fortune--2020-09-24--Can the corporate ‘offsite’ survive COVID?

Admiral Grace Hopper, the pioneering computer scientist, once said that the most dangerous phrase in the language is, “We’ve always done it this way.” When it comes to corporate offsites, her phrase applies splendidly.
Autumn is offsite season at many companies, as teams across organizations look to a new year. The classic offsite has time-honored elements. It’s a long, often multiday meeting, held away from work (unless it’s not—then it becomes the “on-site offsite”). An outside facilitator shows up, along with too much food. You might have a “team-building” component. Presto! Big discussions, renewed connections, and enthusiasm for the future. But let’s be honest: People are happy to be done with it, once it ends.
COVID-19 means most companies will scrap the standard offsite. Some will have the understandable but unfortunate thought: “Let’s do it on Zoom!” The painful consequence of that will be a clunky, suboptimal transposition of the physical to the virtual, right down—one fears—to an awkward videoconference cocktail hour.
This is a perfect time to ask a dumb question (“dumb” in the Peter Drucker sense of “smart”): COVID aside, does the typical offsite actually work?
I will assure you, and most especially my clients who pay me to help with your offsites, they do hold value. The rush of work—day in and day out, month after month—means leaders and their teams need a block of time for honest appraisals of the current state of their business, opportunities, challenges, and risks. They need space for bold thinking about the future. And they need a chance to assess, and maybe repair, their relationships and team functioning.
But offsites have undeniable drawbacks. To name a few:
They are a major time commitment with high opportunity cost.
They concentrate big picture/high elevation/forward-looking conversations into a short window—and teams often neglect to go back to that intellectual place regularly, because they figure, “That’s what the offsite was for.”
Intensive and enthusiastic discussions lead to big ideas and plans without providing “soak time” for contemplation, reflection, and additional research—to say nothing of experimentation or initial implementation. Some time to get a fresh perspective and to road test ideas is like an insurance policy against “seemed like a good idea at the time.”
People with loud and powerful voices—the influential and the extroverted—can have a force on discussion and decisions beyond what their insight or intelligence merits.
When offsites are over, people rush back to catch up with work, and the discussions and commitments quickly accumulate dust.
Invitation is all or nothing. Especially if the offsite is, well, way offsite, it’s hard to ask people to join for a short subset. And dialing in rarely works.
Allow me to share recommendations on how to adapt your rite of fall—the big retreat!—not just to meet the inexorable realities of COVID but to correct some of the flaws that may have been plaguing your event for years.
Shorten the days
In my experience in the COVID era, after three hours on a videoconference, people start Googling, “How to make my Zoom background a loop of myself.” The reality is, pre-COVID, the reason we had such long days at our offsites is that people generally traveled. Nobody wanted, say, four half-days rather than two full days, even if it might have made a better meeting.
Increase the interactivity
Zoom has laid bare the limitations of one person talking while others listen. Zoom and some great supporting tools like the virtual flipchart/whiteboard Miro or the polling tool Mentimeter make discussion and collaboration easy and even better than in person.
Emphasize pre- and post-offsite work
Of course, when judging the quality and success of a retreat, people look at the meetings themselves. But I can tell you that an offsite’s ROI comes in large measure from thorough preparation and dogged follow-up.
Use empty spaces
Silence and reflection are underused in offsites, both in the sessions and creating space outside of the meeting. Time and space to reflect, ponder, collect thoughts—these dramatically raise the quality of dialogue and decisions.
Muddle the line between the offsite and recurring meetings
Rare is the team I have seen that, in recurring meetings, does a great job of stepping back, thinking big picture, and asking, Is there something important we are not discussing? While you’re rethinking and maybe shortening the offsite, look for how to bring those strategic discussions into recurring meetings.
After years of being an outside facilitator for offsites, I’ve come to believe in three consistent success factors:
What needs to be said, however difficult, gets said.
The new ideas are bold and different enough from the status quo to get people’s blood pumping.
The actions plans are specific and accountable, with dates and names, and stay front and center after the offsite.
Radically rethinking your offsite, not just to account for COVID-19 but with the kind of “remodel” you could have done years ago, will help you nail those success factors. But get ready: People might just say, “We don’t want to go back to the old way.”
Jonathan Becker is a consultant with This Team Works, focusing on teams in life sciences and technology.


fortune--2020-09-24--Holiday season hiring at Target, Walmart shows shifting focus to e-commerce

Facebook users in Illinois can now apply for a privacy payout of up to $ 400

Target said on Thursday it is hiring 130,000 temp workers for the holiday season, on par with 2019 levels, but with a key difference: A far greater number of those workers will be deployed to support the discount chain’s booming e-commerce business.
The company, whose e-commerce sales rose nearly 200% last quarter, said that twice as many workers as compared with a year earlier would help staff areas at Target’s stores for same-day curbside and in-store pickup of online purchases. Typically about 40% of holiday season temps stay on at Target after the Christmas period.
Many shoppers, worried about spending too much time in stores during the pandemic, have gravitated to curbside and in-store pickup of digital orders, benefiting chains like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy that have equipped their stores to handle that shift in behavior. Some 90% Target’s online orders are now filled at stores.
“We continue to see the guests gravitate towards the ease and convenience and contact-free ways to shop through our digital channels,” Target chief executive Brian Cornell told reporters on a conference call Thursday. He also expects shoppers will start spending earlier this year and avoid Black Friday crowds.
Walmart has taken a similar tack: It has hired nearly 500,000 workers, part-time and full-time, this year to staff stores and distribution centers and is hiring 20,000 seasonal workers for its fulfillment centers as it looks to compete with Amazon’s fast delivery for the holiday season.
Overall, consumer spending will be muted this holiday season compared with last year, making it paramount for brick-and-mortar retailers to be at the top of their e-commerce game. Consulting firm Deloitte has forecast holiday sales could rise by 1% to 1.5%.
Kohl’s, which unlike Target and Walmart is grappling with sharp sales declines, also announced holiday season hiring on Thursday. But the company didn’t provide a number, though last year it took on 90,000 temps. Like its rivals, Kohl’s hiring is focused on e-commerce, saying, “We’re staffing accordingly to support increased digital fulfillment efforts.”


fortune--2020-09-24--Jeff Daniels on playing James Comey and the need to take the 2020 election ‘seriously’

“It was another role that I didn’t know how to do.”
That’s one reason why Jeff Daniels decided to play former FBI director James Comey in Showtime’s two-part series The Comey Rule, which airs this coming Sunday and Monday.
“I’ve been doing that a lot since Newsroom. [The roles are] complicated; they’re complex,” Daniels tells Fortune, adding that Comey is “not a simple guy.”
“But his beliefs are simple, and they’re true, and he stuck to those in very complicated circumstances. And so, I don’t know how to do that, and so I said yes. And I say yes to things I don’t know how to do, because at this age, it’s the challenge of it, it’s the risk of failure. That’s what keeps me interested after 44 years,” he says.
The series, written and directed by Billy Ray, is adapted in part from Comey’s book A Higher Loyalty and explores the impact of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, as well as Comey’s eventual conflict with President Donald Trump. The Comey Rule also stars Brendan Gleeson as Trump, Holly Hunter as Sally Yates, and Jennifer Ehle as Comey’s wife, Patrice. Working with a strong accompanying cast was important to Daniels, who says he emphasized it as a priority when talking to Ray about participating in the project.
“Half my performance is in the other actor. I use them, I act, I react, we play tennis back and forth, but I can’t play tennis with somebody who’s not very good,” Daniels explains.
Daniels describes his fellow actors in the series as “people who show up ready.”
“Just scene after scene after scene, you were working with pros and in a project that mattered,” he says. “You get good actors with good writing, and the thing sails—whatever the project is, it sails.”
Left to right: Jeff Daniels as James Comey and Brendan Gleeson as President Donald Trump in “Night Two” of “The Comey Rule.” Ben Mark Holzberg—CBS Television Studios/Showtime
To research the role, Daniels read Comey’s book and listened to the audiobook narrated by the former FBI director himself. He also watched YouTube clips—“even The Colbert Show, you could see Jim’s sense of humor,” he says. Daniels was in the middle of his stint in Broadway’s To Kill a Mockingbird when he lined up The Comey Rule, which meant his schedule was pretty full, so he emailed the real-life Comey about a possible meeting in New York City. That never happened, but Daniels eventually felt prepared enough to play the role, thanks to his research.
“I had an insight into what he was thinking, which is the book—and more so, it was hearing him read it,” Daniels says. “I had enough to suggest what he was thinking as he went through this story, so I didn’t feel the need to meet with him. I also—part of me—I didn’t want to impose.
“I had enough, I knew I had enough—I didn’t want to suddenly drive down and watch him eat dinner,” he adds.
One element of the story that did surprise Daniels a little while making the series was Comey’s “isolation from his own family.”
“It’s a very loving supportive family, but there are things he can’t tell them as the FBI director. And then as this started to blow up, there was pressure inside the family, just like there was pressure from outside. And that can isolate you,” Daniels says, adding that when the real Comey watched the series, he did so with his family, which wound up being an “emotional” experience.
“He didn’t realize the impact on his family until he watched it and saw their reaction,” Daniels says. “It brought back a lot of pain for that whole family, and I never read about that on social media.”
The actor says that while Comey was vilified for his actions surrounding the investigation of Clinton’s emails, the series tries to show what “he was thinking” and puts the audience in the former FBI director’s shoes.
“He believes in things that are bigger than he is,” Daniels says of Comey. “And that is the institution of the FBI, the institution of the Department of Justice as independent institutions. He believes in truth and justice and the rule of law.”
Jeff Daniels stars as James Comey in the two-part series “The Comey Rule.” Ben Mark Holzberg—CBS Television Studios—Showtime
With The Comey Rule premiering now, less than two months away from the presidential election, Daniels hopes the series can be informative while motivating people to stay further informed.
“I think if we aired after the election, it would be like a lot of the biopics you see. It would be like me playing Clinton—who cares at this point?” he says. “We wanted to be part of the national conversation and to be relevant.
“When I saw it and it finished, I said, ‘Oh, my God, it was just the beginning,’” he says, comparing what happens in the series to the first inning in a baseball game.
Daniels doubled down on the importance of voting.
“Get informed. Pay attention. You need to know more than you do. I do. I’m reading stuff every day to get smarter. But I wish everyone would take what’s going to happen on Nov. 3 far more seriously than they did in 2016. I hope Comey Rule at least makes people think about that in that way.”
The Comey Rule will air Sunday, Sept. 27, and Monday, Sept. 28, at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.


fortune--2020-09-24--United will start offering pre-flight COVID tests in October to passengers traveling to Hawaii

Forget seat upgrades and free cocktails. The ultimate in-flight luxury may soon be knowing that your seatmate just took a COVID test—and was negative.
Starting on October 15, United passengers heading from SFO to Hawaii will have the option of taking a COVID test before they board—and will get the results in 15 minutes. Passengers will also have the option of doing a self-collected, mail-in test before their trip. Those travelers who test negative will be exempt from Hawaii’s current 14-day mandatory quarantine requirement.
The airline said in a news release that it will be using a rapid test made by Abbott called ID NOW, and will partner with GoHealth Urgent Care to process the tests. “We’ll look to quickly expand customer testing to other destinations and U.S. airports later this year to complement our state-of-the-art cleaning and safety measures that include a mandatory mask policy, antimicrobial and electrostatic spraying and our hospital-grade HEPA air filtration systems,” said Toby Enqvist, Chief Customer Officer at United.
Previously, studies have showed that keeping middle seats empty can decrease COVID risk by 79%. But longterm, airlines must find ways to safely fill jets to capacity in order to avert financial disaster. In July United notified 36,000 employees, or 45% of its U.S. workforce, that their jobs are at risk after federal payroll aid expires.
United said it first started working with GoHealth in July to test its international flight crews at San Francisco International Airport. According to United, passengers will be able to book a test appointment online for the on-site testing facility located inside the international terminal. The COVID testing area will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT daily.
United has stressed safety throughout the pandemic as a way to coax customers back on to airplanes even as COVID cases continues to rage. They were the first airline to require masks for flight attendants, and among the first to say they would not let customers fly who refused to wear masks. Several airlines including United have also done away with change fees in a bid to woo back wary travelers.
Airlines have also been experimenting with novel cleaning solutions. American Airlines previously received approval for a substance that claimed to kill the virus for 7 days. And United says it will also applying a substance called Zoono microshield, described as “an EPA registered antimicrobial coating that forms a long-lasting bond with surfaces and inhibits the growth of microbes” to its entire mainline and express fleet before the end of the year. However, doubts have been raised about whether that actually makes flying safer—and airlines and passengers alike would undoubtedly prefer to know that everyone aboard has tested negative.


fortune--2020-09-24--Turner Sports expands its deal with Major League Baseball through 2028

Turner Sports will continue broadcasting Major League Baseball after agreeing to an extension of rights through the 2028 season.
The seven-year agreement will take effect in 2022 and includes a Tuesday night game as well as additional postseason games. It also includes expanded digital rights for Bleacher Report and other WarnerMedia platforms.
This is the second of the three rights deals that MLB has extended. It reached an extension with Fox two years ago that also runs through 2028. Manfred said negotiations with ESPN are ongoing about renewing that network’s deal beyond the 2021 season.
The Fox and Turner deals are similar in that each includes an increase over 40% when they begin in 2022. Turner will pay an average of $470 million per season.
“The commitment to baseball from Turner is as strong today as it has ever been,” WarnerMedia Sports and News Chairman Jeff Zucker said. “Our strategy is to present premium live sports and obviously extending our deal was an important pillar.”
While the increased playoff games carry their own value, Zucker did say the deal would not have been reached if there wasn’t an expansion of the digital rights. The increased use of MLB footage and highlights for Bleacher Report could attract a younger audience, which baseball has struggled to build.
“The digital rights only used to be a language issue in the contracts but now they are substantive, economic rights,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “It was with Fox, it is with ESPN and it was significant in this deal. It is a recognition of the way the world now consumes entertainment.”
Turner Sports has aired baseball since 1973, when Atlanta Braves games were televised on WTCG in Atlanta, before it became known as SuperStation TBS. Turner began a national package of regular season and postseason games in 2007.
The new deal includes exclusive rights to one wild-card game, two of the four Division Series and one of the League Championship Series. The coverage will alternate between leagues each year and gives Turner the most postseason games on a network.
It also includes a season-long Game of the Week on Tuesday nights. Turner currently has a Sunday afternoon game over the last half of the season.
Manfred believes moving to Tuesdays gives Turner more opportunities to expand its baseball reach.
“We think summer Sunday afternoons aren’t a great place to have them. Fans have a lot of other things to do and there are two national windows the same day,” Manfred said.
Zucker also likes the Tuesday night window because there generally will be a full slate of games to choose from.
Turner also is retooling its studio show beginning with this year’s AL Division Series. Ernie Johnson will anchor the show and will be joined by Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, Jimmy Rollins and newcomer Curtis Granderson. Granderson will also contribute to Bleacher Report.
“The studio show to me is important and shows our commitment to the sport. I wanted to put our best foot forward,” Zucker said. “In all candor, I thought we could improve. We have the best studio host there is in Ernie Johnson. It won’t be ‘Inside the NBA’ but it will be its own, unique show.”
Manfred said there are provisions in the deal if there are changes in the postseason format.


fortune--2020-09-24--Are kids’ allowances recession-proof?

Are kids’ allowances recession-proof?

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I’d thought that in a pandemic-induced recession, parents would cut allowances and kids would find fewer things to spend on.
But that’s not what Greenlight CEO Tim Sheehan has seen on his platform that helps parents pay their children’s allowances when they complete chores.
On Thursday, the Atlanta-based provider of an app-managed kids’ debit card announced that it had raised $215 million in Series C funding, valuing the company at $1.2 billion. Canapi Ventures and TTV Capital led the round and were joined by investors including BOND, DST Global, Goodwater Capital, Fin VC, and Relay Ventures.
According to Sheehan, the platform’s revenue grew more than four times in the past year, thanks to its subscription service and payments processing fees.
Kids may be spending less in a pandemic. But signups on the platform have continued, and allowances did not decrease on it because, well, there could’ve been a revolt from the children. And parents are generally paying a small amount for chores to be completed anyway.
But what about competition? Distill it down, and Greenlight is a way for parents to move money from one account to a subordinate—a role that several money-transfer services already fulfill with Square’s Cash App and PayPal’s Venmo. Many other startups are seeking to tackle the particular issue of multigenerational finances too. Greenlight has, in fact, sued a former CFO candidate who later took a job with a competitor also focused on kids’ finances, Step Mobile. “We’ve ended conversations with the former candidate,” Greenlight said in a statement.
Greenlight says it is looking to differentiate itself with a broad suite of financial teaching tools: In the fourth quarter, it plans to launch a stock-trading platform for children in which they can trade fractional shares with the approval of their parents.
PETER THIEL GETS A SPAC: Bridgetown Holdings, a SPAC formed by Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital, Pacific Century, and Pinebridge Investments, filed for a $575 million raise. It plans to seek a tech or fintech company in Southeast Asia, as the sector is “entering a new era of economic growth,” per the filing. Its CEO David Wong previously led a Series D investment in Tokopedia, a Indonesia-based tech company, on behalf of Pacific Century. Matt Denzeisen, Thiel’s husband, is the SPAC’s chairman.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Byju’s, an Indian education tech startup, raised $300 million valuing it at about $11.1 billion, per Bloomberg. Funds came from investors including BlackRock, Sands Capital and Alkeon Capital. Read more.
- Attentive, a New York-based marketing mobile messaging platform, raised $230 million in Series D funding. Coatue led the round and was joined by investors including Tiger Global, Wellington Management Company, D1 Capital Partners, Atomico, and Sozo Ventures.
- Beyond Limits, a Los Angeles-based A.I. company focused on industrial sectors, raised $113 million in Series C funding. Group 42 led, and was joined by investors including BP Ventures. Read more.
- Silverback Therapeutics, a Seattle-based biopharma developing a cancer treatment, raised $85 million in Series C funding. EcoR1 Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Boxer Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Nantahala Capital Management, and RA Capital.
- MineralTree, a Cambridge, Mass.-based payments automation provider, raised $50 million in Series D funding. Investors included Great Hill Partners, .406 Ventures, and Eight Roads Ventures. MineralTree also acquired Inspyrus and Regal Software.
- Libra Therapeutics, a San Diego-based cancer therapeutics company, raised $29 million in Series a funding. Epidarex Capital, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Santé led the round and were joined by Yonjin Venture, Dolby Family Ventures, and Sixty Degree Capital.
- Turntide Technologies, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of an electric motor, raised $33 million. Investors included Amazon Climate Pledge Fund.
- Babson Diagnostics, an Austin-based medtech company, raised $13.7 million in Series A funding. Investors included Siemens Healthineers, Prism Ventures, Genesis Merchant Capital, and Lago Consulting Group.
- Spectrum Labs, a provider A.I. and services to help consumer brands recognize and respond to toxic behavior online, raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft and was joined by investors including Wing Venture Capital, Ridge Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Super{set}.
- Laika, a New York-based information security company, raised $10 million in funding. Canapi Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Bain Capital, NYCA Partners, and Third Prime.
- Blueboard, a San Francisco-based rewards and recognition platform to engage employees, raised $9.3 million in Series A funding. Origin Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Greycroft, Bullpen Capital, Gaingels, and Martin Babinec (founder of TriNet).
- Camera IQ, a Los Angeles-based company for creating augmented reality marketing campaigns, today raised $5 million in Series A funding, Shasta Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Waverly Capital, Betaworks Ventures, Sway Ventures, Grand Ventures, Space Capital, and Gingerbread Capital.
- Spiceology, a Spokane, Wash.-based spice company, raised $4.7 million in funding. Ty Bennett led the round and was joined by investors including Cowles Company and Kickstart Funds III & IV.
- WhyLabs, a Seattle based company spinning out of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence to provide a platform for running A.I. models, raised $4 million. Madrona Venture Group led the round and was joined by investors including Bezos Expeditions and Defy Partners.
- Data Gumbo, a Houston-based maker of a industrial blockchain network, raised $4 million in Series B funding. L37 led the round and was joined by investors including Equinor Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures.
- Vurbl, a Los Angeles-based platform for audio streaming, raised $1.3 million in seed funding. AlphaEdison led the round and was joined by investors including Halogen Ventures, TEN13, and Angellist.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- TCG took a majority stake in SketchyMedical, a Los Angeles-based online education company that teaches concepts through visual memory techniques, for $30 million.
- Warburg Pincus agreed to invest in GA Foods, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based provider of nutritional meals for senior customers. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- KKR agreed to acquire a 1.3% stake in Reliance Retail, the Indian retail group backed by Mukesh Ambani, for $754 million.
OTHERS
- CrowdStrike Holdings (Nasdaq: CRWD) agreed to acquire Preempt Security, a cybersecurity firm for about $96 million. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOs
- Deutsche Börse acquired a majority stake in Quantitative Brokers, a provider of execution algorithms. Centana Growth Partners exited its stake. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- WeWork is selling a majority stake in its China business. Trustbridge Partners, an existing investor in WeWork’s China subsidiary, invested an additional $200 million and now owns over 50%. Read more.
IPOs
- Ant Group Co., a Chinese fintech, aims to raise $17.5 billion in its Hong Kong share sale. Read more.
- Chindata Group Holdings, backed by Bain Capital, plans to raise as much as $621 million in the U.S. Read more.
F+FS
- L Squared Capital Partners closed L Squared Capital Partners III with just over $500 million.
- Peterson Ventures raised $65 million for the Peterson Ventures Fund III seed fund.
PEOPLE
- NFX named Morgan Beller, co-creator of the Libra digital currency, as a general partner.
- Silversmith Capital Partners named Lauren Chan, Thomas Patek and Danielle Waldman as vice presidents.
- Centana Growth Partners promoted Tom Davis to partner.


fortune--2020-09-24--“A.I. is a living and breathing engine”

“A.I. is a living and breathing engine”

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Artificial intelligence is a bit like 5G. Both are heavily hyped, genuinely new, and poorly understood. (This explainer by Brian Chen in The New York Times might help on 5G; I plan to focus today on A.I.)
Oh, and there’s a lot of money to be made on both too, particularly from consultants, technology hardware and software vendors, and cloud services providers.
Strictly speaking, A.I. isn’t new. The notion and the aspiration have been around for decades. But new computing capacity married with scientific breakthroughs in harnessing have led to the hype and business explosion.
That newness shone through in a panel hosted Wednesday morning by Fortune deputy editor Brain O’Keefe. Tatsiana Maskalevich, a data scientist at clothing retailer Stitch Fix, calls the information its clients give the company—their size, age, likes and dislikes, and so on—“a data scientist’s goldmine.” The data helps human stylists, the people who choose clothes for clients, stay ahead of preference curves, faster than if they were merely reading the fashion zeitgeist. (Stitch Fix is trusted too: Maskalevich says the company often knows about client pregnancies before their families do.)
Joelle Pineau, a McGill University professor and A.I. big shot at Facebook, says the powerful company is applying machine-learning techniques to quickly translate medical reports about the pandemic, most of which are written in English.
And Lan Guan, an “applied intelligence” expert at Accenture, which sponsored the event, notes that because A.I. is so new, there is little historical data to choose from in analyzing it. “A.I. is a living and breathing engine,” she says.
(A delightful side note for a virtual event hosted by Fortune, a publication that over-indexed on male executives for decades: an entire panel of women.)
If you want to dig deeper into the newness of A.I., read Jonathan Vanian’s compelling feature about one of A.I.’s weakest suits, at least as it has been applied so far: reading spreadsheets and other so-called structured data.
Have an intelligent day.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
The tide isn't going out yet. In case your EV stock rally was losing momentum after Elon Musk's overly realistic Tesla battery day pronouncements, California to the rescue. The state says it will allow the sale of only zero-emission passenger cars by 2035. Medium and heavy-duty trucks get until 2045 to go green. And startup XL Fleet, which refits trucks with electric drivetrains, is planning to go public by merging with a SPAC called Pivotal Investment Corp.
Three down, four to go. Remember the crazy harassment scheme that a bunch of eBay employees put in play against a Massachusetts couple who self-published a newsletter they didn't like? You know, the one with the bloody pig mask and cockroaches? Four of the seven indicted former eBay employees pled guilty on Wednesday. Two of the higher-ranked folks, former senior director of safety and security James Baugh and former director of global resiliency David Harville, are still fighting the charges. In other court-room dramas, ByteDance is asking a federal court to delay the Trump administration's app store ban of TikTok.
My warm heart turns cold. In the land of new features, owners of Samsung's Galaxy Watch 3 are finally getting promised EKG measurements after the FDA approved the function. The company also debuted its new midrange phone, the Galaxy S20 FE, starting at $700. On apps, Google added a COVID-19 overlay to its popular Maps app so you can see if maybe it's not such a good idea to visit that neighboring county. And the U.K. finally launched its much-delayed contract-tracing smartphone app that relies on a system developed by Apple and Google. There will be much more to report from New Featureland tomorrow, as Amazon is unveiling its latest Alexa gadgets at 1 p.m. ET today (I'm betting on a connected garlic press, pasta maker, and shop vac).
Show me the money. On the stock market, a few more tech companies debuted. Construction software developer Bentley Systems raised almost $240 million, as did Corsair Gaming, while online drug comparison platform GoodRx grabbed $1 billion. Oh, and Laird Superfood, which makes plant-based coffee creamer, raised almost $60 million. Footnote: WeWork, which still hasn't gone public, was an early investor in Laird but sold its shares and missed out on the big gain. Back on the private markets, sneakerhead destination Goat Group raised $100 million at a $1.75 billion valuation, making it our newest and probably hippest unicorn.
I see what you did there. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is buying Preempt Security for almost $100 million to bolster its Falcon login security and network monitoring platform.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Elon Musk and many others are working to develop a more direct interface between computers and the human brain. In an essay for ZDNet, writer Jo Best delves into some of the implications if such research succeeds.
That will mean a massive jump in the speed between an individual having a thought and that thought producing an action in the real world -- our ability to process information could be faster than has ever been possible.
"Computers can process signals a lot faster than a biological nervous system can, so there's the ability to scale time. You could potentially enact motion commands a lot faster than your nervous system necessarily would," says (Justin Sanchez, a tech fellow at the Battelle Memorial Institute).
"And again, that's an interesting aspect of how the brain can adapt to those kinds of situations. We are limited in our perception and interaction with the world by the fundamental speed of our nervous system. If you provide to the brain something that works faster, the brain can adapt to those kinds of situations and operate faster," he says.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
These 5 apps are up-and-comers with Gen Z, report says By Danielle Abril
Startup debuts software to help any company use “quantum algorithms” By Jeremy Kahn
5 cheap electric cars to buy until Tesla delivers on its $25,000 promise By David Z. Morris
A.I. algorithms had to change when COVID-19 changed consumer behavior By Aaron Pressman
How Nike hit its e-commerce goal 3 years early By Phil Wahba
Will the pandemic give us a Sputnik moment? By Erika Fry
There’s an ulterior motive to China’s carbon neutral pledge: Cornering the green tech market By Eamon Barrett
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
While George R.R. Martin struggles to write the sixth book in his planned seven-book Game of Thrones series that he started in 1996, his protege is doing much better. Ty Franck, who was once Martin's personal assistant, and fantasy author Daniel Abraham are about to complete their epic science-fiction saga known as The Expanse (the pair write under the pen name James S.A. Corey). The ninth and final book, called Leviathan Falls, is on schedule for release next year, just a decade after the series kicked off with Leviathan Rises.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-09-24--Startup debuts software to help any company use ‘quantum algorithms’

A Boston-based startup has released software designed to make it easier for companies to use algorithms invented for quantum computing to improve business processes.
The software has already been used by a number of banks and investment firms, including the Spanish bank BBVA, to optimize financial portfolios and to better assess risk. It has also been used by petrochemical companies to optimize their processes.
Zapata, the company behind the software, envisions that it will also be used to help companies in other industries build better batteries for electric vehicles, optimize logistics routes and supply chains, and find new pharmaceuticals.
Zapata was cofounded in Boston in 2017 by Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a leading researcher in quantum chemistry who was at Harvard University and is now at the University of Toronto, and members of his research lab.
The company’s software, which it calls Orquestra, provides a way for companies to use algorithms that were originally designed to take advantage of the unique properties of quantum computers. These powerful machines, which are just beginning to find practical applications, harness the strange properties of quantum physics to perform calculations.
For instance, while classical computers—which is what scientists call non-quantum computers—represent information in a binary form called bits, represented by either a 0 or 1, quantum computers can represent information in multiple states simultaneously, so information can be both 0 and 1, and in some cases, any state between those two numbers. In addition, in a normal computer, each bit functions independently from the others. But in a quantum computer, the qubits, as the quantum information units are called, impact one another, working collectively to arrive at a solution.
These two properties make quantum computers potentially much more powerful than conventional ones, enabling them to perform some calculations much faster than on a classical machine. In fact, theoretically, quantum computers could perform some calculations that no conventional computer could crunch in a reasonable time frame.
Last year, Google used a quantum computer to demonstrate what it claimed was a calculation of this type, a milestone in computer science known as “quantum supremacy.” In the future, this may allow quantum computers to do things like discover new materials with incredible properties—like room temperature superconductors—or crack the most common form of existing digital encryption.
For the most part, today’s quantum computers are too error-prone to be used for these kinds of feats. Last week, IBM announced an ambitious road map for development of its quantum computers that may see machines capable enough for these kinds of solutions by the end of the decade.
But algorithms which have been designed to run on quantum computers can sometimes arrive at better solutions, and faster ones, than conventional algorithms, even if they are run on a classical computer. That means businesses might still be able to derive benefits from using these quantum techniques today.
Orquestra enables programmers—even those without highly specialized training in how to write software for a quantum computer—to use these “quantum algorithms” on a real quantum computer, a simulated one, or a classical machine. It also helps the programmers automatically segment parts of whatever problem they are working on—using a quantum computer to do some of the work and a classical computer to do the rest. In the software world, Orquestra is what’s known as an orchestration platform, hence the name.
Christopher Savoie, Zapata’s chief executive officer, says that Orquestra is built to allow programmers to work with any vendor’s library of quantum algorithms and helps them figure out how best to run them on any quantum computer or a mix of quantum and traditional computing. It also allows companies to easily switch out the kind of underlying hardware they are using, so they don’t have to get locked in to a particular quantum computing vendor.
That’s critical for many companies because there are many different hardware approaches to quantum computing, and with the field being so nascent, it remains unclear which kind of quantum computer, let alone which vendor’s computer, will ultimately prove to be most capable.
The company’s software supports integrations with cloud-based quantum computing services offered by IBM, Google, and Honeywell, and by quantum computing startups IonQ and Rigetti Computing. It also offers simulated quantum computers available through Amazon’s Braket cloud computing service and others.
Carlos Kuchkovsky, BBVA global head of research and patents, says that the Spanish bank has formed a team to explore a number of potential use cases for quantum computing and has completed several proof of concept projects. Many of these are focused on financial portfolio optimization, and BBVA has worked with Zapata’s Orquestra to help run these tests.
“The idea is to find ways to reduce the risk level of a complex portfolio of assets, while maintaining the same profit level,” Kuchkovsky says. “If we can do that, that’s a clear win for us.”
Among the financial optimization scenarios BBVA has explored using Zapata’s software were finding better arbitrage opportunities between currency pairs and also ways to better assess counterparty risk when pricing complex derivatives, he says.
In derivative pricing, the bank realized “a quadratic speedup” in the ability to run the simulations needed to price these algorithms, he says. That means that a process that might have taken, for example, over an hour on a classical computer, could be completed in eight minutes using a quantum algorithm.
Savoie says that some academic quantum researchers have wrongly disparaged current uses of quantum computers and quantum algorithms because they can’t yet do things that are impossible to do on a classical computer. While being able to solve these kinds of ultra-hard problems may be critical for a few industrial use cases—such as inventing new kinds of materials or chemicals—for many companies, he says, doing the impossible isn’t what matters. In business, time is money, and in many cases, simply running an existing process faster than classical computers can is enough to justify using quantum computers and quantum algorithms. The fact that the solutions the quantum-based approaches come up with may also be superior is an added bonus, he says.
Zapata has received $31 million in venture capital funding to date from investors that include the venture capital arms of Honeywell, Comcast, Robert Bosch, and BASF, as well as Prelude Ventures, Pillar VC, and The Engine.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Carlos Kuchkovsky’s last name.


fortune--2020-09-24--A grand jury decision leaves calls for ‘justice for Breonna Taylor’ unanswered

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A Walmart policy intended to promote women may have had unintended consequences, mourners honor RBG, and a grand jury declines to indict officers for killing Breonna Taylor. Have a reflective Wednesday.
– No justice, no peace. Over the past few months one of the most common rallying cries at protests against racism and police brutality has been: “Justice for Breonna Taylor!”
Those words again sprung to mind last night, as we learned that a grand jury declined to charge any of the officers involved in Taylor’s shooting with her death. Instead, the jurors indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison with “wanton endangerment.” Hankison—the only officer to lose his job over the raid where Taylor was killed—fired ten bullets into the shade-covered windows and glass door of her apartment (some of which traveled into the next door apartment of a pregnant woman, her husband, and their 5-year-old. None were injured).
According to the FBI crime lab, the bullet that killed Taylor—who was struck six times—was fired by Detective Myles Cosgrove. (She was also shot by Sargent Jonathan Mattingly.) The grand jury ruled that the officers’ use of force was justified because Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot first; Walker says he mistook the police for intruders.
As anyone who has been following the story knows, Walker has disputed some aspects of the police version of events. What’s more, conflicting reports from witnesses and an absence of body camera footage (the police involved in the raid were not wearing the devices) has blurred some important facts about exactly what happened the night of March 13. (I strongly recommend the two-part episode of the New York Times’ The Daily podcast for a deeper dive into the facts on the ground.)
While many legal experts had been predicting this outcome, it didn’t stop people from taking to the streets to express their sadness and anger. Americans raised their voices in protest in Louisville (where two officers were shot), New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, and many, many other cities and towns last night.
Their agony is not surprising. Do any of us want to live in society where it’s legal for the police to enter the home of an unarmed woman accused of no crime in the middle of the night, shoot her six times, and face no consequences?
The grand jury may have followed the guidelines set out by the law. But the beauty of laws is that they can be changed. And until we make it clear that we will not accept that what happened in Taylor’s home was, as Mattingly has described it “legal, moral and ethical,” we know it could happen again.
This is not justice for Breonna Taylor.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Retail ranks. A decade ago, Walmart turned its attention to helping women rise through its executive ranks. But Black professionals and managers at the company say that that singular focus led the retailer to fall behind on promoting Black talent, as mostly white women benefitted. Bloomberg
- May her memory be a revolution. Services laying to rest Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg began yesterday with a small ceremony in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court. Mourners, former clerks, lawmakers, and Ginsburg's fellow justices all paid their respects. New York Times
- Opposition op-ed. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya ran as the opposition candidate in Belarus, igniting nationwide protests when Belarusians suspected the true results of the race were suppressed. In this piece, Tikhanovskaya examines her rise from "stay-at-home mom" to leader of a revolution. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Former Lyft VP of talent acquisition and inclusion Nilka Thomas, who left to become chief people officer at SeatGeek, is returning to the ride-sharing company as chief people officer. The Washington Post promoted deputy director of strategic initiatives Elite Truong to director of strategic initiatives. Publicis Sapient promoted Kameshwari Rao to global chief people officer.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Executive order. President Trump said yesterday, while speaking to Catholic leaders, that he would sign a "Born Alive" executive order. The announcement is seen as an appeal to the religious right, building off of concern about "abortions even after children are born." Bloomberg
- Grand slam. Glamour has an ace cover star this month: Billie Jean King. The tennis legend reflects on her role fighting for equal pay in sports over the decades, and she has an important reason why: "Money helps women have power." Glamour
- Investigative interviews. The Mexican government is interviewing women over the allegations that women detained in the U.S. were subjected to hysterectomies against their will. "If confirmed, this is a major issue and not only punishable but also other measures would be taken," said Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. CNN
ON MY RADAR
Brené Brown inks exclusive Spotify podcast deal Variety
As a crucial election looms, an iconic TV anchor reinvents herself Vogue
'He never quit’: Nick Cordero’s widow Amanda Kloots on grief, God and perseverance New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"Hers is a bold vision for philanthropy—and we’ll be feeling her impact for a long time."
-Melinda Gates, writing about MacKenzie Scott for the Time 100


fortune--2020-09-24--Why health care stocks may be poised for a breakout year postelection

Ever since 2019, the health care sector has been white-knuckling and preparing itself for what may be a volatile and uncertain election year for stocks. But according to UBS, 2020 is shaping up to look a whole lot like 2009 for the sector—which could actually help put some investors’ minds at ease.
Historically, “the market reaction has been largely to sell much of the health care sector, lowering valuations until clarity arrives after the election,” UBS’s Americas health care analyst Eric Potoker wrote in a note Tuesday. “The market’s current treatment of health care stocks falls into that familiar pattern.”
Potoker argues the “most relevant” comparison for how the health care sector is shaping up today is the 2008–9 election, when, in early 2009, President Obama “made health reform a legislative priority, and a dark cloud enveloped the sector.” But instead of massive, painful reforms to the sector that hurt health care and insurance stocks, he argues the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had a “relatively modest” impact on the sector, and, barring a few areas that saw increased regulation, “left health care markets largely intact” while actually increasing “overall demand for health care products and services” because of expanded health coverage.
That had a positive impact on health care stocks between 2009 and 2015, Potoker writes, as the health care sector “significantly outperformed the broader equity market, partly due to this added growth and the removal of policy uncertainty”—with health care trading up from a 0.8x relative price/earnings versus the S&P 500 up to a 1.1x relative P/E from late 2009 through mid-2015.
That outperformance, however, stopped short ahead of the 2016 election when health care was once more in the spotlight. This time around, as if “on cue,” health care valuations started slumping last year, and the sector has even recently traded below its 2009 trough valuation compared to the S&P 500, he notes.
But today, “we actually think 2021 will play out very similarly to 2009 for the health care sector,” UBS’s Potoker argues. “If in fact the political prediction markets are correct and Democrats seize control of the presidency and the U.S. Senate…the rhetoric on changes to health care policy exceeds the reality of what can be accomplished,” and in lieu of big reforms to drug pricing or insurers, he anticipates “modest reforms that will lift the overhang on health care valuations.”
The “bark worse than the bite” argument for a Biden presidency is one that applies to other sectors beyond health care. JPMorgan, for one, has pointed out the hit to corporations may not be as bad because a President Biden likely won’t raise the corporate tax rate on “day one,” as he is currently declaring.
So what names are poised to benefit? Back in November of last year Fortune highlighted several health care stocks that may be more shielded from election woes and have since seen mixed but largely positive performance, like Becton Dickinson (down roughly 11% from November), Hologic (up 23%), Zoetis (up 32%), Merck (down 3.5%), and UnitedHealth Group (up 3.5%).
With 2009 as an example, Potoker says he remains “hopeful that the election outcome will begin the clearing process for the policy risk hovering over the sector,” and with that clarity, “we think investors will reward the health care sector for its reliable growth with significantly higher valuations.” Adds Potoker: “In short, we anticipate a period of strong health care stock performance similar to the five-year period following passage of the ACA.”


fortune--2020-09-25--If companies don’t recruit from HBCUs, they’re missing out on promising employees

Amazon debuted a long list of products today .
Here are 3 standouts

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I’ll say it anyway: My students have talent. As business school dean and accounting professor at South Carolina State University, a historically Black university, I believe in my students—even when it seems like many employers overlook them.
Attending a historically Black college or university comes with challenges that students at other institutions might not face, particularly a lack of funding and name recognition. Many recruiters seem to exclusively chase pupils from large state schools or well-known private schools. What they don’t realize is that they’re missing out on promising employees.
I have seen firsthand the effect that this can have on my student body. Many of them will not pursue certain careers simply because they don’t possess the confidence to compete. Their senses tell them that they are not prepared to make the transition from classroom to workplace.
With many companies recently making new or increased commitments to a wide range of diversity measures, I encourage them to commit to building stronger relationships with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Schools like mine provide a largely untapped resource of bright, hungry students.
For businesses looking to innovate in a challenging economy, looking to diverse sources of talent is not just the right thing to do—it can help to drive bottom line profitability, too. Diversity in representation brings diversity of thought, and that in turn drives innovation.
Here are three recommendations for companies seeking to build stronger relationships with HBCUs:
Build relationships with the faculty
Companies must engage faculty members to make sure courses are preparing students properly. PwC is an example of a company that does this well. The professional services firm hosts a yearly faculty forum where it updates HBCU representatives on the latest capabilities it is looking for in new hires, and listens to feedback from our side.
These efforts mean a lot to us. The firm shows that it genuinely wants our students, and takes strides to help us better prepare them for lasting careers. Even something as simple as periodic conversations with faculty members to mutually share any feedback, roadblocks, or advice can go a long way. Real progress in this space is rooted in strong, trust-based relationships.
Be present with students
A few years ago, my institution launched an executive speaker series where we host representatives from companies to share career advice. Topics range from “a day in the life” to the skills and knowledge that hiring managers expect from recruits. Two companies that do this effectively are BMW and Boeing: Boeing designates a certain day each year where company representatives speak in different classes, and both companies provide students scholarships.
Efforts like these don’t just offer vital advice to future workers—they send a message to my students that they have a chance to fill a role where they have an equal footing from day one. This form of direct interaction can speak volumes.
Hire our students
Offering money is great, and so is sharing advice. But when it comes down to it, our students need opportunities. I have seen firsthand how internships can turn even the shiest, most self-doubting student into one who speaks up, shares with other students, and exudes newfound confidence.
Our students deserve serious consideration, and the companies we’ve partnered with already have done that well. Now, the recent rise in virtual recruiting makes it easier for other companies to offer crucial on-the-job experience that can change the trajectory of their lives.
Most HBCUs don’t have access to resources that a large university can offer, so financial support is important. But if a good relationship is built first, the financial support can follow.
Companies and HBCUs working together is mutually beneficial. And at South Carolina State University and other HBCUs, we’re offering qualified, diverse students who are ready to compete in the workplace, bring fresh and innovative ideas, and drive greater productivity.
Barbara L. Adams is the business school dean and an accounting professor at South Carolina State University.


fortune--2020-09-25--Europe’s antitrust chief is still determined to claw that $15 billion back-tax bill out of Apple

One of Europe’s highest courts may have canceled the $15 billion back-tax bill she forced on Apple, but Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is not giving up.
There’s too much at stake, not just in this specific case, but also in the European Commission’s wider quest to stop multinationals from enjoying specially advantageous tax deals—such as the one it claims was struck between Apple and Ireland, the base for Apple’s international operations outside of the Americas.
So, on Friday, Vestager announced her antitrust department’s appeal against the July ruling by the EU’s General Court, which said the Commission had failed to sufficiently demonstrate Ireland had given Apple special treatment—an action that would have meant Ireland had effectively granted Apple illegal state aid.
“The General Court judgment raises important legal issues that are of relevance to the Commission in its application of state-aid rules to tax planning cases,” Vestager said in a statement. “The Commission also respectfully considers that in its judgment the General Court has made a number of errors of law. For this reason, the Commission is bringing this matter before the European Court of Justice.”
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the EU’s highest judicial authority and has the last word on the interpretation of EU law.
The General Court, which together with the ECJ forms the Court of Justice of the EU—yes, the naming is confusing—is largely there to hear actions taken against EU institutions such as the Commission; in this case, it was Apple’s appeal against the Commission’s Irish tax decision.
Appeals against General Court rulings can be taken up to the ECJ only on points of law, rather than in an argument over the facts of the case.
The Commission’s problem here is that the General Court’s July ruling was mostly about the facts of the Apple-Ireland case.
Rather than saying the Commission made a wrong call in interpreting the law, it said the Commission had messed up because it couldn’t back up its claim that the revenues of Apple’s Irish subsidiaries—which handle the manufacture and distribution of Apple products around the world—were largely down to the activities of those subsidiaries themselves, rather than being derived from U.S. intellectual property, as Apple and the Irish government have argued from the beginning.
Friday was the deadline for Vestager to launch her appeal, and her brief statement on the matter did not make clear what legal errors the General Court supposedly made. She did, however, suggest that the judgment’s reasoning had an impact on the Commission’s strategy of tackling tax issues via the state-aid route.
The same court had already reversed a similar tax decision of hers, regarding Starbucks’ treatment by Dutch tax authorities, on similar grounds—but that was small potatoes compared with the flagship Apple-Ireland case. Vestager’s defeat on this case was seen in Brussels as a major embarrassment for the Danish politician, who is currently in her second term as the EU’s antitrust chief.
More generally, though, it was a major setback for the Commission in its quest to get Big Tech firms to pay more taxes in European countries, on revenues coming from their operations in those countries.
There’s still a push in Europe to introduce “digital taxes” on the local revenues of large tech multinationals. And on Thursday, the Financial Times reported that the Commission was preparing an assault on “structures that facilitate aggressive tax planning,” with the coronavirus pandemic’s draining of public coffers proving an extra impetus. Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Hungary are likely targets here.


fortune--2020-09-25--Goldman Sachs to investors: Fears of a delayed presidential election result are overblown

Traders should temper their fears that a delayed U.S. election result could upend markets, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
While a delayed outcome is a “tail risk,” a combination of early results, voter turnout, county-level data and the high correlation of polling errors across states suggests investors will have enough information on election night to determine the likely victor, wrote economists Michael Cahill and Alec Phillips in a note Thursday. A number of states — including some key battlegrounds — allow votes to be processed and counted well before election day, they noted.
“It seems fairly likely that there should be enough information on election night from states that will report results quickly for the market to be able to gauge the likely winner,” the pair wrote. “In other words, the S&P can trade the likely outcome, even if the AP does not call the race.”
With the attention of many investors turning toward November’s elections as a source of risk, the cost of hedging against a contested or delayed result is getting ever more pricey. One measure in the equity market shows the most-expensive event risk on record. Among traders’ biggest fears — an expected record number of mail-in ballots that may not be counted for days.
Goldman says the high level of uncertainty priced into currency options may be due to “muscle memory” of outsized moves in some crosses from the 2016 vote. The uncertain growth outlook amid the Covid-19 pandemic means this election should be less decisive for market direction, they said.
“While we recognize that an especially uncertain election outcome could have a significant negative impact on risk sentiment, we think this outcome is less likely than current market pricing — and client conversations — seem to imply,” the Goldman team concluded.


fortune--2020-09-25--Trust in business is enjoying a moment

Trust in business is enjoying a moment

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Another survey out this morning, this one from Weber Shandwick, shows trust in business is enjoying a moment. While trust in government has plummeted during the COVID crisis, business remains at the top of the list of institutions that Americans trust to take the right actions to bring the pandemic under control. Some 63% of survey respondents said businesses were taking the right actions to address the pandemic, compared with 50% for state government, and 44% for federal government. Let’s hope the moment isn’t wasted.
Separately, Target is gearing up to hire 130,000 temporary workers for the holiday season. That’s on par with last year, but the jobs will be different. With e-commerce sales up nearly 200% in the last quarter, and 90% of Target’s online orders being filled at stores, curbside pick-up will become this year’s hot holiday job. You can read Phil Wahba’s story here.
Also, Bernhard Warner’s story on why UBS—the once scandal-plagued Swiss bank—is now COVID-proof, is worth reading here.
And since it is Friday, some feedback, from SZ:
“Thank you for your continued promotion of stakeholder capitalism. If this momentum continues, future generations may view the change akin to Ford’s moves on minimum wage and the 40-hour work week. Call me an optimist, but if corporate lobbying re-aligns around ESG, federal action on climate change would be its most consequential outcome.”
I agree. Having the business community take the lead on climate change can only be a good thing. More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
TikTok confusion
(Deep breath.) China's ByteDance says it will own 80% of TikTok Global. Oracle, its apparently-soon-to-be-partner, says ByteDance will have "no ownership" of the new entity. President Trump says the deal won't go through if ByteDance has anything "to do with it." Meanwhile, ByteDance has applied for an export license from the Chinese authorities—will Beijing agree to Oracle inspecting TikTok's source code, as per the proposed deal? And the U.S.'s ban on TikTok downloads is due to belatedly kick in on Sunday, but a court wants the government to either further delay the ban or respond to Tiktok's attempt to block it with an injunction. CNBC
WeChat appeal
The Justice Department has asked for the suspension of a preliminary injunction against the government's WeChat ban, which was also supposed to take effect last Sunday but did not. The department rejects WeChat owner Tencent's proposal to, well, do a TikTok and create a new U.S. entity with a U.S. cloud partner, and have Tencent retain ownership of WeChat. Reuters
Junk bonds
Investors are fleeing U.S. junk bond funds over concerns about the country's economic recovery. The amount pulled out of funds that buy U.S. high-yield bonds in the week ending Sept. 23 was $4.86 billion, the biggest figure since mid-March's $5.6 billion. Increased volatility is expected in the lead up to the Nov. 3 election. Obviously. Financial Times
Amazon unveilings
Amazon unveiled a bunch of stuff yesterday, and here's Fortune's rundown of the wares: a dystopian-sounding surveillance drone for the home; some auto security systems that are already compatible with Tesla's cars; and a cloud gaming service called Luna that doesn't have any exclusive titles yet. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Vaccine immunity
AstraZeneca and Sanofi have different strategies in handling the issue of liability, when it comes to their prospective coronavirus vaccines. AstraZeneca is offering its potential vaccine to European governments more cheaply than its rival (let's please remember no one has a proven vaccine yet, and that might not change for a long while), and in exchange the governments will take on some of the payout risk in the event that the vaccine produces unexpected side-effects after approval. Reuters
FDA trial
Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Albert Ko write for Fortune that the FDA seems subject to political meddling at the moment, to a degree that people are trusting it less on the issue of vaccine approval. Bizarrely, they write, "while the public trust of drugmakers is soaring, trust in a potential vaccine is plummeting—raising concerns over the public acceptance of these prospective breakthroughs…The FDA is on trial along with the vaccines themselves." Fortune
Financial literacy
The pandemic has made it clear that Americans need to improve their financial literacy, Charles Schwab Foundation president Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz writes for Fortune. The foundation conducted a survey that shows most Americans believe the lack of financial literacy "contributes to bigger social issues in America, including poverty, lack of job opportunities, and wealth inequality." Fortune
Pandemic pivots
As Fortune's Anne Sraders reports, some leaders speaking at yesterday's Most Powerful Women Summit detailed how their businesses have pivoted during the pandemic. Airbnb has high hopes for its new online Experiences, and also notes an uptick in long-term status as people work from home. Meanwhile, Peloton sees the future involving more flexibility about remote working. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-09-25--Covid-19 scientists flag key immune function as a turning point in life threatening cases

When two brothers fell critically ill with Covid-19 around the same time in March, their doctors were baffled. Both were young—29 and 31 years old— and healthy. Yet within days they couldn’t breathe on their own and, tragically, one of them died.
Two weeks later, when a second pair of Covid-stricken brothers, both in their 20s, also appeared in the Netherlands, geneticists were called in to investigate. What they uncovered was a path leading from severe cases, genetic variations, and gender differences to a loss of immune function that may ultimately yield a new approach to treating thousands of coronavirus patients.
The common thread in the research is the lack of a substance called interferon that helps orchestrate the body’s defense against viral pathogens and can be infused to treat conditions such as infectious hepatitis. Now, increasing evidence suggests that a significant minority of Covid-19 patients get very ill because of an impaired interferon response. Twin landmark studies published Thursday in the journal Science showed that insufficient interferon may lurk at a dangerous turning point in SARS-CoV-2 infections.
“It looks like this virus has one big trick,” said Shane Crotty, a professor in the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California. “That big trick is to avoid the initial innate immune response for a significant period of time and, in particular, avoid an early type-1 interferon response.”
The work highlights the potential for interferon-based therapies to enlarge a slowly accumulating range of Covid-19 treatments. These include Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir and convalescent plasma, a component of the blood of recovered patients that may contain beneficial immune factors.
These treatments provide limited benefit and are typically used in very sick, hospitalized patients. The possibility that interferon may help some people is enticing because it appears most efficacious in the early stages of infection, when life-threatening respiratory failure could still be averted. Dozens of studies of interferon treatment are now recruiting Covid-19 patients.
“We think timing may be essential because it’s only in the very early phase one can really battle the virus particles and defend against infection,” said Alexander Hoischen, head of the genomic technologies and immuno-genomics group at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen that analyzed the DNA of the two sets of brothers.
Being male, elderly, and having underlying medical conditions can all raise patients’ risk of life-threatening Covid-19. But even within these groups, disease severity varies widely. Scientists have speculated other factors influence susceptibility, including pre-existing levels of inflammation and immunity, the amount of virus that starts an infection, and patients’ genetic makeup.
New Nexus
Interferon’s role represents a new nexus in Covid-19’s complex interaction with the human immune system. Many patients suffer their worst complications because of an immune overreaction sometimes called a cytokine storm, and may benefit from dexamethasone, a cheap generic that calms these storms.
“It’s a very interesting disease because too little immunity is no good,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sept. 10 in an on-line briefing for Massachusetts General Hospital staff. “Too much immunity is really, really bad.”
Whether sufficient interferon is available early or late in Covid-19 cases has a major bearing on disease severity, according to Yuen Kwok-Yung, chair of infectious diseases in the University of Hong Kong’s department of microbiology. Ideally, production of the antiviral substance would be triggered when immune cells encounter SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, stopping rapid viral reproduction inside the body and averting complications, he said.
“But the SARS-CoV-2 virus has anti-interferon genes which can stop or antagonize the production or effect of interferon,” said Yuen, who measured the effects in human lung tissue. If the interferon response is delayed and the amount of virus in the body peaks at a high level, other parts of the immune system will be “awakened.”
‘Really Disastrous’
That may trigger lung-injuring inflammation — collateral damage from an excessive immune reaction to the virus. “This is really disastrous,” he said.
Some people are known to have trouble fighting infections because they make antibodies that deactivate their own interferon. On Thursday, a global consortium of researchers said such immune reactions to the protein could account for life-threatening Covid-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men.
Interferon-blocking antibodies appeared in 101 of 987 patients with severe disease, but none of 663 people with an asymptomatic or mild case, according to the study in Science. Patients over age 65 were also more likely than younger ones to have the autoimmune abnormality, which was “clinically silent until the patients were infected with SARS-CoV-2,” the group of more than 100 scientists said.
‘First Explanation’
“These findings provide a first explanation for the excess of men among patients with life-threatening Covid-19 and the increase in risk with age,” the researchers led by Jean-Laurent Casanova, head of Rockefeller University’s St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases in New York said. “They also provide a means of identifying individuals at risk of developing life-threatening Covid-19.”
Genetic analysis of Covid-19 patients published in the same journal revealed two dozen gene mutations that had been “silent” until patients were infected by SARS-CoV-2. Researchers — many of them also involved in the antibody study — sequenced the genomes of 659 patients with life-threatening cases of the disease; 3.5% carried genetic variations that inhibit interferon production.
Those genetic flaws were similar to the ones that Hoischen and his colleagues from a dozen Dutch centers described in the Journal of the American Medical Association two months ago. The two sets of brothers had inherited a gene mutation that impaired the interferon response, keeping their immune systems from fighting the coronavirus until it had replicated for days.
In the Dutch men, the effects were cruel. The first, a young father from a town in the southern Netherlands, suffered shortness of breath, cough and fever at home for eight days before admission to intensive care. He was to spend 33 days in the hospital, 10 of them on a ventilator.
Raging Fever
His 29-year-old brother succumbed to Covid-19 in an intensive care unit in Rotterdam, after being treated for shock and a fever that soared to 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit). When doctors at Radboud learned of his younger sibling’s case, as well as a second pair — 21- and 23-year-old brothers also in respiratory failure — they went looking for a genetic cause.
They found a mutation that was carried on the X chromosome. Defects on this chromosome are more likely to affect men, who have only one copy, while women have two.
The men’s mutations are rare — occurring in 1 in 10,000 people — and an unlikely explanation for the vast majority of severe Covid-19 cases. But the studies in Science indicate that various forms of interferon dysfunction may underlie as many as 14% of critical patients, and that screening and targeted treatment might prevent severe illnesses and deaths.
“If we manage to get them into our university medical center early enough,” Hoischen said, “our clinicians may be able to treat them with interferons.”
Other ways of overcoming autoimmunity, like the removal of antibodies against interferon from the blood, called plasmapheresis, could also help patients. On the other hand, patients who produce antibodies against interferon shouldn’t donate blood products for treating other patients.
“The rare diseases and the more common forms of the same disease may converge, and we can learn from each other,” said Hoischen. “That’s the hope.”
–With assistance from Marthe Fourcade.


fortune--2020-09-25--Gold bugs are on the back foot as COVID concerns climb and stimulus-check hopes fade

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Happy Friday, everyone. The S&P 500 dipped into negative territory for the year at one point yesterday, triggering a buy-on-the-dip late-day rally. Still, the benchmark index is poised to finish down for a fourth consecutive week. That is unless progress on a stimulus spending plan gains traction.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major indexes are clinging to gains with Tokyo’s Nikkei leading the way, up 0.5% .
leading the way, up . China stunned the world earlier this week when it pronounced it would go carbon neutral within the next 40 years. That’s no small feat, given its voracious appetite for coal . And it’s still building coal plants.
stunned the world earlier this week when it pronounced it would go within the next 40 years. That’s no small feat, given its voracious appetite for . And it’s still building coal plants. Investors dumped bonds in the world’s most indebted property developer China Evergrande Group on Thursday. With a debt pile of $120 billion, Evergrande’s troubles are being watched closely for fallout that could hit others parts of the economy.
Europe
The European bourses were mixed at the start with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.2% , before falling.
were mixed at the start with the up , before falling. Britain is looking at a possible huge spike in unemployment next month as the government swaps out an expiring furlough scheme expires for a Germany-like wage-subsidy program. Refusing to sugar-coat what comes next, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, warned, “I cannot save every business, I cannot save every job .”
is looking at a possible next month as the government swaps out an expiring furlough scheme expires for a Germany-like wage-subsidy program. Refusing to sugar-coat what comes next, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, warned, “I cannot save every business, .” The number of registered global COVID deaths could top 1 million as soon as this weekend. But health officials say even that grim figure is almost certainly an undercount. This comes as France reported a record number of new cases yesterday and the numbers are rising precipitously in Great Britain.
U.S.
U.S. futures have been trading sideways all morning as investors remain divided on whether House Democrats and the White House can reach some kind of last-minute deal on a stimulus spending plan . They’re still a good $900 billion apart.
have been trading sideways all morning as investors remain divided on whether House Democrats and the White House can reach some kind of last-minute deal on a . They’re still a good $900 billion apart. Data mining specialist Palantir Technologies is eying a lofty valuation as it prepares to go public next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, Palantir’s bankers are looking to sell shares at $10 which would equate to a $22 billion valuation .
is eying a lofty valuation as it prepares to go public next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, Palantir’s bankers are looking to sell shares at which would equate to a . Goldman Sachs thinks investor worries about a drawn-out presidential election result are overblown. On Nov. 4, says Goldman economists Michael Cahill and Alec Phillips, “the S&P can trade the likely outcome, even if the AP does not call the race.”
Elsewhere
Gold is down, trading around $1,870/ounce .
is down, trading around . The dollar is flat.
is flat. Crude is up slightly with Brent trading above $42.50/barrel.
By the Numbers
-12.3%. The Nasdaq 100 is down double digits—a tick over 12%—since hitting an all-time high on Sept. 2. A strong finish today could put the tech big caps in positive territory for the week, but they’re still solidly in correction territory. As I type, Amazon is up nearly 1% in pre-market trading, helped by investor enthusiasm for a new lineup of products introduced yesterday. Still, it’s down more than 14% this month.
-9.3%. Gold bugs are having a rough September. The shiny yellow metal is getting pounded as investors pile into another safe haven, the U.S. dollar. Another drop like yesterday would put gold in correction territory from its Aug. 6 high. Silver has fallen even further in that time. Like tech stocks, gold and silver were riding high just three weeks ago, and have since collapsed as a risk-off mood struck markets.
6.8%. While tech stocks have tanked, this sportswear giant has soared. Yes, I’m referring to Nike, which is up nearly 7% this month. The company reported monster earnings on Wednesday, and hit its e-commerce targets three years ahead of schedule. Nike is a bellwether for a sector that’s been outperforming during the pandemic. Shares in rivals Puma, Under Armor and Adidas are all near 2020 highs in recent weeks, as well.
***
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
***
Have a nice weekend, everyone. I’ll see you here on Monday.
Today's read
Shot in the arm. Health-care stocks are having a bad month—this portion of the S&P 500 is down more than 5% in September. But the sector could take off post-Election Day if Joe Biden and the Democrats sweep to power in January. Here's why.
In the hole. If there's an antithesis to health-care stocks it's finance. Investors have punished the sector even as the economy rebounds and the sector's business prospects dramatically improve. All in all, the big banks are reporting outlooks that are more good than bad, and yet the sector remains largely unloved. It's one of the big market paradoxes of 2020, the Wall Street Journal's David Benoit writes.
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
Quote of the day
Our country’s lack of financial literacy has contributed to this crisis.
That's Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, president of the Charles Schwab Foundation, arguing on Fortune.com that financial literacy is holding America's most vulnerable communities back. And Americans themselves agree. "They overwhelmingly (89%) believe that a lack of financial education contributes to bigger social issues in America, including poverty, lack of job opportunities, and wealth inequality," she writes.


fortune--2020-09-25--Google to pause political ads on election day after polls close

Congress and Trump to restart stimulus negotiations as $ 300 unemployment benefit expires

Google will halt election advertising after the polls officially close for the U.S. presidential election, a move designed to limit false messages about the outcome of the contest.
The largest internet company said advertisers will not be able to run ads referencing candidates, the election or its outcome, according to an email viewed by Bloomberg News. The policy, which is designed to block all ads related to the election, also applies to YouTube, the biggest online video service.
Google also said advertisers should expect to wait at least two days for political ads to be approved in the lead up to the election. With its new policy, the company is treating the election as a “sensitive event,” such as natural disasters, where it prohibits ads that may capitalize on tragedies. Axios reported the change earlier.
“Given the likelihood of delayed election results this year, when polls close on November 3, we will pause ads referencing the 2020 election, the candidates or its outcome,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. “This is a temporary measure, and we’ll notify advertisers when this policy is lifted.”
Tech platforms are rushing to rewrite policies to ensure that campaign ads do not mislead voters. Facebook Inc. will block campaigns from submitting new ads in the week leading up to election day. Twitter Inc. has banned all political ads.
U.S. President Donald Trump accused Twitter and Facebook of political bias after their decisions. In contrast, Google’s decision on Friday didn’t produce immediate outrage.
“I don’t buy many fireworks on the 5th of July,” said Will Ritter, founder of Poolhouse, a digital ad firm that works with Republicans.
Since May of 2018, Google has sold more than $432 million of political ads, according to the company’s database. Earlier this year, the Trump campaign bid successfully to run ads on YouTube’s homepage leading up the election, Bloomberg News reported.


fortune--2020-09-25--How do you explain your resume gap in a COVID job market?

Broadside writer Kristine Gill offers advice from hiring managers on how you can rebound from a period of unemployment, even if your resume looks slim. Then, scroll on for job opportunities from Hulu, the Department of Defense, Amazon and more.
In early spring, major employers announced layoffs, furloughs, and complete shutterings. Unemployment skyrocketed. Now, as the world tiptoes back toward normalcy, those who lost work will be applying to open positions in droves. What will they tell hiring managers about the gap on their resume?
“I don’t think people should freak out too much if it’s been a few months,” says Glassdoor Career Expert Alison Sullivan. “Employers, especially now, are sympathetic to the fact that employment gaps happen for a variety of reasons.”
“2020 has been a tough year for everyone,” says Laura Sapp, Head of Talent for the internet and media company IAC. “There has to be an understanding among managers and recruiters that this year is unlike anything we have ever seen before.”
But what about if you didn’t lose your job due to COVID? How do you land your first job back after a while away from the workforce?
“How you handle it is a mindset issue,” says Lisa Rangel, founder of Chameleon Resumes LLC. “You want to demonstrate some resiliency, some creativity and you want to demonstrate some humanity. That approach can directly or subliminally convey how you would handle the workplace as well.”
These career experts offer tips on how to explain periods of unemployment and still come out on top.
Broach the subject.
Sullivan says you should mention your unemployment gap in all of your materials as well as the interview. While it shouldn’t be the focus of your application, you also shouldn’t leave the information out. That could create a bombshell of sorts, depending on how the topic comes up.
“Make it part of your resume, cover letter, and interview,” Sullivan says.
The resume: Don’t overthink it. Rangel says you can indicate a gap in your resume by simply listing those start and end dates for every position. But if you want to soften the blow, Sullivan says it’s fine to remove the months of your start and end dates on your resume.
The cover letter: Reflect how you used the time away from work to your advantage somehow, Sullivan says. “Explaining how you used the time is going to be really important because it shows that you understand your career trajectory and can explain it,” she says.
Don’t lead with the information as if it’s some kind of confession. “Lead with why you’re a good solution for the company,” Rangel says.
Own your narrative.
Maybe you took time off after giving birth, or your mother fell ill and you quit to take care of her, or you followed a spouse to a new town for a job and you’re still searching for work. Maybe you left a toxic workplace without a plan. Even if you were fired, the most important part of addressing your unemployment is owning your narrative.
“The people who can embrace those difficult questions and own them, and be crazy-prepared to answer the question in a vulnerable but diplomatic way—you’re actually going to make a better impression on an employer than someone who is sheepish and stumbles over their answer,” Rangel says.
If you’re worried about how to explain your situation, run it past some people first.
“Rehearse what you are going to say,” Sapp says. “Get their honest feedback and tweak your response until you can deliver the message with confidence.”
“Even if you’re fired, there are very few reasons to have shame,” Rangel adds. “You can have remorse if there was a situation that involves an error in judgement, but it just comes down to embracing it, accepting it, owning it, and being prepared for it.”
A tip: Don’t seem too willing to take the job you’re interviewing for. It could suggest you’re looking for any position just to get back in the game. Rangel says hiring managers aren’t as concerned about red flags like brief lapses in employment as they might be about a candidate who is overeager for a position, regardless of whether it’s a good fit.
“The reality is, sometimes, you do have to take any job, but you have to be genuinely interested in the job you’re applying for,” she says.
“Hiring is costly and time-consuming no matter the labor market, so [employers] want someone who is going to enjoy the role and stick around,” Sullivan agrees. “That’s where explaining your gap and showing how you’re going to be a great fit is going to be key.”
Build your skill set in the meantime.
If you find yourself out of work with some free time on your hands, consider building your skill set, taking on a new hobby, or checking things off your bucket list.
“I once spoke with a candidate who always dreamt of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail after the movie Wild came out, and she did it,” says Sapp. “It was a great icebreaker to open the interview.”
Sapp’s interest is always piqued when someone has spent that time traveling. It makes for good conversation and says something about a candidate. Of course, not everyone can travel—especially in a pandemic.
Online learning can also up your game. Platforms such as MasterClass and Skillshare offer resume-boosting courses. A service called ChoiceIQ, an initiative of Meseekna, is also helping job seekers learn about their own ways of thinking so they can leverage their unique approaches to work when seeking opportunities.
“It’s a powerful thing to point on your resume, so you’re not just saying you have Microsoft Excel skills, but that you’ve also taken the time to understand and improve your metacognition,” says Akhila Satish, CEO of Meseekna. She’s seen people achieve productivity and salary gains through doing this, both with new jobs and with promotions and raises within their current company.
“And if you can volunteer,” Sapp adds, “Go for it.”
— Kristine Gill
Making money moves
Amazon is hiring an Operations Manager based in Southern California.
Arthrex is hiring an Associate Product Manager based in Naples, Florida.
Chevron Phillips is hiring a Communications Advisor based in The Woodlands, Texas.
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is hiring an Assistant Vice President, Principal and Major Gifts based in Brookline, Mass.
The Department of Defense is hiring an Interdisciplinary Chemical Engineer/Chemist based in Richmond, Virginia.
Hulu is hiring an Attribution Research Analyst based in New York City.
Oregon Public Broadcast is hiring an Executive Editor for Arts and Culture based in Portland, Oregon.
Protective is hiring a Head of Learning and Leadership Development based in Birmingham, Alabama.
The University of Pittsburgh is hiring a Chief Executive Officer for its LifeX platform, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is hiring a Biologist based in Jacksonville, Florida.
Who Gives a Crap is hiring a Head of New Product Development & Innovation based in Los Angeles, California.
Events and other opportunities
Sept. 28-Oct. 1: Women in Manufacturing will host its annual summit virtually.
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Fortune will host its Most Powerful Women Summit virtually.
Sept. 30-Oct. 1: The Network of Executive Women is hosting the NEW Leadership Summit 2020 virtually.
Nov. 5-7: Harvard Medical School will host a Career Advancement and Leadership Skills for Women in Healthcare event online.
Nov. 16-20: The Women of Silicon Valley's Women in Tech World Series will take place virtually.
Dec. 8-10: The annual Women in Negotiation Summit will be held virtually. The daylong event empowers women through negotiation-skills building.
Want to share a hiring or networking opportunity from your organization or elsewhere, or just have feedback about The Broadside? Email Kristine Gill.


fortune--2020-09-25--Breonna Taylor’s case is as painful as it unsurprising

Breonna Taylor gets little justice, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit spotlights racial disparities in health care, and advertising looks to utilize Black talent as much as it utilizes Black culture.
But first, here’s your fitness-inspired week, in Haiku:
Bryant Johnson, now
Ruthless, honored her life with
three perfect pushups.
She called him the most
important person in her
life: Special Forces
turned records clerk, turned
companion on the journey
to health and justice.
Hands on the cool floor
at the foot of her casket.
Three perfect pushups.
She could do twenty
at eighty years old! What will
we do, now Ruthless?
Some professional news: After getting quite a bit of feedback and doing some in-depth thinking with my edit partner, Aric Jenkins, we’ve decided to increase the frequency of raceAhead going forward, as best we can. Each dispatch might be less in-depth, but still filled with the news-you-can-use, resources, and inspiration you need to better stay on top of a rapidly changing world. We hope it’s the right thing for you; we know it’s the right thing for us.
Please keep those cards and letters coming. We can’t always respond, but they help us set our course. And stay strong, like RBG.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
Seeking justice for Breonna Taylor It was a painful, if not unsurprising outcome in the ongoing inquiry into the botched police action that killed medical worker Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky. last March. Earlier this week, a grand jury indicted a former Louisville police officer for wanton endangerment for his actions firing blindly into the sliding glass door and window of Taylor’s apartment. None of the other officers on the scene were charged, and no one was held responsible for her death. The decision triggered public demonstrations in Louisville and around the country; two officers were shot in a subsequent protest in the city. On another note, the local Courier Journal is an excellent resource for the inside track on the people and issues. I subscribed. A good review of the case and decision is below.
New York Times
Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit highlights racial disparities in health care
The difference in health, outcomes and longevity based on race have long been a problem in the U.S., and the coronavirus pandemic offers a unique opportunity to remedy the entire health delivery ecosystem, experts agreed at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference on Thursday. “Obviously this is systemic, so for us to say at this point in time that we’re just learning about this [disparity] would be somewhat disingenuous,” said Rhonda Mims, the regional vice president of community affairs at Centene Corporation. “We at Stanford medicine often talk about how zip codes are the greatest predictor of our long term health, more than genetic health,” said Priya Singh, chief strategy officer at Stanford Medicine.
Fortune
Can advertising move beyond its colonization of Black culture? Bennett D. Bennett, principal at content firm Aerialist and co-founder of advocacy organization 600 & Rising—and dear friend to raceAhead—has some powerful ideas on how the advertising industry could finally live up to its promise of meaningful diversity. But he starts with a powerful question. “What could advertising look like when Black talent matters as much as our lives and culture do?” In this exceptional digital package for Adweek, he points to a host of people who have been doing the work in part by investing in underrepresented talent and working around status quo thinking. Enjoy.
Adweek
If you’re looking for the future of business, look no farther than our annual Change the World list, published this week. This list—our sixth—shows a clear trend: Collaboration, even among rivals, in service of a better world. The “vaccine makers” came in at number one, a natural place to find rapid collaboration in a world besieged by pandemic. But the quest to achieve racial equity is an interesting twist in corporate mandates. Enjoy, and know hope.
Fortune
On Background
Emmett Till’s journey Georgia-based writer Alexandra Marvar digs into the noble work of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission (ETMC), formed by Mississippi-based advocates in 2005 in an attempt to memorialize the events of Till’s life and lynching and add the racist violence of the Jim Crow era to the area’s historical record. People in the Delta were either horrified by Till’s brutal murder or horrified by the attention it brought to the area. “Because of racial barriers, investigators and historians wouldn’t interview key witnesses for years or even decades. Others took their accounts to the grave,” Marvar writes. “The sites in Mississippi where key events took place were forgotten, became overgrown, or were quietly but defiantly razed.” What follows is a poignant record of Till’s experience in Mississippi, as laid out by the Commission’s unique Emmett Till Memory Project mobile app. Yes, it will break your heart.
Gen
Advocating for your culture at work Jaclyn Roessel grew up on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, and has worked from an early age to build cultural bridges between the two nations she calls home. In her work as an entrepreneur and director of public programs for an American Indian art and cultural center, she says she learned the importance of including outside voices in important conversations. She offers five tips for anyone who wants to be a better partner for inclusion at work. Number three really hit home: Sometimes your ideas are going to slow things down. “When I worked at the museum, I consistently provided feedback to other departments about their language and visual choices for ads,” she said. That sometimes necessitated different art or a new approach, a tough ask when time and resources are scarce. “But in the end, it gave us all the space to think through what we were communicating,” she says.
Jopwell
When father will never know best In a poignant essay, writer Lilian Min explores the new divide felt by so many first generation Americans. How do you manage when the person who raised you, and raised you well, offends your notions of social equity, race, gender roles, and justice? Raised in a middle class family, within an “East Asian diaspora bubble in Central New Jersey,” she feels herself growing apart from her family and wonders how to navigate the often difficult patriarchy of a family that oppresses as much as it protects.
The Establishment on Medium
Today's mood board


fortune--2020-09-25--‘Damn ugly’ golf shirts: Bill Murray blasted by Doobie Brothers in viral copyright letter

Actor Bill Murray is in hot water with the Doobie Brothers for using their 1972 hit “Listen to the Music” in commercials without the band’s permission. Normally, such disputes result in a quiet legal settlement—but not this time.
Instead, the Doobie Brothers’ lawyer scolded Murray in a short, hilarious letter that calls out the “Ghostbusters” and “Caddyshack” star for copyright infringement, but also lampoons his questionable acting decisions and fashion choices.
The letter, which was first reported by the Hollywood reporter, has gone viral on Twitter:
Bill Murray receives a legal demand from the Doobie Brothers. And it’s everything you’d want it to be… pic.twitter.com/R1L99yZSBj — Eriq Gardner (@eriqgardner) September 24, 2020
In the missive, Doobie Brothers attorney Peter Paterno tells Murray he can’t be bothered to look up the relevant copyright statute, but adds the actor already knows he can’t use music in ads without permission. Paterno also chides by Murray by saying the only person more inclined to do this is President Donald Trump—who recently caused a flap for using Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” against the wishes of the songwriter’s estate.
The lawyer goes on to suggest Murray faces “damnation” for his role in the box office bomb “Garfield.” And in final jab, Paterno says the band would be inclined to forgive Murray using their song to sell his line of Zero Hucks Given golf shirts—if the shirts weren’t “so damn ugly.”
The letter concludes by telling Murray in French “to pay.” The actor has yet to issue a public response to complaint but, for now, it appears the Doobie Brothers’ attorney has more than earned his money.