fortune--2020-08-11--Jim Hackett is leaving Ford. Will his design-driven strategy remain?

Of the many CEOs to endorse the idea of putting design at the center of corporate decision-making, no Fortune 500 boss has done so as explicitly and as enthusiastically as Ford’s Jim Hackett.
From his first day on the job in 2017, Hackett, a former office furniture CEO with no previous auto industry experience, defined his mission as reshaping Ford’s culture, not just selling more cars. He vowed to strip away layers of bureaucracy, infuse the 117-year-old manufacturer with the entrepreneurial ethos of Silicon Valley, and foster a “human-centric” approach to product development.
The goal, Hackett argued, was to look beyond quarterly returns and tackle Ford’s long-term challenges. To thrive in an age of artificial intelligence, hyper-connectivity, and driverless electric vehicles, he said, Ford must compete with the likes of Google, Amazon, and Tesla, not just Toyota and General Motors. To those ends, Hackett enlisted the aid design gurus at IDEO, the San Francisco-based consultancy that helped to popularize the idea of “design thinking,” and built an entirely new design studio, D-Ford, inside the carmaker.
It was an exhilarating vision. But Wall Street never bought it. On Aug. 4, Hackett announced that he will step down in October.
Analysts’ assessments of Hackett’s tenure have not been kind. Many noted that over the past three years, Ford has piled on debt without improving sales. Critics faulted the company for poor execution and taking too long to make decisions. As the Wall Street Journal notes, Ford stumbled last year in rolling out a crucial redesign of the Explorer SUV, while quality problems on some of its models have led to huge increases in warranty costs. Operating profits slumped for all three years.
The company’s stock price, which had fallen to about $11 when Hackett took over from Mark Fields, slid to $7 dollars as of last week—although it rallied a bit on news of his exit.
My Fortune colleague Shawn Tully’s verdict: “As it turned out, what doomed Hackett was his failure to address what a bloated automaker needs most: a basic restructuring to squeeze far more dollars in profit from a shrunken, highly-efficient base of plants and design centers.”
Hackett’s successor, chief operating officer Jim Farley, is a veteran Toyota executive who joined Ford in 2007. He has been widely described as a traditional “car guy,” and hailed by many as just what Ford needs to get back on track.
“We believe Farley brings a greater sense of urgency and action,” Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy said in an investor note last week.
That may be. But the criticism is overdone. Hackett was an unorthodox choice for CEO in the first place. As Matthew DeBord notes in Business Insider, that’s precisely the reason chairman Bill Ford offered him the job. Ford was a mess when Hackett inherited it. He moved quickly to axe Ford’s unprofitable sedan lineup and shift production to SUVs and electric vehicles. And Hackett’s focus on changing Ford’s approach to design and product development is about to pay off.
In 2021, Ford will launch several new models that look like they could be game-changers for the company: a feature-packed redesign of its best-selling F-150 truck that has debuted to rave reviews; an all-new line up of Bronco SUVs that will vie with Jeep Wrangler for America’s most popular off-road car; and the Mustang Mach-E, an electric version of its iconic muscle car.
Car and Driver gets it. “Ford is no longer asking its customers what they want to drive,” the magazine observed in a recent assessment of Ford’s 2021 offerings. “It’s asking them who they are, and then providing a range of choices based on the answer.”
For designers and CEOs alike, the key takeaway here is that cost-consciousness and design thinking must go hand in hand. It is not that Hackett’s focus on design was misguided.
Clay Chandler
– clay.chandler@fortune.com
NEWS BY DESIGN
Planning
The U.K. government made sweeping changes to planning permissions, granting automatic approval to new homes. The government says the revamp will address the housing shortage, but a number of architects and housing charities have warned the deregulation could lead to low quality housing. The president of the Royal Institute of British Architects said "these shameful proposals do almost nothing to guarantee the delivery of affordable, well-designed and sustainable homes."
Copy that
As TikTok struggles to survive in the U.S., Facebook-owned Instagram officially launched its knock-off service, Reels. The in-app function lets users record and share short videos set to music and is the second attempt by Facebook to imitate TikTok’s success. A previous flop, called Lasso, was shuttered last month. The copycat behavior begs the question whether Facebook has lost its innovative edge.
Colorful cotton
A team of Australian scientists might have discovered how to make cotton grow in a variety of colors, creating a material that can be woven into colorful clothing without the use of toxic dyes.
Vote
Snapchat will release new features next month to prepare U.S. users for the national election in November. The majority of young, first-time voters get information on how to vote from college campuses—but with the pandemic hampering in-person attendance, social media will be more pivotal. Snapchat has helped users vote before. In 2018, the social media app sent all U.S. users over the age of 18 a voter registration link ahead of the midterm elections.
Close shave
MIT scientists took a look at why razor blades dull so quickly when the steel of the razor is so much stronger than the hair it’s cutting. Their findings could point the way to longer lasting razors but doesn’t answer whether—or how—razor companies can turn away from built-in obsolescence.
Back to school
Summer is drawing to an end but the pandemic rages on. For schools, that means implementing new scheduling and uniform systems to keep infection rates down. Here’s a look at how countries in Europe are managing. And, from Fortune’s latest print issue, here’s a fresh look at how the pandemic will change offices
Bling
Also, from our magazine, try this Q&A with David and Sybil Yurman, founders of one of the first designer names in fine jewelry.
MOST POWERFUL WOMEN
A little break from the news to make a request.
Fortune's Most Powerful Women issue will be published in November and we’re collecting nominations to include on the annual Most Powerful Women lists. The lists—one focused on U.S.-based executives and one focused on execs based outside the U.S.—have long relied on four criteria: the size and importance of the woman’s business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman’s career, and her social and cultural influence.
This year, there's a new criterion: how the executive wields her power to shape her company and the wider world for the better. (Examples might include, introducing—and maintaining—hazard pay for frontline employees during the pandemic, instituting gender/racial pay parity, creating a program or business unit that serves a disadvantaged population, measurably reducing the company’s carbon footprint, or creating new hiring pipelines that have resulted in a more diverse workforce.) We’re accepting submissions through this online form until August 24. So if you have any nominations, please send them in.
EVENTS BY DESIGN
August
Web design conference Beyond Tellerrand has rescheduled its August event in Berlin to September next year. However, organizers hope their event in Düsseldorf will continue as re-scheduled in November
Copenhagen’s NordDesign festival, with its focus on industrial and product design, will be online this year, August 12-24
The 6th International Conference on Design Creativity will continue as scheduled August 26-28, but will be online rather than in Finland, as initially planned.
Hong Kong’s Knowledge of Design Week will also run online this year, from August 26 to September 3.
September
London Design Festival has decided to go ahead September 12-20, with a stripped-down offline program that will target Londoners much more than international visitors. Other events will be online. The organizers are still figuring out how exactly to proceed.
Design Matters in Copenhagen appears to be carrying on, too, September 23-24, although it is now selling tickets to view a livestream of the event.
November
Dubai’s inaugural architecture festival, d3 Architecture Festival, will run November 11-13 on the sidelines of Dubai Design Week. The event will focus on sustainability—an existential issue for the desert city.
QUOTED BY DESIGN
“With no real end in sight, brick-and-mortar businesses are forced to not only make hasty design choices that will allow them to reopen, but also consider an unknown future. They’ll need to move away from the former trend of creating a flashy, Instagramable experience to focus on core values that directly consider and benefit customers, employees, and the environment’s well-being.”
Lauren Chipman, CEO of Chipman Design Architecture, speaks to Fortune about how brick and mortar businesses can redesign themselves for the new era.
This week’s edition of BxD was curated by Eamon Barrett. Email him tips and ideas at eamon.barrett@fortune.com


fortune--2020-08-11--Vladimir Putin says his daughter has received Russia’s first approved COVID-19 vaccine

When does the extra $ 400 unemployment benefit start ?
Everything to know about Trump ’ s executive order

President Vladimir Putin said Russia has registered its first COVID-19 vaccine, calling it an effective protection against the deadly pathogen, and disclosed that one of his own daughters had already received it.
“As far as I know, this morning the first vaccine against the novel conoravirus infection in the world was registered this morning,” Putin said Tuesday at a televised government meeting.
The announcement represents a propaganda coup for the Kremlin amid a global race to develop vaccines against the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 750,000 people, infected more than 20 million and crippled national economies. Companies including AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc. are still conducting final-stage trials of their vaccines in studies that are expected to soon yield results. Some pharmaceutical companies have called Russia’s rushed registration dangerous.
The vaccine, which is being developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute and the Russian Direct Investment Fund, began Phase 3 trials last week. Medics could begin receiving the vaccine by the end of the month, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said at the meeting.
The news comes as daily COVID-19 cases in Russia dipped below 5,000 for the first time since April 23 as the number continues a slow decline from its May peak. The seven-day moving average has fallen for the last 31 days, with new cases less than half of the 11,656 reported on May 11.
The number of new cases has fallen across Russia after a nationwide lockdown that ended in mid-May. Life has returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity, according to a self-isolation index based on location data gathered by internet company Yandex.
Russia has nearly 900,000 people diagnosed with COVID-19, the fourth-most confirmed cases in the world. It had over 27,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the second quarter, according to Federal Statistics Service data published this week.


fortune--2020-08-11--A fuller picture is emerging about what jobs will—and won’t—be coming back after coronavirus

Banks stand to make billions from the pandemic .
How can that filter down to everyday Americans ?

The biggest single challenge raised by the pandemic crisis is retooling the broken jobs machine that was roaring just months ago.
In May and June, the U.S. labor market staged the fastest, sharpest upswing in history, albeit from extremely depressed levels. That surge raised hopes that outsize, durable monthly job gains would spearhead a rapid recovery from the pandemic-driven lockdown that sank national income at a 33% annualized rate in the second quarter, the biggest drop in postwar history.
The Department of Labor’s eagerly awaited “Employment Situation” survey for July, released Aug. 7, is bound to curb that enthusiasm. It shows that the U.S. added 1.76 million jobs during the month. That number was certainly decent, beating economists’ forecasts of 1.48 million. But it marks a deceleration from the astounding gain of 4.8 million in May and lesser but still impressive 2.5 million increase in June. Investors, who cheered the last two reports and hiked stock prices in expectation of a rapid return to good times, were unimpressed.
The widely reported headline number, the change in nonfarm employment, comes from the Department of Labor’s July payroll survey of 145,000 businesses. The unemployment rate is calculated from another set of data assembled in the Household Survey that polls millions of families on pay, entries, and exits from the workforce, and other broad labor market trends. The Household Survey reports that 144 million Americans had jobs in July, a cataclysmic fall from a record 159 million in February. To make matters worse, the “labor force,” the number of Americans who either have jobs or are looking, has shrunk by 3.9 million since mid-2019. Bleak prospects have so discouraged many job seekers that they’ve given up. Those nearly 4 million dropouts aren’t counted as “unemployed.” So the official jobless rate actually understates the legions of Americans who can and want to work but aren’t getting paychecks.
Where the jobs are—and aren’t
The report also shows two major crosscurrents: The huge losses are concentrated in several devastated, consumer-facing sectors, while industries catering to the new pandemic-driven lifestyle and spending patterns are hiring briskly. In the past year, all retail businesses have lost 900,000 jobs or 6% of their total pre-COVID payrolls, though stores, restaurants, and the like have gained back over 1 million positions since April. In air transportation, the rolls have fallen by 115,000 or almost a quarter, and the losses keep climbing. Leisure and hospitality have been pummeled, shrinking by 4.8 million jobs or 28%, despite recouping around 3 million positions since April. Taking the brunt of the damage are hotels, where four in 10 jobs have vanished, and restaurants and bars that have sent home one-fifth of last year’s staff—stranding 2.6 million cooks, waitresses, and managers. Healthcare took a lesser hit of 600,000 positions, or 3.5%, as many physicians’ offices closed for months.
The data also displays surprising pockets of strength in COVID-resistant industries. Computer and electronics products are even with last year with a 1.1 million total payroll, and jobs in making and selling PCs and other computers, staples for the work-at-home economy, are up sharply. The headcount of couriers and messengers has jumped 143,000 or 18%, following the boom in home deliveries. Building materials and garden supply store employment has risen by 45,000, to 1.37 million, as families stuck at home find a new hobby in refurbishing their abodes. General merchandise stores, including warehouse emporia and supercenters offered by the likes of Walmart and Amazon, big beneficiaries of the surge in online shopping, added 140,000 workers since mid-2019.
The big underlying crisis? The pandemic crisis is on track to permanently destroy many millions of positions, even more than were lost for good in the Great Recession. The vanished paychecks from the lockout’s losers—think airlines—can be replaced only by a big wave of hiring from its winners, burgeoning players from online shopping to videoconferencing gear. Those businesses benefit from the mainly digital trends reshaping the ways Americans live, play, and earn, such as working from home offices, the suburban housing revival, streaming entertainment, and shifts to online shopping and telemedicine.
Regaining that lost ground requires getting hundreds of thousands more people each month entering these newly created, post-pandemic jobs than the hordes exiting the industries pounded by the upheaval. In other words, the spigot of new positions created by the post-COVID lifestyle needs to run full blast, so that a lot more water is coming in than draining out, making the level in the “employment tub,” total Americans at work, keep rising at a strong, steady pace.
The U.S. economy’s great dynamism practically guarantees that eventually we’ll drive joblessness back down to at least the historic average, in median-good times, of 5% or lower. The danger is that it may take an unusually long time. The slower the pace in replacing the many millions of positions that disappeared and will expire in the months ahead with the new generation of jobs, the greater the pain of elevated bankruptcies, credit card defaults, and foreclosures.
Unfortunately, our economy faces three major hurdles in getting the employment spigot to pour forth rather than trickle. First, even if national income manages to regain 2019 levels in 2021, joblessness will remain a lot higher because layoffs are heavily tilted to relatively low-paying positions in such sectors as tourism, stores, restaurants, and hotels that will return more slowly. Second, a surge in job creation won’t happen right away, because even companies in the strong post-COVID sectors will be reluctant to hire rapidly until they witness a strong recovery building.
Third, the government’s programs that protect workers, though they’re supporting take-home pay, provide an incentive for companies to keep workers they eventually intend to lay off on their payrolls. That discourages people who would have rapidly switched to the new generation of jobs offered in the new economy. Upshot: At best, the U.S. will wrestle the jobless rate to the mid-6% range by the end of 2021, meaning that some 4 million fewer American will be bringing home paychecks.
The jobs that aren’t coming back
An excellent report updated in late July, COVID-19 Is Also a Reallocation Shock, provides one of the best guides to how many positions are going for good, and how rapidly the jobs catering to the post-COVID consumer will take their place. It’s based on the Survey of Business Uncertainty that polls 1,000 companies each month to gauge their plans for employment, expectations for sales, workplace practices, and other factors. The SBU is conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, in cooperation with economists Steven J. Davis of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Nick Bloom of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
In the April survey, companies stated that they don’t intend to rehire 23% of the workers they’ve laid from March 1 to mid-May, the period when the big job reductions happened. But Davis, Bloom, and the new report’s third author, Jose Maria Barrero of ITAM business school in Mexico City, find that historically, a lot of layoffs thought to be temporary at the time don’t actually lead to bringing workers back. When you adjust for that pattern, it’s more likely that around one-third—rather than closer to one-quarter—of the positions actually gone for good. The authors cite two studies on the outcomes in other major downturns that also show that on average, about a third of layoffs result in permanent losses.
The authors point out that 27.9 million people filed for unemployment claims in the six weeks ending April 25. If one-third of those lost positions don’t return, as past trends indicate, the U.S. by mid-2021 will have 9.2 million fewer jobs concentrated in hard-hit sectors from auto manufacturing to restaurants to airlines than in February of this year, and they’re gone forever. In an interview with Fortune, the University of Chicago’s Davis confirmed that the 9.2 million figure is “a reasonable estimate of the permanent job losses from COVID-19.”
Of course, many of the lost jobs in airlines, restaurants, bars, and hotels will come back, though many others will counted among the 9.2 million casualties. The authors posit that the rehiring that does happen will happen slowly. That’s because so many consumers will avoid activities that bring them in close proximity to lots of people. It will take a long time for folks who’ve been practicing social distancing to return en masse to bars, movie theaters, casinos, hotels, or to jet to Paris or Rio on vacation.
It’s the combination of workers’ slowly returning to their old jobs and a lag in the birth of the new jobs enticing to the post-COVID consumer—those needed to fill the void—that will make the comeback a long slog.
What’s working
The authors cite that in some ways this is a tale of two Americas. In April, U.S. companies still posted 4.4 million job openings, and even though that number is 29% lower than in April, it shows that at the same time layoffs are surging, hiring remains remarkably strong. Online grocery sales are up 450% from August of 2019, the report notes, and 24% from April to May. Walmart has taken on 235,000 new employees since mid-March, Lowe’s added 30,000 in the spring, and Dollar General, benefiting from strapped bargain hunters flocking to dollar stores, recently raised its payroll by 50,000.
Three-hundred thousand shoppers joined Instacart, while Domino boosted its fleet of pizza delivery drivers by 10,000. These new jobs arrived fast. But elsewhere it will take time for companies to plan or retool new plants, build new supply chains, or overcome regulatory hurdles. Plus, employers want to see signs the economy’s on the mend before committing to big new capital investments.
Davis tells Fortune that getting back to a 6% jobless rate sometime by the end of 2021 “would be a big success that would take good policy and good fortune.” The Congressional Budget Office is projecting unemployment at 7.4% for the end of 2021. That’s more than double the fabulous number in February, and it means about 5 million more people will be without jobs 18 months from now than were banking checks early this year. The bounce-back started great in May, then shifted to good in June and pretty good in July. Soon the bounce will be gone, supplanted by the biggest transition in memory from old-line jobs to those serving a consumer who’s suddenly shopping and living far differently than a few months ago.
The rub is that the destruction happened in a downward rush, and the creation will be just the opposite: a long, clawing climb back.


fortune--2020-08-11--What do you do when your business disappears overnight?

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
What do you do when your business disappears overnight? That’s what happened to Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian in April, when the pandemic cut the hotel company’s global business by 94%. “A shocking loss of demand,” he said. “We had never been in anything quite like it.”
Hoplamazian was my guest this week on the podcast Leadership Next (Apple/Spotify). I was eager to talk with him because he’s always struck me as a leader with a strong focus on Hyatt’s corporate purpose, which is rooted in empathy—caring for employees so in turn they care for hotel guests. How do you care for employees when you no longer have the means to do so?
“There is no question that this has been the most difficult and most challenging period of time I’ve ever experienced, as a person,” he said. “The business was unrecognizable. The steps we had to take to manage through it were very painful. There was a very human impact that was devastating.”
Yet Hoplamazian said he has “been so incredibly humbled by the outpouring of appreciation and care that I’ve felt from those who are being impacted…It was incredible testimony to the deep humanity that exists within this company.” He hopes increased empathy may be a broader legacy of the crisis. “Now when people ask ‘How are you doing,’ they really mean it. That sense of care and real focus and attention is extraordinarily powerful, and I hope that stays with us forever.”
Hoplamazian is confident that travel will eventually return to pre-pandemic levels… and beyond. “Long term, I am 100% sure that we are going to see a massive resurgence in travel, because there is this incredible impulse to want to connect and be with people, on a personal level and on a business level. Once we have a vaccine, I think we are going to see a resurgence of demand the likes of which we haven’t seen before.”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
McDonald's vs Easterbrook
McDonald's has taken the unusual step of suing its former CEO, Steve Easterbrook, which it accuses of lying, concealing evidence, and fraud. The suit alleges Easterbrook, who was sacked eight months ago for sexting with a subordinate, actually conducted sexual relationships with three employees, one of whom he gave shares. New York Times
Tech vs Trump
Big Tech–Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, Netflix–filed an amicus brief yesterday in an effort to overturn the U.S.'s temporary ban on H-1B and other visas. The brief read: "The suspension of these vital non-immigrant visa programs will stifle innovation, hinder growth, and ultimately harm U.S. workers, businesses, and the economy more broadly in irreparable ways." Fortune
Gig economy
Uber and Lyft will have to reclassify their Californian drivers as employees, unless they succeed in their appeal against a Monday court injunction. California Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman: "It's this simple. Defendants’ drivers do not perform work that is ‘outside the usual course’ of their business. Defendants’ insistence that their businesses are ‘multi-sided platforms’ rather than transportation companies is flatly inconsistent with the statutory provisions that govern their businesses as transportation network companies, which are defined as companies that ‘engage in the transportation of persons by motor vehicle for compensation.’" The Verge
COVID carriers
President Trump is reportedly considering blocking U.S. citizens and permanent residents from entering the country if they are suspected of being infected with the novel coronavirus. The American Civil Liberties Union says such a move would be unconstitutional. Reuters
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Vaccine push
Even in the very-best-case scenario, it would take until well into 2021 for a coronavirus vaccine to reach most of the American public. That's according to interviews and remarks from top specialists, including Anthony Fauci. And of course, that's assuming success in developing such a vaccine this year. Also check out Jeremy Kahn's deep report into AstraZeneca's vaccine-development efforts. Fortune
Brain drain
Many Black American professionals move abroad and stay there. Why? As one executive, Shaundra Clay, told Fortune's Beth Kowitt: "You’re an American, you’re not African-American...You are not made to feel like you are carrying the burden of anything. You are carrying the power of something." Kowitt writes that many of her interviewees "said they had not realized how heavily the stress of being Black in America weighed on them until they left. Even when they faced bias abroad, they never feared for their lives or their children’s the way they did in the U.S." Fortune
Trump's orders
There's a big legal debate over the pandemic-relief executive orders President Trump signed Saturday. So, can he create a $400 weekly federal unemployment benefit without Congress's approval? Fortune's Jeff John Roberts explains: "While a handful of other legal scholars, such as Josh Blackman, read Trump's move as constitutional, they are a minority view. Most commentators, including the Wall Street Journal's editorial board—a vocal supporter of the President—view the plan to pay $400 as outside the law." Fortune
Say cheese
The U.K.'s trade secretary has put a new roadblock in front of an already-agreed trade deal between her country and Japan, in the form of…blue cheese. Liz Truss, a noted British-cheese advocate, is insisting that the trade deal boost sales of Stilton cheese in Japan—a characteristic that would apparently provide a symbolic advantage over the deal the U.K. already had with Japan as part of the EU. Financial Times
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-08-11--How Hyatt’s CEO is leading with empathy through COVID-19 and a corporate reckoning with racism

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Hyatt Hotels CEO Mark Hoplamazian likes to lead with empathy for his workers and his customers. But on the Aug. 11 episode of Leadership Next, the Fortune podcast about the changing role of business leadership, host Alan Murray asks, “How do you lead with empathy when your business is falling apart?”
The company’s bookings were down 94% year over year in April, Hoplamazian said, and the business environment was unrecognizable. So to lead his company through the pandemic the right way, he said his leadership team had to take a step back to get acclimated to the new and ever-changing coronavirus business landscape.
“It’s been the most challenging time in our industry, in the history of the industry,” he said.
The company laid off around 1,300 people at the corporate level, amounting to 35% of staff. And at the hotel level, which usually keeps 130,000 people on payroll, the layoffs, furloughs, and work leaves are still unfolding as government assistance dwindles and demand builds back up slowly.
These layoffs took a serious toll on Hoplamazian, who called it “the most difficult and challenging time that I’ve ever experienced as a person.”
To deliver these decisions with as much empathy as possible, he and his leadership team made them promptly, to avoid uncertainty, and they set up a care fund to enhance the financial safety net laid-off employees would be receiving from the government. The company also created a platform on which people could keep in touch with and support those who no longer have access to company email.
On top of the coronavirus pandemic, Hoplamazian has also been focusing on the corporate reckoning with systemic racism spurred by George Floyd’s death and the resulting protests across the world. Around the 19:45 mark, he and Murray discuss Hyatt’s response and the personal effect the push for equity and inclusion has had on him.
Hoplamazian said he believes that the vulnerability that COVID-19 has created allowed the movement for equity and inclusion to prosper in a way that will have long-term effects on the business world and society at large.
“My own personal journey in this has been now—and I’m embarrassed to say this—to really understand, probably for the first time, how deep systemic racism is and also how much of an ecosystem it requires in order to rectify,” Hoplamazian said. “I think we’re seeing the whole forest now, not just the individual trees of representation or minority content in our supply chain, but seeing how this extends to our communities. And that to me is the major difference.”
To hear Hoplamazian’s views on mask requirements at his hotels, executive compensation, why testing is so important for the hospitality industry, and how the pandemic will change travel for good, listen to the full episode.


fortune--2020-08-11--Investors drive global stocks higher as the S&P 500 nears record territory

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.
Good morning, Bull Sheeters. The Dow goes for eight straight, and the S&P 500 is within 1%—a mere 33 points—of its February all-time high. The latest rally comes as the global coronavirus toll tops 20 million. It took six months to hit the first 10 million and just six weeks to double that tally. (A reminder: six weeks is not a long time.)
Let’s see where investors are putting their money on this risk-on day.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are mostly higher with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up 2.1% in afternoon trade.
are mostly higher with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up in afternoon trade. There’s a silver lining—for now—in the fate of Next Digital , the media outlet started by Hong Kong Media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai who was arrested Monday under Beijing’s contentious new national security law. Next Digital shares soared as much as 210% after support of Lai’s plight reverberated across social media.
, the media outlet started by and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai who was Monday under Beijing’s contentious new national security law. Next Digital shares soared as much as after support of Lai’s plight reverberated across social media. The Trump Administration’s campaign against Hauwei is taking its toll, particularly on its chips business. Production of Huawei’s high-end Kirin processors will cease on Sept. 15 as its supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), is under intense pressure by Washington to cut ties with the Chinese telecoms powerhouse.
Europe
The European bourses flew out of the gates this morning. Germany’s Dax was up 2% an hour into the trading session.
flew out of the gates this morning. was an hour into the trading session. Britain’s labor market saw its worst hit since 2009, the height of the global financial crisis. Q2 employment levels fell by 220,000. Tomorrow GDP numbers come out, and it appears the U.K. economy shrunk by more than all other G7 nations.
saw its worst hit since 2009, the height of the global financial crisis. levels fell by 220,000. Tomorrow GDP numbers come out, and it appears the U.K. economy shrunk by more than all other G7 nations. Lebanon’s prime minister Hassan Diab resigned yesterday along with the rest of the government following last week’s deadly blast and waves of street-level protests.
U.S.
The U.S. futures are trading higher. Propelled by Boeing and Caterpillar, the Dow rose for a seventh straight day on Monday. That’s despite sell-offs in most Big Tech stocks.
are trading higher. Propelled by Boeing and Caterpillar, the Dow rose for a seventh straight day on Monday. That’s despite sell-offs in most Big Tech stocks. Apple shares gained more than 1% yesterday, enough to push CEO Tim Cook into the billionaire’s club. On his watch, the company’s market cap has grown more than five-fold .
yesterday, enough to push CEO into the billionaire’s club. On his watch, the company’s has grown . A fiscal stimulus plan remains elusive and there are growing doubts Trump’s promised 400-buck unemployment benefit supplement will become a reality as states balk at the amount they have to kick in. As Jefferies analysts said in an investor note this morning: “We don’t see the President’s executive order as a game changer. Only Congress can reverse the cliff, which we still expect to be the case by September.”
Elsewhere
Gold has tumbled, down around $2,000/ounce .
has tumbled, down around . The dollar is flat.
is flat. Crude is climbing again, with Brent up 1%.
***
“V” for vaccine
Don’t be surprised if you start hearing about a different kind of V-led recovery.
Goldman Sachs this weekend released its revised U.S. GDP forecast, and it’s a bit rosier than before. That’s because Goldman sees a vaccine on the horizon, one that will be “widely distributed” by the middle of 2021. That’s it’s new baseline, which would fit more or less Anthony Fauci’s best-case scenario.
Here’s Goldman’s new take on the road ahead for the U.S. economy:
The baseline case is for US GDP to rise to 6.2% in 2021 (up from 5.6%) and for unemployment to top out at 6.5% by the end of next year (down from 7%).
As Fortune‘s Jeremy Kahn writes in his fascinating feature on drugmaker AstraZeneca, there’s a lot at stake in the race to find an antidote. “A vaccine is the key to ending the long, global nightmare of the coronavirus pandemic. It can unlock economies and save countless lives. Without it, millions more could die, and business and government will remain hostage to the virus.”
There’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about a vaccine breakthrough. There are over 160 vaccines in development. And, according to UBS, “six vaccines are now in large-scale trials globally, typically the last stage before applying for regulatory approval.”
Now, here’s the fly in the ointment. Vaccine skepticism is sky-high. According to Gallup, more than one in three Americans want nothing to do with a COVID vaccine, and that could be just enough of a margin to throw off any herd immunity effect. (The U.K. survey data isn’t much better).
Here’s the Gallup breakdown on vaccine willingness by age range, region and, yes, political affiliation:
Republicans, rural Americans and those in the 50-64 age bracket are least likely to get a vaccine jab, according to Gallup.
Even still, Wall Street right now is focusing on a vaccine hitting the market as a primary catalyst to get the global economy back to pre-pandemic levels. Judging by this morning’s rally, investors are pricing this in, too.
But, as we see here, vaccine take-up is an entirely different story.
Will the public heed the advice of public health officials and get a COVID jab? We’re struggling to get people to agree on making a painless gesture, like donning a face mask.
Wall Street would be wise to update its models to take this into account as we may in fact be facing a dreaded U-led future— one defined by an unwillingness to vaccinate.
***
Postscript
Just a note to say Postscript will return on Friday. It’s very likely a shaggy dog will make an appearance.
In the meantime, thank you all for your emails the past few days. I really appreciate the feedback.
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow… But first, more news below:
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's read
Teslanomics. Fortune asked the noted Tesla bull, Joe Osha of JMP Securities analyst, to show us the math that justifies why Elon Musk's creation should be crowned the world's most valuable automaker with a market cap north of $260 billion. His calculations, including how many cars they need to sell by 2025, are definitely worth your scrutiny.
The most "popular" trades. Day-trading app Robinhood confirmed to Fortune it's shut off a much-watched feature—the "popularity data" measure—that showed which stocks were trending. That's probably bad news for those of you still long Hertz and Kodak.
MPW. Fortune is collecting nominations for our annual Most Powerful Women lists, which publish in our November issue. The lists—one focused on U.S.-based executives and one focused on execs based outside the U.S.—have long relied on four criteria: the size and importance of the woman’s business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman’s career, and her social and cultural influence. This year we add: how the executive wields her power to shape her company and the wider world for the better. We’re accepting submissions through this online form. The deadline for applications is Aug. 24
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
“When companies increase the number of job postings on their websites, we anticipate an increase in sales and earnings in the future. When they cut them, it means some not-so-good times are likely ahead."
That's Alex Nekrasov, an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who co-authored a study on why it makes sense to check this once obscure metric to find stocks on the rise: job postings.


fortune--2020-08-11--Experts share a clearer timeline of when most Americans will get COVID-19 vaccine

Even if the most optimistic projections hold true and a COVID-19 vaccine is cleared for U.S. use in November, the vast majority of Americans won’t be able to get the shots until spring or summer next year at the earliest.
That likely timeline, based on interviews and remarks from top specialists including Anthony Fauci of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, means businesses, schoolchildren and families will continue to wait.
In an interview, Fauci, who has also been involved with White House’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine program, said it may take until well into 2021 for vaccines to reach the much of the general public.
“I would hope that by the time we get well into the second half of 2021 that the companies will have delivered the hundreds of millions of doses they have promised,” said Fauci.
The reasons are many. U.S. health regulators will have only a tiny sliver of the usual safety and efficacy data. The leading products require two doses, which will limit how many people early supplies can help. And government health officials are still developing a plan for who will get the shots, how they’ll be distributed, and how their effectiveness and safety will be tracked afterward.
“For three, to six, to nine months, there will be more people wanting a vaccine than there are vaccines,” said Stephane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna Inc., the biotechnology company developing one of the furthest-along inoculations.
Bancel said he expects his company’s product may get an emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for “a very narrow population at very high risk.” Vaccines for the general population will need full FDA approval, which will likely take significantly longer, he said in an interview.
Those comments run counter to the timeline portrayed by President Donald Trump, who has said a vaccine may be ready by election day on Nov. 3.
“I’m pushing everybody. If you had another president other than me, you wouldn’t be talking vaccines for two years. I will push it very hard,” Trump said last week during a radio interview with Geraldo Rivera. “But I’m not doing it for votes, I’m doing it because that’s the right thing to do and I’m doing it to save lives.”
On Monday in Washington, Trump echoed his ambitious timeline: “I feel strongly that we will have a vaccine by the end of the year and it’ll be put in service maybe even as we get it, because we’re all set militarily, we’re using our military to distribute the vaccine.”
Limited Access
Operation Warp Speed seeks to do what’s never been done before: research, develop and produce a vaccine for a new virus in months. It’s a monumental, risky undertaking that will probably result in billions of dollars of waste, but could shave years off of typical development timelines. But even if it’s successful, warp speed will move faster for some people than others. Two other key government officials described a gradually widening trickle of access over months and months, not the sudden, widespread availability of a vaccine.
During an Aug. 7 presentation to a panel of experts convened by the National Academy of Medicine, which is helping decide who will be first in line for a shot, Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Moncef Slaoui said significant production ramp-up should start in November. It will continue accelerating over the following months until it is producing a “very large number of doses” on a monthly basis in the second quarter of 2021, Slaoui said.
Along with $8 billion in U.S. funds granted for vaccine development and manufacturing through Warp Speed, the Health and Defense departments have doled out contracts totaling almost $500 million to increase domestic manufacturing of vials and prefilled syringes for COVID-19 vaccines. The consulting company Deloitte also has a $15 million contract to track vaccine distribution and administration. The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On July 27, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins warned that the first round of vaccines will be carefully allocated.
“There will be tens of millions of doses at the time that the first vaccine gets approved,” Collins said. “It won’t be enough for everybody, and so decisions will have to be made about priorities.”
Vaccine trials typically require tens of thousands of patients and months of follow up to show they’re safe enough to give to healthy people. A lack of long-term data could limit access until health officials can better assess any risks.
Moderna’s trial has signed up about 10% of the 30,000 people it aims to enroll, Fauci said on Aug. 6. Trial participants need to get the shots, which are spaced apart, and then be monitored to find out if they get infected or have any side effects.
By the early fall, the FDA may only have a few weeks of data. That may be enough to give the shot to health-care and other front-line workers and other groups at higher risk from the virus, but it almost certainly won’t be enough for lower-risk people.
That data won’t come until next year, said Geoffrey Porges, an analyst at SVB Leerink, in a July 20 note to clients.
The first announcement of federal clearance for a vaccine will more likely become a political event “with the reality of the availability, effectiveness and utility of the vaccine falling far short of the promotion by government officials,” he said.
Early Plans
Despite the demand for a vaccine and the logistical challenges of rolling it out to hundreds of millions of Americans, the Trump administration is still early in the planning phases for how that immense effort will go.
The Department of Defense and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected to be heavily involved, and the role of the private sector is less clear.
“It may not be going through CVS,” Fauci told Bloomberg, referring to the drugstore chain CVS Health Corp. “The DOD together with the CDC is getting very involved in how you get the supply chain to the people. That has not yet been worked out.”
The Warp Speed program is also looking at using the military, said Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said during a press briefing July 30.
The Defense Department is examining “how do we take advantage of the commercial capability of the private sector to handle things like distribution, and where will either the DOD step in to help manage that process, or if necessary will DOD be required to step in and actually physically deliver items itself,” he said.
At least four states, California, Minnesota, North Dakota and Florida, are helping develop the early stages of a plan to distribute vaccine once it’s available, CQ Roll Call reported on Monday. The early stage plan is meant to explore “model approaches” on vaccine distribution, the publication reported, describing the program as a highly preliminary effort.
In a message to Bloomberg, California’s Department of Public Health described the program as a “joint planning mission.” Florida’s health department confirmed its participation, though said no agenda for the meeting had been set.
In the meantime, companies and scientists developing the vaccines are rushing to get data to back their use, or move onto more promising targets.
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, which have a competing vaccine, are also signing up patients. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said at a Washington Post event last week that the drugmaker expects rapid approval from the FDA, at least for emergency use, and will have enough of the shot to begin distribution this fall.
“The main goal right now is to make sure we have a vaccine,” Bourla said. “There are two enemies — the virus, and time.”


fortune--2020-08-11--Big Tech defends H-1B visas against Trump’s ‘un-American’ crackdown

America’s largest tech firms are taking on U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Monday, a group of companies that included Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, and Netflix filed an amicus brief in a California court arguing against the U.S.’s temporary ban on H-1B and other visas. Trump announced the visa suspensions on June 22 and said they would last until at least the end of 2020.
“The suspension of these vital nonimmigrant visa programs will stifle innovation, hinder growth, and ultimately harm U.S. workers, businesses, and the economy more broadly in irreparable ways,” the Monday brief said.
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The move throws the weight of the U.S. tech industry behind a lawsuit filed in July by leading business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, against the U.S. government over Trump’s order.
U.S. tech firms got involved in the lawsuit because they depend heavily on the H-1B visa program that allows U.S. companies to hire foreign talent. H-1B visas are granted to foreign workers with “specialized knowledge” and are primarily used by tech companies to hire individuals from India. In 2019, roughly 65% of H-1B visa holders in the U.S. worked in computer-related occupations, and Amazon, Google, and Facebook were among the companies with the most employees on H-1B visas.
In June, Trump said that the visa ban was necessary owing to the U.S.’s “extraordinary” economic contraction amid the pandemic and argued that issuing visas to foreign workers posed “an unusual threat” to American workers.
Immediately following the June order, top tech executives expressed opposition to the move.
“Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American dream,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Twitter in June. “There is no new prosperity without both. Deeply disappointed by this proclamation.”
Monday’s brief called the ban “fundamentally un-American” and said it would do “irreparable damage” to the country’s economy.
Trump’s ban “prevents U.S. companies from attracting the world’s best and brightest, and deprives those innovative, highly skilled individuals of opportunities to further America’s short-term recovery and long-term economic growth,” the brief said.
Google, Spotify, and Bloomberg together filed a separate request to support the lawsuit against the temporary visa ban.
Big Tech’s defense of the H-1B visa comes as the Trump administration continues to crack down on the program, even beyond the June ban. Last week, Trump signed an executive order to bar H-1B visa holders from replacing American workers on federal contracts.


fortune--2020-08-11--The forgotten history of women’s suffrage in the United States

Of the many thousands of women who showed up for the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017, likely very few knew about the Woman Suffrage Procession of 1913. So much of suffrage history has been forgotten, the good and the bad.
The 100th anniversary of ratification of the 19th Amendment, taking place this Aug. 18, has brought to light many stories of the struggle for the women’s vote, perhaps none a more troubling object lesson than the 1913 Procession.
Held the day before newly elected Democrat Woodrow Wilson was sworn into office for his first term, more than 8,000 women marched “in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded,” according to the day’s official program. In other words, women demanded the vote.
The front of that same program depicted a young white woman on a white horse at the head of the procession, her hair styled in a sleek bob in Joan of Arc meets “New Woman” flapper fashion. There really was such a woman at the head of the 1913 march: Inez Milholland, who would, like Joan of Arc herself, quite literally die for the cause. There was so much courage involved in the fight for women’s right to vote. There was also racism. When march organizer and suffrage strategist Alice Paul told Black suffragists to march in the back that day, journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells wouldn’t have it.
What follows is an excerpt from my book, She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next.
Author Bridget Quinn Courtesy of Chronicle Books
Daybreak March 3, 1913, was clear and cold, with zero chance of rain or snow. The day before the inauguration of the 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was an excellent day for a suffrage parade.
Ida B. Wells might have sat on her boardinghouse bed that morning pulling on first one pair of stockings, then another. Behind her on the coverlet may have lain the dark shapes of her heaviest skirt and coat, a thick fur muff alongside them. Bright beside those, a curving white hat covered in stars, with matching scarf and pennant. The stars signified states with full suffrage. The other side of the scarf declared in bold black letters: Illinois. Her home state. Wells no doubt assumed she’d be alone in a sea of white women, but she wasn’t afraid to stand out. Her creed, always: “One had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap.”
‘Deeds not words’ was to be our permanent motto. —Emmeline Pankhurst
The parade’s instigator, Alice Paul, had made it clear that Wells and other Black women ought to stay home. Their presence would only complicate matters. The suffrage message should be precise, crystal clear. Which to Paul and too many others meant white.
While a defiant Wells got dressed, Paul was probably already hunched against the cold on Pennsylvania Avenue, the broad brim of her hat tipped back to better assess the long straight shot that ran from where her buttoned boots met pavement all the way to the front door of the White House. Like a general surveying the battlefield, Paul was brooding, thoughtful, with a grim countenance to match the seriousness of her aim.
I picture her plotting over every detail in her mind, pacing slowly, with barely contained energy, like a big cat assessing its prey.
In just eight hours, upwards of 8,000 women would march down Pennsylvania Avenue in orchestrated waves. Costumed, carrying signs, totally organized from tip to toe, they would broadcast their common message: “Votes for women.” There would be floats, marching bands, banners, dancing, theatrical performances, horses, and more. The setup was spectacular. At a cost of nearly $15,000 (over $382,000 in today’s dollars), raised via donations spearheaded by Paul, it had better be. Paul breathed in the crisp morning air with satisfaction and allowed herself a small smile.
Paul had grown tired of talking about women’s suffrage. After 65 years of meetings, what did suffragists have to show for themselves? Schisms and squabbles. Reunification and doldrums. And though the “founding mothers” had finally reunited their feuding organizations in 1890, what had really changed? Yes, 11 states had full suffrage, but not nearly enough. Women had a say in naming just 84 electors of the 483-member electoral college. Whispers drowned out by a roar. Paul was done with state-by-state ratification; it was time for a constitutional amendment or nothing. This parade was her shot across the bow. American women were coming for what was theirs.
***********
Like many a revolutionary American before her, Alice Paul was a Quaker, descendent of Pennsylvania’s own William Penn. So she was in some ways a born iconoclast, raised like all Quakers with the ideal of gender equity. She’d been attending suffrage meetings with her mother since shortly after her birth in 1885. Women’s equality had always been as obvious to her as air and water. A fact of nature.
But Paul didn’t become radicalized until she’d graduated from Swarthmore, earned her master’s at Penn, and moved to England to study economics. In England, she encountered the militant suffragist—a.k.a. suffragette—a variety that had yet to reach American shores. “Deeds not words” was the motto of the British version of the movement, as embodied by its leader, Emmeline Pankhurst. Alice Paul would participate in Pankhurst’s activism, then bring it home.
Let’s dive into suffragist vs. suffragette waters. We may in fact be overdue, but historically here is where the terms take on significance. You might know “suffragette” from the Mary Poppins song “Sister Suffragette,” or from “Suffragette City,” by rock god David Bowie, both of which name check a radical movement in British history. In 1906 English women fighting for suffrage had been mockingly referred to in the Daily Mail as “suffragettes.” As in, Ho ho, simmer down there, little ladies, you weaker sex, you mini-everything. To which Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union, along with other militant ladies said, Ha ha, why yes, we’re prancing, mincing suffragettes in skirts, as they planted bombs at St. Paul’s Cathedral (and elsewhere) and threw themselves under the hooves of the king’s horse. They took back the word.
Because of this association with radicalism, American women tended to prefer suffragist rather than suffragette. Counterintuitively, suffragette is the more radical term. Kind of like Riot Grrrl seizing power in language that sought to shame.
For her part, Paul was up for anything. Suffragette, suffragist, whatever. “Deeds not words” would also be her motto. Jailed seven times for her suffrage activity in Britain—a country where she wasn’t even a citizen (it was the principle of the thing)—she went on hunger strike and faced the torture of being force-fed for British women. In America, she’d risk more. Prison time, forced-feeding, attempted institutionalization for insanity, gunshots, public ridicule, and scorn. But if she was anything, Paul was a fearless PR genius, willing to go to any lengths to give newspapers something worth writing about.
***********
I’d guess Ida B. Wells—basically disinvited from the suffrage parade but going anyway—wished Paul would go to hell. Not that it’s a competition, but as an investigative journalist and internationally known anti-lynching activist with a bull’s-eye on her back, Wells was arguably the more fearless woman.
Born enslaved in Mississippi in 1862, just six months before the Emancipation Proclamation, Wells came of age in the heady years after the Civil War, nourished in the hopeful air of Black freedom, which included witnessing her father and other Black men vote. But such liberty did not last. The end of Reconstruction quickly brought racist laws aimed at bringing Blacks under the control of whites.
At age 16 Wells lost both parents and her youngest brother to yellow fever. She became a teacher and raised her seven younger siblings herself. Though head of a large household, she made less than half what white teachers made. In search of better pay, Wells moved to Memphis, where she taught during the school year and attended college in the summer. A born writer, Wells never shied away from self-expression. Here she is, age 24: “I will not begin at this late day by doing what my soul abhors; sugaring men, weak deceitful creatures, with flattery to retain them as escorts.”
An illustration of Ida B. Wells by artist Shana Dixon. Dixon is an animator and illustrator living in New Jersey. Courtesy of Chronicle Books
In 1889 Wells became co-owner and editor of the Free Speech and Headlight newspaper, where she inveighed against segregation. She highlighted egregious examples such as the school where she taught, for which she was fired by the Memphis Board of Education. But it was in the murder of her friend Thomas Moss, owner of a popular local grocery, that Wells found her unwanted calling. Moss was dragged from a Memphis jail cell—where he was being held for the crime of defending his business from white thugs—and summarily shot along with two others. Outraged, Wells exhorted the Memphis Black community in print: “There is, therefore, only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.”
An angry mob destroyed the offices of the Free Speech and Headlight and threatened to kill its editor. Wells bought a gun and moved to Chicago. There she got married, had four children, and conducted an international campaign to confront whites with the horror of lynching. “It is with no pleasure that I have dipped my hands in the corruption here exposed,” she wrote in Southern Horrors, a bestseller. “[But] somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.” She was 30 years old.
Frederick Douglass wrote to Wells in 1895. “I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison,” he said, adding, “Brave woman!” Almost 20 years later, Wells was still willing to risk everything for justice.
***********
By 9 a.m. crowds already lined the Suffrage Parade route, though the official start time wasn’t for six hours. By 3 p.m. the crowd was estimated at 500,000, many of them in D.C. for the inauguration of newly elected President Woodrow Wilson the following day. Some saw it as an amusing appetizer to the following day’s main event. Some came for the spectacle of seeing women make fools of themselves in public. Some came to be inspired and to cheer on valiant women from across the country. Many came to make trouble.
As promised by the official program, a woman on horseback led the parade. Noted labor lawyer Inez Milholland—famous for her beauty—sat tall in white on a white steed, a gold crown setting off dark curls that spilled across her shoulders and down her back. She rode ahead of a banner proclaiming, “Forward out of darkness, forward into light.”
The New York Times described the effect as “one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.” Behind Milholland came a horse-drawn float carrying the “Great Demand Banner” in dark caps against a white field: WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ENFRANCHISING THE WOMEN OF THIS COUNTRY.
In other words, We look nice; we’re not playing nice.
Following the Great Demand came seven distinct sections of marchers, including floats for each country in the world that already had national female suffrage: Australia, Finland, New Zealand, and Norway. Walking behind them were women from countries where, like the United States, women had partial suffrage. After them, women marched by profession with outfits to match, not always easy to come up with. Doctors and nurses, yes. Writers resorted to throwing ink on their clothes. Sculptor Adelaide Johnson, who would create the suffrage Portrait Monument from eight tons of Carrara marble (unveiled in 1921), marched with the artists. Many college-educated women marched with their alma maters, such as Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr. Each of the 48 states had its own parade delegation, too (like a suffrage Olympics opening ceremony); Jeannette Rankin was among those marching for Montana, and in just three years she’d be back in D.C. as the first female member of Congress. There were women dressed as Lady Liberty, as Columbia, as Greek maidens. Paul instructed marchers to wear the colors of the British suffragettes—green, white, and violet—their first letters standing for Give Women the Vote. But more marchers, not wanting to ally themselves with such a militant group, wore white and gold, the colors of international suffrage. There were four mounted brigades, nine marching bands, chariots, numerous floats, and more. In the Washington Post’s succinct subhead that day, “Floats, Bands, Skirted Cavalry, and Beauties Take Part.”
Not everyone was awed by the extravaganza. “The suffrage parade was too funny,” wrote Eleanor Roosevelt, who watched from the sidelines. She was particularly amused by the “nice fat ladies with bare legs and feet posed in tableaux on the Treasury steps!” Those fat ladies were freezing while Eleanor giggled.
Other onlookers weren’t laughing. From the beginning, men lining the route kicked, hit, and spit on women, blocking their path and nearly shutting down all forward progress. Ambulances came and went all day, and over a hundred people ended up at the local hospital. It was so contentious that, according to the Washington Post, “doctor and driver literally had to fight their way to give succor to the injured.”
The police, all men, did not come to the aid of marchers. They mostly watched in bemusement as women were spat on, struck, and groped, their costumes and banners torn, lit cigarettes thrown at them. Children in the march cried, and so did some women. One policeman reportedly told women under assault: “There would be nothing like this if you women would all stay home.” Much to their credit, a troop of Boy Scouts helped hold back the crowd by using walking sticks, and men from the Maryland Agriculture College used their bodies to form a human chain between the marchers and the crowd. A regiment of National Guard troops—present for the following day’s inauguration—interceded to clear an intersection. Finally, order was somewhat gained by Army cavalry, staged at nearby Fort Myer at Paul’s urging. The cavalry forcibly cleared a path so thousands of determined women could struggle on. The violence would prompt a Senate investigation into police culpability in failing to control the crowd and even in egging on aggression against marchers.
No one was in greater peril than the Black marchers, who were segregated in the back by design.
This, I am sorry to report, must be laid squarely at the feet of Alice Paul. Well aware that Washington, D.C., is essentially a Southern city, Paul also knew how much a constitutional amendment depended on Southern votes. So when women from Howard University, a historically Black college, petitioned Paul to walk alongside their college-educated peers, Paul demurred.
A portrait of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, by artist Jane Beaird. Beaird is a Brooklyn-based illustrator who works under the name Quiet Creature. Courtesy of Chronicle Books
For the 22 women of Delta Sigma Theta, the first Black sorority in the American Greek system and founded at Howard less than two months before, walking in the suffrage parade would be their public coming-out party. Ida B. Wells was herself an honorary member, along with suffragist and activist Mary Church Terrell, with whom she’d help found the National Association of Colored Women. As recently as January, Wells had cofounded the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago, the first African-American organization dedicated to women’s suffrage nationwide. These were committed suffragists, all.
But Paul was concerned that white women, especially Southern women, would balk at marching alongside Black women. “As far as I can see,” she told one editor, “we must have a white procession, or a Negro procession, or no procession at all.”
Letters were exchanged. Paul’s parent organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), schooled her: All women must be permitted to march. Paul had no choice then but to “allow” Delta Sigma Theta to take part, but she did not advertise their participation in the otherwise comprehensive program of the event. And she indicated that they and other Black women should march in back.
I’ve heard this direction by the undisputed general of the day phrased in various ways, such as, “Paul floated the idea of a discrete African-American group, near the back of the parade.” Or, “African-Americans were encouraged to march in a segregated group near the end of the lineup.” Floated. Encouraged. It couldn’t have been so passive as that, and Ida B. Wells knew it. “If the Illinois women do not take a stand now in this great democratic parade then the colored women are lost…I shall not march at all unless I can march under the Illinois banner,” she informed her delegation. But Illinois white women did not take a united stand in defense of Black women. The Illinois contingent told Wells to go to the back of the lineup. She refused, and when her state was well underway in the parade, Wells stepped out of the crowd and marched with them alongside her white friends Virginia Brooks and Bell Squire.
On March 5 Chicago’s Daily Tribune published a triumphant picture of Wells and her supporters en route. At least three other states—Delaware, Michigan, and New York—had not given in to segregation. Not nearly enough.
To Alice Paul, the Great Suffrage Parade of 1913 was an overwhelming success. Never had women’s suffrage received so much sympathetic national press. If it took women taking some beatings and harsh words, so be it.
But the parade illuminated yet again the racism at the heart of white suffragism. Such fixation on voting rights solely for white women would bear fruit in the limitations of the 19th Amendment itself. “A white woman has only one handicap to overcome,” wrote marcher Mary Church Terrell, “that of sex. I have two—both sex and race.” For women of color, the fight for equal voting rights would still carry on for decades.
The new book She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next (Chronicle Books, 2020) by Bridget Quinn is available to order now.


fortune--2020-08-11--The financial fallout of a canceled college football season

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August usually marks the start of the college football season—a time-honored, autumnal American tradition corresponding with the return of the academic year.
But as COVID-19 continues its spread throughout the U.S., that ritual appears to be in serious danger. The five largest college football conferences in America, known as the Power 5, are reportedly bracing for a cancellation of the upcoming football season—a move that would have wide-reaching economic consequences for scores of colleges and universities, not to mention their student-athletes and the massive industry that has grown around college sports.
College football generates more than $4 billion in annual revenue for the 65 universities making up the Power 5, according to data provided to Fortune by Patrick Rishe, director of the sports business program at Washington University in St. Louis. Combined, those schools reaped nearly $1.8 billion in profits from their football programs in 2018, for an average of $27.5 million per university.
At many of the biggest football schools in America, college football accounts for an overwhelming chunk of their overall athletic department revenues. No university generated more football-related revenue in 2018 than the University of Texas at Austin, which brought in $156 million that year—more than 72% of its athletic department’s overall turnover, according to Rishe’s analysis. That dynamic extends to other major football schools; of the 20 highest-grossing football programs in 2018, only one (Texas A&M University) drew less than 50% of its overall athletic department revenues from football.
So while the coronavirus pandemic has already forced the NCAA to cancel its annual March Madness college basketball tournament (a move that cost the governing body $375 million) and has prompted universities across the nation to scrap numerous sports ahead of the fall semester, the demise of the college football season would hurt significantly more. For many universities, football is the economic powerhouse that subsidizes other athletics—and those other programs could potentially find themselves endangered without the support of football-related revenues. Even without the specter of a canceled football season, Stanford University had to permanently cut 11 varsity sports programs last month, citing a projected $70 million budget deficit over the next three years.
According to Rishe, the loss of football ticketing revenues alone could cost Power 5 universities upwards of $1.2 billion this year. There would also be uncertainty around lucrative media rights deals that generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the nation’s most powerful athletic conferences, many of them tied to high-profile football broadcasts.
It would all put further strain on universities that are already reeling from the economic impacts of the pandemic on their overall business models. With institutions across the country bracing for lower enrollments (and a corresponding drop in tuition revenue, among other income streams), the absence of sports-related revenues would only compound the financial challenges facing universities—not to mention the surrounding college towns and localities whose economies are highly dependent on those schools.
There are also the financial futures of thousands of student-athletes to consider. The NCAA has received ample criticism in recent years for its stance on amateurism, which prohibits its athletes from being paid for their services—even as the NCAA and its member universities generate billions of dollars from student athletics.
The lack of a season this fall would throw another obstacle at those student-athletes hoping to make the leap to the professional ranks, where they stand to earn millions of dollars playing in the NFL. While the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to spring-sport athletes whose seasons were scuppered by the pandemic, it remains to be seen whether football players receive the same courtesy.
And because of the NFL’s rules around draft eligibility, it’s unclear whether players who would have otherwise been eligible to declare for next spring’s NFL draft will still be able to do so, or if they would have to wait another year.
Given the unique nature of the situation, Rishe tells Fortune that he “would expect the NCAA would allow select student-athletes to opt for the draft, so as to not impose additional financial burdens on them or their families.” According to Rishe, the average total value of an NFL rookie contract for a player selected in the first round of the draft was $17 million—resulting in a potentially “large opportunity cost value” for players forced to forgo the 2021 NFL Draft.
Representatives from the NCAA did not return requests for comment.
Many players are already collectively rallying around the cause of ensuring the 2020 college football season goes ahead—a cause that has drawn the support of President Trump. High-profile college football coaches including Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and Alabama’s Nick Saban—who, it’s worth noting, are among the highest-paid public employees in the country, and stand to gain financially from the season proceeding as planned—have also joined the chorus.
Outside of the sport itself, there is a huge economic footprint that would be negatively impacted by the cancellation of the college football season. As legalized sports betting continues to gain a foothold across the U.S., college football stands as one of the most popular sports for American bettors to wager on—and its absence would certainly hit sports-betting companies where it hurts. Shares of the publicly traded sports books DraftKings and Penn National fell Monday on the news that the Power 5 conferences are considering canceling their football seasons, and the absence of college football could cost the gaming industry tens of billions of dollars in revenue.
The coming days will surely bring more clarity around whether or not we’ll have college football this fall. Already, non-Power 5 conferences like the Mountain West are opting to forgo football, among other sports. Within the Power 5, there are conflicting reports about the route each conference intends to take. The Big Ten has reportedly already decided to cancel the 2020 season; the ACC is said to favor going ahead as planned; and the Pac-12 is expected to meet Tuesday to discuss its options.
Still, it appears increasingly likely that the powers that be will have to make a historic, difficult decision—one that would have major financial and economic implications beyond the game itself.


fortune--2020-08-12--Pinterest ex-COO claims she was fired over sex bias complaint

Everything we know so far about the second round of stimulus checks

Pinterest former chief operating officer Francoise Brougher claims in a lawsuit that she was fired in April after speaking up about gender discrimination by the company’s male-run leadership team.
Brougher claims she was excluded from board meetings and eventually fired after she complained to the human resources department about sexist comments by the company’s chief financial officer. Instead of “doing the hard work” to address her concerns, Brougher said the company chose instead to “protect the comfort” of her male peers.
Brougher also said she was paid less than her male counterparts and was criticized for not being “compliant” or “collaborative” enough. Pinterest faced similar public complaints in June by two women who worked on the company’s policy team and also claimed they were fired for speaking out about gender and racial discrimination, prompting chief executive officer Ben Silbermann to admit “parts of our culture are broken.” The company hired a team of outside lawyers to investigate.
“Her experience is common to women and minorities who do not have informal handshake relationships with their male colleagues and are regularly excluded from the rooms where decisions are made,” Brougher said in the complaint, filed Tuesday in state court in San Francisco.
Pinterest didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Brougher claims the company tried to cover up her firing, which she says cost her millions of dollars in lost earnings.
Brougher was the top female executive at Pinterest. She is a well-known in Silicon Valley and had alsoworked at Google and Square.


fortune--2020-08-12--Most Americans now fear touching cash, survey says

Dirty Money is a popular Netflix documentary. But the term could also be used to describe how many Americans feel about handling cash these days.
According to a new survey, 54% of Americans are concerned about touching coins or bills due to COVID, while 60% plan to use so-called touchless payments in the future.
The findings are based on an online survey of 600 people conducted by Rapyd, a global payments company backed by digital payment giant Stripe. The survey also found that 45% of Americans want to see pennies phased out, while 5% want all coins to be eliminated.
In an interview with Fortune, Rapyd CEO Arik Shtilman said COVID has rapidly accelerated an existing trend of Americans ditching cash for other forms of payment.
Shtilman added, though, that it will take years before the U.S. resembles Asia, where phone-based digital wallets are ubiquitous. He said this is partly due to the large number of Americans who like to pay with cash, as well as the slow process of replacing existing point-of-sale systems—which rely on consumers using physical cards and signing receipts—with machines that can read digital wallets like Apple Pay.
The move away from cash could also be accelerated by governments around the world using COVID as a pretext to reduce the amount of coins and bills in circulation, Shtilman says.
In the United States, the pandemic has already produced a coin shortage in part due to decreased activity at laundromats, transit facilities and other places where Americans spend coins.
Meanwhile, the U.S. mint scaled back its coin operations in the spring over health concerns, but returned to full production in June. According to a recent Fortune report, the mint plans to produce 17.8 coins by the end of the year—7.4 billion more than last year—suggesting the federal government does not intend to use the pandemic to accelerate a move away from cash. The U.S. Mint did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its latest plans.
And while many younger Americans rarely touch cash, a fully cashless society is still far off, at least in part by design. As Fortune reported in June, several U.S. cities have introduced law requiring merchants to accept cash—in part because millions of Americans lack access to payment cards and other tools of the banking system.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:


fortune--2020-08-11--Airbnb is close to filing for an IPO

Airbnb is close to filing for an IPO

Airbnb plans to file paperwork for a stock market listing in the next few weeks paving the way for its shares to start trading as soon as the fourth quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.
The San Francisco-based company is preparing to submit documents confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, said the people, who asked to not be identified discussing private information. The long-awaited move would represent a swift comeback for the home-sharing startup after the coronavirus pandemic sent the travel industry into a tailspin.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Airbnb was planning to file paperwork later this month. Airbnb declined to comment on the matter. The company’s plans could change as new outbreaks of the disease continue to flare in the U.S., the people said.
Airbnb is working with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on its IPO, according to a person familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky had originally wanted to take the initial steps toward a listing in March, but his plans were nixed by Covid-19. By April, Chesky was facing $1 billion in cancellations, he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in June. Travel bans and lock-downs caused planned bookings to tumble about 90% and Airbnb cut 25% of its workforce in a bid to survive. Other travel sites, like TripAdvisor Inc. and Booking Holding’s Inc., also hit crisis mode and had to eliminate thousands of jobs.
But by May, Airbnb was already seeing a rebound. The number of nights booked at U.S. listings between May 17 and June 3 was greater than during the same period the previous year, as city dwellers took advantage of work-from-home policies and escaped apartments for nearby vacation rentals. As of June 17, Airbnb’s bookings had increased 20% year over year in the U.S., according to data from market research firm AirDNA.
Prior to the pandemic, Airbnb had been leaning toward a non-traditional route to the public markets. The company was planning to follow in the footsteps of Spotify Technology SA and list directly, forgoing raising new money by selling shares and allowing its investors to put their shares on the market without waiting for a lock-up period. But the turmoil caused by the pandemic forced Airbnb to raise $2 billion in debt and equity securities in April to shore up its finances, reducing its valuation to $18 billion from $31 billion. As a result, the company decided to go the traditional IPO route to raise cash for the business, the people said.


fortune--2020-08-11--Fashion businesses are no longer a worthwhile investment

The death knell for the fashion industry—heralded for years by analysts, pundits, and consumers alike—has finally arrived. Neiman Marcus, J. Crew, Centric Brands, and Brooks Brothers are only the beginning. PVH and Gap have both lost over $1 billion this year. LVMH and Kering recently reported revenue drops of 38% and 44%, respectively, last quarter. We are witnessing the final crumbling of a tightly knit industry built on exploiting creative labor, wholesale cronyism, producing vast amounts of undesirable goods and dumping said goods into landfills.
For those familiar with the razor-thin margins and glacial pace of change found in many fashion organizations, the monstrous deficits making headlines are no surprise. For those in prominent industry networks hotly debating a revised fashion calendar, Instagram runway shows, and vaguely more controlled markdowns, you are missing the point.
Nearly every flaw in the fashion system can be traced back to a single issue: inventory.
The reliance on upfront, bulk production requires time and valuable resources to be allocated before consumers are able to indicate a preference for a style. When I produced collections on the traditional fashion calendar, I was asked to mass-produce a style 180 days before I could expect payment. I was also told a 75% sell-through rate was considered “great performance.” This casual assumption—that at least 25% of the inventory I bought months beforehand would go unsold—was a rude awakening. Wasted resources are built into the system. Imagine if upwards of 25% more revenue could be allocated to nurturing talent, sustainable sourcing, or operational development—all of which the fashion industry has become notorious for neglecting in recent years. This wastage of investment has enforced a downward spiral across the industry, where under-compensated teams in flawed supply chains unknowingly commit to producing underperforming styles without any way to recover.
When a style does not sell, there are few options to get rid of the inventory. Markdowns and off-price channels are the first ports of call. The ubiquity of these strategies has trained a generation of consumers to underestimate the value of the clothes they buy and resulted in a race to rock-bottom pricing that is unreflective of the actual cost of goods. When markdowns and off-price channels fail to sell the unwanted product, it is thrown into landfills or burned (see Burberry and H&M). Billions of dollars in clothing is discarded in this way annually, contributing levels of pollution that make the fashion industry one of the least sustainable in the world. New York City alone landfills around 100,000 tons, or 200 million pounds, of clothing every year.
The wastefulness of inventory does not stop here. As we know, the fashion cycle continues in the after-sale market. Undesirable product that is sold at a markdown is far less likely to have a productive life, is less likely to be worn frequently, to be successfully resold, or to be wanted even as a donation. These are products that serve no one well, and the existing system requires that they be made by the thousands.
A handful of businesses, including my own, have pioneered an inventory-less fashion model. It is down to this that we are weathering the current crisis without the inventory strains our competitors face. This concept is not new. Many industrial businesses, such as Toyota, have produced just-in-time for decades, though it has generally eluded apparel and accessories. There is not one right way to do this. We have partner factories that produce every item on demand within 10 business days. Betabrand vets each style by crowdsourcing. The Wylde is one of many brands producing women’s wear by preorder. What we have in common is a commitment to allocate our resources wisely, both financially and environmentally. It took nothing short of a pandemic and subsequent economic crisis for the retail giants to even take a closer look at these archaic models stifling the industry. Meanwhile, small businesses have been challenging the norm head-on for years, with profitable, impressive results not brought on by resource gluttony and dehumanizing practices.
I urge the industry to reconsider its perspective on which changes should be made in order to give fashion a fighting chance. I am among a growing number of entrepreneurs who have already tackled the digital runway show, perfected the “product drop,” and streamlined seasonal markdowns. The arguments for fewer collections, adjusted seasonality, and better websites will not result in healthier businesses if bulk inventory production still ties up resources, hamstrings design, and pollutes our planet.
The future is creative, resilient, and liberated of inventory. Anything less is no longer worth the investment.
Misha Nonoo is a fashion designer based in New York City, best known for her eponymous line of women’s ready-to-wear clothing. Nonoo is also a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).


fortune--2020-08-11--Tesla stock split makes richly valued shares reachable again

Tesla is splitting its elevated shares in a 5-for-1 exchange, a move timed to make the stock price less expensive for individual investors after a recent run-up in valuation making it the world’s largest automaker by market capitalization. Its shares surged on the news in aftermarket trading.
The Silicon Valley electric-car manufacturer said Tuesday each shareholder of record on Aug. 21 will receive a dividend of four additional shares of common stock for each then-held share. It will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis on Aug. 31.
Tesla has been a favorite stock for day traders and other retail investors, who have helped boost the shares to record highs. At one point last month, nearly 40,000 Robinhood account holders added shares of the automaker during a single four-hour span. That helped spawn a boom in shares of other electric-car companies — even those that have yet to actually produce a vehicle.
At their peak, the shares on July 20 hit a closing high of $1,643, more than quadruple a low in March of $361.22. In aftermarket trading Tuesday, Tesla rose as much as 8.4% to $1,490.


fortune--2020-08-11--Building a better world, one boot camp at a time

I’ve been thinking a lot about proximity lately; specifically, the hazy promise of the good things that can happen when you invite people who are different from each other into a clean, well-lit space to learn, collaborate, build stuff, and have fun.
Sometimes the haze clears, and the promise becomes real.
Such was the case for three young women, Toshe Ayo-Ariyo, Danielle Ho, and Sonal Patel, whom I met recently via Zoom, and who recently completed the six-month USC Viterbi Data Analytics Boot Camp.
All three are immigrants now based in southern California, and all wanted to develop their skills and grow their network. For Ho, 24, a native of Macau who currently works as a social media coordinator, it was the biggest leap. “I want to switch to data now,” she says.
Then fate intervened when they were assigned to work together on a project still to be determined. Watch proximity work. “All the students were supposed to select a group to work with. We were the only members who didn’t select any group and we were placed together,” laughs Patel, 36, a parent and self-described homemaker. “That was the most interesting part… we were all on the same page and wanted a solution to the problem we had all experienced.”
The problem is representation in the workplace. “I’ve never worked anywhere where I wasn’t the only one like me,” says Ayo-Ariyo, 24, a finance and strategy analyst for Disney. Ayo-Ariyo is a native of Nigeria who grew up mostly in Los Angeles. When it comes to corporate America, “everyone can and should do better,” she said to a Zoom array of nodding heads.
Their project started when they analyzed World Bank data to demonstrate that an increase in female workforce participation generates economic growth for countries. Then, they decided to think about what keeps women out of the workforce, which led them to the concept of bias in hiring. They ended up building a tool called Wonder Women Editor—now called UInclude —an editing application that eliminates gender-biased language from job applications and related workplace content in the hopes of encouraging more women to seek jobs and promotions.
Pressing ahead, the unlikely trio entered a pitch contest for graduates of boot camp programs, called The Next Level Contest, hosted by Trilogy Education, a brand of the ed tech company, 2U. And won.
Yachica Gonzalez, a corporate recruiter at Microsoft, was one of judges. “I found the Wonder Women Editor was the most progressive,” she tells raceAhead. “Its value proposition-—removing bias in the hiring process—addresses one of the greatest challenges in society and corporate America.”
Based on the feedback they received during the pitch process, Ayo-Ariyo, Ho, and Patel now think they can make this a business. “I want to be able to go to one place, one platform, where I can find diversity stats and opportunities with companies I’m thinking of working for,” says Ayo-Ariyo, a Black woman with a disability. They plan on building it, along with an array of data-driven tools for employers to create more inclusive workplaces.
Oh, and Y-Combinator? They’re headed your way.
I’d consider letting them in. Between them, they speak seven languages—Hindi, Gujarathi, Marathi, Cantonese, Mandarin, Yoruba and English—and share a sharp common vision of a world made better by tech.
They sure knew their way around a boot camp and pitch contest, things historically reserved for majority-culture folks. A more inclusive vision of tech helped a busy mom, a curious social media strategist, and a determined financial analyst find each other and start building.
As far as the business case for proximity goes, I think it’s a great one. More, please.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
Black middle-class progress on the income gap is threatened by the pandemic According to Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts reporting on state policy, Black middle-class families have been slowly bridging the income gap compared to their white peers in several states. Progress is spotty—while Black family incomes trail those of white families by three points in states including California, Georgia, and Texas, that is as much as 23 points in Minnesota and 21 points in Wisconsin. The difference has been small-business ownership. But the pandemic threatens to stall any progress at all: Data show the number of Black-owned small businesses dropped 41% between February and April, twice the rate of closures for white ones. Black-owned businesses concentrated in “nonessential” industries are not rebounding. "What COVID has brought out is that they have less resources to keep their doors open and keep operating," says one expert. Black college grads have also lost jobs, in direct contrast to their white counterparts.
Stateline
The lack of diversity in medicine is killing people of color My colleague, Maria Aspan, digs deep into the growing field of health care equity. The shocking lack of diversity in medicine—only 5% of all active physicians are Black, 5.8% of doctors are Latinx, and Black and Latinx women hover around 2%—requires a full-throated reckoning, she says. “These statistics rival the breathtaking lack of diversity at large tech companies,” she writes. “Now, amid a pandemic that has disproportionately killed people from those same communities, and a national reckoning over racism, some doctors and public health experts are drawing new attention to the long-standing racial inequities that damage the health of people of color in America—and that are exacerbated by the low numbers of professionals from these communities who are able to reach the highest positions in medicine.”
Fortune
Black professionals to America: Hey, we out My colleague, Beth Kowitt, puts some facts to the nagging feeling I’d been having: If given the chance, Black professionals will take an overseas assignment and not look back. Black expats find the benefits of an overseas assignment far outweigh resume-building. You get to be human. “Working abroad, these executives say they left behind the fatigue that many described as routine for Black people in corporate America: the exhaustion brought about by being asked to solve your company’s diversity issues; living by the unwritten rules that dictate how you present yourself at work; having to prove every day that you deserve to be in your role.” And, you get to follow in the footsteps of James Baldwin and Josephine Baker. Sounds nice.
Fortune
The inside scoop on Verzuz Naima Cochrane is one of my favorite music and culture experts and an enlightening presence on Twitter and beyond. (Her #MusicSermons will take you to church.) So, I was over the moon when I saw she took on the musical explainer of the pandemic era with her latest piece for Rolling Stone called The Verzuz Effect. The Instagram Live phenomenon, created by producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland has a simple premise: Two legacy artists—big names, both—face off by alternating playing 90 seconds of their hits, often singing along or doing some big talk. Click through for the phenomenon it’s become—the online party a quarantined world didn’t know it needed. “That chance to root for your favorite producer or MC made it into a sporting competition at a time when there were no professional sports,” cultural critic Nelson George tells Cochrane. The idea was “born” on March 24 when Timbaland and Swizz showed up online for an unannounced battle. It lasted five hours, and Swizz played along from his friend’s rented BMW. Now that’s an origin story.
Rolling Stone
On background
Michael Harriot is going to the Apollo, y’all There are few amateur competitions as iconic as the one held by Harlem’s Apollo Theater. It’s the stage that launched a thousand stars, including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and, in spite of the complete and utter dragging from the audience, Lauryn Hill. So, encouraged by an online call to audition, Michael Harriot —The Root’s beloved wypipologist, author, and all-around national treasure — decided to throw his hat in the ring. Enjoy.
The Root
Can Black Lives still Matter when yours is falling apart? While protest, organizing and activism work can be energizing, burnout among activists has been an issue since forever; even non-professional activists are at risk. In a survey of nearly 500 Black Americans, many described being overwhelmed by the enormity of the task amplified by the pandemic. You can’t do your best work when you’re spent, but stepping back feels like abandonment. Then there’s the reality of life in your own skin. "There's not a day goes by that I don't have to think about what it means to be Black in America, or my experience, or how other people might perceive me as I exist in the world," Brooklyn-based Keshia Crosby-Williams says.
NPR
Anti-Asian racism is killing me Nancy Wang Yuen is an author, pop-culture expert and sociologist who studies actors of color. She is also at the end of her rope. “These days I feel like I’m dealing with two pandemics: COVID-19 and anti-Asian racism,” she writes. The attacks on Asian people, the racist fear of disease, the shunning of Asian businesses, and being personally targeted has left her weary. She comes with specific tips for anyone dealing with any form of anti-Asian actions, including bystanders, and is loaded with detailed, self-care advice. “Make sure to do something healing after taking action against racism,” she says. But to get a handle on the problem, speak up. Anyone who has experienced discrimination, a microaggression, or an attack: Report it to Stop AAPI Hate. “Unless we have a collective voice,” says Russell Jeong, Ph.D., chair and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, and co-founder of the site,“it’s going to happen again to someone else.”
Self
This edition of raceAhead is edited by Karen Yuan.
Today's mood board
Well, well, well.