fortune--2020-09-29--Are diversity quotas a punishment for failure?

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Ursula Burns has never hesitated to speak her mind. She rose to the top job at Xerox—where she served for seven years as the first and only black woman ever to head a Fortune 500 company—by speaking her mind. And she is at it again, insisting that corporate boards get serious about their lack of racial diversity.
Ellen McGirt and I interviewed Burns for our podcast Leadership Next (Apple/Spotify). She was on fire—even suggesting quotas may be needed to solve the problem. I’ve known Burns for a long time, and told her my recollection was she had always opposed quotas. Her response:
“I’m still not high on the notion of quotas. But I think we may have earned our comeuppance. I actually was under the impression that when you know you have a challenge, that you have a gap, you do some studies, you put your best minds to it, and most of the time, business solves problems…. What has happened, though, is that we have failed, across the board. And every year we say, oh my God, it’s a problem, we still haven’t met it…So now, what else do you do? You bring other forces to bear.”
Quotas, she said, are the punishment for failure.
Burns also said we are at a “make or break moment” for business and society—driven by a toxic mix of inequality, environmental challenge, the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, all hitting at once. “Everything is changing.”
By the way, we usually avoid politics in these interviews. But Burns had some characteristically candid advice for how CEOs should vote in the U.S. election. You can listen to the full interview of Ursula unleashed here: Apple/Spotify.
Burns will be talking about board diversity at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, which begins today—virtually. Among those attending will be a who’s who of top female CEOs, including GM’s Mary Barra, Northrop Grumman’s Kathy Warden, Citi’s (soon-to-be-CEO) Jane Fraser, Accenture’s Julie Sweet, Edward Jones’ Penny Pennington, Guardian’s Deanna Mulligan, Ulta’s Mary Dillon, Ariel’s Mellody Hobson, Ancestry’s Margo Georgiadis, Carbon’s Ellen Kullman, Nextdoor’s Sarah Friar, Magic Leap’s Peggy Johnson, and more. They are allowing me to join Thursday to interview IBM Executive Chair Ginni Rometty on the massive challenge of reskilling the workforce for the coming wave of technological change—a topic she discussed on Leadership Next in this episode.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
TikTok authority
The Trump administration's thus-far-thwarted attempt to block TikTok downloads is probably an overstep of the authority granted under national security law, according to the judge who granted a preliminary injunction against the measure on Sunday. Judge Carl Nichols' ruling was made public yesterday. Wall Street Journal
Android apps
Google says it will next year make it easier for Android users to use third-party app stores, of the sort of people now need to use in order to download apps such as Fortnite that are barred from Google's own Play Store. At the same time, Google also said it wasn't backing down on the forced use of the Google Play billing system for purchases made in apps distributed through the Play Store (this being the issue that irked Fortnite maker Epic, leading to the app's removal from the Play Store.) The Verge
JPMorgan WFH
JPMorgan has told its senior Wall Street traders to get back to their workplace, but workers in its consumer unit (except for branch workers and some in operations) can continue working from home. CEO Jamie Dimon is keen to see a broader return to work, but has left it up to individual business leaders to steer their staff on the issue. Fortune
Brexit mitigation
The U.K.'s carmakers and lenders have joined forces to try to protect the industry's supply chain from the twin assault of the pandemic and a likely no-deal Brexit. Troubled suppliers would be able to get improved payment terms from carmakers such as Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover if they ask for them, and lenders would provide financial assistance if needed. Bloomberg
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
New BP
Investors don't seem to be buying into BP's increasingly detailed plans to reinvent itself as a low-carbon giant, as this piece from Fortune's Katherine Dunn explains (and as continues to be apparent this morning, with BP's share price down 2.3% at the time of writing.) The same applies to other European energy majors such as Shell, Equinor and Total—their U.S. peers are generally doubling down on fossil fuels. Fortune
Voter suppression
The U.K.'s Channel 4 News obtained a database used by President Trump's digital campaign team in the last election, and discovered that 3.5 million Black Americans were sorted into a "Deterrence" category, meaning they were to be discouraged from showing up to vote. Other ethnicities were also included in the category, but it was mostly people of color. There is no public record of the Facebook ads these people were shown based on their categorization. Channel 4
Eating plastic
There's been another breakthrough in the research of plastic-eating bacteria. Remember the super-enzyme that was engineered a couple years back? Scientists have now created a new version that degrades plastic bottles six times faster, and that could be deployed within the next couple years. Guardian
Amy Coney Barrett
Three historical cases give some insight into the opinions of Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat. Fortune's Emma Hinchliffe runs through the implications: Coney Barrett is a strong opponent of abortion rights; she has implied that taking sexual misconduct seriously could lead to sex discrimination against men; and she believes felons' gun rights should only be restricted if their crimes were violent. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-09-29--Why the former CEO of Xerox turned her attention to corporate diversity—and how she thinks business

Why the former CEO of Xerox turned her attention to corporate diversity—and how she thinks business is failing

The biggest takeaway from the New York Times tax exposé ?
Trump is a lousy businessman .

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Ursula Burns stepped down from her position as the CEO of Xerox in 2016, and later turned her focus to diversifying corporate boards with the Board Diversity Action Alliance. As the first—and only—Black woman to run a Fortune 500 company, she is uniquely suited for the work.
On the latest episode of Leadership Next, Burns speaks with cohosts Ellen McGirt and Alan Murray about the need for true diversity and equity in America.
“We have a responsibility to leave behind a world that’s better than it is when we inhabited it,” Burns says. At the moment, she says business is failing to live up to that responsibility.
Businesses are failing on diversity, transparency, worker pay, environmentalism, and more, according to Burns. And it starts at the top, with the chief executives and the boards. For her part, she is leading up the alliance in partnership with Gabrielle Sulzberger, Teneo (for which she is a senior adviser), the Ford Foundation, and the Executive Leadership Council. Toward its goal of increasing the proportion of racially and ethnically diverse directors on corporate boards, the alliance is focusing on getting Black professionals to the table.
So far corporate powerhouses such as Macy’s, Mastercard, UPS, Uber, and Dow have all signed the pledge to increase the number of Black directors on their boards to one or more, and to disclose their board demographics along with their inclusion metrics.
Around the 6:50 mark of the episode, McGirt brings in Fortune features editor Kristen Bellstrom, who heads up the annual Most Powerful Women list, and The Broadsheet, the newsletter for and about those women. In that interview, Bellstrom draws on her years of experience as a business journalist to add further context to the major issue of corporate diversity.
To hear that interview and more from Burns, including her opinions on the CEOs who are voting for Donald Trump, listen to the episode below.


fortune--2020-09-29--Global stocks falter as COVID deaths and tonight’s presidential debate take center stage

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. Yesterday’s exuberance is already fading as investors swallow a bitter pill: the recorded global COVID death toll has now topped 1 million (and the actual tally is almost certainly higher than that). Meanwhile, all eyes will be on tonight’s big Trump-Biden televised debate.
Let’s see what’s driving markets.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are mixed in afternoon trading, with Shanghai the best of the bunch, up 0.2% .
are mixed in afternoon trading, with the best of the bunch, up . The coronavirus pandemic has now claimed more than 1 million lives globally. That’s “more than H.I.V. More than dysentery. More than malaria, influenza, cholera and measles — combined,” the New York Times reports.
has now claimed more than globally. That’s “more than H.I.V. More than dysentery. More than malaria, influenza, cholera and measles — combined,” the New York Times reports. Turns out the death toll has been barely a blip to the insurance industry’s bottom line; those who have succumbed to COVID usually hold little to no life insurance —they’re too old or too poor.
—they’re too old or too poor. Meanwhile, Japanese chip giant, Kioxia Holdings, owned by a Bain Capital-led consortium, shelved its plans for an IPO in Tokyo, saying U.S. sanctions on Huawei is hurting its business.
Europe
The European bourses are lower out of the gates. That’s after monster gains on Monday with Germany’s Dax closing Monday up 3.2% .
are lower out of the gates. That’s after monster gains on Monday with closing Monday up . Uber yesterday won a big reprieve in its London license dispute . Today, Uber is reported to be in talks to buy Free Now , the BMW-Daimler ride-hailing joint venture.
. Today, is reported to be in talks to buy , the BMW-Daimler ride-hailing joint venture. Shares in BP were down 1.6% in morning trade. As the oil-and-gas giant’s shares hover around 25-year-lows, it’s becoming clearer that investors just aren’t buying its transition to become a low-carbon energy provider.
U.S.
U.S. futures are trading sideways, off their overnight highs. That’s after the three major exchanges closed yesterday up more than 1% , led by bank and energy stocks.
are trading sideways, off their overnight highs. That’s after the three major exchanges closed yesterday up more than , led by bank and energy stocks. Christmas in October ? Amazon shares closed 2.5% higher yesterday after it announced its annual Prime Day shopping bonanza will be held Oct. 13-14. Call it “a dress rehearsal for the holiday season,” writes Fortune‘s Phil Wahba.
? Amazon shares closed higher yesterday after it announced its annual shopping bonanza will be held Oct. 13-14. Call it “a dress rehearsal for the holiday season,” writes Fortune‘s Phil Wahba. The global markets appear unimpressed with the scaled-back House proposal for a $2.2 trillion fiscal stimulus plan released yesterday. Odds of a deal are as low as ever as the Democrats and Republicans are still hundreds of billions apart.
Elsewhere
Gold is up, trading around $1,890/ounce .
is up, trading around . The dollar is down.
is down. Crude is down, with Brent trading a tick above $42.50/barrel.
***
Dollar daze, revisited
In tonight’s debate, you’re probably going to hear very little detail about America’s finances. And that’s a real shame.
According to the Congressional Budget Office latest tally, national debt will top 100% of GDP at some point next year, a level the country last hit in the rebuild years following World War II. It won’t end there. By 2050, debt-to-GDP will hit 200%, as the chart here shows:
You’d expect ballooning deficit-spending in a pandemic, but these levels ought to worry your kids and grandkids.
The thing about racking up mountains of debt is that the ones who run up the tab are rarely the ones who pay the bill. Another perversity: in the short term, there’s real upside from higher debt levels, particularly for equity holders.
In short, a rising federal debt will likely be a nice tail wind for your portfolios (as long as it doesn’t tarnish Uncle Sam’s credit rating). That’s because as the debt climbs, the value of the dollar will inevitably fall. And, the weaker dollar is good news for multinationals and exporters. As we’ve seen during much of this bull rally, a weaker dollar is like rocket fuel for share prices.
According to BofA Securities, for the past 50 years we’ve been living in an age of predominantly strong-dollar-weak-stocks or weak-dollar-strong-stocks. In fact, only in the 1970s and then again following the dot-com bubble implosion were there sustained periods of weak dollar and weak stock price performance, as the chart here shows.
If you scroll up to the first chart and then back down to the second chart you might spot a strong correlation forming: that the debt line is rising in lockstep with the S&P 500 valuation. Or just about.
It’s true that neither party has been a good steward of America’s finances. But both sides have been incredible champions of America’s bulging stock market gains.
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
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
Cashing out before the rally. Amid the revelations to come out of the New York Times' latest investigation into President Trump's finances is this juicy detail of his stocks-trading strategy. According to the tax filings, Trump sold out of virtually all of his stocks holding between 2014-16, mostly missing out on one of the greatest bull runs in stock market history. "Based on what we know, Fortune estimates Trump would be $114 million richer today if he hadn’t sold his equities—a sum that would certainly be useful in paying off his debts," my colleague David Z. Morris writes.
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
Quote of the day
Sue the ass off of Fortune.
That was Donald J. Trump in 2000, threatening then-Fortune journalist Jerry Useem should he “disparage [Trump's] cash flow" in a profile of Trump's teetering casino business. Spoiler: those Atlantic City casinos went bust. Fortune has been covering Trump for decades, revealing in a series of profiles a businessman that is as addicted to bombast and he is to debt. Clifton Leaf, Fortune editor-in-chief, takes readers back in time and connects the dots between those earlier days as a cowboy-entrepreneur to the present, drawing a line to this weekend's bombshell tax return details. "Trump is a lousy businessman," Leaf concludes.


fortune--2020-09-29--House Democrats push to break stimulus impasse with $2.2 trillion package

House Democrats released a scaled back $2.2 trillion proposal to extend support to the U.S. economy in face of the continuing damage from the coronavirus pandemic.
The plan follows through on discussions last week to prompt a last-ditch attempt at negotiations with the White House and break an impasse on Covid-19 relief that’s lasted since early August. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talked Monday evening after the Democratic plan was released and plan to speak again on Tuesday, Pelosi’s spokesman said.
While the details of the legislative text adds clarity to the talks, the top-line spending level is no closer to that so far supported by Republicans. President Donald Trump has indicated he could support as much as $1.5 trillion in aid—still higher than the $650 billion put forth in a “skinny” aid package by Senate Republicans earlier this month.
Should no deal be forthcoming, House Democrats have said they aim to proceed on their own in voting on the new plan, allowing the party’s candidates in the Nov. 3 elections to highlight a recent vote on coronavirus relief. The last vote was on the bigger, $3.4 trillion Heroes Act back in May.
Pelosi said earlier Monday that the White House will have to agree to “much more” spending for a fresh round of stimulus if there is any hope of striking a deal before the election. “We can get this done,” Pelosi said Monday on MSNBC, while emphasizing the need for more money.
A key source of division has been Democrats’ push for large-scale aid to state and local authorities. The plan released Monday has $436 billion for one year of assistance, less than a previous demand for $915 billion, which had triggered scorn among Trump administration officials who called it a bailout for poorly run states.
The Democratic plan includes new aid for airlines, restaurants and small businesses that wasn’t in in the original package passed by the House in May, and it has more than double the amount for schools.
The bill would provide another round of $1,200 direct relief payments to individuals and $500 per dependent—less than the $1,200 for dependents Democrats originally proposed. It also has $600 per week in extra unemployment benefits through January, the same amount that expired in July and helped disposable incomes surge even as the economy tipped into recession.
Housing Aid
The bill continues the Heroes Act’s aims of bolstering housing assistance, with tens of billions of dollars to assist renters and homeowners make monthly rent, mortgage and utility payments.
Also included is $75 billion for coronavirus testing, contact tracing and isolation measures, along with $28 billion for procurement, distribution and education campaigns for a safe and effective vaccine.
Democrats have also cut spending demands on hazard pay for essential workers, housing assistance, health insurance and the Postal Service.
With the Senate under Republican control, the bill is unlikely to advance without a major turnaround in the Trump administration’s position. Private economists have increasingly abandoned forecasts for a deal before the election. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recently cut their forecasts for growth next quarter as a consequence.


fortune--2020-09-29--One major Asian economy besides China is set for growth this year—and its GDP just rose 2.6%

Upticks in manufacturing and exports helped Vietnam’s gross domestic product rise 2.62% year over year in the third quarter, accelerating the country’s economic recovery from a slowdown in the first half of 2020 that was caused by the pandemic.
Exports jumped 11% in the third quarter, thanks in large part to a 20% increase in exports of personal computers to meet a growing demand as students worldwide attend online classes and large parts of the global workforce continue to work from home. In September alone, exports jumped 18% compared to the same period last year.
“Along with China, [Vietnam] is the only major Asian economy expected to register positive growth in 2020,” said Priyanka Kishore, head of India and South East Asia for Oxford Economics.
Vietnam’s management of the coronavirus pandemic within its own borders has helped it reopen and resume economic activity. The Southeast Asian nation had not recorded a locally transmitted COVID-19 case in more than three months when a small outbreak in Danang, a beach city popular with local tourists, ended the streak in late July.
The highest daily tally during the second wave was 50 new cases, reported on July 31. On Aug. 9, Vietnam reported 29 new cases. The figures continued to drop in the second half of August before reaching zero on Aug. 30.
Vietnam brought cases down sharply with a swift and strict lockdown of Danang, restricted travel to the city, and widespread, targeted testing and contact tracing. Its daily new cases have ranged from zero to five this month.
Vietnam’s second wave “stalled the recovery somewhat,” Kishore said, but “the situation is already back under control.”
Vietnam’s 2.62% GDP increase in the third quarter is an improvement on the 0.39% year-over-year increase in the second quarter but remains several percentage points below the pre-pandemic third-quarter GDP growth of 7.31% in 2019.
The continued and indefinite loss of foreign tourists because of coronavirus travel restrictions has dented Vietnam’s economic recovery. Before the pandemic, tourism accounted for around 8% of Vietnam’s GDP, according to the World Bank.
The loss of foreign tourism is worse for countries like nearby Thailand, where tourism accounts for 14% of GDP. What’s more, Thailand lacks Vietnam’s status as a manufacturing hub that is sometimes touted as a supply-chain alternative to China.


fortune--2020-09-29--JPMorgan called senior traders back to the office—but consumer staff is working from home until 2021

JPMorgan Chase & Co. told thousands of office workers across its consumer unit they can plan to continue working remotely until next year, breaking with the firm’s Wall Street operations, which mandated that senior traders return to work.
The directive, which was communicated to staff in several memos Monday, applies to most U.S.-based employees in the consumer unit who have been working remotely to help stem the spread of the coronavirus. It excludes branch workers and some in operations, according to a person briefed on the staffing plans. The consumer and community banking unit, which operates primarily in the U.S., has 122,089 employees, the most of any of the firm’s divisions.
“Generally, anyone working remotely today will continue to do so through the end of the year, assuming we can maintain productivity levels,” according to one of the memos, which was seen by Bloomberg. “Our overall productivity levels have remained high. That’s remarkable and something that should make us all proud.”
to Bull Sheet Subscribe for no-nonsense daily analysis on what’s happening in the markets, delivered free to your inbox.
A spokeswoman declined to comment.
Roughly 25% of the firm’s workers, including branch staff, have returned in the New York area, said the person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing internal plans. Many of JPMorgan’s other locations remain closed. Over the summer, the biggest U.S. bank had plans to return office workers to outposts in Columbus, Ohio — home to the bank’s biggest U.S. office building — then suspended them indefinitely after coronavirus cases jumped.
JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has made the case for a broader return to work, saying his firm has seen “alienation” among younger workers and that an extended stretch of working from home could bring long-term economic and social damage. He’s also expressed concerns about productivity among certain groups.
Dimon is allowing individual business leaders to determine when staff need to return to the office, depending on guidance from local government and health authorities.
The decision to extend remote work arrangements for many in the biggest U.S. bank’s consumer unit comes as the virus continues to rage across the country and as many employees navigate child-care issues as some schools operate on hybrid schedules or stick to remote learning. In its corporate and investment bank, senior traders were asked to return to offices by last week.


fortune--2020-09-29--The biggest takeaway from the New York Times tax exposé? Trump is a lousy businessman.

The New York Times’s blockbuster report on President Trump’s taxes, published Sunday evening, offers no shortage of revelations: Trump, according to the Times, paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016, the year he was elected President—and paid the same paltry sum in 2017, his first year in the White House. In the decade and a half leading up to then, the New York real estate mogul, who boasted endlessly of his wealth and deal-making prowess, incurred so many millions of dollars in personal losses—as per his own sworn declarations to the IRS—that he “owed” nothing in income taxes in 10 of those years. He reportedly paid nothing, too.
A lawyer for the Trump Organization told the Times that its reporters’ claims “appear to be inaccurate” and asserted that “over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government.” The President, for his part, called the newspaper’s report “FAKE NEWS.”
The Times, which said it verified its account with both publicly available and confidential sources, noted that all of the President’s tax data “was provided by sources with legal access to it.”
“Most of Mr. Trump’s core enterprises—from his constellation of golf courses to his conservative-magnet hotel in Washington—report losing millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars year after year,” said the newspaper’s Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire. Mr. Trump’s “revenue from ‘The Apprentice’ and from licensing deals is drying up, and several years ago he sold nearly all the stocks that now might have helped him plug holes in his struggling properties.”
Indeed, it would appear he is personally on the hook for $421 million in IOUs, with most of that coming due over the next four years, said the Times’s reporters. All of which means: “Should he win re-election, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president.”
Yes, there are plenty of eye-poppers in the Times’s reportage—including, for instance, that Mr. Trump seems to have claimed more than $70,000 in “business expenses” for hair styling during his stint on “The Apprentice” television show. But perhaps the most salient takeaway is simply this: If Mr. Trump’s own declarations to the IRS are to be believed, then he isn’t much of a businessman.
That revelation, of course, isn’t new at all. In fact, two classic Fortune stories, written a generation ago, memorably captured this awkward incongruence in Mr. Trump’s public persona, long before his run for the White House.
In “What Does Donald Trump Really Want?,” writer Jerry Useem took readers into a frenzied three-ring circus of bombast and leverage—where, somehow, even a thriving Atlantic City casino business could be nearly drowning in debt. When Useem’s story was published in the April 3, 2000 edition of Fortune, Trump’s casino company was awash in $1.8 billion in high-yield debt—the servicing of which gobbled up $216 million of cash flow. In a business where “the house always wins,” Trump’s casino company lost $134 million in 1999 (after special items and depreciation—a theme in the New York Times’ story, too), forcing S&P to lower it bond rating “from junk to junkier,” said Useem, who is now a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
“But most disquieting,” wrote Useem—in a magazine yarn that feels like it was written two days, not two decades, ago—was “Trump’s tendency to use the casino company as his own personal piggy bank. It’s not just the $5 million bonus he drew one year, or the fact that the pilots of his personal 727 are on the casino company’s payroll…[or that] he had the already cash-strapped company lend him $26 million to pay off a personal loan from Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette.”
Trump denied furiously to Fortune then that he did anything amiss and dutifully swore to pay off his debts. But many of those who knew him well had their doubts. “A couple of people close to Trump and otherwise sympathetic to him suggested to me that he’s unfit to be running a public company,” wrote Useem in 2000. “Given that the low stock price seems partly a function of Wall Street’s allergic response to Trump’s flamboyance—analysts call it ‘the Donald factor’—the obvious solution would be for Trump to remove himself from management. One industry executive estimates that step alone would bring a 30% bump in the stock.”
Yet even more striking than the eternal unsteadiness of his business dealings was Trump’s eternal fear of being seen as an unsteady businessman. During one of Trump’s telephone conversations with Useem, the developer said he’d “sue the ass off of Fortune” if the magazine was to “disparage [his] cash flow.”
Four years later, writer Daniel Roth revisited this image obsession in his marvelous profile, “The Trophy Life,” which graced the cover of Fortune’s April 19, 2004 edition. Trump—the son of a bonafide New York real estate mogul—“funded a world of buildings, hotels, and casinos, a USFL football team (helmed by Doug Flutie), a 284-foot yacht (helmed on the comic pages by Doonesbury character Duke), and an airline, mainly by charming banks into huge mortgages—even persuading them to lend him money for his equity stake, backed only by personal guarantees,” wrote Roth.
“When the early 1990s recession hit, Trump began to default on his loans and found himself with nearly $1 billion in debt that he personally had guaranteed. He worked out a deal with the banks to sell his properties and get them some of their money back. In return, they spared him from having to declare personal bankruptcy. Reports at the time said the banks granted Trump a $450,000 monthly allowance. He denies it. ‘Honestly, wouldn’t that be terrible PR for the banks?’ Trump says.”
Was the developer worth the billions of dollars he said he was? Or a fraction of that? Fortune’s attempt to dig into Trumpian finances “yielded only murk,” wrote Roth. “All his deals are buried in layers of corporate names, partners, and either debt or no debt, depending on whether you’re talking to Trump.”
Recalling the story 13 years later, Roth, who is now Executive Editor at LinkedIn, told Recode’s Peter Kafka, that Trump “was very focused on this idea that I would realize that he was successful as a business person.” In 2004, when Roth wrote his story “The Apprentice” had become the biggest show in America. “And here was this guy who was incredibly successful, clearly very successful, and he went out of his way to try to make sure that I, the reporter, realized he was successful. Showing me clip after clip of articles written about his golf courses.”
“I had never had an experience,” said Roth, “where someone had tried so baldly to let me know that they were important and other people thought they were successful.”
Read both of these Fortune classics here:
“What Does Donald Trump Really Want?” by Jerry Useem, Apr. 3, 2000
“The Trophy Life,” by Daniel Roth, Apr. 19, 2004


fortune--2020-09-29--As seawater moves inland, ‘ghost forests’ are spreading. Why that’s so scary

Meghan , The Duchess of Sussex : ‘ If you listen to what I actually say , it ’ s @ @ @

Rising sea levels have begun to decimate coastal forests, leaving white, dead stumps in their wake as salt water damages ecosystems that previously relied on freshwater ecosystems. Scientists call them “ghost forests.” And they’re growing at an alarming pace, say researchers at North Carolina State University.
A study released this week of the state’s Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula found these ghost forests had spread across 15% of the land between 2001 and 2014, the years the study tracked. The researchers calculated that devastation equated to 130,000 metric tons of carbon that otherwise would have been captured by the forest.
“Many people think about sea level rise as being more of a long-term threat,” said the study’s lead author, Lindsey Smart, a research associate at the North Carolina State University Center for Geospatial Analytics.
But the researchers saw “significant changes” over shorter time periods, not just because of sea levels rising gradually, but because of extreme weather including hurricanes and droughts, which can bring salt water into regions that previously relied on fresh water. The peninsula lies just inland from the island chain that forms North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
This ecological impact underlies other research showing that while we often think of climate change as bringing gradually rising seas, the coastal flooding that threatens vast swaths of the earth’s ecosystems will be in large part the result of exceptional storm surges from hurricanes and flash floods. Over the years, the expansion of coastal marshes and the retreat of the region’s forests have also upended local communities and livelihoods. In addition, coastal forests provide a vital level of environmental protection as their soil, in good times, stores more carbon than forests further inland.
The ghost forest degradation also puts these ecosystems at greater risk for forest fires. “We think there may be an interaction between salt water and fire that accelerates forest retreat, and facilitates marsh migration into areas that were once healthy coastal forest,” Smart said.
It’s not that frequent, low-level fires don’t serve a role in the local ecosystem, the researchers noted. But after a fire, a period of regeneration must allow new seeds to take root and begin restoring the region’s vegetation. However, young seeds of woody vegetation—like trees—can be damaged by excessive salinity.
There are similar risks to coastal forests that are increasingly hit with drought, the paper noted. Collectively, the creation of ghost forests means those forests are also less able to play their roles not just as carbon sinks, but as storm buffers, to limit the impact of the same storms that are bringing salt water inland.
The intrusion of salt water into forests that were previously fresh water is often an “invisible threat” the researchers said, “because shifts in soil chemistry are difficult to measure at large spatial scales and are not generally perceived by the public,” they write in the paper.
Instead, ghostly white, semi-submerged stumps are a warning sign of what’s happening below.
“Ghost forests provide clear markers of sea level rise’s leading edge,” they wrote.


fortune--2020-09-29--Anita Hill: Why Black women are overlooked as Supreme Court nominees

Anita Hill, the lawyer best known for testifying at the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, says there’s a reason that Black women are overlooked as Supreme Court nominees. And it’s a problem that extends well beyond the legal industry. “People pick people who look like them,” Hill said.
Moreover, Hill said many nominees initially gain attention while working at corporate law firms. But many women of color don’t take that path, and therefore aren’t considered for the court later in their careers. “We need to think more broadly about who is qualified to be a judge,” she said during an online interview at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday.
Hill’s comments come as the Trump administration hurries to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who died at age 87 on Sept. 18. Earlier this week, Trump nominated Federal Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the open position. Before announcing the nomination, Trump released a short list of candidates—none of whom were Black women.
Hill, now a law professor at Brandeis University, likened the problems faced by Black women and women of color to the “glass ceiling” that many women experience in nearly all fields. She said women often lack access to the decision-makers and that they’re often undervalued. Therefore, it’s easier for leaders to pick people within their own circles for promotions or jobs.
During her interview on Tuesday, Hill also discussed her work with the Hollywood Commission, a group she chairs along with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and entertainment lawyer Nina Shaw. The commission aims to help the entertainment industry define and implement policies that would eliminate sexual harassment and bias.
On Tuesday, the commission released results from a survey of more than 9,600 people in the entertainment industry from November 2019 to February 2020. The key finding: Workers generally have a dismal view of the accountability measures put in place to combat sexual misconduct.
“When you look at what that means is that ultimately people will not come forward,” she said. “Either they don’t think people will be held accountable or they think that they’re going to be retaliated against.”
Hill said the report is one of four that will be published in upcoming months.


fortune--2020-09-29--3 ways Walmart and Home Depot execs think retail will change for good

Walmart and The Home Depot were fortunate: They were among the retailers that were able to navigate the daily changes and challenges that the new reality of a socially-distanced shopper posed.
From quickly shifting to curbside pickup to staffing up distribution centers, execs at Walmart and Home Depot have witnessed (and pioneered) this new retail landscape, all while adapting to protect their workers and customers alike.
Having witnessed those changes first-hand, Ann-Marie Campbell, the executive vice president of U.S. Stores for The Home Depot, and Judith McKenna, the president and CEO at Walmart International, pointed out a few key ways they think the retail industry will change for good at Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women Summit virtual conference Tuesday.
Omni-channel everything
Having a seamless flow between different channels, be it online or in-store, is not a new trend in retail—but Home Depot and Walmart execs were surprised at how quickly it’s been accelerated by the pandemic.
“When we talked three years ago about investing $10 billion in the business to make sure it was interconnected, we probably were looking a little bit further out,” Home Depot’s Campbell said at the virtual session. Amid the pandemic, that timeline quickly moved up: “You can’t manage or measure your business just thinking about the stores or thinking about online or thinking about marketing separate[ly], or supply chain: it is so interconnected and one influences the other,” she said. “We had to throw all of that out and we’ve been throwing that out.”
That’s also increasingly the case at Walmarts across the globe, as McKenna says the company has seen trends in e-commerce and omni-channel “accelerating two or three years ahead of where we thought things would happen,” which will increasingly be the case moving forward.
An adaptable customer
Just like the retailers themselves, customers have had to adapt to a new environment, too. At Home Depot, that’s meant taking their normally in-store kid’s and DIY workshops and going virtual. Customers are “learning how to adapt” to learn virtually—something Campbell thinks will stick.
But apart from how customers are learning, Campbell says they’re also doing “a lot” more research before buying and are more inclined to substitute if there’s a brand the retailer doesn’t have. “That has implications around assortment and how you narrow the assortment to drive more simplicity and consumer satisfaction,” she said. “Those are some of the things we think are going to stay.”
On a grander scale, Walmart’s McKenna notes the “trend of customers choosing more flexible ways to shop, whether they want to shop in store to look, to browse, to choose; whether they shop online, if they have it delivered, if they actually come to buy it [through] pickup, … the actual shopping experience will change.” But looking forward, she believes companies will “learn to find ways to interact with the customer with interactive commerce going forward as well,” looking at differences in search to buy a product online versus recommendation to buy a product online.
Continued focus on health and safety
While retail behemoths like Walmart and Home Depot had to quickly pivot to keep shopping in-store safe for their customers, McKenna and Campbell don’t think that increased focus on health and wellbeing will be relegated just to pandemic times.
Moving forward, “I think people are going to be more interested in health and wellness than they’ve ever been,” says McKenna, including a heightened focus on trust and trust in the retailer’s products as well.
That resonates with Campbell, too, who has had to implement safety precautions at Home Depot’s more than 2,200 North American stores. “I don’t think that’s going away, we hear that in our stores. The things we have done to create a safer environment, they want us to continue to do that, and we’re going to continue to invest in [those] areas,” she said. “We’ve got to make the environment safe for customers and our associates, and I don’t think that’s going to change, that’s just going to continue to be a part of how we manage and lead our teams.”


fortune--2020-09-29--How the financial impact of coronavirus could haunt consumers for a long time

While the U.S. stock market bounced back quickly amid global lockdown orders, the pandemic will undoubtedly have a lasting economic impact that could change the way investors save for retirement.
“This is going to have a longer lasting effect as people rebuild retirement and frankly rethink retirement,” said Penny Pennington who leads financial advisory giant Edward Jones as its managing partner, during Fortune‘s virtual Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday.
In theory, many 401(k) and retirement account have benefitted from the quick bounce back in the stock market, with the S&P 500 now back to pre-pandemic levels in part thanks to aggressive moves from the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and early stimulus from Congress. But as the executives on the panel pointed out, there are still many red flags for investors, including underlying economic weaknesses, an unemployment rate of 8.4% and a still uncertain number of small businesses that have closed or are in peril.
All this has had an impact on retirement accounts, said Pennington, who was joined on the panel by Thasunda Brown Duckett, the CEO of JPMorgan’s Chase Consumer Banking division, and Michelle Seitz, the CEO of Russell Investments.
Citing a recent study by Edward Jones, Pennington observed that 68 million Americans say their retirement savings have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, noting that 24 million say they have provided financial support to their adult children as a result of the pandemic. Some 71% of the study’s participants said they would help their children financially—even if it could jeopardize their own financial future.
Wealth inequality is also exacerbating the retirement crisis, the panelists noted. One in three Americans, according to a 2018 study, have just $5,000 set aside for retirement. One in five have nothing at all.
That said all three panelists were relatively optimistic about the recovery continuing, and accelerating into 2021.


fortune--2020-09-29--Disney will lay off 28,000 workers at its California and Florida parks

Squeezed by limits on attendance at its theme parks and other restrictions due to the pandemic, The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday it planned to lay off 28,000 workers in its parks division in California and Florida.
Two-thirds of the planned layoffs involve part-time workers but they ranged from salaried employees to hourly workers, Disney officials said.
Disney’s parks closed last spring as the pandemic started spreading in the U.S. The Florida parks reopened this summer, but the California parks have yet to reopen as the company awaits guidance from the state of California.
In a letter to employees, Josh DÁmaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experience and Product, said California’s “unwillingness to lift restrictions that would allow Disneyland to reopen” exacerbated the situation for the company.
DÁmaro said his management team had worked hard to try to avoid layoffs. They had cut expenses, suspended projects and modified operations but it wasn’t enough given limits on the number of people allowed into the park because of social distancing restrictions and other pandemic-related measures, he said.
“As heartbreaking as it is to take this action, this is the only feasible option we have in light of the prolonged impact of COVID-19 on our business, including limited capacity due to physical distancing requirements and the continued uncertainty regarding the duration of the pandemic,” he said.
Disney officials said the company would provide severance packages for the employees, where appropriate, and also offer other services to help workers with job placement.
Disney officials didn’t offer a breakdown of the layoffs between the Florida and California operations. Walt Disney World in Florida has around 77,000 employees, while the Disneyland Resort in California has more than 30,000 workers.
With its parks closed due to the pandemic in April, Disney furloughed up to 43,000 workers while still paying for their health insurance at its Florida resort. It brought many of them back after it reopened in July. Furloughed workers in California also received health benefits.
In a statement, U.S. Rep. Val Demings, a Democrat from Orlando, said the layoffs showed the need for more coronavirus-related relief from Congress.
“These layoffs show yet again how desperately that assistance is needed by American households and businesses,” Demings said.


fortune--2020-09-29--Should corporate diversity aim for ‘targets’ or ‘quotas’?

As corporate America continues to reckon with race following the wave of protests this summer, staff diversity is on the mind of many looking to create an equitable and representative workplace. Companies have taken varying strategies, from committing to diversifying their boards to hiring more Black employees.
How should companies categorize these measures, and how strictly should they be held to their commitments? According to Mellody Hobson, president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, language around the initiatives matters. A “quota” to fill ranks with more Black employees can sound intimidating, she says, while a “target” feels more attainable.
“I think some people find the term ‘quota’ is a nonstarter for them. It ends the conversation before it begins,” explained Hobson while in conversation with Fortune’s Michal Lev-Ram during the Most Powerful Women Virtual Summit on Tuesday. “Targets are objective, something we’re shooting for. Corporate America is very familiar with targets. There’s a whole nomenclature around targets directly correlated to what we deliver and produce on a day-to-day basis.
“Quotas by contrast are mandates, hard numbers. It’s not a goal. It’s a number you have to make,” Hobson continued. “As a result, people get uncomfortable because they become nonnegotiable. They’re imposed upon organizations. That immediately makes people bristle at ideas. We don’t have to do that. We can use language in the nomenclature around targets and still hit a goal. And in corporate America, if you don’t hit targets, you don’t have a job.”
Companies continue to face scrutiny over their diversity records. Poor diversity can have an impact not just on a company’s outward appearance but also on tangible results. “Companies’ consideration of diversity & inclusion is not only important on the basis of values; it also has a material impact on their long-term performance,” Barclays analysts said in a June research report.
Hobson advised young people of color looking to climb up the corporate ladder to “to be comfortable with who you are.”
“Once I became very clear about that, I could speak my truth,” she said. “It’s truth with a small ‘t,’ not a capital. But my truth I feel very strongly about, and I feel very willing to share. I will not hold in my point of view to appease other people.”


fortune--2020-09-29--Ursula Burns wants corporate boards to add Black talent, right now

Ursula Burns is not spectacular, she’ll have you know.
“When I was working with the Obama administration, people would say to me, ‘Oh you’re spectacular. You are amazing. And I was a little taken aback by it,’” Burns told me in a recent conversation.
Burns, who worked on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, among other assignments, says don’t get her wrong. She knows who she is and she’s proud of herself. “But I was uncomfortable with it because, believe it or not, I am not [spectacular]. I am pretty good at certain things. I am really bad at other things. If I had been a white CEO, I think they would have said I was ‘good.’”
But to be Black or brown in an elite leadership space, as defined by white men, means you have to be spectacular.
“I’m convinced of this—because the only way that this white man could have me in the room with him consistently, or as a peer sitting around the table with the president of the United States arguing, etc.— is if I were spectacular,” she said.
This speaks to the heart of one of the many issues the former Xerox CEO is trying address in her latest bid to diversify corporate boards. “This system needs to be reformed,” she said told Alan Murray and me on this week’s episode of the Leadership Next podcast. She noted that there are now only four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500, all male. And in a world made still by pandemic—and rallying in profoundly new ways around racial justice—hanging on to the status quo simply won’t do. “Boards are very important because they take into account the entire mission of the company and they are responsible for assuring that there is a redo,” she added. Yes, that includes the share price.
She is now occupied by the Board Diversity Action Alliance, a new, no-nonsense plan to diversify corporate boards in order to address, in her strong view, the glacial pace of progress in corporate diversity.
She’s the co-founder along with Gabrielle Sulzberger, who’s the former Board chair of Whole Foods, the consultancy Teneo and some names familiar to the Fortune crowd, including Crystal Ashby of the Executive Leadership Council and Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation.
Signatories of the Board Diversity Action Alliance—like Dow, MasterCard, UPS, Macy’s and Uber—promise to increase the number of Black directors on their corporate board of directors to one or more, as well as disclose board demographics and all inclusion metrics.
She hopes the process will offer a spectacular reality check for board chairs who typically only consider Black board talent who have already been on boards or run a Fortune 500 company. “That’s like a list of like 25 people,” Burns said. “I promise you, white people are not held to that same standard.”
And it may help banish the idea of the thin talent pipeline once and for all.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf was recently forced to apologize after he attempted to blame the lack of diversity at the firm on “a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from.” The bank, which, as is alleged, had no trouble finding Black and brown families to hoist higher cost mortgages upon—sadly could find no leadership potential in those same communities.
“Enough,” Burns told me recently. “Enough is enough is enough.”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
Amplifying Black power
Is it me, or are there a lot of very powerful people convening these days? Here’s another good example.
The Black Voices for Black Justice (BVBJ) initiative launches today, with a new $10 million fund to support Black leaders doing anti-racism work in 15 states and Washington D.C. The 31 awardees are working on a variety of issues, including criminal justice reform, voting rights, environmental justice and COVID recovery. You may recognize some names among their ranks, including Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Love & Power Works; Ryan Haygood, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice; and Natasha Alford from The Grio.
The fund is is underwritten and supported by a host of philanthropies including The Moriah Fund, Galaxy Gives, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the CityBridge Foundation, and is co-chaired by Robin Hood Foundation CEO Wes Moore, actor and activist Kerry Washington, and Jean Desravines, the CEO of education nonprofit, New Leaders.
The money will be distributed in grants of $50,000 or $20,000, with no restrictions.
“The Black Voices for Black Justice Fund recognizes and supports the incredible work that’s being done by everyday heroes at the grassroots level,” Moore tells raceAhead by email. “In order for our communities to exceed the level of greatness we all aspire to, these voices must be elevated, supported and heard.”
It’s worth spending time on their new site, just a few hours old, to get a sense of the work the awardees are doing. But what is equally impressive is the massive executive brainpower running the BVBJ, extraordinary Black leaders who should be on anyone’s short list for a briefing, panel, greater investment... or a board seat.
They are out there, trust Ursula and me.
raceAhead is edited by Aric Jenkins.
Today's mood board
The first debate of the 2020 presidential election is tonight on ABC.


fortune--2020-09-29--Ulta Beauty CEO on the ways the retailer listens to and reflects its diverse customers and associate

Ulta Beauty CEO on the ways the retailer listens to and reflects its diverse customers and associates

It was a moment Ulta Beauty CEO Mary Dillon said she’ll never forget. The retailer had just reset its wall photos for a new salon season, and the new images depicted models of various races and identities. Upon seeing the photos, the general manager of one Ulta store told Dillon of the display, “That’s the first time I saw someone who looked like me, so thank you.”
A remark like this is not taken for granted in an industry that historically has ignored or underrepresented a large proportion of the population. As Dillon herself acknowledges, systemic, ingrained biases require an ongoing effort to overcome and replace.
“From day one,” said Dillon, who has been Ulta’s chief executive since 2013, “I was insistent that every single shoot that we did, every single piece of content and social media really reflected the beautiful diversity of our country. Whether it’s age or race or gender identity, male, female, everybody participates in beauty.”
Dillon, who ranked No. 42 on Fortune’s 2019 Most Powerful Women list, participated in a video conversation with Fortune senior writer Phil Wahba as part of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday. The company’s conscious efforts to represent a range of individuals extend beyond its displays to its product offerings, she explained. For example, it recently launched the brand Pattern, a product for curly and textured hair. But Dillon said that Ulta has plenty more to do when it comes to offering services and products for “everybody,” calling further progress “an opportunity.”
“As an industry, if we can’t be inclusive and diverse, I don’t know who can be,” Dillon said of beauty, calling it a business of “human beings and human emotions.”
The element of personal human connection is also at the forefront of how the retailer interfaces with its employees behind the scenes, explained Dillon, who serves on the boards of Starbucks and KKR in addition to helming Ulta. When the company had to make the difficult decision to close its stores for several weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic, it also furloughed many of its associates. In doing so, Ulta facilitated a personal conversation between each furloughed worker and their manager, favoring this personalized approach over a mass email or conference call to break the news.
“We are going to be judged coming out of this crisis on how we treated our people, how we treated our customers, and how we set our business up for long-term success,” Dillon said. “It’s about having humility to say, you don’t have all the answers, but the human connection and the trust and respect, to be as transparent as you possibly can.”
Dillon also framed Ulta’s efforts toward environmental sustainability as a conversation. On the topic of her company’s carbon footprint, she referenced Conscious Beauty, a forthcoming platform Ulta plans to launch in some markets next month.
“Through this is our desire to help our guests navigate and solve the needs and interests that they have in beauty,” she said. “Some people are looking for natural or organic ingredients, some are looking for vegan or cruelty free.” She also mentioned a pilot program with a company called Loop, which is helping the retailer learn about options for reusable packaging and product refills. “But certainly the packaging discussion is one that we’re having across the board with our guests,” Dillon said of the company’s customers.
She also acknowledged the conversations the company has with its vendors, and its role as a leader in beauty to influence priorities for the industry at large.
“I’ve been at this for a while, over 35 years in business,” said Dillon, who previously held executive roles at McDonald’s, Gatorade, and U.S. Cellular, “and I haven’t worked this hard to get to this place and not really be a champion for what’s right.”


fortune--2020-09-29--How diverse leadership helped Northrop Grumman navigate the coronavirus crisis

Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden exercised restraint when describing this March as “a really interesting time” during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women virtual summit Tuesday.
As the coronavirus spread across the U.S., the defense contractor that has built everything from lunar landers to nuclear missiles was deemed an essential business. That meant its factories stayed in operation—and that workers in factories and elsewhere had to confront anxious uncertainty about their safety.
When it came to handling the crisis, Warden says she discovered diversity was a major edge for Northrop Grumman.
“I was so pleased that we have a diverse leadership team,” she told Fortune’s Pattie Sellers. “It really reflected what our organization needed to hear from us, because different people around the table had different perceptions of what is important. It highlighted for me that if you don’t have a leadership team that reflects the population, then you’re missing out on being able to lead all people within the organization.”
What she heard from that team was that it would take more than masks, social distancing, and disinfecting wipes to support the company’s workers and to make sure everyone was rowing together during the crisis. The company offered workers extra leave and provided eldercare and childcare for those who needed it, perks that Warden says “helped to alleviate the burden outside of the workplace.”
Warden herself had a good sense of the complex burdens faced by workers during the pandemic; she had her first child just after she began working in national security after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Warden also realized communication would be essential, and she says that for five months she wrote a weekly update to the entire company, covering what it was doing, specifically in response to the coronavirus.
“We needed to build people’s confidence…that they were going to be safe in the workplace,” she said.
That sort of direct communication between a CEO and her 90,000 workers is part of a larger effort at Northrop Grumman to create an inclusive environment. That involves not just seeking regular feedback, but establishing employee resource groups to bring together employees of particular backgrounds and empower them to push diversity efforts forward.
“It’s not enough to just have diversity around the table,” Warden says. “We want to make sure everyone’s voice is heard.”
It must be said that despite Warden’s upbeat rhetoric, the company’s diversity numbers are, on their face, nothing to write home about. As of the most recent 2018 data, 70% of its senior leadership is male, and only just over 15% is nonwhite—neither number anywhere close to Warden’s goal of a team that reflects the population. The company’s professional and technical ranks are somewhat more racially diverse, but just as male-dominated.
But context also matters: The company is doing as well or better by some measures than Google, which despite its progressive veneer and years of highly publicized efforts to change, has a dramatically lower proportion of Black and Latino workers and executives than Grumman.
Warden acknowledges Northrop Grumman has a long way to go to create a representative team. To keep pushing forward, she says the defense contractor has taken a step many companies don’t dare: setting specific diversity goals, and tying them to executive incentives.
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Warden said. “But I’ll tell you, we’re not done.”


fortune--2020-09-29--Palantir and Asana to test investor hunger for direct listings this week

The number of tech companies going public this year by directly listing their shares instead of using Wall Street underwriters is about to double from 2019 and 2018—to two.
A year after Slack went public with a direct listing and two years after Spotify used the same maneuver, collaboration software maker Asana and data crunching firm Palantir will both use the technique this week.
In a direct listing, companies allow existing shareholders to sell on a stock exchange, but don’t issue new shares and therefore don’t raise additional capital, as they could in a traditional IPO. But they also don’t pay as much in fees to investment bankers. And there’s typically no “lock up” requirement preventing other existing shareholders from selling as soon as they’d like.
With Wall Street making billions in IPO fees over the years, venture capitalists led by Benchmark’s Bill Gurley have been pushing for more startups to use the direct listing method. “We’ve been stuck with the old process for a long, long time,” Gurley told Fortune last year.
This week he’ll get the biggest test yet of the unusual method with the new listings of Asana and Palantir. The bevy of other tech startups that went public in 2020 all used the traditional IPO method.
Asana, started in 2008 by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, saw its revenue grow 86% to $143 million last year, and 63% in the first half of 2020 to $100 million. It also posted losses of $119 million last year and $77 million in the first half of this year. It will trade under the symbol ASAN.
Asana’s main product, which has attracted 1.2 million paying users, helps workers communicate and coordinate. The company is seeking a market value of around $5 billion, giving it plenty of room to expand.
Business software has been one of the IPO market’s hottest sectors. Cloud database developer Snowflake has seen its shares more than double in less than two weeks from their IPO price; developer tools specialist JFrog’s shares have almost doubled in the same period; and e-commerce platform BigCommerce’s stock is close to quadrupling since being listed in August. Among already public companies similar to Asana, Atlassian’s shares are up 52% this year, and Slack’s gained 21%.
The story is a little different at Palantir. Cofounded in 2003 by PayPal veteran Peter Thiel, CEO Alex Karp, and others, the company started out helping defense and intelligence agencies analyze data about potential threats. It later expanded to offer data analytics to commercial and nondefense customers too.
But Palantir is growing more slowly than many rival tech startups that went public this year. Its revenue last year rose 25% to $743 million, and 49% in the first half of 2020 to $481 million. Its net loss was $580 million last year and $165 million in the first half of 2020. Its shares will trade under the symbol PLTR.
Civil rights groups have protested against Palantir’s work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other agencies. CEO Karp told investors earlier this month that the company would not change its strategy. “We have certain beliefs, and we will stick with those,” he said.
A couple of non-U.S. tech companies also plan to go public this week, though via traditional IPOs. Chinese cloud data center owner Chindata Group is looking to raise $500 million, and Yalla Group, a social network operator based in Dubai, is looking for about $150 million. Also, Chinese online education service Lixiang Education wants to raise $33 million.
(This story was updated on Sept. 30 to correct the stock symbol for Asana.)


fortune--2020-09-29--‘We’re all learning real-time’: GM CEO Mary Barra is being patient—but concrete—about inclusivity

When it comes to making one of the world’s largest companies more committed to racial diversity, General Motors CEO Mary Barra knows there’s no easy or quick fix.
In June, after police officers killed George Floyd, Barra told her employees that she was “impatient and disgusted” with the country’s response to systemic racism and promised that “there is much we can do” at General Motors to make a difference. Since then, she has created an “inclusion advisory board” at the company and appointed a chief diversity, inclusion, and equity officer; formalized inclusive behavior as a category that GM considers core to its culture and by which it will eventually assess employees; and reviewed a wide array of GM practices, including hiring and internal development, as well as its relationships with suppliers and car dealers.
But these are just the early steps of what Barra says will be a very long and painstaking effort to make permanent change. And she’s encouraging both her employees and other companies’ executives to be similarly patient when it comes to improving corporate America’s often dismal track record on racial diversity.
“We’re trying to be very transparent with the workforce in that, yes, we’re going to continue to make progress. But this is a journey that we’re beginning,” Barra said Tuesday at Fortune’s virtual Most Powerful Women Summit. “We want to have realistic expectations. And we want to keep everyone engaged.
“Part of this is being vulnerable, and sharing that, you know, we don’t have all the answers. The other day, somebody said, ‘We’re all learning real-time.’ And I was so encouraged by it,” she added. “We have a long way to go. But I’m encouraged by the engagement.”
Barra also has taken some practical steps to make GM’s senior leadership team think more long-term about diversifying its talent pipeline. That’s often been a shortcoming across Fortune 500 companies, only four of which currently have a Black CEO, and few of which have traditionally done much to recruit, promote, or retain nonwhite candidates. Last week, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf drew criticism and later apologized for a June memo to employees claiming that “the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from.”
At GM, Barra has asked her 230 senior leaders to consider diverse candidates any time an internal position opens up—but also to be proactive about developing employees of color for such future promotions.
“If you don’t have a diverse slate, then tell me what you’re going to do so that three years from now, the slate will be diverse,” she said. “And that’s causing a lot of discussion.”


fortune--2020-09-29--How 3 of biopharma’s most powerful women are building public trust during COVID

There’s a fundamental problem with a crisis: The institutions responsible for clawing us out of it are, understandably, held to a much higher standard by the public and may be regarded with a certain skepticism.
In a health crisis such as a global pandemic, that’s a challenge that the medical industry must grapple with: Without their tests, treatments, and vaccines, returning to normalcy could prove an impossible task. And that’s why companies like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott are relying on transparency and a set of guiding scientific principles in order to gain public trust during the COVID-19 pandemic, a trio of industry leaders said during Fortune’s 2020 Most Powerful Women (MPW) virtual summit on Tuesday.
“Ensuring the public understands the ethical standards and the scientific integrity we expect, that sets a very strong tone for the company and also the entire industry,” said Angela Hwang, president of Pfizer’s biopharmaceuticals unit, which is developing a coronavirus vaccine in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech.
Publicly disclosing standards and the way that clinical trials are designed is critical, according to Hwang. But so is active public outreach, especially in countries like the U.S. where there’s a high rate of vaccine skepticism.
“We have made large advances by working with credible stakeholders to provide education to groups like patient advocacy groups and public institutions,” she said, adding that “we know that it is important to focus on our minority populations who have been disproportionately affected” by COVID-19.
Johnson & Johnson’s Dr. Macaya Douoguih, head of clinical development for the vaccines group at Janssen, the firm’s pharmaceutical arm, concurred. “We’ve been as transparent as possible,” she said of her own firm’s coronavirus vaccine candidate.
Vaccine development is one thing; testing for the pathogen is a very different challenge given that diagnostics, in the early stages of the pandemic, were wildly inconsistent and in some cases unreliable. To change that dynamic and build trust in a different sense, companies like Abbott had to do a lot of early preparation, building up manufacturing capacity while developing multiple kinds of tests.
“We knew early on you need tests with a fast turnaround and tests that can be deployed in different settings,” said Abbott EVP Andrea Wainer. “We knew on this one it was going to be multiple tests, no one test was going to do it all.”
Those efforts have paid off, according to Wainer. This year, the company has developed eight different coronavirus diagnostics globally and conducted 72 million tests to date.


fortune--2020-09-29--Joe Biden’s campaign attacks Facebook for failing to protect the 2020 election

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is once again condemning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his social network—this time for failing to protect the U.S. presidential election.
“Rather than seeing progress, we have seen regression,” Biden’s campaign said in a letter to Zuckerberg on Monday. “Facebook’s continued promise of future action is serving as nothing more than an excuse for inaction.”
The letter, obtained by Fortune, suggests that Facebook has failed to live up to its own policies and promises to protect against election disinformation. It refers to posts from President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. that encouraged people to vote by mail and in person and suggested that people opposed to Trump plan to submit “millions of fraudulent ballots.”
In response to the letter, a Facebook spokesperson provided the following statement: “While many Republicans think we should take one course, many Democrats think we should do the exact opposite. We’ve faced criticism from Republicans for being biased against conservatives and Democrats for not taking more steps to restrict the exact same content. We have rules in place to protect the integrity of the election and free expression, and we will continue to apply them impartially.”
The letter from Biden’s campaign was sent just one day before Biden faces off against Trump in the first 2020 presidential debate. It also comes during a contentious election year, when, owing to the coronavirus, many voters will vote by mail and election results may not be final until well after the election.
Meanwhile, Facebook, under fire for allowing misinformation and fake news to spread during the 2016 presidential election, has promised to do better this time around. It has said it would remove posts that provide misinformation about voting and that it wouldn’t accept new political ads within a week of the election.
But Biden’s camp isn’t convinced.
“Mr. Trump and his allies are hijacking this model to sow distrust in our democracy,” Monday’s letter reads. “You have committed not to allow that to happen. Yet you do allow it to happen—time and again.”
This is the second time the Biden campaign has taken aim at Facebook. Earlier this year, the former Vice President demanded that Facebook do more to prevent the spread of misinformation and “rants of bad actors and conspiracy theorists.” In a letter to Zuckerberg, he asked Facebook to stop allowing political groups to lie in ads—those are currently allowed—and asked that the company promote news from credible sources and block voter suppression efforts by anyone, including President Trump.
In Monday’s letter, signed by Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, the campaign argued Facebook works against its “founding principle” to empower individual voices and rather “caters to those who already have power.” The campaign also says it plans to call out Facebook’s failures as they occur leading up to the election.


fortune--2020-09-29--5 things to consider about Trump’s tax returns ahead of the debates

President Donald Trump paid just $750 in income taxes the year he entered the White House, far less than any recent sitting president and about the same amount that a single worker who made $18,000 would be expected to pay. According to a report by the New York Times, the president didn’t pay any taxes during 11 of the last 18 years, largely due to huge business losses.
The investigative report explains why Trump has been so reluctant to share his tax returns with the American public—his large losses directly contradict the image he’s projecting to the public as a successful businessman and his liberal use of write-off tactics (which are potentially unlawful, according to some legal experts) paint a picture of someone who doesn’t respect the system.
The president has long told the American people that he has no problem exploiting the IRS to get ahead. During his first presidential debate in 2016, Trump clearly stated that he would “take advantage of the laws of the nation.” Not paying taxes, he said, made him “smart.”
Still, the president has criticized his predecessor for paying far more than he did. “@BarackObama who wants to raise all our taxes,” Trump tweeted in 2012, “only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. Do as I say not as I do.”
The president defended his tax practices yesterday. “The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent,” the president tweeted, though he didn’t refute any of the specifics. His advisors, meanwhile, pointed out that the news was released suspiciously close to the first presidential debate against former Vice President Joe Biden.
Below are five important takeaways from the New York Times report, many of which will likely be brought up at the debate Tuesday evening.
The president is in a lot of debt, and it’s due soon
Trump is in hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, and he’s expected to repay that money soon. Based on returns, the Times estimated that the president owes about $421 million in personally-guaranteed loans, most of that money is due by 2024 (which would be the last year of a second term in office). The IRS is investigating a tax rebate of $72.9 million, and if their investigation turns against Trump he could have to return all or some of that money, with penalties and interest. Finally, the president owes a $100 million mortgage on Trump Tower due in 2022.
His business expenses are precarious
Seventy thousand dollars for hairstyling, $2.2 million for his home, Seven Springs estate in Westchester County even though his 2017 tax plan allowed $10,000 in property tax write offs a year. He also wrote off aircraft and plane rides and his golf courses. The president appears to have taken a liberal understanding of what a tax write-off entails, some of which tax courts have repeatedly rejected.
The president has received more money from foreign sources and interest groups than we knew
According to the Times, since 2015, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has received a $5 million per year jump in membership. The president’s companies have produced a number of overseas projects and received $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, meanwhile, spent nearly $400,000 at the president’s Washington D.C. hotel in 2017.
He may have paid his family members “consultancy fees” to reduce taxes
The president wrote off more than $25 million in “consultancy fees” which went largely unexplained in his filings. He did not list who these consultants were, but in many cases the amount paid out matches exactly what his daughter, Ivanka Trump, claimed as income on her own tax returns. Ivanka Trump’s tax returns showed $747,622 in payments from a consulting group that she co-owns. The president’s tax filings show the same amount paid out to someone who consulted on two hotel projects. Because Ivanka was on the staff of the companies at the time, there are some questions as to whether she could be considered an independent contractor and whether her fees could be written off.
This isn’t normal
Wealthy Americans have resources, a team of accountants and consultants, on their side to figure out how to best toe the line of legality when it comes to paying taxes and get away with paying less. It’s also significantly more difficult for the IRS to go after these people, and so often they don’t.
The IRS audits the working poor at about the same rate that it audits the 1%, and spokespeople have admitted that it’s easier to retrieve money from lower-income Americans than it is from the wealthy. The president himself signed a $1.5 trillion tax cut bill into law in 2017 that benefited corporations and the wealthy more than working-class and low-income Americans. The CARES act, which was signed into law this year as relief from the COVID-19 pandemic also included a number of breaks for the wealthy. The richest 400 families in the U.S. pay a lower tax rate than the middle class.
But among his wealthy peers Trump is still an outlier. While the top 1% of Americans have low effective tax rates—just 26% for in 2015—they still pay billions in personal income tax every year. In 2016, the top 1% of taxpayers paid $538 billion in federal income tax, more than the bottom 90% combined.


fortune--2020-09-29--Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex: ‘If you listen to what I actually say, it’s not controversial’

Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex is familiar with online misinformation. Over the past four years, the actor turned duchess turned activist has been the subject of fascination—and extreme scrutiny—across the Internet.
Breaking through that toxicity online to build healthier communities in digital spaces is now a focus of her work with her husband, Prince Harry. Through their new Archewell Foundation, the couple are working with other organizers and activists to address the negative side of social media, from its effects on individuals’ mental health to the systemic consequences of disinformation on platforms like Facebook. Prince Harry first spoke out about toxic digital behavior in 2016, when the duchess was subject to racist attacks online as she entered the global spotlight.
In her own life, Meghan told Fortune’s Ellen McGirt, the times when stories about her have spiraled out of control have stemmed from that misinformation. “If you look back at anything I’ve said, what ends up being inflammatory is people’s interpretation of it,” the duchess said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, which kicked off Tuesday. “But if you listen to what I actually say”—like encouraging Americans to vote—”it’s not controversial.”
Meghan spoke to Fortune’s MPW community, who gathered virtually for the summit, from her new home in California. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex began their work on this issue this year, after leaving their positions as full-time working members of the royal family and moving to North America, first to Canada and then to the United States.
The pair found that reforming online spaces—by connecting with everyone from tech company CEOs to grassroots activists—sat at the intersection of their interests, which spanned veterans’ issues, mental health, and gender equality. “It’s like taking two steps forward and five steps backward,” the duchess said of doing work to address those needs in the physical world without fixing the way these problems are discussed online.
This summer the duo joined the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which encouraged advertisers to withhold their advertising dollars from social media companies, especially Facebook, as a way to push those companies to address hate and toxic behavior on their platforms. The boycott specifically responded to the police killing of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, and racist hate speech online.
“It’s not about trying to take down Facebook, for example,” Meghan said during Tuesday’s discussion. “If the changes that are being made are in fact made, it’s for the good of everyone, Facebook included.” But, she added, change has to be long term. “We can’t have this slap on the wrist,” Meghan said.
By addressing everything from hate speech to the way social media platforms shape the lives of children and young adults, Meghan—and her husband—hope to propel forward their work on other issues, from gender equity to mental health. “We can all see it and feel it,” the duchess said of the problem with so many digital spaces today. “Whether we are directly involved in the online world or not, it’s felt globally. And we know that it’s not sustainable the way that it is.”


fortune--2020-09-29--Coffee prices could surge soon as La Nina heat scorches world’s largest crop supply

Prices of coffee, this year’s worst-performing major agricultural commodity, may get a boost from La Nina as the weather phenomenon threatens Brazil’s next crop.
After a bumper 2020 harvest, La Nina is escalating the risk of a decline in output next year as most crops, already dry from months of below-average rain, endure scorching temperatures.
La Nina occurs when the surface of the Pacific Ocean cools, triggering an atmospheric chain reaction that stands to roil weather around the globe. In Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse, very dry and hot weather is clouding the outlook for everything from arabica coffee to oranges, sugar, and soybeans. In Colombia, another coffee-growing country, La Nina tends to bring adverse above-average rains.
Contrasting the worrying scenes of wilting flowers in Brazilian coffee trees is the record-high pace of the country’s exports after cooler and wetter conditions favored growers last year. Strong Brazilian shipments at a time of weak consumption because of pandemic lockdowns help explain why arabica futures are down 16% this year, more than any other major farm commodity. During the last big La Nina, prices surged as much as 127% between 2010 and 2012.
“The situation is very bad with trees withering intensively every day,” Regis Ricco Alves, a director at consulting firm RR Consultoria Rural, said from Minas Gerais, Brazil’s biggest coffee-producing state.
No rain is forecast for the next 10 days in coffee-growing areas, with temperatures seen hitting record highs. This week, temperatures may reach 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), according to Somar Meteorologia. Even those crops that benefited from rain in the past week have only had 30 millimeters (1.2 inch) this month, 40% of what was expected.
At this time of year, trees should be flowering for next year’s harvest. But the first flowering in August has been lost in many regions and conditions for new flowering are poor. Flowers turn into cherries that contain arabica beans, the smooth-tasting kind preferred by Starbucks.
Givago Miranda, a farmer in the Tres Pontas municipality of Minas Gerais, said his trees are withering and turning yellow, with buds getting “cooked” before opening in some cases.
“The potential for the next crop is now certainly 5% to 10% smaller,” he said.
In the Mogiana region of Sao Paulo state, farmer Rodrigo de Freitas registered just 4 millimeters of rain in August and the same amount in September. April through June was also dry. Even with irrigation and even if good precipitation comes by Oct. 10 as forecast, the damage may already have been done.
“The situation is getting severe with even the more resistant adult crops getting hurt,” Alves said.
Soy prospects
For soybeans, La Nina is deemed as less threatening for the world’s biggest producer of the oilseed. Weather has been drier than normal in most Brazilian growing regions, delaying planting. But regular rains are expected from the second week of October, bringing favorable conditions for seeding and crop development, according to Celso Oliveira, a meteorologist at Somar. In fact, weather models signal a wetter summer compared with the previous season, when Brazil reaped a record crop.
Still, some parts of Rio Grande do Sul state, in the nation’s far south, may face excessive dryness in the most susceptible stage for the crop, while the Matopiba region may also see adverse conditions. But not enough to prevent another bumper soybean crop.
Soy delays may have some consequences for corn and cotton planted just after the oilseed harvest. The Pacific is expected to warm in the middle of next year, which may result in drier-than-normal weather from April in central Brazil.
“Crops may lack rain during the autumn,“ Oliveira said.


fortune--2020-09-29--Fewer waiters, no menus: Is Square’s new service the future of dining?

For restaurants, the pandemic has been brutal: It’s meant fewer customers and higher cleaning costs. But it’s also introduced new technologies aimed at making dining safer—and that could permanently change how we go out for dinner.
The latest example is a new service from payment giant Square that reduces social interactions by eliminating many tasks performed by a waiter. Instead of looking at the menu and placing orders with a server, customers instead rely on their phone to receive their food and pay the check.
The service uses QR codes—a technology that’s been around for eons but has gotten a boost during COVID—placed at the tables. While many restaurants have used the codes since the start of the pandemic to let customers see a menu, the Square tool takes it a step further by integrating with a restaurant’s kitchen printers and payment systems.
Square has recently rolled out the service to a handful of restaurants—mostly small, independent ones—in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia. One of them is Pizzahacker in Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco.
Pizzahacker’s owner, Jeff Krupman, says the service makes customers and staff feel safer but also improves the efficiency of the pizza joint’s operations.
The efficiency comes about because it eliminates the time customers spend waiting for a server to come to the table to take an order or bring the check. Instead, customers handle these functions on their own, while a food runner brings the meals and beverages. The new Square tool also makes it easy to split checks, eliminating an annoyance for both servers and customers.
According to Square’s head of commerce, Dave Rusenko, the QR-based service routes orders directly to the kitchen, which reduces the possibility of mix-ups. He adds the system also offers new marketing opportunities for restaurants—letting them obtain customers’ contact information they can use to follow up with emails or special offers.
Rusenko says customers have been so pleased by the service that, in the case of another Mill Valley restaurant, they posted a spate of positive Yelp reviews.
It’s unclear, however, if the service will find traction outside of urban tech hubs like the San Francisco Bay Area, or in eateries where most customers use cash. Rusenko acknowledges that QR-code ordering may not be for everyone and notes that it is designed as a complement rather than a replacement for traditional service from a waiter.
Also unclear is whether such services will remain popular beyond the pandemic. While they are hygienic and offer a means for restaurants to save on staffing costs, many people regard chatting with a server as a quintessential part of going out for a meal.
For Square, meanwhile, the new restaurant tool represents another opportunity to expand Square Online—a service focused on helping retailers take payments online. Traditionally, the company’s bread-and-butter has been providing devices to help stores and kiosks take credit cards. But more recently, the company has been making inroads in fields like loans, payroll, and person-to-person payments with its Cash App.
Square is hardly the only one pushing to expand its presence among retailers and promote the use of QR codes. Other payment companies like PayPal, Stripe, and Shopify have all been thriving during the pandemic, as customers turn away from cash and businesses look for no-touch payment services.


fortune--2020-09-29--Nordstrom to stop selling fur and exotic skin products

Nordstrom said on Tuesday it would stop selling products with fur or exotic animal skins by the end of next year in tacit acknowledgement of consumers’ growing objections to such items.
The high-end department store, whose own house brands have not included fur for a number of years, said the ban would extend to its namesake stores, its discount Rack chain, and its website. Nordstrom follows Macy’s, whose namesake and Bloomingdale’s chains made this move just under a year ago, saying they would stop by January 2021. In the United Kingdom, department store Selfridges ended the sale of exotic animal skins earlier this year.
Nordstrom’s chief merchant, Teri Bariquit, said in a statement that serving customers better “means continually listening to customer feedback and evolving our product offering to ensure we’re meeting their needs.” The retailer consulted with the Humane Society in making the decision, as Macy’s did last year.
HBC’s Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, both higher-end retailers than Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s, continue to sell fur and exotic skins products. Such skins include those from various reptiles as well as sharks, ostrich, and kangaroos. Neither company immediately responded to requests for comment.
For a growing number of customers, real fur seems outdated. Macy’s, last year, pointed to that trend, the rise of new fabric technology, and the popularity of faux fur in explaining its decision. Retailers and fashion houses have also gotten a nudge from some governments: Last October, the State of California, a major market for Nordstrom, recently banned the sale and manufacturing of fur products starting in 2023.
And many top brands like Gucci, Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, and Tommy Hilfiger have gone fur-free. Canada Goose, long criticized for its use of coyote fur, said in April it would stop buying new fur from trappers but would continue to adorn coats with recycled fur.


fortune--2020-09-29--Two cutting-edge features have been added to a Lenovo laptop—but will it sell?

Lenovo’s folding screen laptop went on sale Tuesday, making it the latest gadget trying to capitalize on the development of folding glass displays. There are no reviews yet of the new ThinkPad X1 Fold, which debuted at CES in January, but the announcement illustrated some of the perils of jumping out ahead of the pack to integrate the newest technologies.
When the tech industry makes a big breakthrough, it’s up to individual companies to decide how and when to add the potential new feature to actual products. Move too soon and consumers may ignore an overpriced or unreliable product. Move too late and rivals can steal market share.
The first iPhone famously eschewed then-current 3G wireless connectivity, without much harm, while Microsoft helped spark a new category of combined laptops and tablets, now called 2-in-1s, with its first Surface device.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold has a 13-inch screen that folds down the middle. Courtesy of Lenovo
Lenovo’s new laptop includes two shiny new technologies: 5G wireless and folding displays. The ThinkPad X1 Fold has a 13-inch OLED touch screen that folds down the middle and an optional 5G modem that offers superfast wireless connectivity, at least in places covered by 5G mobile networks. It’s the first folding screen laptop and one of the first 5G laptops (Lenovo’s Flex 5G, out this summer, was the first). Starting price: $2,500.
The 2.2-pound laptop is designed to take up much less space than a typical device. When folded, the laptop is only 6.3 inches long, versus 12 inches when unfolded. But the laptop has no built-in keyboard, instead offering an optional removable keyboard that snaps into place with magnets and connects via Bluetooth.
Despite the neat folding trick, the laptop’s weight is about the same as rival devices like the LG Gram 13 and Acer Swift 5, which include built-in keyboards. And it’s only half of a pound lighter than Lenovo’s own regular ThinkPad X1 Carbon, also with a built-in keyboard. The rivals also offer brighter screens, longer claimed battery life, and prices close to half of the X1 Fold’s.
So other than bragging rights, why would a consumer opt for the X1 Fold? The higher price brings a generally weaker set of features unless fitting the laptop in a small physical space is an essential need. The Fold’s new keyboard also will have to rate against the ThinkPad’s almost 30-year history of industry-best laptop keyboards.
The smartphone market offers another warning signal. Lenovo’s folding laptop arrives after phonemakers have spent the past two years focused on creating folding devices. None have sold particularly well. Like the X1 Fold, the folding screen phones generally carry premium price tags, compromised specifications, and questions about utility.
And while 5G in a laptop can come in handy for downloading large files or working with cloud apps, U.S. consumers trying to preorder the X1 Fold on Tuesday might be disappointed to discover that 5G models are not yet available. (Models including 5G will be rolled out from October through December in different parts of the world, a Lenovo spokesperson said.)
So for the first folding screen laptop, it may be too much, too soon, at too high a price.


fortune--2020-09-29--House stimulus plan includes $1,200 stimulus checks and $500 for dependents

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
House Democrats want to be Heroes.
On Tuesday morning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin spoke for 50 minutes to go over the provisions of House’s revised Heroes bill, which was unveiled Monday night. The bill contains $1,200 stimulus checks, $436 billion for aid to state and local governments, small business aid, money for schools, as well as more aid for airlines. In total the package adds up to $2.2 trillion—down from the House’s previous $3.4 trillion plan, but far above the Republican target of $1.3 trillion.
The list of the bill’s provisions is extremely lengthy, including everything from funding for the Post Office, to Amtrak, to money to help close the ‘homework gap’ for kids without internet access. A full list can be found here. Funding for coronavirus testing and contact tracing ($75 billion) is included, as well as $225 billion for education—”including $182 billion for K-12 schools and nearly $39 billion for postsecondary education—and $57 billion to support child care for families.”
When it comes to stimulus checks, each individual would get $1,200, but dependents would qualify for $500 each (under the House’s original plan, dependents would have also gotten $1,200). However, there are a few important differences this time around. First, the bill specifies that dependents include full-time students under the age of 24 and adult dependents. Second, in order to receive a stimulus check one would only need a Taxpayer Identification Number, not a Social Security Number. And finally unlike the CARES Act payments, these would be exempt from levy or garnishment due to past due child support. The payments would be determined based on 2018 or 2019 tax returns, the bill states.
The plan would also extend $600 supplemental unemployment benefits through January. Those originally expired during the summer and were replaced by $300 weekly benefits that Trump specified through an executive order. Those also were set to expire this month.
There is widespread agreement that without more intervention, the nascent economic recovery may run out of steam. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Fed chief Jerome Powell have both testified that they believe more stimulus is necessary. Last week business mogul and investor Mark Cuban called for a wide-ranging stimulus package whereby every American would receive a $1,000 check every two weeks for the next two months.
According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson Drew Hammill, “The two went over the provisions of the updated Heroes Act” on Tuesday morning, “and agreed to speak again tomorrow,” he wrote on Twitter.
The endgame? If the two sides cannot make progress on a deal, it would allow the House to go ahead and pass the Heroes Act and campaign on its passage, putting the Senate in the uncomfortable spot of standing between struggling Americans and their stimulus checks.