Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - March 25th, 2022

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. A hawkish round of FED speakers, including Chair J. Powell, created another round of volatility in financial markets as they concerned over the ongoing war in Ukraine and also COVID cases on an upswing because of the omencron b A two sub variant. All of that tim are backdrop this week, and on that last point, just about the latest variant coming up our story on our new state of uncertainty around vaccines, questioning their long

term efficacy and which variance new boosters should target. We're all gonna get a lot more shots, aren't we. Yeah? I think so? All right, feels that way. It's also the equality issue of Bloomberg Business Week. We'll hear about efforts to end weight discrimination in the workplace and the wish from more diversity on Wall Street. All of that ahead We begin though, with our editors round table and

the story of Silicon Valley's wealthiest Russian. You're A Milner is a venture capitalist who built a three point nine billion dollar fortune thanks to early funding from Kremlin connected sources, but he says that's all in the past. Business Week editor Joel Webber and Bloomberg News venture capital reporter Sarah McBride joining us to explain how Milner is working to distance himself from Vladimir Putin. You're A Milner is a huge name in the VC world, um, Airbnb, Ali Baba, Twitter, Facebook,

Woll mentioned some mothers soon. These are huge companies. He was very early and basically helping build them, and that money was connected to m to the Kremlin, people close to the Kremlin, and Urie has been sort of like one of the main people that we've been wanting to talk to ever since Russia invaded Ukraine. And then Sarah got an amazing access to him and spent some time talking to him and would you learn so well. He is a little bit frustrated. He says he's never met

President Putin. He cut pie for the Russia years ago. The biggest backer he had with the Magnet called Alisha usman Off and he says he hasn't even um met with him and at least five years. So he says he's doing what he can to put some distance between himself and uh, these Kremlin connected sources that in this kind of atmosphere where there's so much animosity toward Russia there behind this bloody war, any type of tie comes

under scrutiny. So he's gonna touch position. And I asked him whether if he could go back in time, if he would still take that money. Just got him in so much hot water now And it was interesting. He's such a scientist, she said, I can't go back in time, haven't you, said, Albert, I'm seine, you can't get back. You can go forward only. And I was like, okay, okay, well what about if you could? And he was like, no, no, I can't kick the money. It's in the past, it's done.

I've got to deal with it kind of thing. So his his chateau has always been the center of Silicon Valley action, um really memorable parties through the years. There's also a number of people in that world, in the VC world who are speaking up to back him up right, who are some of the people that you you heard from. Yeah,

he's got some very loyal friends. UM. Perhaps the most prominent is Mark and Jason, another venture capitalist who's also backed Facebook since early days, who had March first tweeted how how highly he thinks that Ury Milmer and and he thinks very moment is a very high integrity person. UM. There were other people who, once they reached out to him and asked, what do you think if you're a mimer sent me messages saying to say, also think he hasn't been anything wrong and how highly they can get

his ethics. Among them, I spoke to Lyon Peterson, who learns a unicorn company called flex Sport. The just back Uri very very strongly. There's another Ukrainian um born entrepreneur. He learns a company called the firm, Max Lundin. Um. There were a lot of people who were willing to stand up for Urie. Sarah, you got incredible access to Urie. Can we say hours and hours on zoom? What was that? What was it like talking to him? I mean, give us an idea of the conversation, what he was like

to take us into how the sausage was made. Yeah, I've known him not well, but I have known him for a long time, and the first time I met him, he just sat down and talked about all his science initiatives, because definitely to being an incredibly savvy investor, used to study physics, and he has a deep interest in science,

in particular outer space. Instead of building a rocket company, he's been fending off his basic science, in particular search to see if there's extra terrestrial life, which you know, to me just founded cookie, but he's taking it very seriously and he's got all these scientific endeavors to try to figure that out. So I think he saw that I was interested in that part of his work, and for whatever reason, that is what made him feel comfortable

talking to me over the phone. That it wasn't entirely comfortable because I had to ask him all these uncomfortable questions about Russia, and if you know how they knew for sure there was no further Russian money and the funds than what they were doing to and comply with no your customer. But yeah, he was sitting in a hotel room in Dubai on zoom and you know, I was in the office one time, I was at home one time. You know, at different places in my apartment,

and uh, it was just very interesting. And at first, you know, he wanted to keep it very um much by the facts. And then on a subsequent phone call, he pulled out a photograph of himself as a kid in Ukraine. And then I asked him as he could use that photograph in the article because it just spoke

so powerfully. I had no idea, but apparently its father is from Ukraine, and so you're he spent a lot of time as a kid visiting relatives in Ukraine, and he was telling me how they still had family friends there that he was helping to rescue this recently, as over the weekend, that was Bloomberg News Venture Capital reporter Sarah McBride along with a Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel

Weber coming up. Our editor's roundtable continues, taking us to Hong Kong and how it went from COVID zero to one of the world's deadliest outbreaks, plus how college athletes are making cash and what's becoming more than five million dollar business. That was quick. That was really quick. I mean we're talking within hours of that ruling, right, Isn't that amazing? Amazing? Makes you realize how much was like in the works just waiting. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week.

It is marked madness too. Let's not forget this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. The city that had kept the pandemic at bay for nearly two years now finds itself with an unprecedented outbreak gathering pace and college athletes are finally getting to cash in. Two more

stories we tackled in this week's editor's round Table. First up, though, we go to Hong Kong, which has seen over five thousand COVID fatality since the start of the year in what's being called one of the deadliest outbreaks the entire pandemics. Pretty amazing. For that story, we got more with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber and the reporter who wrote it,

Bloomberg News Senior Asia Government reporter Ian Marlowe. The situation in Hong Kong is in right now is even more stark because we basically have style outbreak happening in after two years of everything that the world has learned about the pandemic after you know, well over a year of being able to kind of roll out vaccines and again, Hong Kong in just the city, it's it's it's it's a big one, seven point four million roughly, but its vaccination rates were way lower than you know, large fully

sized countries. And as the vaccination process unfolded, I think there was a feeling that it was going to take some kind of scary situation, some kind of outbreak for people to actually be frightened into getting the shot. And that was unfortunately what happened here. And you know, Hong Kong is ultra dense, a lot of high rises. It just raced again through this city and through a lot of the elderly care homes. So it's even more tragic.

I think that they were unable to push through a profit vaccination program for this, and that they actually let a lot of politics, uh get in the way of that whole. I want to stick on the on the politics side of this end, because all of this happening, well in the background, we're seeing a massive transformation of Hong Kong. China's role in Hong Kong changing significantly in the last couple of years and I'm wondering how we should read into that at a time when the world

is watching. Yeah, I mean, I think it's been an unprecedented period of volatility for Hong Kong, starting with sometimes violent democracy protests in twenty nineteen that captured the world's attention, and then was swiftly followed by both the pandemic and a gradual crackdown on Hong Kong that saw the National Security legislation put in place that basically effectively banned the sent Um and led to the arrest and jailing of the entire political opposition UH and then an overhaul of

the city's elections which prevented anyone with anti government views from basically running for office. And so what you've had in Hong Kong is the sort of denuding of the political land, gif of any sort of person who can put their hand up and say things, aren't you going very well right now? I mean, China has come out and said, you know, the state broadcaster G, President G instructing officials to put people in life at the forefront.

Will anything change? Will anything get better? Hong Kong just the other day relaxed a couple of rules. They said they're lifting a flight van on you know, Americans, Canadians and Brits, and they're reducing the two week mandatory quarantine to seven days. But in general it does not look like they are relaxing in any way that sort of broader COVID zero approach that mainland China has. So it's

a huge powder keg. And I think Chinese officials are looking at Hong Kong and saying this is proof that we can't relax, and I think Hong Kong largely agrees with that, So I don't think there's going to be any major changes. That's Bloomberg News Senior Asia Government reporter Ian Marlowe Joe staying with us once again as we get to another Business Week story with a timely peg

amid and seed ap a March madness. Well, college athletes are finally making cash from meeting greets and marketing deals. The n C double A lifting its athletes name, image and likeness restrictions just last June and since then the player deals well, they have created a more than five hundred million dollar business and counting. Bloomberg News Global Business reporter Ira Boudway wrote the story along with Bloomberg's kimbas seen Ira joined us along with Business Week editor Doole Weber.

What's really interesting about this is that for the for some of the most prominent athletes who have massive social media following, that can actually mean a lot of money, but for everybody else it starts to look a little paltry, And I think that disparity is really interesting. Wait, are you going to make fun of the bloomen onion can onion which I was going to explain in a second.

The other thing that it's created is this whole cottage industry that surrounds athletes from advisors and agents on down who are also you know, cashing in on it. So Ira, explain who you talk to and how many bloomen onions you while reporting the story. We talked to athletes, We talked to athletic directors, we talked to agents, We talked to this platform Open Doors, that's sort of a marketplace connecting athletes and brands. We talked to uh, the chief

marketing officer of bloom and Brands. They have long done deals around March Madness. They created the three point bloomen onion for March Madness, and they were one of the first big brands to do a deal with a large group of players, first in football in the fall and now in basketball, and they created meals. So C. J. Strout of Ohio State had his special meal that included the Bloomin onion. But yeah, that is right. There's a huge disparity here from top to bottom in this market.

As you were saying, if it really sort of there's football and there's everything else, and really there's SEC football

and there's everything else. As we were reporting this, there was The Athletic had a story about a recruit coming into the University of Tennessee who was offered an eight million dollar package and that has got that is basically for a series of amitments, right to show up at events, meet and greets, to hand over all of his name, image likeness rights like his you know, they can use his face, his name on whatever they want for a

limited time, I guess or wise. Yeah, So that deal is interesting because it pays out over years and and you're not allowed to stipulate in these contracts that they have to be at a certain school. So this one's from a donor collective, which is a group of boosters who get together, pool their money and try to make sure that the players at their favorite school have the sweetest n i L deals. But the problem is they can't officially say this is for coming to our school.

So this is where it gets really murky, really fast sports for so long, right, the separation I feel like a church and state a little bit like keeping it pure if you're not a coach or the school making ten million bucks a year. And this is the problem, right, there's huge money in collegiate sports, So how do we

make sure it kind of still stays clean? Yeah, I mean, I think the thing to remember is that for most athletes, for the tens of thousands of athletes who are now able to make pocket money from this, it really doesn't change that sort of sense of amateurism impurity. They can now go and do entrepreneurial things like teach a class online and get money for it or give someone a shout out, which is great because a lot of these guys, and you putting your story like some of them were

living on like no money. Right, if you're a player, you don't have resources. Remember top Ramen you right, And these guys they don't have time to have a side job. A lot of the time so they are doing their sport, they're doing school, and they're cash strapped, many of them.

And this is a way to on a Saturday. You bang out four or five commitments, you send a TikTok whatever it is that you promised to do, and now you've got a few hundred, maybe a few thousand dollars in your pocket, which is a big deal for a

college kid. Our thanks to the editor of Business Week, Joe Webber, along with Bloomberg News Global business reporter Ira Boudway, venture capital reporter sharaon McBride, and senior Asia government reporter Ian marlow Well Ian Marlowe's story covering the COVID surgeon Hong Kong in part because of that low vaccination rate there well. Speaking of vaccines, coming up next the Big Farmer Free for all when it comes to boosters until

there's a universal vaccine, Get ready for more shots. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country. Sirius XM CHADO one nine team and around the globe, the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot com. This is Bloomberg Business Week.

But a third of US COVID cases are now attributed to the omicron BA to sub variant that from the U S c d C just this past week. And well, current vaccines are holding up pretty well against the latest strain. Figuring out which variants future COVID boosters should target and when the shots might be needed is a murky work in progress. Well, tim one thing for certain, get ready for more shots. We hear more from Business Week editor Joe Webber still with US and Bloomberg News healthcare reporter

Bob Blaine Grave. So it's all really kind of complicated and confusing scenario there, and I think that's why the f DAY is having, you know, this meeting on April six is kind of hash out, kind of with their advisors, kind of just general strategy going forward of this meeting they're having, you know, isn't even like considering the five mgennals applications which they put in emergency approval of fourth

shot for adults in the US. They're just like talk to the general freight American general strategy, who should get a fourth shot when? Potentially and then the other question they're going to look at it like when should you switch the composition of vaccine? When is it drifted and mutiated? Was when of the virus drifted and mutated enough that we need to alter update the compositions of vaccine And

that's a totally unsettled issue UH as well. So we have the potential that there could be some sort of emergency approval of a fourth shot of the existing five certain majournal vaccines in the US. Certainly we see you know, other countries starting to do that for older people, and that's already allowed in the US for immunecompromised people, and I think given the Fiser and Maderna applications, was potential of you know, for an expansion of that at least

in some age groups. But then both fires and Maderna are also testing on the con specific UH vaccines UH, and results from that those could come in in a few weeks through a couple of months, and that could provide you know, yet another update and get another sound

of application. So it's just a super complicated situation right now, and kind of the answers aren't totally clear, but Bobby, it also sounds like something that you're explaining is similar to what we see with a flu shot each and every year, and the way that a flu shot is developed and changed in order to go after whatever variant of the flu is expected. So couldn't it just be that we enter a world where every year we're getting

some sort of booster. I mean, after all, it was you know, about a year ago when we got our first chronic vaccines to this. Yeah, that's kind of one scenario that's out there that both the drug companies uh A Visor and MA journals kind of been talking about. Is the kind of one sort of model for the

way things will shake out. You know, what doesn't exist right now is any sort of consensus like there is with the flu shot of you know, how often shots should be updated and kind of with what there's no the flu we have that there's a World Health Organization body that analyzes flu strain from around the world and then twice a year that come together to kind of make some general recommendations what should be in the next year's flu shot, and then that's generally followed by the

drug companies. Right now, there is no, you know, such consensus and the public health authorities. So it's kind of like a free for all by the drug companies trying to get ahead of things and figure out, you know, what what we might need and what they might be able to sell. I mean, Bob, that's the point, right, we don't even kind of know what it's going to be, right that we would need to vaccinate against. Right, is it a sub variant? Is it what? I mean, what

is it? We just don't know exactly, you know, I just don't know. And so one of the things they are, both companies fising Majournal are testing the vaccine that would have a little bit of amicron in it, that strain specific vaccine against omicron, a little bit of the existing vaccine, kind of hybrid vaccine with the idea that we don't know what's going to be out there, so a little

bit of bit old, a little bit of new. So that's a possible scenario that you could be getting that shot in the fall, and you know fall that raises that other question of like, you know, basically, how long is any of this going to take? Right, and by this time that fall comes there, if we've already seen you know, we're on our third vary in the last six months, Like who knows where it could be by the fall, right, Yeah, I mean exactly, No one knows what's going to be out there in the fall of

the winter. Uh. And that's why there's definitely a very strong contingent researcher to say, you know, we're always going to be hindh going to be behind the eight ball chasing variants, and we really need to have a much more conservative effort, uh focused effort in coming up with, you know, a universal vaccine that would protect against you know,

multiple coronavirus strains and multiple types of coronavirus. Is so you only need to get that one, so maybe twice, and we need to change our focus more to that. But it's still always off that kind of universal vaccine which we all want. Well, what what we do know is and I was struck by and I know the amount of money that these drug companies have read that and you said, wait a second viserder eight billion in sales for Visor's vaccine Maderna. I guess it was like

almost eighteen billion. I mean it's a lot of money. We get it government support, Like this is all fueling it. It's big money for these guys. Oh yeah, it's enormous money. And there's a tremendous tremendous financial incentive for you know, coming up the model that they can sell round continuous rounds of new vaccines every you know, six months to

a year. So they both companies have a tremendous tremendous financial incentive and convincing either people or at least governments that they need to continually buy more and more vaccines because right now these like the biggest selling products in the medical parts in the world and they want to keep it going. That was Business Week utor Joe Webber and Blueberg News healthcare reporter Bob Lingred. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Still to come diversity on Wall Street

or should we say a lack thereof? Yeah, I think you got something there, Operation Hopes CEO John Hope, Bryant Marcus Shaw, CEO of Alt Finance on their collective efforts. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio, The curinash of Bloomberg Business we get a special double issue. It's the equality issue, and it coincides with this past

week's Bloomberg Live Equality Summit. The dual shocks of the pandemic and a profound reckoning on race led to greater calls for racial and economic equity. Here we are two years later, So how are we doing and what more is needed when it comes to accountability and action. Well, based on a lot of those conversations at the summit, there's a lot more to be done. We tackled all of this at the summit where I caught up with Marcus Shawn he's the CEO AL Finance Corporation, and John

Hope Ryan, founder chairman and CEO of Operation ho. We talked about efforts to boost diverse representation on Wall Street. Why are the board room sixty five year old white men? Because I went to school with that dude. I chase girls with that dude. It's not competence is trust, it's comfort zones, so you you hang out with your boys. Unfortunately, but by the way, black people do this too. We just unfortunately, if you hang around nine broke people, you'll

be the tenth. So a lot of a lot of black poles to hang out in places where are not We're not. It's not creating wealth, but we hang out with each other, and we all need to get out of our comfort zones. Number two Bill Clinton. President Bill Clinton once said, it's hard to get somebody to agree to the truth when the lies paying their paycheck. And you know the big example that is a prime mortgage crisis two thousand nine. When the lies paying your paycheck,

you rationalize, which is how rational lies. The lie is we have equality. The lie is that the opportunity is going around. It's you know, because it's working for you. All right, Well, okay, Marcus, come on in a decade, st Um, you were at one point the soul accrued for Bank of America. So yeah, it is a lonely feeling. Um. Wall Street has not had a tradition of building a lot of diversity in the workforce, particularly on the investment

side of the business. Those things are changing, and so you have many of the leaders, the first people that were the first woman, the first black person, the first minority on their desk or in their department. Many of those people are only fourty or fifty years old in this business. When you ask about what's different is we are now entering, I believe a third wave of civil rights, which is being led really by the private sector. The government has done a lot and continues to do more.

We saw that the House just past the Crown Act, right, so things are changing in real time. But in order to accelerate that change, the private sector. You, I, everybody in the crowd is doing our part and putting pressure on private sector leaders to say we need to do more in order to actually understand and understand how we can make this a more equitable environment. What he said, no, no, no, this is a third reconstruction. But keep in mind we're

sitting in a moment in history. But history does not feel historic when you're sitting in it. It just feels like another day. And please keep in mind that Dr King was in Atlanta for thirteen years, went to parent teacher Knight, went to the grocery store. You know, speeches, thirteen years, six million air miles. All you remember is

the one speech eight minutes. I have a dream. That's all you remember, right, And so we dramatized and we want to romanticize this, but the reality was just him banging at the dang on door over and over again until it finally kicked open. So this is a new movement, but it's in the sweets, not the streets. This is

about class and poverty, not raising the color line. And the new color is green, which helps all of us, by the way, because the economics are on our side, because because every profitable company and every profitable region is diverse and inclusive. I come from Atlanta, the moral capital of America. It also happens to be the tenth largess economy in the US. Hello, And it's because we made a decision in Atlanta, not to arguable who is going to go to a water fountain white or black, but

who's going to get the contract? And we decided we were better together. Well, Marcus, because like the money, like the understanding that by excluding parts of our population, whether it's Black Americans, whether it's the Latin community, whether it's women, whether it's lgbt Q, you know, there's a't forgive me an economic, financial reason to be much more inclusive. But I'm I love Mackenzie, but I'm tired of reading the studies that tell me this is the thing to do.

It makes more sense. So I mean, it's this simple, right, and I look at at this I'm a mathematician trained, engineer trained. I look at numbers and I'm comfortable there we're twenty plus trillion dollar economy. You've got call it thirty of the economy that is operating at a suboptimal level because of the constraints of inequity that are in

the workplace. That means there's several trillion dollars that we can unlock if we can simply give people a greater level of confidence, greater access, education, exposure, experience to allow them to maximize their potential. So how do we do that? Again, You've got to give people value adding networks. You've got to give them opportunities to meet people in the world of Wall Street, wall streets and a printice driven model. For those that are in the crowd, how many people

did not know anybody? For those that are investors, was there anybody that didn't know somebody at the firm the day that you stepped in there, we have one out of two people in the room. It is impossible to get into that business just on the merit of your own intellect, which means you have to know people. You have to build relationships with people. At the end of the day. None of our deals are empirically the best deal to the deal that we feel comfortable with because

we did it with people that we trust. So how do you build networks where people can build more trust among each other. That that's exactly what we're working on, getting young men and young women to meet people in the business before they have to interview. John. I mean, you've come on Bloomberg a lot, and we've talked about, you know, money being the great divine. You're working on it, you know at a younger level. You know, you've been

working at the set operation hope for a while. So what makes the difference that puts people into the pipeline gives them that opportunity? Those networks, it's relationship capital. You don't have to be a genius, could be in the right relationship, you know. All you know, all the university is it's net working. All country club is networking, private clubs it's networking. Again, nobody in here got your job

from the phone book. You guys, you know what the phone book is, right, But you and I've also talked about having that seat at I remember when you came on after George Floyd on air and I think there was a younger individual I believe they were black, and they said, but John, you have a seat at the table. I don't have a seat at the table. I'm not being heard. You have seats at the table with CEOs boards, your board alone. What are they saying? Why does this

take so long? No, that was really you're so good because almost made me cry. It was a young black man who was actually saying, I'm trying to get it up here. He's like, look, John, I don't have a seat at the table. They're not gonna listen to me. They're not gonna listen to my father, and they didn't listen to my grandfather. What I can do is make some no wise out in the street. What I can do is protests and maybe even tear some stuff up.

And I know that's not leading anything, but maybe he gives enough attention for a minute for a guy like you to walk in and cut a deal. Right that then allows me to move from the streets of the sweets. And I felt I couldn't argue with them because here's the reality. If you're in Canada, they'll tell you by elementary school who the NHL Stars are Hockey League because the farm club you here in America, they'll tell you who the NFL, the NFL Stars, the NBA, NBA stars

are what in middle school? Because we have a whole farm club system. Are you with me on this? But we leave corporate banking, finance, all the stuff that drives the economy, real estate, media, Please leave at the chance. So who gets those gigs? If you're sitting at the chair of your father and he's talking about real estate or mom's talking about stocks, and they introduce you, they take you to the they take you to the country club, they take you to the to to the alumni meeting.

All of a sudden, now you've been creating relationship capital maybe with the sons or daughters of those who are successful. Who do you do business with those who you know? So? So, if you hang around nine broke people, I'll say it again, this is tweatable, You'll be the t You'll be the tent. Whatever you hang around, you will be why somebody want to be a rap start athlete or a drug dealer,

because that's what you've seen. So what we have done an Operation Hope, one million Black Business Initiative, hundred thirty million dollar commitment for Shopify to create new black businesses through Corporate America. We were doing with financial literacy for all me and w Millan, CEO of Walmart, to get eight pm cent of the corporate fortune five hundred to make financial literacy the new healthcare embedded into the ethos

of business model, not charity. Business soon corporate inclusion, getting Blacks on boards of directors. Well, I think John's point is critical, which is starting at the earliest state possible. And the work that they've done with Operation Hope has really started with people. I would almost say in utero right, starting with your parents, with creating financial literacy. They give

that financial literacy, pass it onto their children. What we're doing at All Finance is the continuation of that at another place where you find density. You know, you talk about being around people, right, hbc US represent three percent of colleges and universities in this country. Ten of black college students are at HBCUs and of black graduates come from HBCUs. That is density, that is power, That is the dinner table of opportunity with people that are trying

to create new opportunities for them and their family. And so if I'm a CEO at a company, and I'm looking to find great, talented, diverse people, people who are among nine other people that are doing phenomenal things at that table, and you want to find the tenth go to hbc US. Give me an intention that we should all be thinking about going forward. So the number one thing that we can do in the alternative investment community is think about how we create more networks and more

access us for students. UH, particularly with what we're working with black and African American students to find pathways into the space. Be a mentor, create relationships, build internships, and be intentional about creating diverse opportunities in those internships very quickly. You wanna every year judge yourself by your about us page, Look at your board, look at your management team, look at your structure. Every year you're about us page and

your corporation, what does it look like? Does it look like America? Right? Uh? Number two, do something. Don't make the perfect the death of the good. It's like a software of grade. Do something and then do something a little bit better tomorrow, and keep at it until you change somebody's life. Number three, understand that we're not at war with each other. This is not about black or white or rare or blue, Republican or Democratic Party. We're at war. China wants to be us. Be clear. Russia

would like the bs, the two smaller irrelevant. They're in irritant in the world. But these folks want to be us. They want our way in the world. But everybody wants to be an American except Americans. We keep fighting with each other. Well, we're stupids. We are better together. Two plus two equals six. Why this because this is how we win. That's Marcus Shaw, CEO of Ault Finance Corporation, and John Hope Bryant, Founder, chairman and CEO of Operation Hope.

Check out Bloomberg Live dot com for the full conversation and many more rich discussions from the Equality Summit. And that wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stinebeck. Ahead in our next hour, we hear from Land's End CEO Jerome Griffith about the company's moved towards comfort in the latest undertaking, from celebrity chef Backed about refarming and up next reforms against weight based

discrimination in the workplace. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news. As it happened, Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio.

Hi am Carol Masser and I'm Tim st Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including guess what you can actually be fired for being fat? Yeah, I did not know that. I didn't either. Plus lands end on tapping into all shapes and sizes and making sure we are comfy in the process, are exclusive with the company CEO. Gotta say, I really love my comfy clothes, yoga pants, jeans, whatever the heck it is. Yes, So do I your sweatpant kind of guy?

Uh well, Carol, these days they're called joggers, okay, So behind the times, all right. Also on a more serious note, amid the Ukraine War, our Russians heading for the exit. When it comes to high end real estate, and we talked the future of farming. It may just be vertical and happening in cities across the country. Look up and down right? Yeah, I guess all right. Let's get going, though, first with one of the stories from the current issue

special double issue of Bloomberg Business Week. It is the equality issue, and the story in question comes from Bloomberg News legal reporter Josh Idolson. It discusses the weight based discrimination that many face in the workplace, even get fired for it. It's unbelievable. Reform is coming, though, thanks to bills in two states and Josh joining us alongside is This Week editor Jill Weber. Weight based discrimination is for real, especially is true in the retail sector, as I think

Josh will explain to us. But the bias is just intense here. People are who are overweight are hired less, promoted less, and paid less, as Josh writes. But there are some reforms under way that could change some of that. Um, Josh, what's happening? So activists see the best opportunity in decades now to extend statewide protections against weight discrimination. In New

York and or in Massachusetts. Either would be the first state to protect people directly against discrimination based on weight in around half a century since Michigan became the first, so far only state to say you can't fire someone or discriminate against them because you think they're fat. So let's talk about actions being taken. I mean, it's it's

pretty remarkable. Although we've we were just talking before we got going about different companies or CEOs or executives who have said things about weight, whether it pertains to their products or whether it pertains to who they hire to be in their stores. Like, it's certainly been out there, so legally, like, what's the case or how do you move the law forward so that these individuals are included?

Because as you got as you report, Josh, you know, we think weight is controllable, but science and genetics shows us it not necessarily is. So the big picture here is most US workers, as I've written about before for Business Week, are considered at will employees, meaning you can be fired for almost any reason or no reason. There are important exceptions to that in the law, including civil rights laws that provide protects against discrimination based on categories

like race and sex and religion. So there are efforts afoot to add weight and in some cases height, as the state of Michigan in a number of cities have done and say these are also categories that it should be illegal to discriminate against people Because of there have been efforts by people with obesity to find protection under existing laws, such as gender law when weight requirements are being applied differently to men and women, and the Americans

with Disabilities Act, since the a d A protects against discrimination based on physical impairments that restrict major life activities, but courts have been pretty hesitant to find that obesity qualifies as a disability in and of itself under the a d A. And that's one of the reasons why there's a sense of urgency among advocates to explicitly put weight into civil rights laws. Well how does it get there, though?

How do the the activists make this become law, make it included in the a d So in New York, there is a legislative campaign gearing up, as we first reported, led by legislators including the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the prominent retail union based in New York, the r w DSU, which in particular is calling attention to the indignities and unequal treatment that workers experience in retail, like being assessed in part on a photo that you

submit with a resume, and then if you gain weight, being moved into the storeroom rather than dealing with customers or being passed over because you don't quote unquote fit the image. They believe that they have a real chance this year to pass that law, which would amend existing civil rights law in New York to include weight and height.

And there's a similar effort underway in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, in fact, versions of a bill to do this have been introduced for a couple of decades now without too much success. But a bill there did advance past the Judiciary Committee, and the likely next governor of the state told me in a statement that she supports efforts to create these protections there. Josh, you you mentioned how retail as a sector is um sort of an especially bad

bad actor here. I'm curious about other other sectors and then also just employers in general, right because um, as you write, like, nobody would really speak up and oppose oppose this, but there or speak up you know, in favor of weight discrimination. Obviously, so there are examples of

alleged weight discrimination in all sorts of sectors. I talked, for example, to an advocate who had represented a cable installer who she said was in the position Shoon of ending up getting risky weight loss surgery because his company told him that he couldn't come back to work unless he lost around a hundred pounds because they didn't think that he could use their ladder, and they didn't want to get a different ladder did. They wanted an employee

with a different body. There has not been much vocal defense from the business lobby of the exclusion of overweight people. That was Bloomberg News Legal reporter Josh Idolsen along with Business Week editor Joel Webber. You're listening to Bloomberg business Week coming up getting comfy. Lands End is all in on that. We catch up with the CEO, Jerome Griffith. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovin from Bloomberg Radio.

Shares of LANs End have definitely been bouncing around a lot. It did include a rally in the last week or so that took the stock up more than keep in mind they are still down about six from a high back in July. The e commerce company has been developing its own third party marketplace, really leaning into the home and then going all in on well. I think something a lot of us can relate to over the past

few years being comfy. Yeah. Absolutely. Land and CEO Jerome Griffith talked with me and w BBM anchor Ciscocado as part of our Decision Makers series jointly produced by Odyssey, which owns many all news radio stations around the country, and the Blueberg Radio Network, which of course provides business news for Odyssey's radio stations. One of the things I've tried to do is work at great companies and places

that have really great brand names. And what it seems is that I've ended up doing over the course of the years is going to these companies either where they have divisions that aren't working well or the company is not working well. I remember when I took over to me and the two thousand and eight, it was really at the height of the crisis and the company was

valued at next to nothing. So it's fun working someplace where you actually have an affinity for the product and you actually like it um And one of the things that I wanted to do is make it, you know, a fun place to work. We have really great Uh, really great product because the consumer is so loyal. You know, our average customer on our database stays with us for seventeen years, so they like what you're buying. It's a

very good value for them. Um, but you know, you wanted to give the customer what it is that they want. I think I when I came into the company, they had gone on a for right to try and attract a newer, a different type of customer, and it really didn't work. So, you know, we got a group of designers together and they all talked about loving your customer

and designing for your customer. And as we were coming out of eighteen and I said, you know, we've got to do a better job of elevating or marketing and elevating the brand. What's something that we can really grip onto and and make sure that what our messages is something that the customer sees us for and and talking about the customer. Talking to the customer, we found that they really care about comfort the most, you know, does

it fit and is it comfortable? So we came up with a slogan, Let's get Comfy, and we launched that in nineteen and you can imagine as you come out of nineteen and into the pandemic. In the beginning of talk about timing, right, talk about timing that, you guys were already doing that. Better to be lucky than smart, and uh, you know, it just hit at the right time. And comforts. But you know a big thing for us, and we're not really walking away from what I know.

People aren't buying sweatpants like they used doing, not buying sweatshirts like they did. But regardless of what they're doing, they still want to be comfortable. And we think the casualization of the workforce is something that is definitely continuing. You know, probably five years anybody in my position would come on the show and a suit and tie, and

that's just not how people are addressing today. They want to have comfort, they want to they want to work when they when they need to work, they want to do it on their own time. They want to have the you know, a comfortable lifestyle. Uh, and that extends from work to home. Yeah, you say, better lucky good. I mean there's so much planning that goes into this, from the design to the manufacturer. I mean, you know, to be ready for this well and ahead of time.

It really is a stroke of luck, and yet do you feel it positions you best as people are continuing to want that comfortable clothing, whether it's in the workplace or working from home. I've got to tell you, you know, when when this happens, you know, we were in the middle of designing a line now that's very you know, tactile and hands on, and our design group had to in a matter of a couple of months go from

doing everything in person to everything online. Now, luckily we had already bought a three D design program that where we were implementing, and the implementation career was going to be over a year. Got it done in a couple of months. And one of the things you would worry about is your ability to fit and make sure that the fit is good. The guys did a phenomenal job doing it online and today I don't know if you know what truth it is. The truth that's an online

fit um app that many websites have on it. Were the number one ranked uh fit for customers fifty five to sixty four, and we're number six overall in their whole portfolio. So we spend a lot of time making sure that people are going to be comfortable, and they're going to be consistent fits with the product that they're buying, so they understand really what the brand's going to give them. I do a lot of stuff online and it really frustrates me when the sizing is like all over the place.

I want to ask you, Jerome, who is the lands and customer? You talk about customers being really loyal, So who is the lands in and customer today? And I'm curious which of the demos are you seeing the most growth. Our customer today is either a baby boomer or a gen X or she's female. She lives in suburbia, she has kids, the kids still live with her. Uh. They have a relatively affluent income over a hundred grand over grands um. But they're very frugal and they're cautious about

how they spend uh. There they work, Um, they are very tech savvy. Most of our traffic is done on a on a mobile phone. A lot of our our business is done on a mobile phone. And they're they're prudent with how they spend their money, so they're very cautious about who's going to get their consumer dollars. They are very loyal and what we're seeing is that our new customer is that gen x or they're they're not in their fifties, they're in their forties, but their demographics

are all the same. It's again, they live in suburbia, they're working, they're married, they have kids. Uh and and their idea of working out isn't necessarily gone to the gym and pounding out for two hours. Their idea of working out is being active and living in active lifestyle. And you know, one of the things that that they want to do is they want to feel comfortable in everything that they're doing. And we, you know, we just love that customer. In fact, she's buying all of her

husband's clothes. We've got about two thirds of everything we sell for men is actually about by women for their husbands. So they're they're big influencers as well. In the family. Well i'd imagine it's probably their children too. Write that there's that natural a if it works for me and if it works for the husband, that works for the kids too. But a lot of it with kids. They know us from school uniforms. We have a pretty large

school uniform business. And many people that I meet is like, oh, Lanson, I know that I had your school uniforms. When I was a kid, I've bought a few school uniforms from you guys. Definitely over the years. Hey, does brick and mortar matter anymore? I mean you guys are you know most of what you do right your revenues are e commerce, but you do have a few stores. Doesn't matter anymore? And and if it does, do you plan to expanding

it all? It does. What we've actually found is that our online business with Coals has gotten better as we expand in Coals. So we started out with a hundred and fifty stores with Coals a little over a year ago, about a year and a half ago. Then this year we've moved to three hundred stores. By the back part of this year will be at five hundred stores, and then we're adding on swimwear in warm weather areas, so it will be I think well over six hundred stores

by the time we finished this year. What we've what we're seeing is as we add stores, our online business gets better. So it's more you're relevant because you're there with our own stores. Our businesses coming back. It's not back to the levels that it was in twenty nineteen. From a traffic standpoint, We're keeping a really close eye on what the traffic looks like in stores, but I

can say with third party it's working very well. That's lands End CEO Jerome Griffith and w bbm anchor Ciscocato as part of our Decision Makers series jointly produced by Odyssey and Bloomberg Radio, and you can find that full conversation just head to Odyssey, A U, D, A C Y dot com. Still to come on Bloomberg Business Week. Russian oligarchs racing against global sanctions. What does that mean for their luxury real estate holdings? That's coming up next.

This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg Eleve in Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the Country Sirius XM Chado one nine team and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week London, the Hampton's Manhattan, South Florida. They have long been popular destinations for Russian cash, often in the form of real

estate purchases. For a view on how that has changed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and an update on overall sales in luxury real estate, We caught up with Aaron Sykes, chief economist and licensed real estate broker at the global

real estate brokerage nest Seekers International. We were found about twenty years ago, right after nine eleven, in the heart of downtown Manhattan, and we have a number of offices throughout the Northeast, particularly in the city and also at in the Hampton's, and we have recently expanded to South Florida, Miami, pomp Beach, all of the great vacation locations, in Aspen, Colorado, all of the Colorado locations, so many, we've got thirty offices now, so taking over plus we have a large

media component in selling the Hampton's a couple other different shows. Well, tell us a little bit about the volume of property sales that you've dealt with, for example, or or that the firm is dealt with in the last twelve months, which is a great indicator of kind of what's going on in the global economy and just kind of the volume you're seeing. Sure, so we as nest Seekers are a boutique firm and had over five billion dollars in sales last year, which is double what we had the

year prior. And of course this is not match up with the larger public companies like Compass an Element. However, for a boutique firm still privately owned five billion dollars and yearly sales is acts, it's incredible. So now what we're seeing throughout the Palm Beach and Miami markets is

not any cooling at all. There's still significantly more demand than there are properties available, Still a lot of bidding wars going on, and we haven't really seen any impact from that quarter of a point rate hike because most of our buyers are high net worth looking to kind of taking out year fixed rate mortgages. Right there, well exactly, well who's buying because we do want to get to um,

you know inter of Russian buying. My understanding, it's you know, Russian money coming into us real estates, certainly the high end. It's a very very small part of some of the markets like Manhattan overall, But tell us about what was the trend and what is the trend today when it

comes to Russian buying of especially luxury properties in the US. Yeah, so if you look at Central Park South, we we often call it the most expensive safe deposit box because a lot of unstable countries, UM, they're large, high network and worth individuals have purchased Central Park South, Central Park West, Central Park East, UM and then also down in Sunny Aisles, particularly with Russians and also Palm Beach, you know, places where the value maintains it's very stable or you'll see

appreciation over the years. Uh, not risky investments for international investors overall. Uh. Now that said, we have seen some uptick in the movement, uh in market movement in those areas that are highly invested by Russians. However, it's not this you know, wham bam slap it up on MLS that most people have been depicting. Um. It's mostly quiet off market sales or um smaller sales. Not the fifty billion dollar apartments that we almost want it to be

because that's a better story, right. It's a couple million, five million dollar apartments that maybe those investors of Russian nationality are getting a little bit nervous. But frankly, those who have investments twenty fifty million dollar properties and above they already well long ago moved those into irrevocable trusts so they cannot be seized. So it's it's not as cut and dry as you know, all of Russians are just trying to liquidate all of their assets. That's not

exactly what's going on. That's really it's interesting to hear, um, give us some some color on what's going on in the Hampton's right now. Uh, you know, in addition to happening we've heard so much about South Florida, we've heard a lot about Manhattan in the real estate just rising so much there. Um, what's happening in the Hampton's. Hampton's has been very stable. I mean, we obviously saw a lot of movement there and a lot of price appreciation

over the last couple of years. And what we've seen since about the summer until now is just complete stability. Prices are not sting up and down. Inventory is still relatively low. There's been a little bit more coming on. People are already locking in those rentals for the summer. So still a very strong market. Well, that's interesting. Are

we at pre pandemic levels or even above it potentially? Well, we're well above pre pandemic levels in terms of um or in terms of availability well below, in terms of pricing well above. So we're still in that, you know, high demand type of situation in the Hampton's. People have often shifted their residences, which we've all you know, just been discussing for a couple of years now. So they're sticking it out in the Hampton's. Uh, their kids are

in school out there. I think that's the bigger story at this point is how can the Hampton's infrastructure support this new wave of full time residents that did not leave. That's Aaron Syke's chief economist and licensed real estate broker with Nest Seekers International. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, still ahead a vertical farm with a very big undertaking. See what I did there? I did? Do you like it? Yeah?

That's pretty good. I've heard worse. No, it's okay, okay, Um, you know the story that was pretty cool and especially the folks behind it. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio, like me would want to not only know but didn't want to be followed. The action he's important and about indoor farming, is this opportunity to really understand the possibilities that we have in the use.

Now we'll give the endoor. That's the voice of celebrity chef Jose Andreas, who is a backer of Barry Farming that was founded by Irving Fine. Barry Farming has had success with salad, greens and herbs and is now tackling strawberries. It's all in a recent story by Bloomberg Pursuits Food editor Kate Crater. Kate joined us with more and gave us an update on the restaurant industry's efforts to help those in Ukraine and those who have fled, including work

being done by World Central Kitchen. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which along with Bloomberg LP is owned by Michael Bloomberg, helps fund World's Central Kitchen. We'll get to that in just a moment. First up, though, Kate's visit to New Jersey Barry It was already a big name in the vertical farming world.

They are the biggest vertical farm in the country. They've raised a lot of money um and they but what they have traditionally grown is green, not money, but but salad greens like lettuces and herbs, and those are the easiest things to grow if you've got a vertical fall arm, because you can maximize the amount of produce that you grow. It doesn't take that much time to grow, so you

can get it into markets really quickly. But they've decided to do something really innovative, which is gross strawberries and um. And that's that. It sounds kind of boring to say strawberries are growing in New Jersey, but it's actually very exciting in the vertical farming. I'm very excited living in New Jersey and loving strawberries. I'm very excited to say.

Just a little clip, just a little clip that we showed on on You'll see it on YouTube and you can check it out on bluebirg quicktake is really really cool and it certainly intrigued me. I want to take a step back, though, because I don't think everyone's familiar with vertical farming, and increasingly we are trying to understand where our food comes from and what that supply chain looks like, and what that journey looks like. What is vertical farming and what are the promises that are associated

with vertical farming. So vertical what an excellent question, tim. Vertical farming is growing growing um crops mostly hydroponically indoors, so you don't need you need a fraction of the land, a fraction of the water, you don't have to worry about um climate change issues as you do in so many places. And you can also set up vertical farms

very close to urban areas. So for instance, Bowery is located in Kearney, New Jersey, which is basically right next to New York Airport and um about thirty New York City. It's not that pretty. Sorry, it's not that pretty. Um you know what, it's not that pretty. It looks like a lot of warehouses carols from New Jersey. So she's not just saying that. Okay, yeah, no, no Kearneys. Kearney is not where you go to sightsee, that's for sure,

it's not. But it's so cool right that they could do the vertical farming there and just outside New York City. It's so smart. It's so smart because you really cut down I mean, not only are you cutting down on transportation anyway, but you're literally about thirty minutes from New York if you're delivering these greens to markets right across the Hudson Okay, why are why are straw Why strawberries? Why is it such a challenge? And why are they

so full of pesticides? As I think we just heard from Josan Andrew's right, they are because they grow if you think about up them, Um, if you think about the most they You know, people want strawberries all year round, every day of the year, but there are super seasonal fruit.

They grow, you know, mostly in June. Maybe you're lucky and you get some in May or July, but otherwise they're probably growing in California, and the growers want to figure out how to make your strawberries look best when they hit shelves in New York City, so they're covered with pesticides to keep them free from bugs. I should say for the most part, they're covered with pesticides. They've been labeled the top produce and the Dirty dozen, i e.

The most ecologically unfriendly produced that you can find. And they also travel a lot of miles to get to your to get to your table, so they're burning up a lot of fuel to get there. They're covered with pesticides and so UM Irving Irving Fine and Bowery Farming sea an opportunity. They just spent money buying a company called Traptick, which uses AI and robotic arms to pick strawberries, and um, that's one reason why they are able to

launch his pretty exciting initiative. So, Kate, is it working? Like are they able to do to make the strawberries and and do what they want to do here? Well? I got to taste them with Jose. It was really exciting. Right before as I know you've seen and we get to talk about Jose is in the Jose Andreas, the founder of World Central Kitchen, is in the Ukraine right now or on the border of the Ukraine feeding refugees.

But UM, a couple of weeks before that, he's an investor in Bowery Farm and also UM and also a chef who wants those strawberries. So I got to go taste them with him, and um, they are pretty delicious. The thing, the maybe slightly ironic thing is they are selling two kinds UM, one called garden and one called wild. And think about wild like air quote wild strawberry growing in UM. You know in a warehouse in New Jersey. It's about as far away from that you can get.

But the flavor is kind of the flavor is amazing, like we both have to taste, and it does have that kind of beautiful like just came out of a sunny field, Jammy Strawberry. So I am curious. You talked to so many different people you look at how food is produced. Do you think vertical for me at some point becomes you know, the way a lot of food is produced. Um, going forward? Is that even possible? It's a really good question, and it's very possible. There's a

lot of money pouring into it. Witness Starry, which has six hundred and fifty million dollars behind it and it just started a couple of years ago. Um, it's very easy to attract money to this because it seems like a very viable way to grow to grow greens especially, but you can also figure out how to grow food that will help satisfy or help solve like the hunger issue that's happening, that's you know, continues to happen all over the world. That's happening here. Um, it's happening everywhere.

And Jose Andreas actually made a big point of saying he believes that companies like Bowery can help can work with World Central Kitchen to help to help feed people in emergencies. Like if you build these vertical farms in emergency prone areas before a hurricane strikes or a drought happens, then you have then you have a place that's growing food that you can easily and quickly hand out to

people who are in terrible situations. I feel like Jose Andreas is like the Elon Musk of food, right, Like he just right, He's just said, I don't care how he used to do it, like we can do it differently, and he just does it Kate with less trolling tweets. No, he's he's very much though in that just do it. Like he said that before, people have asked him, how did you start this? Because you know there were so many there's so many hunger organizations out there, and he

just like walked in and changed the game. You know, it's kind of amazing. He just started I think in two thousand ten, two thousand nine in Haiti, and since then he showed up in almost every disaster you can think of, and it seems almost single handedly, with help from local chefs and food people, just got down to business and fed people. And another thing that he does which is great is he serves them on hot meals. You know, there's all these like crappy m r E's

that right? Or I think that means ready to eat meals to look like they've gone to space, you know. Um, and these Jos Andreas really believes not just in what a hot meal means nourished, you know, in terms of nourishment, but also just the message that it sends like someone's thinking about you and cares about you, and it cares enough to give you a warm meal. He has a

level of respect exactly right. So bring us to Ukraine now and what Jos Andrea's in World Central Kitchen have been doing in Ukraine and and and look they were there relatively early to help with this refugee cry as. Yeah, the Friday. Um, I'm not sure what the date was, but I think I think the invasion started on a Friday, and within hours World Central Kitchen had set up on the border in Poland and was starting to feed refugees um who are fleeing. And within a couple of days

they've fed like forty five thousand refugees. They you know, they're now I think they're up to feating like thirty thousand a day. They had eight or ten camps before. Now they definitely have double digit camps. UM. And they were even going into Ukraine to try and supply people who insisted on staying with food in the means to cook food. So they're I mean, they're nothing short of heroes. Yeah.

As of as of yesterday, according to Jacob sober Off who's at MSNBC, they've distributed a million meals since the war began. I mean, think about that. It's just like it's I mean, it seems like it's gone on forever, right, but it's, um, it's it's like three weeks. It's it's really in its fourth week, right to feed a million people, and just to be able to make that happen so quickly, you know, they activated food trucks that were a couple hours away in places like Poland. UM like love my

Ram and I think was one of them. Some one of them had a terrific name, UM. And they had people out there who know how to make food, and they get all these products delivered and they start serving foods people like, it's fantastic. Hey, Kate, have you have you seen the restaurant community coalesced around something at such scale as we're seeing now? Have you ever seen this ever before in your really? I mean I really, I

really can't think of that. Like, you know, after nine eleven, there was definitely a big coming together, But then that was also sort of different because some of those restaurants were so immediately impacted. That felt like you were really immediately helping your neighbors, you know, And I think it doesn't often happen that you feel like this is the right thing to do, And I think, um, but you know, Tim,

it's a good question. I can't think that I've seen something like this, certainly outside the that hasn't impacted the immediate rest New York restaurant community. Bloomberg Pursuits editor Kate Creator. She talked all about World Central Kitchen, which receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies along with Bloomberg LP. They're owned by Michael Bloomberg. And that wraps up the weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for

joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanivik. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday. Starts at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch your daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands, now, at Bloomberg dot com, and always

on the Bloomberg Terminal. You can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake, available on Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Have a great weekend. Stay safe everyone. This is Bloomberg.