Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-October 10, 2020

came to one stock. We're talking about Eli Lily absolutely, you know that company coming out with an antibody treatment, putting it up for FDA emergency approval. We caught up with the CEO of Lily, David ricks on what his company is working on, where he expected to be, and where the broader pharmaceutical industry is in fighting the virus. Plus, we need solutions that are larger than the problems that

we seek. Operation Hope founder and chief executive officer John Hopebrien on the plight of America's middle class, particularly for people of color, and SAG after a President. Gabrielle card Harris, you know her from nine oh to one oh. She leads the massive union that's trying to get its folks back to work in TV and film. But first let's go to the cover story, A White House COVID outbreak is America's pandemic failure in microcosm. That's right, Jason, they're

the remarks. They're written by Rob Langrath, who his healthcare reporter. Earlier this year he wrote another cover story about ramdesse Vie, and this week, as you said, he's taking a deep dive into the White House COVID outbreak. We got more from Rob and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. Everything basically started a week ago when Jennifer Jacobs, um wonderful DC based White House reporter for Bloomberg News, actually broke

that hope pix had it had tested positive. And then, um, you know, basically a bunch of chaos started to ensue, and you know, within a couple hours, um, we had a positive confirmation that President Trump had tested positive. And then we just started to watch more and more people

to the president come down. Um, and so we turned to Bob because you know, there's a political story there to be sure, but you know, the one that really stood out to us was this the the health side of it, right, and the science side of it, and the disease side of it, and all of those things are things that Bob knows um incredibly well, and uh, you know it, This disease, as he points out in

this remarks, make makes no exception of anybody. It does not care what your statue is, like what what president? What what country you're president of? It is just ruthless and relentless Um. And I think we've learned a little bit along the way, and Bob like I wouldn't mind actually just kind of opening up with that question, like what did what did you learn over the past week

about COVID? Well, I mean, it's just emphasizes just very clearly how how in sextuous and how easily it spreads and how tricky of viruses is because what happens is is that people are very contagious, often a couple of days before they get any any symptoms. That's one of the peak contagious periods. A lot of the spread occurs before people have symptoms symptoms at all, and that is may that that may may be something that happened in the White House, and that's you know, different from some

other diseases like stars are. Most of the spread occurred when people had symptoms. So what the White Hush did, and this is kind of emblematic of the whole way the administration has approached this pandemic. They kind of relied on kind of a single silverable quick fix, or relying on a kind of Abbot Laboratory's rapid test, which is a perfectly good test, but if you use it correctly, but it's really supposed to be used for people with symptoms to confirm a diagnosis and get them isolate them

as soon as possible. It's not supposed to be used as the solene of defense to either to keep to allow you to do crowded events without masking social distancing. And that's what the White House is doing again and again and and the problem with that strategy. Get one case slips through, one false false negative, and you have a super spreader event and not sure what appears to

have happened. Yeah, and Bob, I mean it really is amazing because I feel like all of us, even those of us who you know aren't president or don't work at the White House, have been putting maybe too much emphasis or too much hope on this idea of like, well what if I could just get a rapid test and then I could go to work, or then I could go to a game, or then I could get

on a plane or whatever it is. It's trickier than that, right, right, So the tests are very good and they're useful, uh, and there there are part of this part of the strategy, but they're not like a you know, a solution for everything just in isolation, because there's just a moment of

time that will happen. Is you get infected with the coronavirus and then there's an incubation pure and not much is happening, and so you've been infected, there's a pine of devirus and starting to grow and grow, and you don't test positive, you know, uh, you know for several days necessarily, and you know, so you could have a rapid test in the morning it says you're negative, but you could be infecting people in the afternoon, and then you're effected a bunch of people and then like a

day or so later, the test turns positive, but it's too late. Bob. We learned a little bit about how a certain course of treatments can go if you're the

president of the United States. I suppose what what are doctors and others scientists, people in farm out, what what are people saying about sort of the course of treatments that President Trump was put on, because that's not something that the rest of us probably have access to, right, I mean, he may have been like the only one of the only people in the world to get this kind of combination of three treatments, including this one totally

experimental one from Regeneral, and uh, you know, in such a rapid rapid time from he got this on a quote compassionate use basis. He got this experimental antibody cocktail from Regeneral in which they have you know, they're applying for authorization, but they have you know, very few doses

of so most people couldn't get that. And then he quickly I was moved airlifted via the White House helicopters to Walt to Read Medical Center where he hut from Desaviere, which is a standard hospital treatment that's agilia drug drug cover story on before and he got that right away, and uh and uh, you know after he you know, he was having some breathing difficulties on Friday, and then uh, like the next day they put them on the steroid

dexametha zone and after he had another bout of breathing difficulty. And that is a drug that's basically mostly usually used for severe cases, which you know suggests to a lot to doctors and some people that you know, the the White House doctors may have been much more worried about Trump and they have, you know, let on the fact that they put him on this third drug that's really

for severe cases. And that was Bloomberg News Healthcare reporter Robert Langreth and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber coming up, Jason, as the case is connected to the White House continued to add up. A new addition to treating the virus was made public by drug maker Eli Lily. We talked with that company CEO David Rix. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Jason, there were a few important developments

when it came to COVID nineteen this week. One came from Eli Lily asking US drug regulators to authorize emergency use of its experimental COVID nineteen antibody therapy that after some data show the treatment reduced hospitalizations. This was a big deal. Absolutely. We caught up with the CEO of ELI, Lily David Rex. We've submitted a request for an emergency

use authorization. That's the um vehicle that you can use in the pandemic to get a quick approval without the normal full data package, but having proof of safety and advocacy. We're doing that on the on the monotherapy, the single antibody, and then we also disclosed new data on the combination, which also is shown to be quite effective and safe, and we're saying we're going to submit that over the coming weeks. We want to accumulate a few more patients

on it to prove the safety. Based on decisions made months ago to manufacture of risk, we would expect to have something like a million doses available this fall of the monotherapy, the single one that we're submitting for today. So that's a big number of doses and could help a lot of people. We want that to go to work here in the US and around the world to arrest the worst consequences of the virus. Right, so, so let's talk about how that gets out there, because that

clearly is a key question. You know, we're also focused on all the different things that we can throw at this, but ultimately you got to get it to people. How do you do that? What's the mechanism by which this all works? Day? Right? So in the in this emergency situation, we're not going to follow normal business course. What we're doing is partnering with governments and here in the US with the Operation Warp Speed effort Um and the d D which is in charge of procurement during the pandemic,

and similar mechanisms in in other markets. And the reason we're doing that is we know we don't have enough seerial to meet the demand, and what we don't want is the product to either sit idle, be hoarded, or go to the wrong patients who don't have the greatest benefit. So we're partnering with governments to ensure a good allocation. And then also we want to partner with governments to reduce patient out of pocket costs to zero or something

very close to zero. Most of the developed world has already announced those kinds of programs, and so by working with governments, we can ensure that cost is not a barrier. Hey, what think I'm wondering Dave is how much of what happened to President Trump and his getting multiple treatments, um, different types of treatments. How to do with your news today and bringing up monotherapy out sooner rather than later or waiting for the cocktail. Well, for us, this this

date was on the calendar long ago. Um. The data locked on some of these studies just yesterday, and we've been working with the career scientific professionals at the f D a kind of hand and glove for the last four or five months to get to this point. UM. We had the data matured and we thought it was appropriate to request a submission at this for for an emergency use authorization at this time that was in motion

well before the news from last week. Of course, UM, we're all we've all learned in society more about aniboty therapy and their utility, and that's probably a good thing to raised the awareness, UM, so that it maybe seems beneficial in the moment. But this this was preordained some time ago in terms of when we would be pushing forward for the use well and and in some ways building on on what Carol was talking about in terms of what we saw with the President Obviously that's one patient,

and he's a special patient in many ways. But I do think people are trying to understand and maybe you can help us understand what what's the effective way or what do we know about this virus in terms of what we need to throw at it when, and what do we need to be taking and thinking about is as individuals, especially since this is, as I understand, at least, sort of a bridge to a vaccine, right Like, so as a it's just a normal guy, like, how should I be thinking of a drug like this? Yeah, this

is it's a very important question. We're studying this medicine in three settings. One is the one we announced today, which is UM patients who are newly diagnosed, the so called mild to moderate UM that's their current state. But a portion of the patients and it's hard to predict which ones, but we we think age and obesity are

two contributing factors. A portion of those patients never resolve the virus themselves or have a struggle to do it, and so by giving early, particularly in those high risk patients who are over sixty five and what's called the body mass index over thirty five, which is the definition of clinical obesity that they can benefit by avoiding hospitalization.

And what the this medicine does is it knocks down the virus, kind of gives your body a jump start on its own immune response, and so that patients um don't get into this challenge where the virus is spreading faster than they can conquer it in sort of a turbocharger for your own immune system, that's an appropriate place. We believe. That's why we've pushed for the emergency use authorization.

But we're also studying it earlier in disease and what's called primary prophylactus, where we're actually doing a study in nursing homes, where we know the tragedy of nursing homes in this country, of of all deaths due to COVID nineteen happen in nursing homes, and in these these settings where people are close together, all very high risk, the disease spreads quickly and with horrible consequences. So what we're doing is a study where if there's one infection in

a home, we swoop in. We actually retrofitted r vs to be mobile research units. We swoop in, we we treat everyone with the antibodies, and then we watch like a vaccine study to see if we can knock down the reinfection rate and spread of infection in a home. And then finally there's a big study going along with

NIH in hospitalized patients. But the general theory here would be earlier better for this kind of medication, you know, Dave one of the things, and we were kind of kicking this around in our newsroom UM and certainly with our healthcare team that's been covering UM the virus day in and day out NonStop. You know, I think one of the questions came up, like why focus on making the LOWD dose if it's the middle dose or the

cap cocktail that has better results in the trial? Well, I think that was the headline from the first UM study we announced two weeks ago that the middle dose hit the primary endpoint. We showed all the data today because we wanted to make a point that probably that was just by chance that the primary endpoint we chose, which was the day eleven average VIRA load reduction, was not a informed choice when we when we made it,

we probably wouldn't choose that endpoint. Again, it turns out most people, including on placebo resolved the virus by day eleven, and here day eleven actually is something more like day fifteen because patients appeared in the study on average four days after symptom onset. So um, that's pretty long, and we know that from CDC guidance, which says if you feel sick, quarantine for fourteen days. Most people resolve it.

But it's a disease of outliers and a few people don't clear the virus themselves and have persistent symptoms and show up to the hospital. So a better metric for viral load, we think, would be this idea of those who have persistent high viral load or even using it day three or day seven would be much more meaningful. That was Dave ricks Eli, Lily chairman and CEO, So good to catch up with him and Jason really getting into the weeds for us there when it comes to

understanding the efficacy of COVID nineteen treatments. Definitely another step forward as we wait for a vaccine. Yeah, a step in a long road, that's for sure. We also know it's been tough across the business world. The founder and CEA of Noonday Collection, she caught up with us and talked about how even after some of the darkest days in that company's history, they're actually doing better than ever.

That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So we're bringing you some of the highlights of our daily broadcast and podcasts. That included definitely a friend of our show, Jason's who we talked with back in March. Caught up with her again this week, Jessica Hanager, founder and CEO at Noonday Collection. They work with entrepreneurs artisans

all around the globe. It's all about providing female lead in women oriented businesses some help and she pivoted and made it work better than ever before. But it didn't feel that way seven months ago. When we spoke in March. I thought it was the beginning of the end of Noonday after building a decade long company. But we crashed in March, and then we quickly rallied back and we're back on track with our sales projections meeting what our

original projections were pre COVID. Wow. So tell us about that moment, I mean, tell us what happened? Tell us about the moment when it looked Sorry to take you back there, but like when it looked the darkest, what was going on? Well, when it looked the darkest. We are built around women physically gathering and inviting women into their homes. So we had thousands of those in person gathering scheduled in March, and those all quickly canceled. So

obviously our March revenue plummeted. But we quickly pivoted to online businesses. So we empowered all of our entrepreneurs, our New Day Collection ambassadors, who are creating a marketplace for our artists and businesses that we work with around the globe to run online businesses. We pivoted to do gathers for good trunk shows where it would be a give back to anyone who was impacted by COVID nineteen in

their communities. And so these women rallied And I've always believed that women on a mission are unstoppable, but at was proved correct because we rallied and we three months later in July had our biggest July in ten years. So it's been very humbling, but I have to say it is because our business model is not dependent upon brick and mortar stores. We are dependent upon woman who are at home and who need to earn income from their homes, and that ended up being a really good

thing in a global pandemic. But one thing I wondered too, and Jason and I've talked to a lot of CEO s leaders of small, medium, large companies, and a lot of what happened because of the pandemic is things that they were planning to do, but all of a sudden the had to do it much more quickly because of the pandemic. And a lot of it was a pivot to digital. You know, you guys were online, right and you had a business online, but I'm guessing that everything,

as you said, kind of ramped up. We were online, but really about ten or fifteen percent of our sales were e commerce based. And our social entrepreneurs are New Day collection ambassadors. Their primary way they were running their business and their local context was to go into other women's tones where women would gather their community and sell the product. So now that homes were no longer open, we opened up Zoom shows, and we opened up Facebook

and other digital platforms, and people wanted to rally. I think people more than ever wanted to do something good. They wanted to use their purchasing dollars for good. And this being a global pandemic, our customer base is really cares about the globe and I think that really showed

during the last few months. And so, and we're going to talk about in a minute, talk more in a minute about sort of what you've seen across your global network to um Jessica, because obviously you have a window far beyond even what we do here in this country. But I do want to ask you like that, did the did you have to change the economics for your ambassadors at all owing to this, or were you able to just sort of carry over effectively the same business

model but just sort of keep it online. It was the same business model, the same commission structure. We did some things to instent them to ask other women to launch their own businesses because we realized that people were needing additional income in a very flexible environment, and that is what New Day Collection offers. But the only economics that really changed about our business is we canceled a ton of our international travels happen and so and then

in person conferences and all of those things. So our actual profitability increase this year because of all our expenses that are normal are now not there anymore. I believe that we are actually going to have our strongest year ever in one because as we begin to gather again, women now know how to run a digital business and

how to reach outside of just their local context. So now they have become highly attuned at how to do email campaigns and how to harness all of the different digital platforms to gather people and run their business that way. But I do believe there is a day when people are going to gather in person again, and that's Noonday Collection founder and CEO Jessica Haniger back with us. She's doing incredibly important work, and what a seven months it's

been for her, Carol. I love her optimism, and she's right. We're social creatures. We're all going to be gathering again real soon. All right, still to come. Even if you want to distribute money, money like a socialist, you've got a first collect money like a capitalist. Operation Hopes founder and CEO John Hope Bryant with a reality check on racism. He's got a new book. It's called Up from Nothing. This is Woomberg. This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So Jason, common themes through many of our interviews throughout the week on our daily radio show continue to be about the two pandemics facing our country. We've talked about this a lot, the virus, of course, and then racial injustice. And one voice that's been a guiding light for us, especially on that is John Hope Bryant. He's founder, chairman and CEO of the Atlanta based global nonprofit Operation Hope. He created

that in the aftermath of l A Rights. I mean, every time we talked to him, we just love it. He's also got a new book at he does. It's called Up from Nothing, and he reminds us that all of this is intertwined, that so much of what we're facing is ultimately economic, but also intensely personal, also intensely historical in many ways. And I know every time you and I talked to him, were madly scribbling down the things that he's saying, because he spends a lot of

his time thinking how do I communicate this. I know we conftantly are messaging back and forth. I mean, you're right, I'm furiously taking notes. He reminds us that and this is one of the things he said that stayed with me. Racism is a levy on everyone's prosperity. I mean, you just really have to sit with that and think about it. And remember, we caught up with him back in early June. It was just as the world was really and we were stuck, of course, in the middle of the virus.

We were also, of course shocked by the brutal police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. So here we were four months later and we had to check in with him again. America's found our heart button. Um. You know, you can say you like what the protesters are doing, or you don't like what the protesters are doing, but what you absolutely have to say is my god, they

have heart. Um. And you can say you don't like what's happening with uh some of this candidates supporters or that candidates supporters, But my god, do we have an active democracy? And if this had happened in China, you disappear. If this had happened in Russia, you disappeared. So in the so that's that's the It's sort of the larger scheme of things. And then specifically, I like that when this whole thing hit, I got a call from this

administration's Treasury Department, who I actually I actually admire. The Treasury department has in problems with the other parts of the government, respectfully stated but the Secretary of the Treasury, and they called it the job. We need help, we want to help small businesses, and so I helped them design parts of the p p P program in a week.

Um And now, of course not we now know the n of all black businesses don't have an employee that they don't the bank or was a bank teller and didn't have the bank relationship to get in line and get the money. And that's that's another point we now have to solve. But I like that that it was one government. It may have been for two weeks, but it wasn't Republican Democrat. It was for the two weeks,

it was one America. And I like the fact that you have all these CEOs stepping up because the government leadership is unclear and markets hate clouds, you know, a bloomberg, and you have the CEO stepping up saying knock it off, America, let's stand up, and then making commitments. I mean real money. Some of it's pr but most of his real commitments and real money. CEO of Walmart, real dude, CEO of PayPal,

real dude. You know, ladies and men, Uh, stepping up and doing real stuff because ninety percent of all jobs come from the private sector and a legitimate wealth comes from the free enterprise system. So you so when they stepped up, it reminds me of the Civil rights movement. Uh, it reminds me of what happened, and we had a last and I call the second reconstruction. This is my opinion, the third reconstruction, which is why this book I've got out now from nothing is so important for this moment

getting our minds right. We need solutions that are larger than the problems that we seek. We need solutions. And John, you know, I'm glad you brought up the book because the timing is perfect in many ways, because I think we needed to be reminded in this pandemic. It's a moment of reflection for sure. And obviously the dueling pandemics that that we've all talked about in this national and long overdue reckoning about our history and and some systemic inequalities.

But one of the things you remind us about in the book is that you can reflect, but then you gotta go do it. You gotta get after it. And I do wonder sort of what you learned about or sort of relearned as you were putting this book together along those lines of kind of getting after it. I learned that my gut instinct was correct on this that even if you want to distribute money money like a socialist,

you've got a first collect money like a capitalist. Um. I learned that this country was made from poor people, struggling immigrants from all places and races, and people today

forget these these yes, white mostly white immigrants. We're not allowed into the office buildings and they were not given business cards and salaries and the lad major protests we had, uh like this was a hundred years ago plus, which was the precursor to the New Deal, and these were all white people back then, folks care protests and the protests today it looked like h kindergarten compared to what was going on in the early nineteen hundreds by all

white or new immigrants. And then they were allowed to come in to the economy and they got the new Deal, and then later on it was a new Martiall plan, that these were government initiatives used to invest, not giveaway, invest in the population, which then created economic return for the country and a sense of fair play. So I was reminded that we really that we are our worst enemy and our best asset. Everybody wants to be an American,

but Americans. But what's wrong now is our mindset? What what what's wrong now that we were now pitted against each other. This is ridiculous. This only benefits China and Russia, and China and Russia who want to be us. It's crazy that we've got citizen against citizen against citizen, republican is against democrats, a black against white, rich against poor, capitalists against working class. What kind of crazy mess is this? The Bible says a house divided cannot stay, and that's

biblical and it's also common sense. One of the things that I kept repeating after our conversation with you back in June was this whole idea of having a seat at the table, and after George Floyd and the protest, because I think you were having conversations with people about let's do this calmly and and people were coming to you saying, we'll wait a minute. John. It's easy for you to say you have a seat at the table. We don't. And so this is how we get noticed.

Are we going to get to make sure that everybody has a seat at the table. Are you seeing any signs of progress along those lines? Yes? I think that people, the leaders I'm talking to now get that this time is different. You know, this happens every hundred years or so, you know, eighteen sorry, seventeen sixty to seventeen eighty, eighteen fifty,

eighteen seventy, uh, sixteen, nineteen fifty, nineteen seventy. Um, we've killed the last two Um, great leaders by the way, who tried to push this innovation, Lincoln and Dr King. This is to me a third reconstruction. Um, that's gonna get last for about ten years. And I think that it's also happened thirty years early. This shouldn't have happened. This should have happened, you know, thirty forty years from now. But people, people are tired, they're tired of kicking the

can down the road. And I think God has a sense of Humoris gave us a global health pandemic worse than a hundred years and economic crisis and afforded euro social justice reckoning and told us all basically to knock it off. On top of that an environmental crisis. I think we've got a chance for a reset here. We gotta get our minds back in the game. We've got

too many people on with a surviving mindset. That mean that tends to make you focus on me and not we are politicians all the way down to our protesters. I told some'm gonna protesters who who? I said, Look, I understand your pain, I'm with you, but you but blaming your neighbor doesn't make you any wealthier and anger is not a strategy. We've got to get you from the sweet, from the streets into the sweets. The politicians can't keep cutting us up and dicing us, and it's

spreading us because a house divider cannot stand. So we need to move back to the theme and made us who we are that made Bloomberg what it is, which is a winning mentality and a winner believed they were a winner before they wanted these things. This is fundamental and that comes from the way you were raised to raise your cultured, the way you were nurtured. We need

hunters more than we need skinners and cooks. We need winners who build things more than we need, and we can have have the survivors outnumber the winners and drivers. The middle class is fantastic, but they we need things for them to do, which is what the winners build so that they can sustain. So that's John Hopebryant, founder chairman CEO of the nonprofit Operation Hope, author of the new book Up From Nothing, The Untold Story of How

We and in parentheses all succeed. That full conversation check it out. It's on our podcast feed well. And I love it too because he ended up our conversation talking about my hometown, Atlanta. I obviously have a lot of affinity for it, as does he, and he understands the way that folks in that city feel because of the lineage of civil rights all the way back to Dr

King and everything that's happened in the interim. You think about the late John Lewis and Good Trouble and all the things that he talked about, but you also understand and John Hope. Brian really brings this home, this notion that, as I said before, this is an economic story and that it's not black, it's not white, it's green in many ways. We've heard John Hope Brian say that. He said it again to us, uh this time around, and

it's an important thing to remember well. And he said, you know, the leaders that he's talking to, they are truly saying it's different this time around. He calls it the third Reconstruction. He says it's going to probably last for ten years. And he you know, kind of took us back in history, right, Jason that he said about every hundred years, we kind of have this kind of moment. He said, this one came thirty years earlier. Um, but he just said, listen, we've got to get people, everybody.

We've got to get him up from the streets to the suites, meaning the executive suites, the C suites. We've got to make sure that everybody has a seat at the table. So I really feel like every time we talk with him, I do have some hope that maybe we are actually going to make it make a difference. Right, that's gonna last forever. And that wraps up the first hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.

I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. More ahead in our next hour, including we check in with our colleague David Rubinstein, hosted peer to peer conversations on Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV. We're going to talk about leadership past and present, and also see what's on his reading list exactly, not a streamer, more of a reader, and listen. If he's reading it, you want to check it out. Plus, Rebel Girls CEO Jess Wolf at another one of our

favorite conversations. She's also got a new book, A Hundred Immigrant Women who Changed the World Rebel Girls. We both got him. Yeah, we definitely do. Also, let's not forget Boom Technologies. They've got a supersonic jet. They're trying to usher in a new wave of super fast air travel. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol

Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Plenty ahead of for you in this hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including checking in with an actress who's now in charge of all the actors. Carol, we're talking about Gabrielle car terrorists get radio you nine O two one oh fans. Also, there is no such thing as real presidential power. It's the ability to persuade people. Our conversation with Carlos Group co founder and co executive chairman David Rubinstein, also our colleague.

He's the host of Peer to Peer Conversations on Bloomberg Radio and TV, talking about his new book and leadership in the Time of Crisis. But we begin this hour with big news in the world of aviation and super fast air travel. It's a big week for the startup boom Technology. They unveiled a supersonic jet this week. Writing about it as only he can do, Bloomberg Business Week feature writer and New York Times bestselling author Ashley Vance. He's host of Hello World. He's also author of Elon Musk,

Testless Bass, and The Quest for a Fantastic Future. Check it out. There's this company in Colorado called boom Um. They've been at it for a few years, but now they're about to unveil their first supersonic plane. Uh, you know, there's some caveats with this one. This this first one that's going to be unveiled, is essentially a test plane the pilots are going to take out and put through the paces with the hopes of getting to a commercial

supersonic plane in the next few years. But you know, this is the first company to do something like this in a long long time. Alright, So we know the Concorde was so last year or so last several years ago. So how is this different? Like what I thought we were kind of over supersonic you know, jet flights, um, but obviously we're not. So what is it? How is it different? Why does it have the opera tune and maybe change you know, air travel, especially if you think

about for business people once we get through the pandemic. Yeah, well there, you know. So the Concorde stopped flying in two thousand three UM for a number of reasons, but the biggest one of which was that it just didn't make enough money. Uh, there wasn't enough interest from passengers

and so so anyway, boom. They have this thesis that that as time has passed, you know, they can get over a lot of the shortcomings that that face the Concorde and so so the first one is they're making this plane at a carbon fiber instead of aluminum, which wasn't really possible back when the Concorde was first being designed,

and so it's gonna be lighter, faster, more fuel efficient. Also, the engine technology has come a really long way since the Concorde was designed, and so again the new engines are much more fuel efficient. And so all this adds up to you can fly the plane more cheaply than he used to be able to do, and you can go on many, many more routes and go much longer distances, which opens up the market for this type of plane.

And so Ashley framed this in the context of everything else we see going on more in terms of space, right, I mean, like we talked about that all the time. We talked with you and and many of our colleagues about that, and obviously SpaceX was was part of your work that you've done, or has been part of the work that you've done around Elon Musk and and his vision for that. This is a little bit more I'm

going to say it down to Earth. And yet it does feel like a lot of the technological advances this guy is drawing on are coming from this sort of move to space, right, Yeah, I mean, all this stuff plays off each other. You know, we're in this this time when materials have advanced a lot, things like electric motors and batteries and stuff has come a long way. Software more than anything, has come a really long way. So it's opening up these new possibilities. You're totally right.

There's there's been way more attention and investment in like new rockets and satellites and all that stuff. But you know, if you're the average person, um, this probably hits a lot closer to home. I think we can all appreciate the idea of like a shorter, faster, more comfortable flight more than go to Mars probably, and so so you know this one feels right, yeah, yeah, if you think about all the leaders who are just probably like, yeah, okay,

sign me up. So all right, Ashley, in your story, you say the only thing holding Boom back getting this supersonic jet out there is well reality. I mean, it's gonna be expensive. You've got to get regulators on board. I mean, these are big hurdles, right, Yeah. I mean one of the funny things when I was reporting the story that I guess I hadn't thought about as much.

You were just talking about the rockets lately, rocket companies have been taken about six to eight years to get a new rocket from a blueprint up to launching into orbit. Um this plane. So you know, in the best case scenario they would actually be able to fly the new commercial airliner called overture in and so you know, because you're taking people instead of satellites and and so much

is at risk. This is a really involved process. Um that said, you know, I've been following his company since it started a few years ago, and they've made way more progress than anyone else who's tried to do it so far. And they have some pretty wealthy backers behind them. Who is this guy, Blake Show. I mean he's a young guy, right, Yeah, he's thirty nine. I think he turns forty in a few weeks. He's he's like not who you would expect to be a plane CEO. He

came from. He was essentially like in the online advertising world. He used to work at Amazon and then he did a startup that he sold the group on and so he's kind of like a software guy. Um again on the ad side of things. Who he has flown his own plane since he was a kid and just wanted to decided he was going to build like a superslotic plane. Um. And so that's kind of where this comes from. It's

just that love of aviation. And that was Bloomberg Business Week's Ashley Van's author and journalist who's always looking around the corner, host of Hello World, and as you said, he really tells stories like no one else can. Carol, I love catching up with him. Yeah, check out that entire story, as well as pictures and video of Boom's

jet that's online at Bloomberg dot com. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, from bringing back super fast air travel to getting members of the Screen Actors Guild back to work. We check in with the president of SAG after a. We're talking about Andrea from nine o two and oh yep, she's in charge of all the actors. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, Carol, everyone's keeping an eye

on Hollywood for sure. We've all been nesting at home and watching lots of shows, but ultimately they got to make more of them. So a great person to check in with, Gabrielle Cartera. She's the president of sag After and also she played Andrea on nine Oto and No so lots to talk with her about she did. Indeed, Jason, I know you were a fan, and I gotta say though, like all of us, her world because of the virus was turned upside down. The world has been really crazy,

you know. It's uh, my world is all of our world, and we are definitely feeling the pandemic COVID nineteen and its effects on our industry. So it's been a it's been a challenging time, a real challenging time, but a I do believe we'll get through it. So that's that's my hope. And so, you know, Gabrielle in in your world, in your business, I mean, our understanding is that everything just ground to a halt, you know, during most of this pandemic. Like where are we now in terms of

any sort of restart? You know, we've talked to some of your sort of colleagues in the acting and directing profession here in New York City as they've been sort of getting back to work. What is it like more broadly and maybe even more specifically there at the heart of it all in Los Angeles, Well, I would say the heart of it is not just l A actually the heart of his probably now being such a I

always call it the movable feast. Our industries everywhere now, but um, you know, uh, the first we were the first really industry to shut down when the pandemic hit, you know, March fifteenth, everything shut down, and our business was the first one to shut down. And our business

was the one where, you know, from Washington dawn. People were saying, you know, now that you're at home and you're you know, being sequestered at home, please you know, watch all those Netflix shows that you haven't seen, watched, you know, stream the news shows. Everybody was depending on our Our workers are members, you know, the broadcasters, journalists are the ones who are giving news day in and day out to inform not just you know, America, but

on a global level. So it's you know, they said to everybody, you know, watch and see what's going on. But most of our work, other than a few of our members, actually ground to a halt and um and that was devastating. It was really just like for everybody else, it was just like the ground was removed from underneath us.

That being said, the minute it happened, we started working really closely with you know, the other unions, d G A, IoT, the teamsters as well as you know the AMPTP, which are employers, and we started putting together, um, working with scientists and epidemiologists and doctors. You know, what is it that we can do to put together some kind of protocol or guidelines so we can get people back to

work in the safest way possible. We've literally had been working every day including weekends for the last like five six months, and came together finally with protocols that we officially released um. UM. I think it was like the September twenty one and um, and now people are starting

to go back to work. UM. So I'm hoping that, you know, as we're ebbing and flowing back in because you know that we're seeing you know, numbers spike in certain places, but the protections that we've put in place to make it a safer way back to work, I'm hoping it keeps the industry open and we're able to move forward. But it's been, UM, it's really just been an interesting and painful experience to see so many people struggling.

I mean people in foodlines, you know, actors, people think that, you know, it's all high pros, but a lot of our our members are really the day in and day out journeyman of this industry and they depend on those jobs. And it's been really, it's been really a hard road. And so Gabrielle, I know that there were many probably sticking points and and and tricky things along the way, But what really sticks out to you? I mean, what was the thing that once you solved it, you felt like,

all right, we're going to get this done. We've got a broad agreement on on sort of everybody being safe and healthy. Well, first of all, everybody agreed when we started we wanted to base everything on facts, right, it had to be on the science, not just on how you felt. So we're working with the epidemiologist, the doctor is what we really recognize. The three vital things that we had to make sure it happened. We got testing

on a regular basis. We have tracing because we want to know if something you know, where to occur, where it's coming from. And then of course we have social distancing. We created zones where actors who unlike you know, or dancers or thing or any of our members, they don't get to wear ppe when they work unless they're doing a hospital scene, right, they can't be like some of

the crew could wear masks all the time. So we we actually went and created zones and so we're actors are in the zone a area where nobody can come in and out of that area unless they are also a part of that zone. And that's you know that testing takes place three times a week, so we really have found and what's helped us with that. It's been

really interesting. I just got off a call. There actually have been a couple of shows where there was one in particular that um I had been talking to somebody where they literally had been tested. It was one of the leads just before they came on set. If they found out that that person had COVID nine, team stop that person from going on set and therefore protected the rest of the crew and the other UH performers so that they can continue performing and working so they didn't

have to shut the set down. So that was for us. We had to we had to find an agreement, and again it was really important that we didn't just do it as bag after it, but that we did it with everybody, because if people don't all buy into it. Then you can't. You know, I can say a million times, look you have to test, and they're gonna say no, I don't you know. But if we we all come to this agreement together, it actually makes it a standard that we all follow. And it's been really thus far.

You know, I'm hopeful that we have been able to stop some of the spreading that could have occurred, and that's closed down. There is a return to work agreement, UH that the union has negotiated, and Gabrielle and you know this better than we do. You negotiate something and not everyone is always happy with it. And so as we've talked to folks, one of the things that has come up is that, um, the premiums are going to have to go up in the health plan and that

working spouses are no longer covered. What sort of feedback have you gotten and what are you saying back to your members as they do weigh in on this deal. Well, working spouses are actually still covered, it depends on it, unless they are covered by their UH at their work. You know, for instance, my husband has a job. If he's covered there then UH he would take that as his primary But um, yeah, you know what unlike, not unlike what's going on in our country. We're seeing it everywhere.

The pandemic has actually, uh, you know, has really been devastating in terms of healthcare. So that's Gabrielle carteris president of SAG. After she's leaving the way back, Jason. For actors and members of the screen actors guilt, it's not easy. And as we just heard, she talked about something we too, have spent a lot of time on amid the health cry says, and that is the lack of healthcare or equal health care for many Americans. It continues to be

one of the nation's chronic problems. Absolutely, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Weekend speaking of problems, problems when it comes to leadership, we're all facing them. What a difficult time. David Rubinstein, he is, of course, co founder, co executive chairman of the Carlog Group, also our colleague here at Bloomberg. He weighs in on leadership. This is Bloomberg. This is

Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg. So, Carol, it's fun when people that you've covered for a long time sort of come into the family, as it were. And that's the case with David ruben Stein, well known in the private equity world, but now really our colleague of a sort at Bloomberg. He's the host of peer to peer conversations and we were lucky to catch up with him. He's got a new book out and he's got some takes on leadership. Every Body has their own

style of leadership. Napoleon seemed to do reasonably well without I imagine being that humble. Um, and I guess Alexander the Great and Ganghis Khan and uh, you know, um, whole bunch of other people. We could say Julia Caesar probably weren't that humble. Douglas MacArthur probably wasn't that humble. Some people just have a different style. In my book, I tended to talk to people who had more humility

and as equality that I admire. And you also had a book out last year that was about that, where you talked with master historians about many American presidents as you have seen more modern American presidence, maybe including the

current occupant. What did you take away for the from specifically around presidential leadership, David Well, presidential leadership is an interesting phenomena very good presidential Storian Richard Noostat, who advised President Kennedy, said there is no such thing as real presidential power. It's the ability to persuade aid people. That's what a president has. The very limited powers, really, and

that's what you really need to village persuade people. And if you can persuade people of your your right, then you can have some power. I might say that the job is really difficult today in this sense. Um, when I worked in the White House for President Carter, the evening news was fifteen minutes at night and then you watched the Washington Post of the New York Times the next morning. There was no Internet, there was no constant cable TV UM, no social media, none of this stuff.

And so it was a different game. Today it's a twenty four hours, seven day a week kind of environment. It's not easy to do this. And President Carter, my former boss, said that he felt at a certain age probably, um, it's it's much tougher today. And he would say I think he said over the age of I think he said seventy. But um, so you know, as somebody who's now seventy one, I would say, well, I feel as good as I felt when I was seventy, but not as good as I fail when I was sixty or fifty.

So I recognize it's uh, you know, there's some challenges. I wouldn't wish this job on any body who really wasn't a workaholic and who really didn't have pretty good health. So, David,

you mentioned your work in the Carter administration. I've heard you talk about that over the years, and I do wonder knowing the White House from the inside, and then also knowing the workings of government as well as you do, having been a resident of the capital city, having grown up but not too far away in Baltimore, I wonder what you make of this current moment of um shall we say, gridlock when it comes to fixing the economy,

especially in the midst of this pandemic. Knowing the levers that work, were you surprised or are you surprised that we just can't get anything done when it comes to the fiscal side of this equation. I think what is going on is that the Democrats by and large, UM are not interested in giving your Republicans credit for something that might go through or the administration and Republicans are afraid that Democrats will take credit for it. So right

now they've been standoff. Um. The Secretary of Treasure was negotiating something. It seems to be a standstill now. But you know, as we know in Washington, see things change on a dime very quickly, so Um, whatever um was said today could be changed tomorrow. There's no doubt in the mind of anybody in Congress that there will be a stimulus bill. Um. Everyone knows that there is a need for it. The Chairman of the Fed pretty much

said we need to have it earlier today. The clearantly issue is is it before the election or after the election? And if the stock market had gone down by two thousand points after the announcement today, I suspect you'd have a stimulus negotiation. It didn't go down by that much, so upset everything. So I suspect that, uh, you know, it could happen. But right now it'll happen in my view, before the end of the year. It's just not clear whether it's going to happen the next thirty days or

next sixty days. David, we talked about your new book that's out that's called How to Lead You you have another book that you did that's called The American Story Conversations with Master History. I do wonder as we talk about the breakdown. Uh. And you know, in terms of politics, certainly down in Washington, you know, why is it always about now you know you're going to get credit? I

want credit? You know, this is what we're thinking about, rather than thinking about, Okay, what's a great policy for our country America. Well, um, this isn't new. Um, this has been going on for several thousand years. People like credit in the political world. So I wouldn't say it's new. I would say what is relatively new over the last twenty years or so compared to when I was in Congress briefly in the seventies and before, is that there's no sense of bipartisanship. It used to be that no

major legislation would pass unless it was bipartisan. That's David Rubinstein host appear to Peer Conversations, one of our colleagues right here on Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV. He's also co founder and co executive chairman of Carlisle Group and Jason there he was talking about bipartisan politics really a thing of the past, and we saw that play out a lot this week when it came to another round of virus relief. It just couldn't happen. Yeah, questions of

leadership abound, that's for sure. Still to come. It's more important than ever for us to tackle gender disparaging issues once and for all. We look at the need for a more diverse series of voices in media. We check in with the CEO of Rebel Girls. This is Bloomberg for those fortunate enough to help the person who has always been their hero find the care guides you need to help at a a ARP dot org slash Caregiving, brought to you by a ARP and the ad Console.

This is Bloomberg Business with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Jason, we had a bit of a theme this past week of successful women working to help others and other girls and women succeed as well, and that included our chat with Jess woll If. She's CEO of the Edge Utainment Company. Yes, it is a word,

we're talking about. Rebel Girls. She heads that up. She's on a mission to empower girls around the globe through podcast, books and telling the inspirational stories of women and something she says is a top priority. It's more important than ever for us to tackle gender disparaging issues once and for all. Um, if you still look at the landscape today, UM, a third is kind of the number you want to

look at. A third of children's books characters are female, a third of children's TV show characters a female, less than a third of podcast hosts are female. And if you look at the percentage of female and non white, it's about between five and ten across those three different dimensions. So it's time. It's time to showcase really diverse voices and characters and role models four girls, so they grow

up with the same confidence that boys do. I have to say, Jason and I, okay are a little obsessed by a new Netflix series called Away, and we have yet to talk about how it all ended. But what's interesting about it is, first of all, the commander is a woman, and there's diversity, and there's you know, just all kinds of individuals that are much more representative of society.

And I feel like we have to get get to a place just and you talk about multi platforms, you know, where we really represent what's going on to show especially for when it comes to girls and like women what like that they are as much a part of this world and can do truly anything. But if we don't show it, then it's going to be more difficult to

get there. Absolutely, I could not agree more. And you know, we're trying to push the boundaries in terms of representation, in terms of diversity, and in terms of just showcasing truly remarkable women that have done extraordinary things. Uh. We started with a hundred women across geography, across history, across field of excellence. We're now to three hundred women who we told the stories and um our latest hundred women

that were showcasing this. In addition to being extraordinary brilliant women also happened to be immigrants and we're sharing their stories of how they moved from one country to another and then contributed what they did to the world. And I do sort of wonder why now for I mean, it's a little bit obvious, but I want you to say it anyway, like why now for immigrants? For women who are immigrants. Yeah, well it should have been a long time ago, but it hasn't been done yet. So

that's why we're doing it now. But we really want to foster a cross cultural friendships. We want to combat denophobia. We want to build awareness and acceptance for other cultures in the minds of these young girls. Um and and today's environment just showcases how that's ever more important for us to really foster these cross cultural friendships and and

and combat denophobia. And in between the time we started last conversation and now I've already gotten a text just from my mom down in Atlanta, who sent me a picture of one of your books that a friend of hers, Lisa Carvolio, shout out, Lisa gave her to read you my now two and a half year old daughter when she visits. So it's already on the shelf, so you'll be happy to know that it's already. It's already in

it's already in the mix, So you're well represented. So UM, I gotta ask you know, we were alluding to this on the way out of the last segment. You know, this notion of representation is such an important one. And I do wonder, knowing media as well as you do, where sort of the blockage is here, Like who who's making the decisions and making candidly sort of the wrong decisions that is keeping that one third number where it is.

You know, I think if we look historically, uh, look at the traditional media that you know, I grew up with, you grew up with, it was princesses waiting to be rescued by princess right. And the princesses all looked a certain way, and they were all pretty helpless and they needed princess who also looked a certain way to come

and rescue them. And I think that's just the background of what we're up against where throughout history, that's kind of what we portrayed in terms of gender roles and in terms of what beauty looks like and what you know, beautiful people we should try and aspire to be an X and Y, right, And so it's up to us now today, who are creating media, to be extraordinarily intentional about who we showcase, what characters we create, and how

do we actually create media four children. I mean, fo're adults too, but let's start with the next generation that is representative of of what we look like and who we are as as global citizens right now. And so if you think about the traditional princesses, and only of children's books have female characters who have a job, right compared to one of children's books that have male characters that have a job or career ambitions. It's it's just up to everyone now to change things. Yeah, I agree.

Where would you like to see the needle pushed a little bit more? Is it entertainment world? Is it brands and businesses? I mean, it's probably all of the above. But who do you think could really do make a make a change that would really substantially change how girls kind of look at themselves and their roles in society. Absolutely? Uh So, I think it's universal. Um. I think it's across television. I think it's across children's books. I think

it's across podcasts. I think it's also across dolls, um, and and how girls play and and and should girls just play your house? You know? Or are there ways to evolve the products the girls play with and whatnot? And I think if everyone thinks about the characters they put forward and do they represent society and what are the values that they are conveying in those characters, in those stories, in those products, we'll get to much much better places of society. You know, Jesse, you met in

podcasts a couple of times. I'm intrigued by that because it's such a booming uh market, and it is it feels like somewhat wide open at this point. What have you seen? Like? What are the things you're listening to that you feel like? All right, Well, that's a really good example of either a different sort of voice or an approach that other people should replicate or could follow

from a role modeling perspective. Well, I'm going to say, you know, the good Night Stories to Rebel Girls podcast perfect. I just said that up for you. Thank you very much, Jason.

But I'll tell you why it's special. We take the stories of these remarkable women and we trim them into snack able twenty minute episodes that our story there are fairy tale like stories, and we take these girls through the journey of RBG for instance, or Oprah or Michelle Obama or Josephine Baker, and we tell their stories as who they we're as girls. So girls can relate to these remarkable women as girls and how they became the

women that did the things that they did right. And so for us, it is a wide open space that because there's very little programming four girls out there and the programming for girls tends to be fictional, So we take a nonfiction story and turn it into a fairy tale and make it super entertaining, and then get an equally impressive narrator to host that story, to lend her

voice to the story of the woman she's telling. And that's kind of what we think is is very unique out there and uh in our way in the audio world to bring more diverse stories to life. So what's next for you? Yeah, so, more more stories, more women, more diversity. We have our newest book, A Hundred Immigrant Women Who Changed the World, coming out next week. We also have a corresponding podcast from stories from the book

on immigration. We are working on a television show right now, We're working on a Broadway show right now, We're working on a digital app right now. So we think there's a lot more formats for storytelling that we can bring

to the world. And do you feel like Jess And we sort of alluded to the to this at the top of the conversation that there is and maybe I'm just trying to end on a little bit of an optimistic note, but you know, even the outpouring of support, especially I think from young women and girls around um the death of URBG, like did feel different a little bit here in and had a sense of urgency around it. Did you feel that Do you feel that happening right now? Oh?

My gosh. Yeah. We had thousands and thousands of people tag us on Instagram and Facebook after RBG past um reading their girls the story of RBG from our book and listening to the story of OURBG in our podcast and that communal, collective sharing of sadness and the importance of her legacy and her story and passing that on to generations. And so I do absolutely think we felt this community rallying around who she was and what she

stood for, and that's rebel girls. CEO Jess Wolf And you heard her talk there about little girls, and as someone who has a little girl, really hit my heart when she talked about that. And listen, you and I are both were raising rebel girls in the best possible way. We certainly are. And I gotta say she's also that best selling series for children, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. From what I understand, your daughter, Alice, thanks to her grandmother,

your mom has one of those books. She does indeed well that wroutes up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio and a notable one. It's my last show. Care I can't even imagine doing this without you. It's just it's not going to be the same. I'm going to miss you. You're not leaving the community, You're not leaving the Bloomberg family. You're just going to be in a different part of it. Absolutely check me out on Bloomberg Quick Take that is launching on streaming on

November nine. They'll still be around, Carroll. You can't get rid of me. That easily good. I don't want to get rid of you. And listen don't forget to our extra podcast. Ken Hicks, Jason and I talked to him. He's chairman Presidency of Academy Sports and Outdoors. They were taken public roughly about a week ago by the private equity firm kk R. He's got an impressive retail background, so we got to talk to him about virus impact

and really the state of retail. And don't forget. The daily Bloomberg Business Week show starts at two pm Wall Street time. It's also on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and Bloomberg Business Week. It's available on newstands now. Have a great weekend. Everybody. We'll see you next week. We'll I'll see you next week, but Jason, I know I'm going to see you around Bloomberg headquarters. Thanks so much. This is Bloomberg.