Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-July 18, 2020

and I gotta say virus big, big time. Some of the front runners throughout the week, weighing in on how they are doing when it comes to creating a vaccine, also what people have been listening to and buying during these weeks of living with the virus shutdown, and also figuring out diversity and inclusion, whether it's NASCAR or in the investment world. Well, and I feel like we're also starting to tease out a theme of how this is

affecting everyone and how this is affecting their worldviews. And this week, one of America's richest men, anonymously we should note, opened up to none other than Max Abeles In our lovely colleague. We love talking to him. About COVID risk and luck he's going to give us an insider's view.

I realized pretty quickly that there was something sort of important happening in our conversations that I wanted to try to get down on paper if I much more on that conversation later, plus my conversation at Carol with Howard University President Dr. Wayne Frederick his school's reopening plans, but also how he's dealing with these dueling crises, not just as a president but as a father. Yeah, and his personal story is really really impressive. So looking forward to

that conversation. But first up, Jason, We've got to talk about the vaccine, because there are a lot of headlines on the Bloomberg about the pursuit of that by a lot of different players. We caught up with Bloomberg News senior writer Stephanie Baker. She wrote the cover story this week. She's been constantly giving us a front row seat when it comes to the virus because of her personal story. This week, she talked to the COVID vaccine front runner,

who's months ahead of her competition. We talked with Stephanie and the editor of the mag magazine, Jil Weber. One of the most important people in the world right now? Who's an Oxford professor named Sarah Gilbert who has basically been toiling away on VA vaccines for coronavirus, is never

getting any attention. She had, uh, you know, the effort that is she's is sort of the culminating effort right now began actually with a bola and then she went to Mers and Lo and behold, at the beginning of the year, all of a sudden a coronavirus pops up, and suddenly we have a person who had been working on a very similar project and was able to pivot and basically changed some of the approaches that they were

looking at. But there she is months ahead of where we think other people are in terms of maybe being able to have a viable vaccine. And Stephanie, UM, I'm just really curious. What what is she like? What is her Gilbert like? Yeah, I mean she's really interesting. I felt a bit like, um, a pestering student asking for you know, what the next homework assignment would be. You know, she has she's extraordinarily sort of focused and efficient and conscious of keeping her eye on the prize in terms

of not wasting her time. You know on things that are not relevant and that it's just it comes across and every interaction I had with her. Um, you know, she's a serious minded scientist. Um. And she knows that, you get the sense when you speak to her, she knows that this is her moment that years of research might finally pay off because of a sort of confluence

of events. Um. And you know that she needs to, you know, really just keep on with it, keep on top of it, and take one challenge at a time to try to you know, sort of push this thing forward and hopefully across the line. Um. You know, she's a scientist. She's not she's not a warm and fuzzy person. She's she's you know, but I wouldn't want I would

want someone to be as serious minded as she is. Um. If you're looking for someone to save us from this mass So so, Stephanie, there's there's dozens, I think in the hundreds of efforts now under underway to actually get this vaccine. What makes the Oxford approach different than some of these other ones, including you know Maderna came up as one that the market got really excited about. What what is Oxford's approach here? Yeah, I think that one

of the biggest differences is the safety profile. And you know, we'll find out more about the Oxford vaccine when they report preliminary results from their Phase one trial on Monday. UM, but all along UM, Sarah Gilbert has expressed, you know, confidence in the safety profile of this vaccine that they've

tested it in something like twelve different vaccines. In those vaccines haven't one approval, but they've that that platform, the technology that she's using, has been in thousands of people already, so they have a fairly confident sense of you know, what the adverse event you know, profile of this vaccine would be, and they're they're quite confident that that's not a huge hurdle. And I think, you know, some of the results that came up from Madarrena there the adverse

event profile did take some analysis by surprise, UM. And if you think about we need a vaccine for not millions, but potentially billions of people. If you've got five adverse event profile and you multiply that by the number of people they're going to need to have a vaccine, that's huge, right. So we need something that is safe primarily to be able to roll it out to a large number of people. Obviously it's extraordinarily competitive, you know, I think, um, you know,

there's a there's a race to get their first. Um. You know, I did look at, for instance, the last the polio vaccine that was developed by Jonas Salk, who was you know, you know, given banner headlines as you know, the one who saved the world from the stabilitating disease polio. You know, I've also often thought that whoever gets to a vaccine first in this case, even if it's not perfect,

we'll be kind of the Jonas Salk of our time. Um, I think there is you know, even with the competitive nature of this, I think there is collaboration among scientists, and you see it on social media and you see it in through the research reports. And one of the things that Sarah Gilbert said to me is, you know, no one knows how strong the immune response really needs to be to achieve protection. And that's Bloomberg Goose senior

writer Stephanie Baker and Business Week editor Joel Weber. Listen, this is the only story in many ways that matters the vaccine. That's right coming up next. We actually caught up with another front runner We're talking about the CEO of a novel pharmaceuticals that is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg

Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some the most important, we hope informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show this week. It really was dominated by I think some optimism, Carol, dare I say it in week eighteen about a vaccine right from the likes of Maderna, Astra Zenica and some others. Those stocks moved because of some upbeat news about the vaccine. We caught up with

Anovia Pharmaceuticals. They, Jason are among the front runners among those looking to create a vaccine for COVID nineteen. We talked specifically with the president and CEO of Anovio, Dr Joseph Kim. There's many companies like in Novo and others for blazing the trail UH just in the last six months or so, trying to make history and developing several vaccines UH that can be approved to be used both

safely and effectively against this horrible pandemic. So tell us where you are and what you've learned so far, Dr Kim, Yes,

absolutely so. We just reported on the preliminary data in our first clinical study involving forty healthy volunteers UH in the ages of eighteen to fifty UH, and we demonstrated very strong safety one of the safest vaccine platforms UH in this COVID nineteen race, and also demonstrating greater than of our participants having UH strong overall immune responses in a balanced way, both in UH antibody responses as well as having PI cell responses, which is another arm of

the immune system that is very important for protecting against our own disease, Dr Kim. When that came out, that was a couple of weeks ago, and you're you know, investors certainly reacted to it. A Steeple analyst said. Investors are likely to focus on the pacity of information in the release, which may raise more questions than answers. When are you going to publish your peer reviewed immune response data and and where will you will you publish it

at any update? And when larger trials will start here? Yeah, the second part of that question. First, So we're looking to start our phase to slash three efficacy trials upon getting regulatory concurrence this summer, so we're still on track for that. UH. In terms of the Phase one data, we are as we stayed, looking forward to publishing it in a peer reviewed UM publication, hopefully in the next

few weeks as well. So when you think about the timeline here, Dr Kim, what is a reasonable timeline to get your first vaccine available for use? And I think everyone wants to know when it will be widely available. Yeah, you know, UH in no view as well as other companies are racing against as far at UH to bring us safe and effective vacs into the public as soon as possible. That all depends on how well the trials go in Phase two and Phase three stagies UH and

demonstrating true efficacy and safety of the vaccine. UH. The FDA just released a guidance documents to the industry which provides their thoughts on what it's going to require. And you know, it's it's it's certainly as rapidly as we're running all of us. There's dozens of companies around the

world trying to get the vaccine. It's gonna take some time, but I think there's been a lot of incremental successes in phase one and and many companies going into Phase two, including our plans at Inovo is a twenty wide release too much to hope for. Well, I think that's a goal and that certainly is an aspiration that many of us in the field have. It really depends and and and ironically it also depends on how bad infection is

around us. Uh. You know, that would put a pressure or balance to the benefits and the cost of having a vaccines set of vaccines approved earlier. Conditionally. I mean, these are the things that the FDA and their policymakers will have to to decide on. What we focused on a Innovo and I'm assuming other companies as well, is to execute the next steps in the development, so next trials, next testing, so that we will be in a proper position to get the vaccines approved, uh, through this gauntlet.

You know, it typically takes up to ten years or longer to get a vaccine approved. And everyone started or you know, from from day one at the same place in January, so you know, we're we're moving in a historical pace, but it's never fast enough because there are people dying every day. You said, though, how bad the infection is around US will determine potentially, I guess how

regulators how quickly they want to move things along. If we don't see a second surge or if cases seem to die down, does this whole movement of finding a vaccine slowed down as well globally? Well, that's that's always a potential and certainly that would be great for the society. Um But as we're in the middle of the first wave and there's many experts predicting the second wave, all we can do as vaccine developers focused on our objective, which is to test properly the safety and advocacy of

the vaccine and be ready when we're called upon. Some of your peers have received larger government funding or significance amount of funding. What about for you, guys, do you see getting any additional funds from the government. Well, I think absolutely. I think Udobio has already received extensive external funding from US Department of Defense just recently a couple of weeks ago, as well as from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and SEPPI in the past. That's Novio

Pharmaceuticals President CEO Dr Joseph Kim. That stock has been on a tear like so many biotech and farm companies this year, there are a lot of companies Jason, out there looking for a cure for COVID nineteens, specifically a vaccine. What I loved about this conversation is this was one of those that I got off air. I came home, had dinner, and I said, here's what I learned about the vaccine from the CEO. And that was very purposeful, I think on our part to essentially say, all right,

all right, let's get down to brass tacks. How many shots are we talking about, When is this going to be out? What do we need to be thinking about, because ultimately that's what matters. I mean, I'm going to leave the science to the scientists. What I want to know is how is this going to affect candidly me, my family, my community, and the world in terms of getting back to whatever the next normal is going to be? Well?

And what's interesting, Jason, as the traditional form in biotech world hunt for a virus vaccine, others are seeking at more non traditional methods to help them get through this stressful time. Simply put, demand for cannabis, folks, it is up. And we checked in with one of the largest players in the United States, the co founder of Purely Boris Jordan's that's coming up next. I can't wait for that. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bring some of the most important and informative conversations we had throughout the week on our daily radio show. Reminder to everybody, we know the news once again happening fast and furiously, and these interviews happening in real time well and as the pandemic continues. Carol Cannabis is one of the surprise winners here. We were delighted to catch up with Cure Leafs executive chairman and co founder, Boris Jordan's quick reminder.

He was part of the Bloomberg fifty. We actually sat down with him. Remember that when we used to physically do interviews with people in the same place. Well, we did that at a big Bloomberg fifty event in New York City back in December. A lot has changed and actually for the better. With care Leaf, we've seen a substantial increase in foot traffic UM. We've also seen substantial increases in in UM basket sizes. So basket sizes and some of our states almost doubled uh in size from

what they used to be. Uh. And foot traffic is up tremendously. UM. I would say that, UM being growth, That's what I wanted to know. You know, we love numbers. So the foot traffic and the basket uh increases. Can you just say that again? Yeah, yeah, foot traffic and basket increases together with revenue all about quarter over quarder. Wow. And so obviously a bit unanticipated as everything was about this pandemic. I mean, tell us, what's what's driving that.

So one of the things that we've noticed this is that we're seeing a new customer come into the stores now UM, an older customer uh dealing with UM things like uh you know, stress anxiety during COVID UH wanting to get off of uh prescribed drugs from you know, from uh drug companies and moving on to more natural products.

And so we've seen a huge surge, particularly in the sleep aid category UH you know, lozengers, tinctures, um, uh, dummies, that kind of thing helping particularly the older folks deal with the COVID stress and anxiety. And that's been a really new customer base. I'm not kidding when I tell you that we've seen customers over eighty years of age coming into our store buying these products. And that's a new thing for you guys. Yes, I I yeah. Generally the medical sides that we as you know, we have

two different lines. We have a pure Leaf line, which is a wellness line, and selected adult use line. Generally, the Cure Leaf line does see an older so sort of an average of fifty two years of age customer, but we've seen a much older customer coming into the stores. We've seen people in their late sixties, seventies, and I said, even eighties coming into the stores and buying sleep aids as a whole. And I think sleep is going to be a major major category on the wellness side of cannabis.

I think you're exactly right. I mean we're seeing that more and more. I mean, Ariana Huffington certainly was onto something when she started talking about that a few years ago. So Borth, what did you have to do in your retail locations, because as foot traffic increases, you know, that used to be just like hey, great, there are more people. But now in the age of COVID, in the age of social distancing, What did you have to do and and and how much did you have to do to

change out your stories. We were very lucky that the governors really went out and and and liberalize some of the rules. So one of the things we had to incorporate is online ordering. So we incorporate online ordering and all of the states. We did curbside pickup in all of the states, so people really would order online. They pay well. Now have five of our stations, so using

debit cards, which is a new product for cannabis. So it used to be all cash, and we're seeing more and more banks accepting debit cards and payment processors and so debit cards, and that's one of the reasons we're seeing the increase in basket size because in the past, if you came to the store with a hundred dollars in your pocket, you can only buy a hundred dollars a product. Now you're coming in um with a debit card. You've got a bigger balance on the debit cards than

a hundred dollars, you can actually buy more products. So so the debit cards actually helped a lot. So it was really curbside pickup. It was it was online ordering, Um it was. It was you know, social distancing in the store. So we had to add we had to do all the things, you know, add the class and all the stores. We had to control traffic, all these things, because traffic was extensive. I mean, our New Jersey store

processes over a thousand customers a day. So boris is it fair to say that from a regulatory perspective, especially when it comes to payments and things like that? Were there things that were accelerated owing to the pandemic and some of the rules that had to come into place maybe thinks you had been looking for before that maybe happened a little more quickly. Yes, again, it's happened at

the state level. The federal level hasn't done anything yet to to help the industry, but the states did because they were concerned about the well being that I mean, cannabis was made essential um uh service and therefore they were con learned about the well being of both the people working in the stores and the company as well

as the patients. And so the states liberalize these rules, working together with the cannabis companies in their respective states and finding ways to deliver these products in a safer way, and that's what we're able to do. And that's currently the executive chairman co founder Boris Jordan's joining us. Obviously, they have been able to meet what is by all accounts huge demand. They're also taking advantage of some weakness in the market, Carol, the broader market, some consolidation going

on when it comes to cannabis. Yeah, and we also talked to him about the regulatory Frontier says that he expects of the US having access to recreational cannabis by next year. That to put pressure on Congress to legalize and clarify the industry. So good to get him to weigh in on that. Okay, so demand for cannabis is up. So two is demand for listening to podcasts coming up. We get more on that from the chief operating officer at Wandering. Of course, a whole separate segment is what

happens when you put the two together. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we'll bring you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations we had Carol and I did on our Bloomberg Business Week Daily radio show. I love podcast, Carol, I know you do. You're always suggesting you should be listening to this, you should be listening to that one. What's interesting is the

podcast producer Jason Wondering. They launched its app last month. They are tapping specifically into increased demand for podcasts that is happening right now. Jen Sargent is the chief operating officer at Wondering. She's also working on expanding the podcasters audience and developing TV, book and film projects from its library of podcast programs. She talked with us about all

of that. What we've seen during the pandemic is actually people really leaning in so listening to podcast and I think as we've all been social distancing and changing our habits and spending more time at home, uh, umers, I found all these different ways to be listening to podcast, whether it's cooking or gardening, or walking the dog, um or just cleaning around the house. Podcasts are a great piece of kind of mediate to take with you on the go and and really be able to kind of

multitask something else around your house. And as a result, UM, we we've really seen um some some great list and listening UM recently. And we've also seen shifts in behavior where you know, prior to the pandemic, it was all about commuting and your time at the gym and and those were two of the big use cases for for podcasts. But now we see listening throughout the day and on the weekends and and just um, you know, we can

see consumers really um listening in a different way. And I have a lot of theories of of why that's happening right now, but UM, it's been a really positive time for podcasts. I'll also say that, you know, just on the production side of things, UM, we've been able

to keep doucing podcasts during the pandemic. And I think you know, UM, I mean, I don't know about YouTube, but I've I've kind of caught up on my Netflix and my Hulu and and and with TV production on hold right now, UM, it's the source of new content. So uh for one gree but but all the podcasting UM publishers out there, most of us have been able to adapt and to really um keep keep things moving

with new content. We've seen interest from talent who would otherwise be busy with TV production getting involved in podcasts. So for the whole ecosystem, I think we've we've seen a great list. That's so funny that you said that, because just before Jess was like, you gotta watch this because and I said, you know, I've been running out of things to watch. What's interesting is I'm curious you

said that kind of the trends are changing changing. It's not just people commuting obviously anymore, but they're listening at all different times. What are people listening to? Jen? Yeah, so, UM, well, especially when the stay at home where orders first happen, and we saw a lot of people UM listening to news, UM, listening to UM, to a current information UM. But then we also saw that balanced with UM comedy and entertainment and things that would give people kind of a break

in an escape UM, which is not surprising. UM. Now we're seeing that that pretty much all categories are you know, receiving a lot of listenerships at this point, but but definitely at the start of the pandemic, it was news, entertainment and and personal growth is the other diner categories self help, personal growth. So you know, it's interesting, Jen Um, I was thinking about you guys in terms of the

type of content you create. And I'm almost thinking to some extent it feels like a little bit like a Disney approach where content can ultimately have multiple revenue streams, online, podcast streaming, etcetera. And I do wonder how you approach it. How do you look at when you're you know, thinking about either acquiring or producing some content, Are you thinking about, Okay, how can we spread this out as much as possible? Yes, and that has absolutely been evolving as as we've grown UM.

But you know, we're known for our immersive, character driven storytelling. We really try to put you the listener, in the middle of the story and and get you completely you know, enveloped in it. UM. And we we think about it now as UM more than just a podcast. We really think about developing a story that then can take on a life of its own. UM. I mean, our our broader goal is really to be the first place consumers think of when they think of high quality, immersive storytelling.

And today that happens to be with podcasts. But we know in the future is very likely that a consumer could encounter us first as a TV show or a book UM, and then make their way back to the podcast UM. And so Um. You know, as we think about different revenue streams, I mean, advertising is certainly our bread and butter and was one of the earliest um, you know, revenue streams to emerge for us and everyone

else in podcasting. UM. But as we started to create hits like The Shrink next Door, like Dr Death, UM, we saw this opportunity to develop the I P into television shows. And at this point, sixteen of our projects are in various stages of TV development. Uh. We have one of our projects um that is on its way to becoming a book. UM. And and this licensing side of it is is not just real but to your Disney analogy, I mean I I think we absolutely see

it expanding that way. So when we green light stories now we think could this be a TV show? Could? I mean we certainly didn't. Um. You know, when we were working with joannas Sarah um First Rank next Door, we weren't thinking, oh, this would be so perfect for Paul Rudd and Harold but you're doing it. But but after the fact, yeah, it totally makes sense. It makes a lot of sense when you think if you've listened to The Street Next Story and you're like, yep, that

absolutely checks out. I can see that on the screen. So, so talk to us about the subscription model, because I feel like that's something that a lot of podcast publishers have been wrestling with. And you know, we've seen the Spotify model, We've seen Luminary, we've seen others sort of go for this Stitcher, I believe, as well as a premium product. Tell us about the conversations to sort of get one dree to that point and how you think

about it. Yeah, I mean, part of our motivation UM was really that our listeners were asking for an app.

They were asking for a better way, an easier way to access wondering shows and content, to be able to binge content, especially mini series, to be able to listen to add free and UM particular to our style of storytelling, we do a lot of serialized mini series and serialized always on shows and UM for many of our shows like a Business Wars or or Tides of History, UM, etcetera, that were we have dozens of seasons at this point, and your average podcast app doesn't allow you to navigate

elegantly between seasons, and so even just tracking down the season of Business Wars that you want to listen to is it is hard in a general market app, and when we looked around at the market, we felt like that's that's what that's what was out there. I mean, Stitcher, Luminary, Apple, They're all great apps, but their general market one size fits all apps, and we really wanted to create a

curated experience. We wanted it to be on brand, we wanted it to feel immersive and premium like our our shows do, and we really just wanted to super serve that that wondering listener. UM. That was a big part of it. UM. The other piece of it, which is you know, was a challenge for us, and I think

it's a challenge for for most publishers out there. Is that we we but but by by distributing our content through these third parties, we missed that direct connection with the listener and we don't get data back that really helps us. And without the data, we're kind of flying blind when we're when we're making the next piece of content or we're trying to mark at it. So having some first party data that UM that we can use to inform our marketing and content decisions is really game changing. UM.

So that was another part of it for us. UM. As we thought about creating creating an app like this, is it only going to be and I don't mean only, but I mean will it be exclusively wondering content or will you open it up to others that kind of fit within the wondering world. Yeah, so it will be both wondering content and Wondering partner content. But we're not an aggregator. We're not trying to be the Netflix of podcasts,

and it won't be everything under the sun. It will only be podcasts where we have a partnership, whether we've partnered with Bloomberg or or someone like UM like uh, you know, all things Comedy or the Athletic whoever we're partnering with that might be within the app, and then all of our wondering originals. And we felt like now was the time to do this because we had the

breast and depth of content. We have a beloved catalog, we have these big hits UM we had enough UM brand equity and listeners to tap into UM to be able to launch this type of app. Now, Jen only about a minute or so ago. What was something that you thought, you know, this may be okay and then it just caught fire? Was that was there a specific either type of content or a specific piece of content

that really surprised you on the upside um. You know, one that I was recently surprised about was Blood Ties. So we had Blood Ties as an audio drama that we launched right before the holidays UM this past year. And we had dabbled in audio drama when Ware we first launched, and for whatever reason, the market wasn't mature enough. Maybe there wasn't enough demand. But you know, they did okay, but we weren't really able to get a blockbuster hit out of out of the fiction side of things, and

Blood Ties was a game changer. It completely um surpassed our expectations. That's wonder ee Chief Operating Officer Jen Sergeant Jason. I thought it was very interesting. You know, they launched their app in June and a lot of it is about having access to their own data. That's very valuable, right in terms of building a business and really understanding your customer well. And I will say quick plug as

it relates to wondering and Bloomberg. Our friend Jones Sarah a new episode of The Shrink Next Stor It was out this week. I listened to it it's bananas. As the whole series has been, It's going to be a movie, So check that out. Always like to give a plug to the shrink next door. Well, that wraps up the first hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Pisiness Week from Bloemberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol mass Or.

Plenty coming up in our next hour, including the billionaire stuck at home with his family like the rest of us, working from home, holding meetings in the virtual world, playing games like risk with his family, His ongoing conversation with our own Max Abelson. Yeah, mid all that he's having this series of phone calls with Max Abelson and this actually unburdening himself and giving a window into how he's experiencing this that maybe you wouldn't see anywhere else. Plus

our conversations about diversity continue. We check in with the owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, Andrew Murstein. He talks about NASCAR, that has been a flashpoint for a lot of important conversations. Yeah, he says, now Bubba Wallace is the new face of the sport. This is Bloomberg, This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol Messer and I'm Jason Kelly. Plenty ahead of you in this hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg

Business Week. One of our go to voices amid this pandemic, sort of a gut check in many ways. We love turning to Dr Iman Abu zaid her thoughts on diversity in healthcare but also in investing. Carol right, Jason, She's got the data and it reminds us why we need to have a diverse approach when it comes to investing. Plus, we catch up with Medallion CEO Andrew Murstein, speaking of diversity and inclusion. We talked about that as it pertains

to NASCAR. That's right. He's an owner of Richard Petty Motor Sports, which is the team that Bubba Wallace of course drives for. He has been at the center of a lot of important conversations in sports. But first, we've been talking about this story all week. I have to say people were calling me and texting me trying to get to the bottom of this, this anonymous billionaire, great story.

Max Abelson conducted a series of conversations throughout the early stages of the pandemic, and WHOA, I was just talking to this guy. It is really the Waltree culture Caroline gave my boss and I think about it is really

writing about money and power itself. So it was sort of natural when the pandemic began that on that very first day that the World Health Organization said, Okay, this is a pandemic, I called up a Waltree billionaire and we spoke, and you know, the real organic truth is that I end up calling him again a few days later, and then a few days after that, and a few days after that, and I realized pretty quickly that there was something sort of important happening in our conversations that

I wanted to try to get down on paper if I could. And what was different, because it does feel like, based on your conversations, that there was a different tone to maybe some of what you guys were talking about. Which is not to say that it's not always real when folks are talking to you, but I don't know. There's a there's a certain um, almost rawness to this Max and a certain authenticity or or almost vulnerability that comes through in some of this. I'm so old to

hear you see that. I mean, it's really um, I feel so grateful to have the response to the story from from everyone who enjoyed it, but especially for you too. I mean, you too are such careful and powerful leaders of my journalism. It's I was satisfying to be reporting that doesn't sort of just get lost. And you two seem to really read my jories carefully in a way that's so satisfying as a journalist. And I know what you mean about that vulnerability, And I'll talk about two

different creative vulnerability. On the one hand, um, you know, I tried to be some version of my awfumic self, you know when as journalists, Um, and this is so true for video journalists as well. I think that sometimes it's sort of easy to drift away from the real people we are, and you sort of, you know, maybe you're tired, or you're angry, or you're a little bored, and you sort of just you know, you just sort of ask the questions and and you know, that's sometimes

that mode is totally fine. But in this case, as YouTube often are me, I really sort of was my true amongst own selves. And sometimes he would say things I'd be like, do you really want to say that, you know, or pushed back and say, jeez, you know, maybe people are angry Um for a reason that's totally different than what you're saying, and that I think UM make him more vulnerable. And now I'd like to give

genuine credit to him. I mean, this is a awesome and interesting person who made himself vulnerable and at least, you know, people might not like what he has to say, but at least she said it, and at least he was true to himself. And I feel a sort of a month kind of gratitude for that. You know, Max,

you know this so well we all do. You write about this a lot about the inequalities that are in our world, and we talk a lot about the wealth gap, and I do wonder your conversations did you feel like helped explained it or gave you a sense of hope that there are those who are wealthy, like the billionaire you talked to, that kind of understand that this gap is happening, and it's it's been laid bare because of the virus. It's been laid bare once again because of

what happened to George Floyd. You know, did it give you some hope that he and some of his peers understand this is not good and they care about making it better. Look, I mean, I think one thing that's only here to point he said, you know, one billionaire, one world, she's dolling there cannot represent all wall she's billionaires. And certainly you know one one wall she's billion can't

represent all of rich people. But you know, I will give you my honors answer to that question, Harold, which is that I felt that on one end, really recognize because it's undeniable, how much pain and suffering there is the world in general, and how much agne in the summer, when you know tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, when tik two thousands of people are dying, And oh, I was full of uncertainty and fear for

for for basically everyone else. But I hope what the story captures is that there was something he wasn't able to do, And what he wasn't able to do was um really imagined world that would be structurally different. He really did not want to glame systemic problems. I mean, he didn't want to talk about sort of how those

systems could be replaced. He's much more interested in incremental change, you know, I think that that's a revealing um that's revealing in this moment when we are really at a devisive moment between those who want um to really abolish some systems that have left many behind and those who really want to inform them. I think it's a genuinely

important and stark difference. I really feel though, if I learned something from the story, it's that the gap that we've seen um between the very richest people and the rest of us fat gas is getting bigger, and that's when we're doing to Finance reporter Max Ebilson. I love

just the enthusiasm and the earnestness with which he approaches everything. Yeah, it's one of those stories you have to grab a cup of coffee or a cup of tea settle in, because the back and forth between Max and this individual, it really just gives us another window in to how different people are dealing with the virus and really the

last eighteen weeks of our lives. I have to say one of my favorite Carol Masser is use of the word individual because it's when you don't know someone's name, and in this case it's totally appropriate because We don't know who this guy is exactly. Only Max knows. All right, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, as schools continue discussing reopening plans, we're going to hear from Howard University President Dr Wayne Frederick. I really enjoyed this one.

This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing some of the most important and informt of conversations we had throughout the week. Another busy week week seventeen week eateeency. How to keep track of it working from home? But those interviews on our daily radio show throughout this week and this one I was sorry that I missed at Jason, Yeah,

I was too, only because it was wide ranging. I expected a lot of the Howard University president and he really delivered. Dr Wayne Frederick. He has been running the university for a number of years. He's a medical doctor, and so he speaks about this in really robust and holistic terms, not just the virus, but also these dueling crises that we're facing as a country. Check it out. We're thinking that we will be identify our campus by and by that I mean we have ten thousand students.

We don't anticipate having that many, certainly not more than four thousand students. We have students in UH schools and colleges UH that that need the faith and faith interactions such as medicine, dentistry, UM, et cetera. So so we we have to bring students back for that in students with clinical practical comes that will be there with We are looking at dorm assignments as well to see if we can go down to single rooms as well. We're

going to have a hybrid um some online. We also are going to have UM the Faith to Faith classes

live streamed as well, so students can participate. We want to be also cognisance of the fact that we have students from about seventy one countries and forty six states, so at the time zones challenge and we have to make sure that we can make accommodations there, so you know, a lot lots of precautions, UM, lots of ppe and and making sure that we have the right barriers and social distancing in the classroom right And you know, Dr Frederick,

it's interesting, I feel like we all, especially in the media talk a lot about students, and maybe it's because you know, I have almost college age teenagers, so we talk a lot about it from the students perspective. Talk to me about your faculty and the conversations you're having with them individually and as a group, and their concerns about coming back. Yeah, well, academic deans have been engaging them. Um,

the faculty have been fantastic. You know, they have really going about the business of standing up the online and short san uh and and that has been really fantastic to watch. The other thing that they have been um doing that I think is very very helpful is being thoughtful about the classes that don't naturally fit um you

know four online but instance, like a physics lab. We because African Americans are five times more likely to drown as an example, we have a requirement to take a swimming class and how would actually to graduate, So trying to think creatively of how we do that. At the same time, we have a significant number of factly who's sixty five and over and faculty who have cool mobilities

we hire. We employed more African American faculty than any other single institution higher institution America, and so that also poses a challenge because we recognize that we have an employee base that there's more at risk for contracting this UM virus and also having a bad outcome. So we are being very thoughtful about managing that and they were

making sure that we understand their consumes as well. So talk to me about testing, because I know that you're offering testing at one of your locations for your faculty. Tell me about how that extends, how it works and and the role that you're playing in the broader community. Yeah, that's a good question. You know. We we UM have a facility that we have stood up in conjunction with a partner out in h Wards seven, so it considers the residents of Wards seven and eight that African American UM.

We also at a hospital. When we look at the patients that we've been seeing, the vast majority came from these wards. So looking at and putting those together, we decided that we really needed to get information out there and to get UM testing UM out there as well, and so Bank of America gave us a grant of one million dollar grant to aldow us to stand up a testing site there and it has been oversubscribed very early on it we did not need a doctor's note

or anything like that. We have a lot of front line workers who lived there, and therefore we felt that their exposure was significant and that we wanted to really uh system. So it has been really important for us to do that. At the same time, I also want to remind everyone that the elective clinical care that we were providing there was also suspended, and therefore that gave us an opportunity as a group to really put those healthcare workers to work, and they really wanted to see

their community. So I also want to thank our staff who wild um we did not have regular clinical activity, really volunteered and stepped in and stepped up to do this. And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you what is it like in Washington right now with this virus? Because I feel like we're dealing with all these hot spots around the country. What are you seeing in your community? The man in Washington d C. I think has done a fantastic job, and so what we're seeing is continued decline.

I think just recently we may have had an uptick on one day of cases, which I'm hoping is that strictly due to testing. But she's been really good. She's been open about educating everyone about um, ensuring that they're wearing mask in public, um, et cetera. You know, she's been I think she's she's run a very very thoughtful process that was very engaging as well. I stilled on her reopening committee and that a chance to seek close up the world that was was put into that and

the posts from this. So all in all that, you know, I think we've been been in the d theory. DC is interesting because obviously you have Virginia. So we really looked at the d MP and the governors of board mel and Virginia wild Um, totally different styles and republic one republic on one democrat. Uh. You know, I think again when we put aside of politics and we you know, put the health and safety food, they both have demonstrated

as well. I think very good. That's Howard University President Dr. Wayne Frederick, the seventeenth president of Howard. His personal story. I ended up reading a lot about him, Jason, just because I knew you were talking to him. I mean, just so impressive what he did on a personal level

and professional level. Yeah, and this was one of these interviews that really stuck with me, and I highly recommend you listen to the whole thing on our podcast feed because it was, as I said, wide ranging, but also,

as you alluded to, very personal. I mean, this is something that he is dealing with as a leader, obviously the president of the university, as a community leader working with the mayor of Washington, d C. But also as a father, and I think that's important to remember, right, And you talked a lot about diversity and inclusion, as we did with our next guest, a voice we've reached out to before because of her firsthand experience with the virus, but also as someone of color and as a woman,

her path to owning her own business. We get into that. That's right, Incredible Health CEO Dr Iman Abuse. She is coming up now. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show, Diversity and Inclusion. Carol, I have to say, very honestly, I think too many companies put it off

to the side for too long. No more. We are talking about it all the time and we should be Yeah, exactly. And this week we caught up again with Dr Iman Abuse. She's the CEO and co founder of Incredible Health. Her company connects hospitals with nurses and other healthcare workers. She's been a go to voice on the virus but also about diversity and inclusion, and this time around we talked about some research she did that stressed how we need to understand what the data is telling us to change

the trajectory of diversity. Often hear that diversity is the right thing to do, but the conversation needs to change to the diversity is the data driven thing to do. Um As operators, as investors were accountable to shareholder driving shareholder values, and so we really need to understand diversity in in how it how it impacts the business results, and so how do you how do you find and

assemble the right data that proves that right. So the there's a huge body of research that's already been published on on this topic and it includes from you know, from Harvard Business or view from McKenzie from the Kaufman Fellows and go on and uh, lots of academic papers and research, and what they show is that diverse teams

UM deliver better business results. They are more drive more profitability, they drive more revenue, they're able to make decisions twice as fast UM, they are more innovative, and ultimately UM drive higher returns for investors as well. And so that needs really needs to be part of the conversation because

we're all responsible for for driving UM financial returns. So why isn't it part of the conversation, Because you know, if if the data don't lie, which we are pretty confident it doesn't, let's stipulate that why hasn't this happened before? What are the entrenched interests that are essentially fighting this from happening. I think the challenges are, first of all, the awareness of the impact of diversity is pretty limited UM, and so this is the piece was an attempt to

kind of expand the awareness of it UM. And then the second thing is that it's hard. It's actually quite difficult to pull off. It's challenging to hire a diverse team. So you know, there's this concept of UM diversity death, for example, which is similar to technical death, and that it is much faster and quicker for you for UM a leader to hire a homogeneous team, um, but then they're going to pay for it later because when they do want to hire that star, you know, black engineer

for mample, if they're not going to join. And so it's a critical to address diversity at the very beginning when you're just starting a team or just starting a company, because it's becomes excreasingly more difficult over time. How much, too, is just unconscious bias. I'm not trying to give people excuses, but I do wonder a lot of the conversation. And you were kind enough to participate in a panel that we did with our Bloomberg Live and Bloomberg Breakaway team,

a bunch of CEOs. We talked about diversity and inclusion, what needs to be done, But how often is it people just kind of hire people who they're comfortable with, whether they realize it or not. Look, the truth is it's human nature to have bias, whether it's unconscious or conscious. It's just part of being human. But but but that's not We have to take that one step further and implement goals and prophecies that are going to counter that bias. And that is what you see the best operators and

best investors do so. For example, UM when when you know you know, let' let's say you're an investor and you're evaluating a minority founder. Some top investors, including those that Andrews and Horwit's NFX Obvious Ventures, have put in place on UM bias checks. So there's another and additional check that they do UM that's built into their process to make sure that they haven't missed anything with this

female founder or this black founder. But how come then we I got to follow up on that for sex Jase, Because how come then you know IMAN that there If if there's that awareness and they have those checks, why is it still in the world of venture capital that

it's still largely male and white businesses that get funded. Unfortunately, there's still it's still the tiny, tiny miority investors that have implemented some of these changes, whether it's the unconscious biased checks that they do UM, whether it's making diversity a priority and and and measuring it as well as fixing their sourcing by expanding their networks in order to in order to UM connect with more black professional GPU. First of all, making it an objective that hey, we

want a diverse team or a diverse portfolio. The second piece of it is UM when when doing that you know, hiring process or that diligence process, you have an additional check in the process and and and the partner spent the partnership or the team spends more time on on on a on an employee that or or an investment

that is diverse. UM. It's also built into a lot of our software as well, whether it's the investors or the operators, so there is there is a metadata or a check that this founder or this potential employee is a minority. UM person will pay attention and that's incredible. Health CEO dr Iman I was a joining us once again.

And I've loved the way our conversations with her Carol have evolved, because I feel like we went to her to talk about one crisis, and then we ended up talking more and more about another one, and now we're really talking about where they come together, this nexus of these national crises. Yeah, we've really gone to her for a lot of different things that have been impacting our

world over the last eighteen weeks. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, we continue our conversation on diversity and inclusion. This time from the world of sports. We'll check in with the majority owner of Richard Petty Motorsports. They in fact announced a new deal on our show, This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations we had

across the week on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show. Carol, Yeah, and one of the conversations we had to wrap up this week is Andrew Murstin, founder, president, and largest shareholder of Medallion Financial. They're also the majority owner of Richard Petty Motorsports. They had some news this week about a

really important sponsor. Here's our conversation. We're very proud at Richard Petty Motorsports to announce a new sponsor, which is cash App, which is owned by Square and of course backed by Jack Dorsey. They just signed on with us and it's a multi year deal and they're new to the sport. It's their first sports franchise that they're sponsoring. So what does that do to you in terms of the financial equation? How does something like that change your story? Um,

it's changes this significantly. You know, Bubba, as you mentioned, is the first African American driver in nearly fifty years in NASCAR, which is just remarkable to me that he's been the only full time driver since literally the nineties seventies or so. And the sport is pretty much based off of sponsorship. My partner is Richard Petty and if you remember years ago, he had STP as his main sponsor, and I really took him to another level, and that's

what we're hoping for. The world of NASCAR operates differently than other sports in that everybody has their own equipment. It's strange if you think about in football, you know, use one football and use the same equipment basically, but here you're building a car from scratch. So money is key, and sponsorships starts everything once you have the right sponsor in place, when it usually comes after that. So we

have to talk about this Confederate flag issue if we can. Andrew, this has royaled the sport, maybe in an unexpected way. I think for a big portion of the population it was long overdue. For another part of the population, a smaller part of the population, significantly significantly smaller. We hope it was an outrageous move on the part of NASCAR. How do you see it? Yes, I'm very pleased, you know. Frankly, this ang kind of started years ago at Median Financial UM.

Our board of directors was Mario Cuomo and Hank Garon, who actually just retired from the board recently, and we look at different sports and see, um, you know, which ones really we could help in terms of promoting diversity, and NASCAR was at the top of the list. That's why we decided to invest in NASCAR about ten years ago. So by us UM getting behind Bubba, it's really I think opening up a whole new spectrum of fans for

the sport. And the goal is, and I know it's just a goal at this point, but we would love for Bubba to kind of be the Tiger Woods of Gulf. Tiger transformed the sport, brought a new fans, brought an excitement to the sport, and that's what I think you're gonna see with Bubba. I've had falls from everybody from Jay Z to Lebron James, who love Bubba, want to be a part of what he's doing and fully support him.

But talk to us a little bit more about. You know, I want to dig a little bit deeper into this Confederate flag scandal. I mean, what does it say about motor sports in the United States and the controversy over and do you think NASCAR handled it well? To be quite honest, yes, you know, I think it was long overdue. Um. You know, everyone can have their own view about the Confederate flag, but it made for an uncomfortable atmosphere for many people in the sport, including Bubba, and Bubba is

I believe the new face of the sport. And um, he stood up on CNN and asked for change in the sport, and NASCAR took a giant step. You don't see other sports leagues really accomplish what NASCAR did. You know, the NFL, the NBA, they perhaps back down when it comes to issues like China, but here's a very different situation. NASCAR recognized that it was offensive to many people, Bubba went on TV spoke about it, and two days later they banned the flag. So, um, you know, not everybody

loved it. Frankly, there's some fans who were against it, But overall, the sport I believe will rise to a new level. Andrew I want to push you on that just a little bit. I'm not sure that many people, um would say that NASCAR was progressive in this regard. Maybe some people would say that NASCAR was long overdue uh in doing this, and and certainly it's it's a valid discussion to talk about player empowerment, driver driver empowerment

in your case, across the different sports. But as you, I think yourself said, this should have been done a long time ago. I you can argue, yes, you know, I mean Nascar, I had a loyalty perhaps or a respect for their fans that are been with them for fifty plus years, and the sport grew up in the South, so they always recognized there was an issue years ago.

They did try to take action. Frankly, they offered fans the opportunity to trade in their Confederate flags or American flags, and some did, but it didn't overwhelmingly go over well. So you still have the Confederate flags there. But you know, I'm proud to be associated with them. I mean, I'm not familiar with really any other leagues in the last thirty days that took such a major step forward as NASCART did. You are constantly competing against so many different options,

whether it's a sports. You know, people's ability to do so many different things. And I think that's true of motorsports and NASCAR specifically right there they're fighting with you know, some of the folks that might come to a NASCAR event, they've got a lot of other options. You know, how how difficult is that making it for you all? Um, It's you know, not thing new. I mean that's always been the case. You're right, you know. We looked in investing in many different sports. We had one of the

first sports funds back about ten years ago. I started a company called Sports Properties and it was a spack before spects really became as popular as they are today. And we raised several hundred million dollars and we probably looked at more sports teams than anybody. We looked at almost every league, and we ended up with NASCAR because I think it's different than many other sports. I'd like the business model of it. It's um, you know, other

sports of your pay rolls for example, or significantly higher. NASCAR. Basically you have one star athlete. It's probably the first or second best attendive sport in the country behind the NFL. Its viewership is second behind the NFL, so it has a lot of promise. But to me, the key for

growth is to expand their fan base. You know, they had a southern view originally and then it spread through other parts of the country, but they still do not have a multi diverse fan base, and I think if they do and they accept that challenge, they'll go to another level. Well, they kind of had to write. I mean, if we take a look at some of the stories, you know, over the last year or so, I mean there were concerns about the NASCAR audience, right, you know,

kind of declining. NFL has dealt with it as well, and so they needed to be supportive of Baba No right because they do as you said, they need to expand their audience, right. I mean, you know, certain sports have niche audiences. You know, hockey, for example, in my view, is a very initial audience and they're not expanding their fan base like NASCAR is. So you can get by and do well with just a niche type of audience,

but you're right. To get to another level, they really should open up their eyes, which they did, and take action and really try to make conclusiveness a big part of the sport. So, Andrew, let's talk about the money that is in and around sports, because ultimately what we

have seen is economics drive behavior. We talked about that all the time on this show, whether it comes to Facebook and big companies boy kinning Facebook over their unwillingness maybe two police hate speech, the way that some folks think they should economic drive sports as well. How much of what's happening now in NASCAR specifically is driven by the fact that you do have sponsors saying hold on, wait a second, maybe we need to be more inclusive, maybe we need to think about this sport in a

different way a lot. That's a good point, you know, even though we had the only African American driver, we still we're not getting a lot of notice. Frankly, until things changed for us. The tipping point for us was about thirty days ago when we had an empty race car because we didn't have a sponsor on it, and we decided to put a Black Lives Matter concept on the car in Martinsville, and the hood of the car

read compassion, love and understanding. Once that occurred, not exaggerating, we must have had twenty calls for major corporations within the next week after that, asking more about who Bubb is,

what's happening with the sport. So the first one just signed on again about an hour ago with cash App, but I can tell you there's many other interested parties at significant dollars, and once the dollars start, once somebody gets behind a driver, it's these guys are all about momentum and confidence, and I can I know it's going to portray onto the racetrack that it starts winning, more dollars come in, and that leads to better cars and then even more winning. So it's a great circle when

you're going in the right direction. That's Medallion Financial CEO Andrew Murstein. They are the majority owner of Richard Petty Motor Sports. And I feel like Jason over the last couple of weeks we've talked a lot about NASCAR and Bubba Wallace and really the role of so many institutions and organizations and the world of sports when it comes to racism. Absolutely, and we're also talking about it importantly

through the lens of economics and sponsorship. And so that's one of the reasons this was so interesting to talk to him on that particular day when cash App comes in and basically says they're going to be a new sponsor because Bubba Wallace All Eyes are on him is very comfortable in that position and so interesting to hear Andrew Rstein say, as you pointed out early in the show,

this is the new face of Nascar. Yeah, exactly. And Erstine did say he's working on ways to improve that pipeline for NASCAR drivers, So we'll continue checking with him to see about those improvements. Well, that's going to wrap up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday starting at two

pm Wall Street Time. And if you can't catch us live, get our daily Bloomberg Business Week podcast wherever you get your podcast and get the full conversations like the one we had with Dr Ayman Abusaid, one of our go to voices, a really important person to understand both from the virus pandemic crisis, but also the racial justice crisis, and also Dr Wayne Frederick, the president of Howard University. I feel like these are important conversations for everyone to

listen to. And speaking of conversations, check out more of the chat we had with wonder Ree Chief Operating Officer Jen Sergeant. You heard her earlier in this show, but get the full conversation. She talks about why podcasts are taking off during the pandemic, how the listening though trends are changing. Here that conversation in our extra podcast, and you can also watch the show live on YouTube. Our daily show just search for Bloomberg Global News. We'll be

back next week at the same time. This is Woolberg. If you came across someone struggling with hunger, how would you recognize them? For their clothes, their age, the way they speak. Hunger can be hard to recognize. Learn Why I Am Hunger in America dot org, brought to you by Feeding America, two hundred food banks strong and the ad Counsel