Businessweek Extra - Mark Ein

the country and across the world. You might also have heard of him because he's a big player in Washington. He's been working there for a long time. He's a philanthropist, a big time investor, and also deeply involved in the world of sports, especially the world of tennis. Check it out. Every day you're turning on the TV or reading uh people's opinions. Everyone's trying to figure out how do we

get back to work but do it safely? And um Castle has been the leader in providing managed office security for fifty years and we didn't see anyone really stepping in trying to think about how do you build a system to get people back to the office in a safe way. And so we've come up with the framework that we think is a really comprehensive way that leverages a lot of existing technologies. You don't invent anything, and

most importantly, it makes the ecosystem safe for everyone. If you think about an office building is comprised of the building, the tenants, the people that work there, and the visitors, and you've really got to make sure that you incorporate a system that addresses all of them. And that's what

we've done with Castle Safe Spaces. So talk to us about, you know, Mark, how our spaces will change, particularly in the work workplace, especially as we're going to be afraid to touch things, We're going to be obsessed with washing our hands. So how do things evolve? How do things change? And I'm curious because it sounds like these will be lasting changes. Yeah, and I do think. I look, I think a lot of the things that are going to happen are things that actually have a lot of utility

even past the age of corona. So I do think a lot of these will be permanent changes. But really think about it with four main things. The first is the screening in screening out process. Uh. You know, most buildings have some major cities have some kind of access control that let's you know who should be in and who should be out. Um, by integrating health data, you know who shouldn't be coming to the office at any

given time. And through also integrating health data at the point that we have good testing, it also could create an easy way for people to come in who we know are safe. So it starts with screening, screen out, and then for people who you don't know in advance, you're gonna get your temperature taken. If you look overseas where they have opened up the their business is h quicker. Um, you see, temperature testing is something and stunt either was

someone taking your temperature through thermal cameras. So screening in and screening out the first thing. The second thing is you mentioned is touchless. There's so many shared services in

an office building. So we see if near future where doors will open automatically when presented with an access device, elevators or called from an app in your phone, doors to your office will open automatically, and in fact you may have areas that are protected with outdoors, but just alarms that will sound if you don't have the right credentials.

So touch lists is a big piece of it. UH enforcing social distancing, which is something we all talk about, but making sure that you stagger arrivals, that you manage visitor uh the amount of visitors you have and when they come. And then the last peach is contact tracing.

You know everyone talks about contact tracing. But if you use your access control system seven in a building and you make everyone who comes in log in and log out, which is very easy and Latin intrusive, and you use the same intendance space as you have a permanent record of who was in the building at any point in time to live in tenant spaces at any point in time, and if someone turns out that they ended up having coronavirus, you can go back and figure out who is around

them at the point that they may have been sick and notify them and tell them to watch get tested and watch for symptoms. And so all the things I just described actually leverage technology that's here today and that building owners are starting to put into place. And so, Mark, where does privacy fit into all of this? I mean, are we just going to have to get used to giving up a certain amount of personal data And how do we best sort of draw that new line? Yeah,

it's a great question. So, first of all, the biggest thing is that help data make it integrated into some of this security system that we're describing, and help data really needs a completely different level of security, and so that's gonna be built into uh the system so that it doesn't reside, for instance, in any companies other than your companies. Who knows to reside any in anyone else's systems? UM. But you know, look, the tradeoff always, UH is always

between security and privacy. And if you look at the countries that have managed this the best, they've made that trade off and they've gone further than we will. In A big question everyone has for the United States is you know, there's there's reasonable trade offs between privacy and security, and I think if we really want to get back to work, we're gonna have to make some of those.

How quickly can we make all these changes? Because you're talking about a lot of existing infrastructure, office buildings, UH and as you say, this is lasting, so how quickly can we change all of this? Well, I think that's the great thing that as we started thinking about this, a lot of the things I just mentioned to you buildings have today. It's just literally a matter of turning them on, you know, turning on seven UH, you know, using your cards, your fib or. We have an app

that lets people get in use seven. Make sure your tenants use the system like that for contact tracing. UH. Touchless systems are easy too. You can quickly convert doors to electric doors so that when they're presented with the credential, they can open. A lot of the things we talk about are available today. Now there's next gen rations of things that we're working on and others are working on that will make the system even quicker, less intrusive, maybe

even slightly better. But you don't need to wait for that to make these buildings actually reasonably safe for people

to get back to work. So, Mark, I would love to talk to you a little more broadly about the real estate environment, because you know you've invested pretty heavily in real estate over the course of your career, both residential and commercial, and obviously all that we've been talking about really potentially has an impact on not just how commercial real estate works, but the amount of of real

estate that a company needs at any given time. I feel like we get conflicting reports on we're gonna need a much less office space or we're going to need more office space, depending sometimes on who you're talking to and what business they're in. Where do you net out on this? You know, it's really it's a great question, because when this started, my mindset was everyone's like, oh, this is a new way to work, and I was like, tell them, show me one person who's happier being in

all the time, and uh, and I'll believe that. Um And I look, there's a lot of silverlignings to being home, a ton of them, but I think people really have also a desire to be in the same place as their colleagues. But I will say the longer this drags on, you really start to people start to form habits that

I think are going to be enduring. I don't think it means people won't go back to work, but I think I really do believe that this is stretched on that a lot of the things, the ways that people are working now are not going to be the permanent way, but they'll be incorporated into that. And yeah, that will have an impact on the amount of space. I would

say less. I can't imagine a case where people are going to need more um and I think people are going to think about the office is a place to come and collaborate, but maybe more flexibility on being able to work outside of the office when they're working on things where they can do that just as well, if not better. Um. And you know the thing about markets is it only takes the small increme it will change to change the market, right, So you know, if ten

or shifts, that's a gigantic change in the market. And I think I think there's a really good chance that we're going to see some of these things become permanent. So is the era of open floor office space done? I mean, I think until there's a you know, until there's a until there's a cure, either a vaccine or a treatment for this, I think that is absolutely the case. And the hope is is that that happens, it happens reasonably quickly, and that there's not another one of these

behind it. I I think if we get to the point where there's a vaccine or treatment, I think people will go back to that. I don't think we're gonna all go back to being our own offices. Um. But until that comes, I think you're not going to see people working in open environments unless there's plexiglass between cubes, which is something that people are using are going to

start using. So, Mark, I wonder about a place like you know, your town, Washington, d C. Where you know, you've got pretty vibrant suburbs, but you've also had a city I was fortunate enough to go to college there that really has you know, blossomed in a whole new and different way with a lot of sort of renovation and maybe some gentrification, which is a whole other debate that will have another time about things that have happened

in Washington. But I do wonder, you know, as someone who is as deeply involved in that city as you are, how does it change a city like Washington against setting politics aside, but just as as sort of a physical place. Yeah, so let's let's talk about the real Washington, not but Washington that you hear about on the TV that federal government. Um, the real Washington, which is you said, has really become a really incredibly vibrant, livable city in the last ten

twenty years. A lot has been built on the backs of an emergence of great restaurants, entertainment venues, um and things for people just have a high quality of life. Obviously, we've always had great these themes and and there and performing arts. UM. One of the things that I was my greatest concern is the small businesses in particularly restaurants and entertainment arenas, because that has in a city like Washington,

that has happened in cities across America. UM. Those ecosystems took decades to build, and this is going to be really difficult for many, many, many of those establishments to survive. UM. Even if you get back, very few restaurants are viable on fifty percent capacity, which is what people are saying. They can't pay the rent on fifty campath, they can't pay their other expenses too, and that's the recommended guidance.

And you know, these are businesses that even with p p P and other things, just don't have the capital to withstand a long period where they're out of business. And it's something that we're I'm part of a group in d See that's totally focused on this because it's such an important issue for a quality of life, for employment, for everything in our city, but in so many and I hope this is something that uh, you know, political leaders and people in government really focus on because it

is the most vulnerable of the small businesses. It will be the last to come back. There is a misnomer that opening them up at less capacity or just doing delivery is is viable, and it really isn't. It's a it's a band aid at us and and I really think it's going to take a lot of focus on a good amount of resources to make sure we don't destroy decades of process of progress in cities like ours. So we need to talk sports. As Jason ted you up earlier, Um, you know you're certainly well involved in

the sports world Mark as well. You are the founder and owner of the Washington Castle's franchise, and more so the sports world. We've been having a lot of conversations about that. Certainly big events, sporting events, it's a while before they come back. How do you see it and what are the conversations, the smart conversations that you're having

around this. Yes, So we were in the middle of our E sports season with the Overwatch League and had gotten off to a great start with our first two weekends and there was a huge amount of enthusiasm and we had to put that on pause. The great thing about E sports is the season has continued because people can play virtually and uh, and so that's actually been

a bit of a blessing. The real the big one I'm focused on is I'm now the owner of the City Open Tennis tournament, which is the fifth biggest tennis tournament in the United States. But it's actually the first now tennis event back in the world since Wimbledon has been canceled. Uh. That's on the schedule, UH. And it's the first week in March, um and we're trying to figure out if we're going to be able to play it most realistically with either no fans or a small

number of fans now. And I think this is really instructive because this also precames to a number of our other businesses. On the surface, you can imagine it shouldn't be that hard to cat didn't protect you know, a hundred tennis players, male and female tennis players and their staff by the time we get to August, that should be.

But I will say, when you really peel back the onion and you go layer and layer and layer in what it's going to take to make it absolutely safe, it's much more daunting than it looks at the surface. And I think That's why you see in other sports people saying we're going to be back and we're gonna go play in a neutral place, or we're going to create these bubbles, and then they get delayed and delayed because the more you dig into it, the harder it is. Now,

I do believe there's answers. I believe tennis is a sport that you should be able to play. Whether we can figure it out in August, we've got another month to make. That decision is something we're working day and night on and a lot of people are working on.

I would just say that, um, it's a lot harder because you really do want to make sure it's absolutely safe, and the amount of things that have to come together to create an absolutely safe environment is um is very complex, and so who I will also say that sports is critical to the psychology of our country and everyone wants to come back. You know. Yeah, No, it's it's a

it's a great point. And I mean and Carol and I have had the good fortune of UH broadcasting from the US Open for the last few years, and you know, it's something we look forward to, and I know that UH City Open is is a great run up to to that. I mean, I do wonder Mark, who were you sort of taking your cues from uh in that regard, because one thing we know about tennis is um it's complicated, to say the least in terms of the governance and

and all the decision making. And I know you're probably looking even beyond tennis to things like even what we saw with the UFC over the weekend and the discussions that baseball is having. How do you sort of formulate a strategy? Who are you looking to here? Yes? So the good thing about times like this is it really

does bring people together. And I'll tell you the tennis world, I think is a great example that you kind of describe the traditional balkanization of the grand plans, the A t P, the w t A, the governing bodies, etcetera. But but in this time people have really come together UM to collaborate. And so we're working very closely with the A t P, the w t A, the U S t A in our city to figure out the

city open. And you know, people may or may not have seen, but there's been talking about the men's and women's towards actually merging results of this would which would have a lot of benefit, and it would take a time of crisis to actually force people to think differently, and also the experience of collaborating, which they've been doing and seeing how well it can work. So um, i'd

say people are working really really well together. But but but the bigger point you make, which contains everything outside of sports, and to bring back to where we were with why Castle created this framework is because it's extraordinary to me how there really is a lack of authoritative sources on any of this. And you know we've spent I mean I spent seven days a week, pretty much all day devouring every bit of information I can either

read or talk to experts or participate on calls. And there is no authoritative source on any of this, and um and and and the experts can degree can disagree to a huge extent on, for instance, the accuracy of the tests. Some experts will tell you the test if they're FDA proved and the sample is good, that they are close to accurate. Other real experts will tell you publicly and some privately, that there's as much as the

false negative. Right, this is an issue that I have not seen people as focused on as I would expect because it is literally extreme opinions from people who are considered the world's experts. And depending on where you come on out on that dramatically changes your projection of where the world going and how you build systems around it, because if the test is accurate, you can do one thing, and if it's not, you have to do very different things.

And so yeah, again it's it's and and I'd say that's one of the extreme examples, but I'm seeing that in virtually every element of how do you bring people back to work? And that was Mark On, chairman of Castle Systems. I've got to know him a little bit over the years, Carol. He's a fascinating figure, especially in Washington. Actually owns Katherine Graham's old house there in Georgetown. It's beautiful, uh.

And he's really a guy who's plugged in. I think you've got that sense from the conversation of all these different things that he's playing in. And we also got a sense, Jason, of kind of what the future office looks like. And he said a lot of systems actually technology wise, are in place already. It's just a case of kind of turning them on, but get ready for a very different office environment, at least based on Mark

Iron's observations. You've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra, and be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Money Through Party at two pm Wall Street Time. On Bloomberg Radio, I'm Jay to Kill and I'm Carol Masser, and this is Bloombird m