Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - May 16th, 2020

well maybe getting a little too ahead of themselves. Well, and that certainly was where the market was, right. I mean, we looked at a stock market that was very enthusiastic and certainly very optimistic. But over the course of this week, You're exactly right. It was reality check week. It was Anthony Fauci, the leading doctor, the leading voice from a healthcare perspective. It was j Powell, the Chairman of the Fed.

And I have to say it was a number of our guests, CEOs and investors that we spoke with throughout the week. Well, and I have to say, and we kind of dwelled on this a little bit, but foul sheet and Powell. We called it the one to punch in terms of reminding us you can't do this too fast um too soon in terms of reopenings and talking about the protracted economic impact. And I think it really, as we said, reality check because of these two. It

was also another week with a staggering labor report. Number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits remained in the millions for an eighth straight week, as the economy really just continuing to reel from the virus pandemic. So what are the biggest names in the world, in the world of business specifically think about this. We're going to hear from them.

A fantastic interview it's in the magazine this week that you did with Unilever CEO Alan Joke and old school former American Airlines Gairman and CEO Bob crandall right, who reminded us the airline industry they've seen a lot of up and down cycles, but he said this one is not the same. Also, we caught up with Christopher Gavigan.

He's the co founder of The Honest Company. He's now on another mission to bring products that relief stress, which we could all certainly use right now, absolutely all that and much much more. First up, though, the big story this week, one that impacted the equity market, top US health officials testifying before the Senate. We talked about him just a minute ago, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top

infectious disease official. He warned against reopening the economy too soon and that community is doing so risk new coronavirus outbreaks. Safe to say, Jason, that was the testimony that really rocked the markets and gave everyone, as we said earlier, a reality check. Now, someone who has been one of our guiding voices when it comes to the virus is Andy PECash. She's a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology

at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He joined us once again, of course, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. He stressed, like so many others, that testing and contact tracing they're going to make all the difference. You know, these are the things that everybody should be really aware of. Um, when we pull back public health interventions, we expect to see some ca caces

come up. If we pull them back too soon, the magnitude of the cases, the number of cases will be higher. Um. If we're not prepared to do testing and really good contact tracing to identify the people who have become in contact with infected people, we run the risk of having a rather large second bounce back wave. UM. So it's really going to be important for us to time it right and be prepared to pull back these public health

entrance so we can control a virus at a different level. Right. So, I don't want to get political, that is certainly not my aim here, but I do wonder coming off a press conference yesterday that was predominantly from the President and his team about testing and saying we have enough tests out there and everything that we need tell me about that specific event and if we do indeed are doing the right kind of testing, and that we are doing

enough testing, especially I think twenty four hours or was it this morning where Wuhan is talking about testing everybody in your city? Yeah, exactly, And and it really becomes a question of capacity. Um. You know, we're we're able to test in most parts of the country, and again this can be different in different localities, right. Um, here in Maryland. We're doing a good job of testing the

symptomatic individuals. UM to turnaround time on tests are fairly good, UM, but what we'd like to be is a level above that. We want to be able to turnaround tests really fast within a day. You want to be able to test almost immediately people who have come in contact with the pre people who are sick, so that you can catch them before they really start showing symptoms and tell them

to quarantine a little bit earlier. So we need more testing, We need more coordination, We need more contact tracing to be able to deal with UM the situation when we believe our public health interventions. You know, Dr pekash I saw a poll this morning that was talking about contact tracing specifically, and people's willingness to participate was largely based on their enthusiasm for it was largely based on who's

doing the administering. What's the right method to go about doing that in your estimation, so you know the best method is to have train individuals who can UM capture this information, contact you and give you the correct information in terms of what needs to be done. UM. There are people at State Public Health and County public Health

departments who are doing this. UM. We hear at Johns Hopkins Bloomer School of Public Health has had a number of professors who have started horses to try to educate people in terms of how to do that to increase the number of people that are capable of doing good social contact tracing. So there are some things that you need to know, be able to train to be do this all quite possible, UM, but you need to invest right now to increase those numbers of individuals again, so

you're ready when you pull back public health interventions. That's Andy Pekash, professor of molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. As you can tell by the name of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, it's supported by Mike Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg Philanthropy's Bloomberg LP, parent of this radio station. Certainly one of my favorite voices to talk to Jason, you're listening to

Bloomberg Business Week coming up. We hear from UNI Lever CEO Alan Jope. You know their products, you use them every day. This CEO is thinking about everyone affected by the crisis. It's in the magazine and it's your big interview, Carol Masser, This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week

radio show, all about the virus and what happens next. Yeah, and we're taking you inside the magazine this week featuring a debrief with Alan Jope. He's the CEO of Unilever, massive consumer products company everything Jason from Dove soap to Ben and Jerry's ice cream and so much more. The four brands used by about two and a half billion people daily. So we talked about a lot of things, you know, what they're seeing in terms of what people are buying as a result of this shutdown in pandemic.

But he also talked a lot about balancing profits with doing the right thing. We've been operating a multi stakeholder model now for quite some time. For about ten years now, we've been explicit that we believe that if we look after our employees and our customers, if we worry about society and the planet, if we take care of our supply, our partners that then ultimately our shareholders will be well rewarded.

And although we didn't honestly think it through that way, that was kind of how it played out for us. Our reflex was first of all to take care our employees. I remember on March the twelfth, which was a Thursday, our crisis team saying we should go into an immediate global mandatory in death find up lockdown for all office employees. At the time it felt a little overwhelming, but it

was in the interest of protecting our employees. By the Friday, when we announced it on the thirteenth, it felt just right. By the Saturday, the fourteenth, I wasn't sure if we were moving fast enough, and this was ahead of any government suggestions of lockdown other than in China. And then quickly we turned to our community and you mentioned some

of the things we tried to do there. Then we realize how important the ability to continue to supply, keeping our factories running and our supply networks running would be. Then we started to worry about cash and cost and now at the moment we're trying to anticipate and work too short and longer term changes in demand patterns. So I think that multi stakeholder thinking, which we've been getting used to for a decade UM served as well in

the initial days of this crisis. How surprised were you though, by the scale and pace of the virus? I think one of the benefits of being a truly global company, and remember sixty of our turnover comes from outside of Western Europe and North America. Are are the biggest businesses in Unilever beyond the US are India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, and so I've been in daily contact with our leader

in China and our leader in Italy. UM, we had had employees impacted by coronavirus, and we had already stood up an international crisis management team. Actually, I think before the beginning of March, we had sort of anticipated this to come as it has. I must say, though, UM, I'm very worried about the global South. We've seen this play out where you know, the health care systems of of Wuhan, of Italy, of the United Kingdom and the United States have at best been taxed and in some

ways been overwhelmed. I'm very worried what's going to happen when this really takes hold in the favelas of Brazil, the townships of Africa, the slums of India, and the refugee camps around the Middle East. I really don't think we've seen the worst human suffering yet. As difficult as it is to say that, Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that, because I think we talked about that too. We we look at these developing markets, Um,

what's your responsibility in helping those markets? And I'm just curious the conversations you might be having with leaders in those markets. Yeah, I think it's multi factorial, of course. I mean our basic responsibility as people do need soap and bleach and surface cleaners and basic food stuffs. These so is at the moment still the first line of defense against this virus. So our first responsibility is to

keep manufacturing and producing in products. We've noticed most governments going through a predictable pattern, which is to underreact and then perhaps to overreact to the point where the supply chain in the country shuts down. And at that point, we've been quite proactive with governments to see you really don't want to shut down supplies of essential goods and where in the middle of those discussions, right, now in

the emerging market. You know, I was going to do this later, but let me bring in the polling question for our breakaway members and I'll read it out for you. Um Alan, which group of stakeholders should corporations be prioritizing right now? And the choices are employees, communities, shareholders, customers. So as everybody weighs in on that, how do you

see it? I think I know your answer is that one answer only question, because in which case it's a tough it's a tough call because ultimately, after look after all these stakeholders. But it for sure begins with your employees. You know, without without showing authentic care for your employees, you can't you can't respond to me. I don't do anything as the chief executive company. It's our frontline people who are making the goods, who are serving our customers.

So that for me, that's where it starts. Paul seems to be kind of I know you almost need you need in all of the all of the above. We'll talk to you about your work workers because as we said at the top, you're taking care of your workers right now. UM so you haven't laid anybody off. Does it get harder the longer this goes on. Yes, it does. We've got about a hundred and fifty thousand employees on the payroll, although we think every day there's about three

million people who work directly and only for Unilever. But all those hundred and fifty thousand, there's about seventy thousand all of us who are office based. There's about fifty thousand of us who are in factories, and there's another twenty or thirty thousands who operate in some kind of field sales operation, um. And we've had to take very different approaches for those different communities and also in different

geographies at different points in time. So, as I mentioned, all office workers are working from home, with the exception of China, where we're learning from China how to reopen offices. Some dudes and some dawns. That's you know, leave our CEO Alan Joe P's the debrief this week in the magazine and really talked about the pandemic. Ultimately, Jason kind of strengthening his resolve about being a purpose led company

and being accountable to all stakeholders. Right, we talk about this, whether it's your consumers, your shareholders, your community at large, your employees. I mean you really, especially in a crisis like this, you realize how everybody's impacted and how you really need to take care of all of them. Well, and it's interesting too, you know, these are words that we throw around all the time in sort of quote

unquote normal times around strategy and especially leadership. And I do feel like leadership and leaders are being tested in unbelievable ways right now. So really great interview. Glad you got some time with Alan job. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, come up. We talked New England luxury resorts, turning the page with president of the Ocean House Management Collection. What we're finding the hospitality industry. It may be changed forever.

This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had throughout the week on our daily radio show. And of

course Jason all about the virus. Kind of where we are today, what it looks like post COVID nineteen and I have to say we have to remind everybody all of this happening in real time as news continued to cross the Bloomberg terminal absolutely and one of our favorite conversations was with Daniel Hostetler. He's the president and managing director of the Ocean House Management Collection, the owner and

operator of some absolutely beautiful properties. I felt like in talking to him in research in a little bit, I got a little bit of a window into what it's like to be Carol Massers. It's definitely going to be a challenge this summer. Like all New England seaside destinations, you know, the majority of these properties up here make a good sixty to seventy percent of their business during

during the height of the summer season. UM. We've we were working hard communicating with the staff on a weekly basis. Zoom I think is the new go to meeting application, and so we get the entire company together every week um for an hour to talk about what the plans are going forward and keeping them informed. It's a challenging process because there aren't a lot of guidelines laid out yet.

You know, first of all, it's individual state to state, and then in our state, like in most states, that there are not yet concrete guidelines that say how many people can you have in the restaurant, how much capacity can you have on the beach or in the hotel. So we are sort of crisis planning with with with

within in a lot of gray area. Mainly we're you know, we're spending our time looking to reconcept I think the food and beverage operations most of all, because that is clearly the area of concentration for the public, right and so let's talk about that. So, so what are you doing and how do you sort of work through something like this? As you say, you know you're taking guidance from state officials and local officials, but as a team,

how do you do this sort of step by step? Well, for us, it started with mapping the guest process from point of arrival on the driveway at the bellman to point of departure again with the bellman, and every step in between, and asking ourselves, how are we going to conform to the best practices the social distancing and yet give a level of luxury service that the guests are used to, uh, and how do we make it a

fun experience? So something as simple as housekeeping, will the guests want us in the room twice a day as traditionally So we've we've approached that and said, you know, we're going to whenever possible, we're going to deliver the service that we've always delivered, and we're going to let the guests guide us. So we are going to say housekeeping services are twice daily, but if you would prefer once daily, we can do that. If you would prefer just clean towels brought to you every day, we can

certainly accommodate that as well. It's it's sort of taking every touch point and trying to find out how we keep the guests safe, how we keep our staff safe and still deliver a unique experience. Well, Daniel, I do wonder in terms of as you mentioned, you know, for food and beverage, you're looking to reconcept it. Does that include maybe more folks eating in their rooms or perhaps you set up space outside. I mean, do you think

about that? Yes, we absolutely are doing that. We're looking at a unique dining menus, taking restaurants that were traditionals sit down and making them fast casual where you walk away and pick your own seat. Uh, coming up with a picnic platter menu that where you can say, I would like to eat on the beach. I would like to eat on the croquet lawn and your food will be there set on a table for you when you when you arrive for dinner that evening, those sorts of

unique dining experiences that wouldn't be traditional. I do wonder about the staff, and you said, you know you're briefing them every week and presently hearing their concerns as well. How do you make that side of it work as an employer, Well, we want to make sure that when we bring them back that it's safe for them as well.

So in the same way we are asking them to sign a health pledge that um that our guests know that they are taking their temperature before they come to work every day and washing their hands every thirty minutes, etcetera. We will have signage throughout the hotels asking the guests to do similar things to practice social distancing. And you know, and we're providing all of the masks and the gloves and equipment that the staff needs to feel safe. And

that's Daniel Hostetler, the president of the Ocean House Management Collection. Carol, you had sort of turned me on too, at least remotely. Uh, these properties, you've been there, you've sailed there. I mean, it's pretty remarkable what they have, but also what they are trying to do to get back. Yeah, and they definitely tap into the New York tri state area in terms of the folks that come to stay at their properties over the summer season. I mean that is when

they get the bulk of their business. Something like they expect business to be down, and yet they're mapping out, process by process, you know, their way back. And I love the way he said it, from arrival with the Bellman to departure with the Bellman. They've got to figure out every step of the way to make sure that everybody, their workers as well as those that come to stay at their properties, stay safe. You're listening to Bloomberg bus Wee.

Coming up, we stay with the travel and hospitality business. We catch up with airline industry. Read legend. Bob Crandell, the former chairman and CEO of American Airlines, knows that industry so well. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we'll bring you some of the most important and

we hope informative conversations. Carol and I had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show all about where we are fighting the virus, but also economically and from a business perspective, where we go next. That's right, Jason, and we had the opportunity. I have to say, this is one of those interviews you and I were looking very forward to, and it was with Bob Crandall. He's the former chairman presidency of American Airlines, ran the airline in

the eighties and nineties. And what's interesting is someone who has seen so many different cycles, so many different regulatory environments when it comes to the airline industry. And you know, it really struck me when he said, listen, we all know up and down cycles. This is like no other Listen up. I think you've got to recognize, Caroline. I'm sure you do, and I'm sure most people do. This is this isn't the usual kind of up and down

cycle in the airline business. This is this is a matter of the general public feeling unsafe and closely packed or closely spaced public spaces. So you've seen restaurants take a tremendous hit. You've seen cruise ships take a tremendous hit, and and airlines, of course, so the penultimate example of packing people together to get from point A to point B for as little money as possible, nonetheless in a reasonably convenient way, as compared to covered wagons for example.

So so so once you've gotten, now you've got, you have to ask yourself how long will it be before people feel truly safe? And I think the answer is that they're not going to feel truly safe. Most people aren't going to feel frus have until hey, we have a vaccine, the we have a cure. And see we have much much much more systematic testing and tracking than we have today. We are we're amateurs in terms of testing and tracking. It just hasn't been set up. There

is no plan. It isn't happening. So until until we can solve those three problems and there thereby alleviate the public's concern, I think most people are going to stay home. Man. Of course, that's very bad for the airline business. And so if you were running an airline right now, what do you do well, I think I think I would be doing I think I think the people that are running airlines these days are doing pretty much all they can.

In the first instance, they are doing all they are in collaboration with the with the programs that have been passed by the Congress. They're keeping their people paid. They are doing all that they can to minimize as their expenses. They are parking airplanes, they are retiring some of the older airplanes. They're they're they're stopping some of the flights in some careful way so that they meet the terms of the legislation and they provide at least minimum service.

But sectors they're flying as little as they possibly can. They are doing what they can to clean the airline terminals. They are doing what they can to clean the airplanes. They are they're teaching their employees how to deal with masks and in some cases temperature testing. So I think they've got I think they've They've had quite a quite a generous or creative a set of things to do, all of them addressing two issues. One, how do we

make the public feel safe? And second, how do we minimize our costs so as to preserve our ability to return to act too active flying once it's possible to do so. Well, let's continue our conversation with Bob Crandells. So excited to catch up with him, especially at this time of unbelievable turmoil and a lot of ankst to

say the least, about the future of the airline industry. So, Bob, I'm guessing you saw the comments that Dave Calhoun, the Bowing CEO, made about not only capacity, but taking that to its logical conclusion and saying we may see a major airline go out of business before the end of the year or early into one. What do you make of that? Yeah, I don't know why Calvin wants to get himself involved in that. He's uh, I really don't see why make a comment like that. It might be true,

it might not be true. Dave has much better, much closer access the different carriers than I do. I've been out of the industry a long time, sure, And he looks at him, He looks at him very closely, because of course they were all customers. So some of those numbers are looking pretty full voting to him, and I wouldn't be surprised that they are looking for voting. And the question of whether anybody will go out of business

I'll leave to others. But the fact of the matter is everybody is each every airline is a herd in cowboy these days. Yeah, well, well what's interesting too. And you know, we talked a little bit, Bob, but initially about what's going on in the debt markets, and you know, American airlines not alone, but their debt falling further into distress territory. Um, you know, we've, as you said, and rightfully so, this is unlike any other cycle that that

we've seen before. We've already seen a lot of consolidation. Do you anticipate that there's going to be more as a result of the pandemic and the shutdown? Carol, I,

I honestly don't know. I think look just as a as a as a practical matter, if you take six enterprises and they all fall into a state of difficulty, and if you could, if you could do the work of those six enterprises with only a portion of the people and certainly a portion of the overheads, then you would say to yourself, gee, you, why don't we do some consolidation here and see if we can become more efficient. So, yes,

I'm sure there are people thinking about that now. I think we I think in the United States we need to approach consolidation of business is very carefully. We have been very lax in terms of enforcing the antitrust rules. We have a dramatic shrinkage of the number of public companies traded in the United States, and they substantial diminishment

of the level of real competition. So what the what the proper public policy may be with respect to the airlines is a broader question than we have time to discuss today. But I think that's the right question, not not the question of what may be the most efficient way for the airlines to organize themselves, but whether in the in a broader social context, we want to see any further diminishment of competition within the industry. So from a public policy perspective, in your right, we could spend

hours talking about it in detail, Bob. But one question I have for you is, in terms of the federal government's response to this specific pandemic, has the government done the right thing? And have they done enough for the airline industry? I think I think they've done the right thing. You know, the underlying issue is this, if you go back to the public had to bail out the airline industry, and now once again the public has to bail out the airline industry. That's not an adverse comments on the

airline industry. In a way it's run. It's just the way it is. The airline business is, you know, a very important business in the United States. In order to be efficient, it has to have a lot of capacity and particularly to accommodate the growing public desire for travel. Uh, and it is subject to these very severe ups and downs when when we have these kind of black swan events.

So I think one of the realities of life is that the public generally and the government as its as its instrument, has to recognize that it is always going to have to be the insurer or of the airline business. And as the insurer, it may want to impose, uh

certain some kind of regulation. Not the kind of regulation we used to have where you know, you couldn't fly here and you couldn't charge that, but but a level of regulation that would say, wait a minute, during the good times, maybe it would be a good thing if all the airlines, instead of buying back this stock, simply set aside all of the excess cash that they can set aside, so that to a greater extent than has been true in the past, they are able to self insure.

And I think as a matter of public polo. See, that's something we really do have to focus on. Yeah, that's fascinating. So wait, okay, forgive my sarcasm. Good luck with that. How do you get something like that done in this environment? Well, cal look what you're talking about. What you are talking about in this environment is the tremendously bitter political warfare that's going on in the United States. It wasn't always like this. Between essentially between the end

of the World War Two and the mid nineteen eighties. Uh, there was political disagreement, but there wasn't the level of the rank or that we have today. If we want to reclaim the country and if we want to make sensible decisions, people are going to have to back off their extreme ideologies, both the left and the right, and we're gonna have to find some better solutions than we have found so far. So the answer to your question is, how do we get it done? Mr? And Mrs. America

has to make up their mind. They're gonna they're gonna that was the political nonsense. They're going to stop rewarding ideological extremity, and they're going to return to a sense of the common good, what is best for all of US. That's former American Airlines Chairman, president and CEO Bob Crandall. And you know, bottom line, Jason, you know this industry is going to be changed, the airline industry for a long time. We know that. We see the numbers, we

see the stories on the Bloomberg every day. And what's interesting he said, you know, travelers, it's just about them feeling safe. They don't feel safe right now, so they're not going to travel. And he says, we probably don't feel safe until we have a vaccine. Bottom line. Yeah, absolutely, And as you said, this is a guy who's seen some things. And when you have someone with that sort of historical perspective, essentially say, in your parlance, woa tend

to listen up. All right. That wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Mass. Are plenty coming up in our next hour, including an interesting conversation with Christopher Gavigan. He's the co founder of the Honest Company, you know it, right, founded with Jessica Alba, the actress. So we're gonna talk about what he's seeing along those lines, and also he's got a new startup.

It really is about working with CBD and providing products that relieve stress to consumers. Plus how Gilead's rim Desivie is a rare example of foresight in this pandemic. It's this week's cover story in the magazine. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Today we'll bring you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations Carol and I had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show.

That's right, all happening in real time as the news around us was constantly changing, and we really tried to reach out to different industries really get a global perspective and a macro perspective of this pandemic. One of the voices we turned to was Christopher Gavigan. He's the co founder of The Honest Come Benny, and he is now Jason bringing products to consumers to help them deal with stress.

We also caught up with restaurant tour Rick Walstead. He's got restaurants in Atlanta right around the corner from our New York headquarters as well as in Connecticut and Houston, what it's like to reopen. He gave us the playbook, and I said, you know, Chris Gavigan bringing products to relieve stress talk Space, CEO or in Frank. He's the subject of a story also in the magazine this week.

He too, is finding a way to bring therapy to people who are dealing with stress and anxiety during this shutdown, in a virtual way, of course. First up, let's go inside the magazine. The cover story. It's all about how Gilead's rim Desiviere is an example of foresight in this pandemic. We caught up with magazine editor Joel Weber and the

writer of the piece, Robert Langrath. From the beginning of this who he's kind of fairly clear that there weren't that many drugs that could do that had like lab data against coronaviruses that could go right into trials, right into human trials, and this was one of the kind of handful of them. So from very early on, you know, if there's gonna was gonna be an early drug for coronavirus, this is likely to be it. So I was paying

attention early on. I was talking to gill Yead, you know, early on trying to get interviews with some of their executives, which was very hard to do. But one thing we were able to get, you know, before things completely closed up. But we're able to get a freelance photographer, you know, into one of their plants where they're filling the vials out in California. This is right as everything we're shutting down in mid March, and you know, probably one of

the last days we could have done it. We've got a photographer there and got some of these great pictures and great videos which just you know, really helped make the story. And then I just kept talking to them and uh, you know, getting some more detail about the

early history of this compound. And then you know, finally I was able to get an interview with one of the top you know, manufacturing experts who told me, you know, all the seven different chemicals went into this and then you know, twenty five different steps and he kind of compared it to making a very fancy, very specific you know, well for a type of brad at the baker. You know, if you don't if you don't or a huge amount of your especially flower advance, you have to wait for

the new crop, a white to grow. That's going to be a big delays. That's January. All the specialty ingredients you know, they order from the suppliers in China and Europe way advanced. That was like the biggest smartest thing that they did. Yeah, it's that's really such a key detail. I want to bring in Joel Webber, the editor of Bloomberg business Week. He joins us from Brooklyn, and Joel, you put this on the cover. It makes a huge

amount of sense because it's such a good read. Give us the context from your perspective, because you're looking across all of these stories, not just as it relates to the coronavirus, but across the world of business. So you know, I think this story is significant, is huge, um. And it's also the way that I think it's the best way to think about this. It's almost like the most hopeful news, the only hopeful news you basically had to

date in this coronavirus saga. You know, it's like it just feels like it's one bit of bad news after internext, and it's almost like this cacophany of incompetence sometimes and so what I think Bob was able to do in this Gill lead story was actually show like here's an example of like one of the only ones really of a company that had incredible foresight and preparedness, and you know, had they not actually ordered the raw materials that they

needed to to actually make this treatment back in January, even before it was you know, before we knew how bad this was gonna did be, had they not done that back then, we would not have the treatment that we suddenly have, you know, and like to be sure, this is not a cure, it's a treatment. It takes coronavirus from being a fifteen day hospitalization down to maybe like an eleven covid uh down to like an eleven, So you know, it's it's a modest improvement over nothing,

but at least it's something. And you know, Bob, as you sort of you know reported around this, you know, it's actually even more incredible than that, because this was a drug that actually you know, it's been around for like eleven years now and it never could find a purpose even right, what's the backstory. Yeah, they first invented it for you know, looking for hepatitis C drugs, but it was hard to administer and they had better ones

were pills. It was kind of shelf for that. And then you know, they tried it for you know, a ballah and they spent years on that, you know, because they first they tested it from one of all the outbreak, but then the outbreak faded before they could get it into human trials, and they tested in the recent aball the outbreak and then it didn't work that well. So they but in the and so they were trying to figure out what to do next, you know, and when

the COVID came along and they did. The thing that they did differently was they did not in January. They didn't assume the best case scenario. They didn't say, hey, that's the wait a few weeks and see if this goes away. They because said, hey, in case this is a pandemic, we're going to order a whole bunch of stuff right now. And that's just very different from what

a lot of other folks did. I have to say, what's really cool in the story, and if if people don't totally understand how significant this is, you're writing the story how Anthony Fauci has pointed out that he is like in the Trial of m desevere to the first big trial of a z T the first drug for HIV, right, and so then you understand because that too was something we just couldn't figure out a treatment, And so you understand, Bob,

how m de severe is really a first, very important step. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean the way to think of this is, you know, is as like a first step. The first thing there's as a going of himself says they wouldna need a lot more drugs. They're working on better drugs, better ways to administer it. Right now it's an effusion and we're definitely gonna need vaccine. So this doesn't, you know, solve

the problems. This is, you know, as you said, the first step from the sickest you know, hospitalized patients, and that's reporter Robert Langrith and of course Joe Webber, the editor of Bloomberg business Week, and Carol. What I really liked about this story from the pretty arresting cover image all the way through the pieces, we talked so much about sort of botched response and unpreparedness. This was a

case where a company anticipated some of this. A lot still to be seen about whether this will be the drug that we need but a company in the right place. Yeah, and a drug that's been around for a while. Jason, and as you say, perhaps the first hopeful news of the pandemic. Check it out. You're listening to Bloomberg b this week. Coming up the co founder of The Honest Company. He's got a new startup all around CBD called Prima.

You just want to ask him about Jessica Albert, don't you? Maybe? Alright, this is bloombergs is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Jason, we're bringing everybody some of the most important and informative conversations we

had on our daily radio show throughout the week. Again, we'd like to remind everybody a lot of news was going on, uh and things changing constantly, but it was really wonderful to kind of check in with people from different industries and thinking about companies, thinking about society, thinking about people. Absolutely, because business is going on, people responding in different ways to the current crisis, but also looking ahead to what is around the corner. And for that,

we caught up with Christopher Gavigan. He's the co founder the Honest Company. Heard of it co founder Jessica Alba. He's got a new startup in addition, it's called Prima Look I. I spend most of my career really helping people in the health and wellness sector and category, trying to help them understand some of these intricacies and dependencies that we get to create and define and um control

our health. And so what you put in on in your around your body matters, and we have an opportunity to realize, especially in science and medicine academia is really unpacking the horrific power and challenge that stress brings to the body. Stress causes us to go the doctor. All doctor's visits is somehow and there's an underlying stress condition that it's causing the body to go into pain, illness, or disease. And so if you're confronting stress, you have

to understand what the system is that manager stress. And we've got this newly discovered in the last twenty five years body system called the endocannabinoid system, and there are molecules and compounds found in hemp i'm also found in cannabis that can help manage, modulate, and help bring that system back into homeostasis. Because stress balance and just feel against stealing. Connected and centering and getting our bodies to heal from within is very much within our control and power.

So these these molecules are incredibly therapeutic, and um, how do you bring them in the body, Where do you apply them? How do you get the molecules to the receptor sites? Really matters. And so Prima is a really assigence driven brand to advance that that sense of of of balance and betterment, and we're doing it through a

host of consumer products that people com buy. We'll tell us about that, Chris, because you know, we've talked to a lot of folks in the CBD product area, UM, and we're learning, you know, and I've tried some and some I love. They're not all created the same. And part of the problem too is, you know, there's no real rules UM governing kind of these products, like a lot of cosmetic or consumer products UM that are out there.

So give us a little bit of insight into kind of what are some of the compositions or rules that you guys are setting for yourself when you create these products. It's a great question because you're absolutely right right now that the space is incredibly sophomoric and that was one of the reasons why I decided to jump in coming off the Alando's company, is to really bring the level of sophistication and quality and integrity and transparency that we

know consumers outsourced their trust to the brand. Right there's no guardian at the gate. The retailers are doing their best job, but they're they're really not doing the deep betting, testing and validation necessary and so it's really dependent on what the brand is doing and how are they testing,

what third party certifications do they have. So we're we've been doing so much work on number one, the underlying science of getting the bio availability as we call it, and getting the molecules inside the body at a safe way. We have organic farming practices for a hemp, so you're assuring purity. We're testing the the extract, the hemp extract

five times to assure potency of the ingredient. We're working with some third party credible experts to ensure that purity impotency, and and and then number one and then number two giving the consumer full transparency. And so every bottle of of of Fremi product has a QR code that you can literally bring up test results there and and then

it's also helping the consumer navigate the space. So at the end, at the end of the day, you have to be an education content forward company, especially in this space because as you said, it is confusing, it is nuanced, and who's doing the work and who's got the pedigree in experience and so we've done a lot of educational work.

We've over a hundred pieces of original content to help give people the right demystification, the right understanding, the credible expertise necessary to navigate it, and then giving them um as I said, the products. But it is it's about connection, It's about understanding. There's a level of emotion that every person has with a consumer brand, and that emotion is trust. And so how are you building and showcasing that trust

over time? Well, and and talk a little bit about that, because I do feel like with Honest Company, that is something you guys really have nailed as that sort of emotional connection, both through the design of the products, the composition of them, and the and the positioning. How do you take that vibe as it as it were and translated here? What did you learn from that experience that

you're applying here. It's it's as you said, the trustworthiness of the brand is in how you position and how you speak to So the tone and manner with which the brand um has it comes forth. So it's in your design systems and your creative systems, it's in your words you choose, and ultimately you're building relationship of not disruption.

Like this whole idea, I'm creating a disruptive brand in this category, especially in the health of well being category, you're creating a peace of mind brand because again you're putting these things in your body and you're helping people move through very challenging phases of their life, most physically and emotionally. So if if CBD is known for its anti inflammatory, it's pain relieving, it's you know, modulating properties, right, so anti anti stress that are sleep um, help me

with my muscles and joyce. You need to create a deep, deep relationship, and so it is about into, it's about transparency and conversation. It's about industry stewardship and creating best in class products that actually work. Right, you can I can get anyone to buy anything once right as a great marketer or a great copywriter, like, oh my gosh, create a sexty label and and a beautiful product and people will buy. But they're only gonna buy um. They're

they're only going to come back and works. And so efficacy and performance and this idea that I actually what you told me is true and consistent over time, that's what builds a beautiful relationship. I I the idea of brand thing we're authentic. Authentic is it's just another way to say I'm doing the same thing time and time

again with a level of dependency and consistency. And that's premus CEO Christopher Gavigan, also a co founder of The Honest Company, good to get his perspective, because I do think Carol, it's safe to say we you and I and many people we know, and many people out there focusing more on health and wellness and trying to understand how to cope in many ways both physically and mentally. Thank God for CBD, red Wine and a Peloton. Just gonna say, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up

restaurant tour. Rick Walstead on reopening in the time of COVID nineteen, He actually was a little bit optimistic, maybe a lot optimistic about getting the restaurant world back to so called normal. That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg Vice is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, today we're bringing you some of our favorites and we think some of the most important and informative conversations we had on our daily Bloomberg

Business Week radio show. And Jason one of those conversations this guy um Man. This was a great chat because he's a restaurant tour Rick Wallstead. He's been in the industry for about thirty years and counting. And what's interesting is he's got properties in Atlanta, Connecticut, uh in the New York metro area. He's brought back about seventy of

his employees. And you know, it was our first dose, I feel like of optimism in the back be beaten down restaurant industry, right everybody we we see the closings. We've seen some really prominent chefs and owners of restaurants saying we're not going to bring back all of our properties. And yet from him we got some optimism. I mean, all our restaurants who are basically closed, you know, forty our notice, so UM, and then we started to do UM, started to do curb sudden delivery take out. So we

ramped up that. We ramped that up, and now we are getting ready to bring back our staff and opening. You know, we already open in two markets and Houston and Atlanta, and they getting ready to open in Connecticut. Three restaurants here next week. So it's been a very busy time trying to navigate you know, this whole, this whole serious events, right, So let's talk about Atlanta. It's my hometown. I know exactly where your restaurant is. It's

actually my old neighborhood of Buckhead down. They're very familiar with that whole. Uh, that whole area. It is bustling normally. It is, you know, one of the prime locations you have there for the Colonial there in Buckhead. What does it take to reopen at this point, Well, we have I have two restaurants in Bucket, the loc Colonial and a little bit of bou K and um. You know, uh, it was a little tricky, um what we did here when we were told that we were allowed to open, UM,

we actually waited for one week. We did not open right away even though we could. UM, you felt that the public sentiment was a little bit questionable about the decision to open at the time, and we only opened for open air dining. We decided not to open up inside.

UH and so of face faith UM in the opening. UM. And but after the first week, I have to say that, you know, considering the restraints that we have in place with the with the occupancy, the social distancing UM and so forth, greatly reducing our capability of doing a normal business, UM, the first week is quite promising and being very happy with it actually, UM, and the customers and the clients you know, seem to really appreciate us opening and UH.

And so I'm happy of considering everything no matter, no, no matter what, even you know, in the best case scenario, in the best case scenario, I think we do, but as good as we can in the in the both markets that we have opened. In the best case scenario, we are you know, going to be down anywhere from twenty five to thirty FA present UH pre pandemic, before the pandemic. That's basically that's the best case scenario with the restrictions and so working place. Wow, So what's it been?

I mean, so what are the restrictions, because it's interesting. We've been having a lot of conversations UM live on air, also in social media, and there are folks who say, you know, it's going to be a weird experience. You know, I'm not going to enjoy it, but give us you're doing it, tell us what it's like and the social distancing involved and what the experience is like. You know, there's no no real playbook on this. I mean, you know, uh, what we do is that we take sort of a

cautious approach, but then also you know, being optimistic. So the first thing, it's all about sanitation and safety. So what we start with is that we have to make sure that our staff and employees are happy to report to work, feel safe with work, and feel good about what we do. UM. So obviously you have to follow the government mandates of the restrictions, whether it used to all kept and see over twenty or it depends what

state you're in. But if the staff feels good about what we do, then they are proud of what we do, and that transforms over to the customer because then they feel safe also. So it's sort of a Shane reaction and that's restaurant tour Rick Walstead. Um, I gotta say, Jason, I think I learned a lot about what they're doing,

the steps that they're taking to reopen restaurants. And you know, he's a reminder, having properties in different locations around the country, that not every reopening is going to be the same or happen at the same time. Well, and I loved how specific he got with us, because I think we're all sitting here wondering. You and I talked about in our show almost every day, what's it going to be

like when we walk into a restaurant again. I mean, it's mind blowing given all the ways that you know, you and I tend to move around that I haven't been I haven't sat down in a restaurant in almost three months now. It's kind of remarkable. It is remarkable.

And what's interesting too is he was thinking also like a businessman, thinking, you know what, there might be some new revenue lines like curbside pick up, you know, at high end restaurants that never would have happened before but had to happen because of the shutdown, And maybe that continues and provides, like I said, a new revenue stream for restaurants going forward. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week.

Coming up, we talt with the CEO of online therapy company talk Space, Gotta get Your Head Right, and it's the subject of a story in the magazine this week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So Jason are bringing everybody some of our favorite conversations from our daily radio show throughout the week, and then included one that's actually tied to a story in the magazine this week.

That's right, it's a piece by Cynthia Coon. She's one of our favorite reporters across the Empire, and it's all about how, in the midst of the pandemic, more people are turning to online therapy to deal with anxiety, depression, and strife within their relationships. All of that being locked in place, sheltered in place has some unintended and maybe unexpected consequences, And Jason, one of those online therapy sites has actually seen their web traffic double in just three months.

The owner of that site and the co founder of that site is orn Frank at the online therapy company talk Space. Here's what he had to say. So I was understand what talk spaces and how you came to create it because you had a long career or a very successful career in the ad game, I believe, and you happened upon this through some personal experience. Tell us the story. So, hey, that's true. I was in marketing and advertising for many years, and I'm not repending and

paying for my scence. I get. And we started talks because we just thought that psychotherapy was such a wonderful professional had so much edited value, and it was just a shame that so few people actually have access to it. So our mission from day one was can we actually open up access for everyone who wants to at least

try talking to a therapist. It has helped both me and my co founder is also my wife my partner, tremendously in our lives, and we thought, you know, the world has to be a better place if we could open this up for everyone. So that was a yeah. I would see the initial at the beginning around twenty twelve, and so tell us about the technology, because you know, this is beyond what you have created, is beyond just

a situation where people can can do this remotely. There's some artificial intelligence built in I believe help us understand how that works. So you know, behavior health and psychotherapy and psychiatry are as I said before, wonderful professions, the very rich in theories that are kind of pouring data.

Where you introduce an online modern technology platform, the things that you begin to do is you begin to aggregate and accumulate vast troves of data that can be used to learn and see patterns and then effectively and when someone uses our our technology or platform, they can do video, they can do audio, they can write to each other,

it's their choice. But we can analyze this and actually learn how the best treatment courses look like, what are the best lines of interventions that will apply to certain kinds of conditions or accurities. When you have a large enough data set, you can do what's called very large scale regressions and begin to get you know, a faint

idea of what works better than other approaches. Because, in all honesty, if you went to a therapist in Manhattan, you don't know how good they are, You don't know how many people they helped in the past, and more than anything else, you don't know if they're he or she is a good fit for you for your particular needs.

You know, therapy is a little bit like data. Well, and I want to talk more about the use of machine learning and AI and all of this in a moment, but I do wonder about the therapist that you use. What's the screening involved? Tell us a little bit about that process. So we have close to five thousand therapists on the network in all fifty states, and because we have this this level of data, we can actually know who is a good fit and a great therapist that

will deliver good clinical outcomes on this platform. UM. So I can tell you one thing that probably won't surprise you, but we found only two strong correlations, one stronger than the other towards what makes a really good therapist. So the first one, interestingly in US, is having around seven or eight minimal years of experience post supervision UM that

delivers significantly better clinical outcomes. So if you look at our network, they all qualify to this or every one average they have a tenure froum nine to ten years. And the second one, Carol, won't surprise you at all, and it actually applies to most of our women are better m Yeah, I have a segment later in the week about how leaders you know during crisis better women.

I'm the only person who can see Carol during this show right now, Uren, and I can tell you that she is giving her not surprised face UH and her slightly careful I want to say smug. I don't want to say smug, but certain face. And we should join their forces to our next thought up, which is handling over,

handing over the world to women. Tell us or how much of your site UM has gone up your app in terms of UH since we've been kind of since we've been in lockdown for the last two months, so it's changing every day, but we see at least a doubling of our traffic of people are coming in and are looking for help. And we can see it coming from two sources. One is, you know, beyond the emych that we talked about all day, there is a second I would say epidemic, which is one of mental health,

which is rigored by by COVID nineteen. So you see people that are the amounts of pain and suffering and and and really sad and heartbreaking stories that are ou there has grown dramatically, and on top of that, you see I would say a second source of people that it's used to go to face to face therapy, but it's unfortunately don't not available right now, so they're looking for help elsewhere. But overall we see more than a double lot of the people that other people help with us.

Or do you feel like this notion of going to therapy or or talking to someone is becoming more widely accepted and acceptable? Are we getting more comfortable talking about mental health? It's a great question, Jason, and and I don't want to be you know, give you a wish for thinking answer. I think I think stigma is improving, but it's not equally distributed. I think, you know, when we have a conversation with people that live in Manhattan,

it's part of their early lives. It's not anything that's threatening. I think one of the interesting things that we learned over the last eight years is that actually remote care sometimes helps alleviate stigma, because part of stigma is that very awkward I would say feeling or experience once you meet the therapist face to face for the first time. At that point that in time here share a complete stranger, and sometimes it's very painful for you to talk about well,

whatever is troubling you. So there's a sense of awkwardness of being judged. That is part of steam myself. So some of the younger people, the millenniums a k a. Millenniums still much safer in writing about it from as far and we we see an interesting phenomena in which people be give to write to the therapy, not for a couple of months, they will once they trust him or her, they will do a live video session because now they're willing to expose themselves. Wow, that's really that's

really interesting sort of mixing, the mixing the media. In some ways, what I find fascinating for such a developed society, smart society, developed country, is that we don't really respect health, whether it's physical health or mental health. It's really kind of mind boggling for the amount of money that we

spend out a lot of stuff. And I mean we might individually, but I think even the medical world doesn't necessarily appreciate or certain aspects of it um or in the importance of mental health, Like why isn't it why isn't it that we all go in every year for kind of a I don't know, you know that that's got to be part of our mental health check out. Yeah, of course, you know, he was so right, and I've made the same, you know, argument to accomplish people in

my past. But I really think that in here we have some wholepen some positive change. I think, you know, much of healthcare is delivered by large employers in the United States, and I think it's a certain section of them we understand that and will prioritize mental health, animals, wellness, uh, just as much as they do any other form of healthcare.

I think systematically, you know, the healthcare system or someone very wise once told me that the United States have the best medicine in the world and probably the world's healthcare system. I think the healthcare system is catching up to death as well. And I can tell you that we also operate enterprise, so business to business, and we had the We've had a huge growth of large payers that understands that they need to provide this kind of access and then started working with us in the last

couple of months or as of a COVID nineteens. So I think we're actually making progress there, and I don't know how long it will take, but I'm with that. I'm pretty confident that that it will be that provided to it to America. He just has to just make and that's talk Space CEO or In. Frank really enjoyed catching up with him. A very thoughtful guy, had a whole career in the ad and marketing game before he created talk Space with his wife. It was based on

their experience in therapy. And what I loved is this is really taking it to a much wider audience. Carol, Yeah, be sure to check out the full interview certainly on our podcast, and also check out Cynthia Coon's story in the magazine That wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Be sure to

tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio. We're live Monday through Friday starting at two pm Wall Street Time, and you can also watch the show live on YouTube. Just search for Bloomberg Global News and be sure to check out our Bloomberg Business Week Extra podcast. This week, it's with Markin. He's the chairman of Castle Systems, owner of the City Tennis Tournament down in d C. A guy who has seen a lot when it comes to cities and sports. He also has a lot of thoughts in the future

of the workplace. All right, stay safe everyone, we'll be back next week. At the same time. This is Bloomberg. Mhm mhm.