Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - August 20th, 2021

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. This week overshadowed by geopolitical concerns with the United States withdrawing from Afghanistan, and of course Tim the delta variants stoking more fears with COVID cases rising present by urging all unvaccinated Americans who are eligible to do it now. It's not just those who

haven't been vaccinated, Carol. The White House also saying that booster shots for both people who have received MODERNA and VISOR vaccines, they should be taken about eight months after one got that second does so well. We are still waiting to hear guidance on recipients from the Johnson Johnson shot. Expect to start to see people who got those m R and A vaccines getting those boosters come September. I'm looking at my calendar, marking my calendar. When do I

got a few more months. I still have a few more months, right, but we're all kind of just figuring out, all right, when do we get that booster shot. As for market's a bit of a mixed bag for retail earnings this week retail traders as well, with robin Hood disappointing after releasing its first result since going public. If you want to know more, just check out the Bloomberg

terminal and Bloomberg dot Com. Yeah a little hint though, strong revenue coming from Crypto, but they be warning of seasonality when it comes to trading patterns, so yeah, check out the terminal for more on that. Meanwhile, a strong second quarter for pet store owner and operator pet Co. We're going to talk to the CEO, Ron Coglin, all about the numbers and his new colleague in the C suite. All right, yep, and just a little hint there, people

are still buying lots of stuff for their pets. We're alsoting kitched up with renowned civil rights activist Laura Murphy and her transition from the a C l U to navigating the corporate world and how she is helping other companies tim track racism at their institutions. Yeah. What she's done is she's developed a new audit method to get companies to confront their own roles in perpetuating racial disparities. We're going to talk about the results at the likes

of Facebook and Airbnb. Yeah, exactly. She spent a lot of time with both companies. All that to come, we begin with a look at this week's issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. The cover story you're gonna hear a little bit more later on about it. It's all about entry level wages on Wall Street. Big name investment banks are doling out unprecedented salaries to help attract new talent, but younger workers are demanding more of a work life

balance and balking one work weeks. Can I tell you one of the things I love about this story is essentially how the older guys on Wall Street, the former CEOs, are like, Uh, this is what it's supposed to be about. You put in a lot of time upfront, and then you kind of reap the rewards in later years. That's just how it works. In fact, one person that Shri not Rajan spoke to for this story said, I would have paid to get the experience that I got. It

when personally you're talking about Lloyd blankly. Yeah, I know, I am a very important person. I didn't want to give too much away, Carol, but it is interesting you think about different occupations. If you go to be a doctor, it's, you know, so difficult in those early years, right, You're you know, on shifts all the time, you're barely getting sleep, and then you reap the rewards later. I mean, I

think that's true for a lot of occupations. I think it is too And I think the difference that we're seeing right now is the remote work element. And so many of these young employees were working remotely and isolated for such a long period of time when the deal started to come in, and I think that there is something to be said about the camaraderie that happens in

a workplace when people are physically there. Another story that you should definitely check out in the magazine get Ready for the back attacks backs the companies they take public. We know that that has been one of the big trends. They're not new, but they really took off again in the last year year and a half or so. They're already becoming a feeding ground though for short sellers and activist shareholders apparently aren't far behind, so says our Scott Devot. Yeah.

As of July sixteenth, Carol, total short interest in active SPACK securities hit more than two point three billion dollars. That's up more than threefold from the start of year. That's according to data compiled by S three Partners. One other element of this is that spacks traditionally and in general, have this twenty four month period where they have to go and find a company to buy. They have to put that money to use that they've raised from investors.

So as we do get to the twelve eighty four month mark out from when these companies and these SPACs have raised money, what do the companies then look like that they end up going to buy? The clock is kind of ticking. So do we see this trend continue where investors say, wait a second, I don't think the company that you bought is up to snuff. We're going to short that position. So that's a good story to check out. The other thing is I always like you

love I know what you're gonna say, Carol. I knew you were going to say you love pursuits. I do too, you know, it's just fun things that are going on our world. We all need, uh, you know, to kind of spread out some of our readings. We get kind of dragged down in a lot of We'll just say we all need to go on a journey on one of these ayahuasca trips. This vacation is a real trip.

That's the cover of pursuits and it's talking about psychedelic experiences are beginning to play an integral role at luxury resorts. It's not just about massages and body scrums, but it is about wellness, yes, and that's I think a really important theme here. And they're not the people who do these don't necessarily like to call them quote unquote trips, right. They want to call them journeys. They want these to be guided experiences, and the idea is for it to

be holistic. And I think we're seeing a lot of experimentation with these substances and to what extent they actually do make someone feel better. It's all about spiritual healing and metaphysical self discovery of guided plant based psychedelic experiences. Uh. And they are called we know, trips, but most practitioners prefer the term, as you said, journey. You read this story I read the story. Yeah, I liked it. Um, I liked it a lot. You took a trip, No, I did not. I did not, um. But it is

interesting to see this and regulations change around this. Uh and where you can actually legally do this? Hey, and one other thing. In Pursuits by Hannah Elliott, she covers all things cars for us here at Pursuits, she profiles the individual who helps billionaires and manufacturers get their collectibles delivered on time. When they're buying some high end cars, whether they bought him at auction or what have you,

she's the person who actually makes the delivery. Yeah, if you've got a million dollar Ferrari or perhaps a Boogatti and you want to get into it from California to Florida, this is the person to call. Yeah, exactly. So be sure to check out the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's online at Bloomberg dot com, on newsstands and on the Bloomberg Terminal. Coming up, a man who predicted the need for COVID booster shots months ago is

now seeing his words come to fruition. We get the latest on vaccine durability in the next chapter of this pandemic from Access Health International Chair and President Dr William Hasselteam. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg

Quick Takes. Tim Stenovik from Bloomberg Radio. Back in May, our next guest said he expected the need for COVID vaccine booster shots despite their high rate of effectiveness against the virus. Well now his prediction it's coming true with the pandemic still raging. Tim, we know that and variants putting more lives at risk, even those who have been inoculated.

This week, the Biden administration unbuild its plan for vaccine boosters starting in September for eligible recipients eight months clear of their second dose of the MODERNA or Fiser vaccines. My administration of planning for this possibility in this scenario for months. We purchased enough vaccine and vaccine supplies so that when you're eight month mark comes up, you'll be ready to get your vaccination free at booster shot free.

We have it available now. Dr William has Altine is back with us to tell us what's next when it comes to fight against COVID nineteen. He also lays out a plan to deal with the trauma that we've experienced throughout the pandemic. He's got another book out, Carol, and it focuses on the effects of what he calls c v PTSD. I think it's very clear now, and that's why the government has moved to the way it is.

It's very clear now that to protect against serious illness where most people are going to need a booster, they've paid that at about eight months. It's probably about right for most people. For people who are older, it's probably a little shorter than that. Six months will do. And so I would stand by my statement that six months from my last vaccine, I'm certainly planning to get another booster.

And I think the government's official recommendation now is every adult uh get a booster beginning eight months from the last vaccination. This isn't magic. This is kind of like the flu. I mean, it isn't new to us. We said every year we have to get a new flu vaccine. I don't know what's so special about this why people are so surprised. And every few years we do have to get boosters for for other vaccines as well, I mean,

you certainly have to do that. I think perhaps the question that people would have about this is is it specifically related to the Delta variant or is it the durability of the vaccine de clients regardless of whether or not we're being hit with new variants. You know, that's a good question. The answer is yes to both. Delta is better at evading the vaccines, but as time goes on, the vaccines will wane in effectiveness against all variants, even

the original ones. So that's to be expected. You know, if you go back and look at what I was writing a year ago, I was predicting that any vaccine that would be developed would be of relatively short duration. That's because we have a lot of experience with viruses like this, particularly the flu. I think the more people start thinking about this is a very dangerous virus like the flu, much more like the flu than anything else. The better off will be something that has to be observed,

will come back every year, maybe twice a year. The odd thing about this one is coming back in the United States in the summer and the winter, and so it's a little different in that respect. It's more lethal. So we've got to be more careful, but we've probably got to keep up with our vaccines every six months to every year. That's not terror well, but it's not. It's not the best news, but it's not the worst either. Vaccines are still only approved under emergencies authorization for people

over the age of twelve. How do we get past this pandemic, especially as kids go back to school, when millions of children cannot be vaccinated? We start vaccinating our children as soon as possible. How soon can I think that's going to I think that once the results are in, I'm pretty confident that this vaccine will be safe for children. But until you've done the studies, you don't know. I know our government is working as fast as possible to get those studies done. I hope it's done. Let's say

by Thanksgiving. I would certainly hope so. And I think by that time we'll have um actual approval for the MODERNA and the fives are vaccines will have a real approval, not just emergency use authorization. Do you think that will have approval for or emergency use authorization for twelve to ages zero to twelve or does it start with like zero but maybe three or two to to twelve. Yes,

I think that's what we're heading for. I know that people are working as hard as they can to get that data so they can, if possible, if which proves to be safe, to go ahead and do it. And my guess is it looks like it will be safe. Well. Look, it has been a tough year for many many people, not just specifically because of COVID. If they got it, or even if they didn't get it, perhaps they've suffered

from what you describe as uh cv PTSD. You write that it encompasses the full effects of all that we've endured over the past year and a half, manifested daily and rising rates of depression, anxiety, and drug addiction, and the ongoing loss of academic opportunities for the young. I wonder how we get past this. If you say that COVID is going to be endemic like the flu, how do we get past COVID PTSD. Well, the first thing we have to recognize that it exists both for individuals

and actually for the whole society. Uh. In addition to the normal stresses that we undergo, this has been a tremendous economic stress. It's been a stress, the fear of getting the disease. There's been a lot of conflicting messages, both official conflicting messages and unofficial click conflicting messages. It's it's it's like the perfect storm for creating stress and anxiety. And if you look at the numbers of people who report anxiety, it's close to people who report UH depression,

much much higher. A lot of young people are feeling especially stressed. Now, what can you do about it? As they say, the first thing is to recognize it. You know, we didn't recognize combat post traumatic stress disorder until we called it shell shock or malingering, get all sorts of names for it. Once we had a name for it and we recognized what it was, we began to develop treatments. And there's a very well developed treatment program UH in

Paradigm for post traumatic stress disorder. The Veterans Administration uses it all the time, and it involves counseling, recognition of what's happened, and then UH there's sometimes some drugs that help. But I would say, for what's happening now, let's take to schools. For example, all the kids are going back to schools, the teachers are stressed, and they're going to

be dealing with a lot of stressed children. I think we have to support our teachers and our children with additional social work and psychiatric social work in our schools because that's where we're going to see it first. As the children go back to school, they're going to be learning problems of the behavioral problems they can manifest themselves

as people who are totally withdrawn or totally unruly. You get both extremes as a result of this, and we're gonna have to recognize it as more and more people get back to work. I think many big businesses are going to have to how up their employees with the special counselor, and it's it's going to be really important to do that to get over this, both as an

individual and as a society. That was Dr William Hazl Teen, the chairman and President of Access Health International, coming up next to survivors of sexual assault, are helping to reverse an unpopular policy at Airbnb, why the platform is changing its ways, and how a recent business we cover story. Tim Definitely I gotta say later, all yeah, when we talking about impact journalism, and this was certainly an example

of that. 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 nine team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week, So several weeks ago, Bloomberg bus As Week cover story broke down how the popular rental home

platform Airbnb makes nightmares go away. The company's ten thousand word terms of service agreement has for years included a mandatory arbitration clause that prevented victims of violent crimes that take place in Airbnb listings from holding the company responsible. But that's about to change. Blomber Technology report Olivia Carvel

has been all over this from the start. Her cover story shed light on some of the rare but chilling incidents that have taken place on the company's watch, and her follow up spotlights a pair of sexual assault survivors that are spurring a key policy reversal. These two women are incredibly brave. One is Sherry Dooley, She's a fifty

five year old woman from Portland, Oregon. She's a food truck worker and she traveled down to Kalima and Mexico, where she sees she was raped by an intruder who climbed through a window that wouldn't lock in the Airbnb apartment that she had rented. The second woman is Natalie White. She's twenty three. She's from Atlantic City in New Jersey, and she sees that during his stay and an Airbnb property and February of this year, as she was packing up her belongings to leave, the host arrived at the

property and sexually assaulted her. He pinned her down, he tried to tear her clothes off as she tried to resist him. Both of these women filed lawsuits against Airbnb in recent months. And what was their experience though in terms of dealing with the company after those assaults. Well, the company has a an elite safety team that immediately activates to help survivors when things go wrong inside their listings.

So the company did support both of these women. They helped pay for their flights home, they refunded the trips, they offered health counseling costs, sounds really great, Yeah it does. And then you know, months later after the attack, when they're dealing with the PTSD and thinking about what happened and questioning Airbnb's role in all this, both women decided that they did want to file claims against the company

for damages. But what is the fine print when you agree to stay in an Airbnb about how Airbnb is held liable? And that's the crux of this whole story is that buried inside the ten thousand word terms of service agreement that every user who has ever signed up for the platform signed. Look, I've used Airbnb, I'd ever read it in click it, and you agree to it, so do I. Because you have to rate in order to use a service and service exactly. And this isn't

just an Airbnb thing. It's when you sign up for apps online. There's terms of service agreements that you sign. The problem is that their forty pages long, and who has time to read through them when you just want to book a property for a holiday. So you know, both of these women signed the terms of service without realizing that it comes with a binding arbitration agreement. What that means is that if there's any dispute with the company. Any problem that arises during a stay, you cannot file

damages in court. You are forced to arbitrate, and arbitration means it's handled behind closed doors. It's not in the courts, it is not in the public eye. And to be fair, Airbnb in terms of binding arbitration, not the only company, certainly in corporate America that does this. We've talked a lot about financial community right that that uses this. It's kind of a common practice, it seems at a lot of companies once you either are employed, there right in

terms of your your rights going forward. In this case, though it sounds like Airbnb because of these women, because you're reporting, kind of had a change of thought. Yeah, that's right. And mandatory arbitration has been a flash point

in corporate America. Even since the me to movement. We've seen a lot of companies change the arbitration agreements, particularly when it comes to sexual assault cases, because advocates say that if you're going to push a survivor into arbitration and not allow her to access the public court system, you are in a way silencing her voice. Olivia. This reporting, it's read, it's seen, it's heard far and wide since you did that cover story for Bloomberg Business Week a

few months ago about this elite safety team. I'm wondering what you've heard from survivors in the wake of this, what you've heard from sources, what you've heard from from companies as you continue to report this out. I think for companies it's been a wake up call. Um. A lot of other organizations and the short short term rental space have been following closely to the coverage, and some

have actually changed their own internal policies. We saw Expedia and trip Advisor both update their policies around the key exchange process, which is how hosts and guests exchange keys, to say that cannot be done in a public place, because we reported about a young woman who was raped when a man obtained a spear set of keys to the airbnb she was staying in. So I think from the corporation since they have been, you know, listening and reading these stories and doing what they can to try

and strengthen their safety policies. From the survivor standpoint, I think that for a lot of these then it's um the feeling like the being heard, and some of them felt like the way the company's policies was set up, particularly around full st arbitration that it did silence the voice, and that was Bloomberg News Technology reporter Olivia Karvill with more great reporting on Airbnb and a story that continues to evolve thanks in part to her coverage. You're listening

to Bloomberg Business Week. Up next, we'll talk to the former director of the A c l U Legislative Office and a former advisor to Airbnb, Laura Murphy. She discusses her efforts to get companies to confront their role in perpetuating racial disparities. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and this is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio.

Corporate America has been taking a hard look at itself over the last year and will progress in diversifying the ranks as been slow. There is a new tool for getting companies to confront their role in perpetuating racial disparities. Our next guest has spent her decades along career navigating politics and policy, but now she's using her talent to moderate conflicts between companies and advocates who criticize those companies

impact on racial and social justice. She's emerged as a pioneer of what's been called the corporate civil rights audit. Laura Murphy is president of Laura Murphy and Associates, also the former director of the Legislative Office at the American Civil Liberties Union. Murphy was featured in a story by Naomi Nicks in the previous issue of Bloomberg business Week that detailed her two year audit of Facebook. And we began our conversation by discussing her time with Airbnb, which,

as you know, we just had that conversation with Olivia carvil. Uh. The company just announced plans to allow victims of sexual assaults and harassment and its listings to suit the company by lifting that longstanding mandatory arbitration clause in its terms of service. Well, I think it goes, um. I go it goes a long way toward the California Statute UM that UM allows women to sue under various circumstances. UM.

I think it's an outgrowth of a me too movement. UM. I know that in talking to civil rights leaders they would like UM the mandatory arbitration clauses to be listed for race discrimination and other types of claims as well. And so, um, it's a start for civil rights leaders, but I think, you know, it's a welcome start, but I don't think it's going to satisfy all of the critics.

It's interesting that you say that there was a Bloomberg Business Week investigation cover story that talked a lot about some of the crimes, violent crimes that have gone on and how a lot of people have been prevented from talking about it. You know, I want to dig deeper and kind of your last thought there. I mean, how did we get here in the corporate world of having such bad policies on a lot of important issues, especially

when it comes to civil rights. I just think, um, there's a tremendous lack of awareness, and it's not necessarily intentional, but I don't think we get um very good education generally in UM in civics in terms of rights and liberties and what they mean in this country. And I also think that, UM, so there's a lack of awareness, but I also think it's so commonplace that it doesn't

stop you from becoming a billionaire. UM not having a background and understanding of how policies and practices may exclude certain people based on their race, or their religion, or their sexual orientation, et cetera. So it's it's just a fact of life. It's and and that's why I think corporate civil rights audits or knee that because they're just too many people in positions of power who aren't aware of the laws. And if you ask them, okay, what

are what are my values? Value treating people equally and all of that, people will give the right answers. But where the where the rubber meets the road is is in the implementation of those values. So I think a lot of corporations embrace these values, but they don't test their products to make sure that they don't violate the values. For example, there's a lot of concern about facial recognition software and the fact that it was tested on white men and so it really doesn't work on people of

different races and even there are some gender differences. So before these products are released to market, they should be tested across a range of characteristics so that people are not selling products that that harm people. I mean, such a recognition is used by policing, you know, entities, and so this, This has dire consequences if it's not right.

What is a corporate civil rights audit? A corporate civil rights audit is an independent analysis of a company's business practices, um to identify and correct practices that may have a discriminatory effect. And that could be with their customers, with their employees, with everything, with everything. It could be the products that they sell. Uh, you know, is a is a mortgage product you know sold by bank going to have a different impact on one community than it has

on another, an unfair and different impact. Um. So yes, it's products, it's personnel, company values, It's an assessment. The civil rights audit first assesses how these different um, how the different verticals within a company are affecting people, and whether or not they're having a discriminatory impact, and whether or not there's a remedy for them and what that remedy is. Laura, talk to me about your time at Facebook,

because you spent several years with them. I'm always curious when you first go into a company, why do they bring you in? And you know, what's the initial conversations you have with management that maybe tell you that their

way off the mark? Well, um, I was brought in because I was suggested by civil rights leaders as someone who could help Facebook um UH address a multitude of concerns that had been voiced over the years by different UM civil its organizations and um rout ranging from religious groups to lgbt Q groups, to African American groups, to people with disabilities, all of that and so UM you know, there was there was a growing frustration in the overarching

civil rights community with Facebook, and UM you know, I think a lot of the staff wanted the company to address these issues in a much more substantive way. UM. I was greeted UM with enthusiasm by many of the middle managers who had been fielding these concerns for years, and it took some time to get the attention of

the upper leadership. But once we did get their attention, UM, we really got down to business and I started meeting with leaders in different verticals and UM you know, people who created products, people who were responsible for advertising and marketing, people who were responsible for enforcing the community standards. UM. It was a multi year, multi pronged product where we looked at the impact of these products and policies and

practices on different constituencies and users. Of Facebook, and we found that there were some discrepancies and how people were treated. And again, UM, this was a very um consultative process. This was not an antagonistic process. This was uh ME saying, Okay, you've got the following three allegations. Let's find out if they're true. If they're true, what do you want to do about them? Um? And because are my recommendations? What are your recommendations? And you know, a process of consultation

to to fix problems. I like to see myself as a as a problem solver, not someone who just identifies problems, right, which is much more productive. Right Ultimately, and trying to figure out how do we get from maybe point A to point z. H if you will, hey, tell us a little bit about a meeting that you put that you helped. I guess the conversation between Facebook executives and

civil rights groups, Carol. I'm going to answer that question. Um, but I want to say something about the process being productive. This is a far more productive process than having a regulation come down from a federal agency or litigation. Um, results happened sooner, You're not in you're not caught in antagonism. You know that keeps you warring with each other. Um, you're not caught up in the machinations of the legal system.

So I think this is a preferable process to some of the other processes that have been used over the years to advance civil rights. Now, I think civil rights litigation is important, and lawsuits are important, and regulation are important. I'm not saying I'm anti any of that. Actually worked for a lot of those laws to come to fruition, but I am saying, in terms of really attacking the problems with the level of immediacy, this is I think this is a good way to go. That's Laura Murphy,

the president of Laura Murphy and Associate. It's also a former director of the A c l U Legislative Office. She's also a senior advisor to Airbnb. And that wraps up the first hour of the weekend. Addition to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio, I'm Karl Masser and Tim

Stanak coming up in our next hour. Our cover story, a wage war is broken out on Wall Street as top investment banks vy for the best young talent, but in some cases six figure salaries, well they're not enough for this next generation of junior bankers who are definitely in the driver's seat when it comes to jobs. Right now, when you are the best and everyone's falling over each other to get ahold of you, you have a bunch of options, and finance necessarily isn't the number one choice

for you. And that is why the banks have to do everything in their ability to make sure that talent still comes towards the way and not just talent the top talent. Let's take a look at the continued acceleration the pet care category. We're all buying lots of stuff for Fido pet go. Ce Ron Coglin stopping by to talk about a strong second quarter for customer growth. We're also going to gear up for the return of one of the New York City's most star studded comedy events

with Caroline Hirsch of Carolines on Broadway. Talk about somewhat of a return to normalcy. Carol exactly love that and preparing your business for everything, especially the unexpected we'll have that is well, 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 Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser and plenty And in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including the CEO of Petco, he talks about his company's eleventh consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Also a taste for normalcy for those looking for last Carolines on Broadway is preparing for the return of the New York City Comedy Festival later this year. We're gonna hear from the club's founder and owner,

Caroline Hirsh first up this hour. This week's cover story of Bloomberg Business Week magazine was also one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg terminal this week. It's about Wall Street breaking out the money cannon in the race to bring in junior bankers and apparently six figure salaries while they are not always enough for some of the newest entrants into the finance world when it means one work weeks and a goodbye to the old work

life balance. Business Week editor Joe Weber and one of the stories co writers Bloomberg News finance reporters Tree not a Raja and stopping by to breakdown the investment banking wage war. Well, let's go back to the start of

the year when this really became an issue. It was the leaked presentation out of Goldman SAX where thirteen first year analysts put together this report that detailed the rigors of their work life, the hundred hour weeks um endless uh day's just working on boring presentations and slide decks again and again and again, and always trying to respond to the demands of the clients irrespective of the time

of the day. The outlined a bunch of changes including you know, protected weekends, lesser lesser hours in a day. Not once did they mention anything about pay. The main complaint at the start of the year wasn't less pay. However, that seems to be the solution that everyone's gravitated towards and crowded around, because that's the easiest thing to change. You're in an industry with the banks are always trying

to please the client. The client comes up with an idea and want something at breakfast, you want to make show that they get a glittering slide deck by lunch. When it is a race to bottom like that, it is very hard to change the fundamentals of their work structure. So the best option that they have at their disposal, there's a lot of money laying around, throw it in

their direction and hope that they don't complain anymore. And as you point out in your pstree, it's basically a rounding our for these companies as far as salaries go. I want to bring in Joel Webber, editor of Bloomberg Business Week. He joined us now on the remote from Massachusetts. Sure, as I was reading this piece and hearing from veterans in the industry, some big names who are quoted in here, I'm thinking to myself, Wait a second, isn't this just

part of the life that people signed up for. This is how history majors indeed become billion dollar dealmakers. Well, and that's been one way that the you know, the the industry has has thrived. Right. It's sort of this gauntlet that junior bankers go through and and then you get on the other side, but you know, all the ropes and and this is kind of a write of passage, and um, yeah, there are some big names in the story.

John mac lloyd Blank find that that three you know, like three does he just calls up whoever he wants and gets great quotes from them. Uh. And and you know, I think that one of the sentiments there was just like boy, times have changed, Like there was a moment in time and investment banking not so long ago, um where this was viewed as something that you just you know, you stomached and did and got to the other side and and you know you were thankful that you got

paid at all. Um. And so I think it does speak to sort of uh, this generation. But you know it's bigger than that, because these are really smart kids and they could have you know, their choice of jobs. And I think what three points out in the story is that, you know, don't forget like you can go work and tech and get paid as much as this. So yeah, there's a lot of things these people could be doing that's not working on Wall Street and and

Wall streets. You know, when when Wall Street's got a problem, it does what Wall Street does, which is, you know, throw money at it. I think that's extremely important what you mentioned right there, the big, big, big different trans Yes, you know, the perception has been you know what you're signing up for. You know this is what your life is going to be. But what is the difference between the Wall Street of one and the Wall Street of nine. There was no tech industry. There was no real internet

to Facebook or Amazon looking for Facebook, Amazon, Google. So no established big name tech players looking for that talent. No no potential for great startups that were relying on the Internet to suddenly become these multiple in dollar companies. So if you are the most talented of your graduating class, you would waltz into a job into banking because you knew that after a few years of struggle, it was a lifestyle of corporate jet setting and lavish pay days,

it's not the only game in town anymore. When you are the best and everyone's falling over each other to get ahold of you, you have a bunch of options, and finance necessarily isn't the number one choice for you. And that is why the banks have to do everything in their ability to make sure that talent still comes towards their way, and not just talent, the top talent. Okay, so so there's top talent, and you got to speak to obviously the max of the blank finds of the world.

Can you tell us about the the other guy that you talked to? Yeah, I mean and again, if you read the story there is you get the view from the top, you get you get the two latest former CEOs of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, arguably the two most important investment banking franchises out there. But we also spoke to a junior banker who worked at Goldman Sachs until the summer of last year and left. What did

he do to cope with the strains? Put on his headset, blasted fake rain noise, went into a bathroom stall in the thirty second floor of two hundred West Strade, the global headquarters of Goldman Sachs, and took power naps in there. These were stories we read in the Michael Lewis book Liar Spoker, from years and years and years ago, and yet that is still very much the reality. And he pointed out, look, there's a lot of negative reperta Ushian Stewart.

He wishes there were other changes that people would propose, but because those changes are not easy, you see the pay solution as the one that everyone feels comfortable with, even though they're making all the right noises about work life balance and being more understanding, reality doesn't necessarily reflect that. That was Bloomberg News Senior Finance reporter Srina Rajon he co wrote this week's cover story. She joining us with

the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, Joel Weber. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, some companies that have been forging ahead with return to office plans now thinking twice. And on the earnings front, it was a big quarter for one of North America's biggest pet store chains. We're talking about Petco. We'll check in with the company's CEO. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovik from Bloomberg Radio.

So as we continue to navigate the pandemic, him one corner of the market that continues to thrive as pet care. I have to say, yep, we get bark boxes to our house delivered every month, and throughout the pandemic is I would walk the street walking my scout. There was tons of Chewy and petc and you name it boxes on the curve. There's a reason that people aren't really called pet owners anymore. Right, they're called pet parents because they treat their pets like kids, and that means spending

more and more money on them. So a little pet and baby carriage this morning, I'm just going to put that. That's what I'm talking about. Well. Ron Coglin is the chief executive officer for Petco, a leading pet specialty retailer. He joined us to talk all about his company's pet health and wellness ecosystem, the company's most recent earnings report,

and also what investors should be expecting going forward. If you look at our e commerce are e commerce was up double digit on top of being up prior quarter. Are two year stack honey commerce is up a hundred fifty percent, which is just incredible. But you know, the real thing was there was all these theories that people would shift online during the lockdown because they had to, and then they wouldn't come back to stores. And our stores were up sevent because people love coming to our

pet care centers. Are people are great. They get groom, they get veterinary care, they get trained there, and it was the return to the stores that was the real real story. In addition, we also put down another fifteen veterinary hospitals, bringing our total to a hundred and fifty five hospitals. And wherever we do that, we're seeing a fortified point lift on our merchandise sales. So it's a good good for us. I was just gonna ask you how much of because you guys really have pivoted into

health and wellness in a big way. And I know here at Bloomberg we've done a lot of stories about how that is really a growth area for the industry. How much of that ultimately is so key to top and bottom line metrics. Oh, it's the centerpiece. If you look at our portfolio, We've shifted our portfolio to healthier products and more premium products by ten points in the last three years. Margins better, margins much better in the in these and I'll come to frozen fresh because that

to me is the embodiment from a food standpoint. But one of the first decisions I made was to get rid of artificial ingredients. Out of all officers, were still the only out of we sell no no food, no snacks with artificial ingredients. We're still the only retailer to do that, major retailer to do that. Then we got rid of shock collars last year. So we're dedicated to pet wellness, so that helps us. From a food standpoint, we're a market maker on fresh frozen, which you know,

my guy eats yummy, has fish and sweet potatoes. I'd have a lot less cholesterolified. Wait, that's what I had for dinner last I know, I'm just kidding. That's the whole theory that human grade food. And we're the number one retailer for for that fresh and fresh frozen space, and we're being market makers on that growth in that particular part of the market. It's supposed to go from one billion to four billion between now and two thousand

and twenty five. And then you get into vet care right, and we're driving affordable vet care because we want more pets to get the right care. This is for the quarter that ended at the end of July. What can you tell us right now about real time data with what you're seeing with customer behavior as the delta variant continues to spread. Sadly, that is true on a good side.

From our business standpoint, there you see no impact. I have gone and looked for correlations between COVID and COVID penetrations. I'll give you a real microcosm of it. I asked the team to look at Florida. How is our business doing in Florida where the penetration is higher. Florida is out performing rest of chain right now, so we're not

seeing that correlation. And I will tell you our business accelerated on a two year camp in the second at the end of Q two and it's continued through Q three, So it's very strong and we're not seeing The only time we got impacted, quite frankly, sadly as a New Yorker, was when New York shutdown. Then we got impacted because it was pretty much a complete shutdown. Nowhere else, nowhere else.

Have we found a correlation between our business it's shifts to more online, back to the pet care centers, But we didn't see a business decline. So are you all nervous that if New York starts to kind of roll back there, that that would be an impact on your business if you had the degree of shutdown. But I think at a fifty vacks or whatever New York is now would be hard to imagine going back to where that was. Why why do you think this is? Why?

Why do you think we're seeing fewer people travel, We're seeing we anticipate we'll see fewer people eat out in restaurants as they have to you know, show proof of vaccination. Why are they still shopping for their pets? Yeah, in person rather than just online. You know. As the reopening started, I called our unicorn when people, you know, stayed at

home and the family. Um, the appreciation for family, which was one of the nice things about pandemic is being at home with your family, spending more time, and pets were central to that, and I think they helped us from an emotional stampoint. I really believe that. But then when we had reopening, all of a sudden, you're getting leashes,

you're getting leads. But guess what, you're also going back into our pet care centers, and in our pet care centers, you're spending more and quite frankly, our margins higher because we're not shipping to you. So we're winners on both sides of this thing. UM. But I just think that UM, pets were so central to human beings making it through this pandemic. What about in terms of finding workers? Is that a problem? Yeah, it's it's a great question. Um

So it's absolutely type market. But at the same time, we've done a lot of work on our employer value proposition, if you will, So we've done a lot of work on improving our compensation and benefits. We've done a lot of work on our mission. We're the only pet company in our space whose mission is improving lives. You think all the companies were the only one who has a mission improving lives for so for pet lovers who want a great work experience, we're unique. I can say that.

But here's the proof of the putting. Our applications are up six since the beginning of the year. Our retention is up. We've never had more groomers working for Petco than we have today. So yes, it's tight, but we feel really good about our ability to navigate. It's been a crazy year, to say the least year and a half, and a lot of times when we have a leader on or CEO on, we ask about leadership lessons because we didn't have a playbook about any of this. No. Uh.

This year has been unique on two fronts. The first one is as a leader having to say that the health and wellness of my employees is first and foremost, and you're making decisions real time that affect their health. Are they going to wear masks? Aren't they going to wear masks? Last week we put vaccination trucks in our distribution centers to get people vaccinated. Are they going to take them up or not? And you know, it was a real moment of truth for us as a leadership team.

But I will tell you lots of people like to criticize the p firms. Every single decision I made to spend money to take care of our people, they supported. Uh. And when you make the right decisions for your people, guess what happens. Your people are loyal to you. And so we talked earlier about our our ability to hire, our retention is up and get a buzz in. Your type of comedy takes care of people. And it was a real lesson. That's Ron Coglin, chief executive officer at Petco.

Have you yet, No, just stuffed animals for a little goldfish? Nothing? Right now? One child is enough? Alright, alright, alright maybe in the future, maybe, all right? Coming up. Caroline Hurst, founder and owner of the famed Carolines on Broadway, on the return of the New York Comedy Festival, Tim, It didn't happen last year because of COVID, like so much, it was shut down. But it is back little return to normalcy, at least in some sense here in the

city and for the comedy community. 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 oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine six to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business. So Timm, if there's one thing we can all use these days, it's

a good laugh. Yeah later is the best medicine, I think, is what they say, such a great cure all. And we've actually caught up with someone who knows a lot about that. She's the most successful businesswoman in comedy and she's ready to bring some good times back to the Big Apple. Caroline hersh is who we're talking about. She's the founder and owner of Carolines on Broadway. She spoke with you, Carol all about the long awaited return of

the new York Comedy Festival following that pandemic hiatus. Yes, we're back, and we're happy to be back after we took a break last year and coming back stronger than than ever. We announced some of our lineup, which are seventeen headliner shows, which then will be followed with over you know, two hundred comedians performing in the festival with a hundred shows which will be announced later on in September.

That's a lot really happy, and it's and it's gonna be happening in November, correct, a week long, November eighth through So it starts Monday night, November eight through Sunday night four. And we're really happy and excited and to get back into business and to have some more laughs in New York City. Oh my god, bring it on. Hey, Caroline, let me ask you. Let me just take a step back, if I may, the past year for comedians, I mean, what has it been like? What have you heard from

that community about what it's been like. We know that the higher profile comics are hosts, you know, who are on broadcast, they were able to pivot, but that's not always the case for every comedian. No, lots of the emerging talent that we deal with. You know, they weren't working, but a lot of them, um are now so happy. They are related. They're all over the place. I mean that we're working in the streets, they work and wherever they could be heard. Um, they tried to get a

job to do that. But now we're everybody's kind of back in business. Clubs were allowed to open beginning of April, so we're we've been Caroline has been open. Um we've had you know, like Michael Chaseman there every Tuesday night at the club doing a residency, and you know he was telling jokes about you know, during COVID he said, I had all of this material pent up to me. He said, I get on the subway and I'd just be talking to people and you know, telling them jokes

on the subway, which maybe probably appreciate it. We all could use a good laugh, that's no doubt about it. UM, tell us to you about remind us what's going on in clubs. We've been doing a lot of stories here at Bloomberg, certainly as restaurants have opened, as venues have opened that yes you can come in, but you've got to be vaccinated. And people are checking, so that will go into effect. I believe in September that get goes. We're doing vaccinated shows, so we're we're protecting the public.

We want to protect our staff um, and we are that we're starting now all vaccinated shows and that's just will be Look. Look, the clubs and the small venues around the United States really suffered, they were shut down, they were mandated to close. And this year during the festival, we really want to highlight a lot of the smaller clubs around the city. So we're going out of all way to make sure that everybody participates this year on the festival. So who's going to be there? Can you

tell us about some of the headliners? Oh, some of the headliners well, Kim Dylan, Michelle Wolf, Nor McDonald, Ronny Chang, Mark Marin, Brian Reagan, Gary Goldman, Bill Marra will be back, Michelle Batteau, Andrew Santino is a new face for us. So we have lots and lots of great talent um appearing at you know everywhere from Town Hall to the

theater at Madison Square Garden. And we're also this year we're doing something with City Bank City Presents Comedy included and we're doing this to bring attention to hear diverse voices in the industry, in the comedy industry. So we'll have a two day panels going on in Carolines all about what's going on in the business. Well, and I do think about we've had so many different conversations with leaders and heads of companies that it's hard not to

you know, there's no going back to quote unquote normal. You. You know, we've been changed by the pandemic, We've been changed by George Floyd, We've been changed by so much. Um, comedy always feels that interesting spot that for a while we can't talk about things, and then we can. I think about after nine eleven it was really quiet and then we needed humor to come back to help us

all find our way back. So how has the past year and a half on so many different levels, I mean and tough things like COVID, like George Floyd, like inequities like diversity and inclusions, so many different issues. How has that been incorporated into the festival that's coming up in November. Well, we like, like I I said to you, we're doing this two day event with City Presents, Comedy

Included and We'll have panel discussions, special performances. We'll hear from industry leaders about, you know, bringing attention to to hearing everybody's voice in comedy, which you know, comedy is really pretty diverse, I have to say that, and Carolines has always been on top of that. Whether it be female, whether it be you know, um, gay comedy, whatever it was, it was urban comedy with women. I tried to I

really tried to highlight all this early early on. So we're going to do our best to even make it better. That's Caroline Hurst, the founder and owner of Carolines on Broadway. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. Wouldn't it be nice if your business was future proof? Did you see? I was channeling a little bit of the beach boy I did, and that's so well. I guess our next guest, though, has a plan for you to ensure you're ready to

meet the challenges of an ever changing market. We're gonna wrap up our show with Jonathan Brill, the former global futurist at Hewlett Packard. He's gonna explain how to ride the next what he calls rogue wave to success. Looking forward to that, this is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim

Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. So, over the last seventeen months, yeah, we've seen some businesses thrive, others have been unable to adapt to evolving market conditions, or at least not do it fast enough. And our next guest has a playbook to help you prepare your business for what he calls the undercurrents of radical systemic change. I feel like we need a dune dune done. I think we do too, But you just did it, so we're set. He's the

former global futurist at Hewlett Packard. He's also the author of Rogue Waves future Proof Your Business to Survive and Profit from Radical Change. Jonathan Brill joined us on the day that his book came out to talk all about being ready to embrace emerging technologies, changing demographics, the data economy, automation, and more. So. You've probably heard of black swan event.

These are completely unpredictable things that come out of nowhere, and often CEO has used this as an excuse, but the reality is that most radical disruptions are more knowable than you might imagine the what I call rogue waves. They're unmanageable, hundred foot waves of change that are caused

by the collision of individually manageable instructions. I mean, when you think about something like COVID, of the fall of Couble, the floods in Germany or China over the last couple of months, they're important, but what really amplified them was waves of social, economic, and technological change. And that's actually what the disruption is. Right we opened up after after the last round of COVID, and we're now seeing a

bit of a resurgence. There's a result of that. It's all of the things around the pandemic that are causing the impact, not just the pandemic itself. And the same is true of opportunities. Over the last couple of years. We've seen this explosion of m R and A vaccines,

for instance. The fall of Cobble is going to create opportunities, maybe not for the United States, but for China, for UH, which is searching for rarer resources which are common in Afghanistan, and the flooding UH in Asia, and the miscalculation of the likelihood of these hundred year thousand year floods is going to create great rebuilding opportunities for some construction companies.

And so for the lesson here is that a lot of times when you have volatility, when you have disruption, Uh, it's a threat for some people, but it's an opportunity for the ones that are prepared. So the question isn't how do I respawnse to how do I understand and predict every road wave? How do I respond when these things hit my business? When they when they hit my finances, my operations, they changed my external environment, or maybe they

impact my strategy. If you don't know what that rogue wave will be, there's only so much you continue to prepare for it. Right, Let's take COVID for example. Let's say you're Jeff Bezos who was running Amazon until last month. He didn't know that he had to get so much ppe to provide to frontline workers, or know that there would be a very rapid expansion and growth of of Amazon grocery delivery, your whole Foods grocery delivery for example. Um or did he write well, what he knew? I've

spent some time with leaders at Amazon. What they knew was they had a really good systems model of their organization, and they knew exactly how hard they could push or pull the levers. And so the issue wasn't that they were ready for a pandemic. They didn't pull out their COVID playbook. They were really ready for everything. Most companies really look internally at at the things they can control,

whether it's their finances or their operations. But the reality is most of the things that caused sustained impact on business value are external and strategic. So the question is how would you respond when any of the major UH risk levers are are hit or when they're hit in

different combinations. And one of the things that the Amazon is particularly good at and that I'm an advocate of, is gaming out what are those possibilities, pressure testing your organization asking what would happen to something unimaginable hit us. Because at the end of the day, Amazon had a really good here, and it was because they weren't ready. It wasn't because they were ready for COVID. It was

because they were ready for anything. Jonathan, I want to talk about this the framework that you developed in this book, the Resilient Growth Strategy UM. You call it the A B c's of resilient growth take us through it. Yeah, So when we think about companies that are consistently profitable through radical changes, like like Covid, what we see is that they have consistent characteristics way called the abc s

and resilient growth awareness. If your people don't know why they need to change, obviously they're not getting do that. So you need to focus on improving awareness of the operating environment through the organization. You need to focus on behavior. It doesn't really matter if your people know that as tsunami is coming, if they don't have the skills to respond. And so the question really is do your managers at all levels have the ability to make sense of increased

resilience to and exploit radical change? And then to see in the A B. C's is about creating a culture. Do you have the processes and an incentives to encourage employees to make decisions that balance both in your term performance and long term growth that they if they don't. If you don't, obviously they won't. So when you wrap that up, you get a recipe for a more resilient organization. We're talking earlier about a company like Amazon, and uh, you know this is true for them, but it's also

true for a farmer that they work with in Ohio. Well, that's what I wanted to talk about, because not everybody is in charge of making decisions at a company like Amazon, or in charge of a team even and has to prepare a team for a rogue wave. What are some lessons that that people can take away from this? Who are managers, who are employees who are looking to become managers?

What are their takeaways? Yeah? Absolutely, I think that first of all, you're you're right, not everybody can be in charge of everything, but you can have provide clarity, clarity around what it called risk bands. So this is a simple sing when you ask somebody to do something, tell them how much risk you want them to take, but

also tell them how little that you'll accept. If you don't give that bump at the bottom, you know, inevitably people will take the least risky path forward as opposed to perhaps the best path forward, or that the one that you can accept. What about when it comes to people who are looking just for their own leadership lessons here and how to lead through turbulent times. That's a

great question. So one of the things we talked about in the book, and there are hundreds of ideas like this is a communication method for leading under uncertainty when you're not the boss, how do you talk to people in a way that you'll be hurt? First you you it's what I call the lead method, And first you say, here's the logic of what I'm suggesting. The second is about empathy, saying, hey, you know, I understand you may have a different perspective, you might have different goals. I

understand where you're coming from. Let me just double check on that. The third is authority, Right, even if I'm not the boss, why do I have some experience in this situation? And why might I be the person to listen to? The fourth, the d M lead is about the deadline. Right, how long do we have to make

a decision. We can decide who's going to do what for however long, but at the end of the day, by Tuesday, we actually need to close out on this because if not, there will be an issue moving forward. So if you just take those four pieces of information, logic, empathy, authority, and deadline, you inoculate against most of the things, most of the political issues this more senior managers might use against you. Or that might cause you to not be heard some more junior employee when you see kind of

that iceberg on the horizon. Well, speaking of the iceberg on the horizon, I think a lot of people are thinking about, Okay, well, the pandemic. Yes, that is something that we need to be prepared for the next pandemic. Perhaps or they can tenue evolution of this current pandemic. Um, how do we get what are the other types of shocks that companies need to be prepared for? What are

those what are those unknowns? That's a great question, and I think one of the in the book we talk about in major disruptions that are happening over the next decade. When it was at HP, we spent several million dollars researching the range of possible issues. Every year was one of those a pandemic from down One of them was was actually a pandemic. It's some of the sec risk violins. So we've announced some some businesses that are coming out

of that research in their micro fluid I business. UH and and we've been really looking at work from home technologies and how we could uh shift the nature of the business. UH not necessarily for COVID but if something like this happens relatively quickly. The result of that is if you take a look at Xerox over the last year and their EPs versus HP, each piece has been relatively stable versus Xerox as being down I think last

year something like six nine the gap. So the result is, you know, if you take a look at those two companies that should be pure companies have radically different results because one of them took a resilient growth strategy, thought really hard about rogue waves, and one of them I believe at least optimized for the near term. What was the moment over the last eighteen months when you realize you needed to write a book about this. That's a

great question. I'm passionate about what's possible, uh, kind of breakthrough questions. And I had a moment, uh, you know last year. Uh, I guess eighteen months ago about this time where I realized I knew these things. They had had unique knowledge, and we had to we had to get ahead of the future as a society, as his companies and leaders. That was former global futurist at HP

Jonathan Brill. His new book, Rogue Waves Future Proof Your Business to Survive and profit from Radical Change is out now, and that wraps 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 Stead. Be sure to tune into our Bloomberg Business Week daily show 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 and check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg Terminal. You can also see me at Bloomberg Quick Take available at Bloomberg dot com, slash qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Have

a great weekend everyone. This is Bloomberg