fortune--2020-10-12--As earnings season kicks off, only 48% of companies have resumed giving investors guidance

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Wondering what to expect as companies begin to report Q3 earnings this week? One of the most stunning changes in corporate practices brought on by COVID is that half of the companies in the S&P 500 have given investors nothing to go on. Given the big valuations Wall Street is awarding their stocks, it’s worrying that the giants of the S&P are a lot less confident about where earnings are headed than investors appears to be.
The details are revealed in a new report from FactSet, the firm that polls Wall Street analysts on their outlook for the S&P 500 profits. FactSet studied earnings releases, investor presentations, and conference transcripts to assemble its data. It found that as the second quarter progressed, no fewer than 184 of the 285 of the S&P members that historically furnish guidance either withdrew their previous forecasts, or declined to provide projections for 2020 or 2021, almost all citing uncertainly caused by the pandemic. An astounding three-out-of-four of America’s big cap stalwarts—that typically pride themselves on tracing the path ahead—deemed the future so mercurial that they gave up.
But during the Q2 season––meaning the period after the quarter’s close when companies provided earnings releases and additional information in presentations to investors––the roster of S&P members providing guidance jumped from 101 to 138, an increase of 37%. Still, only 48% of the 284 regular guidance-givers are back in the game, while over half remain too unsure to resume insights into their pipeline for earnings.
In general, the 138 companies giving guidance after the close of Q2 were a lot more optimistic than in the dark, post-third quarter period. Fifty-nine raised their EPS forecasts over Q1 season, 41 stayed the same, and only 26 expect numbers lower than they were projecting three or so months earlier (12 gave no guidance in the Q1 season). Companies’ confidence in what lies ahead varies enormously by industry. Only 33 of the 37 index’s consumer discretionary members that year after year provided guidance are still issuing predictions, and over half of the 58 industrials withdrew, while two-thirds of health care cohort, and every one of the 29 utilities, either never suspended, or have reinstated their forward-looking pronouncements.
Among the consumer goods dropouts are Coca-Cola, Constellation Brands, Whirlpool, General Mills, and Darden Restaurants, joined by industrials Raytheon, Honeywell, Air Products & Chemicals, and General Motors. On the other hand, Walgreens Boots, Johnson Controls, Motorola Solutions and especially a parade of healthcare giants that include Becton Dickinson, Quest Diagnostics, and Anthem all restored guidance.
The increase in the ranks of the S&P forecasting better times ahead has apparently cheered Wall Street. The analysts surveyed by FactSet now foresee a decline in EPS of 20.5% versus Q3 of last year, five points better than the drop forecast on June 30. Nevertheless, that would be the steepest fall since Q2 of 2009 in the depths of the financial crisis. The road ahead is now clearer, but it’s still plenty rocky. Given the S&P’s gigantic valuation––even based on 2019’s record earnings––it looks like investors are ignoring the potholes and soft shoulders at their peril.


fortune--2020-10-12--G7 bankers set to block Facebook’s Libra currency

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Facebook’s ambitious plans to launch a global digital currency is about to hit another setback this week as financial leaders from the G7 move to publicly oppose the project.
According to Reuters, finance minsters and central bankers from the G7—a club of seven of the world’s biggest economies including the U.S., Japan Germany and the U.K.—will publish a document on Tuesday that says Facebook’s currency, known as Libra, should not launch in its present form.
The document refers to a “global stablecoin project,” which describes Libra. Stablecoins are a form of cryptocurrency, akin to Bitcoin, that are pegged on a one-to-one basis with a traditional currency or basket of such currencies.
“The G7 continues to maintain that no global stablecoin project should begin operation until it adequately addresses relevant legal, regulatory, and oversight requirements through appropriate design and by adhering to applicable standards,” a draft of the document reportedly states.
The draft also reportedly warns that, without proper regulation, a project like Libra could undermine financial stability, consumer protection, privacy, taxation or cybersecurity.
The Libra team did not immediately offer a comment about the impending report.
Facebook first announced the Libra project, which is being guided in part by former PayPal president David Marcus, in June of 2019. The project seeks to launch a new form of digital money managed by a consortium of tech and financial companies. It would allow users on Facebook and other online platforms to use the Libra currency to pay each other or a merchant by means of various digital wallets.
The project quickly ran into headwinds, however, amid concerns from politicians and regulators that it would give Facebook—already the subject of antitrust investigations—too much power. Meanwhile, academics have questioned whether a new global currency could disrupt the world’s financial system by leading consumers to use Libra instead of local currencies.
It’s not immediately clear what effect the G7 declaration will have on Facebook’s plans to launch Libra, or what sanctions the various countries would impose if the company moves forward. The controversy comes at a time when many central banks, notably China’s, are planning to launch digital versions of their national currencies.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated David Marcus is leading the Libra project. Marcus is directing Facebook’s digital wallet, Novi. The overall Libra Association project is being led by Stuart Levey.
Explore Fortune’s Q4 investment guide:


fortune--2020-10-12--The President doesn’t actually impact the economy that much

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As the presidential election enters its frenzied final phase, here’s a simple way to make both Biden supporters and Trump supporters angry: Tell them that the President doesn’t have much effect on the economy at all.
It seems to be true, even if it also seems impossible. Certainly the candidates aren’t buying it. In the past six months Trump has posted 93 tweets lauding his and his party’s management of the economy (last week: “Great Jobs Numbers & Economy , Plus!”). Biden is running on a platform that devotes nearly 7,000 words to how he and his party will rescue the economy from Trump (“take immediate, decisive action to pull the economy out of President Trump’s recession.”) The candidates say they can control the economy’s direction, and millions of voters agree, even as they disagree over who would do it better.
But what if Presidents can’t direct the economy—or, if they can, there’s no telling whether they’ll do so for better or worse?
Princeton economists Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson conducted the definitive study on that question, published in 2016. Its findings are powerful and highly relevant to this year’s contest, and they are surprising in two particular ways.
Surprise No. 1: Researching the period from Truman through Obama’s first term, the researchers found that the President’s party made a huge difference: The economy grew faster under Democrat Presidents than under Republican Presidents by a “startlingly large” margin, they report, “so large, in fact, that it strains credulity.” Annual growth in real GDP was 1.8 percentage points greater under Democrat Presidents on average. (Because it would be almost impossible for Presidents to affect real GDP growth in their first days, the researchers assign the first quarter of each new presidency to that President’s predecessor.) Given that the U.S. hasn’t notched a calendar year of 3% growth since 2005, 1.8 points is a gigantic gap. The researchers also showed that judging Presidents on some measure other than real GDP growth wouldn’t change their big-picture result. Their basic finding, they said, “holds almost regardless of how you define success.”
At this point you may suspect partisan bias, especially when you find that the lead author, Blinder, is a Democrat. He served on President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, was appointed Fed Vice Chairman by Clinton, and advised the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry. But before you convict Blinder of putting his thumb on the scale, consider…
Surprise No. 2: Blinder and Watson weren’t entirely sure which factors might account for the wide difference between Democrat and Republican Presidents, but they were quite sure what does not account for it: “Our empirical analysis does not attribute any of the partisan growth gap to fiscal or monetary policy.”
So what’s the explanation, if not the President? Could it be the party that controls Congress? No, say the researchers; they checked. After testing many plausible factors and scores of combinations, the best explanation they could propose is a combination of oil shocks, changes in European growth, and changes in overall productivity often associated with long-term technology advances. Those factors share almost nothing in common except that Presidents exert little if any control over them. The most ambitious claims some Presidents could make, the researchers conclude, is that they benefited from “blends of good policy and good luck.”
While the study ended in 2012, extending it to the present wouldn’t likely change the main results. Average annual GDP growth in Obama’s second term and Trump’s tenure through 2019 was the same: 2.5%. If we include this year’s disastrous first two pandemic-influenced quarters, Trump’s average plunges to -0.6% for his presidency through June, widening the party-based growth gap.
None of this means that passionate partisans of Biden and Trump should stop debating economic policy. Maybe arguing for two centuries has helped fuel America’ extraordinary record of long-term economic growth. After all, even Blinder advised a President and two presidential candidates on economic policy.
And for the majority of voters who deeply believe that economic performance reflects the incumbent President’s influence: Third quarter GDP growth will be announced at 8:30 am on October 29, just five days before the election. Mark your calendar.


fortune--2020-10-12--Facebook bans Holocaust denial

Facebook bans Holocaust denial

Facebook is banning posts that deny or distort the Holocaust and will start directing people to authoritative sources if they search for information about the Nazi genocide.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new policy Monday, the latest attempt by the company to take action against conspiracy theories and misinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential election three weeks away.
The decision comes amid a push by Holocaust survivors around the world who lent their voices to a campaign targeting Zuckerberg beginning this summer, urging him to take action to remove Holocaust denial posts from the social media site.
Coordinated by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the #NoDenyingIt campaign used Facebook itself to make the survivors’ entreaties to Zuckerberg heard, posting one video per day urging him to remove Holocaust-denying groups, pages and posts as hate speech.
Facebook said Monday that the new policy “is supported by the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people.” Surveys have shown some younger Americans believe the Holocaust was a myth or has been exaggerated.
The Anti-Defamation League has reported that incidents of white supremacist propaganda distributed across the U.S. jumped by more than 120% between 2018 and last year. Tech companies began promising to take a firmer stand against accounts used to promote hate and violence after a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a self-described white supremacist drove into a crowd of counterprotesters.
Zuckerberg said in a blog post Monday that he believes the new policy strikes the “right balance” in drawing the lines between what is and isn’t acceptable speech.
“I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust,” he wrote. “My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech.”
Zuckerberg had raised the ire of the Claims Conference, based in New York, and others with comments in 2018 to the tech website Recode that posts denying the Nazi annihilation of 6 million Jews would not necessarily be removed. He said he did not think Holocaust deniers were “intentionally” getting it wrong, and that as long as posts were not calling for harm or violence, even offensive content should be protected.
After an outcry, Zuckerberg, who is Jewish himself, clarified that while he personally found “Holocaust denial deeply offensive” he believed that “the best way to fight offensive bad speech is with good speech.”
The Claims Conference on Monday lauded Zuckerberg’s changed approach and the company’s decision to take action.
“It’s a very important statement and it’s a building block toward ensuring that this sort of anti-Semitism is not amplified,” said Greg Schneider, the group’s executive vice president.


fortune--2020-10-12--American capitalism needs equal-pay legislation. Canada is showing us how to make it work

Achieving the ideals of stakeholder capitalism requires a comprehensive restructuring of “the way things are.” Take, for instance, how companies value their employees—it’s not equitably. Must we repeat the tired fact that women earn only 82 cents for every dollar white men earn? And that for women of color, the pay gap is even worse, with Black women earning 62 cents and Latinas earning 54 cents on the white male dollar?
Doing right by all stakeholders means paying workers equitable wages. And that means business leaders must hardwire equity and inclusion into the value systems they use to determine employee pay. While this change won’t happen overnight, pay equity legislation can expedite the path forward. In turn, businesses can look forward to reaping the benefits of a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce, and our economy can look forward to an accelerated recovery.
That’s why the U.S. needs to follow in the footsteps of countries such as Iceland, France, and Canada and adopt decisive pay equity legislation. We need infrastructure to bridge the gap between good intentions and tangible progress.
Why public policy matters for pay equity
To learn more about what it takes to build such a bridge, I recently spoke on Zoom with Karen Jensen, Canada’s first Pay Equity Commissioner. Jensen is responsible for the implementation of the country’s first-of-its-kind Pay Equity Act. Passed in 2018, the Pay Equity Act requires federally regulated employers to proactively address their gender wage gaps—including gaps within job categories as well as across job categories that contribute equal value to the business.
Jensen points to several reasons for the necessity of pay equity legislation. First, she says without legislation, “only the largest and most successful firms can make a voluntary commitment to achieving pay equity when their competitors do not.”
Second, Jensen reminds us that the sheer scale and size of the gender pay gap “requires significant dedication of time and resources” to close and keep closed. According to Jensen, “Small to medium-sized employers need support from regulatory agencies to implement pay equity. Companies also need to know that everyone in their industry will be subject to the same requirements and that rules will be enforced equally. Otherwise, those who do comply may see themselves at a disadvantage if they are paying more for their labor costs than their competitors.”
What effective pay equity policies include
We don’t need to start from square one to craft an effective pay equity policy. We already know that a true equal pay law must take the burden of filing a complaint off women’s shoulders, says Jensen. Employees should not have to take their employer to court to receive equitable compensation for their work.
Canada’s new equal pay law resembles Iceland’s in this manner, because it requires employers to prove (and continue proving) they pay equitable wages. Noncompliance results in fines.
In addition to shifting the burden of proof from employee to employer, public policy must take a proactive approach to pay standards.
In the case of Canada’s Pay Equity Act, Jensen explains that government-regulated companies above a certain size must create a proactive pay equity plan and identify any pay equity gaps in their workplaces. Then, employers need to prove they are actively working to shrink their pay gaps. This mandate extends to both current gaps and any gaps that may re-emerge in the future.
That last part about re-emerging pay gaps is important. As Salesforce has learned through its groundbreaking efforts to achieve pay equity over the past five years, the pay gap is a moving target. We can invest in closing our pay gaps today, but every new hire, promotion, and merit increase risks re-opening the gap tomorrow.
Another critical feature of Canada’s pay equity policy is its focus on equal pay for work of equal value. Jensen explains, “Companies must evaluate their compensation structures and practices to ensure people are being paid fairly according to the value they contribute to the organization, regardless of gender.” An equal pay for work of equal value clause insulates women from the wage inequity inherent in pink ghetto jobs, or jobs that are underpaid by virtue of being predominantly female.
Finally, a meaningful pay equity policy must include measures for transparency. Visibility into pay equity practices not only holds employers accountable for change, it also helps our current and future labor base make smart decisions on where to invest their talent. In turn, companies that demonstrate their commitment to matters of equity will come out ahead.
“The most talented individuals prefer to work in companies that foster diversity, and pay equity is a tool to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace,” says Jensen. “It assists companies to attract top talent, which will in turn assist them to outperform their peers.”
Jensen also referenced a study showing that 61% of women look at the gender representation of company leadership when deciding where to work. Another report finds 72% of women would not apply to work at a company where a gender pay gap exists. And yet another study reveals 80% of women would leave their companies if they felt a different company offered greater gender equality.
COVID-19 makes pay equity more urgent
Despite the hardship of 2020, we must move forward with pay equity legislation. We must continue paving the way for stakeholder capitalism to thrive. Earlier this year we saw the U.K. walk back from equity when they suspended gender pay reporting requirements in light of the uncertainty around COVID-19. This came as a relief to the U.K. companies required to submit their gender pay gap figures.
However, the move was short-sighted. By taking care of stakeholders (in this case, employees) via equitable wages, companies move closer to achieving gender equity and unlocking its subsequent financial gains. Original research by my company, Pipeline, across 4,161 companies in 29 countries found that for every 10% increase in gender equity, there is a 1% to 2% increase in revenue. Moreover, gender equity can help companies weather economic downturns and bounce back faster by increasing their resiliency. Gender equitable companies enjoy better profits, levels of innovation, sales productivity, and ability to attract top talent—to name a few advantages of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The economy benefits, too. Personal wages extend far beyond the household level. They influence everything from retirement savings, access to higher education, criminal justice, entrepreneurship, and the critical 70% of our economy driven by consumer spending.
And at a time when women have been hit hardest by the fallout of COVID-19, ensuring equitable wages will lift up the 71% of U.S. households with children who rely on a mother’s earnings. Lest we forget, the gender pay gap expands to 71 cents on a father’s dollar when disaggregated for mothers. For our Black breadwinner moms who support 81% of all Black households with children, the gender pay gap jumps to the point where they earn just 44 cents on the white breadwinner dad’s dollar.
As Jensen puts it: “Pay inequity is an example of systemic inequity and based on irrelevant factors such as race or gender. Many people are now seeing that we need to correct our worn-out assumptions and biases. We need systems in place to address unconscious thought patterns.”
Pay equity legislation is one such system. It is an investment in our economy at a time when we need it most. Now is our opportunity to embrace pay equity fully and lay the foundation for a more prosperous, inclusive version of capitalism.
Katica Roy is a gender economist and the CEO and founder of Pipeline, a SaaS company that leverages artificial intelligence to identify and drive economic gains through gender equity.


fortune--2020-10-12--With backing from Hollywood, French startup Ÿnsect plans to bring edible insects to America

With the pandemic changing age-old consumer habits, there might be one more taboo headed for extinction: Edible insects. After decades of squeamishness, we might finally be ready to allow creepy-crawlies into our food supply chain.
Bugs, it seems, are having a moment. Last week (just a day before a fly gained global fame during the Vice-Presidential debate) the French insect-farming startup Ÿnsect announced it had raised $372 million, hugely ramping up the niche industry, and accelerating the company’s plans for large-scale production in the U.S. The investments even had a touch of Hollywood stardom: Robert Downey Jr.’s eco-focused FootPrint Coalition invested $224 million in debt and equity into the startup.
“I dig it,” Downey said on the fund’s site, announcing his investment in the company with the inevitable insect pun. “Ÿnsect’s process produces no waste and complies with the U.N.’s sustainability goals.”
Indeed, the dire squeeze on the world’s land and oceans makes a strong case for farming insects. About 26% of the Earth’s arable land is used to graze animals, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, and at least one-third of all the crops grown are devoted to manufacturing animal feed, a $500-billion-a year industry, which relies on staples like soybeans and corn, which are far lower in protein than simple insects, and far more expensive to grow. The oceans fare no better: About 22 million tons of fish caught in the wild in 2018 were ground up for fish meal, rather than served to humans, according to FAO statistics.
Even so, it has taken years for Ÿnsect to win over the industry. “Three years ago, we were more pushing and advocating our technology,” says CEO and cofounder Antoine Hubert, who launched the company in 2011. The shift appeared to begin with the pandemic, as the world languished through months of lockdown, sending global supply chains into disarray. “In the past few months, more companies are coming to us,” Hubert says. “Agricultural companies want to aggregate their waste.”
High in protein
The contrast with Big Ag could hardly be starker. Ÿnsect breeds the larvae of the Tenebrio Molitor beetle inside a vertical factory, which Hubert opened in 2016, in a modest-sized industrial building in Dole, a town in eastern France near the Swiss border. When Fortune visited the factory in 2018, we watched conveyor belts with trays containing millions of squirming mealworms, all fed with agricultural waste collected from the area’s farms. From that, Ÿnsect produces high-protein pet food and livestock feed—all without using a single acre of land or hauling fish from the ocean. Ÿnsect believes it will take time for we humans (at least in Western countries) to feel comfortable eating insects themselves. But until we do, bugs are likely to become a growing, key part of the meat, chicken and fish we eat.
Antoine Hubert, cofounder and CEO of Ynsect, in 2018 with a handful of mealworm beetle larvae, fresh off the production line. Photograph by Veronique de Viguerie
Hubert says Ÿnsect has signed about $105 million worth of contracts with feed and fertilizer companies. He claims the company has raised a total of about $425 million in investments, more than the funding of all his insect-farming startup competitors combined, including Canada’s Enterra. But big money is flowing in from established players as well. In January, NYSE-listed Darling Ingredients acquired a 100% stake in the Ohio-based EnviroFlight. They’re all eyeing a big market for high-protein insect-based feed—and, eventually, food-—products.
For this latest round, Ÿnsect’s lead investor was Asatnor Ventures in Belgium. There have also been investments from French banks, the deeptech fund Supernova in France, the Armat Group in Luxembourg, plus Hong Kong’s Happiness Capital.
For Hubert, an agricultural scientist, the success has been a long time coming. He spent years researching insects as a source of protein. Back in the late 2000s, he began showing school children how to raise worm farms in boxes, by feeding them organic waste like banana peels. Realizing he could do the same on a large scale, he found a farmer who was breeding insects for fish bait, and recruited him to help launch Ÿnsect.
Hubert is now building a far bigger factory, which is set to open a year from now in French President Emmanuel Macron’s hometown of Amiens. The company is also scouting for a location to open a U.S. plant, perhaps as soon as 2022. Hubert says it is likely to be a joint venture with a Big Ag company, several of which are already in private discussions with Ÿnsect. “It will be easier for us to rely on them for permitting, subcontracting for building, and so on,” Hubert says.
Hubert says he plans to start selling insect-based pet food in the U.S. before next summer, after completing trials with the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In fact, insect-farming faces complicated regulatory hurdles in both the European Union and the U.S. In Europe, farmed insects fall under the same regulations as other farm animals, and it has taken Hubert years to be cleared for selling his fish-meal products. Next will come poultry and livestock, and finally humans; he expects to have E.U. clearance for human consumption some time next year. In the U.S. too, he has spent nearly two years working to get permission to sell pet food, which he believes is close.
“Just the beginning”
That is just the start. As shareholders press agricultural companies to cut their carbon emissions, several have begun considering how to recycle the mammoth amounts of byproducts and waste generated by large-scale production. “There is a lot more consciousness among investors about Earth issues,” says food entrepreneur Nicolas Bernadi in San Francisco, who sits on Ÿnsect’s board. “I am convinced this is just the beginning,”
Bernadi says he foresees huge growth in the U.S., where the market is wide open. As the agricultural industry begins focusing on insects, there will likely be plenty of competitors, but Ÿnsect’s head start gives it a marked advantage. “The learning curve is long,” Bernadi says. “You are talking about farming species that no one really knows.” What is more, he says, Ÿnsect’s appeal could grow as companies focus more on sustainability. “Investors will want to put their money where there is a good effect on the planet,” he says.
That good effect seems indisputable, according to the data.
Right now, the world is able to feed itself. But to keep pace with population growth, agriculture will need to shift drastically, and quickly, especially as floods and wildfires are destroying crops with greater frequency. The FAO’s prediction is grim. “There is enough cropland to feed 9 billion in 2050 if the 40% of all crops produced today for feeding animals were used directly for human consumption,” it says. “This is crucial in the context of climate change.”
With available land squeezed, there might soon be no better way to feed all the world’s farm animals, than farming insects in huge quantities–all indoors. That is something movie stars can dig.
April 7, 2020: This article has been updated to include the names of Ÿnsect’s non-U.S. investors.


fortune--2020-10-12--Twilio makes a pandemic mega-buy

Twilio makes a pandemic mega-buy

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I wrote last week of the incredible soaring stock price of Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), the customer engagement platform that has gone from a $15 billion business to a $46 billion one over the course of the year, spurred by the pandemic and investors’ love of all things digital.
On Monday, the company leveraged its mega valuation to make its largest acquisition yet: Confirming an earlier report from Forbes, Twilio said it would acquire Segment, a customer data platform, for $3.2 billion in—yes—an all-stock transaction. Soaring stock prices, after all, make for good acquisition currency.
Segment was valued at $1.5 billion in its last private round of fundraising, and has raised from investors including Y-Combinator, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Thrive Capital, and Meritech Capital Partners.
Companies buy a bevy of apps to help with online payments, traffic analysis, email marketing, and so on—resulting in disconnected pools of data. Segment, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson said in a Monday morning call with investors, attempts to bring together all that information, allowing companies “to have the infrastructure they bought” and “to form a [whole] picture of the customer base.”
The deal between Twilio and Segment is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year.
One thing I wouldn’t be surprised to see in the near future: even more mergers and acquisitions and investments by companies, such as Peloton, Zoom, or Shopify, whose stocks have gained valuable dealmaking currency in the pandemic (see Grubhub combining with Just Eat Takeaway).
LEON BLACK AND JEFFREY EPSTEIN: The Apollo Global Management CEO has often been questioned over his connections with Jeffrey Epstein, which he has said have been of a limited kind. But The New York Times reported on Monday that Black may have had deeper connections than previously assumed, and wired at least $50 million to Epstein in the years after the latter was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008. Read more.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Virgin Orbit, Richard Branson’s Long Beach, Calif.-based satellite-launch business, is seeking to raise up to $200 million in a funding that could value it at $1 billion, per The Wall Street Journal. Read more.
- Flash Express, a Thailand-based logistics startup, raised $200 million in Series D funding. PTT Oil and Retail Business Public Company led the round and was joined by investors including Durbell and Krungsri Finnovate. Read more.
- Razorpay, a Bangalore-based fintech, raised $100 million in Series D funding, valuing it at over $1 billion. GIC and Sequoia India led the round and were joined by investors including Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, and Matrix Partners. Read more.
- Numan, a U.K.-based online health clinic for men, raised £10 million ($13 million) in Series A funding. Novator along with Anthemis Exponential, Vostok New Ventures, and Colle Capital.
- GetSetup, a San Francisco-based maker of education technology for older adults, raised $10 million in funding. ReThink Education led the round and was joined by investors including AME Cloud Ventures, Work Play Ventures, and Sweat Equity Ventures.
- Edgify, a London-based company building A.I. training frameworks, raised $6.5 million in seed funding. Investors include Octopus Ventures, and Mangrove Capital Partners.
- Clair, a New York City-based fintech focused on rapid pay for hourly and gig economy workers, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Upfront Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Founder Collective and Walkabout Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- EQT is weighing a takeover of Royal KPN NV (AS: KPN), a Dutch phone company trading at about $11 billion in market value. Read more.
- Carlyle Group and Pacific Equity Partners sent a conditional offer to take over Link Administration Holdings (ASX: LNK), an Australian IT services company, for A$2.76 billion ($2 billion).
- Heartland Home Services, a portfolio company of North Branch Capital, acquired Blind & Sons and Superior Drainage, Barberton and Akron, Oh.-based provider of residential HVAC replacement and maintenance, plumbing and electrical services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Broadtree Partners acquired Seanair Machine Co., a Farmingdale, N.Y.-based manufacturer of machined parts for the aerospace industry, alongside AE Industrial Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Permira, Warburg Pincus, Dragoneer Investment Group and Durable Capital invested in Clearwater Analytics, a Boise, Id.-based SaaS provider of investment accounting and analytics. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
EXITS
- Ardian acquired a majority stake, in Syclef, a French refrigeration company, from Latour Capital. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Centerbridge Partners agreed to acquire American Bath Group, a maker of bathtubs, from Lone Star. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
EXITS
- Bandwidth (NASDAQ: BAND) agreed to acquire Voxbone, an enterprise cloud communications company, for about €446 million from investors including Vitruvian Partners.
- IK Investment Partners entered exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Kersia, a biosecurity and food safety company, from Ardian. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Breakups and Hangups
- Air Canada (TO: AC) lowered the price at which it plans to buy Transat A.T. Inc (TO: TRX), a Canadian tour operator, from C$720 million to about C$188.7 million ($143.86 million). Read more.
- Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE: MNK), a pharmaceutical company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
IPOs
- Top Glove Corp., the world’s largest rubber glove maker which is traded in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, is weighing a $1 billion listing in Hong Kong. Read more.
- Dida Chuxing, a Chinese ride hailing company, is seeking to raise $500 million in a Hong Kong IPO. Read more.
- Atea Pharmaceuticals, a Boston-based clinical stage biotech developing therapies for viral infections, filed to raise $100 million. Bain Capital and Morningside Venture Investments back the firm. Read more.
- Eargo, a San Jose, Calif.-based hearing-aid maker, plans to raise $100 million in an offering 6.7 million shares priced between $14 to $16. The firm posted revenue of $32.7 million and loss of $44.5 million in 2019. New Enterprise Associates, Future Fund, Gilde Healthcare, and Longitude Venture back the firm. Read more.
- Aligos Therapeutics, a South San Francisco-based clinical-stage maker of therapies for viral and liver diseases, plans to raise $150 million in an offering of 10 million shares priced between $14 to $16. Backers include Roche, Versant Ventures, and Baker Bros. Advisers. Read more.
- Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biotech developing therapies for ophthalmic conditions, plans to raise $80 million in an offering 5 million shares priced between $15 to $17. Vivo Capital and Frazier Life Sciences backs the firm. Read more.
- SQZ Biotechnologies, a Watertown, Mass.-based biotech developing cell therapies for solid tumors, filed to raise $75 million. Polaris Partners, Temasek, and AIG back the firm. Read more.
SPACs
- Triller, the short-form video app rival to TikTok, is reportedly in talks to merge with a blank-check acquisition company. The company is said to be in the middle of raising a $250 million round. Read more.
- Social Capital Hedosophia raised $2.1 billion total across its fourth, fifth, and sixth SPACs.
- Ajax I, a blank check company founded by Och-Ziff’s Daniel Och, filed to raise $750 million. Read more.
- Spartan Acquisition II, a blank check company seeking a business in the North American energy industry, filed to raise up to $400 million. Apollo Global Management backed the firm. Read more.
- Lux Health Tech Acquisition, a blank check company seeking a healthcare business, filed to raise $300 million. Lux Capital formed the firm. Read more.
F+FS
- WestCap Investment Partners, an investment firm founded by a former Blackstone and Airbnb CFO, is in the final stages of raising a $750 million fund. Read more.
- Plus Venture Capital, a Bahrain-based fund that plans to invest in the Middle East and North Africa region, raised $60 million.


fortune--2020-10-12--The system is ‘rigged’: Robert Reich on the Supreme Court, economic inequality, and his Twitter beef

The system is ‘rigged’: Robert Reich on the Supreme Court, economic inequality, and his Twitter beef with Elon Musk

Among writers and thinkers operating at the intersection of economics and public policy, few today are respected as Robert Reich. Over a career spanning the past five decades, he has worked for three presidential administrations—serving as U.S. Secretary of Labor during Bill Clinton’s first term—and written 18 books exploring the economic, social, and political issues at the heart of American society. With filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth, he has produced two documentaries, Inequality for All and Saving Capitalism, and founded Inequality Media, a digital media company that produces videos and interviews expanding on Reich’s work.
An advocate of progressive, socially-minded economic policies, Reich is a fierce critic of unfettered free-market capitalism, which he believes has yielded the heightened economic inequality plaguing the United States today. Earlier this year, he released his most recent book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, which argues that private interests have wrested control of the American government from the people it is meant to serve. This has resulted in policies that favor the wealthiest at the expense of most working Americans, and threatens to transform the American democratic system into an “oligarchy,” according to Reich.
When he’s not writing and commentating for media outlets around the world, Reich is a professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He recently made some time for Fortune to discuss the ongoing political battle over the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vacant Supreme Court seat, how the Clinton and Obama administrations failed to address economic inequality, and his recent Twitter beef with Elon Musk.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You’ve been critical of the GOP’s efforts to replace Justice Ginsburg, and how it speaks to what you call the “rigged” dynamics of our government system—an issue that you examine extensively in your new book. Why is the current battle over Justice Ginsburg’s former seat on the bench so alarming in this regard?
The Supreme Court is the one institution of our governmental system that requires public respect in order for it to function. If the public doesn’t trust the courts as being above politics, then the courts have absolutely no place to stand with regard to legitimacy; as the founding fathers said, they have neither the purse nor the sword.
I think the big concern right now is that, if Donald Trump replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that nomination is confirmed by the Senate, it will be deemed illegitimate by a vast number of Americans—because, after all, Mitch McConnell did not act on Merrick Garland’s nomination [to the Supreme Court, by President Obama in 2016] at a point much further away from the following administration. It’s laughably arbitrary. And then you would have a majority of the Supreme Court’s justices there by virtue of Presidents who were not elected by majorities, and confirmed by Senate Republicans who don’t represent nearly a majority of the public.
So it’s a compounding of perceived insults to democratic ideals. If it all becomes power politics, then there’s almost no end to it. And what we sacrifice is public legitimacy and public trust.
If the system is “rigged” as you say, then what must be done to bring about the structural change needed and restore public trust in the integrity of our institutions? Do you think we can find the political will to do it?
It’s very much up to the public. Those in power are not going to change the allocation of power; they never have, and they never will. After the first Gilded Age of the late-19th century, the public was so outraged—with abuses of power, with widening inequality, with corruption, with conspicuous consumption by the wealthy and extraordinary poverty—that the country essentially rose up in what were known as the populist and progressive movements of the era.
The country rose up in a way in 1932; people were so desperate that they followed a relatively unknown politician in Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had a lot of ideas, and the country was willing and eager to do something bold and dramatic. And in the 1960s, I think the nation was in a mood to follow the direction that the civil rights movement was taking, and Lyndon Johnson was wise enough to get in front of that parade with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. So at every juncture in this country, those in power don’t simply give up power; the vast majority of Americans have got to mobilize and organize.
In your book, you expound on the economic inequalities that have become increasingly stark over the last 40 years. Seeing how you’ve been active in public life and served in several presidential administrations, what have been the biggest political failures that allowed these inequalities to come to fruition?
There were a great number. I think the biggest failure was to control money in politics. There’s no such thing as a free market in nature; a market is a product of rules, and those rules come out of courts, legislatures, and executive agencies. And if money is too powerful of an influence where the rules of the market are being developed and implemented, then the market is going to tip ever more dramatically in the direction of those who are very wealthy and have, bit by bit, bribed their way into tilting the market in their direction.
You look at any area of the current set of laws and rules that frame the U.S.’s so-called free market—say, bankruptcy, which is an area where most peoples’ eyes glaze over. But you see, step by step, that the financial industry has changed the rules of bankruptcy, making it harder for people to reorganize the mortgages on their first homes or for former students to reorganize their student debt.
We can go on and on. Intellectual property laws have been expanded dramatically over the years; contract laws have been layered so that mandatory arbitration is now fairly standard; and antitrust is almost a dead letter, even though levels of concentration have increased dramatically. It’s harder and harder to form a labor union, and the laws are tilted against labor union formation. Securities deregulation did not actually end with Dodd-Frank; in fact, Dodd-Frank itself has been watered down, and continues to be.
So you get a playing field that is tilted very dramatically in the direction of powerful industries and wealthy people. And the net effect is a vicious cycle in which not only do the wealthy get more and more advantages—and I haven’t even mentioned taxes—but at the same time, the public grows more cynical about a game that appears to be rigged. And it is rigged.
While it’s easy for those on the left to blame Republican administrations in that regard, there has also been a rising backlash from the progressive left targeting the legacies of the Clinton and Obama administrations. What do you make of those Democratic administrations’ failure to address those same issues?
I don’t want to engage in a kind of false equivalency between the two parties because I don’t think they’re identical. But undoubtedly, in both parties, there is a financial and corporate establishment that is very powerful and very often gets its way. In the Clinton administration, I was at loggerheads very often with [former Treasury Secretary] Bob Rubin, who—although I like personally very much—did represent a way of thinking about the economy that was very different from the way I felt and how many people like me, who were more concerned about widening inequality, would come at these issues.
The financial community and big contributors to the Democratic Party undoubtedly had a lot of influence—you’ll remember the Lincoln Bedroom controversy during the Clinton administration. Both Clinton and Obama promised that, if elected, they would embrace labor law reform, making it easier to form unions—and yet neither did it, even though the first two years of both administrations saw both the House and Senate under Democratic leadership.
I don’t want to engage in false equivalency because I think overall the Republican Party has been more willing to let business have whatever tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks it has wanted. The Trump administration is a good example. But certainly, you find that imbalance in both parties.
Yet polls continue to indicate that Republicans still garner more support than Democrats as far as who voters trust to handle the economy. As far as Democrats’ inability to compete in this regard, is it simply a matter of poor messaging, or have they failed in a larger sense?
I think messaging is part of it. The Democrats, in my view, over the years have done a bad job at educating the public about the importance of public investment: education, basic R&D, infrastructure, public health, even health insurance. Those kinds of public investments have more to do with future economic growth than private investments, for the simple reason that much private sector investment is being done by big companies that are global. They don’t care where they make the investments, as long as they get a good return on those investments. They have no intrinsic loyalty to the United States—that’s how they’re constructed and organized.
So you need public investment in order to attract the right kind of private investment. Democrats have not gotten this basic point across.
In lieu of public investment, we’ve seen heightened importance placed on notions of “stakeholder capitalism” and corporate responsibility—and relying on private sector investments, rather than government intervention, to grow our economy. I understand you view such notions with a great degree of skepticism.
My view is really very similar to the views expressed 50 years ago by Milton Friedman. You cannot expect the private sector to do a good job being socially responsible—it’s not their responsibility to begin with. What they do, which is called “socially responsible,” is usually an elaborate form of public relations. Shareholders, if they wanted to be charitable, would put their money into a charity, or they would pay their taxes in full. We look to government to be the agent for the public when it comes to making public investments, and allocating public money where it can get the highest return.
But this goes back to the discussion we had before. The biggest problem over the last 50 years is that the private sector has flooded government with money. Not only lobbying and corporate campaign contributions but also the kinds of public relations campaigns that have made it very difficult for the public to trust government and to hold government accountable.
One counterpoint to that perspective, for those skeptical of government’s role in the economy, would be Silicon Valley—specifically, hugely successful private entrepreneurs whose innovations, they claim, have done more to advance our economy and quality of life than the government could. Elon Musk is one such figure, someone who many consider a forward-thinking capitalist who is working to make the world a better place. You were recently critical of the way he’s run his company as it relates to Tesla’s labor practices, and he took a shot back at you on Twitter. What do you think of him and his ilk, who you may consider “robber barons,” but whom others may consider captains of industry?
We’ve gone through this before historically, as you’re alluding to. It’s not bad for people to make a lot of money, but we have to have guard rails. We have to protect workers and consumers; we’ve got to protect the environment. Just look at what we’ve gone through in California over the last couple of weeks. We see what happens when there are no guard rails. In 2008, when the financial sector exploded, we saw what no guard rails meant.
Any society has to rely on government for two things fundamentally. One is to establish these guard rails, so that the Elon Musks of the world can make a lot of money, but they can’t exploit their workers, treat them badly, and expose them to unsafe work conditions. The second is that government needs to undertake the fundamental public investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D that the Elon Musks of the world are not going to make. And if we don’t make them, then we end up with a very ugly society, and one that is not going to be all that productive. We may be able to send people to Mars, but life on Earth is not going to be very pleasant.
The central theme of your new book is that the American system presently finds itself in a conflict between “democracy versus oligarchy.” As far as the 2020 presidential election is concerned, many critics would point to both major candidates and their parties as having enabled this disenfranchisement of the American people, in favor of moneyed, corporate interests. With that in mind, it’s going to take more than just electing a new president to bring about the deeper, structural change it appears we need, isn’t it?
Yes, of course it’s going to take a lot more. But when I say that the underlying conflict in our society is between democracy and oligarchy, what I’m getting at is that behind any individual election, with increasing frequency and intensity over the last 30-40 years, we see a drama unfolding in which the bottom 90% of Americans by income and wealth are getting a raw deal. Not only in terms of income and wealth; the typical American in the U.S. doesn’t do nearly as well as the typical European in terms of education, health care, pensions, all sorts of other public benefits. Even though taxes are higher in Europe, the typical European gets all sorts of public benefits that the typical American lacks.
And you combine that with everything else we’ve been talking about—the lack of guard rails with regard to making a lot of money, the kind of shareholder capitalism to the extreme, and the lack of public investment—and you get a very brutal capitalism here. The choice is really not between socialism and capitalism; it’s between a capitalism whose rewards go disproportionately to a relatively small number of people who live wonderfully well, while everybody else is exposed to huge levels of economic insecurity, or a capitalism in which almost everyone has a fair shot and democracy is much more vibrant and buoyant than it is here.
People very often ask me, whom should we emulate? Should the United States be more like the Nordic countries? And I say no—let’s just emulate ourselves between 1945 and 1980. A time when inequality was dropping dramatically, when the bottom-fifth had more opportunity and was pushing ahead even faster than the top-fifth, when CEOs were paid only 20 times or 30 times more than the average worker, when over a third of the workforce was unionized. In other words, when there was countervailing power in our system.
We didn’t do it entirely right then, but at least we were moving in the right direction. We were moving towards civil rights and voting rights and more opportunities for women. We were on the right path, and we’ve gone off that path.


fortune--2020-10-12--A Pelosi snub and a giant federal COVID grant: Another dizzying day in Washington for the U.K.’s Ast

A Pelosi snub and a giant federal COVID grant: Another dizzying day in Washington for the U.K.’s AstraZeneca

It was the kind of day that could give any AstraZeneca investor whiplash.
First, on Friday, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and one of America’s most powerful Democrats, said that the U.S. should not grant approval for the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant based solely on clinical trial data from the U.K.
In the process, she faulted the U.K. drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), for being less stringent than the U.S. regulator, the Food and Drug Administration.
“My concern is that the UK’s system for that kind of judgment is not on a par with ours in the United States,” she said, according to The Financial Times.
Oof. But no sooner had AstraZeneca absorbed that low blow from the House Speaker than it got a boost of good news from Washington.
Also on Friday, the company announced that a synthetic antibody (also known as a monoclonal antibody) that it has been developing as a treatment for those already ill with Covid-19, but which it believes will also confer six to twelve months of immunity to the virus, was moving to Phase III clinical trials in the U.S. What’s more, the U.S. government is providing the company with $486 million to help develop the medicine.
Synthetic antibodies are made in labs from modified cell lines genetically engineered to produce a protein that will, much like natural antibodies, bind to a receptor on the surface of a pathogen, preventing it from infecting other cells and replicating.
Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s chief executive officer, said in a statement that the medicine had “the potential to provide immediate and long-lasting effect in both preventing and treating COVID-19 infections.”
The company has agreed to supply the U.S. with up to 100,000 doses of the long-acting antibody (or LAAB) treatment, known as AZD7442, by the end of the year, while a separate agreement gives the U.S. the right to acquire up to one million additional doses in 2021.
And then, came yet another piece of good news: the Australian drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), took the first step toward approving the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. The agency granted the vaccine what’s known as “provisional determination” based on the results of the vaccine’s earlier human safety trials. This designation will allow AstraZeneca to apply to have the vaccine approved for use in Australia, potentially even before all the late stage human trials are concluded.
One of the frontrunners
AstraZeneca is among the frontrunners in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Late stage clinical trials of the vaccine, which it is jointly developing with the University of Oxford, are underway in the U.K. and several other countries around the world.
Those trials were paused for one week last month, however, to investigate whether a serious medical condition one volunteer in the U.K. study developed was related to the vaccine. An independent review board and the British drug regulator concluded the volunteer’s condition was unlikely to have been caused by the inoculation and trials were allowed to resume.
But trials of the vaccine in the U.S. remain suspended because the FDA has asked for more data about safety issues that have arisen in previous trials for vaccines that use the same underlying technology, pioneered by Oxford.
Pelosi said she was concerned that the U.K. MHRA might approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for use and that U.S. President Donald Trump might use the U.K.’s decision as a justification to grant emergency use authorization for the vaccine in the U.S.
The Trump Administration has been desperate to deliver a vaccine in the next several weeks in order to boost Trump’s reelection chances which have been hurt by perceptions that he has mishandled the pandemic. Democrats fear political motivations will lead him to grant approval to a vaccine that might not be safe and they worry that even the perceptions that this might be happening will erode public confidence in any vaccine that is approved.
The U.K. government and the British press, however, did not take kindly to Pelosi’s remarks. “Nancy Pelosi attacks Oxford scientists,” blared The Express. BBC political commentator Andrew Neil said the U.S. politician has “no idea what she is talking about.”
The U.K. Department for Health and Social Care said the UK had “some of the most robust standards for approving new treatments and vaccines in the world,” adding that “any vaccine must go [through] clinical trials in line with international standards, with oversight provided by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which has vast experience in ensuring the delivery of a safe and effective vaccines.”
So, on the whole, it looks like two steps forward and one step back for AstraZeneca’s Covid-19-related efforts. And lately it’s been those efforts that have been moving AstraZeneca’s shares. But investors might be wiser to pay attention to what’s happening in the rest of the company’s business—where AstraZeneca’s momentum has been less halting.
Last week, equity research firm Liberum raised its price target for AstraZeneca’s shares to £97.70 (currently they are at £84.60), largely on the strength of a $6 billion deal the company signed in August with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo to co-develop an antibody and drug combination therapy for certain cancers. The second multi-billion dollar deal AstraZeneca has struck with Daiichi, Liberum said it believed the new drug therapy “will become a blockbuster drug” with peak sales of at least $2.6 billion per year.


fortune--2020-10-12--Is BP really going ‘beyond petroleum’ this time around?

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Reinvention is the holy grail of business, both for tech companies trying to bend the arc of the universe and old-line companies desperately attempting to stave off oblivion. Two long years ago, Fortune hosted a conference in Chicago that spotlighted stories of reinvention, realized and aspirational. Some of the companies featured were unambiguous successes and have become more so since: New York Times Co., Microsoft, Slack. More, in retrospect, were putting on a brave face and have slid further: IBM, Wells Fargo, Ford, AT&T, WW International.
Obstacles aside, reinvention is an imperative, for companies and individuals. The world doesn’t stand still. The pandemic has cruelly made this clearer than ever.
Fortune senior editor Beth Kowitt and I have started a podcast expressly to examine reinvention. In our first episode, we pondered the plight of restaurants in a time when crowding indoors isn’t possible. In our latest episode, we revisit Vivienne Walt’s fine feature on BP’s attempt at reinvention. The former British Petroleum recently made a bold goal that amounts to reducing its commitment to oil and gas. Reducing doesn’t mean ending. But it does mean funneling more resources into alternative energy and less into carbon-extraction businesses.
Older business readers will recall that this isn’t BP’s first reinvention rodeo. In the 90s, it tried convincing consumers it had moved “beyond petroleum.” It hadn’t. And that was before Deepwater Horizon. When companies say they are “reinventing,” it is necessary to probe beyond the headlines to know if they are truly changing or more likely putting a fresh coat of descriptive paint on a decaying fence, cheered on by a pliant press and a complicit business lobby.
***
On Wednesday at 1:30 Pacific, I’m moderating a panel for the Milken Institute’s annual global conference. It’s on the future of investing in software companies and features varying-stage investors Orlando Bravo, Anu Duggal, Anton Levy, and Deven Parekh. When the Milken event happens in person in Los Angeles, it is a high-wattage barrage of tailored suits, bright ties, and liberal dollops of hair product. This year, though participation is limited to registered guests, anyone can watch online. Watch a livestream of my panel here.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
App-extraction-ectomy. Long ago, Google realized it was vulnerable to a couple of its larger rivals that controlled browser software, so it built its own browser, Chrome. Now federal and state antitrust regulators are considering ordering Google to sell its crown jewel, Politico reports. And what an awesome, decade-long court battle that would be! Speaking of awesome court battles, in her first far-reaching decision of the battle between Epic Games and Apple, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a split verdict on Friday. The judge declined to force Apple to return Fortnite to the iOS app store while the litigation is ongoing, but also forbid Apple from messing with Epic's Unreal Engine game development platform.
Caps for sale. While you've been mulling cider, bobbing for apples, and engaging in other fall foolery, Kberg and the Whit have been busy with more serious business. The Quibi bosses approached Apple, Facebook, and AT&T to see if they wanted to buy the struggling short video service, The Information reports, but there were no takers. While we're on the subject of mobile apps, TikTok wannabe rival Triller is looking to raise some more backing and go public by merging with a SPAC. For Reels?
Pajama coding. The new normal will include the need for less office space, obviously. Exhibit seventy-four zillion: Microsoft chief people officer Kathleen Hogan announced that the software giant would allow many, but not all, of its workers to continue to work from home indefinitely. “It is our goal to offer as much flexibility as possible to support individual work styles, while balancing business needs and ensuring we live our culture,” Hogan wrote. And while at home, we are still buying laptops like crazy. Worldwide PC sales shot up 13% in the third quarter from a year earlier to 79 million devices, research firm Canalys says. That's the highest rate of growth in one quarter since 2010. Lenovo, HP, and Dell continue to hold the top three spots in the market.
You got your peanut butter in my API. Cloud communications specialist Twilio is making its biggest acquisition ever, agreeing to pay $3.2 billion for startup Segment, which helps companies combine data from different sources and different formats.
Vroom-less. The first of Amazon's all-electric delivery vans arrived last week. Built by startup EV maker Rivian, the truck has a pretty standard boxy appearance and a broad front windshield. No word yet on range or other specs. Amazon is planning to put 10,000 of the vans on the road in 2022 and ultimately 100,000 by 2030. Meanwhile, Rivian rival Tesla is getting ready to beta test its full self-driving software next week. The beta will be “limited to a small number of people who are expert & careful drivers,” Elon Musk tweeted on Monday.
Also, clean your damn phone screen!
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Physicist Lee Phillips knows a thing or two about software programming, but even he was surprised by how his fellow scientists have embraced a new coding language called Julia. He reports for Ars Technica on this year's (virtual) JuliaCon meeting:
There are presentations on everything from fluid dynamics to brain imaging to language processing. Despite the stunning variety of fields, however, watching the presentations gives a sense of community around a shared attitude that seems to have been influenced by the free software movement.
Everyone’s code is on GitHub. If you are interested in using someone’s algorithm in your research, you can read the source, and you will have access to the latest version as it is developed. Scientists of a certain age will know how vastly different this is from how computational research used to proceed. In the old days, code rarely left the lab.
The Julia community is unified by something else, as well: a shared delight in the magical (this word cropped up more than once) power of Julia to facilitate collaboration and code reuse.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
How major conventions likes SXSW and CES are working around the extended pandemic timeline By Chris Morris
Google’s new Nest Thermostat is geared toward smart-home newbies By Jonathan Vanian
The next President will hold a lot of sway over Tesla’s biggest profit center By Shawn Tully
This plant-based ice cream startup celebrated its first summer season during a pandemic By Rachel King
IBM showcases latest A.I. advancements on Bloomberg’s “That’s Debatable” TV show By Jeremy Kahn
A Chinese app managed to scale China’s Great Firewall, then got taken down By Grady McGregor
America’s backwards privacy laws leave women vulnerable By Kathryn Kosmides
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Can you feel it? We're getting really close to Mars. With no moon in the sky on Tuesday and Mars near its closest approach to the Earth, astronomers say conditions will be perfect for checking out the red planet. So there's something to raise your outlook for this week!
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-10-12--Inside the Fortune MPW Next Gen Summit

Inside the Fortune MPW Next Gen Summit

This is the web version of The Broadsheet, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Amy Coney Barrett’s hearings are set to begin today, New Zealand’s election approaches, and we’ve got the scoop on what to expect at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit this week. Go get your Monday.
– Next up at Next Gen. Here at Fortune, we’re gearing up for this week’s Fortune MPW Next Gen Summit. The two-day virtual event will gather rising women leaders across organizations and industries to hear from some fascinating speakers.
We’ll kick off Next Gen on Tuesday afternoon Eastern with Peloton instructor Ally Love, followed by a conversation led by Claire with Diane von Furstenberg and her designer granddaughter Talita von Furstenberg. We’ll also hear from Chelsea Clinton, who’ll be moderating a panel about how to combat vaccine hesitancy, and Françoise Brougher, the former Pinterest COO who is now suing her former employer for gender discrimination (Pinterest has said it is reviewing the lawsuit).
As we shared on Friday, we’ll close out Tuesday’s programming with a new conversation about courageous leadership with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. Right before that, we have another exciting session: Kristen will talk to Michaela Coel, the creator of I May Destroy You (who was recently featured on Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 list), alongside HBO exec Amy Gravitt.
Some other guests on the docket: Zoom CMO Janine Pelosi, California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Momofuku CEO Marguerite Zabar Mariscal, and a panel of startup execs from Farmgirl Flowers, Khloe Kardashian’s Good American, Stitch Fix, and more.
On Wednesday, we’ll close out the Summit with a conversation with Grown-ish star Yara Shahidi and her mother, Keri Shahidi; the duo recently cofounded a production company, 7th Sun. I’ll talk to the mother-daughter pair about working together as business partners in the entertainment industry.
We can’t wait to bring you the highlights from this slate of programming in the Broadsheet throughout the week. If you’d like to attend, it’s not too late to apply for an invitation—and see the full agenda—here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- High-profile hearings. Amy Coney Barrett's hearings are set to begin in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today. According to her written statement, the judge plans to tell the committee that courts are "not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life" and that "I was nominated to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat, but no one will ever take her place. I will be forever grateful for the path she marked and the life she led." NBC News
- What Kiwis want. New Zealand's nationwide election is less than a week away, and Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party is expected to win big. This piece asks: what policies will Ardern need to deliver on in a second term as prime minister to maintain the popularity she's enjoyed as a leader who successfully responded to crisis? Sydney Morning Herald
- Investment outlook. As part of Fortune's quarterly investment guide for premium subscribers, Robert Hackett interviewed former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. She shares her outlook on the presidential election and what she thinks a Biden administration would do for the economy: Fortune
- Outracing the naysayers. Ark Investment Management's Cathie Wood is Tesla's biggest booster on Wall Street. Her bet—despite its many detractors—earned her a 75% return so far in 2020. Forbes
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Channing Dungey left her role as Netflix's VP for original content and head of drama after less than two years. Gap Inc. named Old Navy interim president and CEO Nancy Green to the post on a permanent basis. Amazon hired Anne Toth as director of Alexa Trust. Ruby Ribbon hired Careismatic Brands' Michelle Sanft as COO and CFO and Topgolf's Loly Hlade as CMO. Iron Galaxy Studios promoted COO Chelsea Blasko to co-CEO. Philip Morris International promoted Jennifer Motles to chief sustainability officer.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Two tragedies. In San Antonio, City Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia lost seven members of her family to COVID-19. The city leader's personal tragedy sheds light on the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on Latino communities in Texas, the San Antonio Express-News reports. In a related story, BuzzFeed identifies a new electoral bloc: the "coronavirus widows" who say, "I can't vote for someone who I blame for the death of my husband."
- Powerful protests. Across Algeria, women took to the streets to protest the rape and murder of a 19-year-old named Chaïma. Protesters in multiple cities chanted her name and called for an end to gender-based violence. In Belarus, women-led protests over the past several months have shattered gender stereotypes.
- Financial equity. Erika Seth Davies, founder of the Racial Equity Asset Lab, identifies in a Fortune op-ed specific steps the finance industry can take to combat racism. In a field so driven by personal relationships and pedigrees, these actions hold extra importance, she says. Fortune
ON MY RADAR
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: I will hold the President accountable for endangering and dividing America Washington Post
I called everyone in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book Mother Jones
Coronavirus safety runs into a stubborn barrier: Masculinity New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"The power of a blog, I've learned, to shape events is mighty. It's even more potent when you walk the walk and back your words up with deeds."
-Monica Roberts, a Black trans journalist and the founder of the groundbreaking blog TransGriot, where she covered the murders of trans women of color long before other publications. Roberts died last week at 58.


fortune--2020-10-13--How a Biden administration could reverse the four-decade decline of America’s working class

President Trump has waffled on whether to participate in negotiations over fresh relief funding to stimulate the economy and provide desperately needed support for millions of Americans reeling from COVID-19. Coming in the wake of a weak jobs report and stalled recovery, his refusal to make a deal delivers a devastating blow to American workers and those who have lost their jobs.
This is just the latest setback in a four-decade economic decline of America’s middle and working class. While workers saw some real improvements under the Clinton and Obama administrations, few structural reforms were made to prevent these gains from being erased by the economic crashes, attacks on unions, and concentration of corporate power under subsequent Republican leadership.
Should he prevail on Nov. 3, Joe Biden and his administration would have a chance to fix that. The horrific human and economic costs of COVID have catalyzed an unprecedented movement of traditional and new worker organizing. Incremental asks have been replaced with demands for comprehensive reforms that raise wages and salaries, curb suffocating cost spikes for childcare and prescription drugs, and shift power to workers and consumers.
These movements—along with the daunting economic realities of the scale of recovery required—are creating a permission slip for much bolder, worker-centered economic reforms under a Biden administration than were possible under Obama. Those of us who served in Congress at that time paid a political price for not delivering enough tangible results to working families before the 2010 midterms. These reforms need to be delivered early and powerfully enough to be felt by families across the country as soon as possible.
Here are three things a new administration could do to significantly improve the lives of working people in this country:
First, expand paid leave. Four out of five workers have no paid family leave benefits and 32 million don’t even have the ability to take a single paid sick day—in the midst of an outbreak that has infected millions of people. The House passed expanded leave benefits as part of its HEROES Act in May, but that second stimulus package has been stalled in the Senate for months, with no relief in sight. A Biden administration could build on the HEROES Act to ensure all workers have access to paid leave—and that no one should have to choose between their health and their job.
Second, strengthen worker protections. Legislative proposals such as the Essential Workers Bill of Rights and the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would ensure that employees earn a living wage, guarantee that personal protective equipment is provided to those who need it, and shore up collective bargaining rights, among other benefits. A future Biden administration should extend such benefits to the care economy, ensuring that domestic workers—including home health workers who look after the young, the old, the infirm, and the disabled—enjoy the same kinds of protections as workers in other sectors.
Third, ensure that any economic recovery plan seeks to rebuild the American dream back better, greener, and more inclusive than before. This means addressing kitchen table expenses like prescription drugs, college, and childcare. It also means addressing the structural barriers to opportunity, particularly for communities of color.
Championing reforms that improve the lives of workers is not only good policy but good politics—particularly plans to address the disproportionate burdens imposed on women, immigrants, and people of color. The upcoming Presidential election will be decided by hard-working Americans’ perceptions of which candidate will work for them. And the midterms of 2022 will turn in no small measure on how well the next administration looks after their interests.
Voters are smarter than pundits think. They are asking right now and will ask again in 2022: Did this candidate fight for me and my family? Did they make my life a little easier? A candidate who did so is likely to win, and if Biden can deliver on that agenda, he’ll lead a party that keeps on winning.
Tom Perriello is the executive director of Open Society-U.S. and a former Democratic congressman from Virginia.


fortune--2020-10-13--‘A tale of two Americas’: How the pandemic is widening the financial health gap

Over two-thirds of Americans are financially unhealthy, with millions facing “extreme financial hardship,” according to the U.S. Financial Health Pulse Trends Report, released today. And as the stock market continues to strengthen, the average American is still struggling, with unemployment rates still far above pre-pandemic highs and another round of coronavirus stimulus seemingly far off.
“50 years ago, when wealth was more evenly distributed, the stock market fluctuations and performance might have been more reflective of how real people were faring. But given the significant disparities in wealth and the fact that a significant percentage of Americans don’t actually own any stock, it really doesn’t tell us very much.” Jennifer Tescher, president and CEO of the Financial Health Network, said. “This study really gives a picture of what people’s real financial lives look like.”
Though the study showed that 33% of Americans—4% more than in 2019—are financially healthy, the authors believe that increase is likely due to the stimulus passed in late March and other short-term recovery efforts, along with consumer behavior changes during the lockdowns of 2020. The improvement did occur across nearly all eight of the survey’s indicators of financial health, though: spending, bill payment, short-term and long-term savings, debt load, credit score, insurance coverage, and planning for the future.
But those positive results don’t tell the whole story.
“Financial health is an essential measure of Americans’ financial resilience, which has been put to the test by the global pandemic,” Tescher said in a press release. “Unfortunately, the results demonstrate that race, income and gender impact people’s ability to weather a shock, underscoring the need for investments and interventions in financial health equity.”
The gap along income was stark: The average financial health of households making over $100,000 yearly improved by 9%, while households making less than $30,000 saw no improvements at all.
When broken down by race, the study’s results showed that 39% of white people (up 5% since 2019), 39% of Asian people (up 2%), 24% of Latino people (up 4%) and just 15% of Black people (no change since 2019) were financially healthy. On top of that, Black and Latino people were far more likely to say that their debt is unmanageable (39%) than white people (23%).
These financial hardships come alongside many negative effects of the pandemic, like health complications and job loss, which also disproportionately target Black and Latino communities, Tescher said.
And though the pandemic is a huge contributor to the data this year, Black communities have long been severely disadvantaged financially in America. Years of systemic racism reflected in the lending market, the credit system, and other areas, have led to generational wealth for white families that families of color haven’t had the chance to develop, Tescher said.
Along gender lines, women showed greater improvements than men in financial health since 2019, but still only 28% of women are financially healthy while 40% of men are. Women were also more likely to worry about paying bills and affording basic necessities than men. Thea Garon, senior director at the Financial Health Network and primary coauthor of The Pulse, says this can be chalked up to the wage gap—which is bad for white women and worse for non-white women—and America’s history of excluding women from our financial systems.
“Everything is interconnected,” Tescher said of the disparities made clear in the study. “These disparities across multiple dimensions compound and make it particularly challenging for folks who find themselves on the losing end of multiple dimensions.”
Garon agreed: “You cannot just look at the aggregate for the national findings. They obscure incredibly important differences of how different groups of people in America are experiencing this pandemic. COVID is putting an exclamation point on challenges of intersectionality.”
The greatest takeaway, Tescher and Garon said, is that the gap between Americans who are financially healthy and those who are not is clearly widening. If you were doing well before COVID, with a job and money in stocks, they said, you are likely doing fine right now. But for those that lost their jobs, and in effect their health insurance, or those that make less than $30,000 yearly, COVID has likely wrought destruction on their finances.
“In many ways, the results of this year’s study show a tale of two Americas,” Tescher said,
While Garon and Tescher said it’s hard to predict next year’s financial health results, they don’t expect to see much improvement in 2021’s study. Now that much of the temporary aid given out to help people weather the economic fallout of the pandemic is over, many Americans are left wondering how they’ll make it.


fortune--2020-10-13--After soaring, then plunging, earnings are heading for a ‘new normal.’ But where is that, exactly?

S&P profits have careened from great, to horrible, to starting a modest comeback. Can liftoff from here set stocks on a fantastic run, or will future earnings fall short of Wall Street’s great expectations, leaving equities overpriced and due for a sharp selloff?
Earnings season kicks off this week with eagerly-awaited reports from J.P. Morgan, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth, and Delta Air Lines among two dozen pillars of the S&P 500. Investors are counting heavily on a strong showing in Q3. A succession of “beats” in the days ahead would demonstrate that momentum is building to propel big cap profits well above their all-time peak set just last year. How else could Wall Street justify, in defiance of the COVID-wracked economy, pushing today’s valuations into this golden zone, and claiming that the super-rich prices awarded a Tesla, PayPal or Apple make perfect sense?
It’s pretty clear that in 2019, profits were inflated and unsustainable. On the other hand, it’s also obvious that the pandemic has sent them into a basement where they won’t stay for long. For investors understandably confused about whether equities are a good buy or outrageously expensive, here’s the overarching question: When the economy rebounds, where are profits likely to settle?
At the close of last year, the S&P 500’s earnings per share, based on four trailing quarters of GAAP net profits, stood at $139.47, an all-time record. Its operating income as a share of sales averaged 11.1%, far above the 9% benchmark from December of 2010 to the start of 2017. Put simply, the 500 benefited from a confluence of tradewinds that set earnings on a far more rapid course than in past decades. Chief among them: an economy running hot at around 3% over many quarters, and wages that lagged the strong expansion in sales.
At the same time, what investors paid for each dollar of earnings also sprinted. At the end of 2019, the 500’s price-to-earnings multiple stood at 23.2. That doesn’t sound dangerously high versus history. But keep in mind that the lofty valuation came on top of super-high EPS, achieved at the top of the profit cycle.
The pandemic took profits from handsome to horrible. The 500’s EPS sank from $35.52 in Q4 of 2019 to a paltry $11.88 in Q1 and $17.83 in Q2. The crisis pushed profitability way below the normal range, and valuations far above the long-term mark. On average, operating margins dropped over those six months to 7.8%, as return on sales swung from great to less-than-mediocre. At the same time earnings shrank, the S&P 500 bridged March’s deep valley to gain 10% over last year’s close. The combination drove the P/E to 37 based on the past three quarters and analysts’ forecasts for Q3. That’s number that over the past three decades, was only exceeded in the 2001-2002 bubble, and late 2009, when the financial crisis flattened earnings.
What matters is where profits settle when the economy returns to normal in 2021 or 2022, and the P/E investors award those profits. For EPS, an excellent guide is the CAPE, or cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio, a measure invented by Yale economist Robert Shiller. The CAPE provides a normalized, durable earnings figure by using a 10-year average of inflation-adjusted profits that eliminates the peaks and troughs, such as the summit in 2019 and the COVID-canyon of Q2 and Q3 of this year. The CAPE puts “normalized” EPS at $108. The CAPE has a downward bias because it uses a decade-long average that doesn’t adjust earnings for any growth beyond increases in the CPI. Since EPS on average rises by a couple of points a year above inflation, it’s best to raise CAPE earnings by 10% to get a “sustainable” figure for 2020.
Bumping the $108 by 10% renders earnings-per-share of $120. That’s the best estimate of where profits will stabilize when GDP returns to its previous trajectory of 2%, say in late 2021 or early 2022. If indeed earnings slow to an annual rate of $120, the S&P would be booking $30 a quarter. That’s 14% below the $35 rate in 2019.
It’s remarkable that the analysts polled by S&P are forecasting EPS of $28 in Q3. That’s a $112 at an annual rate, only 7% below our “up-to-date” number of $120. Indeed, according to the S&P data, earnings of $28 a quarter would generate operating margins of 9.8%, closer to the numbers from 2010 to 2016, before the huge spike in profitability. Hence, the best bet is that profits rise from the Q3 mark of $28 by less than 10% to around $30 (or $120 annualized). In other words, the pandemic has taken the air out of profits in mere months that might have taken far longer, but was still inevitable. By this analysis, we won’t see anything even close to the rampaging earnings rebound Wall Street expects.
Imagine the 500 as S&P 500 Co., an enterprise that earns $120 for each share outstanding. What should the share price be? At the close on Monday, October 13, the S&P hit 3534, just 1.4% off its all-time high reached in early September. So by our reckoning, the S&P is putting a 29.5 multiple on its most probable future profits. Since 1990, its P/E has averaged 21.8; over the past 60 years, the norm is a much slimmer 16.9.
Let’s assume a sunny scenario where the multiple drifts back to the 30-year benchmark of around 22. In that case, an S&P 500 index would stand at 2616 ($120 multiplied by 21.8), or each share of our S&P 500 Co. would be worth $2616. That’s 26% below its value today, though 17% higher than the nadir of March 20.
Investors may be capricious, but the market’s math is a stubborn thing.


fortune--2020-10-13--The world’s best workplace

The world’s best workplace

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Despite the pandemic downturn, the global battle for high-end talent has remained as intense as ever. While jobless rates have soared, joblessness has been concentrated among workers in industries like retail, restaurants, hospitality and travel. The best knowledge workers, on the other hand, have simply shifted from office to home, and remain in hot demand.
That’s why Fortune’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list, compiled in partnership with people analytics firm Great Place to Work, remains the object of such intense competition. And the same goes for its global offshoot, World’s Best Workplaces, which is out this morning. The list honors 25 companies that received top ratings on GPTW’s surveys of their employees in at least five countries.
This year’s winner: Cisco…for the second year in a row. The company employs nearly 80,000 people in 96 countries and has a long history of putting its people first. To learn how they do it, it’s worth listening to CEO Chuck Robbins’ interview with Ellen McGirt and me on Leadership Next (Apple/Spotify).
Others in the top five included: DHL Express, Hilton, Salesforce, and Stryker. You can view the entire list of 25 here.
Separately, this week’s guest on Leadership Next is Enrique Lores, CEO of the iconic Silicon Valley tech company HP…formerly known as Hewlett Packard (or half of it, at least). The company pretty much created Silicon Valley, but has struggled over the last two decades, and its stock remains below pre-pandemic levels. Yet in spite of those struggles, Lores firmly believes his commitment to boosting HP’s benefits to society—addressing climate change, addressing educational problems, etc.—is also the best way to serve shareholders. An excerpt:
“We want to be a company that delivers on our financial commitments, that creates value for shareholders. But we also want to be a company that contributes to the world, that has a positive impact on the environment, in our community, in our people. A company that stands for human rights. We think what makes companies unique is an ability to deliver on both sides…I firmly believe we can do both.”
Pundits continue to wring their hands over whether a company can focus on shareholders and stakeholders at the same time—see this commentary in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal—but the best business leaders understand that in today’s world, the two go hand-in-hand.
You can listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify. More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
Editors note: An earlier version of this newsletter misstated the number of countries in which Cisco employees are based (96). The original number (21) represents the countries where Cisco has been named to a national Best Workplaces list by global analytics firm and Fortune research partner Great Place to Work over the past year, based on surveys of employees in those countries.
TOP NEWS
Disney streaming
Disney wants to focus even more on streaming, and has announced a reorganization to achieve that end. It will have three content arms—for sports, general entertainment, and Disney's studios—that will primarily make shows and movies for Disney+ (which has 60 million subscribers) and the soon-to-launch Star streaming service. By the way, cinemas are outraged about Disney's decision to debut the new Pixar flick, Soul, on Disney+ rather than in theaters. Associated Press
Vaccine pause
Last month AstraZeneca had to pause its COVID-19 vaccine trial due to a volunteer getting ill—and now it's Johnson & Johnson's turn. J&J has been aiming to have Phase 3 trial results by the end of the year or in early 2021; the question now is whether the unexplained illness can be linked to its candidate vaccine. Fortune
Lockdown advice
Three weeks ago, the U.K. government's scientific advisers urged the immediate introduction of a national lockdown. They were ignored, and now soaring case numbers have forced the government to introduce what the scientific panel saw as an inadequate measure: a tiered system for localized lockdowns. Fortune
Second infection
The U.S. has its first confirmed case of a person getting infected by the coronavirus more than once. The unidentified 25-year-old man, in the state of Nevada, is only the fifth worldwide to display the phenomenon. Although he has since recovered, the second infection was apparently worse than the first. And no, it wasn't the same infection bouncing back—the two viruses were genetically distinct. CNBC
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
iPhone day
Today's the day the new iPhone 12—all four models, per leaks—gets officially announced. The big shift here is the addition of 5G, but what else does Cupertino have up its sleeve? The Verge
Edible insects
With the French insect-farming startup Ÿnsect (which counts Robert Downey Jr. as a backer) having just raised an impressive $372 million, the future for the sector looks bright, as Fortune's Vivienne Walt explains: "The dire squeeze on the world’s land and oceans makes a strong case for farming insects… The shift [towards acceptance of edible insects] appeared to begin with the pandemic, as the world languished through months of lockdown, sending global supply chains into disarray." Fortune
Equal pay
The U.S. needs to follow the example of Canada, France and Iceland and introduce equal pay legislation, Pipeline CEO Katica Roy writes for Fortune. Roy: "In turn, businesses can look forward to reaping the benefits of a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce, and our economy can look forward to an accelerated recovery." Fortune
Leaping forward
Come for the killer headline; stay for a fascinating look at how Chinese companies of all sorts are rushing to join the country's state-subsidized "Great Semiconductor Leap Forward." So far, over 13,000 companies have registered as chip producers, coming from sectors as diverse as seafood and auto parts. Financial Times
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.