Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-October 31, 2020

They've had to create zones. They've also had to figure out how to help those impacted by the coronavirus among them. It's just been an amazing seven months as we're all trying to return to what we believe will be the new normal. I don't think we're there yet, but we're we're a big part of becoming part of that. That's Judy Marks, Presidency of OTIS Worldwide. She's been dealing with the pandemic from day one of the global outbreak. Same for Whirlpool chairman and CEO Mark bits Are we check

in with him. He sees a lasting change in consumer behavior caused by the virus. We begin this week with the race for a vaccine. Dr Anthony Faucci, the US government's top infectious disease expert. He said vaccines won't be

available in the United States until January at the earliest. Well, this week Bloomberg's Business Week cover story it is all about Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's mission to accelerate development of a COVID nineteen vaccine, and this story talks about what might be the ultimate Operation Warp Speed company.

The story written by Bloomberg News Financial Investigation senior writer Stephanie Baker, along with Bloomberg News US healthcare reporter Cynthia Coon's Bloomberg's Kaylee Lines, and I caught up with Stephanie and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber. We talked about vaccines a lot um in this program, and obviously, I think it's one of the things that everybody is, you know, watching in addition to this, you know, election next week.

But the you know, obviously the big thing here with the vaccine is, you know, how do we get to a viable vaccine and then how do you distribute it? And one of the big unknown sort of in our coverage has been what role Operation Warp Speed actually plays in this and that was sort of the mission that we put Stephanie and Cynthia on with this story and what we what we learned in the processes UM is really told and they told the story through a company

called UH Emergent, which is in Baltimore. That's a company I've never heard of, and yet they're one of the many players that are sort of in the Operation Warp Speed ecosystem. So so, Stephanie, what what is that company Emergent tell us about Operation warps feeds approach in the vaccine development. Yes, well, you know, Operation Warp Speed turned to Emergent when they were looking for surge capacity to

make vaccines. Emergent had been a supplier to the U. S Government for years UH making vaccines against anthrap and smallpox, and so they were in a prime position to be able to sort of set that aside and start making COVID nineteen vaccines and had the sort of the manufacturing

suites and the technology. And it turns up that there now they had worked with three of the six vaccine developers that Operation Warp Speed had has publicly backed UM and you know, really turned themselves into a sort of key node of production for COVID vaccines and are gearing up in the process of making what will eventually be you know, hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines of

various candidates. Now, obviously there are two things here. There's one is which vaccines will get approved, and then there's manufacturing them and making sure there's enough supply when that

approval does come. And I think that's what Operation Warps who's really focused on, is making sure that the supply chain is there, that the all the manufacturers have what they need and can use, for instance, the Defense Production Act to gain priority in in in the supply chain to make sure that those doses are available if and when an approval does come right, something that surprised me.

I don't know whether it should have, considering they are intending to have this process happen at warp speed, but they say their goal is to start delivering a vaccine within twenty four hours of its approval. That's a really quick turnaround. Have they succeeded in kind of doing having that infrastructure set up for when a vaccine is ultimately approved. Well, they are trying to prepare the groundwork by doing things like building an integrated computer system to track where every

dose goes. UM they've outsourced distribution to a company UM that has historically worked with the Centers for Disease Control on vaccine distribution. But of course this all depends on which vaccine gets approve and when, and there's just so many uncertainties around that. And you know, one of the front runners fiser Um, which is developing a vaccine together with Germany's BioNTech Um. You know, it has very challenging

UH storage requirements. It needs to be kept at minus seventy five degrees celsius, which is I think as a hundred and twelve degrees fahrenheit, and you know that just creates huge challenges in terms of trying to farm those doses out across the country. And so I think you know, they they're they're working with individual states to try to

come up with a plan. I think some of the states have pushed back saying, you know, you guys, you haven't provided enough detail on things like storage or funding. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions. So you get some bullish predictions from the people working within Operation Warp speed UM, and it's it's unclear until the time comes come January, you know whether or not they will be able to effectively form this out um. It

is a massive challenge there. You know, there was a lot of questions about lack of transparency in whether or not you know this was um wasted taxpayer money. But when you when you think about it, the scale of the economic fallout is so enormous. Trillions of dollars. In a way, eight billion is very little UM and that they ought to be throwing more money at it, and we'll probably have to throw more money at it in

reality when it gets down to the distribution. Be sure to check out that full story online, on newsstands and of course on the Bloomberg. That was Bloomberg News Financial Investigation senior writer Stephanie Baker, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. Coming up next, we've got more on COVID nineteen with the Dean of Boston School of Public Health. We are and everybody is on the edge of their seat.

He is bracing for winter. This is blue Berg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Gerrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. This week we saw COVID nineteen cases surging again France and Germany announcing new restrictions. The US seeing a jump in cases and hospitalizations. One of our regular go to voices on the virus, Dr Sandro Gala dinan professor at Boston University's School of Public Health, his author of Pained

Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's health. He told Bloomberg's Kayley Lines and I that like many others around the world, he and his city, they're on the edge. Boston right now is a little bit anxious. I think I feel like we are, and everybody is on the edge of their seat. We're seeing cases slowly creep up. They're going up, they go down, but the general slow increase in trend.

And I think the mayor and the governor have been appropriately increasingly cautious, and the and the urging all citizens to be careful, and I think businesses have been doing

the same. So I think it's a little bit of a balancing act between knowing that cases are slowly trending up, but taking precautions to double down on the on the things that we are all doing, wearing masks and being careful with testing, with contact tracing to avoid these cases from becoming another surge, and that's in the greater city of Boston. Dr Glea. But what about at Boston University? How is the university? How are your students, How are

you handling this? Yeah, it's actually quite quite remarkable how well we are doing in the university. And obviously the university is it's vulnerable to changes in the city around it. But we have had a fairly low case positivity in tool right now, which about point two percent, which is two per thousand, while in Brookline around it we're about

two percents, almost tenfold more. And I think the reason for that is that within the university, we have a very big university, but you're able to control things a little bit more. We test all our students twice a week or once a week, depending on their contact. We a very sophisticated and robust contact tracing that if somebody tests positive, we talk to them right away, we isolate them, we isolate their contact. So in some respects of universities like a city within a city, but one where you

have a lot more control. So we have been so far Touchwood doing well. I think there is a lot of anxiety I have and a lot of us have about whether the larger city will end up affecting the university, and obviously if it does, will have to change course as to what we're doing. But so far, the university frankly, it's a safer place to be than the than the

city around it. Yeah, it's kind of interesting, right, I think, you know, center that as we've opened up all kinds of educational systems, um, you know, from K through you know, of course going into colleges and universities, I think we've had some success stories and then we've had certainly some problem areas, especially when it comes to college sports reopening. I mean, do you still feel like it's important that we continue to reopen educational areas and keep them open. Yeah,

And I think the answer is yes. But it's a it's a qualified yes, it's a it's qualified by two things. Number one is that I don't think opening simply means opening and sort of going back to business as usual like it was October. Opening means having a lot of precautions in place. Everybody wearing masks, people are being careful

not to go into work if they're sick. Self attestation, everyday systems of testing, simple systems of isolating people who have positive tests, isolating their contact and the entire really the entire range of efforts to mitigate the virus. So I think yes, with those measures in place, I think the second caveat to the yes is that we simply need to have the humility to say, which is a bit unnerving, of course, as as you can both appreciate. But I think simply if the data change, we should change.

And I think we as a university, I think we as a city, as a state, as a country should have the humility to realize that that the virus may become bigger than us, and we sing we need to change what we're doing. Well, I have to look ahead then further into the fall, into the winter. Dr Elia. I mean, it's pretty bad right now we're seeing record cases, and then when it is dark and cold, no one wants to be outside. Everyone is forced inside. Are you bracing yourself for that? M hm yeah, I am, man.

I suppose the big question for the winter is as people are all forced inside, will they continue to congregate inside, which is which we know is what's driving most of the cases. And here in Massachusetts, analyzes show very clearly that a lot of the case spread comes from indoor house parties and gatherings where people are not being careful with protective equipment. So the question is are people going to go inside and in the congregate, which is then

going to result in viral spread. The truth is, Carol and Kayley, if if each of us stayed inside, just on our couch without contacting anybody, then there will be no spread of coronavirus. So it really depends on what we do by being inside. If we are inside taking

pack autions will be fine. But if being inside means congregation broadly, what we saw happen in the Southern States in the summer, right, so happen in a Southern states in the summer it As things got hot, people went inside where there's air conditioning, and there was all sorts of congregation which resulted in the spread of the virus. So I think it really depends. But but the answer to your question, am I looking at apprehensively is unqualifiedly yes.

You know, we've often seen people come out and say, well, there's more cases of COVID nineteen because we're doing more testing. Um, is that true or that's not the case. No, it's not the case. I heard non Professor Sharpstein talk about this in the clip, and he's still right, it's not the case. I mean, there's no question we're doing more testing and as a result, you do find more cases. But there's plenty of evidence that this is a real rise in cases, if not just due to testing. We're

seeing a rise in all age groups. And as a professor Scharstein noted that we are seeing a rise in hospitalizations. If it was simply due to testing and due to testing of healthier people, there would not to be a rise in hospitalizations. Well, and that's a really smart point, right, And I also think about the cases that do end

up in the hospital. Are they how severe are they and how are we or what we have we learned about treating those cases because we have been fighting the virus now for six or seven months, well we've learned quite a bit actually, and when you look at mortality, you'll see that mortality per person is quite a bit down. In fact, we're about one quarter of the case mortality that we had in the first way, which was in March and April. Largely that's because we've gotten better at

treating the disease in hospital. We've learned how it manifests. We've learned when to oxygenate went to north so we are getting much better at dealing with an hospital. Mother doesn't change the fact that if there is a really big surge, it may overwhelmed hospitals and I see, which is what one always worries about. But on a case by case basis, COVID is now much less fatal than it was when we first learned about it six seven months ago. That's dr said Joe Glea. He's dean and

professor at Boston University School of Public Health. We like talking to him because he understands the medical side of this and also the educational side, which has been impacted big time because of the virus. Is also author of Pained, Uncomfortable Conversations about the public's health. He reminded us once again that we have made progress when it comes to treatment and keeping coronavirus patients alive. Catch that full interview on our podcast feed at Bloomberg dot com. Still to come.

We have been out working around the clock really to keep the world moving, helping to reopen buildings around the world. OTIS Worldwide CEO Judy Marks. She's coming up next. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you highlights on some of our favorite interviews from our daily radio show. That includes this half hour a pair of CEOs from two well known companies that have kept us up and running during the pandemic.

Both business is, by the way, have been around for more than a century. First up, Judy Mark She's presidency of OTIS Worldwide, which you might recall was spun off from United Technologies. Back in April, blue Bergs Kaylee Lines and I talked about the company's re entry to becoming

a public company again amid the pandemic. We could have never imagined starting this journey in the middle of a global pandemic, but I've got to tell you we are so excited to return to our roots as an independent, publicly traded company and our sixty nine thou colleagues, who are mainly essential workers keeping the world moving, maintaining obviously elevators and hospitals and infrastructures, and just as importantly in many residential buildings where people have been locked down but

still need the use of their their elevators. Couldn't be more proud a hundred years to the month we first listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We listened again on April three. It's unbelievable, such an incredible historic company and we are we're moving into the future. We're excited it. Well, you talk about how all of these places that need your elevators, hospitals in the lake uh here where I

am at Bloomberg World headquarters in New York. When I come in in the morning, when I leave in the afternoon, I just get an elevator. I don't have to touch anything. They're running automatically so that they can reduce touch points. Can you give me some insight into what kind of touchless technology or procedures you've had to implement in your in your elevator systems because of this. Sure, let me answer that, and then let me take a step back and share with you a little bit about just our

business model. But but innovation is core to who we are at OTIS, and we had a lot of touchless um innovations and products available, but they have absolutely come to the forefront now because of COVID, and I'm really pleased with how agile and fast our team has been able to bring these to market throughout the globe. We have gesturing technology. We have the ability for for voice interaction where you say, hey, Otis, take me to floor five.

We have the ability through an app on the iPhone are Equal app to be able to before you ever leave your office, call the elevator and so it'll be there for you. We have traffic management and a dispatching system that's intelligent traffic flow that allows us only to put four people in an elevator to have them safely spaced. You know, our customers, these building managers are telling us that they want help, they want our guidance, they want

our partnership. And it's just been an amazing uh seven months as we're all trying to return to what we believe will be the new normal. I don't think we're there yet, but we're we're a big part of becoming part of that. I mean. So that's really interesting, Judy. So the things that maybe are changing right now and you talk about the new normal, they're here to stay. In your view, No, I consider we're in an interim normal stage or a centerim um. I really do. I believe,

and we see it even within our own company. So again, sixty colleagues UM, almost seventy of them didn't have the opportunity to work from home from the day that started in Wuhan. Our service our field professionals are service mechanics, were in the hospital first and foremost protected by PPE because their health and safety is critical to us. But we have been out working around the clock really to

keep keep the world moving. And so you know, we have a work from home for some of our organization, and it's amazing that we've been able to start the company this way, really to do our board meetings remote, to close the books, to do our earnings, to to really get to know our investors, UM. But most importantly,

we've been out there to serve the rioting public. And what most people don't know is that, you know, over half of our two million unit portfolio, we maintain over two million units, larger than the next closest competitor globally, and over half of those are in residential buildings, condominiums, apartments. People need to go down to get their food, even if they're not leaving the building to pick up things right.

So you know, again for us, our passengers are so critical and we want to keep them flowing safely and and in a healthy way. Judy, We've talked about your business, but at the end of the day, it is a business that has people. And we know that the way companies have been approaching their diversity and inclusion efforts has has really been put into focus in and you are just launched a social justice initiative. It's called our Commitment

to Change. You've joined the Paradigm for Parody coalition, committing to achieve gender parity in your executive leadership by thirties ten years from now. Does that feel like it's too long, No, it's it's not too long. And I would be delighted if we could beat the goal. And and that's what we try to do with all expectations, Judy, Why does it take so long? Takes so long? Well, we're already

at just over thirty third right now. And when you think about it, you want to create an opportunity and and um really opportunity for everyone to excel from all backgrounds, including gender, but really create an opportunity as we grow the company for everyone to excel. Our vision is to give people freedom to connect and thrive in a taller, faster, smarter world and that means all people. She talks about

creating opportunities for all people. Really important, especially for a company that's in over two hundred countries and thinking about what it means to be diverse in all of the places that it operates. That's Judy Marks, Presidency of OTIS Worldwide. Check out that full conversation. It's on our podcast feed. Still to come. Another CEO that's been dealing with the virus from day one because of its global operations. We check in with Whirlpool CEO Mark Bitzer. This is Bloomberg.

This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Shares of Whirlpool. Check it out. They have rally big time this year as consumers, especially those in the US, hunkered down and invested in their nest for talking about their homes. They were buying up appliances, everything to do with the home during the virus. Now, Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney and I had an in depth conversation with Whirlpool chairman

and CEO Mark Bitser. You had to manage a lot and then includes its supply chain from day one due to its facilities in China. I think we're a little bit in a different positions and most other domestic companies, because we have a pretty big China operation which actually happened to be a hundred fifty miles away from Wuhan, and we have our European headquarters in northern Italy. So you remember, you know when when you first had a China message. Initially it felt like China contained and we

were worried about manufacturing supply for China. But themb A really decisive element was when UM, our president of a European business called me over weekend and said, there are a couple of cases in the Lombardy and that's that's

kind of when you realize business big. UM. So again it feels like it's really this memory, but I think that's what when everything for us changed UM, and we were kind of by mid March, you realize everything which we thought about twenty twenty will just be upside down and we don't know how deep a cannon is into

which we're looking. UM it's about was a pretty dramatic impact, and then you kind of keyboards in mind with unfortunate COVID didn't come with an instruction for use for management playbook, right, nobody had a playbook on that somewhat annoying and when you you know, you get all these emails from consultant to tell you how to measure crisis, but problem was all right, but always six weeks late. So so it was an interesting experience because you we's got to improvise,

you gotta pull the troops together. And of course the first focus was entirely but you know, how do we secure health and safety? Because you know, we always talk about economic dimension of his crisis, but there's a big human dimension, and you know, we're all humans with our fears, um, and you've got to manage of big organization with people who have also fears, and so managing your health and

safety of our people that obviously was the first one. UM. But then of course you talk about all the business implications and at least as the CEO of was quote quote a milucky situation, but even a two a week to or nine, I was in the US and I wasn't running the company, but I called it a front seat to what we experienced back then. So you you took take some lessons from back when. And um, of course first focus was how do we secure liquidity because we don't know how bad this is going to be, um,

and then you start taking all the decisions. Um. So it was pretty much a rolling up aliefs event back when in March and April. Yeah, so Mark, give us a sense of kind of where you are now, how is your business change, What are the big issues you're focusing on right now? You know, Paul, I mean it's first of all, I never heard you earlier talking about visibility. Um. You know back when in April or March, and we

had visibility for a week. Um. I know it sounds silly, but you had a visibility for a week and you just don't know what when as Q two evolved, you had a visibility for maybe a couple of weeks or months. By now we see three months, maybe four months, which is unusual. By least you see a little bit longer, so you see a little bit more from perspective. The way I look at it right now from our business in our industry is kind of and and assuming out

a little bit. As you all know, there was a lot of talk initially about it is it's going to be a U shape recovery of V shape or W shape or whatever shape. And by now I think most people realize that's increasingly irrelevant discussion because what matters is in which cycle is your industry um because everything every industry goes for a different cycling. You know, initially it felt like our industry is the Corona loser, but now I think it now immediately immediately becomes more and more

apparent we're a long term maybe Corona winner. And what I mean with that is it's a simple fact. Our business is in the home. It's about improving life at homes. It's about washers, dishwashers, and ovens. People are spending time at home. And what we see now increasingly vets where were now more and again I'm leaving the human side of it a way, which is still a big issue, but from business side, we're more and more opportunity side

of his Corona cycle. And that's good news. Because people are spending time at home, we're investing in the nest as we call it, and very you know, just think about yourself. Do you know a single friend of a neighbor who didn't paint some room in the house or didn't buy something new. Everybody's improving the house and it's not it's more than just kind of a short term improvement. People are rethinking the purpose of the home and that

play is in our favor. Yeah, you know, when did you realize that that was starting to happen, because you know, it's really fascinating I think, and I don't know if Paul you concur with this, but like as journalists, because I think initially everybody was afraid to talk about the pandemic and the impact and not having visibility. And then all of a sudden we started to see different companies.

You know, of course, nobody wished the health crisis on anybody, but whether it was in Netflix or some others, you know that we're benefiting because of the crisis. And all of a sudden you started to see the numbers and you're like, oh, yeah, I thought everybody was going to lose in this crisis and that wasn't the case. When did you guys start to see that in your numbers? I mean, Carol Is, it's tough to pinpoint exactly when we go it, but I think it became apparent pretty

much around the summer period. First of all, I gotta step back a little bit. It's and and we're certainly not the health experts and are probably already enough self declared health experts around here. Probable, but it's we have to but you know, it became pretty apparent in April May. But despite all the talk, we have to learn to live with this crisis and a coronavirus and it's not

going to go away short term. And that's when we also realized that will change for consumer behavior and the way we look at it right now, you know it's UM hopefully it with corona Christs at one point will be behind us. I don't think the consumer behavior will go back or normal because think about it, you know most consumers are not most, but many consumers will by the time this is over, probably have spent more or less a year at home UM. You don't erase a

year of consumer behavior from the memory. It's not a flash memory that will stay. People will invest in the home UM and that's becomes it just becomes every month more parents and we see as in our own business, you know, the initial demand was a lot what we call crisis appliances, you know, the freezer of the microwaves or the rest product which just you know broke down

because they ever have been used certa intensively. But we now see more and more people spending money, and it goes more and more to big ticket items like what you know, I'm you're talking about the higher and fridges or you talk about the higher and others. People are really investing. It's not just with the rest and the crisis. They're investing and they're upgrading, UM because they all see, Okay, I got to spend a lot more time at home

going forward. I don't think certain behaviors like you know we you know we have statistic fifty of the people even now they spend significantly more time in the kitchen and cooking. The men ever before that will no go that will not go act to zero. It will not UM and I think that again place in our favor. Hey Mark, you initially mentioned something about the supply chain and the shock there give us a sense of how your supply chain is looking now. Um, in short part,

were still supply chain constraint. Now let me expand a little bit more on this one. You know, we early in miss crisis, you know, remember around springtime and people expectating, well is it over by easter, and a lot of industrial companies shut down the factories. We didn't not shut down the factories UM, which was a little bit both decision, but I'm glad we did UM, which on the other hand was very demanding our people because we asked them to come to work where a lot of people very

extremely uncertain and nervous. Having said that, it gave us a lot of lead time to learn how we can reasonably safe produce and have an environment in the factories which kind of maximize the health and safety of our people. Because in a big industrial factory, and keep in mind, if you would go to one of our factors, some of them are a mile long. These are not condrom more buildings. We are massive, big factories where steel comes in and the washer comes out in the every side.

So you're trying to get that in a safe environment, you know. And these again, these are industrial complex with two or three thousand employees in one factory, so you have line distancing mask wearing, stanchilization, temperature check. UM. It's a massive effort. And and the fact that we started that early allowed us at least to get much faster

in producing reasonably safe. Now having said that, today, fast forward, you know, the fact is if you have a if you try to keep a factory safe you will not get it to the same yield as pre COVID because you have to reduce the paces of speed on the line, because you have to have a social social distancing. You will have disruptions with components, you have challenges logistics, So no matter how hard you work, you will not get

it to exact the same output as pre COVID. And that's why our supply sha Aim today UM is constrained. I mean, if we're not fully able to keep up with demand, which I know from financial perspective would say, what's a good problem to have? True, But of course i'm your hand. We're frustrated of letting consumers down and having memoried six weeks for a product. So Mark, if since you anticipate that, as you said, you know you can't erase a year of consumer behavior from memory, and

I agree with you. I think I'm rethinking my expenditures going forward, even when things get back to normal. You know, it's very easy, especially in a city like New York, you can just kind of money just kind of falls out of your pockets, you know, But you can kind of rethink your focus. If you think that consumers will continue to focus on their homes and spend. What kind of capital expenditures do you need to potentially do to meet that expected greater demand or can you do it

under existing facilities? Um let, under normal circumstances, we could do it undering network. But again, as long as COVID is around us, and you put you give me whatever, and did you think it is? But you know, as long as it's around us, it will be somewhat constraints and you will have on and off, and you will have a supply who has some challenges because they had to shut down the factory. Whatever else. There was Whirlpool chairman and CEO Mark bits Er talking about strains on

his supply chain. It's something we've heard from a lot of CEOs, understandably during the pandemic. What really stood out for me that was what he had to say about the consumer. People were investing in their home, investing in their nest, as he said, everyone improving their home. And he thinks that that's not going to necessarily change that consumer behavior, that it's not going to go back to

where it was pre COVID. He says, you just don't erase a year of consumer behavior from memory, at least not that quickly. That entire fifteen minute discussion, by the way, it can be found on our Bloomberg business Week podcast feed. And that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser.

We're coming up in our next hour, including from managing the virus to K pop Fans super fans, that is, managing Q and on get ready for the K pop stands. That's all coming up on Bloomberg business Week. This is Bloomberg. Is Bloomberg business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser. Coming up in the second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Highlights from our daily show, our daily radio show, including one with the

former head of Paramount Pictures. We're talking about Adam Goodman. He is disrupting the Hollywood production model, figuring out how to make movies during the shutdown. We begin though with a story in the magazine and you just might want to stop dead in your tracks take this all in. This story is about how no one can handle Q and On like the global army of K pop super fans, which by the way, are called stands Bloomberg's Kayley lines, and I learned a lot by talking with Bloomberg News

technology reporter Olivia Carville, she wrote the story. She joined us along with Bloomberg business Week editor Jill Weber. Prompts for Olivia for for seeing through um its story about

K pop stands. If you don't know what the stands are, it's the super fans UM and K pop has legions of them and really got a sense of what they're capable of over the summer when Trump's Tulsa rally ended up basically being for as far as we know, basically taken over by super fans who who helped buy a bunch of tickets and then didn't show up, And it was this glimpse into the power of their fandom of the stand And you know, it's another thing also that you know, if you follow k pop before it and

its especially on the commercial side, you can see what influence like bands like bts have when they let their provinces know about brands, that immediately moves the needles for brands. So Olivia dug into this for us, and Olivia like, why is this so relevant like right now at this day and age with uh, you know, an election just around the corner. Yeah, I felt like researching the story, I had to learn a whole new language, capos and stands and bets and army and you know, there's so

many layers to the story. That was just fascinating as I was researching it. And I think you're right Joel that like over summer we really saw the K pop stands kind of we saw the full force of just how powerful they can be at mobilizing and rallying online. And they've become such a significant force in the US politically speaking that you've got political consultants actually taking notice

of K pop fans. Now, there were some democratic grassroots organizations reaching out with Biden to K pop means after that that Tulsa rally, and if you'd read the story, you'll see that. You know, the reaction they got from the K pop fans wasn't exactually exactly warm. They responded with comments like hell to the nose and we don't like you either, can't even a thing. Yeah that these guys are. You know, they're not a monolitht um fear

leader lists. It's hard to harness them from any any side of the political spectrum, but there's a deep connection with African American music culture because the genre borrows liberally from them. So there was, you know, that strong connection with Black Lives Matter, which we saw earlier in the summer Olivia. I find it so interesting that key pop in theory is supposed to be unpolitical. Band members are told, you know, don't wait into politics, but it really has,

at least for the fan base become political. Yeah, And we actually saw Bats tweet out support for the Black Lives Matter movement earlier in June, and I think that's largely because they do borrow so much of African Americans, you know, in the music culture. Was the way they dressed, the way the song sound, the way they sing, and when Bats waited into Black Lives Matter, which was seen as a political movement, they also donated a million dollars

to Black Lives Meta charities. That's when the bandom really ramped up and started to um, you know, and one day they raised a million dollars to match Bts' donation. So you can see just be a sheer fource plane to kind of hijack white supremacist hashtags and also push out the message for the alien and let's let's talk more. Also just about the commercial side of this that I love.

There's a reference to Downey uh and sort of a BTS member commenting on his preference of Downey and what happened when when when that went down, there was a drunk cook. So he was commented on how he used the Downey fabric softener and the adorable scent, and within a day they sold out of the two months global supply of the particular fabric softener. We've I've heard examples of like another one of the band members the he was photographed holding a book in the airport and it

sold out online. Or they they spot was sponsored by Hyundai Palisade and the suv was on back order for months. So the buying power, the commercial power of army, which is what the bt S spands are called, it's just unparalleled. Yeah, I feel like the story is about just a reminder, especially in a week where a big tech and the CEOs are haled before Congress or before the Senate specifically and you know, being kind of questioned I think for

their might. It just shows you what can be done online, the power of this, what's what's kind of your key

takeaway from from this and reporting this story out. I think my key takeaway is really the fact that when when you look at what's going on online right now and you look at the rise of these old right groups, these conspiracy theorists like Q and on, is that you speak to the experts who cover these groups, and really the only one who can go up against or beat a group like Q and on at its own game,

as K pop sand was. You know, the sheer volume, the number of them online and effectives you're so digitally savy and cheeky and creative with how they or engage in mean warfare or takedowns of particular hashtags, whether it's Q and on or White Lives Matter. You know, we've seen them do this time and time again over summer.

So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens over the next week and even after the election as we see the rise of Q and On and K pop kind of trying to um to filter that out or trying to even it out by taking over their hashtags or or getting involved to demobilize them. It's like such a common misconception of who BTS fans are or who K pop members are. That was Bloomberg News Technology reporter Olivia Carville and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber.

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up nest to u S President Jeremy Bean's on the role of climate change policies when it comes to a COVID nineteen recovery. This is Bloomberg. Is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Mazure from Bloomberg Radio. This half hour, We've got two guests who are thinking big time about our climate. This next company working closely with the transportation and aviation industries. They work on renewable diesel, renewable jet fuel, and renewable and

recycled plastics. We're talking about Jeremy Beans. He's president of Nesty US and he had a discussion with us about how climate change policies are essential part of the COVID nineteen recovery. He talked with Kaily Lines and I it's been a very tough year UM, not not only for Nest Day but for for business in general. UM. And we as a company, we have done We have done better than than maybe others. The renewable space has remained

very strong UM. But and all of our employees have now been working from home for at least since the end of March. So we've really had to adjust to this new situation, right as so many of us have as we come out of this, and obviously we are far from out of it. We still have a long way to go. But you make the case that the COVID nineteen recovery is really going to need climate change policy.

Can you just talk me through that, thinking, Well, if if we look at COVID nineteen, we look at California wildfires, you were mentioning Hurricane Zata for this Atlantic hurricane season, they've all been made so much worse by climate change, and it's it's really costing life and it's caused its massive economic damage. And if we think about it, at the root cause of this climate change is really the

burning of fossil fuels. So so now as we start thinking about coming out of this really massive economic downturn, we need to put sustainability at the heart of the recovery. And and if we talk about fossil fuels, one of the key areas where we see that importance is in transportation, and where it's especially critical is in those hearts to abate vehicles, those those big weeks, those trucks on the roads, there's planes in disguise, there's vessels on the seas. These

are these are industries. These are sectors where the emissions are continued to grow and which is so difficult for us to reduce. So we need to be smart in terms of policy. We need to put a price on carbon that that in that is technology, technology and feats of neutral and have have policies in place that really

encouraged the use of low carbon fuels. And I'm actually quite encouraged because it was about this time last year that mist they had the opportunity to testify in Congress, and we are now starting to see really much more talk about renewable fuels in d C and the world that it must play in the future for a sustainable recovery. Do you think that changes depending on who is in the White House, who is in Congress. Well, I think

climate change is it's not going away. We really need to we really need to fight this, and it's it's not It's not only from what happens in Congress. We also see it from the industries. We see the CEOs of companies um who are making these business decisions, they see which direction the market is going. If if we think about the millennials, the gen z, they are now starting to enter the marketplace, they are starting to make those decisions, and for them, the environment, social justice, and

climate change are important issues. So if you, if you're CEO of a company today, you really want to make these choices, and regulators any DC is starting to see them. So I think, regardless of who will be in the White House, this becomes an important topic. But Jeremy, I think it does make a difference in that part of Biden's platform is clean energy investment and infrastructure. Couldn't that make a difference in demand for a business like yours?

It would do, And I think it's clear that that the pace of change would be difference depending on what policy choice you make. But I think it's the question about making a policy choice has already been made, yes, so then it's just the speed of the implementation and how quickly as as other country, as a society we can actually start tackling climate change, but also how quickly

we can build a new, better, more sustainable economy. You know, it's funny, my seventeen year old said, you know, I think that your generation or even you know, older generations don't really care because they're not going to be around and they're not going to be in the world that I'm growing up in. And you know, just talked about climate change in terms of policies. We we talk about it a lot. And listen, there are a lot of

companies doing great initiatives, uh and and so on. But I do think just look at the world, we're not moving fast enough. So I'm curious what hopes you have that we pick up the speed when it comes to

these policies that take care of our environment. Yeah. Yeah, I think you raised an interesting point about children asking it My children, they are they are going to live for decades in this world, So it's what what I do also impact their future, and it's from and it's I think it's from that perspective that we that we even even if we're not going to be around for that long, they will be what kind of world do

we want to leave for future generation? Right? So, so, yes, you are correct that it is important who comes into the White House, but it's it's really the policy clarity at the end of the day that is going to drive to change, and the policy clarity is going to come from people who vote and people who care. Jeremy, I'm wondering how sticky you think this is. People pay all out lip service to it now, But has covidentine really brought about a sustained, meaningful push toward better climate policy?

I think so. And I think so because people people are at home, people are spending wartime speaking about all the times that they were stuck in traffic. People are looking at what's happening of environment of random much more closely than so. Yes, I do think this is going to be sticky. Um it is, and they want something you they want They want to have some hope coming out of this crisis, and I think it's sustainable. The

covy is that hope that we can bring. Jerry. One thing I want to get into for those who might not be excuse me familiar with what you guys do, I mean it is about renewable fuels. What specifically tell me what the process or what what you do, and how that reduces the impact on climate on the climate. Yes, so mistay is the is the Well's largest producer of renewable fuels. Renewable diesels specifically and what is it. It

is a fuel. Um it is a diesel fuel that you can drop into any diesel engine today using all the infrastructure that's available today. But often than putting new carbon into the atmosphere, it's actually using carbon form the atmosphere. That was Nesty u S President Jeremy Bain's coming up. It's time for content creators on a professional side to understand that traditional is shifting. Invisible Narratives co founder and former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman and how the film

industry is evolving amid our new world order. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Gero Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Well, we know the content industry has been disrupted big time by COVID nineteen. It's also been impacted by the increase in digital streaming services and how consumers consume content. Right, we know that. Well, some new understands all of this

big time. It's a team behind Invisible Narratives, a digital content studio co founded by Adam Goodman, former president of Paramount Pictures and Andrew Sugarman, former Walt Disney Executive vice president of Global Digital Media and Publishing. Bloomberg's Kaylee Lines, and I caught up with Adam who talked about why this is both a stressful and creative time. It is literally turned everything that we know about how you make something and turned it upside down, shook it and around

and uh and turned it all around. It is. It is the most disorienting and most exhilarating at time I think that I've ever been in the entertainment industry. Well, and you were producing a movie at least through part of this. The pandemic, of course, is an over and songbird. Your film that's coming out was one of the first to go back into production after full lockdown. Can you just tell us a little bit about what that was, like, what kind of protocols did you have to put in place?

Give us some insight. It was imagine an operating room and uh. And the system that our co producers and and and us created in the situation was to try to mimic the amount of people and resources that were needed directly in the operating room or people that were outside. Maybe we're a little bit um less essential. They were tested a bit less frequently, They had less access to our cast. Movie crews have great rhythm and great speed and efficiencies at which a hundred years of making movies

has nearly perfected. And this kind of scrambled that process because now all of a sudden you couldn't get to a certain place on a set. You had to pass things along, You had to invert literally the way in rhythm of how everything was done. So it was it was really challenging, but thankfully we got through it and made a great movie in the process of it. Yeah, really fascinating. I mean to hear you know kind of

how you figured out how to get it done. And we've talked to some other people who have done some some filming too, and that's what it all came down. Who is really creating these zones to make it make it happen? So so where are you are you able to get new productions going? Give us an idea of what the flow is like. The flow is actually starting

to get back to normal. I think smaller, more nimble productions are having more success and more safety on the set just simply because it's less people coming in contact with each other. I mean, we're back in a different sort of way. The movie theater businesses upside down. But but everything else is starting to starting to move in more normal ways. Again, it's unparalleled, and it's time for content creators on a professional side to understand that traditional

is shifting. So we're really trying to blend a trae digital mode, which is take the best of storytelling and h and content creation through years of practice and experience, but do it in ways that are specific to audiences that really are underserved right now and give them big events that can the things that are different than what they would get because the movie theaters aren't open in their towns they there. This is the first generation that

that has no gatekeepers in front of them. When they want to tell a story or they want to publish something, they can distribute directly to an audience of friends, and sometimes those friends become fans, and sometimes those fans create superstars. And this audience is is used to watching things in a different way and they're used to consuming things in

a different way. So we decided that what made most sense was to go after stars that were not stars in a traditional sense, but we're stars for our kids and and young people. So we partnered with Phase Plan, which is one of the biggest gaming lifestyle groups on the planet right now and made a movie with Phase. Rug is one of their biggest, one of their biggest stars. He's got over thirty million followers across the various social platforms. But we paired him with a guy named Greg Pokin,

who I made all the Paranormal Activity movies with. And so I was really trying to combine, you know, great storytelling but also next generation storytellers, to put those two together and try to do something a little bit different. And what kind of stories do you find that they're most interested in? I noticed Songbird, the movie you have coming out is a thriller Crimson. The other one is a horror film. Is that what's hot right now? It's

storytelling and storytelling. And if I knew what was going to work in storytelling, I would I would be on my yacht from this song called not Second Office right now. I think that's the one thing. I think, the one thing I do feel strongly about, though, is the way content is consumed is different, and therefore the way we make things have to be different. You can't make things and try to reach as broad of audiences as you used to. You need to make things that are much

more local in terms of their scale and spirits. So you're making things for a small audience of highly engaged fans. And additionally, it can't be created with so much artifice that you have a food stylist who's putting sasami seeds on the bun to make the bun and the hamburger look delicious. Instead with kids that they're used to reel now, and so we spent a hundred years in the movie

business trying to make everything look perfect. And now when kids can shoot things from their backyard, they just wanted to look real and authentic, but they still need storytelling running throughout it. I gotta agree authentic and real works. Well, that's Adam Goodman, co founder of Invisible Narratives, former president of Paramount Pictures. That full conversation, it's on the Bloomberg Business Week podcast feed at Bloomberg dot com or at

Apple Podcasts still to come. She is fighting to protect something we cannot live without water, the CEO of Thirst for Water dot Org, Mena Gooley, on personal and global struggles. That's straight ahead on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio let's wrap up this week. I gotta say I'm a

total fan girl of our next guest. She is devoted to drawing attention to the conservation of water and reminding us that not everyone has the luxury of turning on a tap and having a seemingly never ending supply of clean water. She's a water advocate, environmentalist, she's a marathon runner. Her latest initiatives It's a Global Handwashing Day, which provided soap and hand washing stations for those who needed it. The connective tissue, of course, is all about combating the

global water crisis. Blue Works Paul Sweeney and I caught up with me In a Googley, founder and CEO of Thirst for Water dot org from Australia, whose world, like so many, has been completely changed because of the virus. It's been quite a challenge. Actually, we've basically been in lockdown since much so that's what now eight months of very restricted movement. We've got a five we've had up until very recently, a limit on movement of five kilometers

from home and one hour of exercise outside every day. So, as you can imagine, that is challenging to deal with um, particularly since it's been going on for so long. All our borders are closed. You have to get permits. We've got a ring of steels, that's its name, the ring of steel around the city, so we can't even go

out to the rural and regional areas. It's um, it's pretty it's pretty severe, and there's been a lot of criticism of that, obviously, but the vast majority of people here have just knuckled down and said, you know what, we can either hope for change or we can adapt to this being the new normal, and we can just get on with life and know that at the end of this there will be life. And life has come.

We're down in very, very low single digits at the moment, down from hundreds, and we had I think eight hundred and fifty cases a day, which I know in your language is not a lot, but for us it was an enormous number and we were all shocked. But now we're down to literally one or two cases a day,

so the pain and the suffering has been worth it. Wow, that's an interesting story because here in this country we have a difficulty having people, you know, maintain social distancing or even wearing a mask or even wash their hands. Talked to us Mina about that aspect of you know, trying to protect yourself and others through hand washing. I know that for a lot of people that is not how how could that be a problem. But if you're

our water uh deprived ergo there's the problem. Yeah. It's really interesting because I think through this pandemic, you know, we're all looking at ourselves and going we've got a really tough time. But around the world there are three billion people who don't have access to adequate handwashing facilities.

And you think about how many times we all sit down, stand up in front of the tab, wash our hands, grab a bar of soaps, and to think that there are three billion people who don't have access to that, it's quite horrifying. I had an enormous privilege to talk at the u N in the middle of lockdown from my home. That was a bit of a weird experience where the Secretary General and all these of view and agencies and I'm like, you know, you're talking to these

people from homes like your bedroom. It's a bit weird. That's what you want to make sure the dog doesn't bark, Mina or in the shot, right, Well, how lucky lucky for me at that stage, it was two am in the morning, so you think, you know, eight thirty years terrible, I'm trying to stand up and sounds sensible. But the thing about that is that this is not a talking problem. It's been an action problem. And so two weeks ago and started for my fifty years birthday made me feel

so old. Um, I was going to do something to try to solve this, because, as you know, my philosophy is that people can help people, and so we ran a campaign called Switch to Soap where we asked people to go out and run or walk kilometers and every kilometer that they ran or walked for the period of a week, we donated a bar of soap to communities in need, and to every hundred kilometers we donated a

hand washing station. So it sounds like no, one kilometer or five kilometers is not very much, but we had thousands of people from over sixty five countries participating in this. We donated over eighty thousand bars of soap and four hundred and fifty hand washing stations just in one week.

Getting involved is easy, so this, um, they became very This was kind of a project that I did because I wanted to give back something, and my birthdays shouldn't be about receiving, they should also be about giving back. And so that my birthday combines with global handwatching game. Mambe go, we've got to do something, and to do something has turned into we've got to do something even more because, as you said, the problem is so big. So we're going to run another campaign in December and

a couple more next year. But if people want to get involved, they can sign up to stay up to date with our plans. The best thing to do is to go to my website MENA googlie dot com, m I n A t U l I dot com and then you can sign up and we'll keep you posted with with the next project. So I mean, you know, broadly speaking, how has the pandemic made the global water crisis even worse and more painful? How has it impacted it? Yeah, it's a great question. I think. Um, it's intacted in

it in a couple of ways. First of all, it's put it front and center for billions of people around the world who don't have access to the hand washing facilities that we take for granted, you know, water for all of us actually is everything, but many of us, most of us treat it as if it's nothing. We

really don't pay attention to how important it is. And for the billions the three billion people who don't have access to adequate handwashing facilities, remember many of those are women and children, and for them, this pandemic has made things ten times worse because it's not just diarrhea and other water borne diseases all of a sudden, it's coronavirus as well. So I think that's that's one element. The

second thing is pollution is a major problem. And of course we're all using more plastic, we're all using non a lot more disposable materials, and I think we forget that there are implications for that in our waterways, in our oceans, um and that that's going to have long

term implications as well. So I am shocked at how water blind companies, policymakers, investors are that we have forgotten that it's not just water that comes out of its taps, that water is required to everything we use, and we find we consume every single day, from the food we eat, the clothes that we wear, the power that goes into our computers, all of those things take water. This is not a problem in some fast long place of the world. This is a problem even in America and for companies

and for organizations in the United States. And I think we need to do something to shake this up. That's not talking, that's actually action, and that's driving change. And the only way we'll succeed in making changes by putting water onto the agenda. Again, not just the places like the UN but in boardrooms and in policy and amongst local and national governments. We need to change how we think about water. So, you know, this kind of brings to mind some an adage we all kind of know

to think globally but at locally. Are you seeing any local success stories that we should emulate or learn from. Yeah, I think there are a number of localized success stories where people have turned things around, where cities that have been on the brink of running dry cities like Cape Town, for example. We all watched Cape Town space down day zero and they implemented very very significant water restrictions. They

get a big public awareness campaign that say, don't waste water. UM. I'm not sure that you've classified as a as a success story because they almost ran out. UM. But as it is, a success or in terms of them being able to turn it around at the end. I think more broadly speaking, there are huge number of commercial success stories in terms of recycling and reusing materials. There. The reality is when water goes into everything, the more things

we waste, the more water who we waste. So creating the society focused on developing circular economies, on reducing food waste, on looking encouraging people to look for recycled materials in the in the in the clothes, and in the foods that they're looking at. UM, looking for recycled packaging, and just asking questions about where did this stuff come from and what was the level of responsibility amongst the companies

that made it to produce it and deliver it to me. Yeah, it's just you want you want to have companies increasingly talking about this because they can really move the needle when it comes to doing things better. UM. I mean we'd be remiss if we didn't ask you. You know, when we talked to you, I think about I think it was was it back in late it was just as you were beginning, um, your plan to do a

hundred marathons and hundreds in a hundred days. It was all about a raising awareness of the global water crisis. So this was back in you got through about two thirds, I think to your sixties. I get marathon and I know then you had a really tough injury. How are you doing physically, Yeah, I, um, I've broke my leg. I mean I've got an honestly turn you. Was one

of the darkest moments in my life. UM. I sat in a wheelchair in the hospital in Cape Town, which is where we were at the time, diagnosed with this absolutely massive stress ructure. That wasn't just a little break. It was my bone almost broken through, the biggest bone in your body. UM. And I sat down all life to think of was I've let down our community, I've let down the water crisis. I've let down the next generation. Um, this is all a disaster, and sometimes you need to

go into the darkness to be able to appreciate the life. Well. She certainly understands that firsthand and gives us some hope. On this weekend when so many of us are facing challenges and stress on many levels. I got to say love men a goalie, founder and CEO of Thirst for Water dot org. And that wraps up the weekend. Edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser, joined this week by

Bloomberg's Kailey Lines and Paul Sweeney. Be sure to tune in daily to Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time. You can also hear more of our Bloomberg Business Week conversations download them at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us on YouTube just search Bloomberg Global News, and be sure to check out our Bloomberg

Business Week Extra podcast. This week, the President of the Rockefeller Foundation, Rajiv Shah, on a big announcement and investment aimed at disrupting the inequities widened by the pandemic. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands and it's online and of course always on the Bloomberg. Have a safe weekend, everybody. This is Bloomberg