Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - May 9th, 2020

our daily radio show. And Jason, we finished the prior week talking a lot about mixed messages and that seemed to permeate again this week in what was week eight for many of us still working at home, even as around the U S some states were easing restrictions and there was more talk of reopening the economy, and throughout the week, Jason, I felt like it was two steps forward, one step back when it came to developing a vaccine and how best to safely reopen and also protect what

was left of our economy. And this as economic data continued to shatter previous readings and as more companies as we know, dropped their guidance for the year. The visibility it's just not there. Well, it was a series of conversations I feel like as I think back across the week, where we were sort of a two minds, this notion of like what are you doing to protect? What are

you doing to shelter? Remaining that conversation remaining, but also looking ahead, looking short term, looking mid term, and looking long term. And that has to do with the medical side, but it certainly has to do with companies. Companies who know that they as institutions and maybe more importantly, the people who work for them and the leaders that we're talking to are going to be forever changed. And the implications of that are not easy to get your head around.

But we did our best over the course of the week. Absolutely, and we know some companies and industries have been hurt disproportionately. Some have actually seen a surgeon demand, and that included Blue Apron president and CEO Linda Kozlowski. I mean, they talked about how demand they couldn't even meet it all initially, and they had to think about protecting workers, which they already do because they're in the food industry, but also

how to get their kids out to consumers. First up, though we go inside the magazine, we get a firsthand look at testing for the virus. This has been a massive question. It's on all of our minds. You can write about it in the abstract. But Bloomberg News writer Stephanie Baker she had for antibody tests herself, and unfortunately she's still not sure if she had COVID nineteen. You know, I did this because I realized that I, like many other people, had, was wondering whether or not I might

have had it UM. And I think I realized a lot of other people were in a similar situation. And I had written about antibody testing, as you know, being trumpeted by politicians as a way out of lockdown, but had talked to scientists who had criticized these antibody tests as being unreliable. So I thought, well, if I throw myself into this world, UM and really do some research and test it on myself, I'll get to the bottom

of of you know, how reliably reliable these tests are. UM. And you know, I thought, well, maybe it will be really boring and I'll just get you know, a bunch of negative results that the earlier story and then UM. And then so when when I started out, I got a negative test, and I thought, just what's going to happen. I'm just going to get a bunch of negatives and I won't have a story or much to say. Um, And then the next test was positive, and I was

really confounded. The third test was also positive, so I figured, well, two out of three, you know, the first test must be an outlier. By the time I took the fourth test, which was negative, I thought, well, two positives too, negatives, I have no clue whether or not I've had it. And then I started and you have a story, definitely have a story. That have a story. I started to take a closer look at these tests. Why would I

be getting, you know, differing results. You know, there's obviously a lot of these companies are claiming incredibly high almost perfect specificity, very high sensitivity rates. But what I realized is that some of them are testing different antibodies to different parts of the virus. Some tests just for antibodies against the so called spike protein, which is a sort of call in card of this novel coronavirus. Others test for antibodies against something called the nucleo capsid protein, which

are far more abundant and easier to detect. Some tests for both, and I think that's one of the reasons why they're I got so many varying results. Oh my god, so many questions. Because what's key about this, right Stephanie, is that so many world leaders, and you write this in your story, have said that we need these antibody tests to determine who has had the virus, who has immunity, so we can reopen up the economies and so everybody

can feel safe. But what I got from your story is that there are tons of different types of tests out there, and there are some differences between what's done in a lab versus what you can do kind of a rapid test. And the problem is there's a lot of variation, right, So I feel like there's not a

lot of certainty that comes out of these antibody tests. Yeah. Absolutely, And and look, you know, one of the things I should say at this, at the start here is that scientists don't know if you have antibodies how much protection they actually provide. You know, many people, many scientists that it will give you at least a few months of protection, perhaps several years. But the virus has only been around, um,

you know that we're aware of since January. Still still so much to learn, UM, And it's hard to see to study how long immunity laughs, and and and what level of antibodies really provides you any protection. But my takeaway from this very unscientific little experiment I did was that these tests, by and large are not ready for

prime time. And UM, I'm surprised at the overwhelming number of messages I got from friends and contacts and Bloomberg users saying, UM, I got a test, is it correct or I'm going to get a test and what do you think? Um? And you know other people who like who said, well, I took two tests and I had a similar experience to you. I got conflicting results. So UM, I've surprised at how much this story is kind of

captured what is on so many people minds right now. Um, and I think there needs to be a lot more research into antibodies and how to detect them before we can think about rolling this out on a wider scale. And that's Bloomberg News is Stephanie Baker normally on the financial investigations Beach. She's done some amazing work around Paul mana Fort, the Ukraine and Russia angle to everything going on here in the United States. But this was a

very personal story. Carol. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting, Jason. I mean, she really hits something with all of us. We've all had those conversations with friends, neighbors, ourselves about I think we had the virus. And you know, what we're finding out is that there are so many questions about the accuracy of these rapid antibody tests on the market.

But you know, we need these to reopen the economy, and yet which she found out, there's a lot of false results and it really raises a lot of questions about how do we reopen safely? Well, it is the big question, and it's one of the questions that we posted the President and CEO of Providence Health. He had a stark reality check for sure. That's coming up here on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg Pas is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.

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 coronavirus, all about the state of the world, the state of our lives. Carol, and this is a medical crisis at its core. Yeah, and I've got to say, one of our go to voices certainly has been this next guest. They were home to the first known case of the virus in the United States.

Dr Rod Hochman. He's the president CEO of Providence Health and you know, they really have been dealing with this from day one, and it was great to get his thoughts about again the path forward and again we're finding it's difficult. I think it starts out with, you know, we're going to get better at treating this virus. So you saw with from Visivier now being approved and you know we are first page it that we had in the United States. We actually treated with m jusiver three

months ago. And what we're going to see are some other medications that are going to be added to that in kind of a cocktail to see if we can really improve patients that get sick and hopefully prevent death. So that's one thing that I think the public can start to say, well, that's a good tranche of research

and work that's going on. On the other side of it is the race for the vaccine, where you know, there's probably more than fifteen trials that are ongoing, which is fantastic, and we have a lot of cooperation going on between the scientists with the different trials out there, and to kind of explain it to listeners, it's it's picking different parts of the virus and seeing which one

of those parts is gonna give you immunity. And so that's in simple terms, you know, why would there be fifteen different trials because they're also all looking at different aspects of the virus to see which one seemed to be as I would say, the most immunogenic and the ones that can confer immunity. So and then there's an issue of whether you use DNA or RNA, which from your biology from high school has all different consequences. There are some companies that are looking for a faster turnaround

on their vaccine. Uh, we're still we're cautiously hopeful about that, but you know that remains to be seen, you know, so that the most optimistic estimates are sometime in the late hall towards the end of the year, and the most realistic are probably in the first quarter of next year. UM for a vaccine, that's what that's what most of us are looking at in the in the clinical and scientific community. And so Dr Hakman, as you look across the country and and you drawing the experience that you've

had there in Washington State. You see this sort of checkerboard that we keep describing different states, sort of coming back at different times. But part of that is a response to how the virus has played out in different geographies, different urban areas versus suburban versus rural. What makes the most sense in terms of the medical side and in terms of what we should be doing before we have a vaccine? What what makes the most sense? Yeah, I

just talked to the Business Roundtable on Friday. We're trying to make some sense for the cdeos around the country about what they should do. And it's all very very dependent upon your geography and your density. So when I think about, you know, giving advice to different organizations companies, the first question I asked, are where are you in the country, because it will make a different depending on where those states and localities are on the curve of

number of cases. And then the second thing that's really important is the density of the work environment. So are you able to spread people out? Can you spread customers out? And you do some of that which will help really really decrease risk and exposure. So it's almost you almost have to go through a checklist of the things that you do in your business or where you are to kind of understand what the best practices are, and some

of us are. We're actually putting together kind of some of those guidelines so that these are the things that you look for and these are the things that will decrease your risk significantly. And then a little bit of this is gonna be we gotta see what happens in the country. We're gonna learn a lot. Certain places will teach us a lot in our in our environment. Alaska's wide open and open for business. Um, you know, again not a lot of density, but we're also going to

learn a lot by doing that. What are the things that we have to look out for? What about something like mass transportation in a city like New York, how do you see that moving forward? Wow, that is a tough one. That is a really really hard one to think about, because those are the situations where you know, if you ask me as a physician, that worry us the most. When you've got a crowded subway car that has few hundred people in it in close proximity, how

do you do that? And I don't know whether it's going to take limiting some of that transportation. Obviously everyone wearing a mask, because there's no question that if everyone wore a mask, it will decrease significantly the transmission rate of this virus, even if they're not masks that people have on. So some of that, and then you know, you know, not touching anything. If I got on a subway, as soon as I got off, I'd be you know,

washing my hands, doing all those kinds of things. So I think we're going to have to make some accommodation and probably limiting you know, we can't have a packed subway car. So are there ways that we kind of limit the number of people. But those are going to be some of the tough ones that we're going to have to solve. That's Dr Rod Hawkman. He's the President

CEO of Providence Health. As we've been reminding everybody home to the first known case of the virus in the US, you know, getting a vaccine, that's what the conversations are all about. But as he reminds us, this virus, we are still learning so much about it, and so that complicates getting a vaccine. Well, the other thing that I really took away from his conversation. I felt like it for many conversations we had subsequently, was this notion that

how you come back depends on density and geography. Density and geography. I feel like I want to like write it down on everything that I talked about when it relates to the comeback. Remember, we asked him about how do you open up mass transportation in New York City and he goes, well, that's a tough one. Yeah. I felt like that out. I felt like he actually said, brought that up, and uh, for those of us who live in the Tri state area and commute to New

York City, that's a tough answer. Yeah, exactly. All Right, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up conversation with Blue Apron President and CEO Linda Kozlowski. I'm keeping workers safe and keeping up with the surge in demand. This is Whoomer. 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 of it had to do about the coronavirus, and it also tapped into those companies who have had to ramp up their businesses to meet increased demand for all of us sheltering at home. Well, we know life has changed, our daily routines have changed, how we eat certainly has changed,

and what we eat. We spoke with Linda Kauzlowski. She's got a fascinating background. She was a high level executive at Etsy, she worked at ever Note, she's the relatively new president and CEO over at Blue Apron. That's been a challenging company. But this virus has put things in a slightly different perspective. Well, I think there are sort of two main ways that we had to think about operating slightly differently. One is when it comes to how

we actually handled the demand. Obviously, there was a very sharp increase in demand when um when coronavirus orders started to go into play, as far as people going to shelter in place, et cetera, and restaurant closures, and so we had to make a few decisions on how to streamline operations in order to try to make sure that we could get as many boxes out to people as possible.

And we did that through consolidating some of UM, the recipes and UM and looking at ways that we could just simplify the pack lines and and UM and and reduce complexity. Then the other aspect of it was really about the safety peace. UM. We're already very, very obsessed

with safety and sanitation. We're an FDA regulated center. We have an SQF certification, which is considered to be one of the highest standards in the world, and so we already take a lot of precautions on a day to day basis, but we layered on top of that in UM, even in early March before we were starting to see any kind of change in demand, to say, let's let's get some other things in place around additional handwashing, additional

safety precautions, social distancing, and eventually you know, face masks and all of our facility. So we we wanted to make sure that that our employees were safe, but also that they had the tools and the understanding of how to continue to be safe throughout this time. Yeah, it's kind of interesting because I think we all went through a period of like, wait, can I get outside food?

Is that safe for me? And I think we came to the conclusion for the most part that it was okay, and I think in many ways that it was about keeping workers safe so that they didn't get the virus from kind of working next to each other. What was physically the setup? Did you have to spread everybody out in a warehouse? So it's it's thinking about the production floor itself and how do you add social distancing UM

in the production floor. But it's actually way beyond that, because you have break rooms, you have the parking lot, you have UM. You know, people taking breaks from from their shifts, and you want to make sure that they understand the impact of social distancing across the board. And so we we now require masks at all times in our facilities, not just on the production floor, to make

sure that people have that additional layer of protection. So we at a part of microwaves where people might heat their lunches up and and that sort of thing to make sure that people did not need to to to you know, come in contact with each other even off the production floor as well. And in terms of the supply chain. You know, we heard as recently as this afternoon from the President meeting there with the Governor of

Iowa about you know, what's going on with meat. What are you saying, Well, we actually have very very high animal welfare standards and for our proteins, and very high quality standards for our produce, so we have a very tight supply chain in order to manage that, and we do not want to compromise on those standards because one of the things we're known for is the quality of our ingredients, and our supply chain UM when it comes to those types of proteins has not actually been impacted

um from from those concerns that have been coming out in the media. We don't We don't source from those particular suppliers, and we have pretty tight control over our chain to make sure that we're not only adhering to our own safety standards, but that our suppliers are adhering to those safety standards as well. So we've had fairly

minimal impact on our supply chain. At the same time, we also have such a variety of recipes and flavors on a weekly basis that we're constantly sourcing from different people anyway, so we can move between suppliers as well as needed to ensure that the supply is safe. You know, you mentioned that you had seen a sharp increase in demand sort of that growth in demand help us understand can you quantify that and is that sort of are you seeing that sort of hold as we get deeper

into this stay at home world? Yeah, I think that what we said that we saw was when you compare the first three weeks of March to the first three weeks of April, we saw about a twenty seven percent lift in demand UM in those sort of early weeks, and of course that demand, we think there's more out there, and we continue to UM to try to make sure that we're serving people as best as possible. We had

to UM. We couldn't meet all of that demand at the beginning of the cycle, but we felt that it was important to compare or at the beginning of March to the beginning of April as opposed to looking year over year because so much other dynamics change throughout the year that are unrelated to COVID and UM And that's really where we saw the sharp increase, and it came from a combination of our existing customers ordering a lot more, as well as customers coming back into the service that

had previously canceled and brand new customers coming into the service. At the same time, and that's flue aprin CEO Linda Kazlowski really enjoyed that conversation in part because they know a lot about their consumer. This is a business that was already trying to rate itself in some ways, and they're facing something as all of us are that no one anticipated. And you talked about how you do it,

how do you come back? And they already are doing social distancing on the production line, on the production floor, but they also talked about even in their break rooms, right, they've got to make sure all their workers are kept apart to make sure that they are staying safe. So it gives us an idea of what our life is like when we get back. You're listening to Bloomberg this week. Coming up, we hear from one of the founders of Mullis and Company, Todd Wadler. We're not talking banking, We're

talking boxing. We are indeed, this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Today we're bringing you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations Carol and I had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show all about the coronavirus, Where we are and where we go from here? And this was one guest that you know really well, and that's Todd Wadler. Yes, he helped co found Molis and

Company the investment pick. But what's interesting is what he's doing right now. He's the co founder and CEO Box Union Studio and that fitness world Jason, We've talked to a lot of folks who play into that industry. They had to pivot pretty quickly, uh, and increasingly it meant going digital. First of all, let's take a step back remind us what box Union is. Box Union is a fitness boxing brand that my co founder, Felician Alexander, and

I started back in two thousand seventeen. We have two fitness boxing studios in Los Angeles, and crazy enough, we were about to open our third in a couple of weeks when the COVID nineteen uh kind of came about and our view going back was that um and was supported by the data, was that the category was really poised for growth at the right offering came by. We felt that what held the category back with a lack

of accessibility. I don't know how many boxing gym's you've been in, but for the most part they could be pretty intimidating. So we really worked to reinvent uh category and re event what the offering was from everything we did, and that was whether it was the environmental which obviously, Jason, you've seen in person, but the probably the biggest place we spent our time was on the product itself and

the workout. So what we created was what we call Box to the Beat, which means everything we do we do to the rhythm of the music in the room. It gives us NonStop movement and it really makes the work out more fun and more engaging. And as we've taken the business into the digital world, and we'll talk about that, I think that's really really important. So well, and I'm curious in your moved to reinvent and make it less intimidating. Has it worked, Like what's the demos

on it versus maybe what a traditional boxing gym might have. Yeah, great question, Carl. So when we looked at it and why we got so excited through the data was that Boxing for Fitness showed way more men versus female, and it also showed um an older demo amongst the males and it and the two of you, who are obviously very involved in the boutique fitness world. No, that's not what the boutique world like. So we actually ended up with exactly the opposite of what we saw and that

was what really excited us. And part of that was not only the workout, but we really lean heavily into the man mind and the mindset and we think that that plays a critical role in the fitness journey and boxing sets up really well for that. And we just have the reviews and the emails from the customers to show that, especially in a time like COVID nineteen with

anxiety at all times. So what does that mean? Lean into the mindset and you know you're tapping into your right Jason and I are very much into this world. We're very much into mental health as well as physical health. So when you lean into the mindset, what do you

what do you mean specifically? Yeah, So in our in our classes, we're looking to inspire and motivate you, and part of the way what we're doing that is through our words, getting you to be able to achieve more than you could otherwise do and think about not in an intimidating way, but in a way of really unlocking

that inner fighter. We say it in our classes as find your Inner Fighter, and it really has helped people deal with some of the things that you deal within the mind, most notably things like anxiety, and that is combined with honestly just punching a bag, which is obviously very safe, but there's a release that comes with that, and so we've been able to really really tap into

that as part as part of our brand. Let's continue our conversation with Todd Wadler, co founder CEO of Box Union Studio, joining us on the phone from Lake Tahoe. All right, Todd, so we set the table with what the workout is, what it feels like in the studio. There is no studio at the moment for any of us, including Carol and me, who are talking to you from our respective homes. We don't even have our own studio to broadcast this radio show. So what does a virtual

version of this look like? Great questions? So when we The good news is that when now? We had always planned to have a digital offering, so that is something the team and I were working on all along. Clearly COVID nineteen sped that up for us, and what we what you have to make sure when you launch an offering like that is is that the physical world in the virtual world still need to come together. You can't

have two different brands. So we tapped into what we felt were our core competencies as a brand, which is what we discussed. We need to be accessible, we need to be fun, we need to have boxing. And then as we kind of looked at through that lens, we said, what else do people like? Well, they like the live nature of what we're doing, So our platform offers live classes, but how do we extend the brand a little bit

to make the offering even broader for more people. And what we did is we came out with what we call is Trained like a Boxer, which means the platform has all the boxing content you're ever gonna want from a beginner through an advanced boxer. But as we know, boxers trained, and any athlete trains and more than just what the sport they're doing. So we have cardio workouts, lots of different hit based workouts by body part. We have jump rope, we have strength based workouts with weights

and no weights. We have mobility and recovery. You know, look, as we get older, right, it's more part of the part of the battle is just recovering. And then we've also offered are about to launch our Mindset offering, which we're really excited. We're bringing a best selling author who's going to be what I call topical and purposeful meditations and they're and they're kind of based on what's going on. So I'll give you a quick example, which is dealing

with anxiety during COVID nineteen. That would be an example of the types of meditations. So we have extended the brand but kept it rhythm based and giving the consumer many different ways to work out in our platform and build their community there. Todd, I am curious too about the growth that you've seen in digital. It has been amazing. Um. You know, the first as we launched, at the first step of what we did is we went to our

members and the adoption rate was was really fantastic. But what I've been quite frankly blown away by is how we are on five continents already and it's not just one person. He's gotten and it has been unbelievable how fast, Um, the word has gotten out and the only way you can do that is word of mouth. Right. Well, that's what I was going to ask you, Todd, is like everybody and you know, I mean not to be overly glib, but like everybody's going virtual. You know, you know you

had Equinox launch their thing. You know, you've got some big players who are going after this. How do you stand out in this type of world? Yep, that's a great question. And look, I think any successful online platform will have to have certain key elements. I think the number one thing is you've got to have engaging content. We've spent a lot of time with built in chat features and elements like that. To be able to supply that, you've got to have your mix of live and on demand.

But the most successful ones and the ones some of the ones that you're talking about and some of the ones that will be launching, you have to develop a strong community. And in order to do that, in my opinion, you really have to have a direct relationship with the customer with a clear point of view. They have to know why you are there and why you exist and why they want to do what you're doing. And I think the way we've communicated the brand, it's really compelling.

The second element I would say is I don't think there's anybody in the fitness boxing world that has compelling, accessible content in boxing. So I think it's a newer category, just like it was in the studio physical location side, in the virtual world as well. And that's what we're seeing and that's why I think our numbers have been

have even amazed us when we've launched this. That's Todd A. Lart, the co founder and CEO Box Union's studio, and I thought it was interesting first of all, just getting you know, his thoughts on how they reinvented the boxing workout right, making it less intimidating, but also you know, making sure folks could tap into the workout at home while they're sheltering in place, and also helping others deal with anxiety right his program about mindset offerings. I love that he

was thinking about physical health as well as mental health. Absolutely, and this is a workout. I've done it out in l A. It is pretty intense. It's very hard, but very worthwhile, and as you say, they've thought a lot about how they position it and this moment in fitness is going to tell us so much about going forward This is a week where we heard blockbuster earnings from Peloton.

So if you can figure out sort of how to get to people not just in the gym or in the studio, but also at their homes, there's a huge opportunity there because we're all going to be thinking about our bodies and our minds and staying healthy. And we know being healthier has certainly been something that helps you fight this virus even more so, so maybe something we think about even more so for the future. 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 Masser. Plenty coming up in our next hour, we're going to hear from the well known lawyer and arbitrator and the go to guy when it comes to crisis management. We're talking about Ken Feinberg on a possible COVID nineteen compensation fund. We're also going to head down to Atlanta check him with Frank Patterson. He is the Pinewood Atlanta Studios CEO. They are carefully reopening for business.

Hearing a lot about what's next in entertainment and speaking of what's next, We talked to Paul Rabel, the co founder of the Premier Lacrosse League, on what's next for his league and and really gave us a very detailed insight into what it takes to bring sports back. It's not going to be easy, but he's doing it. Plus how Instacart wasn't quite ready to be an essential service overnight. It's this week's cover story in the magazine. I love

this story. What was happening inside the company as demand just tick off. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Today we're bringing you some of the most important, we hope informative conversations Carol and I had on our daily Bloomberg Business Week radio show all about the coronavirus. It makes its way into every single conversation that we have, but it's getting more complicated, more nuanced in some ways,

especially as we figure out what's going to happen next. Right, so many moving parts and so many things to consider to make sure everybody is kept safe. We're going to hear from one voice, Ken Feinberg, certainly well known to the Bloomberg Radio audience. He's a go to crisis management individual. He's been talking with members of Congress about a possible compensation fund for those impacted by the virus. But again, it's not an easy call. So we're gonna hear from

him directly. Also, we're gonna hear from Frank Patterson. He runs Pinewood, Atlanta Studios. If you've seen a Marvel movie, you've seen their work. We're talking about the studdeo where Avengers and many more movies were shot. And Paul Rabel the goat. That's right. We talked to Paul Rabel, the co founder of the Premier Lacrosse League. He's bringing back a two week self quarantined tournament, Jason, but it's not easy in terms of making sure that everybody stays safe.

Could set the model for other sports, It remains to be seen. First up, though, let's get inside the magazine and the cover story. It's about how instat cart wasn't ready to become an essential service. Overnight, we heard from Bloomberg business Week editor Joel Webber and one of the co writers of the story, Ellen Hewitt. You know, perhaps to Ellen for making it especially great. Um As well as her Cobilan on the on the story was that Chapman,

you know, we put this the story in motion. I think it was pretty close to like six weeks ago now, almost right at the very beginning of everyone being stuck at home and suddenly being like, how are we going

to get groceries? And you know, one of the things that I think a lot of people, especially in cities, have been turning to is obviously instat cart And this is sort of in that genre of like companies, um, you know, finding ways to meet the moment, and you know, in in some ways, like you know, Instacarta had laid a lot of this groundwork in advance, but what they've actually been able to do or are in the process of doing, is hiring a ton of people to do

more deliveries. Um. But the catch there is that their gig workers not full time employees, which I think is going to be just become again part of the kind of societal issues going forward. UM. And and I think you know, the company has just seen a surgeon interest um and Ellen when you when you talk to them, Um, you know, the CEO that lead anecdote is just amazing, UM. How they kind of like fell into this moment. You

want to share that amazing bit of reports. Yeah, of course, so the you know, we opened the story with this anecdote that. Um, when Latte and I heard it, we were like, this has to be the lead. Um. What happened was it was um, instat carts first, all hands,

that was remote, so done over resume. This is you know, had been a week or so since they required all the employees who usually work in like Toronto and San Francisco to work from home, and the CEO of Poor of a Meta, you know, was prepared to give this big speech meaning to sort of rally the troops and

tell them, you know, this is our moment. This is going to be a really intense time for the company because so many people are going to turn to instacrat to get groceries during this pandemic, and we're gonna be providing an essential service. So everyone has to be ready. You know, it's the sort of our noble mission. It's wartime. And five minutes before the call starts, his apartment buildings fire alarm starts going off. They're they're running a test.

There's not a fire, but um, you know he can't mute himself, which you know is what we would normally do in that situation. And because he's one presenting, he has to get this speech. So he talks for like thirty minutes while there's this alarm shrieking in the background, and in hindsight, you know, people think about you know this, there's being sort of a siren warning, like there's an emergency going to happen for this company, because the next two months have been a pretty wild ride for them,

good ways and bad. Well, let's talk about that, Ellen, because man, there's so many things I've highlighted in your story because you talk about, Man, their volumes just you know, surpass their end of your goal, the goals two. I mean, their volume was just growing, um so much. But along the way, all of a sudden problems started to come

also to the forefront. And you talk about instacart eventually or instacart became eventually card because for any of us trying to tap into it, Man, we did too when our regular services weren't working and it was like, oh wait, we're not going to get that for what a week and a half? Um, So what happened? What were the

problems that were unearthed? Well, so the huge spike in demand was kind of a blessing and accursed, right, So, all of a sudden, this company is dealing with the type of demand that they were hoping for, you know, a few years down the road, when they might have time to be prepared for it. Instead, it came in a matter of we That meant that their technology systems were not ready. They had to do all sorts of UM shenanigans to you know, move on to five times

as many servers as they had before. They were dealing with double the traffic to their website every week, which is a lot you know, that compounds very quickly. Their engineers were pulling late nights during data migrations and and just trying to keep the sites up really and then they were having this huge issue with UM just getting their main service to work right, like, there was so

much demand from customers. They didn't have enough shoppers stores grocery stores themselves were out of stock of all sorts of things given people were buying you know, the whole shelf in a panic that they were really unable to deliver on the same day, which they used to be able to do and deliver just the things that people wanted to buy, So as you mentioned, yeah, they started extending the delivery window out to thirteen days, which actually

means predicting what might be available at that period of time, which is very difficult. They were hiring all sorts of people, but it takes a while onboard onto onboard well, so it's just in sort of a frantic time for the company. And that's reporter Ellen Hewitt, co author of this week's cover story, as well as magazine editor Joel webber teeing that all up for us. This is, as I said in the conversation, a classic business week So and I love how instacart became eventually cart as they said in

the stories. Ellen said in the story because of the delays that customers saw when they were waiting for their orders. But the surge also unveiled weaknesses in the model, especially when it came to keeping workers safe. So so many moving parts to this. It's a mus street. And as we said, it's the cover story. You're listening to Bloomberg this week. Coming up, we talked crisis management with the

one and only can find Burg. This is Bloomberg, So, Jason, we're bringing everyone some of the most important and informative conversations that we had throughout the week on our daily radio show. Of course, so much dealing with the coronavirus, the impact, where we are and how do we move forward? Right? And part of moving forward is figuring out potentially how to compense eight people. This is a week where we learned that more than thirty million people have lost their

jobs just over the past eight or nine weeks. We got a blockbuster in a bad way monthly jobs report. So what are the consequences of that? We turned to an expert in crisis management and the expert in the aftermath. He worked on on eleven, he worked on VP, He's worked for going we're talking about ken Feinberg. Where are we in this crisis? What is new and different about this global pandemic versus some of the major things you've worked on, be at TARP, be at nine eleven. I

could go on and on. Well, of course, the isolation after nine eleven, the tragedy of nine eleven, the foreign terrorist attacked everybody, All citizens came together, very bipartisan way social cohesion. After the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration came together with the American people,

immediately drafted a compensation plan of action. The trouble with the coronavirus and mother Nature is that solutions involved isolation, and you don't have that social reinforcement that you would normally have after a most unfortunate tragedy. That makes this particularly difficult to cope with. Yeah, and to get to

the other side of it. We have constantly kind of talked about this, you know, kind of objectiposition of different forces of wanting to get back to work, wanting to get back to normal, but we also also also want to be safe, and so I don't know, how do you see it? How do you see some of the programs that have been implemented, whether it's stimulus programs that

kind of help us get to the other side. Well, first of all, in order to get to the other side with stimulus programs of any type, whether it's thousands of dollars or trillions of dollars, there are two critically important variables that I've learned about over the years. First, any resolution must be bipartisan. You cannot cope with a disaster like the coronavirus unless everyone comes together in an

a political way. And to the credit of the Congress, the trillion dollar plus stimulus packages that have emanated from the Congress so far and from the Trump administration largely have been bipartisan, with a minimum amount of polarization and opposition. So that's good. But the second thing I've learned, often to my detriment, hard, hard lessons learned, you better get

the money out fast and efficiently. Because all the talk in the world lapping yourselves on the back about a great thing, this is if you don't deliver what is promised via by undercutting the expectation of the American people, the program is going to be tarnished and every bit

more important than enactment of stimulus or enactment of any legislation. However, bipartisan is that you get the money out, you get it out fast, and you get it to the right people, and expectations are met, and if they're not, you are laboring with a real, real obstacle. And so it does feel like Kenneth Feinberg that some things were done in haste in order to sort of get it out. Uh,

mistakes were made. I think most people would concede. Uh. That point is that just to be expected given the velocity at which this happened, or were there things that could have been done and maybe can be done better or in the future in order to ensure that it gets out and gets out in the right way these funds. Well that that's a tough question on the one here and there has never been anything quite like this coronavirus

stimulus in the trillions. I mean, I can empathize and sympathize a little bit with administrators with responsibility for getting the money out, but that may be in mitigation, but it doesn't solve the problem because, um, it doesn't help if as an operational matter, whether it's the rollout of Obamacare or whether it's this or any other number of programs, if you if you tout a solution and then there are problems in delivery, in administration, in operations, so that

the money is going slower or not going to the right people. That's a real problem that's got to be corrected fast, or uh, the citizen disapproval will simply grow. And it's not just a approval, right, it's also just there are people out there that absolutely no safety net, and we're you know, we know these problems were out there Kenneth. But I feel like the virus has certainly laid them there even more so um, and we really

have left people out there in the cold. Oh. I think that's right, and it's it's what magnifies the problem, of course, is what we spoke about five minutes ago. People are out there in the cold alone. There's not a whole lot of social cohesion when it comes to the virus because you have to suffer basically in private, in an inn in isolation where you don't have that social reinforcement from friends, colleagues, fellow employees, etcetera. And that's

Attorney Ken Feinberg. And I feel like attorney never really captures what he is and what he does. He has been involved in some of the most difficult, emotional and financially fraught compensation conversation that have been had in this country and globally for the past twenty years. That's right.

Nine eleven tarp BP, Deep Order Horizon. Also after the Boston Marathon bombing, and also he was brought up by Bowing to oversee compensation for the seven seven Max victims families and many many more so when it comes to kind of figuring out a situation and how folks can be fairly and rightfully compensated. He's the person to talk to. And what I took away from that conversation is it's not a straight line. It's not straightforward in this case,

particularly who gets compensated. What constitutes a frontline worker who was putting their lives on the line. We know many people were, But where do you draw that line and how do you fund it? I gotta say it was a very very thoughtful conversation. All right, you're listening to Bloomberg business Week coming up. Another conversation thoughtful as well, with Frank Patterson, and he's the CEO of Pinewood Atlanta Studios, and he talks about how the movie industry can bounce

back after the pandemic. But Jason, he says, really, until we get a vaccine, it's going to take more time and it's going to cost more. Talk about complicated. This is Bloomberg. Imagine being fired because of who you love, Imagine being denied medical treatment because of who you marry. Imagine being evicted because of who you are. Millions of Americans don't have to imagine this. They have to live it, because in thirty one States, it's legal to discriminate against

LGBT people. Get the facts that beyond I do dot Org. Brought to you by the Guilt Foundation and the AD Council. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Today. We're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had on our Bloomberg Business Week daily radio show, all about the coronavirus

and really a focus Carol on what happens next? How do we deal with this when life gets back to what more and more people are calling the next normal, right and thinking about what is the next normal? Is certainly the movie in entertainment industry, and one of the industry is trying to figure out what is the way back, Jason is the movie and entertainment industry productions right, which have been shut down as a result of the virus.

We caught up with Frank Patterson, the presidency of Pinewood Atlantis Studios, who is thinking about how you do it. How do you keep the actors safe, how do you keep the crew safe? Here's what he had to say. Well, I mean, as you've probably seen that we have so coming out a little bit more from their homes than I know personally, My wife and I have begun to sort of venture out into the neighborhood and um uh, it's it's good to see our neighbors out again. But

you know, there's still a lot of caution. You can tell that. Um, while some of the activities have been opened up, a lot of us are still being quite cautious. And so what does it mean for the business, Because you guys are stacked up, I mean just by you know, just by the numbers, and you know them obviously better than I do. But I mean we're talking about eighteen sound stages. We're talking about seven hundred acres, a million square feet under one roof. I mean, the second largest

purpose built studio in North America. I mean this is you know, this is a busy place. Where are you in in terms of getting back up and running? Yeah, as you as you as you mentioned we were packed when the virus hit. Uh, and there's a lot of work to be done. You know, Historically we've never seen this kind of money spent on the production of entertainment content in the history of our industry, right, I mean, Wall Street has been pouring more money into the pipeline.

Then we've had the capacity to produce in recent years, obviously because of all the developments with the streaming technologies,

So we were really busy. Productions began to shut down as you might imagine in March, and we just said about the business of uh my team on the ground at Pinewood Atlanta, you know, creating what we think are going to be the next next new best practices and protocols for getting back to work because we believe, you know, sometimes the summer productions are gonna want to return, and

of course we have to be prepared. So we've been putting a lot of work into what, as everyone says these days, you know, our new normal is for productions? What does that? What are those processes at this point? What? It? Just quickly, yeah, quickly. We focused on three areas that I think everyone's concerned about. One is just sort of studio access and lot management, Right, how do we manage the work on on the lot and manage the way

people work together? And then what kind of improvements can we make to our facilities to make them healthier and safer. So for example, air handling systems and swanky hand washing stations and electrostatic spray technology, you know, the new kinds of technologies that we can put in place in our facilities to make the you know, the work processes safer. And then the last is just what we call better practices and protocols for how we're going to work together,

how our crews are going to work together. We've been collaborating with studios and gilds and unions and associations to try to come up with a best practices, uh set of guidelines you know, in the next days. That's the EO of Pinewood Atlantis Studios, Frank Patterson and Jason You know, when you think of movie studios and productions, you probably think about the West Coast, but Atlanta has a huge,

huge set up there. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, if you've seen an Avengers movie of late, you have seen their work in action. One of the things I thought was so fascinating about him is he actually said a big blockbuster movie in some ways is easier to film than

maybe sort of a smaller sort of film. And we hearken back to our conversation a couple of weeks ago with Jane Rosenthal at Tribeca obviously one of the producers of The Irishman, and it's interesting to think about what types of movies get made, but also to talk with him about what it looks like to go see a big movie, a big, blockbuster, tent pole type movie on the other side of this. And I will say one of the things I took away he said, it's going to be more time and money until we get a

vaccine in terms of doing production costs. So yeah, we gotta figure this one out alright. Also figuring it out is Paul Rabel. He's the premier lacrosse lead co founder also arguably the best known person ever to play lacrosse. He's coming up. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So we're bringing you some of the most important and informative conversations we had

on our daily radio show throughout the week. Of course, Jason everything talking about the virus, kind of where we are, the impact, and then what life looks like post COVID nineteen and that includes the sports industry absolutely, And this is something very close to my Aren. I'm a huge sports fan. I also love the business of sports and for more on that, you can actually check out the Business of Sports podcast, which I was hosting this week

with Michael Barr and Evan Novie Williams. And one of the things we were talking about there and I was excited to talk about on our show, Carol, was lacrosse Paul Rabel. He's the co founder, he's the chief marketing officer of the Premier lacrosse League. He's got a plan and it is ambitious. Check it out. We're excited. It's an interesting thing because we're all sitting here on May six and it's challenging and they're still very difficult times

that and a long road ahead of us. But as we look at our businesses collectively, whether you're in the media business, auto retail in our case, sports, you try to figure out a way to get your skilled workforce

back in a very medically safe way. And when it comes to sports in the sports industry, there is such a macro impact for networks, for media companies, for advertising, and for brands, and just like a number of sectors that benefit from the game getting back on and in our case, being able to provide an opportunity for our players to play. UM. We went down started going down this path as soon as eight weeks ago when the World Health Org had identified and officially declared this a

global pandemic with COVID nineteen. And the more we uncovered with our colleagues across commissioners and other sports leagues and ownership groups, and then getting access to CDC, w h O as well as the White House Sports Committee Task Force, it became a foregone conclusion that fans wouldn't be at games for the foreseeable future. And then it became about how can if we do play, play in a safe

environment where players aren't at risk. And for us, we started going down the path of building a fully quarantined scenario. And we're able to do that partly because of the nascent stage that we're in and that we only have

seven teams we started last year was six. We expanded in our first off season and UH and the reason that matters is if you look at a fully quarantined model, there are only a handful of locations out there that can take on every player in the league across all the team's key personnel, medical as well as ops production and so on. And in our case, like really stringent

medical protocol. Everyone arrives to a location, they check in and go through the right testing, it's approved, and then we're playing and no one's leaving until it's done, and no one's coming in until it's done. And uh, and that's what we vetted out. We ended up partnering with NBC and and finding the time that h you know, provided itself as as attractive to us, and that was the Olympic window that was previously scheduled that post end of August and we're in the July and early August,

and just made that announcement today. We think that it will be a model for other teams sports, so long as they can figure out their total quantity of participants. Yeah, and how does that impact things, right in terms of how many players you can bring in, how many you know safely. Yeah, So it definitely changes the model a bit because traditionally you would have a full regular season and your playoffs in championship, and you have time in

between games. So this is gonna look more like a World Cup or a March Madness, where it's a lot of games in a condensed period. So we've we've expanded our player rosters, so we were originally addressing eight teen players, not twenty two. So you've got to take into account more play and potential injury and fatigue and so on. Um and then and then you look at the format itself. So we're gonna play twenty games in sixteen days. It's

a three week total quarantine. So we can talk a little bit about the medical protocol, but essentially there's a mini camp that leads into it, and then we and then we start playing. And the first week, like the World Cup, is group played for ced and then the second week is a single elimination tournament for a champion.

And so what does this do? And we're going to talk a little bit about this on the other side because we've got to get to some news and things like that, Paul Rabel, But briefly, in in thirty seconds, sponsors are going to be happy with this, right yeah, yeah, So right now, if you look at our industry in sports, your conceding, tickets, concessions, parking, merchandise, on site, local sponsorships.

So if you're making a run at this, you've got to look at the viewership place, your distribution and then sponsors, and if you figure out viewership, you can recoup your commitment from your sponsors and potentially get more. And so that's how we're looking at this is the viewership, distribution and sponsorship move Something I have to ask about your

plans here to do um this two week tournament. When you said that you're going to be playing like some I think you said twenty games in sixteen days, and you talked about very stringent medical protocols, are you saying that the teams that are going to be playing are all going to be in lockdown as well? Yes, so that that's yeah, that's the key difference between what we're seeing the NBA and Major League Baseball even explorers getting everyone to a geography and then maintaining some level of

hygiene between where the players stay in the facilities. What we're saying is we think it actually needs to be more defined and safe than that. So everyone will will be on the same campus in different dormitories, and then we'll have practice facilities and abilities for teams to function independent of each other as they prepare for games, and independent locker rooms and film study rooms. But then there's

a game field and so everyone. It's going to be like a mini Olympic village, and that includes our production team and NBC's talent. They're going to be there during the full quarantine as well. So how do you how

do you scale this up? And I do think about the Olympics right there, trying to figure that out, you know, and whether or not they can really go ahead, And I guess it does depend largely on a vaccine, But I do wonder how do you think about and the conversations that you said, you know, you're all you know, accessing the CDC and w h O Sports Task Force. What are the conversations about how you scale us up? Yeah, So the biggest piece to even be able to get

there is knowing that there are no positive tests. So before everyone from players to our participants broadcast members arrived, we have three phases. There's gonna be an at home phase of testing where the results will be in, and there's going to be a quarantine phase during that at home moment. And then when people commute to the site will all arrive during the same time period and go through the same COVID testing again to identify any discrepancy.

And then there will be another short quarantine period and there will be a final test during in between the group play and the single elimination. So that's been recommended by our community that would put together that includes external

infectious disease specialists and internal medicine doctors UM. And then as far as the value in communicating with the White House and the CDC UH and the w h O is that they've given us evidence that indicates that we will not be purchasing tests away from other UH states or UH you call it patrons in need based on symptoms.

So we're making this announcement here on May six. What a lot of leagues are trying to figure out is if they can come up with a model that works, how do you get access to testing and that testing being preventative because right now we're still in a very

shortage of testing. So what we have been told and advised on from the groups that I had mentioned is by the middle of this month, you're going to see more states like California give point of care access testing UM and then by the first of June that should be deployed close to nationwide. So we're our tournament at the end of July, and that's a critical piece. Otherwise

we wouldn't have pushed play on. This is because we don't despite all of the benefits you can get from finding a safe environment and playing games distributing those games, we do not want to interfere with the public testing protocol, right, So, Paul, I have to ask you. You know, and the last time you were with us was right around the time that the Olympics were postponed a year. Uh. Now here we are May six. As you say, you've got a plan going forward, other pro leagues were still sort of

waiting on hearing. What's your prediction for you have figured out a solution, as you and you talk to a lot of other commissioners and as you say, owners of teams and owners of leagues, what's your prediction for the rest of here? Yeah, so that's a great question. There there are a number of variables, I'll say that. So we're all in conversation and we've all been comparing notes. So I think everyone agrees that for leagues that want

to play this summer, the quarantine model is ideal. There are two big factors that we're going to find out, and this comes down fans and consumer confidence. Because the Miami Dolphins has said they laid out of schedule. But you know what, we look at his history of stars and consumer confidence, back to back to retail, and if you look at COVID, well, what are the parallels. Well, first, there's going to be a Drugger treatment that's introduced, an easy,

get FDA approved and provided at scale. We don't know when that's going to come, but that will come before vaccination. We know a vaccination in the best case, isn't gonna be here until. I don't believe that leagues unless you're the NFL that prevents that presents a really strong uh you know, I think like a strong um indication for a lot of fans who just sometimes will go because

they're that passionate about it. I don't see a world where a consumer is going to spend on a ticket and an opt into potential exposure to a virus when there is in a vaccine and especially when there isn't a Drugger treatment for it right now. So until we get to that place, I see a world where sports are going to have to figure out how to play without fans and then focus on how you can create an environment where it's safe for your players. So they

can feel comfortable. And that wraps up the weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Master. Be sure to check out our BW Extra podcast with Patrick McGuinness, who is the creator of fomo. Yeah, he actually coined the phrase it's legit. I'm Jason Kelly. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio catch a lot of these interviews as they're happening live Monday through Friday starting at two

pm Wall Street Time. And if you can't catch us live, we'll check out our daily podcast wherever you download podcast, you can also watch the show live on YouTube. Just search for Bloomberg Global News. We'll be back next week at the same time. Bombork