fortune--2020-02-13--8 good reasons to turn down a promotion

8 good reasons to turn down a promotion

Tesla raises capital two weeks after Elon Musk said it wasn ’ t needed

Even if a new job opportunity can potentially leave you overworked, unhappy, or unfulfilled, the idea of turning down a promotion is still inconceivable. There’s this fear of appearing ungrateful for the opportunity or as if you’re not serious about your job. While these are valid concerns, it is OK to turn down a promotion if you decide it is not right for you.
So, how do you take that decision? To start off, look at the position as a whole before you do. “Review the job description and envision yourself doing those things each day, and determine whether that would be interesting or exciting for you before accepting it,” says Erica Galos Alioto, chief people officer at Opendoor. This deep dive will give you a much better understanding of how the job would impact your life—and if it’s to a larger degree than you want to.
Saying no doesn’t have to reflect badly on you as an employee. “If a promotion is the gift you don’t actually want to take from the party, it is possible to politely decline without workplace politics getting messy”, says Dr. Joy Lere, a psychologist, researcher and life coach.
“Express gratitude for the vote of confidence in skill and ability, and humbly communicate that it is an honor to be considered for a change in title and/or compensation,” she says. A good employer will respect your decision and commend you for thinking it over so thoroughly.
“It’s okay to recognize when it isn’t the right time to take on more,” says Galos Alioto, “and doing so will likely benefit you in the end.” Here’s 8 situations when you should probably turn down a promotion.
1. Your life is in transition
A promotion, and the new responsibilities that come with it, can sometimes be too much to also take on. “Some employees are in the midst of life circumstances that make a transition, time of learning, and increased responsibilities less than ideal,” says Dr. Lere. Whether you’ve just had a baby, are dealing with a traumatic life event or are navigating out any myriad of transitions, it is sometimes okay to pass.
2. You would be stretched too thin
A promotion may lead you into a balancing act that feels impossible. “It’s always okay to say ‘no’ if it compromises your ability to be the person you want to be in life—a good parent or a good community member, for example,” says Stacey Staaterman, a certified professional coach. When deciding if a promotion is worth it, think about the long-term impact of the position. Sometimes it can lead towards workplace burnout due to traveling or dealing regularly with multiple time zones. “Too many professionals don’t think about the ripple effect of a promotion—good and bad,” explains Staaterman.
3. It doesn’t align with your career goals
Turning down a promotion can feel counterintuitive as you work to grow your career, but it makes sense if it’s a step in the wrong direction. “Don’t settle for a better job if it means you will have to sacrifice the position you really want to work towards,” says Wendy Webster, finance and HR manager at Ramblers Walking Holidays.
Be honest with your employer about why you’re turning down the position and where you hope to see your career going. “It may be that they will consider you for the role you would like instead, or they may at least help you to work towards it,” she continues. Especially if you’re financially stable, there’s no harm in holding out for what you really want.
4. You would unwillingly become a manager
There are plenty of reasons why you may choose to turn down a role that requires managing other employees. “Many individual contributors don’t actually want to manage people. They prefer to do the thing they are doing—whether that’s coding, recruiting or selling, for example,” says Galos Alioto. Management is just one track to grow your career, so be upfront with your company about why it isn’t the path for you and where your interests lie instead.
5. You won’t be compensated fairly
More responsibility doesn’t necessarily translate into more money. As Webster says, “No promotion comes without added duties, so you need to really consider if these additional stresses are worth the money you will be paid in your new role.” If you’ve been offered a promotion without proper compensation, explain your concerns to the hiring manager and negotiate the salary. If they won’t budge, consider asking for an explanation.
6. The position has a lot of turnover
There’s always that one position that no one seems to stay in long enough to be remembered. “If you’ve been offered a promotion into a role that is frequently vacant, ask yourself why,” says Nate Masterson, HR manager for Maple Holistics. “There’s usually a reason why positions are constantly being made available—the role is too hard, too brutal, or the expectations are too great. It’s important to find out before accepting the position—and to potentially turn it down if this is.”
7. It would mean working under a toxic leader
Who you work with—and for—make all the difference in how enjoyable your job is. This sentiment is critical to keep in mind when deciding if you should move to a new position. “If you’re aware that your future boss is likely to be extremely unreasonable or engage in bullying or toxic behavior, then you’re better off declining the promotion,” says Heather Spiegel, an executive recruiter and career coach. “Depending on the size of the organization, you might be offered a similar role in the future working under a better leader.” Of course, if a toxic employee is making such a negative impact, you may choose to bring it up to higher management.
8. It requires relocating
Even as remote work becomes more popular, many job opportunities still require employees to move. “If you have to relocate somewhere that would be very disruptive for your family. That will cost you in in a lot of ways, even if you are bringing home a bigger paycheck,” Bryan Zawikowski, vice president and general manager of the military transition division for Lucas Group. If you’re single, relocation can still be a big deal as it may mean moving away from your support group of friends and family. If you’re happy living where you are, that can be enough of a reason to turn down a promotion requiring relocation.
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fortune--2020-02-13--Defense Department’s JEDI contract with Microsoft halted after Amazon complains

A judge has ordered a temporary halt to a major Defense Department contract awarded to Microsoft after rival Amazon complained about the bidding process.
In a sealed legal document filed Thursday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith said the Defense Department’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract is blocked “until further order of the court.” The decision comes just days after Amazon Web Services, the retail giant’s cloud computing arm, revealed in legal documents unsealed this week that it was seeking to depose President Donald Trump and Pentagon officials to obtain more information about the JEDI cloud bidding process.
Amazon has alleged that President Trump’s public hostility toward the company and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, improperly influenced the Pentagon’s decision in October to award the coveted cloud contract, worth up to $10 billion over 10 years, to Microsoft.
It’s unclear why Judge Campbell-Smith has blocked the JEDI contract from moving forward. One of the few details revealed in a public summary of the otherwise sealed filing was that Amazon must pay $42 million in “the event that future proceedings prove that this injunction was issued wrongfully.”
Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw said in a statement: “While we are disappointed with the additional delay we believe that we will ultimately be able to move forward with the work to make sure those who serve our country can access the new technology they urgently require. We have confidence in the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft.”
There was no immediate word from the judge about any future hearings about her temporary order. But she did ask both parties to file additional paperwork.
“We are disappointed in today’s ruling and believe the actions taken in this litigation have unnecessarily delayed implementing DoD’s modernization strategy and deprived our warfighters of a set of capabilities they urgently need,” Defense Department spokesperson Lt Col Robert Carver said in a statement. “However, we are confident in our award of the JEDI Cloud contract to Microsoft and remain focused on getting this critical capability into the hands of our warfighters as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
In its legal filing unsealed earlier this week, Amazon had accused President Trump of influencing the choice of the winner for the contract. The company said that Trump, who has spared with Bezos over reporting by his newspaper, the Washington Post, was biased against Amazon and had used his power to taint the selection process against it.
“The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends,” Amazon said in a statement.
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fortune--2020-02-13--Home broadband providers face an uncertain future in the 5G era

Mobile phone companies pitch 5G, the superfast successor to today’s wireless networks, as a huge opportunity. The nascent technology will, in theory, make their service indispensable to subscribers who use data-hungry video games, smart home devices, and want blazing fast Internet speeds.
But that same 5G technology creates an uncertain future for home broadband providers, the cable and telecom companies that offer wired Internet service to more than 100 million subscribers nationwide. If consumers can use 5G to stream Netflix and play Apex Legends at home, why would they pay for traditional broadband?
The answer to this question will have huge implications for the giant broadband industry. The ultimate outcome, however, is anything but clear.
Analysts, mobile network providers, and home broadband companies have starkly different views about how 5G will impact how consumers get online. Some say 5G will upend the current broadband reality, while others, including the cable companies that stand to lose a huge cash cow, argue that 5G will have limited impact on their businesses.
What is clear is that 5G can provide download speeds of up to 10 Gbps, which is much faster than most existing wireless and home broadband connections. Cable company home broadband plans often start at 100Mbps—a fraction of what’s possible with 5G.
“5G will bring meaningful, new in-home broadband alternatives to millions of people in America,” says T-Mobile, which has a 5G network that can already reach a huge swath of the country. “An estimated 21 million people—about 15% of Americans—lack access to fixed high-speed broadband and 48% of U.S. households lack any competitive choice for in-home broadband service.”
T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T plan to invest billions of dollars in 5G networks over the next several years. They say they can replace home broadband providers, like Cox, Comcast, and Charter, which for decades, have had a big share of the home Internet market.
Verizon, like AT&T, already sells home broadband to customers and therefore could end up losing some of them to 5G. But Verizon also offers a 5G home Internet service that is marketed as an alternative to traditional broadband. That service is available in a small number of cities including Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles, and is slated to expand to more by the end of this year.
“5G will be the technology of the future,” a Verizon spokesman says.
Some analysts say that home broadband providers should be worried about new challengers like Verizon.
“The potential is certainly there for 5G to have a material impact on the home broadband market,” BroadbandNow analyst Tyler Cooper says.
Consumer interest in 5G is already strong, says ABI Research analyst Khin Sandi Lynn. Frustrated by slow speeds, many consumers want an alternative.
“Home broadband users who currently experience slower fixed broadband speeds will want to switch to 5G as soon as possible,” Lynn says. “5G will be a good option to replace last-mile fiber-optic connections.”
But in interviews with Fortune, other experts, along with cable companies, say 5G’s benefits to home connectivity isn’t nearly as great as what wireless providers say.
“It will have no impact on the home broadband market in terms of high-speed and future access,” says Ernesto Omar Falcon, senior legislative counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that defends digital rights.
Falcon argues that cable companies already have vast nationwide networks that will allow them to deliver even faster speeds than 5G. But it will take time to upgrade those wired networks to what’s being called 10G, a specification that was announced in 2019 and is to be tested sometime this year.
“Pretty soon cable will reach 10 gigabit speeds while 5G will still be in deployment and substantially slower than cable systems, which means they won’t be in direct competition on the high-speed market,” Falcon says.
Cable company Cox insists that 5G won’t significantly impact its home broadband business. In fact, it says 5G and broadband are complementary, similar to existing broadband and wireless networks.
“5G and broadband will coexist,” Cox says. “Mobility is extremely important, but fast and reliable broadband networks will continue to carry the majority of traffic.”
At minimum, Cox says that 5G cell towers will have to be connected to wired lines to function. Providing that back-end infrastructure is a huge opportunity, says the company, which already powers 82% of the non-5G towers currently in operation in its coverage area.
In any case, cable companies are making baby steps into 5G. Earlier this week, Charter and Comcast announced plans to sell Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 5G phone to their customers for use on Verizon’s 5G network.
Comcast also plans to introduce unspecified 5G data options. Meanwhile, Charter has said that it is considering debuting a 5G network.
Still, broadband also has one major advantage today 5G can’t match: near ubiquity. Verizon, AT&T, and others have only started rolling out 5G, and plan to continue adding coverage in the coming years. Broadband is already available in nearly every city and suburb, though not in some rural areas. In order for 5G to truly compete with broadband, it must be available everywhere—and that will take time.
“The impact will be gradual and will immediately impact urban areas, followed by more populated suburbs,” says Babak Beheshti, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences at New York Institute of Technology. “The rural and less densely populated areas may not be affected by 5G for quite some time.”
If anything, says Andrew Moore-Crispin, content director at telecom operator Ting Mobile, 5G will force today’s home broadband providers to improve their services. The cable industry, in particular, needs more competition to force it to improve its notoriously poor customer service.
“Home broadband is in need of some disruption,” Moore-Crispin says. “And 5G may well have a role to play in the future.”
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—Predicting the biggest tech headlines of 2020
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fortune--2020-02-13--Trump to transfer $3.8 billion from military to fund his border wall

The Trump administration is transferring $3.8 billion in recently passed military funding to finance construction of the president’s long-sought U.S.-Mexico border wall, angering not just Democrats but also GOP defense hawks.
Thursday’s move by the Pentagon would transfer money from National Guard units, aircraft procurement and shipbuilding to anti-drug accounts that can finance construction of new wall.
The maneuver, announced in “reprogramming” documents provided to lawmakers, came in for harsh criticism by Rep. Mack Thornberry of Texas, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. Democrats slammed the moves as well, but Trump faced no consequences when making $2.5 billion in similar transfers last year.
“Congress has the constitutional authority to determine how defense dollars are spent,” Thornberry said in a statement. “The re-programming today is contrary to Congress’s constitutional authority.”
Trump’s action comes less than two months after he signed a huge appropriations package into law. He alienated lawmakers on both sides last year when diverting funding intended for popular projects on military bases.
This time, the Pentagon is targeting $1.3 billion for National Guard equipment and excess procurement of aircraft like the F-35 and V-22 Ospreys, favored by many lawmakers for the jobs they bring to their districts and states. He’s also eliminating funding for an amphibious assault ship built in Mississippi and an Expeditionary Fast Transport ship that’s built in Alabama, represented by Sen. Richard Shelby, the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
“This is a congressional special interest item,” said the Pentagon documents.
The reprogramming documents also label $532 million in aircraft procurement as congressional items, including two F-35 fighters sought by top House Appropriations Committee Republican Kay Granger and other members of the Texas delegation.
Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget, released only Monday, contains a $2 billion request for the wall, less than Trump asked for last year, which reflected the fact that Trump has more money for the wall than can be spent immediately.
“Today (Trump) stole from our National Guard to pay for his wasteful wall,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
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—The case for a national primary
—Fortune Explains: The debt ceiling
—Can Amazon convince a federal court to depose Trump over a $10 billion Pentagon contract?
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fortune--2020-02-13--Michael Bloomberg once cited the end of ‘redlining’ as the cause of the 2008 recession

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
Current presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is under fire for comments he made blaming the end of a racist lending policy for the global financial crisis of 2008.
The remarks were made at a forum hosted by Georgetown University in 2008. “It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone,” he said. “‘Redlining’, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, ‘People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don’t go into those areas.’”
Then, he said this: “And then Congress got involved—local elected officials, as well—and said, ‘Oh that’s not fair, these people should be able to get credit.’ And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn’t as good as you would like.”
Bloomberg made his billions in media, financial services, and software; his eponymous Bloomberg terminal is a fixture in the lives of institutional investors, financial reporters, and monied market watchers. While it’s natural for him to view the world through a Wall Street lens, it’s difficult to reconcile his remarks with what actually happened in the crisis—or further back in history.
He appears to be sort of alluding to the contemporary understanding that mortgage defaults triggered by aggressive and often predatory lending practices sparked the economic meltdown of 2008. And while some lenders targeted high-risk or inexperienced borrowers with shoddy products, there were plenty of credit-worthy people who ended up in foreclosure after being swept up in a real estate investment mania that seemed to have no end.
Bottom line, it is inaccurate to put any of this on the shoulders of the poor.
It’s also worth noting that the predatory behavior disproportionately impacted families of people of color who were already financially fragile.
“As a whole, African-American and Hispanic families were less affluent leading up to the 2008 Financial Crisis. They earned less annually and had a higher percentage of their mortgages fall underwater during the recession compared to their white counterparts,” reports my colleague Lucinda Shen in a 2018 piece looking back on the lasting damage wrought by lenders. “As a result, the gap between their wealth and the wealth of white families had continued to widen since the recession.” The recession also derailed the plans of young adults trying to enter the housing market, and hastened the economic decline of rural zip codes, she notes. (But not the wealthier ones.)
But to imply banks just threw up their hands and gave money to the irresponsible poor because Congress said they had to is simply… no. Just, no.
Redlining was (and continues to be) one of the most egregious examples of encoded racism that has existed in the U.S.
The practice began in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
The Roosevelt administration charged two New Deal agencies, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), with a vital job: Stabilize the housing market which had largely collapsed.
They got right to work—by infusing the ugly racial hierarchies of Jim Crow into the bedrock of U.S. mortgage lending and real estate practices.
It was the HOLC who gave us the image behind the term “redlining.” Their agents created “Residential Security” maps of major American cities and color-coded them according to lending risk: Green for the “Best,” blue for “Still Desirable,” yellow for “Definitely Declining,” and red for “Hazardous.” Green areas got the best mortgage rates, red was stuck with no or inferior credit options.
The assessments were not subtle.
HOLC’s agents described the residents of Carver Heights, a neighborhood in Savannah, Ga., as “a fair class of negroes and low type of white.” In a redlined section of Milwaukee, called “Polish Flats,” the agents warned of “Mexicans encroaching in the Northeast.” While neighborhoods with Jewish immigrants from Europe and Catholics were labeled “hazardous” at the time, it was typically the predominantly Black and Latinx communities who would never recover.
A recent study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), an advocacy group dedicated to ending discrimination in lending, found that three out of four formerly redlined communities are still struggling, some 80 years later. “It’s as if some of these places have been trapped in the past, locking neighborhoods into concentrated poverty,” Jason Richardson, director of research at the NCRC, told the Washington Post.
The practice was banned by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but bedrock is hard to break.
A 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning series by investigative reporter Bill Dedman published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Atlanta area banks routinely lent to poor white families, but not in middle-class or more affluent Black neighborhoods.
In a follow-up piece, Dedman found that nobody else did, either.
The last decade saw a spate of lawsuits and investigations, alleging both redlining and reverse redlining—the practice of steering risky, high interest loans to otherwise creditworthy Black and Hispanic borrowers. Major lenders like Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo have all been implicated.
In 2015, Associated Bank, a lender operating in parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, agreed to provide $200 million in lower interest rate mortgage loans to credit-worthy borrowers of color who had been previously denied loans, as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is the biggest such settlement of discrimination charges in history.
Still, the people in today’s forever-redlined zip codes live with an 80-year-old stamp of bigotry over their heads. Think East St. Louis: “Foreign and negro population rising, smoke nuisance from proximity to industrial plants.” Baltimore: “Infiltration of Negro, Relief families—Yes, many.” Detroit: “Unreliable tenants. Slums and fire hazards. Vandalism. Negro low cost housing project.”
They can’t bootstrap their way out four generations of lack of access to credit markets. And yet, we expect them to.
“I think most people believe the problem is not with the rules but with the people. Most middle-class whites in America don’t have empirical observations of what happens in underserved neighborhoods or understand the historical treatment of poor and minority communities,” John Taylor, chief executive of the NCRC told the Washington Post.
To his credit, Bloomberg promised in a speech last January to prompt lenders to update their credit-scoring models, an apparent turnaround from his 2008 sentiments. “[B]ecause millions of black households don’t have a credit score which is needed to get a mortgage.”
Let’s add on from there. What if borrowers of color could trust banks to properly finance their homes? Their dreams? What if government assessors observed the things imperiling fragile neighborhoods— fire hazards, smoke nuisance, poverty, and yes, gun violence—and actually helped them?
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
There are no COVID-19 cases in New York’s many Chinatowns. And yet… There’s been such a lull in dining and shopping in these famous districts, that shop owners and restauranteurs are begging folks to come back. “There’s a lot of cancellations. We know the foot traffic is down,” said Wellington Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership, during a Wednesday press conference. “There’s no one who says I haven’t suffered.” Senior producer Richard Yeh discussed his visit to Chinatown on All Things Considered on WNYC. “I’m an immigrant from Taiwan, and Flushing (Queens) is both my kitchen and my pantry,” he says. He confirms the lull. The food court in Flushing is one reason why it’s the mecca for regional Chinese cuisine. One purveyor, who specializes in the cuisine of Wuhan, has lost about half his income.
WNYC
Everyone is very stressed right now The latest Korn Ferry survey on executive stress shows that levels are at an alarming high. Some 88% of 1,400 professionals working around the globe say they’re experiencing more workplace stress now than five years ago. In 2018, that number was 65%. The biggest causes were bad bosses and unreasonable workloads, though a change in top leadership was also a factor. (According to one study, 1,600 CEOs left their jobs at U.S. organizations, the most since 2002.) Nearly everyone reported that workplace stress was negatively impacting their personal relationships. Please forward this to your boss or new CEO.
Korn Ferry
Aubrey Blanche heads to Culture Amp Blanche is deservedly beloved in the D&I space, particularly in tech. She was most recently the Global Head of Diversity & Belonging at Atlassian, which makes team support tech like Trello. Now, she’s heading to Culture Amp to be Global Head of Equitable Design & Impact. "It’s been more than five years since I started working professionally to help the tech industry become the meritocracy it’s long believed itself to be,” Blanche says in her announcement. “I’ve been itching to work on tech products that align with my philosophies on building structurally equitable companies while continuing to do “R&D” within a People org.” Click through for her plan, follow her here, and check out her data-driven, “mathpath” approach to equitable team and system design here.
Culture Amp
On Background
An amazing resource to learn more about redlining I used the "Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America" interactive digital project for research in today’s essay, and it’s absolutely incredible. The tool is University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab, the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, and Johns Hopkins University—you can zoom into any tract in a digital version of the original HOLC maps and read how loan officers evaluated them. Prepare to have your heart broken.
Mapping Inequality
What it means to be evicted Since we’re on the subject of redlining, I wanted to flag the book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. It was written by Harvard social scientist and ethnographer Matthew Desmond, a prolific researcher on the intersection of poverty, race, and gender. It’s a wrenching look into the lives of the financially vulnerable, and how losing their homes triggers a cascade of negative events—while others are enriched. His research focused on Milwaukee, a racially segregated city with a high poverty rate. While his team drew from state-level data and court records, he also chose to live in a trailer park and city apartments for months, to better understand the lives of families living in poverty and how evictions impacted their lives. Desmond’s family lost their home when he was a kid; he brings a unique empathy to his inquiries about poverty, dignity, and progress.
Alternet
The racial politics of time and history “If time had a race, it would be white,” begins Brittney Cooper, author, professor, cultural theorist, and commentator. “White people own time.” In this fascinating 2016 TEDWomen talk, Cooper addresses the way we dismiss time as a factor in our inability to understand our history of white dominance. The re-emergence of race-based violence continues to surprise many people, but it shouldn’t, she says. Turns out, a philosophical decision to remove Africa from the very notion of time and history, contributed to a justification of race-based violence that exists today. “Time has a history, and so do black people,” she said. “As though it doesn’t have a political history of being bound up with the plunder of Indigenous lands, the genocide of Indigenous people, the stealing of Africans from their homeland.”
TEDWomen
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
“President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal created the nation’s first public housing for civilians who were not engaged in defense work. Race determined the program’s design. The administration constructed separate projects for African Americans, segregated buildings by race, or excluded African Americans entirely from developments.”
—Richard Rothstein, historian, The Color of Law


fortune--2020-02-13--For tackling climate change, English bishops look to God—and cathedral heating

Is cutting emissions the Christian way?
On Wednesday, the Church of England—of which Queen Elizabeth II is officially the head—voted overwhelmingly to target net zero emissions for its operations by 2030, strengthening the original proposal to reach that target by 2045.
“This is a game changer, folks,” said Nicholas Holtam, the Bishop of Salisbury and the church’s head bishop on environmental matters, speaking ahead of the final vote at the General Synod, the meeting of the Church’s national assembly, in London. “And I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we’ve said we’re going to do it.”
The Church of England, officially the Anglican “state” church of England, with 1.12 million active worshipers, is the latest institution in the U.K. to set a target for net zero—aiming to produce as close to zero emissions as possible, and offset emissions that can’t be eliminated. (Read our net zero explainer here.)
On Wednesday, BP—the British energy company—said that it would target net zero emissions by 2050, in a plan that was sparse on details. Last summer, the U.K. government said it would target net zero emissions for the country as a whole, also by 2050.
The Church of England—particularly in regard to its own pension fund and its 8.3 billion pound ($10.8 billion) investment fund, which is used to pay salaries and upkeep on buildings—has frequently been outspoken on climate change, including taking an activist role in pushing energy companies in which it holds shares to disclose more information about the extent of their own emissions.
But in setting an operational net zero target, it faces many of the same broad challenges facing governments, companies, and institutions alike: lingering uncertainty over the specifics of how the goal can be met, and how quickly; a lack of clarity on how much the total push will cost; and even how much carbon the Church currently emits.
The Church’s main challenge will be in the form of heating. In addition to thousands of buildings devoted to housing and schools, the Church of England owns 16,000 churches—the vast majority protected as historically or architecturally significant buildings—and some of the world’s best-known cathedrals, including Westminster Abbey.
Those pose unique challenges for energy efficiency, all while the Church is struggling with a generally declining and aging membership, and other demands on its finances, including compensation for survivors of child sexual abuse.
While some of the dioceses have already made energy-efficient changes—designating their buildings “eco churches”—many others are located in rural areas and rely on aging gas boilers, as several clergy members pointed out.
The price tag for retrofitting the buildings hasn’t yet been determined. In addition, the Church lacks an up-to-date picture on the full extent of its carbon emissions. A tracking tool is expected to be rolled out this year.
The vote to move the net zero goal up to 2030 unleashed a vivid debate on how—and even whether—a modern Church should address climate change.
Speaking at the Synod, multiple speakers from both the clergy and congregations suggested that the Church’s very credibility was at stake, especially for young people and those from regions already hard hit by changing temperatures.
Referring to a “crisis of God’s creation,” the Bishop of Salisbury noted in his opening address, “It has raised big questions from young people about whether people of my generation really care about intergenerational fairness.”
If the Church were a company in which they themselves invested, he added, they would have serious questions about how it was aligning itself with the Paris Agreement, which businesses are under rising pressure to opt in to.
In defense of the amendment to move the target from 2045 to 2030, Martin Gainsborough, a reverend from the city of Bristol, defended it as the “right thing to do ethically,” and added that climate change disproportionately affects the poorest.
“At a time when our public standing is not at its highest, let’s really lead for once,” he said.
But dissent went beyond concerns that the target was too ambitious.
“These kinds of motions are like taking water out of the ocean with a pipette. And at the same time they cost money,” said Prudence Dailey, a Synod member from Oxford. “Don’t think that aiming for zero emissions in our churches will make any difference at all, because it won’t.”
Another member, Brian Wilson from the diocese of Southwark in central London, called climate change a distraction from the Church’s purpose.
“If we have finances that are available, the top priority of the Church is to preach the gospel to the lost. That is the top priority of the Church: saving those who will be sent into hell if they do not hear the gospel, and receive the gospel,” he said.
“Talk of improving heating resources is totally secondary. Please…can we get our priorities right.”
That drew a sharp response from the Reverend Simon Butler, also from Southwark, in central London.
“I, unlike Brian Wilson, am not confident about who exactly is going to hell and who isn’t,” said Butler. “But I’m certainly not prepared to be part of a country whose actions may further contribute to people in Australia living in further hell than they already have in the past year.”
There was a risk, he admitted, that the Church of England would not reach the target.
But, he added, “if people don’t make it, we’ve not lost anything, have we?”
Instead, he noted, a more ambitious goal should inspire parishes to have the “energy to get on with it.” More must-read stories from Fortune: —Making green energy more trusted with the same tech that keeps cryptocurrency safe
—Retailers reuse and recycle the way to increased growth
—The race to solve lithium-ion battery recycling before it’s too late
—How airlines (and you) can fly more efficiently
—WATCH: iPod/iPhone designer on kicking plastic addiction
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fortune--2020-02-13--Senate acts to restrain Trump’s military powers against Iran

The Senate approved a bipartisan measure Thursday limiting President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran.
The measure, authored by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., says Trump must win approval from Congress before engaging in further military action against Iran. Eight Republicans joined with Democrats to pass the resolution by a 55-45 vote.
Kaine and other supporters said the resolution was not about Trump or even the presidency, but instead was an important reassertion of congressional power to declare war.
While Trump and other presidents “must always have the ability to defend the United States from imminent attack, the executive power to initiate war stops there,” Kaine said. “An offensive war requires a congressional debate and vote.”
The Democratic-controlled House passed a separate, nonbinding war powers resolution last month. The House could take up the Senate resolution later this month, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Two-thirds votes in the House and GOP-run Senate would be needed to override an expected Trump veto.
Answering a claim by some of Trump’s supporters and Trump himself that the measure would send a signal of weakness to Iran and other potential adversaries, Kaine said the opposite was true.
“When we stand up for the rule of law — in a world that hungers for more rule of law — and say ‘this decision is fundamental, and we have rules that we are going to follow so we can make a good decision,’ that’s a message of strength,” Kaine said.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, agreed. Lee supports Trump’s foreign policy, including toward Iran, but said Congress cannot escape its constitutional responsibility to act on matters of war and peace.
“What the American people and the entire world will see from the debate we’re about to have in the Senate is that there is abundant support for the United States taking tough positions with regard to Iran,” Lee said Wednesday. “And as part of that we want to make sure that any military action that needs to be authorized is in fact properly authorized by Congress. That doesn’t show weakness. That shows strength.”’
The principle of congressional approval is established for an important reason, Kaine said. “If we’re to order our young men and women … to risk their lives in war, it should be on the basis of careful deliberation by the people’s elected legislature and not on the say-so of any one person.”
Trump disputed that, arguing in two tweets Wednesday that a vote against Kaine’s proposal was important to national security and pointed to the Jan. 3 drone strike that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani.
“We are doing very well with Iran and this is not the time to show weakness. Americans overwhelmingly support our attack on terrorist Soleimani,” Trump said. “If my hands were tied, Iran would have a field day. Sends a very bad signal. The Democrats are only doing this as an attempt to embarrass the Republican Party. Don’t let it happen!”
Tehran responded to the U.S. attack on Soleimani by launching missiles at two military bases in Iraq that house American troops. The attack caused traumatic brain injuries in at least 64 U.S. soldiers, the Pentagon said..
Democrats and Republicans alike criticized a briefing by the Trump administration shortly after the drone strike, saying U.S. officials offered vague information about a possible attack being planned by Iran but no substantial details.
Kaine has long pushed for action reasserting congressional power to declare war. At Republicans’ request, he removed initial language that targeted Trump in favor of a generalized statement declaring that Congress has the sole power to declare war. The resolution also directs Trump to terminate use of military force against Iran or any part of its government without approval from Congress.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a co-sponsor, called the resolution “much needed and long overdue.” She said that oat over the past decade, “Congress has too often abdicated its constitutional responsibility on authorizing the sustained use of military force.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and many other Republicans opposed the resolution, saying it would send the wrong message to U.S. allies.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—These are the Democratic candidates who qualify for the next debate so far
—2020 candidates’ positions, and records, on economic issues that affect women
—The case for a national primary
—Fortune Explains: The debt ceiling
—Can Amazon convince a federal court to depose Trump over a $10 billion Pentagon contract?
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-02-13--The 2020 presidential race might be remembered as when the dam broke on money in U.S. politics

With three billionaires in the running, campaigns, political parties and outside groups are all likely to break previous spending records during the 2020 presidential race, helped by canny consultants who know how to take advantage of court rulings and new technologies.
1. Aren’t there limits on political money in the U.S.?
Yes, but, crucially, they don’t apply to rich candidates who bankroll their own campaigns. And two billionaires, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, are spending record amounts in their bids to become the Democratic Party’s nominee to challenge President Donald Trump, a billionaire himself. (Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.) Clear limits do apply to how much individual Americans can donate to campaigns, political parties and the political action committees that support or oppose candidates on behalf of business, labor or ideological interests. Candidates can raise no more than $2,800 per election from each donor.
2. Have rich candidates always been free to spend as much as they want?
No. Under the post-Watergate reforms that formed the basis of federal campaign-finance architecture, presidential candidates were initially allowed to contribute no more than $50,000 ($259,000 in today’s dollars) to their own campaigns. But in 1976, in a case called Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court ruled that office-seekers could spend unlimited amounts of their own money on their campaigns, under the reasoning that candidates could be corrupted by other people’s money but not their own. The Buckley decision led to a series of wealthy candidates, including Ross Perot (in 1992 and 1996) and Steve Forbes (in 1996 and 2000), using their own deep pockets to fund their presidential campaigns. The spending by Forbes in particular helped doom a public funding system meant to level the playing field in presidential primaries. Trump put $66 million of his money into his successful 2016 race.
3. How much are Bloomberg and Steyer spending?
More than $388 million combined as of Dec. 31. For comparison, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has raised the most from outside donations, had taken in $96 million. Bloomberg has said he will keep spending money through the November election to defeat Trump, regardless of whether he is the nominee. He didn’t rule out going as high as $1 billion. Steyer’s campaign has said that he has no ceiling on what he’s willing to spend.
4. Can non-billionaires compete?
Sure, in part because the U.S. system allows wealthy Americans to bankroll them indirectly. The key to that the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). That ruling permits outside groups to spend unlimited sums to influence elections provided they don’t coordinate their efforts with candidates. The decision led to the creation of special political action committees — super-PACs — that can raise money in unlimited amounts from U.S. corporations, labor unions, individuals and some types of nonprofit groups to support candidates. In the ongoing Democratic nomination contest, former Vice President Joe Biden has the support of a super-PAC. Our Revolution, a nonprofit group founded by Sanders supporters that has paid for digital ads backing his campaign, is officially a social welfare organization rather than a super-PAC but has a similar function. Spending by groups like Our Revolution is called “dark money” because they don’t have to disclose the names of donors.
5. Is there any role left for small donors?
Actually, there is. Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren have gotten huge support from donors giving $200 or less. Technology has fueled a small-dollar donor revolution: ActBlue, which processed $1 billion in donations to Democratic candidates and causes in 2019, lets donors give small amounts by swiping on a mobile phone.
6. How is money shaping the race among Democrats?
As of Feb. 13, Bloomberg tallied 14.2% in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, behind Sanders’s 23.6% and Biden’s 19.2%. Steyer came in at 1.8%.
7. How much could the 2020 campaign end up costing?
There are no estimates yet, just signs that it will easily exceed the record $2.4 billion spent on the 2012 contest. Campaigns had reported raising almost $1.2 billion as of Jan. 31, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
8. Can Trump keep up?
All signs point to yes. Aided by the Republican Party and a pair of joint fundraising committees, Trump raised $463.5 million in 2019 and ended the year with $196 million in the bank, well ahead of any Democrat and the Democratic National Committee.
9. Will there be limits in the general election?
Most likely not. Public financing, a legacy of reforms adopted in the wake of Watergate scandals, is still available to presidential campaigns, but candidates must agree to spending limits in exchange for the money. No major party candidate has used it since Republican John McCain took $84 million in public funds for his 2008 campaign. That year, Democrat Barack Obama rejected public funding and instead raised $436 million, giving him a huge financial advantage over McCain, whom he defeated.
10. Isn’t this getting a little crazy?
Some politicians, including some of the Democratic presidential candidates, have made sweeping promises about campaign-finance reform, including finding ways to roll back the Citizens United decision and reinvigorate public financing. Many have sworn off taking money from lobbyists and corporate PACs, as have many Democratic members of Congress.
But the main drivers of the last congressional push for campaign finance reform are gone: McCain died in 2018, and his Democratic ally in the push, Russ Feingold, left the Senate in 2011. Even modest reform proposals, such as requiring that Facebook and Google report political spending on their sites, have languished.
In 2019, the Democratic-controlled House passed a wide-ranging package of reforms that included greater regulation for super-PACs and “dark money” nonprofits that don’t disclose donors, but it has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Any limits that do manage to get through Congress might not withstand scrutiny by the Supreme Court.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—These are the Democratic candidates who qualify for the next debate so far
—2020 candidates’ positions, and records, on economic issues that affect women
—The case for a national primary
—Fortune Explains: The debt ceiling
—Can Amazon convince a federal court to depose Trump over a $10 billion Pentagon contract?
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-02-13--Coronavirus catch-up: Latest news on the outbreak of the disease

Days ago, it seemed the number of coronavirus cases was starting to slow down. That changed overnight with new numbers from China and news of the 15th confirmed U.S. case of the disease.
It’s hard to keep up with the virus’s spread and impact on both businesses and nations as the outbreak spreads. Here’s the latest information.
CDC confirms 15th U.S. coronavirus case
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed another coronavirus infection in the U.S.. The patient is one of several Americans evacuated last week from Wuhan on a government-chartered flight. That flight landed on Feb. 7 and all passengers were put under a 14-day quarantine. The patient has been isolated and is receiving medical care.
“There will likely be additional cases in the coming days and weeks, including among other people recently returned from Wuhan,” the CDC said in a statement. “While 195 people were discharged from quarantine on Tuesday, more than 600 people who returned on chartered flights from Wuhan remain under federal quarantine and are being closely monitored to contain the spread of the virus.”
China confirms roughly 15,000 new coronavirus cases
Officials in the Chinese province of Hubei, where the outbreak originated, reported a massive spike in cases overnight. The number of infected in that region jumped 45% to nearly 50,000, with authorities saying a new group of patients had been diagnosed by a different method. The number of those infected globally now tops 60,000, according to the World Health Organization.
In total, Hubei added 14,840 new cases on Thursday, of which 13,332 are from the new category of clinical diagnosis using CT scans. The death toll in the province rose by 242, of which 135 cases are from the new method of diagnosis, it said.
Read: Why coronavirus cases in one Chinese province surged 45% overnight
Carnival ship rejected by 5 ports finally docks
After being barred from several ports for almost two weeks, a Carnival cruise liner carrying 2,257 passengers has finally found a welcoming home. The Westerdam arrived in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville port early Thursday, and local officials have boarded the vessel. Passengers will be allowed to go home.
Controversy is erupting, however, over another cruise liner that was allowed to dock in Phuket, Thailand.
Read: Carnival ship rejected by 5 ports has finally made it into one. Now a new cruise controversy is brewing
Markets dip as coronavirus spreads
U.S. stocks are lower as more companies issue warnings about the coronavirus’s potential impact on earnings. Nestle was the latest company to send up a cautionary flag, winding back a big sales target, citing China uncertainty.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Can you catch it twice? Answers to 5 pressing coronavirus questions
—Why China is still so susceptible to disease outbreaks
—Bernard Arnault was briefly the world’s richest man. Then coronavirus struck
—Will summer kill the coronavirus?
—My boss wants me to travel during the coronavirus. Do I have to go?
Subscribe to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health newsletter for daily updates on biopharma and health care.


fortune--2020-02-13--Verizon to double the number of cities with its 5G mobile service this year

Verizon plans to double the number of cities covered by its superfast 5G wireless network by the end of the year while expanding coverage in the areas where it already has service.
The company said on Thursday that it hopes to offer 5G for mobile customers in 60 cities (up from 31 at the end of 2019) and 10 cities for home 5G Internet service (up from five). The carrier did not name the new cities.
“We have the opportunity to continue our journey to be the leader on 5G,” Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said at a meeting with investors in New York on Thursday. “We’re not only expanding markets, we’re also expanding coverage in all the markets.”
Verizon is racing rivals AT&T and T-Mobile to expand across the country 5G coverage, which can provide downloads 10 to 100-times faster than the average speed of current 4G LTE networks. For now, their coverage is limited, with T-Mobile providing service in the largest geographic area, but at slower speeds that its rivals.
Each carrier is using a slightly different strategy for their initial 5G service offerings. Verizon is using high-frequency spectrum that offers super-fast download speeds but very limited coverage. T-Mobile is so far using lower frequencies to provide broad coverage but with much slower downloads. Meanwhile, AT&T is using a hybrid approach, rolling out both types of 5G coverage in various cities.
But all three carriers will eventually converge and offer both types of 5G as their networks expand and more capable 5G phones are available. Currently, consumers get an uneven experience using 5G, Fortune found when reviewing the three carriers’ services.
As part of that convergence, Verizon wants to use a technology called dynamic spectrum sharing that will let it share lower frequencies for use with 4G and 5G phones at the same time from one cell site. That would let it cover far more territory, though with slower download speeds.
Rivals have said the gear isn’t ready yet, but Vestberg pushed back on Thursday. “This year we will launch nationwide 5G based on dynamic spectrum sharing,” he said. “We’re going to launch that when we think it’s commercially right, when we see enough handsets out in the market.”
The carrier’s mobile Internet service requires that customers upgrade to a 5G-compatible phone. Currently, Verizon only sells two 5G models, both with prices over $1,000. But the phone industry is coming out with many new 5G handsets, and, by the end of the year, Verizon plans to offer more than 20 models with prices as low as $600, the company said on Thursday.
Verizon doesn’t currently charge extra for 5G service, but only allows customers on its two higher-cost unlimited plans to access the super-fast network. One aim of the 5G rollout is convince more customers to upgrade to those more expensive plans, CEO Vestberg said.
Verizon introduced home Internet service using 5G in 2018, but it has not expanded the program much since. It started in parts of Sacramento, Houston, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis. Last year, Verizon added parts of Chicago. By using 5G wireless, Verizon can provide Internet service without having to build costly wired infrastructure to each customer’s home.
Additionally on Thursday, Verizon said it would expand a partnership with Amazon that let app developers and other businesses use cloud computing servers to connect and send data over Verizon’s 5G network. By the end of the year, the allies hope to have 10 5G-enabled data centers open, up from one last year.
The carrier also said it would add five times as many smaller cell sites with 5G in 2020 than it has now, but didn’t offer an exact number.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Airbnb’s bottom line is hurting. New safety efforts could make matters worse
—How businesses lost an extra $500 million from email scams last year
—Antivirus software Avast investigated for selling user browsing histories
—Huawei poses a 5G spying risk, but other options are hard to come by
—Predicting the biggest tech headlines of 2020
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-02-13--‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ filmmaker Céline Sciamma on the female gaze and her ‘architecture of de

‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ filmmaker Céline Sciamma on the female gaze and her ‘architecture of desires’

Two women stand on a cliff’s edge, their flowing gowns buffeted by the wind, their expressions lost to sea. One steals a surreptitious glance at the other; moments later, just as discreetly, it’s returned. Then, a sudden charge shifting the air between them, both look again and meet one another’s gaze, submitting to the unexpected power of at once seeing and being seen.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is many things—a sumptuous period romance, an intellectual exploration of the artist-subject dynamic, a radical rhapsody in praise of women’s art that declares it equally specific and vital—and it is a treillage of such glances, which give rise to a passionate affair between the painter Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and noblewoman Héloise (Adèle Haenel) when the former is commissioned to paint the latter’s wedding portrait.
Set in 18th-century Brittany, this fourth feature by French writer-director Céline Sciamma is a period piece flushed with contemporary ideas, from its sensual yet sensitive depiction of queer desire to its nestled notions of memory and recognition as two essential processes in both art and love. After a limited release by last December in New York and Los Angeles, the film opens in select markets this Friday and expands throughout this coming month.
One of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2019, as well as the winner of Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at Cannes, Portrait of a Lady on Fire was conspicuously absent from this past Sunday’s Academy Awards for one simple reason. Permitted to put one film forward for the Academy to consider within its Best International Film category, France instead submitted Ladj Ly’s more politically driven Les Misérables, a feature debut inspired by the 2005 Paris riots.
But with Oscars season at an end, the path is clear for Portrait of a Lady on Fire to heat up the Valentine’s Day box office. Sciamma, who’s spent this past year promoting the film on the festival circuit, spoke to Fortune via phone last month about crafting what she calls a cinematic “reconstitution” of art and love historically not seen on screen.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Where did the idea for Portrait of a Lady on Fire come from?
It’s been a process of learning that was long, unusual, and very specific. I spent a long time thinking about the plot, in order to bring new narrative and new images into it, but also to build an architecture of desires for my film.
Some images I had in my head originally, like that a character would literally at one point be on fire, not just metaphorically. Some lines came to me that contained the film’s philosophy and politics, like, “Don’t regret. Remember.” Things like that were glimpses I had of the film, as was the last shot that I’d had in mind since the beginning. It was a compass of sorts, knowing we would end where we do.
I was trying to rely a lot on these strong desires, these single images that connoted representation and new power dynamics on screen, to really believe in those ideas and then craft a plot with those in mind. I knew I would have to connect all these things.
A still from “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which tells the story of the intimacy and attraction that grows between a portrait artist and her subject. Lilies Films/Neon Films
One radical element of the film is its navigation of contemporary ideas in a period setting, how scenes feel so flushed and alive—explicit, even—in a way that differs from what one might expect of a story more than 200 years ago. It seems to dance, almost, between the classic and modern. How did you achieve that tone?
I have no particular taste for period pieces. Portrait of a Lady on Fire had to be set in the past for several reasons, but it was going to be the same job [as making a modern film]. Cinema is always a reconstitution, either of the contemporary world or of the past. Either way, you choose everything. For me, I thought, “Because it’s set in the past, it has to be the most contemporary object possible.” I really try to think of each film as a prototype; setting one in the past can be full of traps, so I thought about how I was going to be playful with ideas.
As it is a female-driven story that hasn’t historically been told, one about the intimations of their intimacy, the film was all about giving these women back their present and their presence. That’s why it was optimal for me that we could shoot on digital [as opposed to film]. It was all about the rush of blood, them being very much dynamic and alive, giving them back their desires and their bodies.
This was challenging, but also less scary economically, in terms of the financing of the film. I could keep it cheap and less expensive so I wouldn’t have to compromise and could remain more radical. That’s always the game when writing a film, to think a lot about production so I don’t get enslaved to a dynamic that wouldn’t be good for the film. I was just playing with all these different layers. And the film is, well, layered.
Sciamma, who wrote and directed “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” is pictured at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2019. She won Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at the festival. Loic Venance—AFP via Getty Images
Let’s talk about those layers. What you were just discussing, about reclaiming “the intimations of intimacy” for female artists, is incredibly poignant in Portrait. Women weren’t allowed to paint, and they certainly weren’t allowed to choose anyone other than men to love, in this time period.
In the beginning, I knew it would be a very careful, patient look at desire. That’s not often looked at in romance films, because you have this convention of love at first sight, not questioning that rise of desire from both perspectives. I knew it would be very much about the present of a love story, but also the memory of a love story, which means also its philosophy and politics. I was trying to depart from convention in writing it as either tragic, because they won’t end up together, or supposedly happy-ended, because it will end in professions of eternal commitment.
Maybe a happy ending for a love story isn’t about ending up together, or not. It’s about emancipation within the relationship, being given that by a love story, being made more curious by the relationship between love stories and art. Love stories educate us about art in our hearts, and this will bring us solace from a lost love.
It’s also the fact that women throughout history weren’t given the opportunity to be artists, and the ones who were were somewhat erased from history. We are lacking their body of work, missing these images that are beautiful, but we have also not been able to be transmitted their intimacies, because that is what art does. We don’t have these models, these levels [of art history], to describe these women’s hearts and desires. Cinema can give us a collective memory, by bringing to the screen these missing images. We do an abortion scene in the film; and even that, you very rarely see that on screen. What happens when you’re not transmitted these images? Cinema that can also bring collective memory is very important.
The fact also that they’re aware, to have a scene where they later paint the abortion, mirroring what they just did. It’s crazy that isn’t represented, ever, and so I wanted both these scenes. Then there’s the fact that it’s the model who tells the artist what she should be looking at.
Merlant (Marianne) and Haenel (Héloise) in a still from “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Lilies Films/Neon Films
Portrait of a Lady on Fire feels like it’s all about this exchange of gazes, the artist looking at their subject (as is customary) and the subject looking back (in a way that is decidedly not). Was it difficult for you to remain in the role of the artist and not get drawn into the story yourself, given that your film subverts the historically one-directional nature of that dynamic?
I quite enjoyed the fact that we were all in the workshop of the painter together! All of us in that room, we were quite aware of this circulation. The film is mirroring how I work, actually. I actually felt that Noémie would watch me while I was talking with Adèle, and she’s said she looked a lot at how I gazed at Adèle, so that she could then perform that. We were very aware and playing with that idea. It was horizontal. I like sets to be fun; even though my films are very strongly intellectual, we were being playful within those dynamics, and I think you can tell.
Much has been made of the film’s foregrounding of the female gaze, how intrinsic the process of image-making is to creating one’s own identity, how powerful it feels for Marianne and Héloise to mutually exercise more control over that process. When did you first become familiar with ideas of specifically female and male gazes?
When I look back at Water Lilies (2007), my first film, I had really no clue. In France, the “male gaze” does not exist. There’s “neutral gaze,” then there’s “films made by women.” [Laughs] Even the French critics, who politicize other elements, they’re not into gender or feminist lecture in film. They despise it. We’re not handed that culture. For me, because I did my first film just out of school, it felt more intuitive. I wasn’t thinking about the female gaze at all. But looking back, it was happening without me knowing. Eventually, through reading and also this whole cultural moment we’re going through, I became wiser and more aware. I consider what I do now to be more of a laboratory. The male gaze is convention, and so the female gaze is an opportunity to depart from convention. But that leaves me more in control.
Ultimately, it’s about deconstructing yourself. It’s not because I’m female that I use the female gaze. Many female directors can do the male gaze. But deconstructing yourself, examining your political and creative will, is how you make new images. You have to want it very deeply, because it’s not easy to depart from that.
A scene from “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Sciamma says, “I always have to think about the pleasure of the audience.” Lilies Films/Neon Films
You’ve spoken as well about retraining the audience’s gaze, and there are scenes in your film where the audience’s perspective is subtly slipping into the gaze of one of the characters. The last shot that you mentioned earlier finds Marianne looking at Héloise, and the camera slowly zooming in on Héloise from across a wide space. I felt so conscious of myself as an observer, in that moment.
I think about the viewer as the most intelligent person. And I really believe that. I like to put my audience in a very active position as the viewer, to provide room for them. The pleasure of being in a cinema is that you get to speak more and more the language of a film, and your pleasure comes from that. That’s why rhythm is so important.
At first, the film has this slow-burn pace that you have to get used to, but eventually you take pleasure in its language and its glamour. The love dialogue between these two characters also becomes the love dialogue between the viewer and the film.
The last shot is all about putting the viewer in a position where there’s room for them. It’s a two-minute, 51-second shot. And at some point, it’s not about the viewer watching Héloise through Marianne’s eyes, but it’s about Adèle performing and cinema unveiling itself. There’s room for your own memories, your own thoughts and feelings about love. That’s also a way to re-educate the gaze, to free it. And most of that comes down to you enjoying it.
I always have to think about the pleasure of the audience, what it’s made of and how the tools of cinema unlock it. It’s about the viewer enjoying all the layers, how it becomes more epic and symphonic, to believe in that and build that patiently so that it eventually becomes explosive.
Another key scene in Portrait of a Lady on Fire finds your three characters—Marianne, Héloise, and a maid named Sophie (Luàna Bajrami)—discussing the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, advancing their own interpretations as to why Orpheus would have turned around to look back at his life’s love upon almost rescuing her from the underworld. In turning around, Orpheus dooms Eurydice to be trapped there forever.
The Orpheus and Eurydice dynamic came in very last in the writing process. I knew something was missing, but we were going for financing; we had two weeks, and I knew it was my last draft. I was looking for a moment between the three characters, almost a “Netflix and chill” scene, where they’d be together at this very climactic section and talk about it.
I thought about Orpheus and Eurydice, because it’s so climactic and it’s also really a story about the male gaze itself, how it kills. [Laughs] I wanted to look at mythology from the perspective of women, and it was magic. It just went really well. Suddenly, there was this thread I thought could be everywhere throughout the film, in some kind of way. It could be the link between the two layers of time in the film. The present of the love story would be haunted by its end, which is something all love stories have, in a way. We’re haunted by our beginnings and our hypothetical endings.
Regarding the interpretations, I agree with them all. We look at myths as proverbial things, from the perspective of their endings. With Icarus, it’s not to fly too close to the sun or be too ambitious. Myths are all about their interpretations and the tensions they put within you. All the meanings are true. That’s what art should do. It should put you in a position where you have different hypotheses, even of yourself.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Contagion writer, scientific adviser reflect on film’s newfound relevance amid coronavirus crisis
—Ava DuVernay on the “radical act” of black love in OWN’s Cherish the Day
—How history-making wins for Parasite and The Farewell can shift Hollywood’s diversity narrative
—Summertime director and cast on crafting a “love letter” to Los Angeles
—The best movies that came out of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
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fortune--2020-02-13--How to approach difficult conversations when your coworkers drive you nuts

Work Space is a biweekly Q&A column tackling the work challenges that keep you up at night. You can read all columns here. If you want advice on something you’re navigating at work, send your questions to workspace@fortune.com.
The question has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: I work in a dog-friendly office. As a lifelong animal lover who grew up with pets of all types, I should love this! And I do, some of the time.
The issue is that my soapbox is about rescue animals. There is absolutely no excuse to ever buy a dog from a breeder. There are hypoallergenic dogs that need adopting and breed-specific shelters.
Unfortunately, most of the dogs in my office are from breeders. French bulldogs, doodles of every sort, Shih Tzus—they all come to work every day. And it’s starting to affect my working relationships with my coworkers. I hate hearing the oohs and aahs over a coworker’s new dog probably bought for thousands of dollars. I hate hearing people ask what breed a dog is and asking where they bought it. I don’t hate the dogs (it’s out of their control) but I’ve started to hate—or at least resent—the people.
I don’t want to come across as rude, but I also think that silence is agreement and approval. How do I balance my personal belief with my professional environment?
—Rose
Dear Rose,
I commend you for being passionate about pups and for being such a champion for rescue animals. I’ve got a beloved rescue dog myself (who rescued who, amirite?). I have lots of feelings about Very Good Dogs but as you said yourself, the question here isn’t really about dogs.
You have two pressing issues:
You feel fundamentally at odds with your coworkers because you don’t think they share one of your most important values.
Your disapproval and silence are affecting you personally, as well as how you see and interact with your coworkers.
You’re in a tough situation. The presence of these pups is a constant reminder of where your values don’t align with your coworkers. You’re censuring yourself, which is then making you feel complicit and revving up your resentment. And overall, you want things to be different. You want them to have rescue animals. You want them to stop annoying you. You want to be a good advocate for an important cause that matters a lot to you.
When reading your question, I thought about Awkwafina’s character Billi in The Farewell. While the stakes are much higher in Billi’s situation, she, like you, suffers from being the only one in a system who holds a certain value. As the film goes on, you see clearly how Billi’s resentment affects her behavior—even when she isn’t saying anything at all, it’s clear she’s unhappy.
Silently seething wasn’t working for her, and I doubt it will for you. Your feelings are starting to affect you, and they’re going to leak into your behavior, even if you don’t mean to be obvious about your resentment. Billi’s grandmother tells her, “You’ll encounter difficulties, but you must keep an open mind. Don’t be the bull endlessly ramming its horns into the corner of the room. Life is not just about what you do, it’s more about how you do it.”
For you, “how you do it” is critical. It’s time to be proactive about what your message is and how you’re choosing to handle these difficult conversations.
You said you are starting to “hate” the people you work with. If things stay the same, that’s unlikely to change. Wanting to educate people about rescue pets is great, but don’t expect your colleagues to be your captive audience. Find another way to be a champion for your cause. Volunteer for a shelter, do outreach at local events, or something else to educate the public. Finding a way to be an advocate outside of work might make you feel you’re offsetting your coworkers’ behavior.
To change how you feel at work, you’re going to need to address how what you care about isn’t in line with the rest of the people you work with. You can’t change your coworkers’ behavior or completely shift the culture at work overnight. At best, you can work toward having people understand your values, which will hopefully lead to you letting go of some of your resentment (and to them annoying you less).
But let’s be real: Those dogs aren’t going back to the breeders after a conversation with you, and that shouldn’t be your expectation. Think about what you realistically want to get out of the conversation. For someone you don’t know well, your goal might be something as simple as getting them to not congregate around your desk. With someone you work with closely, you might be more intent on having that person understand why you’re so passionate about the issue.
My number one please-if-you-do-one-thing-from-this-advice-column-do-this-one-thing is for you to think about how you approach difficult conversations. You want to move from “How do I show people how I’m right about this important issue?” to “How might I get people I work with to better understand where I’m coming from?”
Talking about different values can be hard. In Difficult Conversations, the authors outline why they’re so hard: Tough conversations always touch on our firmly held assumptions, our identity, our feelings, or some combination of the three. Take time to unpack why the conversation may be difficult for you (which will change depending on who you’re talking to and what your relationship is with them).
You need to set aside your anger and frustration to make this work. If you lead with “there’s absolutely no excuse” people should do X and you “don’t care about why,” your colleagues are going to focus there. Don’t start by telling them what they are doing is wrong, with assumptions about their motivations, or by presenting your perspective as the absolute truth.
You want to be heard; whoever you’re talking to will also want you to understand their perspective. Go into the talk with a goal of understanding and realizing you’re probably going to have more than one talk before you get where you want to be with a bigger culture shift. This cheat sheet based on the book on difficult conversations is really useful to look at when you’re prepping for a talk that may be challenging.
Researcher Brené Brown’s motto “strong back, soft front, wild heart” has become a guiding phrase for me when it comes to navigating tough topics. In an episode of On Being, she explains, “Our deepest human need is to be seen by other people—to really be seen and known by someone else. And if we’re so armored up, and we walk through the world with an armored front, we can’t be seen. And so I think, when you go back to speaking truth to BS and being civil, it requires that strong back, but it requires that soft front…[as Frances Kissling said], ‘One of the greatest acts of courage is to be vulnerable with someone with whom we disagree.’’’
Having strong morals (a strong back) is important, but if you’re so convinced of your beliefs that you keep banging up against the corner of the room, you’re not going to be able to connect with people. Having a “soft front” means you’re open to other perspectives and willing to loosen your armor to let people in. If there’s no one that you feel comfortable being more open with, there’s more to this work culture than dogs that isn’t a fit for you.
You don’t need to invest the time and energy for a challenging conversation with every person in the office who wants to make small talk about a cute dog. You get to decide which work relationships are worth you making the most effort to be heard, what’s most important for people to understand about your perspective, and how much effort you want to put into changing the culture at the office. Hopefully, along the way, you’ll find that everyone you work with isn’t as far away from your values as you may think.
When you separate what’s important to you about your cause and what you need to feel comfortable at work, it’s going to clarify for you if you can tolerate being a part of a work culture where you don’t always see eye to eye with everyone. At a minimum, being open to difficult conversations will help you find better ways to engage people you don’t agree with and new ways to work through feelings that come up when you look out in the world and don’t see your values reflected.
Sending you good vibes,
Jen
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—The top 5 tech skills companies want in new hires right now
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—How middle managers can manage up, down, and still get things done
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fortune--2020-02-13--On Day 13 in post-Brexit Britain, Boris Johnson loses his finance chief in tumultuous cabinet shakeu

On Day 13 in post-Brexit Britain, Boris Johnson loses his finance chief in tumultuous cabinet shakeup

Sajid Javid quit as the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer as Boris Johnson’s first major Cabinet reshuffle went disastrously wrong.
The finance minister resigned after a face-to-face row with Johnson inside 10 Downing Street. The prime minister demanded that Javid fire all five of his most senior aides but the chancellor refused and quit, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Javid had served as Britain’s finance minister since July 2019. His departure throws Britain’s preparations for life outside the European Union into chaos, just four weeks before he was due to deliver a budget on March 11. Johnson’s office named Javid’s deputy Rishi Sunak as the new chancellor.
Javid stood for leadership of the Conservative Party against Johnson last year, coming fourth in the race, before being appointed chancellor.
He has been locked in a power battle with Johnson’s top adviser Dominic Cummings for months. Last year, a furious Javid confronted Johnson and Cummings, over the dismissal of Sonia Khan, his media adviser. Cummings had fired her on Aug. 29 after accusing her of lying about being in contact with former colleagues close to Javid’s predecessor, Philip Hammond, who is committed to preventing a no-deal Brexit.
One of five sons of Pakistani immigrants, Javid worked in business and finance before joining Parliament in 2010, with roles at Chase Manhattan Bank and Deutsche Bank. A major figure in the Tory party, he has held various Cabinet posts, including the culture, business and housing portfolios.
Brief Tenure
His departure is the most dramatic of any chancellor since Nigel Lawson resigned in 1989. Lawson quit because Margaret Thatcher refused to fire her personal adviser Alan Walters, whom he accused of undermining his position.
Javid’s replacement, currently chief secretary to the Treasury, is seen as a rising star in the Conservative Party. He worked at Goldman Sachs and in hedge funds before his career in politics.
Elected to Parliament in 2015, Sunak backed Brexit and was promoted to his Treasury role by Johnson last year. He studied at Oxford and has an MBA from Stanford. He represented the Tories in TV debates during the 2019 general election.
Sunak must now rapidly prepare for a budget that was already set to provide a major fiscal boost after a decade of austerity, and there is speculation that the new chancellor may prove less of a brake on Johnson’s spending ambitions. The pound rallied and gilts fell on the news of Javid’s resignation.
Budget Goal
Fiscal rules introduced by Javid allow for an extra 20 billion pounds ($26 billion) of infrastructure spending but require day-to-day spending and revenue to be in balance within three years.
The balanced-budget goal is much tighter than had been expected, possibly reflecting the restraining influence of Javid, who last month asked ministers to find savings ahead of a spending review due to take place later this year.
During his Tory leadership campaign, Johnson had promised tax cuts totaling more than 20 billion pounds ($26 billion), including raising the point at which people pay higher-rate income tax. But most of these pledges were ditched ahead of the general election, with giveaways limited to a payroll saving of less than 100 pounds a year for most workers.
–With assistance from Andrew Atkinson.
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—Stock scammers are using coronavirus to dupe investors, SEC warns
—Asia worries about big events like the Olympics amid coronavirus spread
—Why China is still so susceptible to disease outbreaks
—Looking to cut emissions, Europe eyes a “sustainability” tax on meat
—Fortune Explains: Tariffs and trade wars
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fortune--2020-02-13--Inflation is at historic lows, so why do things seem so expensive?

Ever had the experience of seeing that the temperature is 40 degrees, but then you step outside and the ‘real feel’ is more like 20?
Well, something similar is going on in the economy, specifically with inflation. Currently only slightly above the Federal Reserve’s target 2% level, the inflation rate remains at historical lows. Stories of the double-digit annual inflation of the 1970s and 1980s that made buying a home or filling a gas tank painful seem almost apocryphal.
But a Fortune analysis of inflation data and price changes in critical areas vital to consumers suggests that, for many, rising prices in a variety of categories are making everything from rent to college and healthcare seem out of reach for many consumers. A recent Bankrate survey showed that 57% of U.S. adults did not expect their personal financial situation to improve this year.
So why the disconnect?
To dig deeper, you have to look at how inflation is calculated. And what the government measures, versus what the average person paying for housing, healthcare, school and childcare (categories that have grown anywhere from 18% to 65% faster than disposable income) experiences, are two very different things.
First, a bit of background. Inflation is the measure of how prices and wages grow over time. The faster they rise, the higher the level of inflation. To determine the general inflation rate—known as the CPI-U, or consumer price index for all urban consumers—the government tracks the cost of a market basket of goods and services, based on surveys of what consumers buy at any given time.
“The majority of that basket is going to be housing expenses” like mortgage or rent, food, and clothing, said Rebecca Neumann, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Other parts include such items as childcare, transportation costs, college, and health care.
The CPI-U is a complex composite. Some prices change more slowly and others, far quicker. The graph below compares the percentage growth rates of housing (both rent and a rent-equivalent for home owners), school and childcare, health, CPI-U, and per capita disposable income (average income after taxes across all people).
Economists, government officials, public policy advocates, investors, and businesses often discuss the CPI-U as a single measure of inflation—and for good reasons, as it is a way of discussing average changes in the overall economy. But there is a serious limitation. The calculated number doesn’t apply evenly across all categories of goods and services, in all places, or for all people.
“We’re not back in the 70s where you see pricing increases every day,” said Neumann. “But we have this steady [trend of] prices going up, and more in some categories than another.”
As the graph shows, the price increases in some of the most critical categories of expenses quickly outstrip inflation and, more so, the rate at which average disposable income grows. In addition, disposable income is not distributed evenly across the population; those who have lower take home pay will see an even bigger gap between income and expenses.
Individual inflation
While inflation is frequently treated as a hard and fast number, your ‘personal’ rate of inflation can vary greatly depending on which goods and services you’re spending your money on and where you live.
Part of an individual rate depends on location. Even one measure, like the CPI-U, doesn’t apply accurately across all geographic regions and demographics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a list of CPIs for different states as well as specific cities. Someone in a rural area may find different inflation rates because their likely market basket won’t completely match that of an urban dweller.
Where people are in their lives also has a big impact as types of incurred expenses can change. Someone dealing with college costs, daycare for young kids, or a health crisis will have a higher personal inflation rate because those fast-rising categories now have a heavier personal impact than the CPI-U would show.
There are also technical aspects of defining inflation that can make a general number virtually meaningless for many. The CPI-U is only one of three consumer price index versions. There is a CPI-W for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Both depend on survey data that is two to three years old.
The third is the C-CPI-U, or chained CPI for all urban consumers. It incorporates more recent information and also looks at relative prices and substitution of one good for another.
“You substitute other things you wouldn’t have bought when prices were different,” like maybe buying cheaper brands of clothing or swapping a chicken quarter for a steak, said Chester Spatt, a professor of finance at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.
Substitution lets people decrease what they spend so the C-CPI-U inflation rate is lower than the CPI-U. The difference between the two measures of inflation has lead some politicians to support use of C-CPI-U when calculating automatic changes in government programs. The switch lowers government expenses.
For example, the 2017 tax overhaul changed how the IRS calculates automatic increases in tax brackets due to inflation. As goods and services get more expensive, a dollar doesn’t go as far as it once did. Brackets become higher to take that into account.
Adjustments used to be based on CPI-U. Now they use C-CPI-U, which is smaller so brackets grow more slowly. A greater portion of someone’s income can fall into higher brackets than would have been true using CPI-U, meaning more taxes are due.
There are also inconsistencies between economic theory and individual lives. Over time, CPI measurements have increased focus on the quality of goods and services.
“The quality of most goods, like technology goods, has improved,” said Steven Sheffrin, a professor of economics and affiliated professor of law at Tulane University. The differences in capabilities between a laptop computer or smartphone from the mid-2000s and 2020 are substantial. “If the good today is better and the price is the same, the good is actually cheaper,” he said.
But a word processor or browser might show no improvement that is obvious to the owner. This year’s model of smartphone likely has a better camera than one from two years ago, but you still pay today’s prices even if you can’t see, or don’t care, about the difference. From the consumer’s viewpoint, the product may not seem any cheaper.
The upshot of individual inflation and madly racing price growth in key areas is that personal finances become even more of a challenge.
How does a family plan for college costs when they can’t predict the gap between what they can save, the increase in prices, and the amount a school’s financial aid department expects as a contribution? How can an individual deal with an unexpected illness that far surpasses the support health insurance offers?
Those are equations that no government metric seems to be able to accurately solve.
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—WATCH: Biggest investing opportunities and risks for 2020
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fortune--2020-02-13--The latest company to show big losses is — surprise — Airbnb

This article originally ran in Term Sheet, Fortune’s newsletter about deals and dealmakers. Sign up here.
Losing money has been quite the tech trend in recent months. This time, home-sharing platform Airbnb is under scrutiny, a surprise given the numerous headlines lauding it for turning a profit on the road to IPO.
Until recently, Airbnb was the rare Silicon Valley unicorn that had somehow cracked the code—somehow figured out a way to make money! Over its 12-year history, Airbnb proved to be much more conservative in its spending compared to other fast-growing startups.
But the Silicon Valley darling valued at $35 billion may be falling from grace. Airbnb had a net loss of $322 million in the first nine months of 2019, down from a profit of $200 million during the year-earlier period, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.
And that’s not all. My colleague Aric Jenkins astutely points out that these losses don’t even reflect new spending that the company committed to late last year on safety control across its network of rental homes.
Jenkins recently took an inside look at Airbnb as it tries to implement safety changes and stake its claim as the ultimate one-stop-shop travel company. In a new analysis, he notes that Airbnb’s safety spending could very well eat into future profits.
Hunter Walk, a partner at seed stage venture fund Homebrew, has written about Silicon Valley’s desire for “software margins”—high gross and net profits due to fixed development costs and ability to scale, often found in tech companies whose main product is a “platform.” The tradeoff of pursuing those margins is that engineering efforts are often focused on growth and revenue, rather than operational issues like safety standards.
“There are a host of innovative and valuable startups—Airbnb included—which touch the physical world in ways that traditional software companies never had to deal with,” Walk tells Fortune. “The complexity of trust and safety when dealing with housing or transportation is far greater than staffing a call center to just deal with enterprise software bugs, and accordingly we should assume it might cost more too.”
In other words: This might just be the beginning of a new economic reality for Airbnb, as the company sacrifices software margins while addressing the expenses of protecting the people using its platform.
We don’t know how Airbnb’s public market debut will go, but we certainly know that investors are raising eyebrows at companies with losses and no clear path to profitability. With Airbnb under even more examination following the meltdown of WeWork and the underwhelming performances of other newly public tech companies, we’ll have to see if Silicon Valley’s tech darling can win the validation of the public investor.
Read more at Fortune.
PODCASTING $$: Spotify will pay nearly $200 million to acquire Bill Simmons’s The Ringer, according to a regulatory filing. The music-streaming giant will pay between €130 million ($141 million) and €180 million ($196 million). The final price is subject to closing costs and deferred payments. Read more.
Polina Marinova
Twitter: @polina_marinova
Email: polina.marinova@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Headspace, a Los Angeles-based app focused on mindfulness and meditation, raised $93 million in Series C funding. blisce/ led the round, and was joined by investors including Waverley Capital, Times Bridge, The Chernin Group, Spectrum Equity and Advancit Capital.
- CybelAngel, a Paris-based digital risk management company, raised $36 million in Series B funding. Prime Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Tempocap, Bpifrance and Open CNP.
- BlockFi, a Jersey City, N.J.-based financial services company focused on products designed for cryptocurrencies, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Valar Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Morgan Creek Digital, PJC, Akuna Capital, CMT Digital, Avon Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Purple Arch Ventures, Kenetic Capital, Winklevoss Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, and HashKey Capital.
- Ramp, a New York-based fintech firm that offers corporate credit cards, raised $25 million in funding. Investors include Keith Rabois, Coatue, BoxGroup, Conversion Capital, Soma Capital, and Backend Capital. Read more at Fortune.
- Radar, a Brooklyn-based location data infrastructure platform, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round.
- Praetorian, an Austin-based cybersecurity company, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Investors include Bill Wood Ventures and McKinsey & Company.
- Databook, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based AI-powered, enterprise customer intelligence platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. Threshold Ventures led the round.
- Talage, a Reno, Nevada-based SaaS-based digital insurance platform, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Merus Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Calibrate Ventures, WTI and Hallador Investment Advisors.
- Open Raven, a modern data security platform, raised $4.1 million in funding. Upfront Ventures led the round.
- Double Loop Games, a San Francisco-based developer of mobile games, raised more than $2.5 million in seed funding. LVP led the round, and was joined by investors including 1Up Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
- Post Capital Partners made an investment in Agile Sourcing Partners, Inc, a Corona, Calif.-based supplier of integrated materials and services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Service Champions, a portfolio company of CenterOak Partners acquired Bell Brothers Plumbing Heating and Air, a Sacramento, Calif.-based provider of residential air conditioning and plumbing services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- L Catterton made an investment in Butternut Box, a London-based fresh food delivery brand for dogs. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOs
- Revolution Medicines, a Redwood City, Calif.-based biotech developing targeted cancer therapies, raised $238 million in an offering of 14 million shares priced at $17, the high end of its $16 to $17 range. The firm posted revenue of $20.2 million and losses of $48.8 million in 2018. Third Rock Ventures (29% pre-IPO), The Column Group (19%), and Sanofi Research Invest (8%) back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “RVMD.” Read more.
- Lojas Quero-Quero SA, a Brazilian home improvement retailer, filed for an IPO in the country, per Reuters. Advent International Corp backs the firm. Read more.
EXITS
- Apax Partners agreed to acquire Cadence Education, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based provider of early childhood education in North America, from Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
PEOPLE
- Logan Bartlett joined Redpoint as a managing director.
- Andrew Atherton was promoted to managing director at Union Square Advisors.
- Sofinnova Partners named Robert Carroll as partner and head of investor relations.