Tech Workers Considering Escaping Silicon Valley

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. We do want to get an update on the virus too, and someone who has seen other outbreaks and um pandemics is our next guest.

He's Tolbert nin Swa and he's the Senior Research Associate at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health UM and he's former Deputy Minister of Health for the Republic of Liberia. He has seen a lot, of course. The Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of this Namesake Network and Tolbert joining us on the phone from Smyrna, Delaware. Tolbert's so nice to have you here with us, um. I have been so looking

forward to talking with you. Tell us about your experience and what you've seen in the past with ebola and other viruses, and how it compares and to today's pandemic and what we can learn. Thank you, go after and hope you're keeping safe. Yes you too, Yeah, great, thank you. Yeah. They think is we've learned a lot. One of the things that I think that is in our toolbox to be with COVID nineteen is the issue of contact trazing.

It's been done played, but it's an important too because contact trazy was a very key part of the sixteen Ebola outbreak, which I was the incident manager. And what contact trazing does, it can help end COVID nineteen because the objective is to identify exposed persons and prevent secondary infection. If people in the first generation of cases of infection cannot generate addition of cases, then you can end the outbreak. Then we can all open up and be happy and

move along. So but the terrible thing is that one one missed contact can keep this outbreak going and going, and so contact RAS is an important tools. Not one of the lessons that we learned in the ePol are outbreaking West Africa. It brought the outbreak under control. Very important. So October it's interesting to hear more and more about

contact tracing. We also know from surveys and polls that some people are either skeptical about it or resistant to it and impart based on who's going to be in charge of it. How is the best way to sort of create a system that people will not only believe in, but will effectively follow and participate in. So thank you they are they are contactories in person ports. The first thing we must know is that contact trasing is not new. It's a public health for all public health interventions that

have been used to manage major public health academics. Number one, you know the words eradicate a small pox, baclasses, so they have been used, facialist hien is vaccine preventable. In this there are legal business person ports and contact trasing that's a legal authority from public health intervention. Even in the U S. Constitutionist laws clauses to protect the public welfare as well are common law and general person imports. One thing that can encourage the population of the United

States is probably helps me to be protected. We require our children to tect vaccines, to attend schools, to protect the communities, to protect hell and safety. And if you have tobacco losses, for example, and you refuse to take your medication, you can be required to do so. But it have the partner of these country, so you cannot affect other people the same way with COVID nineteens. So

contact trasing to make it simple. This is where together we saw the audience to limit the spread of COVID nineteen. The Johns Hopkins bloomers who are public at all, the bloom that we designed this course so that people can understand what it is and it's free. Is online, right, It's interesting I've seen that, and um, you're right. It's a course for people who want to just understand it and know how it works or possibly get involved in

helping the process. I do want to ask you one question, how do you do successfully in the right way contact tracing as well start to reopen the economy. Can they go hand in hand. The My fear is that from from an expert point of view, the COVID nineteen the kid fatality rate is lord the number those right now, we're talking about a number in the in the sevent days, thousands Americans close to that, if not in a thousand

right now. We're looking at it data shortly. But you don't want there was a reason why we're close up, the reasoning we're closed up and lockdown people for social distances and order that it was because of an infection imagining they our break started with a single kise, a few k fewer cases copping to come online. Now, if you open up without getting to appreciate your ball euro cases and don't know all of their contact, it is inconceivable that we are giving the virus a blank check

to engulf us and continue to exist. Every parable loss that posted as a stent ship threat to make kind and reopening prematurely for me will cost more damage than good. So we have to make sure that it is don't carefully we look at its size and the data which

district which community have an infection and tomport you. As we mentioned earlier, we're also integral in the response to Ebola in West Africa a few years ago, and I wonder, given that experience and in anticipation of maybe a second wave of COVID nineteen here in this country in the fall, what have we learned, both from your past experience and from what we know so far about COVID nineteen about how we deal with this when it comes back. So thank you Jackson. A look time time is very very

centual for for disease outbreaks. During the Bola epidemic in West Africa, our slogan was it is not over until it is over, so we were looking after every single case testing in creasing their contact. Moving on, we need to be aggressive, take aggressive action for testing suspected and provo cases and robust contact crazing to concur, to conquer, storry COVID nineteen, ramping up tests, increasing of the contact, assolating the sake we help significantly to stop COVID nineteen.

And this is where some of the things that we need to do is people need to go the course that is being supported by the university by the blombers who are public helped the contact raising course. This is just six hours to complete and about the basic information of the virus fundamentals of contact creasing. So as how to define that case, identify their contact, calculated the number of time the contact was in assolution you goin to do and we anticipate for another wave of the outbreak

even we haven't got out of the Hoosier. So it's even difficult to talk about another way we have to beat this thing down. Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that, because I think you know, part of the process, right is educating everyone. There's so much information floating around, and your point is we all have to understand how contact tracing works so that we can essentially buy into it. Um. Because rightfully, so that's a way

of really getting hold of this virus. Having said that, I do wonder then, as you see in the United States States reopening, the process of coming back, Uh, it's not equal across the country. Do you think the process that's being done right now of reopening and people doing different things in different places, does it make sense or is it dangerous? It's it's a huge race. It's a

huge race. Um. I'm seriously concerned after dealing with refraction disease like ebola, don't the magnitude and the the fatality is not the same the keys fatality rates for ebol at, which is about fifty of the people that will get the disease with COVID nineteen, that is less than two But in that COVID nineteen is still effecting and killing a lot of Americans, and so I would be very very cautious as signed sound is warning that it is very much premature to open up this country when you're

having huge infection states without America is one country. This is one country. So whether a state in a zero cases and another state is having a disease, which would be prepared to label the disease on let's somewhere, is telling me that we are now give up, that this is an endemic disease that we're going to live with. Okay with people, but once there is no note your new vaccines to open this country while you're port in the population of the United States are very very serious, right.

This is why, this is why we are in forming the public. It's important. Part of the course is skills for effective communications, increasing processes such as what it means to be an active listener and how to deal with the common challenges that arise will be investigating cases, so contact raising is very important. Testing is important. Let us get to zero, then we know that we're making a progress. Right. All right, Well, we really appreciate your time today. Thank

you so much. Tolbert nian Swa is Senior Research Associate in the Department of International Health, Chance Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Also importantly the former Deputy Minister of Health for the Republic of Liberia leading the Abola outbreak.

And I have to say, Carol, it strikes me in having this conversation that if you say to people here in America, this is like Ebola, we have lessons to learn from me Bola, maybe that will sort of grab people a little bit more and understand how critical these things are. Right now, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, Jason Kelly, Carol Masster, and I believe a coughing Joel Webber. Hopefully he will catch his breath there and join us

in a second. He is the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, joining us on a remote line from Brooklyn. Also Sarah Fryer, tech reporter for Bloomberg and notably the author of the fantastic new book No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram, the number one new release on Amazon. I noted yesterday, Sarah Joins is on the phone from San Francisco. She's back hard at work pumping out great stories for the magazine. So I have to start with you, Joel. It was a you coughing there you go, thank you? Was not

it was one of our producers. Sorry, John, didn't need to call you out. It's okay, Joe. We'll still like you if you're coughing on air, It's okay. Uh So this story started actually with some amazing little tweets that I saw Sarah doing, and it was sort of just her asking people in Silicon Valley of like, hey, as as companies announced that you don't need to come into the office between and into the year, what are your plans?

And the moment I saw her tweets those questions, I was like, whatever these answers are, I want to know about them, and Sarah, what did you find out? Well, it was I just got this influx of replies from people who said, you know what, if I can take my text salary with me and I don't have to go into the office, I want more space. I don't want to be paying three thousand to four thousand dollars in rent for an apartment isn't even close to my office, but isn't even giving me the space I need to

feel comfortable. People with young children were feeling like they could really use a backyard right about now. And with that salary that you make in the tech industry, you could live, You could buy a house pretty much anywhere except to the Bay Area. The Bay Area has had this incredible affordability crisis over the last few years, and even these tech workers really can't can't buy there if they're early in their careers yet, and that makes them a whole lot more mobile. I gotta say, Sarah, I

keep thinking about all these grand tech campuses, right. Apple just built a whole new headquarters, and I do wonder if you know, as you say in your story, these companies are known for being very office centric, and yet maybe this will be a big change for them. I don't know what are you hearing from the companies. It's funny because they're building these tools for us to connect with each other remotely, right, but they are they are so office centric. I mean, you've seen get parodied in

in HBO Silicon Valley. You've seen you've seen people just care so much about the perk wars, you know, are they going to give me laundry that, Are they going to give me yoga? Are they going to give me uh these offsite retreats that we've heard about in the tech industry, it really has been a tool for recruiting. But guess what, when people go back to the office, they're not going to have those shared shuttle buses. They're not going to have the cafeterias where anyone can serve

themselves around food. They're not going to have these wide

up and wide open places to gather indoors. Because companies are already talking about changing things up for coronavirus and maybe we'll go back to cubicles, maybe we'll go back to glass dividers, and and I just think that the experience everyone's saying not only is the experience is going to be so much different, but companies are realizing that all of those investments that they made in their office and that culture, it's their employees are still being productive

from home. And they wouldn't make announcements like this if they if they weren't going to see uh similar level of productivity from their staffs. I think we're going to see a very dramatic change in the investment in the office culture. Okay, so, Sarah, if if if I'm a tech worker and I can live anywhere and do my job remotely, that sounds pretty great, especially if I can

keep my salary, right. But a company might look at that and say, you know, you know what, now that you're remote, Um, maybe you don't deserve as much as before when when the expectation was that you were on on campus. And maybe there's even something that we might

be able to pay less. Um. How is how do you foresee that playing out in two directions because employees, once they move, maybe not for this job, maybe they'll get to keep their their salary for a couple of years while coronavirus is still an issue, but for the next job, for the next gig they're trying to find

after that. The head of people at Twili, one of the tech companies I talked to you for this, said, it's probably bad business practice for us to pay those people the same thing that that we would pay them in the Bay Area. And by the way, because these workers are working from anywhere, maybe we can recruit from anywhere too. Maybe our next engineer doesn't have to come

from San Francisco with the salaries. Maybe they can come from Nashville right right there, labor pool right if you think about it, their potential, they can go anywhere they want potentially. So, Sarah, you know you wrote about so eloquently in your book No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram Bight wherever you get your books, Um, you wrote about so well about the culture of Facebook and the culture of Instagram. So many of these cultures, one could argue,

do rely on the culture of Silicon Valley. And as you say, it's been parodied in Silicon Valley, it's been celebrated in movies like The Internship. My son and I watched that just the other night, and it's a very attractive but also very collaborative way. It does encourage a certain vibe. How much did these companies worry about losing the things that made them so special? They certainly worry

about it. And that's one thing that really came through in my reporting of the book is that employees really cared whether the Instagram office looks different than the Facebook office, whether they were able to build their own vibe, their own brand, UM be as design centric in their own way as they wanted to be. And I think that after this, we are still going to see an emphasis on on office culture, but it's going to take a long time to get back to normal, and it won't

go back to how it was. There will have to be a completely new normal. And I think that you're going to see culture evolved, just like we're seeing the way we communicate evolved. We are not able to you know, I went to a Zoom wedding over the weekend. I've been to a Zoom baby shower. Like things are going

different for a long time. Um, okay, So I want to also have one more follow up, Sarah, And I know you didn't go into this in the story, but I'm really curious if we see this influx or exodus, I guess tech exodus um from California to other places in the country, could we potentially see they're being sort of like a small business boom as company if people leave big tech companies, could there be sort of a small tech movement that comes out of the pandemic. And

so I got about forty seconds here. You're certainly going to see the potential for the next great startup to come from anywhere, and you're also going to see some justification in these towns that are getting this influx of workers with high faleries. But maybe it'll loose their economies on the flip side. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see, all right. Sarah Frere Friar, excuse me. Sarah Fryer, great story tech reporter for Bloomberg. Also the

author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. It's great, quarantine crop at Amazon, great reviews. Yeah, it's all over the place. So it's so good you're listening to Bloomberg business Week and a personal experience set Our next guest on the path to creating a global management and services medical company in a way disrupting how we approach healthcare. She believes the pandemic may do the same. Sigel Ottsman is founder and CEO of Medics Global and joining us

on this Thursday on the phone from Tel Aviv, Israel. Um, see y'all, so nice to have you here with us. Um. First of all, I hope you're doing okay, your family, your team doing okay. Yes, I am. We're keeping safe, putting all the efforts in it. And thank you so much, care of for having me today and what's it like. Give us, you know, one of the things as we've talked to people around the world, you know, is telling us how the virus is impacting them and what you're

seeing on the ground there in Tel Aviv. Tell us just what's going on right now. So it's been a crazy journey. Actually, I traveled really till quite lately, and and it's been interesting to see different responses by different cultures and different people. I came back from Singapore, then traveled to Dubai, from there to Israel. So in Singapore people were quiet, laid back, no one almost square masks up to eight seven weeks ago, and then in Dubai

UM stress levels were going up slowly. And then I came back to Tel Aviv, where I was put in quarantine actually for fourteen days because I just came in, which was quite an experience. UM. I was quarantined UM and I had my office set up in an apartment, which was an interesting experience. I think everyone, how around

the world, is really feeling the same. UM. Everyone is looking at how to keep safe, how the economy is going to recover, when all the vaccines going to come, and how are we actually going to consume and be provided health care services in the future. So I think a lot of questions, um, a lot of stress and

trying to be disciplined in keeping safe. And so it's such an interesting point because I feel like we are learning a lot about ourselves to your point, and sort of what we need and what what we don't need when it comes to certain services, and maybe more importantly, how we expect those services to be delivered. One of the questions that we're constantly asking to folks, especially in your business and the broadly defined healthcare and technology businesses,

what is temporary and what is lasting? Do you have a sense of that, and what's your prediction. I think what we've seen in the last twenty years is gone. We're going to really, um significant re evolution. I don't call it a revolution, but the re evolution of the health care systems. Going to a doctor, to a GP

clinic is history. Most people, I want to have accessive, immediate accessibility, an implementation of speaking to a doctor online, having access to data analytics of how we're people with my same symptoms diagnosed and how are they treated and how did that work out for them? UM. So I think that going to see doctors is going the numbers are going to go down. People are gonna look at accessibility and it's going to be immediate. Digital health, artificial

intelligence is the future. What we've seen until today is never going to come back. Really, I I really believe that telehealth using digital tools and artificial intelligence are really going to change the landscape. Um. If you know, when I meet a lot of CEOs and we discussed how

is this going to reinvent healthcare systems? We all think that you know, in the future, instead of going to see a doctor who's going to give his personal opinion before discussing with the doctor, you would probably push a button and get okay with my symptoms and my genetic makeup and my medical background. Nine million and whatever, hundreds of thousands of people with the same symptoms and the same conditions have been diagnosed with this and this and

have been treated with that sort of solution. So before you see a doctor, you would go with data. You would be more educated, and you will be able to make more evidence based and more objective decisions before even getting out of your house. And you will be able to do that from the comfort and the safety of your own home. It almost sounds like some screaming before

you like, I mean, because what's the next step? I mean if I have a doctor who needs to have a lot of E N T things, you know, and I'm often scoped in my throat, so you know what I mean, where does that fit in? I can't scope myself, so I'm just wondering, then what's the next step? I mean, what's the procedures? So first of all, the decision of how often do you you need to be scoped is a big decision, right, So more data about how necessary

is my treatment? UM? How what's the outcome of an additional potential UH test or scope or any other test or treatment? Right? Is it really useful? But that's a very specific you know, going to have a scope is a very specific outcome of of some different consultations you've had. UM. I think really that accessibility now and immediately UM is going to be on everyone's request. I also feel that a lot of other things are going to change, so

we will see more investments in healthcare. UM. We will have to see more spending on healthcare a percentage of GDP in a lot of different countries. If you look specifically at the always see the average where between eight point eight and ten the US is closed to which is a significant concern. But with this pandemic, we're going to need more in patient bits, We're going to need home care. We're going to have to invest in those fulkliners,

those doctors, those nurses. Right, you know that didn't get the attention for so many years. Well, you know it's funny because Segall, we've been talking about disruption for health care and it's really dragged in many ways. And I think the way this pandemic is playing out is causing people to rethink a lot of those systems and figure out how to make it a more productive and more accessible system. I'm Segal, thank you so much, really appreciate it,

the CEO of Medics Global BROC Journal. Now, but you let me drive, No, no, no, no, drive home, honey, please, I'll do the right drivel. I want to drive. Just drive. It's the questions trying. This is the drive to the globe than radio. All right, is time for the drive to the close. And Well, it's been a tougher year and month for the y CG Enhanced Fund. It has let's be fair for a lot of funds. The fund is though still beating just about all of its peers

longer term. Over the past five years, it is in the S percentile, with gains of more than eight percent on average annually. Great to have back with us the manager of the fund, Brian Yackman, his chief investment officer at Portfolio and portfolio manager of the fund based in Austin, Texas, which is where we find him. Brian, good to have you back with us. I'm glad to be back. How you doing. I'm doing fantastic. How are you guys doing

being in New York? Okay? I mean, it's it's strange that I mean, you know, we're coming to the end of week nine of you know, broadcasting remotely. Carol's at her home, I'm at mine. We've got, you know, producers spread all over, creations, some back in the office, and you know, this is the sort of way of life. I do wonder. I mean, you're in a state that is at least tentatively kind of coming back to life

a bit. What is it like in Austin. Well, you say that, but I think you know, traffic patterns I think are essentially the same whether you're in a lockdown place or if you're open in Sweden. I mean, I'm still working from home. I have six children and they're all doing school from home, so and we're still ordering everything in Yeah. So you know, I don't think that behavior actually necessarily changes just because the regulation changes. That's interesting.

It's certainly something that that I feel like we've seen have a lot of family down in Atlanta and they're saying the same thing. Man. I was joking with my cousin this morning. His birthday was yesterday, and she joked to me over text that, yeah, she wasn't going to go out to go bowling and get a tattoo, which of course is you know, sort of the joke about Atlanta that they those were the first things to open,

where the bowling alleys and the tattoo parlors. In any case, um as an investor, exactly essential services, exactly as an investor. How do you look at this though, Brian, Because you know you've looked at this market for some time. You see opportunities, I would imagine, help us understand it? Well, I think what keeps coming back to my mind is

it's just a time of unprecedented uncertainty. And so then I think you really need an unprecedented amount of humility, because nobody really knows how things are going to shake out. I think people are acting like, oh, for sure, the market is going to retest the prior lows. H On the other hand, our country is doing more stimulus than anybody else as a percentage of GDP. I think it's

it's well as I would put it. You're either I think, being ignorant or just a lot of hubris to be able to believe that you can accurately predict these market fluctuations.

I mean, just think like if at the beginning of the year, I said United Airlines is forecasting this month's May revenue to equal a single day of revenue from May last year, you'd think I was crazy, and particularly was one of the most stable growing statistics UM and then just you know all this and certainly negative oil and stock price is now celebrating when the economy is in absolute dumpsters. I mean, the disconnect makes it tempting

the time. But I think the problem is not only do you need to accurate actually predict future events, you need to be able to predict how much of that's already baked in, So you're essentially anticipating what the average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And I just I think it's difficult to do. Well, that's interesting. So you still have to make investments, right, you guys have to stay invested. So what do you do in environment

like this? So I think the best way to always position, particularly in an environment like this, is you want it to be as we put it in Global Champions. But what I'm thinking of here dominant franchises that they tend to be uh networked globally in some way, and those work effects make them such dominant franchise as that gives

them enduring pricing power. And I think over the long run, COVID is certainly not something that I think this will become a thing of the past, of course, And well I have confidence in in humanity to make it through and to innovate and find ways to deal with it. How that actually happens, I don't know. And of course things can't really come back to a semblance of normality

until fear of that volatility subside. But as long as you're in a business that's conservatively capitalized so that it can avoid blow up risk and avoid any form of dilution risk. Then if you're in a dominant global champion that hasn't during price and power, then I think the reality is where else are you going to hide? Right, Bond? I mean, so give us some examples of that, Brian, Who who are some champions you like? Here? Well, you know, as I was saying, there needs to be a huge

amount of humility. You know, normally I would tell you guys, some of the best investment opportunities are right where the fire is. You know what people are saying, Oh, this is dead money in the short run, but in the long run, I see this will work out great. And I still think that that there is some truth to that. But at the same time, that doesn't mean pile into those bets. So you know, if you look at our at the YGE Enhanced Fund portfolio, the whole thing is

chalk full of these global champions. Some of them are performing well in the crisis, like m s c I, which to subscriptions to. You know, it's the largest international index provider UM Microsoft Moody's VARIUSK, they do insurance data.

We have some consumer staples. So these are balanced, are doing well, but we're wanting to rebalance them to trim them into some of these underperformers that still have that great future and some of these that I am thinking of that are you know, again, globally, networks businesses are like MasterCard co part which is the largest auto salvage auction platform in the world. And then booking, which you

know is definitely in the heat of the fire. So I think it's import to have a large, diversified portfolio that can be robust in various outcomes. Yeah, we've talked with Glen Fogel over booking. I mean they you know, they're they're figuring there in the red hot center of the fire. I mean in many ways, right, Yeah, totally. I had to say to say, what go ahead, Brian, I was just gonna say, I mean, you have global air traffic down and and then of course hotel bookings

massively down there. Their strength is this massive network effect, particularly in Europe where there's all these boutique hotels they depend on to um to book hotels and right now, of course nobody's booking, but they are, I mean, they are well positioned net cash position They could survive with no revenue for probably a couple of years um and and that's that's zero revenue, right, and they can pull

back on advertising. Well, I have to say we always appreciate talking with you, UM, and it's really you sound humbled by this marketplace, and I think it's a really we've been calling this reality check week, and UM, you can certainly hear that in your explanation about kind of what's going on and trying to figure this out. Brian Yackman, great guest, Chief investment Officer at y CG Investments, on the phone from Austin, Texas. Thanks so much for listening

to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, Southcloud, Bloomberg dot com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course you can always listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News