Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-October 3, 2020

better paths. I feel like really stuck with us this week because we had a lot of smart thinkers joining us to underscore the fact that things are going to be different. They're already different. And in fact, we caught up with the author of a new book. Her name is my l gave the book Trampled by Unicorns, big text empathy problem and how to fix it, a really really important subject. Absolutely. Plus one thing I've learned is that in crisis, that's a great opportunity to learn and

grow and you have to lean into it. Whole Foods Market CEO and co founder John Acky He too has a book out Conscious Leadership. So staying with this theme, it's all about elevating business through humanity. And then we also caught up with PBS PRESIDENCYO Paula Kerger Band. They are getting ready to celebrate a big anniversary. But first let's take you to the cover story. It's all about testing.

Where we've been, where we're going. Check it out with Bloomberg News Health reporter Michelle Cortez and Bloomberg Business Week

editor Joe Weber. We set out to do this story because, you know, we've we've spent a lot of time talking about vaccines and the hope that they could the hope that they can get us out of this mess right and give us back a semblance of the life we had before the virus and what we what we also started to realize, what was that, you know, if we actually got our act together and got um some abilities to do accurate fast testing, there's a way to actually

have a semblance of normalcy again before that vaccine, which still could be a ways off. And that was sort of what Michelle and her co author Drake Bennett dove into for this week's cover story. It was sort of like, what, exactly how close to having a decent fast test are we exactly. And you know what what implications could that have? I mean, I want to go to restaurants and send my kid back to school and all those great things, and like what you know, is there a version of

reality that might look like that? And and how do we get there? Like now? And Michelle, why don't you pick it up there and and tell us how close to a version of reality like that are we? So we do see that there is ways where things can happen somewhat in a semblance of normalcy. Right any of these sports events that were watching, we can see that

they are on top of it. They know who's positive, they know how to knock it down, you know, put everybody under quarantine and whatnot and keep it under control. The question is do you do that for an entire

country of three and thirty million people? And the answer is that it is theoretically possible, but it is going to take a huge amount of effort on behalf of our government, on behalf of the diagnostic test makers who are now starting to bring all these very cool new products to the market, and honestly, on behalf of American people who maybe don't want to wear masks. But if you get a positive test, You've got to stay home, Michelle. This is about seeing the spread of the virus, you know,

and anything close to real time. This is what we're shooting for, right I do wonder though, with everybody so obsessed and focused on getting a vaccine rightfully, so, you know, do we have the wherewithal among regulators, the f d A, and then the companies that need to produce these things, you know, in mass quantities. There is absolutely going to

be a huge lift when it comes to this. The the industry that's working on it, of course, they this is what they do, and that's what the story goes into. And you know, Joel and h and Drake Bennett, what a fabulous writer he is. Um did a really great job in making sure that we not only look at what is happening here, but what also has to happen in order for it to come to fruition. I don't I personally don't think that people are gonna are gonna

not do it. Like I think there's questions about whether or not people will get vaccinated, but if there were tests available, I think the vast majority of Americans would take one as often as we give it to them. So the industry I think is going to do it. The question is is how cheap can it be and how can we get available to everybody who needs it in order to make a difference with the amount of

virus we have in the country. And that's the point, And Michelle, let's I want to dwell on sort of the technical aspects of what these rapid COVID tests look like. They're not the same thing as you know, putting a swab up your nose, right, Like. The whole point of this is that actually there's a there's a different way that we could be testing and that that's what allows us to do it cheaper, better, faster. What is what

are the mechanics of this testing look like? Well, the beauty of this story actually is that it looks broadly across all the different technologies that we're talking about. And one of the things that I was most frustrated about in terms of how people have been covering testing generally, is that there is kind of this pollyanna ish approach of if we were just willing to make the effort, we could do it, and in fact that's not the

case when it comes to what you're talking about. Jason, I think you're talking about the lateral flow tests, which are like the pregnancy test, and in fact, what we have right now, you still do to do a nasal swab. But the thing is you could do it yourself. You know,

you put it up your nose. That's what adds bynex now, is you put it up your nose, you stick it into the pregnancy test, you exquise a little bit of buffer on it, and which is a liquid, and then that just carries that little spiral, you know, the genetics from what's inside your nose that carried it along with the little strips, and if there's antigen essentially the virus in that sample that you took, it carries it down that pathway towards the towards the towards the antibodies that

would normally be fighting a virus if it was in your body, but they've instead just attached it to the strips. And if those two things clicked together, a little flag popped up, a little nanoparticle of gold appears, and then you know you're positive. And that was Bloomberg News Health reporter Michelle Cortez and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber coming up more on the virus from someone who looks at it through two lenses as a doctor and also

head of a school. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Carol, so many headlines when it came to COVID nineteen. This week, President Trump and the first lady testing positive for the coronavirus. This after one of their top aids, Hope Hicks, was confirmed positive as well. You saw that news first via

Bloomberg News Global confirmed deaths topping one million. London at a tipping point because of an uptick in cases, and we also saw an increasing cases in parts of New York City. So we turned to one of our experts, several experts across the week, but this particular guy, Dr Sandro Galia. He's the dean of the Boston University School public Health. He talked about that public health aspect and how important it is. And we should note we talked to Dr Galia earlier in the week before that positive

test was revealed on the part of the president. But we as a university have been reopening cautiously, carefully, with a lot of testing, a lot of contact tracing a lot of isolation as needed, and really working hard to keep the community safe well also working on our mission and continuing teaching and containing our research. And it's a

tough balance. I think it's a tough balance for everybody, and and it's part of I think a broader societal place where we are at, where we are recognizing that we are living with COVID for some time now and uh and we cannot afford to keep our world slow down because there are important things that we have to do.

And so give us a sense of that balance, Dr Galia, like, what is something where you feel like you've found it in terms of either staffing or class size or doing labs, Like, give us an example of where you feel like, Okay, well this this feels about as good as we can get. Well, Jason, I think I don't think I feel confident telling you anything as good as a camp. I think I think everything is a working progress. Don't let's talk at bit

about what we're doing. So we as a university are testing people extensively, about five to six thousand tests a day happening, so students are tested multiple times a week. We have a lot of people who are involved able in the testing, but then also somebody tests positive and

the contact racing to see who they've been in contact with. Right, So the idea is, and we had discussed this before in our previous conversations, the idea with testing is that you catch a case early so that it does not become a cluster that does not then continue the atack. So you find the case, you do contact tracing, you find the people around that case, you quarantine those people,

and you isolate the case. And of course all of that is superimposed over a very strict regiment of building hygiene, and by that I mean ventilation and the building wiping down surfaces, a very strong public campaign for people to remain safe, wearing masks, making sure that people are not in if they're sick, and every day doing symptoms screens

for everybody. So it really is a fairly comprehensive effort, and it is in some respects I think the challenges that it's a comprehensive effort that has to happen now and has to keep happening really for weeks and months until there is a definitive vaccine for COVID. Talk to me about contact tracing, because I feel like we are getting very mixed results, mixed reviews in terms of people essentially saying yep, I'm not going to cooperate, it's voluntary.

I'm not going to tell you either I don't want to get in trouble because I was at a party, or I feel like it's an invasion of my privacy. How do you manage that? Well, in some respects, I think it's easier to manage that within a closed system of one institution versus in the general population. Right so, in our in our system, in our system, we have been very clear that this is part of the cost

of citizenship. If you're if you're going to be part of the community, you have responsibility to work towards keeping others safe. And part of that responsibility is if you test positive, is that you talk to the contact traders and you tell them who you've been in contact with, so that they can reach out to those people and make sure we keep them safe as well. It's harder to do that in the general population. There's not a lot of reports about fifty people in general population answer

and talk to contact traitors. That's that's in the general population where I think there isn't as much of a sense of shared responsibility from one another there should be. I'm just reflecting on probably what's going out there. Yeah, now that's a big part of it. I mean, Jason, you and I've talked about it. And when my daughter got together with some classmates at the end of the summer and we had kind of quarantined her for months, you know, we as families went into it saying, Okay,

what have you been doing, Who's getting tested? You know, like there was this sense of community to make sure everybody stayed safe. And I feel like, you know, there not everybody's on the same page with that. Also, to be fair and Dr Glaire, you understand that not everybody can be on the same page. There are some people that you know, if they don't go to work, they don't get paid in it, they're in a tougher predicament.

And I just, you know, I just well, I think, I mean, this is why, this is why Carol, I think the reopening is so important. I think it's a you know, the data are very clear, for example, that your chances of being able to work from home are much higher if you're in the top quartile of income. So people who are who are who have to go to work are people who are already making less income.

We know that it overlaps with race, right. We know that the disproportionate burned off COVID in many respects was because we expose people that low income, people of color, often to work before we understood how COVID works. But the the economic shutdown, I feel like the public conversation about the economic slowdown hasn't been fair because to be to be frank, it's been it's been directed by people whose lifelihoods that not really at risk from economic slowdown

because they can work from home. But the fact is more than half the population cannot work from home. So if we if we if we say, if we take the premise that's well, we should reduce the risk of COVID at all costs. Well, do we really mean at all costs or do we mean at all costs to somebody else? I think we need to be honest with that, and and and economic slowdowns hurt people who are already at the low end of making income, and that is something that we as a society have a responsibilities try

to avoid as much as possible. To get back to our conversation with Dr Sandra Galia, dean at the Boston University School of Public Health, also the author of the book, pained uncomfortable conversations about the public's health. So let's talk about the public's health, Dr Galia. What can we be doing before we get to the other side of this.

What should we be doing to ensure that we don't lose sight of these inequalities that have been laid bare by this pandemic All Jason, I think what the pandemic has shown us, and I like your use of the term laid there. It has shown us the inequalities that existed already before the pandemic. The country is really shaped by deep socio economic inequalities and deep racial inequalities, and those inequalities have held analogs just like we have haves and have not. We have held haves and have not

around those two acts. Now, the the pandemic revealed that we have Black Americans have two and a half times greater risk of dying during COVID than white Americans, and that is largely due to the double whammy of one greater burden of disease among the Black Americans had convered to white Americans, and number two that a disproportionate number of them work in what we came to call sort of essential work, frontline work, work that exposed them to

get in COVID. So to my mind, what COVID is now letting us see what was already there for us to see how to be looked for. And that's Dr sandro Gal. He's also the dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. Love catching up with him because I feel like he twists the prison just a bit for us, Carol, getting us beyond the headlines and to really understand some of the underlying economic effects that we need to be concerned about. So, Jason, he's talking about realignment.

So too is our next guest. We'll hear about Trampled by Unicorns. It's a new book about big text empathy problem. We'll talk with the author. That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Carol, I'd like to think there was a little bit more humanity in a lot of our conversations this week. We talked a lot about economics and business, but also talked about things

including empathy. Yeah, we did, and that more human elements certainly came through. With one of our guests, we caught up with global tech executive my El Gave just get a new book out, Jason Trampled by Unicorns, Big tex empathy problem and how to fix it. I really wanted to have to really big conversation. I would want to have a conversation about where we are right now, because I felt like a lot of what I was reading in the media or in books was extremely one sided.

It was usually UM saying either tech is amazing or tech is horrible, and I was reading all of that and saying, no, there's some good, there's some bad, and there's some ugly. And I'd like us to have a really exhausted view on where do we stand, what are the good things that happened, and what are the things we need to fix, and really try to go to the core of why we have a deficit of empathy

in the technical system. And then once we uh, we align on how we got where we are and why um and and and why we are where we are uh, then I wanted to really focus on solutions. I'm a I'm a solution oriented person. I'm very optimistic in general, and I wanted to have a conversation about what we can do and we being a very broad we like we the tech executive, tech employees that the group I belonged to, I mean worked in tex for fifteen years.

But we as also as users, we as investors, we as governments and regulators, and I thought that there was a role for every one of us to play in really making tech um an instrument to advance humanity even more than it has been so far. So let's talk about the deficit if we can have the starting point, Because you know what you point out in this book, we have all really seen, I feel like, come to the four in a troubling way, especially over the past

few years. Even before I think we entered into this broader social and societal reckoning around inequality, we knew there was a problem in tech. How do we get here? Well, that's a big question, UM. I think that we got here through a complex set of um of things related to tech. I think tech is very insular from a cultural perspective, was very strong tribal myths. I talked in my book about many of them. One of them is

what I call the Steve Job syndrome. UH, this idea that to be a genius you somehow have to be a jerk. Like the two are kind of really related. Uh, this idea that technology is neutral, UM, the myaths of perfect meritocracy, Like if you raised throughout the ranks of technology, it's because you're that good at your job, and if you're not, this is because you're not that good at

your job. And so that really created an industry which in many aspects is very closed UM and has a hard time because of a lack of diversity, has a hard time to be empathetic to the rest of the world. And when you're not empathetic, it's a big it's hard for you to really understand the impact that you're having on the world. So that's one very strong, very strong issue.

The second one I've just mentioned it is the lack of diversity, women represent less and absurdive management UH and tech roles in big tech UH and racial minorities in general less than ten percent of management UH and way less than ten percent in text so tech tech jobs.

And then I think the last one is UM what I would call a lack of accountability UM and it's because we we as as tech people we be we've so strongly that we were on our path on the past to change the world, that if there were some bumps on the road, if there were some mistake made, it didn't really matter because we were working towards the

greater good. And I think because of that, and then also the fact that the regulator didn't always understand what it is that we were doing, and I think the users got really a maze by all the free services that they get that they got. I think the combination of all of that created this environment where uh tech companies could pretty much do anything they wanted without having

to really be accountable. And that's obviously changing now. But I think if you combine this cultural installarity, the lack of diversity, and the lack of accountability, you end up where we are right now. So somebody like a Mark Zuckerberg good bad, how do you see him? Um? I think every person has some good and some bad. I think it's clearly a business business genius, and it's really

strong at building a want in a lifetime company. I think, to use the wording that one of my previous company, BCG used, there may be some areas for improvements around empathy and connection to people. And that's my El gave her new book, Trampled by Unicorns, big text empathy problem, how to fix it? Really a key part of our theme this week, Carol, because we're all wrestling with where

we go from here. We know we as a society, we as individuals are changed by what we have seen and experience through this pandemic and through a lot of the things going on in our world. It's going to change how we work. You're right, Jason, and folks like my El gave, she may have been inspired by another leader. We're talking about Whole Foods Market CEO and co founder John Mackie. We're going to get through this, and probably a lot sooner than people think. Mackie's got a new

book out, Conscious Leadership, Elevating Business through Humanity. Jason, We're going to talk about that. That's coming up next. It's a fun conversation. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. In the magazine. This week, we've got another edition of Business Week Talks with John Mackie. He's CEO and co founder of Whole Foods. Whole Foods Jason as you know now and it's third year as a part of Amazon. Well,

John's got a new book out. It's called Conscious Leadership Elevating Humanity through Business. We started off though, talking about some of the challenges of the pandemic twenties the weirdest year of my life. I don't know about you, but it's definitely the wordest year. And I mean Whole food has done a lot better than other businesses because we weren't we weren't shut down. We were an essential business, and we saw our sales go up and our online

sales went way up. But it's been incredibly stressful in the company. Make no mistake about that. People didn't lose their jobs, but it's been we have we've had to go to mask for everybody's wearing mask and we've had we we haven't been able to connect with the team members as much because you know, lockdown, not traveling, not being able to visit the stores, A lot of safety measures been put in place. Um it's been you know, we just did a cultural compass survey and we see

that it's been very stressful in the team members. So that has been a challenge for us, but again less of a challenge for whole foods and many like a restaurant owner who's more or less been put out of business, so very very difficult times. And I will tell you I am very much looking forward to COVID being done when that will be, But it will be I'm gonna

be celebrating along with everybody else, that's for sure. So John, I guess, on the subject of your book and sort of synthesizing all of this, what's the key leadership lesson UH coming through this? And we're not through it yet by any stretch. But what have you learned about leading? What have you learned about how to lead? Uh in a situation like this? You mean in COVID. In COVIDH gosh. I mean COVID is a great example of, UH, how

you can learn and grow in a crisis. In a crisis, the general reaction people have when they're in crisis to sort of look for a safe place, a safe harbor, someplace that uh they don't they're not going to be um safe. But one thing I've learned is that in crisis, that's a great opportunity to learn and grow and you have to lean into it. You have to kind of instead of going back to a safe place, you've got to open wider to see what lessons are there. And

you have to face your fears. And one of the things that I learned is that Whole Foods has a very deep culture because we we've been making cultural deposits for a long time, and but during COVID we've been making a lot of cultural withdrawals. But we're not bankrupt because we've got so many deposits that have been made. However, as COVID goes on longer and longer, and we're not able to make more deposits. And in connecting with people, I just you know, I mean, a company is ultimately

about relationships and about trust and about partnership. And the hardest thing in COVID, I think has been the difficulty, other than virtually to connect with people. And uh we we we read all about people working at home them and and a lot of corporations are not going to go back fully, but I don't believe that. I mean, more people may work at home when COVID's over, But in reality, if you're going to maintain a culture, you have to have people connecting with each other, and there's

no real substitute for doing that in person. So I've learned that clo culture is resilient, but I've also learned that it's we we need. We need that personal connection to no. I think you were right about that, you know, Jason, I've had John so many different conversations because we're seeing, certainly the financial community it seems like really stepping up and really kind of urging their teams to come back to work in New York City. But I think it's

a comfort level and people are just not comfortable. And it's not that people don't want to be working with colleagues. Um, we're social creatures. But I think there is a fear. I mean we for most of us, right, we have never seen something like this. It's true, Um, and maybe people won't be comfortable until we have vaccination that people feel safe and taking. But in truth, I think the concept of herd immunities it's beginning to work its way

through the United States. It's worked its way through Sweden at this point. If you look at their recent death rates, there's just a few people a week now, not not not hundreds or thousands of people days, three or four a week. So we're going to get through this, and probably a lot sooner than people think. I'd be very surprised if a year from now we have not returned to semi normalcy, and people will be afraid. But as as their friends go out and report back, Hey, it's

safe out there. Nobody's people aren't getting sick, and and people will start to tentatively venture out, probably being wearing masks more. But uh, that might be a while before people are completely back, but they will be because we are who we are. We're social creatures. And you know, I remember, I'm old enough to remember I had lots of friends, not lots. I had a few friends back in elementary school. They got polio. Um, I want to ask you, John, I mean, here we are a few

years in, you know with Amazon, how's it going? What? What has worked really well for you? It's going very well. A big merger between two big companies is a little bit like a marriage. I like that metaphor, And I mean, I've been married for thirty years and I I blot my wife and I love, you know, maybe of everything about her, and I'm not too fond of and I think a merger similar. I mean, Amazon has a different

culture than Whole Foods. We overlap in some areas, and uh, we love most things about Amazon, and they probably love most things about Whole Foods, but you know, not everything. And and what's worked really well is Amazon thinks long term and they're enabling whole foods market to think long term. We've had three major price reductions were beginning of fourth um. They're making investments in technology for Whole Foods that I think will be transformative, although I'm sorry I can't talk

about those. And they've been respectful of our culture. They haven't tried to just turn us into Amazon. So if I that the best way to ask that question is, is John, if you could do it all over again when you make the same decision and the answers, yes, we make the same decision. It was the right decision for us. I have to tell you A listener is writing in and said, could you just ask John Mackie, could they please please please open the Whole Foods in

the Hampton's in the Hampton's. Yeah, We've We've received a lot of requests for that. It's it's a very seasonal sort of market out there, and Uh, we'll get there eventually. He go that the question answered, Well, one thing I wanted to ask you, I think our team was was curious about, is you guys Whole Foods. I spent a couple I spent I did kind of a deep dive into your company a few years ago and with Walter

rob who is co CEO at the time. I spent time with a forager just how you guys work with companies, support companies to help them build out either production, you know, so that they can you know, once you find an item that you want in your stories. You guys have such a value system, you know, and and you really stick to selling just certain types of things. And to be fair, if you go onto Amazon, you can buy just about anything, um it feels like and that they'll

sell just about anything to anyone. You know. How have those values clashed if at all? You know? And how do you kind of get your head around that. I don't think those values half clashed. And I think you're right. Health Foods is we're very um, you know, we're very stakeholder oriented. We care deeply about our suppliers, were partner with them, and we are proud of the fact that We work with lots of small producers and help them get distribution, and a lot of them grow with us

over time. And they start out with one store, and then one region, and then multiple regions, and then across the whole country, and and then maybe they sell their company or or take a public I mean a great example recently was Vital Farms Eggs. Whole Foods was the first customer Vital Farms ever had, and we we made it over tome I had a ten million dollar investment in their company as well, and they just did an I P O and there and their market capitalizations one

point four billion dollars right now. So it's that's a great example of working with a small supplier and helping them expand across the country and eventually they've become a very very successful company in their own right. We prode we pride ourselves on that. There's there's really dozens and dozens and dozens of similar examples like that. And Amazon, you know, it's a different business and one hopefully it's just doing there There the retailer, they're the everything store.

As you say, I if I want something, I generally just go to my iPhone or my iPad or my computer and I just call up Amazon, I order it, uh and it comes shows up usually within twenty four hours. So that's an amazing thing Amazon does. It's it's changed most people's lives. It certainly has changed my life. That's very different than what Whole Food is doing. But Whole Food is you know, Amazon wants to be a bigger force in grocery, and the Whole Food is key to

helping them do that. So I think that's why they ultimately wanted to acquire us. So, John, you know, you're very thoughtful in your books, and and this recent one is no example. I mean, I do wonder what's ahead for you. There's been a lot of speculation that you know, you could go on and keep writing books, and you've executed this great, as you say, new marriage between these two companies. And I'm only going to give you about

ninety seconds in this question. But what's next it Do you foresee that that maybe you hand over the rain soon? You know? I like to think I read recently Warm Buffett. I read that Warm Buffett. He's he's his of Warren Buffett's wealth has been generated after the age of sixty. I would like to think that of my contribution in the world will be generated after I'm sixty five. That's my that's my goal. So I don't have any plans on leaving anytime soon from Whole Foods. But hey, you know,

I'm getting older. We all we all have to pass from the scene eventually, and I'm there are many other things. I'm a very much a doer. I have many projects in life I want to work on. That's Whole Foods Market CEO co founder John Mackie. You know, we talk all the time care about like, oh, merger is sort of like a marriage, and He's like, no, seriously, it is like a merriage, Like you gotta work on it.

Just like that. That wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly. That was one of my favorite parts of the interview. I'm Carol Massler Moore. Ahead in our next hour, including PBS President CEO Paula Kerger. They're getting ready for big anniversary. This is This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly, plenty of head for you.

In this hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, we're talking k shape recovery with economist Ali Wolf. Will also here from PBS President Paula Kerger on pivoting with the likes of Ken Burns during the virus and this reopening in New York means so much. Friend to the show. Chef Daniel Blue New York City dining out again, he joins us. First up, though, We've got to get to a story in the magazine, and this had to do with the Cleveland Clinic. It hosted the debate this week.

Cleveland Clinic, Jason, It's thriving, but it's black neighbors. They are not. We got up with Bloomberg News senior Trade and Globalization reporter Sean Donnin and Bloomberg Business Week getitor Jill Webber. Sean has spent a fair amount of time going to places um that I think are really important, um in part for the election, but also in part of the bigger story that is sort of upon America right now, and Cleveland has actually figured into that reporting

a lot. This is sort of part two of the Cleveland series that he's been working on and it's specifically about the Cleveland Clinic, which is sort of a renowned medical center. Um. But what's actually been interesting, and this kind of gets right to the heart of of Sean's story, is as the clinic has thrived, basically, the black neighbors and the black neighborhood that surrounds the Cleveland Clinic has actually seen its health deteriora. Seohn picking up from there,

What what did you discover during your reporting? Yeah, so, I mean, the Cleveland Clinic is this world leading health institution. If you are going to get a high bypass operation, this is probably where you want to go. It's the place where they really perfected it in the nineties sixties, and they've built it a whole fortune, a real thriving business on the back of this. The Cleveland Clinic last

year at ten point five billion dollars in revenues. UH. It's going to open a new hospital in London later this year. It's also in the Middle East. It's opening a new hospital in China in in the next couple of years. Uh. It's become this world renowned institution, and it's also become a great example of what people talk about when they talk about the EDS and meds economic

development model for cities. You know, after manufacturing left a lot of cities like like like Cleveland, people were looking at alternatives and and they look to education, and they look to the health care sector. And we've seen institutions like the Cleveland Clinic thrive in recent decades. The problem is that you go to Cleveland, you step out beyond the main campus. There's a hundred and sixty five acres in the middle of Cleveland, uh, and you walk not

even a couple of blocks. You walk a block, and what you discover is you are in neighborhoods that have some of the highest poverty rates in a nation, and where a kid who's born today is gonna it has a life expectancy that's twenty years less than a kid who is who's born a fifteen minute drive away. And that really, right now, in the middle of an economic crisis, illustrates this kind of American paradox that we have in

terms of inequality. You can have world beating institutions like the Cleveland Clinic, and right next door you can have black neighborhoods that are just really just being left behind. There's no other way to describe it, alright, So describe to us though, what the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic told you. I mean, I gotta read the quote. Cleveland is in our name, he says, But we cannot thrive as an organization unless the communities in which we reside

thrive with us. So there they see at front and center. How are they dealing with it? What are they doing doing to change this conversation? Right? So that CEO, Tom Halovitch is a Croatian born heart surgeon who took over as a CEO of the clinic in and he says he has made raising up the neighborhoods around the Cleveland Clinic one of the one of his priorities. And he's recognizing tacitly by doing that that they haven't done enough

in the past to do that. And so they're starting, and we should say they're starting slowly to to invest in different things, whether it's adding to their work in community health centers. And there's a big project that's about to get launched right next door to the Cleveland Clinic. It's a project called Innovation Square. It's being run by

Community Development Corporation there. It's gonna cost about three hundred million dollars over the next five years to really redeveloped a neighborhood and bring back grocery stores because we're talking about food deserts right right around the clinic there, bring back new new housing there. And the Cleveland Clinic says it's going to get involved in that project. We don't know how much, but we need to put that all

in perspective at the same time. So we're getting this kind of good will from the Cleveland Clinic, but there's this three million dollar project next door, and you put that in the context of of the business that is the Cleveland Clinic. Over the next five years, if they keep going the way they've been going, they're gonna make something like fifty billion dollars revenues. That entire three million

dollar project is zero point six percent of revenues. They're also sitting on one point five billion dollars cash in hand at the end of June, which means that they could effectively just write a check for this entire project, and and and they're not. So it's a complicated story. It's it's it's it's tough because the institution is recognized as the problem. It clearly is trying to do something,

but there's big questions about whether they're doing enough. So Sean, synthesize this with some of the other work you've been doing, because there is a political undercurrent to all of this. You are describeding one of the key economic questions of this entire presidential race in this election here in many ways, all these things that have been laid bare by not just the coronavirus crisis, but this overdue reckoning with race

and inequality in America. How does this fit in with some of the other things you've seen as you've been doing reporting about some similar places that illustrate inequity in this country. Yeah, well, look, I mean, we we know that President Trump was writing at what he considered a healthy economy into uh into this election year, and that the pandemic upended all that. But what the pandemic really did was it shown a spotlight on these real structural

inequalities in the American economy right now. And that was Bloomberg News Senior reporter Sean Donn and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber the Cleveland Clinic Carrol a bit of a theme developing here in this hour We're talking a lot about the K shaped recovery. We are, indeed, and we've got two guests coming up on that really looking at some of the systemic economic problems in our society. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. We're back here on Bloomberg Business Week. Carol Master, Jason Kelly and Jason two interviews that really got to the heart of our systemic economic problems. One was with an economist. She watches housing and the consumers. She talked a lot about the K shape recovery. She did, we're talking about ali wolf and that K shape. You and I have really been leaning hard into this. We spent a lot of time

with Peter Atwater. He coined the term ali wolf. She needs the data to figure out how to model where we are, but also where we're going. Check it out as we do look at the data. The economy is holding up. I know that there's a lot of talk that it's losing momentum, but it is holding up. All things considered, We're still in the middle of a pandemic. And as Dave Powell said at his press conference, we're

learning to live with the iris. And as I talked to some of my co workers across the country, they say, life, depending on where you live and depending on how you're thinking about the virus, looks pretty normal. But the concern at this point is that the easy games have been made.

As you mentioned with the jobs, Yeah, we're still adding jobs, but we're eleven point five million people shy of February and the labor force, and that doesn't account for the three point seven million people that have just ultimately left the labor force since February. And that's one of the biggest things because a lot of people are stepping out

for childcare reasons. So let's talk about something that we have talked a lot about on this program, and I'm dying to get your take on it, Alley, which is the K shaped recovery. It when you said, uh, something a minute ago about sort of depends on who you are, where you live, what your job is. That calls to

mind this idea of the K shaped recovery. Give me your reaction to that notion and that description of this recovery that we're in, whatever it may look like, the K shape is the reason we do not have another stimulus deal, because if you look at the stock market and you look at the unstoppable housing market, there are parts of the economy that why do you need to give them additional money? And I think a lot of economists, myself included, said, oh gosh, watch for the end of July.

We're going to really see the economy tanks and it's held up all things considered. So that's been one of the biggest issues. But as we're seeing today, Pelosi and Treasury Secretary revolution are looking at maybe getting closer to a stimulus deal, but they have to be careful because I agree with the Republicans we don't need another two to three trillion, because we already have trillions of dollars

slashing around to the economy. But I agree with the Democrats that it needs to be targeted because if you're in a K shape recovery, don't keep giving money to top half of the K and expecting a different result. You need to make sure that that bottom half of the K is getting the right money when they really need it. Well, how portant, and let's talk about this, that bottom part of the K. How important is it

ultimately to the US economy. We you know, add nauseam talk about the importance of small business owners and small businesses to our economy. You know, are we providing enough aid for that part of our economy. No, we're not providing enough aid right now. And I think another one of the issues is if you look at the savings rate, if you were in the bottom half of the K and you were getting that extra six federal federal stimulus. We know the stats about six people were earning more

money by being on that unemployment insurance. They've been able to save some of their money. So when you look at the personal savings rate, that looks okay, But that's going to start coming down. And that's coming down partly because the top half of the K is going out and spending money, but partly because the bottom half of the K is now starting to run out. They're starting to tap into their savings accounts. And that's not unlimited.

That's not going to go on indefinitely. So we have to look at, uh, what's the top up to the unemployment insurance. I know there's that joke about the lazy economy giving the six hundred, so okay, fine, do the three hundred, But make sure you're also giving money to the state and local governments too, small businesses, the people on the rent and mortgages so they don't end up homeless. So there's still is just needs to be a really really targeted effort. What happens if we don't get that?

What does it look like and how soon do we see it? Alli, Well, the economy is kind of backpedal, but it's not going to happen that quickly. Again, that's kind of been the lesson learned to all of us is when you throw three trillion dollars into an economy that only slowed for two months, that actually can keep you going for a while. So I don't think we're

going to see that backpedal. We'll see the savings start to go down, We'll see the amount of people unable to pay the rent or pay the mortgage start to increase, but that's gonna be a slow burn, maybe the next six months. That was alle Wolves chief economist, Admer's research and Jason. Another interview that we had this week that got into what is our economy? It was with Roger Martin, Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at University

of Toronto. He has a pretty cool new book out he does. It's called When More Is Not Better, Overcoming America's obsession with economic efficiency. You and I gravitated to this, and even more so once we got to talking to him, because he's a very lively guy and really willing to kind of put it out there that we're all trying to figure this out. For the first two hundred years of American's history, UH, the median family, the average family

in in America in almost all years, moved forward smartly economically. UH, And that changed around by centenary, so that middle incomes have stagnated terribly for forty years, a greater stagnation than America has has ever seen. So that family that thinks that it's children aren't going to be better than they are is getting closer and more right than wrong if

they are a rich family in America. So that the problem, and I think what that leads people to start questioning, is is this system working for us or is it just working for a very small tail end of the distribution of high income folks. But that's what the book is about, saying why that's happened, what's changed? Uh, in the in the last this last period, this last forty years, and what we can do about it. It's not as

though this has always been been the way. No. Something changed, and what changed was we got so obsessive about efficiency, about getting the last drop of efficiency out of whatever system in the economy we were thinking about. So Carol loved both of those conversations. And I have to say, you're the economist in this duo. You really understand this

stuff much more holistically. But those two, I feel like, are really bringing it to the masses like me, helping me understand kind of the data side of this, but also these di sparities, these disparities that we know about. Once you can measure them, then maybe you can start to fix them. But they're also both talking about things that maybe we're just looking at it wrong for a long time exactly. That's a really great point, Jason. And the thing is the data is they are showing that

these gaps, these inequalities are just increasing. We're not fixing it, we're not figuring out ways to make it better. I mean, I feel like that conversation we had with Bloomberg reporter Ben Steverman last week, you know, talking about the Harvard economist as well, who's looking at this specifically and coming to the conclusion that basically, you know, kids are not going to be in a better situation than their parents,

which was a long held belief. So what these two got to is how to think about the economy differently, how do we get on a better path. You can check out both of those conversations in their full form on our podcast feed. Well, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week and still ahead. Everything the Public Broadcasting learned over its first fifty years have come to bear over the last six month. PBS is celebrating a big milestone. But how are they pivoting when there is so much competition

for content? We'll hear from the network's president and CEO. This is whooperg. This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Carol, whether it is PPS kids, whether it's cooking shows, whether it is documentaries that change the way we think about American history, feels like we all have a relationship with PBS. That's so true, Jason, this is a broadcaster that's been part of our life for half a century. They are now

getting ready for the next fifty years. We talked about that with the CEO and president of PBS, she is Paula Kerger. October four will be our fiftieth anniversary. That is the day, October four, vent that we signed on the air as a national system with Julia Child in the French shift. And when and when you think about it, you know, think about the world before Julia Child. You know, there was really no you know, there was I mean, there were some cooking shows, I guess, but she changed

the way that we thought about food. You know that. Um, she changed the way that you know, French cuisine, which which seems so you know, fussy, could be pretty accessible and you know it's okay if that chicken falls off the counter, you know, you just wipe it off and you keep going. And I think that and and that personality, Um, it's just you know, it's one of the She's one of the people that I think really defined us. You think about Fred Rogers and Fred is having Uh, he's

had an amazing year. Um, you know, as people have really thought about what he meant to them. You know the fact that he could look into the into the camera and you felt that he was looking at you, telling you that you were special and really encouraging you to be yourself, and you think about, you know, as you flash forward, all of the different personalities. So we thought the that's how we would celebrate and UH, and then the the pandemic hit and suddenly we were not

thinking about fifty years and celebration. We were really thinking about the public service piece of who we are that's at the P and the S and TBS stands for,

and what we could be doing during this time. And I have talked to our stations, I've talked to others involved with public broadcasting, and I've said to them and I and I believe this, UH, to the very center of my soul, that everything that public broadcasting learned over its first fifty years have come to bear over the last six months, and that we were built for this moment with the children's programming that we have put together that's all built around core curriculum, with the work that

we've done with teachers and classrooms that we distribute to a broadband used to be just their teachers, now to families who are taking up lesson plans and trying to figure out how to engage kids with the trusted news content that we've built up through the extraordinary journalism of people like Jim Lair and Gwen Eiffel and Charlie Hunter Galt and all of the people Judy Woodrift. Now I'm about all of the people that have gone into building the News Hour as a trusted source for for fact

and information. To UM, the documentary programs that we've created over the years. You know, when the baseball season was delayed, Ken Burns called me and said, why don't we put

baseball up? Why don't we make it available? Um And and he said, and as we talked, he said, let's look at the probram the kinds of programs that I've produced that are in my library that would have been on the kids curriculum, you know, for the spring, and maybe we should find some programs that, you know, could help remind us all of those times when we came together and you know, we discovered our own better angels.

So we thought about the Rose Adults and the World War Two documentary and the National Parks documentary America's Greatest Idea, and then, you know, and then George Floyd was murdered and we suddenly found ourselves looking at Okay, what can we produce, but what is what is in our library that we can bring forward that can help people understand where we came from? How did we get to this place?

Looking at everything from Skip Gates, recent series on reconstruction, going back to the Great Henry Hampton's Eyes on the Prize and so all of the work that we've been doing over these last months, leveraging our library but also creating new content and building on relationships and the trust that we've built, has all brought us here. And I think this is the best way to celebrate our fifties

anniversary is actually being in service to the public. Hey, Paula, one thing I wanted to ask you is the content that is out there today. There's so much of it, thanks largely to the explosion of streaming services. We've got just a few new ones really kind of in the last year. There was a time when it was only PBS.

It felt like that did those deep dives, did those documentaries, um, did those really thoughtful series, you know, and now there are others doing it, And I just wonder, how does that change your focus or PBS is focus, or how you plan for the future and how you compete in a world where everybody's competing for all of our eyeballs,

you know. So we've been down this past before. Um obviously when we moved from an environment whether it was just broadcast television, into a plethora of cable channels and uh, you know, there was a time when so many of the of the upcoming cable channels were really designed on, you know, trying to emulate or copy public broadcasting. And

that's PPS President and CEO Paula Kerger. I have to say one of my favorite parts of that interview was the quick flex where she's like, yeah, there's a pandemic going on. I got a call from Ken Burns. He's like, remember that amazing thing that I did. Why don't you show that? Listen PBS Like so many others, Jayson learning to pivot and provide content that made sense during the pandemic, temper to pivot the restaurants. They have been among the

hardest hit during the virus. We're gonna hear from one of the best known names in the industry. We're talking about Danielle Blue. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So it was a big week for New York City restaurants. After six months pandemic and do shut down restaurants in the city. They were allowed to reopen indoor dining with some restrictions on capacity, and it's going to still make

it really tough for them to run financially. And We've gotten to check in a number of times throughout the pandemic with Danielle Blue, one of the best known chefs in the world. Here's what he had to say. This reopening in New York means so much because we have been stranned for eight months with no restaurants inside. Thanks God, the city up and up the streets and gave the

opportunity to have a sidewalk cafe. We did our best with that at the restaurant Danielle with Danielle Bully Kitchen and the reopening inside, I felt that I wanted to also try to set up a mood which was maybe a little different, a little more disrupting and and and maybe a theme where I didn't get a chance to go to the South of France this summer, and every year I go to France and I always go to the south of France, but so it is many many Americans,

and you know, destination vacations the mediterrane always make people dream. So I felt that I should do a restaurant who expressed a little bit of a journey to the Mediterrane through the flavor of the dishes and through the mood of the restaurant. So we transformed the restaurant into Buris Bullied by the Sea as my last name. I love it.

I love it, I love it, and so Danielle, I mean, what's been so interesting in sort of keeping up with you throughout this is that this has obviously challenged you as as a chef and in many ways, but it's really challenged you, I feel like, as a businessman in many ways and as a manager of your people. So tell us about some of the sort of key decisions that you felt like you had to make for your business. Of course, I mean that we'll all locked down, and

all my colleague lockdown. Little by little, we started initiative to bring back our staff and um about the months and a half after lockdown, we started Food First Foundation, an initiative with sl Green, my new partner in a new restaurant, Le Pavillon at one Vanderbilt, and he wanted to really help me start to make meals for New Yorkers and bring back some of my staff in the kitchen.

But he also wanted to help many of his standards around town to be able to reopen their kitchen and support their tenants through UH Food First and today we have distributed almost four meals gifted to many many charity including City Mill on Wheel and UH in New York and World Central Kitchen at the beginning of our mission and and Barry Barry mission as well, and and they

were I think that was the first initiative. Then from that we did the take out at restaurant Danielle, and then we opened the terra us at Babu and Danielle and through daniel Bully Kitchen UH takeout division as well. And today we are opened inside and it felt very good last night. I feel that people are still a little anxious and there's a mix of anxiety and excitement and for us as reopening inside, but at the same time we make sure and you know, it gave us

a chance to bring back more staff. So fifty employees we had we had now up to plus and that's really growing. So it's good. It's a good sign. And we haven't reopened all our restaurant, only you know, the West Side Barbau and Danielle and Danielle, let's talk about New York City and specifically Midtown if we can, Carol and I in normal world, in the before times, we went to Midtown Manhattan. Literally every day we would do

our show from there. We were denizens of that, you know, into the evening, and so many people who we know are like that. What is Midtown like? Now? What do you expect it's going to be like over the next six to nine to twelve months. Well, I think over the next six months it will improve us. I think many institutions, UH Bank and other institutions of maybe mad they stuff to stay home until the end of the

year and coming back in January. So some of the company I've already bring back, brought back staff on on alternative schedule. Now, I mean, of course New York will come back New York. It's evident. And some people may have lost their job, lost stability in New York and had to live town. But for the most part, the town might be a little deprived right now of its worker, but they're gonna have to come back to work because no company can run at a distance like this forever.

And um, I believe that you know, by spring one, even after the holiday, New York shill come back strong. I mean, we feel that there's a lot of New Yorker back, but they they come back, they go back and forth. Right now, we feel and I am positive New York City is New York City, and I think it will take more than COVID to make it really a challenge city. But we have we have a restaurant Midtown and because of Broadway, we if we don't have the culture, if we don't have the art, if we

don't have the tourists, it's abused. And the town is also suffering, and so hospitality in general hotels and restaurants are suffering. And um, and we need also the workers

back to really have this life during lunch Midtown. So I am positive we're opening a restaurant in Midtown at forty second and one Vanderbilt next year is that pavilion the pavilion, And I'm positive that you know, it will be a good time to open a restaurant in the spring of twenty one, and at the same time, we have taken all the measure possible to make sure that people feel them they are in a very safe environment.

And um, you know, it's just has been, um Daniel right for most Let me ask you, because I can't tell you how many people we have come on in. Even real estate guys are like, you know, it's like everybody's leaving New York City, everybody's leaving these major cities and so and so forth. I mean, I've been in New York City a long time too, and I've heard the demise of the big cities over and over again. How do you see it? I see it? And a lot of people, as I said, feel very stressed right now,

and I feel comfortable being out. But they're gonna be so bored and so missing out with everything that I think they'll be back to New York. And you know, I'm a New Yorker at art and if I'm going to leave the city, where am I going to go back to France in my small village? Um, I don't know. But I'm also I've been a New Yorker involved with the community and involved with my profession and having a credible support from our customer and we still feel it,

we still get it. I mean, our customers are so positive and so happy that we are here and we are continuing. And I can see I can see them coming back all the time. Are they going to spend as much time in New York City and they used to? Maybe less, but they still come back and support us. And so, Danielle, what is something like this due to

the next generation of chefs coming up? You know? I mean you have seen so many promising chefs sort of come through your kitchens and the kitchens of your friends. I do wonder about this next generation and how they will adapt and what advice you might be giving them. And and many young chefs left me to go to smaller city around the country. UM. It has been struggling challenge for them to wherever they are uh in UM in Minnesota, in California, in uh in Florida or other

part Texas. It's it's not easy to UM, it's not easy to start a business. And then too, you know, when you when you start your new place, you have that you have you you might do very well, but you have to pay back the investment. And I think for younger for young chef who want to start a business. What's important is to not be in debt to the point where they can never pay back or lose their business.

Now for young chef learning to cook, I think, um, there's there's going to be opportunity in the food business, maybe different than what they envision. But for me, we have been very creative at expanding into other directions in in the food world, such as UH national distribution with Gold Belly of daniel Buddy Kitchen for dishes for home. So that brought me. It gave me a chance to

bring more stuff. We do yours of the takeout in New York City with daniel Blue Kitchen and that brought me more stuff, and um, expanding into catering, more catering. I have a catering company, but we're expanding into most services like that. And so I think we tried to stay very creative, very engaged with opportunity that maybe needed right now and may change later. And that's chef Danielle Blue. Of course his eponymous restaurant here in New York City.

It is a beacon in many ways he's been pivoting like crazy. Really good to catch up with him. Yeah and check it also Kate Creator, who is our food editor for Pursuits here at Bloomberg. She has some great stories this week about the industry in the sector trying to reopen up. And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Master.

Be sure to check out our daily radio show that's Monday through Friday starting at two pm Well Street time, and you can hear all of our fun conversations from a show and from this show. Wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure while you're on that podcast, we need to check out this week's extra podcast. It's our conversation with Joe Lonsdale, very timely. He's a co founder of Palanteer. He worked at PayPal as well. We talked to him

on the day that Palentteer went public. That's right, Jason, A great story and great insight about kind of where we are when it comes to the tech world. Don't forget too. Were also on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News, Bloomberg Week. It's available on newsstands now and we'll see you next week right here at the same time this is Bloomberg,