godzilla versus Kang which, as you know, open way stronger than people thought to around fifty million dollars it's for this weekend. Europe is a little slower, a little bit more troubling, as is Latin America. So I think you really have to look at this on a region by region basis. And again, as as as others were just saying, I don't think you could get too high or too low. One of my favorite

business sayings. It's never as good as it looks or as bad as it seems. So I think you have to look as a trend wise it's getting better, and not get too distracted by the short term news. Mittel Baker, you're the CEA of Mozilla. Has your company benefit from the past year and everyone going online and doing a lot of browsing online or we've seen in the last year is change in habits. You know, the title disruption I think is quite real here because even online people's

habits are changing, how they're what they're doing. You can see that. And so I would say, you know, Mozilla, our goal is a better internet. Uh, and the reason that our organization exists is to build a better internet. We do it through the market, so or a software vendor, you know, like others, but our our actual motivation is

something quite different. And so if Firefox has done quite well in the last year, and in the bigger picture, I'd say, you know, both the good and the bad of the current state of the Internet have been magnified, and so obviously in the larger picture, we'd say we'd really succeeded because we're all living online and doing things online we hadn't imagined before. But also the issues with the nature of online life and the way our engagement works are so obvious, and so you know, with Firefox

we try to address that now even more. How do you search things? How do you find what you want? How do you find with pocket you know, content that's worth your time, not clickbait. How to test out ways of engagement that aren't about building outrage for more engagement, so that our you might say, the better side of human nature can be more reflected in online life, and that, of course is a work in progress. Time for a rapid round of questions. Here reach gil Fond I'm ax CEO.

I'm gonna start with you. A disruption become an economic driver for your company? Yes or no? Yes for sure. I think the new circumstances um you know, humans are very adaptable and the will to survive is primary, and I think you put those together, it forces you to look at different ways of doing things. Mittel Baker, what's

your take at Mozilla? Absolutely? Absolutely, things we never really imagined could be done online, our online and so that's a driver of opportunity, challenge, ability to move in all sorts of different ways, you know, from as I said, browsing to content, but also what's your experience engaging in content and what is it like to be online? And that overall experience. And I'll even maybe echo Mark and say, how does it online? How do how do we amend it?

So it drives us closer towards holistic well being more couple amazing? And how has disruption impact at Hyatt Hotels? I think probably the biggest lasting dividend, if you will, from this past year is a change way of working. I think going faster, being more adaptable, um, having applying a growth mindset at every turn. These are the things that will persist and continue to add value over time. And Joe and Crave voice aunt what about a tapestry? Yeah, I'll wrap it up by saying that, you know, I

agree that it's been a catalyst. Um, it's allowed us, you know, to to build a case for change. It was quite clear when all of our stores closed that there was change that we needed to do. And I would argue that it's helped us accelerate and being more bold than we would have been otherwise. So um, and the innovation has been tremendous Across this past year. I've been weaving some of our audience questions into the general discussion,

but I have one last one. I just want to quickly ask you guys, what do you think will be the next big disrupter and how can we prepare for that? Just quickly, Joeanne, what do you think will be the next big disruptor? Uh? You know, I think the continuation as Mitchell said, I'll echo that. I don't think we're done. I think we're in the first few steps of a technology disruption and a digital digital as an enabler, and I think we're in the early innings of that mark UM.

You know, as we now believe that this UM, this coronavirus could be an endemic, uh, part part of our lives going forward. I think how we respond to future I think I think Richard was the one who said

is a certainty of another pandemic in our lifetimes. I think, you know, how we collectively respond to these things going forward is going to be another, you know, unfortunately, another disruption in how we organize information, how we coordinate UM, and how we deploy UM, either vaccines in the future or other healthcare Mitchell, I'd say mindset, because all sorts of things will happen, whether it's a pandemic or you know, flooding me millions of people, you know, you know, with

water levels rising, who knows, you know. So I would say I think the next big disruptor is really mindset, which is partly our relationship to technology, but partly our relationship to experience. Um, you know, is that consistent if you have these great experiences? Is it going to be periodic in life? As these things happen, Can we get back to us or or work our way to a new sort of sustainability not just for us and our people and teams, but planet wise and weatherwise as well.

Rich final thought for you, what do you think is going to be the next big disruptor. I think it's going to be artificial intelligence. I think artificial intelligence is kind of you know what the Internet was a few decades ago, and you know, there's so many simple things, whether it's ordering a cab or food for takeout, Um, you can't see where they are. But I think AI is so big it's going to change our way of

life in ways we can't see. That's my panel from the Bloomberg Live event disruption as a new economic driver, featuring Mitchell Baker of Mozilla, Joanne Crew Voice of Tapestry, Rich Gelfon of Imax Corporation, and Mark Hoplmasian from Hyatt Hotels. Of course, all CEOs at those companies. That entire conversation can be found online at Bloomberg Live dot com. That ups up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and

I'm Tim Stanovec. Ahead in our next hour, the co founder of jet dot Com Nate Faust on his new e commerce startup Olive with a sustainable focus. Kind of love what he's doing. Plus how a twenty three year old coder kept quing on online when no one else would. It is this week's cover story. Yeah, you do not want to miss it. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business finance

and tech news as it happened. Sloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stenovik on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovick. Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including new data from we Work that shows executives employees to him pretty okay with hybrid work. Hybrid work something that we are going to continue talking a lot about. His companies are thinking more and more about getting people

back to the office. Plus, the co founder of jet dot com has a new e commerce company looking to do away with shipping of boxes, all those boxes we've seen on the curbs. Guilty as charged me do. First up this hour, let's get to this week's cover story. It's about a twenty three year old programmer who is keeping American extremists online. His name Nick Lim, and he provides tech support to the u S networks of white nationalists and conspiracy theorists banned by the likes of Amazon.

We got more from Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber and one of the stories writers, Bloomberg News cybersecurity reporter William Turton. Mick Lim is the CEO and founder of Vonma Tech, which is a technology startup that's has quartered in Vancouver, Washington, and it provides a kind of a specialized set of web services that are key websites online. Now, you know the websites that we kind of mentioned here, Nick doesn't actually host them, but he provides an essential

service keeps them online. So where Nick Limb fits into all of this is that he's basically a service provider of last resort. And and so William just talk us more about like how Nick lam became became that and why he why he feels that that's important. Yeah, I mean you're talking earlier. That's a story about technology and free speech, but it's also kind of a story about nihilist. Nick is someone who, you know, according to people I

spoke to, is technically skilled. He is actually proficient in providing these services and has been doing it from a very young age actually. But you know, to him, I mean he kind of summed up his ideology to me as if it's legal in the US, I don't care, um. And you know, at one point he told me when he uh offered free services to Andrew England, who runs the white nationalist website Stormer, that raised his profile and

made him famous. So you know, Nick would care professed to care about free speech and providing a platform to those who have been centered by a big tech Then he would also say, you know, as long as I sleep, I don't care. And who are some of his clients? So you know, the most important client of his and one that he has actually a very close relationship with his eight which is the home of q and on um.

It's where q and on posted and and you know, the people who run that website are widely speculated to be q um and Nick even went to Japan with those people to celebrate the watch of the site. And Nick was integral to bringing this site back because cloud Flaer took the site offline after multiple Matt shooters had posted their manifestos on and they needed a replacement for

cloud Flare. Enter Nick Limb. He's the one who kind of revived the site and is able to keep it online during you know, the peak of q and on and to this day. So you know what's interesting to William, I mean, there's so many aspects of this story that are fascinating eating and you just want to know more about this guy that's behind us this year old but at heart he's an entrepreneur, right who just it sounds

like I wanted to start a business. But at the same time he's allowing these extremists who are getting kicked off. You know, the established programs are platforms to continue to kind of go about their business, right, But but I think with Nick that's kind of the whole point. I mean, he actively speaks out these clients. And you know, Nick tried to clean to us that he has actually thousands of clients and in reality has a small handful of clients, and and they are these kind of fringe right wing

web site. So William, you you actually went to Washington, Vancouver, Washington, which is just outside my hometown of Portland, Oregon, in the fall, actually, so before all the events of January went down. Um, talk to us about what it was like to visit him. So you know, he actually, you know, he split this time between there and Nevada, where he lived, or Arizona rather where he lives in his Bond's condo. But but the Vonda Tech headquarters in Vancouver he rents

out to some of his friends from high school. Um, you know, when I walked in, I looked on the table, I saw McDonald's, spot fries and and half joints everywhere in the backyard, there's weightlifting equipment, a shed full of servers that are mining cryptocurrencies, and like four bonds. Um. So you know they nicknamed the House of Dancer dam um. But but it is also the registered headquarters of this company.

And um, you know, I was sort of surprised, you know, I wasn't expecting much, um, but I was still kind of surprised that just the assemblance to a college dorm room. Um, And especially because Nick had initially told me that actually, you know, he has offices and sometimes his employees go to it. Turns out wasn't it his grandparents house so too, that's right, according to state records. I look at the house with gifted fire by his grandparent. What was his

upbringing like? Because he sort of has this image of or portrayed, You've conveyed this image of growing up without money. But he was also posting photos of driving around in exotic luxury cars. There's like a lot of contradictions here. Yes, I mean it's completely you know, Nick in our first interview told me that his kind of early entrepreneur spirit came out of a necessity to support his family. I tried to talk to his family. I tried to talk to his parents, some of his siblings. None of them

got back to me. But you know, when I found Limb's old YouTube channel, I found you know, him driving around in his dad's white Lamborghini. Um So it wasn't exactly a story of of as he told me, you know, treating these businesses in order to quote put food on the table. Like I said, Carol, it's a story about business, it's a story about free speech. It's a story about

technology totally. And the story about a really young guy who saw an opportunity man just the way that William and Josh who was the co writer on that story, kind of took us to him and what they saw. The visuals on it were just magical. Yeah, check that one out online because there are, like Carol said, some

really magical visuals in that one. Bloomberg News cybersecurity reporter William Turton and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming out Believe it or not, Many executives, Yeah, they're okay with you working from home a couple of days a week. Really really, that's at least according to a survey by we work. Yes, that's true. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. We'll safe to say one of the most talked about topics to him as we move beyond the pandemic is how we work hybrid working from home, what happens to business travel. How much of what we had and we're doing during the pandemic ultimately stays with us. How many times do you talk about I was going to ask you, is it just me or is this like the topic that that executives are talking about right now publicly internally

as well in company culture. Yeah, totally, And I feel like what a lot of executives maybe we're saying months ago. It's kind of change. It is shifting, as even though the labor market isn't necessarily tight in the traditional definition, they want to attract the best talent, and one way to do that is to be flexible with working exactly. I think workers are going to demand it. Looking into that we work, which is that with a new blind survey of US companies and C level executives for an

insight into the data, they found. We caught up with Sean get them All, President and CEO at we Work. What was fascinating is you saw that employees want to have some control over the mix they have of coming into a headquarters office working from home, we're going into a satellite office or remote office of some kind, and that match C suite executives said the same thing, that they're willing to give that degree of control really part

of it. Yeah, that's I find that interesting because there were some other research that we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks where you know, there's some disconnect between kind of what employees or or what companies think how well this working from home is going versus employees who want the flexibility but they also want that

face time. I think that's absolutely right. But there's a lot of common ground as well, and a lot of it depends on the nature of the job, the nature of the company, what kind of culture they have, and how they deliver the value to the to the end user.

One thing that you have a lot of commonality around is you're starting to build the consensus in many environments where you'd look at it sort of as a one third one third one third kind of model where you're hearing a lot of people say, what we'd like to have is one third in the headquarters office. What I'd like to have is one third or something like that working from home, And what I'd like to have is about a third where I'm working from a satellite office

or a disparate office. And in fact, two thirds of employees are saying that's what they'd like, which is to spend a good amount of their time moving between multiple occasions. And you have se C suite. They're just saying, absolutely, we'd be very happy with our employees operating in some form of a hybrid model, depending on what's appropriate for my particular kind of environment. Well, I want to just say to kind of add on to this um anecdotal evidence,

but not really, it's actual evidence. One of our market watchers came on early in and said, we shut our offices in New York City, moved out to Connecticut, and then decided that when we need space, we'll just rent it, you know, whether it's we work or something else. You know,

when we need our employees to get together. Are you seeing this translate into you know, future business, Are you seeing numbers to hire a people who want to tap into we work offices because they just need it temporarily to bring their teams together who have been working from home and who are maybe expected to continue to work that way. Interesting is that part of its temporary and part of it is it's a permanent flexibility. And I think that's the part that actually is going to be

even more interesting. So you have some people that right now large companies are turning around and saying, Okay, we made to bring our people back because we believe that productivity will be higher if we move away from a complete work from home environment and bring our people together how them collaborate and be able to work together in a more traditional kind of environment for at least part

of their day. So, you know, it's interesting too because one of the findings is that the majority three quarters of the C suite sent saying that they're likely to give their employees a stipend to work from home or a coworking space. I mean, when it comes down to it, for a company, if they don't have to house as many employees, I mean, that's a big line item on the balance sheet. That's they got line item on the

balance sheet. Agree the other thing that people are really interested in is engagement, loyalty, and being able to build that that culture. And one of the things I found most striking is when we looked at what the mix was and asked employees, how engaged are you and how

how highly do you recommend your company? The ones that were more engaged and the ones that were less engaged tended to want to be in the headquarters about the same, so that was a little surprising, but both of them wanted to be a headquarters about a third of their time. What was interesting is that people who were more engaged wanted to be homeless and preferred to be in either in a coworking space or in some sort of satellite office, versus the people were less engaged who tended to want

to be home. So it's interesting is the ones that want that are actually engaged tend to want to be in headquarters and in a satellite office or coworking environment at home less and the ones who want to be home more tend to be the ones that are less engaged. So let me ask you something, because I'm just thinking folks are going to be like, well, yeah, of course we work. Is going to be saying you know, showing a survey where people you know, will rent space to

get together and that they'll want the flexibility. Because this is certainly your book. So what would you say to something like somebody like that, although, you know, to be fair, we've been seeing kind of this trend happen over the last decade, this flexibility in the working environment. But what would you say to somebody's like, well, of course you guys are going to be, you know, talking about something like this. It's something that we're very interested in that

we're talking about before the break. We obviously have this big foot that we've been able to see what's happened in China, we've been able to see what's happened in the Far East, what's happening in Europe, and what's happening in the US, what's happening in Latin America, and how disapplaying itself out. And what we're seeing across the board

is that people want to have their right balance. So from our perspective as a business, if somebody wants to lease a headquarters from us, will least in the headquarters. If they want to have flexible space, will lease the flexible space. So work from home or work from not in headquarters is to our interest. So all of those play out in the same way, and that's been sort of the macro trend that the company has been built up. So this particular thing, I think is more informative about

what we're actually seeing. It's very consistent of what we're seeing of the marketplace, and and what you're going to see is that people are increasingly interested in how do I retain my people, how do I do it in a way that's consistent with the value that I need to deliver to my end you, sir? And how does that different bike department and create much more a custom model than everybody comes in nine to five every day

into headquarters. And that's what we're seeing. And this is just sort of a a more refined view so that other people can see what we're seeing in ourselves. I think that's really important that you, like a lot of other global CEOs that I've been talking to, said, you know, listen, we saw the virus in the impact early because we were over in Asia. We've also seen the recovery earlier because we are in Asia. But what you're seeing in China is showing that people want this flexibility and they

want to do it differently. Well, that's what we've started to see, right, So in China we've got of the people back in Asia, if we've probably got seventy percent of people back in general. In Europe we're probably seeing something that operates a little bit more like fifty and in the US it's in the high thirties that we're back to kind of normal and and you're starting to see things like we have a set of offerings where people can go into any building, and that's what we're

seeing a lot of pick up on as well. So people who say I want to be able to choose where I go at any moment in time. So I think this is something we've been building to. Technologies played a tough out and now we're starting to see it come to ahead. That's we work President Sean get them all. He had lots of statistics to share about working from home and how employees see it and senior level exects. So definitely check out that complete interview. You can find

that at Bloomberg dot com. Still to come now on Bloomberg Business Week, we take a look inside gender equity in the beauty industry not so pretty. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM CHADO one nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg Business apt and Bloomberg Radio

dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. This past year, we have had many conversations about inequities. Will a company is out with an inside look at gender equity in professional beauty Here to share what they found and talk about our industry, which was shut down by the pandemic. Is well a company CEO and a young scriptner. You know, we conducted this report to really better understand the state

of the professional services industry and in beauty. You are right, eighty nine per cent of people in this industry are female. The reality is, as we've found out, majority of the decision making are still held by men. How is that possible? Can I ask you? I'm just like sitting here thinking how is that possible? I think that as you look at a lot of the you know, the bigger company beauty company is I look at my peer group, A lot of them are still men. It's to um not

be at Cody and myself that are women. A lot of them are ran by men today. And I think one of the ways that we could address that is by making sure every opening a repromotion. We have an equal slate, right, a slate that's diverse, people of color, gender, and we always want to make sure it's the bust candidate. But if we start with that lens right, people will bomp, people bubble up. You've been in this industry, you've been in the consumer product industry for many years. What is

it that still continues to hold women back? I think that, you know, making sure that we have the right slating and to make sure that we have um development programs where we're pulling people women and also people of color forward is going to be really critical. When you're diverse, is gender wise or ethnicity. You never want to get the job because of your color or your gender. You want to make sure that you're the bust. I think

that is a big role. I think the second piece for women is, particularly during the pandemic, you saw women fall back, and it's because when kids are not in school. There at home, we're still a majority as a caretaker. So making sure that we have the flexibility in organization is not only going to help women, it's also going to help men. So I think those are really critical.

The last thing I would say is education, making sure that every organization continues to invest in education, whether it's leadership development classes. For our industry, we have really looked at education um critically and to ensure that during the pandemic we were also making sure that we were giving lessons to our clients, to our partners so that they could elevate their skill set. I think those would be

really key. One thing I want to ask you, and this is as a conversation I'm increasingly having as we talk about the importance of DNA diversity and inclusion, and yet I will have I recently had someone on who was creating a spack and it was all women, and A said, well, wait a minute. We've shown that diversity is what really propels the top and bottom line. That's where you get the most, you know, out of a company where you have mixture of thought, men and women,

people from all different kinds of backgrounds. How do you approach that at your company, I know in this research that you say in just the three months since the company was formed on December, your new hires have been women. I applaud you, but I do wonder how do you balance the importance of making sure women are hired and seen um and given opportunities to advance, but also making sure you balance it with diversity of thought among your employee base. It's a great question. I always start with

the consumer. I think that any company that is consumers sound trick will win because you'll understand um their needs and you'll create a right innovation and services. And the reality is of purchasing power is still held by women. We are in an end tree that we serve mostly women. Men are also important. And at the end of the day, what you want is you you want that diversity and you want people to think differently so that you don't have the same blind spot. And for us, what we

look at is a very diverse slate. And then the best candidate. You have to choose the best candidate. You can't say I'm going to pick that person because there are a woman. Yeah. Being aware of our blind spots that is so important going forward. That's any Young Scrivener, the CEO of Well a company. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week and coming up, we're talking about something that's pretty close to me because I have an Amazon problem. We order a lot from Amazon, we do, and I

try to separate it, like I try to. We try to put stuff in our cart so we order like one big order a week, but it doesn't end up happening oftentimes. And I feel a lot of guilt getting all of these boxes, opening them up and seeing that there's only like a couple of things in them, and then carrying them from my apartment to the recycling like a lot about the environmental impact of it. We feel the same thing, like we'll put out our garbage on

garbage tonight and then we put all the recycling. We're like, oh my god, those are all the boxes from our family. We saw a lot of it really over the last year's We would kind of walk around the neighborhood because everybody was ordering online, lots of boxes on the curb. Well one executive seeing a business opportunity here, former jet dot com founder Nate Faust is looking to consolidate your boxes. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with

Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. Our next guest gets e commerce big time. He's a co found of Jet dot com, which was then sold to Walmart for three point three billion dollars. That was back in Bloomberg Business Week magazine. They had been all over this company. Yeah, I still remember that cover. I wasn't even working here at the time, but that was the first time I ever heard of Jet dot com when I saw it on the cover of Bloomberg Business Week,

and was an incredible e commerce store. I mean, the company so young and sold for such a huge sum, and it was a big deal for Walmart. It really kind of moved them very quickly and aggressively into online when they had kind of been behind well. Earlier this year, Nate Faust, one of the co founders of Jet dot Com, debut a delivery service called Olive that consolidates orders from fashion labels including Michael Core's, Adida, Sax and more. For how it works and how it's going, we spoke with

Olive founder Nate Fast. We started Olive a little over a year ago. In fact, actually just about a year ago coming up, and when we initially started exploring it, it wasn't triggered by the triggered by the pandemic. It was triggered by just a broader desire to do something

with a social environmental impact for my next adventure. And with COVID and the increase in how much people are shopping online and the number of deliveries that people are experiencing, I think the pain points and obvious environmental impact of just the sheer amount of deliveries that we're getting, and not just in the packaging, but just the sheer number of delivery trucks that are stopping at each of our

each of our houses. Which I'll say that's probably been the most eye opening thing over the last year, looking out my front window and every single day seeing two, three, four, sometimes more delivery trucks stop at my home. Yeah, listen. I think about it when we're ordering Amazon and it's like, how are you about kind of putting this all into one order? And I'm like, yes, I can wait a couple of days to get something. Tell me, though, how

olive works, Nate. Sure, So you sign up, download our app or on our site at shop Olive dot com. It's a free service to consumers. When you sign up, we create for you what we call your Olive address, and that's sort of your personal storage space at one of our consolidation centers, which we two of them, one on the East Coast, one on the one on the

West Coast. And then when you shop with with Olive at any of the hundred or so retailers that we have affiliate relationships with, when you're going through the checkout process, either on desktop with the help of our Chrome extension or on an iPhone through our our app, we help you insert that Olive address at checkout, and then the retailers pickpack, and ship those orders like they normally would.

They shipped to our consolidation centers. We hold on to them for a couple of days until it's time for what we call your Olive Day, which is the one day or in the case of New York City, have two days per week that all of your orders come together, delivered in one single, reusable, secure, two way, two way shipper and you're just one thing to call out there. You're very transparently at this initial outset. We're not eliminating

the box from the source. The restlers are still picking and packing into the boxes shipping them to us, But we are getting what, in the long run is actually the bigger environmental impact, which is the consolidation of multiple deliveries into a single delivery, which we're getting about what we call our sort of consolidation factor, about consolidation factor in terms of delivering more to a consumer store step than would have previously been um delivered in the in

the status quo. You know, I like to understand the impact, especially since you're concerned about the environment sustainability that by using your service, How do we cut down on our carbon footprint by all of the you know, e commerce that we're doing and all the delivery that goes along

with that. Yeah, no, absolutely so. When you look at the carbon footprint of a sort of post purchase e commerce supply chain, which is the piece that we're focused on, you know, the biggest chunk of that, somewhere in the range comes from that sort of proverbial last mile of the truck stopping at consumers homes, and the remaining half, you know, sort of is split roughly evenly between packaging and then what's called sort of the first and middle

mile of getting that thing from the fulfillment center or store that it's coming from to the to the point of the final last mile delivery. And what we're tackling initially through this this concept of consolidation is that largest chunk, which is the which is the last mile delivery. Now, I know, as you pointed out, obviously those things are being delivered to us, but they're being deliver ver in bulk.

So we get one delivery per day from each of FedEx and UPS and other potential carriers at each of our facilities with all of the all of the various orders, and then when we deliver them two consumers, we're getting on average about one point to five shipments into every delivery that that we make, So that would be you know, roughly a reduction on that sort of last mile for those packages to that consumers home. But obviously two pieces there.

One it's it's apparel only for right now, and so there's lots of things that you can't purchase through affiliated retailers through with with Olive, and that will enable a much greater impact in in the long term as we're

able to service broader sets of categories. And then two as I mentioned before, we're not eliminating the packaging from the source, but we're actually in the midst right now of working with our very first retailer to actually integrate directly with their supply chain where we would provide the packaging in their fulfillment centers so that they pick and pack their orders into that from the from the source.

And that will be the goal over time two as volume supports it with each of the retailers on the platform to do that more direct integration to eliminate the packaging, right so, in other words, to help them to kind of be better when it comes to their environmental impact, because I'm right, is that fair? Totally? Yeah? Impact. I'm from a customer experience perspective, because there's other benefits that come from the olive delivery experience, especially from the consumer

side of things. Not only do they not have to deal with the hassle of managing the waste from the delivery if they have any returns, they just put it straight back in the packaging, leave it on their doorstep, and we pick it up. That's really interesting. Well, and you know, part of your value is also going to be in or at least part of your attraction I guess I should say, is the retailers on your site. And there's a bunch that are certainly you know in

my wheelhouse, rag and bone, there's aloe. Uh, there's a lot of them, uh anthropology. So you're definitely catching my attention here. Um, how quickly are you signing up a lot more retailers? How easy is that to do? Sure? So we've we've had a ton of outreach following our launch. Uh, you know, around six weeks ago or so is our sort of unveiling of the service to the to the public. So we have a sort of backlog of of of

retailers that we've signed up as theiot partners. That's probably more than what's already on the site from the from the retailer side of things. We make it very low effort, so it's easy to come on to the come onto the platform, but there is some configuration on our side to make sure that that whole all of address things that we were talking about before, that that assisted entry process for for customers is working smoothly before we turned

them live on the platform. That's an eighth Fallast, the founder of olives in the magazine this week. Another edition of Bloomberg Business Week Talks featuring an interview with Arnold Donald, the CEO of Carnival Cruise. We talked about the industry as a whole and when he expects ships to get

back into US ports. We have nine brands Carrells, so about fifty nine of our nineties ships are not under the conditional sale or that they don't you know, sail in the US anyway, And so there we are already active and sailing, and we've announced sailings and in the UK we have announce sailing SA in Greece aid to our German brands already sailing for the Canary Islands, all on a limited basis at this point, but it's moving

in the right direction. And UM, we're optimistic that we'll be able to do the same here and continue dialogue in the CDC. I think where the big issues here is, um the relative mentality around risk. So today you could border plane, fly to a country, get on a cruise ship and sale fly back from that country and come back to the United States. You have to do certain

testing exerta, but you can do that. And today, even if vaccinated, you can't get on a cruise ship in the US, and that's whether you've vaccinated or not in terms of what you could do from the US going somewhere else to get on a cruise ship. So if you look out of the travel and entertainment sectors you talked about spring breakdown in Miami, um or you look at arenas where people are starting to be able to

attend sporting events, restaurants, hotels, resourts, air travel. Uh. You know, there's a level of risk management and mitigation, and so we would like to just be treated similarly to the rest of the travel on tourism sector. That's Carnival CEO Arnold Donald. Check out more of the interview. It's in the magazine, it's online on newsstands and of course on the Bloomberg terminal, and also on our podcast Speed and That reps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week

from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanibek. Be sure to tune into our Bloomberg Business Week daily show. It's Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News. Also check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com, Apple,

or wherever you get your podcast. That's we will find the full interviews from many of our guests in the weekend show Bloomberg Business Week. It's available on newsstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg Terminal, and you can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake. It's available at Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV and more. Have a good weekend. This is Bloomberg