Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-June 13th, 2020

lot throughout the week. We kind of took a moment to take in what's happened over the past thirteen weeks and really the past three weeks. We had that big market rally off the March bottom, we had a pause in stocks. This week, we continue to talk about reopenings. Of course, the virus and then racism continue to dominate so many of our conversations. All of this we know have business, economic, financial, and of course societal impacts. That's our week. I think to say in a nutshell, a

big and complicated and uneasy nutshell. Well, and I think that we are living in historic times. I know that that's glib to say at many moments, but I think if you look back to the beginning of this year, where we expected to be in what we expected to have done by this point in We figured we'd be pretty focused on an upcoming presidential election, which we are, but this was also a week where we saw an absolute mess down in Georgia, my home state, around their primary.

We see all this evidence, as you've alluded to too, structural inequalities that came up even in the discussions around the Federal Reserve meeting. Remember we had one of those two with coming out, and he certainly had an effect on the market. So we put all of those issues and it is complicated to so many of our guests, and you're going to hear from a lot of them over the course of this show. That's right. Our featured interviews and stories in the magazine this week got to

all of this. So that included a big interview that we had about reopening right New York began. New York City began phase one of a reopening, of course, home to Bloomberg head quarters, in home to so many companies, especially within the financial and real estate community. We caught up with Kent Swigg of Swig Equities UM about how the real estate market can bounce back. He of course has properties in the city, residential commercial also on the

West coast, really throughout the country. So a good voice to check in on. Absolutely, Cathy would of our investment. She's one of the best performing investors over the last few years. A bull on disruption and innovation. I think it's fair to say. And we also can't lose sight of something you mentioned, which is we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. We were reminded of

that this week Dr Seth Letterman. He talked to us about finding a vaccine that's going to be key to all of this as we continue to grapple with COVID nineteen plus. Jason, how America can begin to heal after weeks of civil unrest. Someone who knows so much about it has been really fighting um for those who are lost in our society. Jason Flam was back with us talking about the vulnerable populations again and how they are being disproportionately impacted. So an important voice. First up, let's

take you inside the magazine. It's a takeover of the finance section. It's reflected in the cover art. It's looking at the run up in the stock market against the backdrop of the virus. The economics shutdown, the civil unrest, and still many unknowns about our outlook. And it really is still quite a run up off those March low's Jason, because even though we saw a little bit of a pullback this week, we still have had a significant bounce back.

Oh it's unbelievable just to watch it. And we wanted to understand exactly all the mechanics behind that, so we turned to the man himself, Joel Webber, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week. So Joel, walk us through what we've been seeing over these months, especially over these past few weeks, as main street and wall streets seem to diverge a bit. Yeah, I mean, I think that's really the heart of the idea.

And as we were talking about what was happening, it was sort of like the you know, and I've said this before in the fro him is like the I think the stock market as just really desperately wanted, uh, the coronavirus stuff to just be over and end and and move on, and it's really behaved that way since the low on March twenty three, and you just kind of like our the cover, we just kind of put all the bad news that we could find on the cover from the six point new million job the six

point nine new million, six point nine million new jobless claims that were followed immediately by six point six million more, the oil plunging into negative stuff, the g g DP being negative five, unemployment rate fourteen point seven. It was just like headline after a headline after a headline of bad news, and yet the stock market just a sn'b

just kept climbing higher like it was none of it mattered. Um, And we just said, you know, that is like this massive, This is the great disconnected, And that was our cover line for listen aked a lot about you know, big time investors, well known investors, John Paul Paul, Tutor, Jones and so many others who you know, we're fighting the bounce back and talking about you know, safe ascets like gold and safe havens and so on, and then finally said, okay,

I can't fight it anymore, basically, So it's really been a remarkable bounce back to watch. Yeah, and actually you know you you brought up professional investors in there, and and the it really has been reach out investors. And we spend a bit of time in the package talking about you know, what's been happening with Robin Hood traders and our hurts phenomenon, where we've got bankrupt companies and their stocks are trading for pennies, and there's just all

kinds of enthusiasm. I think, you know, people stuck at home with UH with without much to do, and you know, gambling on stock um has become such an InVogue phenomenon again UM. And you know, that's like one of the little weird things about this market right now is how much enthusiasm um retail it seems the really driving things all right. Joel Weber, We really appreciated Joel Weber, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, joining us on the phone

and listen. I think we saw it play out, this disconnect in so many ways, and I feel like it got even more complicated to some extent with the civil unrest that we've seen, Carol, and people really wondering what the way forward is well, and I think about how many conversations we had with various investment professionals and even you have CEO s about how do you reconcile you know, what's been going on because of the virus, the shut down, the economic impact and still so many questions about what

the revival looks like on the other side, and then add that on top of it, how do you reconcile that with you know, what seemed to be NonStop gains in equities, So a really timely takeover of the finance section in the magazine. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up reopening New York City real estate with Ken Swig of Swig Equities. This is Bloomberg Face is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.

Today we're bringing you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show, all about where we are at this moment thirteen and three. Carol, we've been talking about thirteen weeks at home away from the office, three weeks since we as a nation have really been wrestling in what feels like a meaningful and maybe permanent way with inequality and race relations on a level we certainly haven't seen

in our lifetimes. And an important voice Jason, that we've turned to several times just before or just as the virus was kicking in uh and actually throughout it is Kent Swigg. He's president of Swig Equities, a real estate development an investment from They're based in New York City. They've got commercial and residential properties around the US, New York, San Francisco, and more So great to check in with him about reopenings and really just the world at large.

Think one of the biggest things that we have to do is to be able to see things and call them like they are. And we have to accept reality and not we're not looking at a at a warp reality or a fake reality. We're looking at a reality that that's occurred, and it touches all of us as humans um and I think it is touched and awakened the inner souls of all of us in America. And people have gone on the streets, they're they're they're peacefully

demonstrating there, they're making themselves known. And then we have to continue to feel that inner, inner, inner twitch in ourselves, so we act on what we've seen. And I wonder, in your estimation, Kent, how all of this and this is a big question that will probably start and then come back to it in a few minutes, but how

does that change in New York City. I mean, this is a city that you know, has so many elements to it, so many great elements to it, but also is a reflection of many of the inequalities that we face as a country. Well. Look, New York City is an amazing place. It is one of the only places on Earth that has a collection of every single country, every single almost country in the world because of the

United Nations, so all of us are here. And I'll tell you the unique thing about New York is this at two in the morning, when there's not a car on the road and there's a red light, guess what people do. They stop and wait for the green light. Right in their own countries. They may do a lot of bad things, but they sit and stop at a red light waiting for the green to occur. In other words, we have a certain value system and I think it is ultimately expressed in in New York um as much

as the United States. And that is what we need to harbor. We need to harbor the concept of doing right. And if you look at the highest ranking police officer in New York City who got down and prayed with the protesters, that is the ultimate reflection of who we are in New York, so we're we do it every day. What we need to be able to do is to be able to be back outside and working and being with each other and and supporting each other so we

can make a change in the world. We talked about for our New York audience about JP Morgan and they're building this huge new headquarters. Is it a mistake, like, is everybody going to leave the city or will some workers leave the city? Will companies rethink, you know, spending a lot of money on price New York City real estate and move out to the burbs. Well, I think, first of all, it's a perfect question, and and the

JP Morgan building is the epitome of that question. So this is in my opinion, UM, all of those questions are valid, and all of them will be rethought many, many times by many all the corporations around. Will New York City prosper absolutely, because one thing we've got fundamentally is that we've got an energy level and a pace that is very attractive to everyone. So if you look at two seventy, will it be repopulated by time it's

built and up the pandemic? Unfortunately, UM, with all its tragedy and everything will be an afterthought of in terms of what the business community is doing going forward, not that it's not going to be a big impact in our lives, but when we have a therapy, a medical therapy, so if we have the virus, who won't die and ultimately a vaccine, people will be back to work. It will be led by young people, and it will be energetic to New York will prosper and thrive like it

has in the past. And the thing that we can find working at home can be very efficient and very effective. But what we don't have is creativity and opportunity when we work at home, because we don't have the ability to go meet with people every day. If I'm working, as as one of my son's friends is working in fixed income and he wants to go meet a boss that is not in fixed income, he has no way

to do that. When he's working at home, he speaks to his boss, he works very effectively, but the opportunistic time of meeting somebody in walking into the office or at the office or at a coffee place doesn't doesn't function. It doesn't happen, and we lose creativity and opportunity. Yes, it could be efficient that it's going. It's it's it's very straightforward and stagnating for for an opportunistic country like ourselves.

So I am optimistic. Um, I'm very realistic of the challenges we have right now and the pain and suffering we're going through, but we will overcome it, and we will be back in center. Sin cities will will take

their hold back as leader leader leaders of the world again. Yeah, And I guess I wonder tent about sort of a a middle road to some extent where and I think you've probably read and heard a lot of the same things and probably many more things than than I have about you know, maybe some second tier quote unquote cities, some smaller cities being able to take advantage of this to some extent, and not in a way that hollows out a New York City, but that does give some

opportunity to places where the cost of living maybe a little bit lower. We were already seeing that in some of the Nashville's and other sort of places in the world. So I wonder how you see that evolving. I think that absolutely is gonna happen, and certainly it's gonna happen over the next twenty four months or thirty six months, because until this really gets past us, we're all gonna

be work and looking at New York alternatives. And we have a friend Jonathan who came up with the other idea to me the other when we're speaking to him, um or just that that companies may end up taking some space as swing space in another part outside of New York City. You could have an office in Long Island with a lot of your staff are commuting from

Long Island. You can have an office in Long Island and one in Manhattan, and those people that can work two or three days a week in the office in in Um, in Jericho or wherever it is on Long Island or and then come into New York City for the balance of the time. UM. So there are many different ways of doing it. That's Ken Swig, president of Swig Equities, and Jason, Yeah, you know, he is someone I do remember that Friday the third teenth, back in March.

It was our last in studio broadcast and Kent was there when the virus. We we talked about that the you know how we thought it might impact our world, and then we talked to him again. I think about a month or so later in April, and here we are again now, you know, as we are reopening our world. So great to kind of, you know, go with him through all those different perspectives. Yeah. The last time you and I saw each other we saw Kenswick, uh, fair

to say, which is interesting. Yeah, And also you know, this is a guy who has seen New York City go through so many things. And I think New York City, we know, not just susceptible when it comes to the pandemic, but also has been susceptible to a lot of the inequalities that we have seen laid bare, the protests that we saw, some of the violence that we saw even in our neighborhood there around Bloomberg headquarters. So it was interesting to catch up with him in a very holistic way.

You're listening to Bloomberg Business We coming up the chairman and CEO of Tonics Pharmaceuticals on the race for a coronavirus facts see one of many companies in that race. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations throughout the week that we had on our daily radio show,

dealing about so many different issues. Of course what's going on in the markets, uh, the civil unrest that we continued to see, the virus, and of course reopening society. But I have to say, Jason, we couldn't forget because the tallly's on the virus. They continue and parts of the United States, we saw those numbers going up absolutely and we're all looking towards a vaccine, and we wanted to get a gut check on that. Candidly, we wanted to talk to someone who's actually in the midst of

doing that work. So we caught up with Dr Seth Letterman. He's the chairman, CEO, and founder of Tomics Pharmaceuticals. He talked about how they're working one of many companies to manufacture a vaccine. I would say generally that people should air on the side of caution. It's it's hard to know, um what's safe and what's not safe, but people making individual decisions should be cautious. I think that I find some of the information compelling that being outside is better

than inside with people. I think that, uh, stay six ft apart wearing a mask and hands are all very important.

So this new thought about asymptomatic transmission is something that people can put into an equation, but I wouldn't use that to engage in any behaviors that don't follow the basic tenants help us understand what's realistic, what you are seeing, and how this development, which feels different to those of us who don't normally pay so much attention to how vaccines are created, how it is or isn't different from what you normally seek well for So, I think that

there's a remarkable effort going on all over the world, many companies, and it's really exciting to see how governments, nonprofits, companies have come together with the common goal of doing something about this. I agree with the general belief that we really can't get back to work and back to school and in the same way that we now look

back on it's called normal until there's a vaccine. So a vaccine is very important and one of the exciting aspects of this that so many different technologies are being tested. I think it's realistic that there will be a vaccine either late this year or early next year, but I'm not sure that that would be the vaccine that will ultimately win market acceptance and the confidence of doctors and patients.

So there's an element of the tortoise and the hair where there are some companies that are very fast out of the gate, they have exciting technology, but there are other companies like ours that are going more slowly and have different technologies. And I think that COVID nine team will be with us for a long time, so it will be possible to figure out which vaccines are best

in the public health sense. Explain the science. As you say, there's different technologies for the virus, So explain that, because you're right, there is this huge race going on the government is involved to what are the different technologies we're talking about, you know, and how that affects the efficacy

of an ultimate vaccine. I think the simplest way to do to divide the different vaccine technologies that are out there um is to think about the two main components of the immune system, and that is either antibodies or T cells. And I think that vaccines are designed to

stimulate either antibody responses or T cell responses. Antibody responses are shorter lived and tend to stop an infection from happening, and T cell responses are longer lived but tend to eliminate an infection after it's happened and also clear the bloodstream and the body of the virus. Now, those are the extremes. Just about every vaccine will have elements of both.

But I think that dividing them up into whether something is more antibody or more T cell focused is a good way to do to divide the many technologies being thrown at this. Do we need both or do we need the T cells, which to me sounds like a bigger deal. Both and um but but there there are flavors within both. But for example, it's probably true that an antibody test is a good sign that someone has recovered from the illness and as level of immunity. But

antibodies without key cells is probably not a solution. And that's Dr Seth Letterman, the chairman CEO of Tonics Pharmaceuticals, and Carol. I think you and I both walked away from this conversation thinking, all right, I understand a little bit more about the science here, the possibilities, but also the complexities of this. So much of our world we know it's easy to distill things down to what we just get a vaccine and everything gets back to normal.

More complicated than that, and certainly the road to get there is long and winding. Well, I loved how we got into the different technologies for the virus antibodies versus T cells, and you know, you really need to understand this to figure out what will be the most effective vaccine and maybe multiple vaccines that will need to really get ahead of the coronavirus. So I'm so glad we got some time with him. You're listening to Bloomberg Business

Week coming up next. I call him a friend of the show, Jason flam He's a founding board member of the Innocence Project on Racial injustice, and we caught up with him once again to talk about the impact of the past three weeks reminding us about how those most vulnerable populations are targeted really unfairly. He's a job. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some of the most important and we hope informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business week radio show across the week, and it feels like every conversation we have Carol is complicated in many ways. You know, we spent so many weeks saying, all right, how are you dealing with this pandemic? How are you dealing with it personally? And now there's a whole other layer, and

it's a complex one. And so going back to some of our tried and true voices and voices who are right in the midst of this feels that much more important. Well, one of those voices, Jason, is Jason flam He's the CEO and founder of Lava Records, founding board member of the Innocence Project. He's also host of the powerful podcast Wrongful Conviction. He spoke with us about the death of George Floyd and the resulting civic unrest as once again

the vulnerable population is disproportionately being impacted. This is this is about so much more than the killings that we see, the police killings that we've been seeing recently on videotape that have been reported so widely that beyond the Taylor, of course, we we all know about that. A lot

of Aubrey, etcetera. What we're seeing I believe is a reaction to the systemic persecution of people of color in our criminal legal system at every phase, right, And most of it is behind the scenes, and but it's very, very real. We have almost eleven million people cycling in and out of jail in prison every year in America. Eleven million. It's insane. And so the jail churn of just these black bodies being taken and you know, and just brutalized at every step of the game is is

something that had to burst. And you know, now there's this visible, you know, lynching, the slow motion lynching, and finally it's crystallized everyone to come together in a way that's never happened before. So how do we collectively keep the momentum to a point, Jason, where there's real structural change, because, as you say, it's well beyond police brutality. Are we thinking as broadly and and at the same time as specifically about some of those things that need to change

more structurally? Yeah, I mean, I hope so. And it's interesting because there's no one particular thing that everyone is demanding, right, right. The fact is that we want people want, and it's so interesting that this is I think the first, Well, first of all, it's the biggest movement I think probably ever. You have all fifty states and at least eighteen other countries with these massive protests and which are almost exclusively peaceful by the one that's just got that out of

the way. So I think we're starting to see changes, right. You just mentioned on the news break the Confederate flag and being taken from NASCAR events. Right, these things are symbolic, but they're meaningful in my opinion. Interesting that that happened on the same day that the President said that he's not going to um allowed the Confederate names to be

taken off of military basis UM. So it's it's interesting that NASCAR and the White House are on different ends of the You know that that argument, and NASCAR is obviously right. So Jason and I think this is very relevant to the event that you're talking about, the Zoom event you're having tomorrow that you were describing with us before, and we'll talk about it again before we wrap up. But you know, I've really been wrestling with this, and

I daresay Carol has as well. We have teenagers, were trying to have these conversations with our kids about this, and I know a lot of parents are trying to have conversations with their teenagers twenty years old, twenty year old, and and and up. You know, this is a generation that's very socially engaged. They want to do something. They don't necessarily have the life experience that that maybe we have,

and don't understand some of the complexities of this. And yet we want them to be engaged and we want them to be informed. How do you recommend having those types of conversations. Well, there's so many great resources that you can go to. Right, there's a wonderful new book out called Usual Cruelty by Alek Car Katzanis that really ripped the lid off of how we have you know, created and and perpetuated the system that is designed to crush human beings, to cage them and crush them for

economic gain. Of course, people in our criminal institutions, right, and we have almost ten thousand jails in prisons in this country, which is insane, right, But are black, It's like it's crazy, right, we have more people in prison, more black people in prison right now than we ever had enslaved at any particular time in the history of slavery. So, you know, but but again, I mean, there's so many great things. Watched thirteen the movie right, watch the Innostance Files, sorry,

the Innocence Files on Netflix. Um, you know, there's there are so many great things to follow on my Instagram, which is it's Jason Flam. I t s Jason Flam. I'm always highlighting things that I think are important too for people to focus on. But yeah, the minute you get into this, it becomes like a rabbit hole, right. And I'm hoping your kids and other kids of their generation will take this and and and make it their their cause because this is the worst failed social policy

disaster of our lifetimes, you know. So and I and I guess it's interesting too, and I and I appreciate what you said there because I do think, especially in light of you know, so many people saying so many different things, being able to focus the conversation on incarceration specifically, I do think it's helpful because I think, as you said before, we did some news, you know, this idea of like everybody is sort of casting about and and this is a very you know, just stark reality, and

you just described it really well and to sort of point people toward that specific part of the system, which is I think empirically broken. I think I think no one would be like, no, it's going great. You know, it's a it's it's very pointed. So I appreciate that. I guess I think something little shut sorry, go ahead, No, no, please, Jason,

go go ahead. I was gonna say. I think something that will really surprise a lot of your listeners is that the number one arrest, the number one reason for arrest in America and jailing is driving on a suspended license. As you can guess, the overwhelming majority of those people that are arrested for this and and jailed, and of course they are over the over index in every aspect

of the system. They're the most arrested, are the most prosecuted, they get the highest sentences, they get the longest sentence. Is they have, you know, the longest probation periods are people of color. So the fact is that these are not dangerous people. And then there's fines and fees, and they get charged with these fines and fees. They get put back into the system because they can't pay these

fines and fees. So it just becomes a NonStop churn that disrupts families and communities and creates this hostile, terrible, you know, feeling amongst people who are being again put down and persecuted. And and that's why I hope people will follow um Civil Rights Core is a great thing to follow on Instagram or and the same thing the book Usual Cruelty by that same guy who's really upending that system but working on So Jason, what else needs

to change? Because this is not you know something again that like just happened overnight, right, it's you know, we had um one guest on who from Horred and she just talked about you know, we've been fighting racism for four hundred years and then some you know, so what is it? Is it? Education? Is it? Neighborhoods? Is it? You know, I've been having conversations. We were talking about you know, who we socialize with, and you know what,

what what's wrong? What's broken down in our system? What needs to be the first one two steps to change? You know the racism that is obviously still rampant in America. Well, I think that when people talk about defunding the police, what they're really saying is and there's not a better word for us to us that they use. But they're saying,

take some of this money. Right. Where you have cities, major cities who have over their budgets that are devoted to police and corrections, right, take some of that money away and put it into community you know, um enrichment. Right,

put it into programs that actually help people. And let's bear in mind that only less than four of nine one one calls are for anything violent, right, So, and we can't expect police officers to be trained to deal with the mental health crisis or someone in the drug situation who's having a reaction, or someone who is uh stuck on the side of the road, no matter what it is, they show up in this highly militarized way,

and bad things happen. Now, the racism, the systemic racism, is a whole another issue, and that's something we have to deal with it. There's a soft racism, right, and I think we all have to do a couple of things. We have to look at our company. So many people that are listening are people who run our our big wigs and important businesses. Look at your hiring practices, look

at your portfolio as well. I encourage your listeners to look at your portfolio, call your your investment person or maybe your your own and look and see if you have any investments in companies that benefit from the from the caging of human beings, and if you do divest. That's Jason Flam founding board member of The Innocence Project. He's host of Wrongful Conviction, the podcast, founder and CEO of Lava Records. Someone well known to the recording industry.

Made certainly his mark there, but he's also now making a mark Jason on giving voices to those that are often unheard in our society, including those who are wrongfully incarcerated. And what I liked about him is he's very prescriptive in some ways, and I think we look to people like him who know the issues so well. He's also focused, I think, at a time where we're all looking for something tangible, and I think being able to distill what we're seeing in the broader world down to this issue

of incarceration, mass incarceration. Obviously the wrongfully Convicted is his very specific passion. But what he's able to bring in terms of understanding this system that we have built that, as you say, disproportionately affects a very vulnerable part of the conversation. It's a really important thing to understand right now well, and he said, it's about so much more than the killings we've seen on videotape. It's a reaction

to the systemic prosecution to people of color. And he just talked about basically, you know, putting money into programs that make a difference. And he said, for investors, you gotta look at your portfolio and see how you can make a difference. You know, money talks. We've said this many times over the past few weeks. And that wraps up the first hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser.

Plenty coming up in our next hour, we're gonna go inside the magazine for a look at how one company, Shopify, is enjoying a big moment and hoping it lasts. It's all because of the virus. Letus. We'll catch up with John Rogers of Aerial Investments, one of the best known names in investing. He'll talk about this moment where we find ourselves. It's a critical one, especially as a leading African American voice. He knows what it's going to take

to really make some fundamental changes. Yeah, we're at a critical moment, and this is a critical voice on the subject. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations that we had on our daily radio show throughout the week. This, of course, as news continued to evolve around us, one of the voices we were looking forward to catching with

is John Rogers. He's the co CEO and founder of Aerial Investments. Jason a well known firm in the investment in financial community, ten billion dollar fund manager, uh and he really was one of those voices we needed to hear from. Well, I think that, you know, our huge problem in this country is the wealth gap has just gotten larger and larger over the last forty years. I could have never imagined when I started Arial in nineteen

eighty three that that would be the case. I just continue to think we would benefit from the civil rights movement of the sixties, but it just hasn't happened. As you know, the data shows from Ray Basar's data at the Fellow Reserve St. Louis. Between n and twenty sixteen, African American college educated folks saw their wealth decline, while college educated white saw their wealth increased nine. That's dramatic,

and we're going backwards. What we have to do to improve things is we have to get corporations to not only hire more executive more African Americans and executive ranks and leadership roles, but we have to do business with African American companies and everything we do outside the just construction and catering and the supplier diversity things, we need to move to doing business with African Americans and the part of the economy that's grolling today financial services, professional services,

and technology. And I think we actually have to do away with that term supplier diversity and use with the University of Chicago uses and calls business diversity. So we can have a strong African American entrepreneurial community that will provide jobs and philanthropy for urban communities, and that would be something that would be critical to move our country forward. What about the investment industry, particularly John and how they can make a difference. You know, we've talked a lot

about E S g funds. They've been around for a while, and yet I think many would argue they haven't necessarily helped move the needle when it comes to erasing racism in our country. Well, as you know, private equity has gotten to be so so powerful, venture capital become more and more important, both in Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. So we need to have you know, most most places have never had a black executive. Most major private equity firms and venture capital firms have never had a black

managing director or a black partner. So we need to be included in those lucrative parts of our economy that not only make a lot of wealth for people to work in them, but they have so much impact on the companies that they bring public. Uh often when they bring these companies public, a lot of them, when the a lot of companies have come through the private equity or venture capital network, have never had an African American

on their boards. And so that's so important because there's so much influence that the giant private equity firms have in our society and our venture capital firms have in our society. We've got to be included in that part of the economy. If we really want to move the

ball down the field. And so John, on that point, I'm so interested in what you just said, because it feels like the folks who might be able to make a difference in the behavior or of the venture capitalists and the private equity firms are the ultimate investors there. Those are big pension funds and endowments and folks you know very well. Is there the will on the part of some of those big institutional investors to force this issue a little bit? You know, it's interesting I think

with the it's fallen through the cracks. Basically, the major public pension funds have done a terrific job of pushing public companies to have diversity on their boards, but they haven't gotten to that next level of all these privately held businesses where they actually had. You can argue, you have more influence because they're writing these big checks to these private equity firms. So if they say they've got

to embrace diversity, it would happen, it would change. And then secondly, you're right, the nonprofits have been actually the worst. They've also fallen through the cracks. They get a lot

of government money. Um, they have so much powered influence if the Ivy League schools and the and the big company and the big schools like Notre Dame and Michigan and throughout the country push this agenda, those companies, those private equity companies and venture capital companies would have to uh change their ways because the most most important customers

are pushing them to do the right thing. We're speaking with John Rodgers, the CEO of Airline Investments, and John, I want to just continue on this if we can for a moment, I had a big private equity manager say to me earlier today, in fact, that we were at a very interesting moment here in twenty where if you look at E s G. Environmental, Environmental, Social, and governance, you know, the E was sort of like capital E for the It feels like the last six months to

a year, you know a lot of folks were getting behind that, and now here in mid twenty twenty, maybe the S is getting a little bit more attention. What do we need to keep that attention there? Well? I think that, uh, not only do we need to get the nonprofits and the big tension funds to ask these questions around diversity and inclusion, but also our political leaders

continue can can make a real difference. You know what's happening in Congress right now, where we have progressive leaders like Maxine Waters and Joyce Bady, the congresswoman, who are very engaged in leadership of the Financial Services Committee of the House. They've been able to impact and force financial institutions to do more around diversity and inclusion. We need to get more progressive elected officials like that interested in

bringing economic parity into our society. Because you're right, people gotten enthralled with important issues around the environment and all those types of issues that are critical, but they stopped asking about economic justice the way the old days. Generald Washington is the mayor of Chicago and Maynard Jackson when he was the mayor of Atlanta, they asked these tough

questions and we've gotten away from it. So we kinda sort of almost go back to the future and get our political leaders to push this agenda and also our civil rights leaders to remind people that economic justice is so import Where does it all start, though, John, You know, we've had a lot of conversations about kind of where you're born determines what kind of education you get, which

determines what kind of job you get. Which determines what kind of benefits healthcare you name it, that you get, and kind of you know, determines your place in society. So where do where do we start? We throw a lot of money at healthcare, we throw a lot of money at education, and yet here are the gap still right. One of the things that you know, it's clear that when you have successful the wealth is the key. You know,

wealth is at the heart of it. You know, if you have equal wealth, you're going to have equal education, You're going to have equal health care, You're going to have an opportunity to have a successful retirement, etcetera, etcetera. This is a capitalist democracy we're part of, and if African Americans are left out of the economic equation, we're

going to suffer all the ills of our society. And that's John Rogers of Aerial Investments one of the most important voices I feel like we talked to this week because he sits at the nexus of so many things that we are interested in and need to be interested in right now. It's about access to capital, it's about

access to opportunity. It's about how investors look at this moment and what may fundamentally change going forward, not just related to the civil unrest that we're seeing and the opportunities that we need to be thinking about for more vulnerable parts of our society, but also how the world of money may change in the wake of the coronavirus. Really enjoyed it. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up,

we hear from Cathy Wood, CEO at Our Investment. With so many changes going on in our world and the world being disrupted, Kathy is one of the more thoughtful voices when it comes to how that impacts our corporate world, our financial world, our investment world. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason

Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're being some of the most important, we hope, thoughtful conversations we have on our Bloomberg Business Week daily radio show about where we are this state of the world. Carol, it is uncertain and it is, to say the least disrupted. And one of the voices we got to Jason was Cathy would

CEO at our Investment. Our audience knows her well. She's a top performing fund manager and really a thoughtful observer of our investment world, in our world at large, and so we caught up with her about some of the trends that we're seeing and some of those that might

stay in the companies that stand to benefit. Tell us a little bit about running the firm at this point and sort of what that's like, and any even like subtle or or maybe more than subtle changes that you made in terms of managing because you have a very cohesive team, you know, we've talked to you a lot about that over the years, and a very engaged team with each other. H Yeah, it's been very interesting. I was I was concerned. We didn't want to lose any

of that. And so to this day, every morning meeting, everyone in the firm is on and UH we talked. I just we check one of our our client PM and his wife just had a baby, so you know, we start the conversation that we just keep in touch and keep you know, showing concern for one another. UH, and then we get into our research meetings. So I actually think we've bonded even more closely throughout this ordeal,

and our productivity has been incredible. Marketing UH Marketing launched a completely new website in the middle of all of this, Um, you should take a look. It's really phenomenal and uh and and our communication and marketing is key to this. We've been over communicating. I don't know if people feel that way, but uh, their mantras over communicate, over communicate, So we are we are. We've become pretty prolific in

this time period. I feel like you can't over communicate at a time like this, Kathy, I have to ask you about you know, everything that's gone on the last three months and really the last two weeks. You know how you see it in the discussions you're having with your investment team and your employers just generally, you know, your employees generally about how it impacts our world. And I guess ultimately you know, I get you know our investment world at all. You know as well, it's all connected.

I think you know, we have a very young team, and so for those who are in New York and have had to be in New York the whole time, for some of them, it's been lonely. That's why I wanted to make sure that we kept engaged and we we get together many times during the week, different kinds of meetings, but that first one in the morning, I

think is really important just to gage how everybody's feeling. Um. So I think that many of our employees though, have gone to their homes and uh, we have Morocco, we have Germany, we have Canada, uh and and really, I think we've all worked really hard to to you know, keep the communication lines completely open so we have no trouble. We have less trouble getting hold of one another than we did before when we were all in an open

space office where there were a few conference rooms. So, um, I think our you know, our video and uh, we we use teams off just because for for security reasons, but we've been using Zoom as well depending on the call. So I mean, I think these tools have improved our productivity enormously. Kathy, you're someone who invested in a lot of the big tech names. Right. We've talked about Amazon, We've talked about Tesla, We've talked about so many of them.

A lot of them have also been very vocal about especially we just talked about Jeff Bezos and what he has talked about Black Lives Matter and kind of an exchange he's had with some folks on social media, and I do wonder, you know, as you look at big tech and their response, and maybe there are responsibilities to society, you know as a whole. I just wonder how you

see it. Obviously, I think compassion is the order of the day, and I think showing compassion for you know, the communities and the people, and I think it's all of us actually have been her and distraught over all of this. UM that's been important. We um. If you if you were to take a look at our team page at our dash invest dot com, you will see how diverse a team we have and how we all

had to rally around each other. And uh, you'll also see the statement we put up and uh you will see, uh you won't see some things that you might expect to see because we don't want to get caught in a crossfire, a political cross fire, so to speak. Uh, we just want to lay it out there. We're doing. We're certainly talking to talk at our invest uh in terms of the kind of team. And I have never had a better team never. I think the diversity has been phenomenal for us. So you know, we like to

lead by example. That's certainly what I think we're doing now. We weren't afraid to make a statement. Uh. And you know many asset managers I think stay away from all

of this completely. That's Kathy Wood, CEO at ARC Investment, And we check out our funds, whether it's the Innovation e t F, that Next Generation Internet e t F, her fintech innovation, her genomic Revolution e t F. I mean, Jason, these are top performers consistently, and so she really is at the crossroads of the changes, the disruptions that are going on in our society and the companies that are smack in the middle of it and that stand to benefit.

I agree. You're listening to Bloomberg Business weekend speaking of companies that stand to benefit. Coming up, we're gonna hear from Red Antler, chief brand officer and co founder Emily Heyward. She's got a new book. It's called Obsessed, Building a brand people love from day one. This was a conversation that both of us did not want to end. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So we're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had and what was another really busy week here at Bloomberg. These are our conversations on our daily radio show, dealing about so many different things, Jason, the market's reopenings, disruption in our world, civil unrest, uh, and really the responsibility

of companies and brands against the backdrop of all of this. Well, and that's becoming more and more important to us as consumers. You and I talked about it all the time. We talked about it with our kids as well, and all of that came up with Emily Hayward. She's the co founder chief brand officer over at red Antler. They've worked with tons of companies that you know. This week she put out her new book, it's called Obsessed, Building a

brand people love from day one. We've really seen a movement unfold over the past decade where category after category is being disrupted by startups and people are really rethinking the brands that they're loyal to, the everyday items that they buy, and who they really want to give their money to. And you know, over the years, I've seen what it takes to build a modern brand and how you can capture hearts in whole new ways, and really

how you need to. Um. So the book is all about the new rules of branding and new ways to form connections with consumers or frankly get left behind. And you have to do it, Emily, from day one, right, you have to know your brand from the get go. Well, I think it certainly helps to do it from day one. You know, I would never want to tell an established a company that it's too late for them. I also think it's never that's not good for business either, Emily,

is it. Well, that's true. But I'm also an internal optimist, and I think everybody you know has the chance to be relevant again. Um, but I do think it certainly helps that so many of these companies are really able to build their meaning and their purpose into who they are from the very beginning. But you but you do talk about like you say that you know, founders think that branding is something you think about once you figured out all the important stuff. I'm kind of reading from

your book here, you know. But you say, you know you've got to really be thinking about this early on. Yeah. Absolutely. When we started Ranntler in two thousand seven, the ethos of the day was like the lean startup, you know, it was like get out there, make sure you have product markets fit, put your way to success, and then worry about your brand. But our hypothesis was actually that the sooner you start thinking about brand, the more set

up for success you'll be. And I think we see examples of businesses that really took an incredibly thoughtful approach to brand from the beginning, and we're able to just come out of the gates, you know, at full fourth and gained momentum and press and word of mouth, and ultimately we're able to sort of unseat the competition in a way that I don't think they ever would have been able to achieve if they had taken a halfway up.

All right, so give us a one minute case study. Yeah, so, I think Casper, which you brought up, is an excellent example of that because before Castper launched, nobody thought you could sell a mattress through e commerce. You know, it was impossible, right, people had to try it out. And if they had put up a sort of dinky website being like, hey, let's see if people are willing to make this eight hundred fifty dollar purchase online without ever sleeping on the bed, they would have gotten what I

would call a false negative. You know, I don't think people would have fallen for that brand in the way they did. Now. Of course, they've faced out challenges since then, certainly because there's been hundreds of copycats because of what the fantastic and phenomenal job they did. But I do think it was brand that enabled them to build that trust, change consumer behavior and gets people to make a very high ticket, high stakes purchase site unseen from a brand

that they had never heard of. One of the things Jason and I have been wondering Emily is, you know, with everything that's gone on over the past twelve weeks, with everything that's gone over the past two and a half weeks following what happened in Minneapolis, you know, I do wonder what impact that has on companies, on leaders, and you know, what it means to be a brand in our society today and and will it matter to consumers ultimately going forward? I absolutely think it's going to

matter to consumers more and more and more. And I think that this movement towards brands taking accountability happened before the moment that we currently find ourselves in. You know, consumers have more choice, more information, and more power than ever before, and that's only getting greater and grand greater, and they're using that power to demand change and accountability

and action, and I think it's phenomenal. And I think that brands to think they can just sort of like stay behind the curtain and not get engaged are going to find that their loyalty quickly. A wrote, So, Emily, help us understand through your work, you know, and some of the brands that you've worked with, what does the

right consumer engagement look like? And I know authenticity and transparency are all key aspects of this, but you know, there are also a lot of brands going after the consumer right now, and the Internet is a great equalizer in many ways, and there are a lot of people who are clever, and even a lot of people who are well funded. But I wonder, as you've tried to distill down that secret sauce, what do you find. I think it's recognizing that brand is not a layer that

sits on top. It's not just having a cool logo or a great ad campaign or a socially conscious ad campaign. I think that brand needs to start from within. And the brands that are succeeding today have an incredibly clear idea of their purpose and of the problem and solving for people. They have a baked in relevance that's about adding more value to people's lives, and then they can bring that to life through all the ways they tell

their story. But if you don't start with that meaning, it's just gonna be shallow and people are going to see through it. So one thing I wanted to ask you and Jason I talked about this a lot too. We both have teenagers, and you know both of our all of our teenagers. You know, look at a company what it stands for or we're looking at you know, where things are made, if it's a food product, you know,

ingredients and all that kind of stuff. But I wonder, you know, in terms of brands, how much the consumer is responsible from moving the needle and in an environment where the virus has exposed it emily as well as you know what happened in Minneapolis. You know there are people who are just struggling to put food on their table and a roof over their heads, you know, who do a lot of purchasing as well. Though, you know, is it are we overstating the importance of kind of

what a brand stands for how they do things. So I guess, to me, I don't think that there's any way to oversee the importance of doing the right thing. And I think that this moment is less about what you're posting on Instagram and more about sort of how you're looking at your own internal culture and you're hiring practices and how you're promoting black voices within and without of your company, you know. So to me, like it does don't necessarily need to be about brands investing, you know,

hundreds of millions of dollars in ad campaigns about social justice. Frankly, I'd rather than put that money towards programs that help people then worry so much about their external reputation. And I think that if brands have that internal commitment and are doing the right thing, consumers are going to recognize that and support that more than that. Are just the loudest about talking to talk. So tell us something about

putting this book together. I mean, we do wanna, you know, give some nice love to it because it's out today, obsessed building a brand people love from day one. I mean I wonder about I mean, it's a little different from what you do in your day job, like, what was fun about it, what was challenging about it? And

maybe surprising. So the most challenging thing for me was that my day job is all about taking the most complicated thing you can imagine, you know, an entire business and every feature and fund, the piece of functionality and just throwing it into you know, four words, right, Whereas when you're writing a book, it's almost the opposite skills that you know, you really need to take an idea and expand on it and bringing examples and make sure

that people are understanding it from all angles. So just dealing with the blank page was incredibly daunting after spending a career of trying to be as absolutely sustinct as possible. Um, but it was also, you know, so much fun to really think back on all the amazing examples I have from companies that I've gotten to partner with and entrepreneurs I admire, as well as just brands I admire as

a consumer. You know, I bring up a lot of examples in the book that I didn't work on and got to sort of put on my consumer lens and think about what are the brands I love just being out there in the world and observing them and buying them. What brands do you love? Good question. Well, I'm very excited about a recent launch of hours Um. That's a brand called jot. It's a new at home coffee product and it came just in time. You know, everybody was

already in lockdown. We actually pushed the launch off a few weeks because it was the post to launch, like the week of pandemic hits um. But it really has been an incredible addition to my routine and I'm proud of the brand that we put together there. And it's one of those things where the products great, the brand is great, the site is great. It all comes together, which again I think it's table safe. These days, Jason and I are both j o K. Jason and I

are both googling it is there a brand? What about? What? Like the older? Is an older brand out there that you just are like, man, they have just consistently continued to evolve and get it right. Yeah, I'll give it a hattet to Levi's for that. They're a brand that continues to stay relevant. I think they've stayed true to who they are while also adapting to the changing times, and they've really leaned into the fact that heritage can be a badge of authenticity, which you know is a buzzword,

but it's really important to people. Yeah. Interesting and ever Lane is that is that a company you've worked with, No, ever Lyne is not a client um, but you know they're obviously one of I think the very and the director consumer movement, and it really sort of led the way and a lot of discussion around transparency, you making your labor practice is known, and sustainability and pricing. So I write about them in the book and I desire

a lot of things done and that's right. Antler's Chief brand Officer Emily Heyward, author of the new book Obsessed, Building a brand people love from day one, didn't want this conversation to end, as you said, Carol, in part because she's so smart. She is talking to these entrepreneurs all the time understanding and this is an overused word, their passion. But how that translates into really connecting with people and man, if there is something we are all

looking for right now, it's a connection. And if you think about the brands that have connected us more recently, that includes brands like All Birds, Casper and Birch Box. She has worked with all of them in terms of developing their strategies, so this was definitely a voice we wanted to hear from. That wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for running us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly.

Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time. You can also watch the show live on YouTube. Just search for Bloomberg Global News. We'll be back right here next week at the same time. This is Bloomberg