fortune--2020-11-11--4 Hong Kong opposition lawmakers ousted minutes after Beijing passes ‘patriot’ requirement

Hong Kong’s government ousted four opposition lawmakers immediately after China passed a law allowing the disqualification of officials deemed unpatriotic, prompting a pro-democracy legislator to say the others would resign en masse.
The disqualified lawmakers were Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and Kenneth Leung, Hong Kong’s government said in a statement. Chief Executive Carrie Lam was scheduled to brief reporters at 2:30 p.m.
The 16 remaining opposition lawmakers in the city’s 70-seat Legislative Council will quit at a press conference later Wednesday, democratic politician Fernando Cheung said via text message.
China’s top legislative body earlier passed a measure requiring Hong Kong lawmakers to be patriots, curbing debate in a democratic institution that has endured more than two decades after the former British colony’s return.
“It’d be hard for us and myself today to admit that is not the hardest or the saddest day for Hong Kong,” Kwok Ka-ki said as opposition members briefed Wednesday. “But I would urge the people of Hong Kong should not give up. We can’t give up.”
The resolution is the latest sign of China’s determination to rein in dissent in the wake of anti-government protests that rocked Hong Kong last year. Beijing bypassed the Legislative Council to impose controversial national security legislation in June, causing the Group of Seven nations to accuse China of violating the terms of its handover agreement with the U.K. and prompting the Trump administration to sanction more than a dozen senior officials who oversee the city.
A mass resignation would highlight international concerns about China’s human rights practices just as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office on a promise to defend democratic values around the world. He has vowed to “fully enforce” the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act signed by Trump last year.
The ability to purge opposition lawmakers would make it easier for Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed politicians to control the Legislative Council if they win an unprecedented majority in elections that the government has postponed — citing coronavirus concerns — over the protests of democracy advocates.
The NPC’s decision “is in the fundamental interests of all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots, and is conducive to safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests,” Standing Committee Chairman Li Zhanshu said at the close of the body’s two-day meeting.
‘Rubber Stamp’
The move will raise new questions about the future of the legislature, perhaps the most high-profile platform for open debate left under Beijing’s rule. After several radical “localist” activists were among a record 29 opposition lawmakers elected in 2016, China handed down a ruling that led to the disqualification of a half dozen lawmakers.
Several remaining lawmakers are also facing criminal charges related to various protests against the government, including seven charged in recent months with participating in a May scuffle at the Legislative Council. Nick Or, an assistant professor of public policy at the CityU, warned that the Hong Kong government risked losing its legitimacy by limiting legislative debate.
“The Hong Kong government may be able to get a rubber stamp, but it is not necessarily a good thing if their proposals are unchallenged,” Or said. “It does not do any good for building up good governance in Hong Kong.”


fortune--2020-11-11--China’s clampdown on Internet industry has cost tech giants $200 billion

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Chinese technology shares tumbled for a second day after Beijing clamped down on the internet industry, wiping out more than $200 billion of value.
The Hang Seng Tech Index slumped 5.3% on Wednesday in Hong Kong, taking its two-day loss to almost 10%. Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd., JD.com Inc., Meituan and Xiaomi Corp. sank at least 8% over two days after the Communist Party unveiled regulations to root out monopolistic practices in the internet industry.
Tech is the latest sector to be targeted by Beijing after new curbs on financial firms that triggered the shock suspension of Ant Group Co.’s $35 billion stock sale last week. Xi Jinping’s government is increasingly curtailing the influence of private corporations that dominate its burgeoning internet, e-commerce and digital finance industries, pivoting away from its previously hands off approach.
“I literally gasped when I first read these guidelines,” said John Dong, securities attorney at Joint-Win Partners in Shanghai. “The timing — on the eve of Singles’ Day — the forcefulness and the resolve to remake the tech giants is startling.”
China’s antitrust watchdog is seeking feedback on rules that establish a framework for curbing anti-competitive behavior such as colluding on sharing sensitive consumer data, alliances that squeeze out smaller rivals and subsidizing services at below cost to eliminate competitors. They may also require companies that operate a so-called Variable Interest Entity — a vehicle through which virtually every major Chinese internet company attracts foreign investment and lists overseas — to apply for specific operating approval.
“Internet giants have expanded their reach into various sectors like finance and health care that are vital to the economy and that really concerns regulators,” said Shen Meng, director of Beijing-based boutique investment bank Chanson & Co. “The move could discourage firms in the tech sector to list in the near term as those impacted will need time to adjust their businesses accordingly.”
On Nov. 3, policy makers shocked the investment world by suspending an initial public offering by Ant Group, a fintech company owned by billionaire Jack Ma. The decision came just two days before shares were set to trade in a listing that attracted at least $3 trillion of orders from individual investors.
Liang Tao, vice chairman of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said on Wednesday that the country will also strengthen its anti-monopoly examinations of the fintech sector.
The new regulations for the internet industry signal a “further tightening” of the online economy, although the real impact will depend on how the rules are enforced, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts led by Alex Yao wrote in a note.
The proposed regulations come at a bad time for tech shares, which are already under pressure from a global rotation that has sent the Nasdaq Composite Index almost 3% this week.
“Beijing’s tightening regulations, including the antitrust laws, is a heavy blow to the technology giants,” said Daniel So, Hong Kong-based strategist at CMB International Securities Ltd. “It’s an additional blow to the shares, when investors are rotating out of the sector into old-economy shares because of the vaccine boost,” he said, adding that firms such as Tencent and Alibaba will continue to face downside pressure.
China's clampdown on Internet industry has cost tech giants $200 billion


fortune--2020-11-12--How Christians should react to the 2020 election results

We’ve finally completed a contentious election that took place amid widespread societal unrest and mass deaths. It brought out the worst in many of us, including Christians. It’s hard not to have strong feelings about our nation and its direction right now.
But those fierce convictions do not give us permission to villainize people of the opposing side or otherwise be a jerk. We must be careful not to dehumanize those we disagree with. In our self-righteousness, we can become the very things we criticize in others and not even know it.
Now that all the votes have been cast, it is time for our country to begin finding a way to come back together. Christians can move forward to help heal our nation by seeking a balance of political engagement and faithful discipleship.
We have to begin with prayer and Spirit-led reflection that allows us to accept the outcome. No matter who won or lost, we have nothing to fear as long as we put our faith in Jesus Christ. In Jeremiah 29:11 God says, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Our ultimate trust is in God and not ourselves, our heroes or villains, or politics or politicians. Let’s keep things in perspective.
Second, we should talk to each other. We have become a society and a nation of echo chambers, where we gather with fellow like-minded people while making assumptions and hurling insults at “others.” In personal conversation, we should not blame, or guilt, or shame—but ask questions without assuming what the other person will answer. The only path to understanding is through conversation.
There is something undeniably Christian about trying to better understand other people, even those with whom we might disagree. The Bible is clear that God calls on us to love our neighbors, regardless of whether they look like us, think like us, feel like us, worship like us—or vote like us. We can’t “love our neighbors” if we don’t know our neighbors, and we can’t know our neighbors if we don’t listen to our neighbors.
Yet sometimes personal conversation isn’t possible. For a societal conversation, peaceful protests can be the best way to communicate when one side refuses to engage in good faith. But it is important to remember that peaceful protests are more clearly communicative than undirected violence.
In the end, what we all have in common is that we all seek the possibility of flourishing—the opportunity to provide a life of flourishing for our families and those we love. It takes more than just the people who look the way I look or who voted the way I voted to structure a nation in which building a good life for my family and your family is possible. We must seek the “peace and prosperity” of our cities together, as in Jeremiah 29:7.
Our civic engagement can’t be reduced to one vote every four years. If so, we’re actually part of the problem. We must learn to listen, engage, and love our neighbors every day, so that we can build this better nation together.
May we do our part. Vote. Pray. Protest. March. Seek the peace of the city. Seek justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. Love your neighbors. Do all of these things—and ultimately, place your trust in God.
To be a Christ follower is to be faithful amid tension. To have integrity. To keep fighting for the vulnerable. To stay engaged, to remain hopeful, to love anyway.
Don’t forget this. Don’t abandon this. Don’t lose yourself. The what matters, but the how matters, too.
Eugene Cho is a pastor, president of Bread for the World, and author of Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk: A Christian’s Guide to Engaging Politics.


fortune--2020-11-12--TikTok asks court to intervene as Trump order looms

The popular video-sharing app TikTok, its future in limbo since President Donald Trump tried to shut it down earlier this fall, is asking a federal court to intervene.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, has until Thursday to sell off its U.S. operations under an executive order that Trump signed in August.
Trump in September gave his tentative blessing to a ByteDance proposal meant to resolve U.S. national security concerns by placing TikTok under the oversight of American companies Oracle and Walmart, each of which would also have a financial stake in the company. But TikTok said this week it’s received “no clarity” from the U.S. government about whether its proposals have been accepted.
The deal has been under a national-security review by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which is led by the Treasury Department. The department “remains focused” on resolving the alleged national security risks posed by TikTok, a Treasury spokeswoman said in a statement Wednesday evening.
“With the November 12 CFIUS deadline imminent and without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights and those of our more than 1,500 employees in the US,” TikTok said in a written statement Tuesday.
Trump has cited concerns that the Chinese government could spy on TikTok users if the app remains under Chinese ownership. TikTok has denied it’s a security threat but said it’s still trying to work with the administration to resolve its concerns.
The legal challenge is “a protection to ensure these discussions can take place,” the company said.
The Trump administration had earlier sought to ban the app from smartphone app stores and deprive it of vital technical services, but federal judges have so far blocked those actions.
TikTok is now looking to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review Trump’s divestment order and the government’s national-security review.


fortune--2020-11-12--Yelp CEO is encouraged by antitrust case against Google

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman has long been convinced that Google has a monopoly in the internet search market and said a recent U.S. antitrust case against the company validates his position.
“We’re very encouraged by that,” Stoppelman said in an interview on Bloomberg TV Wednesday. “Google has behaved illegally and has leveraged its monopoly in ways that are destructive to innovation and competition. It’s bad for consumers, bad for small business owners.”
Yelp, a local search provider that collects reviews of restaurants, shops and services, says Alphabet’s Google, which controls about 90% of the online search market, abuses its position by putting its own reviews higher in search results than those of its rivals.
“They’ve really tried to maximize the revenue and in doing so have put the consumer in the back seat,” Stoppelman said. “There’s no organic content anymore.”
Google chief legal officer Kent Walker has argued that people use Google search “because they choose to, not because they’re forced to, or because they can’t find alternatives.”
Yelp and other small businesses faced a moment of “terror” in the early months of the pandemic, Stoppelman said, as cities shut down and people stayed indoors. But by the third quarter, Yelp reported sales that beat analysts’ estimates.
“We certainly took a pretty big hit in advertising dollars that people paused,” he said. But “looking at Yelp’s performance in the third quarter, we’ve really come back, in a big way, faster than even we were hoping for.”
About 220,000 businesses that were temporarily closed had reopened, according to Stoppelman’s estimate. That’s good news heading into the holidays, he said, adding that it shows the “resilience of American entrepreneurship.”
Once a vaccine is rolled out, Stoppelman said he expects Yelp’s business to further improve. “That’s a great tailwind, but I think Yelp is on solid ground regardless of the pace of that vaccine rollout,” he said. “When we actually put out guidance for the fourth quarter, we weren’t contemplating necessarily a vaccine.” The company said it expects revenue of $220 million to $230 million in the final three months of the year.
Yelp’s shares jumped 19% on Monday after news that a vaccine in development by Pfizer Inc. and German biotechnology firm BioNTech SE appears to be more than 90% effective, giving hope for economic recovery to small businesses.


fortune--2020-11-12--The company behind Kay and Zales wants to give jewelry shopping a pandemic-era makeover

With hefty price tags and a shopping experience that’s traditionally rich with pomp and circumstance, jewelry buying has been one of slowest areas of physical retail to embrace e-commerce.
Signet Jewelers, the largest jewelry retailer in the U.S. and parent of brands including Kay, Jared, and Zales, has long fallen short on the digital front. But the pandemic, which closed its stores for weeks in the spring, has forced Signet’s hand. This year, the company has sped the adoption of options like virtual selling and curbside pickup to accommodate shoppers wary of being in close quarters with others.
Both of those capabilities will soon be put to the test in a period that sees the one-two punch of holiday shopping and “engagement season”—creating jewelry’s busiest time of year.
“Customers’ habits have forever changed,” Signet chief executive Gina Drosos tells Fortune, acknowledging that, like its jewelry peers, Signet was behind in terms of digital offerings.
Last fiscal year, 12% of Signet’s revenue came from online selling. And that includes JamesAllen, the online jeweler the company bought in 2017, which generated 4% of Signet’s total sales that year; online sales at each of its brick-and-mortar chains were lower as a percentage of the total business. (For comparison, online revenues at Tiffany, one of Signet’s largest competitors, have accounted for 7% of total sales in each of the last three pre-pandemic years.)
But in the second fiscal quarter, Signet’s online sales hit 30% of revenue. While some of that increase stemmed from the plunge in in-store sales, e-commerce revenues at the company have continued to surge, rising 65.2% in August. That trend has softened the overall sales hit the jeweler experienced in North American sales in Q2, as total revenues dropped 34%. (Signet’s problems predate the pandemic: Total sales fell five years in a row to $6.1 billion last year. Under Drosos, Signet has closed one-fifth of stores so far, making the e-commerce push even more important.)
Drosos credits Signet’s virtual selling, which consists of an employee using an iPad to give a consultation in real time, showing customers the merchandise in a real store, with mitigating the pain.
“People were more confident buying something that cost $300 online than something that costs $3,000. The ‘unlock’ for that has been virtual appointments,” says Drosos, who took the reins three years ago.
Luckily for Signet, e-commerce was already a big plank in Drosos’s three-year “Path to Brilliance” turnaround plan, now in its third year. So some of the heavy lifting had already happened when the pandemic struck in March, causing Signet, like most other retailers, to close stores and furlough workers. The company had already set up much of what it needed for online consultations, getting a tablet in the hands of every jewelry consultant. When store workers were furloughed, some 2,500 store managers filled that role, equipped with deep consumer data.
“We know who our top customers are,” Drosos says. That meant that those store managers were able to proactively contact their top-spending customers during the lockdown. Now, with stores largely reopened, some 15,000 store workers can offer some form of virtual consultations including a physical tour of the store.
The ‘unlocks’ that could change jewelry e-commerce
There have been other tech touches that have helped. Signet’s next digital tools will include the ability to customize a piece online with a sales attendant, search using a photo of a piece of jewelry a customer sees in the wild (like Shazam for earrings), and much better photography online.
For diamonds, that superior imagery means Signet must take hundreds of pictures of an item to create a 360-degree composite photo so detailed that Drosos claims a customer can see better on the screen than in person.
Fashion jewelry has been faster to move online than engagement or bridal pieces because the latter has more emotional significance, Drosos says. So the ability to consult remotely and better visualization tech are giving more shoppers the confidence they need to move online, Drosos claims.
“We’ve brought these two ‘unlocks’ for the first time to the jewelry category,” she says.
Another key piece of her digital strategy has been the ability to offer in-store or curbside pickup of online orders, features that are basic at retailers from Petco to Target to Ulta Beauty. And given many shoppers’ reluctance to return jewelry by mail, UPS,, or Fedex—and shoppers’ desire to see a piece of jewelry in person before leaving a store—they are proving key to supporting online sales.
“Jewelry is such a meaningful purchase, you want to make sure it’s right,” says Drosos.
Despite some green shoots, jewelry remains a discretionary spending category if ever there was one, especially in a tough economic slowdown. Euromonitor International is expecting total U.S. jewelry retail sales to fall 19% to $59.3 billion this year.
But Drosos think there is an opportunity to win more market share amid the carnage. The jewelry market is fragmented and made up overwhelmingly of small, independent sellers, with only a few big players like Signet, Tiffany, and Blue Nile making up 20% or so of the market. And those small players have fewer resources to build the e-commerce firepower needed to adapt.
Says Drosos: “It builds an enduring competitive advantage for us to be the strongest in e-commerce.”


fortune--2020-11-11--Purpose, or ‘purpose- washing’? A crossroads for business leaders

Business is changing. A powerful mix of forces—employee activism, enhanced media transparency, government gridlock, and proliferating global problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inequality, and climate change—have led an ever-growing group of corporate leaders to recognize that a focus on profit is not enough. Purpose beyond profit has become a necessary ingredient for exceptional business success.
But how do you inject purpose into a business? And how do you distinguish true purpose from “purpose-washing”—a public relations veneer rather than a fundamental change in culture and operations?
To try and answer these questions, and to begin to create a playbook for others interested in following a similar purpose path, Fortune and McKinsey & Co. convened 45 of the world’s leading CEOs for four virtual working sessions over the past six months. Our goal was to extract lessons that would help others embrace a model of business that leads to better results both for their companies and for society.
Seven clear themes emerged from the conversations, which we have summarized below:
In the long run, there is no tradeoff between profit and purpose
To a person, the CEOs we convened were passionate about having a positive societal impact and serving all stakeholders, while recognizing that in the long run this would also be good for shareholders. As IBM CEO Arvind Krishna put it: “Purpose and profit go together, reinforcing each other.” PayPal CEO Dan Schulman took it one step further: “I’d actually argue if you don’t have a purpose as a company, you will be less successful from a results perspective.” Over the past year, PayPal has lowered the cost of benefits, increased salaries, given stock, and increased financial education to reduce economic fragility among its frontline workers. This contributed to drops in attrition and absenteeism.
In the short term, of course, tradeoffs clearly occur. McKinsey research shows 61% of executives and directors said they would cut discretionary spending on positive-net-present-value projects, including investments in employees and other stakeholders, to avoid an earnings “miss.” But purposeful leaders, who deliver against a broader set of stakeholder interests, will tend to keep their eye on the longer term and create more value through time. In the long term, shareholder interests and stakeholder interests tend to converge.
“If you stay true to your purpose and it is very clear to every person that is working in this company, then there is a very clear direction, there is a compass, there is a star that is telling you this is where we all go,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. “That unites the organization, creates cohesiveness, and brings results.” Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh put it this way: “By doing right and doing the right thing, you are going to reward your shareholders over the long term.”
Purpose begins with your employees
In an economy where human capital drives business value, an employee-first approach has become essential. Research from Aon PLC and the Ponemon Institute shows that four decades ago, hard assets accounted for 80% of a company’s value, while today it’s intangibles—“soft assets” that include reputation, brand equity, patents, and R&D—that account for 85%. The focus on employees as the source of value was further reinforced by the pandemic.
“Purpose starts with supporting your own teams and front lines. They in turn support our customers, which takes care of business,” said Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, commenting on her company’s transformation, underpinned by increased employee discounts, training, and broad engagement of frontline staff. Recent McKinsey research found that frontline employees who “feel purpose” at work are up to four times as engaged as those at organizations where purpose is not activated and aligned to that of individual employees, and twice as likely to stay in the job.
XPO Logistics CEO Brad Jacobs told us how the pandemic “actually brought a purpose to our drivers, warehouse workers, people on a cross dock…They suddenly had a big purpose in getting people’s toilet paper delivered, getting people’s Purell delivered, getting medicines delivered. That was the prime thing that led to our employee satisfaction figures going up 5%.”
Purpose drives innovation
All the CEOs gave strong testament to the power of purpose in unleashing creativity and innovation. A recent Gallup survey shows that 70% of the workforce in North America and Europe is “not actively engaged,” which means that while they may be bringing discipline, rigor, and obedience to work, they’re leaving creativity, collaboration, and initiative at home.
“As leaders we always need to find a way to fundamentally attach what we are doing to that greater purpose,” said Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky. “I think it frees up a sense of energy, of ambition, of desire, and, frankly, a pride and accomplishment in our employees…The impact that can have, and the power that has more broadly on our organization, can’t be understated.”
Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk said he had “never seen such a level of excitement, of pride on the part of employees” as when his company turned to making masks for the pandemic. “I think it’s been transformative.”
A company’s purpose must be authentic and embedded in corporate DNA
In an age of social media transparency, employees and others will be quick to call a company out if its words don’t match its actions. We now have numerous examples of companies whose credibility has been undermined by their own employees who became “whistleblowers” on social media.
“It’s important to talk about the values you want to speak out on internally [and explain] why it is core to your business,” said John Donahoe, CEO of Nike. “Nike has a strong history of fighting for racial and social justice. [That’s] core to our mission and purpose as a company. When the George Floyd events occurred, we ran the ‘Don’t Do It’ campaign and made a $140 million commitment on racial and social justice.”
Stan Bergman, CEO of Henry Schein, put it this way: “Social media is testing us to make sure we are authentic…I think that’s great.”
‘Proof points’ along the way will help create credibility
In an age of skepticism, it’s not enough to merely state your purpose. You need to demonstrate it on a consistent and regular basis. “[You need to] take the purpose and demonstrate it with real proof points,” said Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy. “When I say employee safety is important, I need to demonstrate it with unequivocal safety protocols. When I say climate is important, I back up my climate plan with investments to show we are making progress.”
Other proof points can include tying executive compensation to delivering on purpose. This is the case for Danone CEO Emmanuel Faber, whose company links compensation to metrics on its contributions to health, the planet, its people, and inclusive growth—as well as financial returns to shareholders.
Decisions to stop doing something you were previously doing—like the CVS decision to stop selling cigarettes, or the Dick’s Sporting Goods decision to limit gun sales, or IBM’s decision to stop selling facial recognition software—also can be powerful in building necessary credibility.
A strong commitment to purpose helps you make decisions when times turn tough
Many of the CEOs talked about purpose being especially valuable when times are rocky. “When the shit hits the fan—whether it is COVID or social injustice—we look to our purpose to figure out what to do,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan. Ulta Beauty’s Mary Dillon said that “you can’t take for granted the notion of purpose, of putting that trust in the bank, so that at a time when you really need your employees, they feel good about stepping up and doing more.”
Millennials and Generation Z are driving change
While purpose helps drive performance across all generations, it is younger workers who seem most motivated by it. “In my career, I’ve never seen a generation who are more influential now in driving this change,” said John Seifert, CEO of Ogilvy. “Millennials are motivated by their ‘why,’ and they’re demanding that we build purpose within our organizations today,” said Penny Pennington, managing partner of Edward Jones.
The younger generation is expressing itself not only in the workplace but also as consumers. In one sign of that generation’s growing influence, some 70% of consumers overall now claim they buy or boycott products or services based on the social stances of the companies that make or sell them. And it’s not just about being supportive of social causes but also proactively working to solve underlying problems.
For all of these reasons, the CEOs who participated in these sessions agree that a genuine commitment to purpose can drive business results. And Danone’s Faber said the change is coming whether business wants it or not. Society is demanding more from business, he said. “It is there, and it is there to stay. Either we are working with the movement, or we choose to resist it. It is a clear moment of choice.”
Alan Murray is CEO of Fortune Media. Bruce Simpson is senior partner at McKinsey & Co. and leader of its ESG/Purpose Practice.


fortune--2020-11-11--Airport planned for ‘Jetsons’-like flying cars

The nation’s first regional hub for “flying cars” is being built in central Florida and once completed in five years, the vehicles will be able to take passengers from Orlando to Tampa in a half hour, officials said Wednesday.
The Tavistock Development Corp. said it was constructing a Jetsons-like aviation facility in Orlando’s Lake Nona area, the mixed-use planned community it built. Lake Nona already is home to several medical and research facilities.
The aircraft will be supplied by Lilium, a Germany-based aviation company that manufacturers the industry’s only five-passenger “electric vertical takeoff and landing” aircraft. At the moment, the Lilium Jets can travel up to 185 miles (298 kilometers) on a one-hour charge.
Passengers wanting a ride on the aircraft will be able to book reservations via their phones in a way similar to ride-share companies Uber and Lyft, officials said.
The vehicles flying and landing out of the Lake Nona Vertiport will accommodate four passengers and a pilot. The cost will be similar to a first-class, though the price will likely go down as the service becomes more popular, officials said.
Unlike airplanes and helicopters, the vehicles offer quick point-to-point personal travel, at least in principle. They could do away with the hassle of airports and traffic jams.
Battery sizes, air traffic control and other infrastructure issues are among the many potential challenges to commercializing them, according to experts. Experts compare the buzz over flying cars to the days when the aviation industry got started with the Wright brothers and the auto industry with the Ford Model T.
The Lake Nona Vertiport has applied for approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation.


fortune--2020-11-11--Goldman Sachs raises its S&P 500 target on vaccine hopes

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How big of a deal is a vaccine for investors?
According to Goldman Sachs, “Despite investor focus on the prospective policy implications of the Biden presidency, the vaccine for COVID-19 is a more important determinant of the path of both the economy and stock market in 2021,” strategists led by David Kostin wrote in a note Wednesday. Meaning the report on Monday from Pfizer and BioNTech about the 90% efficacy of their late-stage coronavirus vaccine could mean big gains for stocks moving forward.
Goldman is now raising its year-end 2020 price target for the S&P 500 to 3,700. What’s more, analysts at the firm now expect stocks to rise 21% from Tuesday’s close to 4,300 by the end of 2021, and pop another 7% from there to hit 4,600 by year-end 2022. (The firm expects at least one FDA-approved and widely distributed vaccine in 2021.)
Indeed, in addition to the vaccine news, Wall Street got another boost this week from the resolution of the election, with President-elect Joe Biden securing the race for the White House over the weekend. Markets are now pricing in a split Congress that could prevent major policy changes, expecting Republicans to maintain control of the Senate after two runoff Senate elections in January.
“In a day, we went from no vaccine to possibly several, which took a big chunk of the pandemic worries out of the market. Markets soared on the substantial removal of two of the major concerns that held them back in October,” Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, wrote in a note Tuesday.
But not all stocks are benefiting from vaccine hopes. Notably the Big Tech stocks that have outshined the broader market so far in 2020 are lagging this week, while cyclical and value stocks are outperforming.
For some strategists, the market performance underlines the message that “investors need to diversify for the next leg, toward more cyclical parts of the market that have lagged behind in 2020, and away from big tech and the primary stay-at-home beneficiaries,” strategists led by Mark Haefele at UBS Wealth Management wrote in a note Tuesday.
But that doesn’t mean investors should ditch tech altogether: Strategists at Goldman argue that “although the combination of extreme valuation dispersion and a vaccine catalyst should create a powerful tactical rotation into Value stocks, from a strategic perspective Growth stocks should remain attractive,” adding that the “vaccine-driven Value trade is likely to resemble other Value rallies of the past decade, which have rarely lasted more than a few months.”
That’s why the firm is now recommending value stocks that “benefit from the vaccine and economic normalization” plus stocks with “long-term secular growth prospects that have high growth investment ratios,” the strategists wrote.


fortune--2020-11-11--‘Technology is the new toilet paper’ for seniors facing the pandemic

A popular caricature of older people depicts them as hopeless with technology, fumbling with remote controls or struggling to navigate the Internet. This stereotype, though, is often unfair—and it’s becoming even more so in the age of COVID.
Joseph Coughlin, the director of a lab on aging at MIT, says the coronavirus pandemic has seen seniors scrambling to adopt new technology like never before, both for entertainment and to combat isolation.
“Technology is the new toilet paper,” Coughlin said during a virtual discussion on the economy of aging hosted by Fortune’s Global Forum.
According to Coughlin, tech is not just a critical part of daily life for older people—“broadband is the new water,” he says—but also an enormous business opportunity. But too often it is a missed opportunity.
Coughlin singled out the tech industry as unique in blaming its customers for failing to understand its products. He argued instead that the likes of Apple and Walmart should push their employees to adopt a spirit of “radical empathy” in their product design, and to focus on what older people might want—especially things that are fun—rather than what they need.
Annette Franqui, the chair of AARP’s board of directors, echoed the point. She noted that many seniors have plenty of disposable income and are looking to throw it around on not just themselves but grandchildren and pets as well.
Zeta Smith, a longtime Starbucks executive who is now the CEO of the seniors unit at catering giant Sodexo, likewise noted that technology plays a key role in alleviating loneliness for those living in care facilities.
According to Smith, most older people are extremely active, and for those who choose to move into a seniors center, the opportunity for socializing is a big reason why. The virus, however, has made traditional events less viable, so tech has become a higher priority—as has updating the infrastructure of many facilities, which are often 50 or more years old, says Smith.
While companies have an opportunity to sell new communication and entertainment products aimed at seniors, they can also reimagine medical tools to enable more active living. Cindy Gaines, chief nursing officer at health care giant Philips, pointed to a new generation of wearable devices the size of a Band-Aid that can monitor a variety of vital signs—making it easier to head off a health episode before it becomes serious.
While companies can harness tech to improve the lives of older people, Gaines said that governments also have a role—notably by lifting regulations that make it harder to deploy that tech. She pointed to laws that restrict telemedicine across state lines as an example of antiquated legal restrictions.
For those companies looking to cater to more elderly consumers, it may require not just a new attitude toward product development, but a reconsideration of what it means to be old. As Fortune editor-in-chief Clifton Leaf noted during the discussion, the number of 80-year-olds in the U.S. is expected to triple by 2050—meaning that the concept of “senior” will increasingly encompass a number of different cohorts.
The executives assembled for the Fortune panel are hardly the only ones working to reimagine aging. Earlier this year, the famed venture capitalist Alan Patricof launched a new fund with SoulCycle veteran Abby Levy to back startups making products for seniors.
For Coughlin, all of this means that companies and society as a whole need to start regarding the years after 65 as a “whole new life cycle.”


fortune--2020-11-11--Black womxn are missing from corporate leadership. The problem begins with the pipeline

The recent comments by the CEO of Wells Fargo about a supposed lack of Black talent to hire from generated considerable controversy. Charles Scharf’s comments also alluded to a prevailing attitude toward diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in corporate settings. And while that attitude is a problem in its own right, Scharf’s comments highlight a more troubling truth: The pipeline of Black talent into financial services is not where it should be, particularly for Black women, and the root of that trend is systemic.
Dana Peterson of Citibank recently found that systemic racism has cost Black people $16.1 trillion and 6.1 million jobs. That same racism, coupled with sexism, also manifests in corporate boardrooms and explains why there have only ever been two Black women Fortune 500 CEOs. Which begs the question: How do we use public financial commitments and newfound attention toward ending anti-Black racism to generate bold solutions that actually upend systemic racism in corporate settings?
Our recent white paper suggests that companies can begin to tackle this challenge by addressing the talent pipeline, specifically for Black women in quantitative fields such as economics, finance, math, and accounting. Understanding how corporate settings serve (or rather do not serve) Black women begins with determining whether Black women are equipped with the information and skills needed to ensure their success at the highest levels of leadership.
We show that from 2015 through 2019, across majors such as economics, math, accounting, and finance, the number of Black women completing degrees has been on the decline despite slight increases for both Asian-Americans and Hispanics. Furthermore, fields that are deemed more quantitatively demanding, such as economics, finance, and math, have considerably less representation of Black women.
This decline in representation matters. Black women are arguably among the most important economic decision-makers in the country because our decisions shape our communities and the labor market for decades. Black women make up approximately 7% of the total U.S. population, but degree completion data shows that in 2019, Black women made up only 2.5% of those completing degrees in economics, finance, accounting, or math. And a similar trend emerges when you look at data across career professionals in these same fields. Black women’s representation in careers across finance, economics, math, and accounting is not increasing. COVID-19 has also likely made these outcomes worse, considering that mass job layoffs continue to disproportionately impact Black women as our unemployment rate climbs to an astronomical 12.7%.
One may wonder why this is the case. Research shows that over time the following constraints contribute to low participation of Black women in economics and related fields:
Access to information: A recent paper by economists Gary Hoover, Ebonya Washington, and Amanda Bayer finds that too few students have access to information about careers in economics, or about what economists do, and that more information would be an asset. Our own experience echoes this point: 73% of Black women who attended the Sadie Collective conference in 2020 shared that they did not feel prepared for a career in economics and related fields. After the conference’s skill-building workshops and panels, a post-survey showed that 94% of respondents felt more prepared.
A recent paper by economists Gary Hoover, Ebonya Washington, and Amanda Bayer finds that too few students have access to information about careers in economics, or about what economists do, and that more information would be an asset. Our own experience echoes this point: 73% of Black women who attended the Sadie Collective conference in 2020 shared that they did not feel prepared for a career in economics and related fields. After the conference’s skill-building workshops and panels, a post-survey showed that 94% of respondents felt more prepared. Discrimination in the field: A New York Times op-ed, coauthored by one of us, Anna Gifty, and Lisa D. Cook, also showed that Black women consistently feel the brunt of discrimination in the profession, more so than other groups. And on average, Black women take the most measures to avoid possible harassment, discrimination, or unfair/disrespectful treatment compared to white and Asian respondents regardless of gender.
A New York Times op-ed, coauthored by one of us, Anna Gifty, and Lisa D. Cook, also showed that Black women consistently feel the brunt of discrimination in the profession, more so than other groups. And on average, Black women take the most measures to avoid possible harassment, discrimination, or unfair/disrespectful treatment compared to white and Asian respondents regardless of gender. Lack of role models: According to a 2019 report, fewer than 0.5% of Ph.D.s in economics were awarded to Black women—and it is hard to be what you cannot see. When asked before the Sadie Collective’s second annual conference, “Have you ever met a Black women economist?,” 33.5% of respondents shared that they had not. In a related statistic, only 2.2% of tenured or tenure-track economics faculty identified as Black in the 2018–2019 academic year. Moreover, among grade schools across the nation, there is a lack of exposure to quantitative-science majors and professions, along with negative perceptions surrounding the mathematical ability of Black girls.
Here’s the bottom line: As long as companies rely on quantitative analysis to wield power in our economy and national policy, the absence of Black women from these fields will counteract any public declarations made toward addressing the impact of anti-Black racism within society and the workplace.
To begin addressing the abysmal lack of Black women in the corporate space, we suggest that organizations provide sustained financial and programmatic support to existing initiatives that are among the best at doing the work. These include our own organization, The Sadie Collective, the only nonprofit organization centered on improving the pipeline and pathways for Black women in economics, finance, data science, and policy; Black Girls in Boardrooms, which offers mentoring support and workshops to Black women who have entered the corporate world; and Corporate in Color, which provides training sessions and one-on-one advice to Black women who want to refine their personal brand in corporate settings. Additionally, the corporate world can look to digital movements that showcase Black people in math, including #BlackinMathWeek, happening Nov. 8–14, and #BlackinDataWeek, which will follow.
What 2020 has shown us is that corporate diversity is in desperate need of a makeover. While the accumulation of unfortunate killings of unarmed Black people had to be the turning point, centering Black people—and more specifically, Black women—goes beyond just statements. In order to ensure that many more Black girls follow in the footsteps of women like Thasunda Brown Duckett of JPMorgan Chase, Bozoma Saint John of Netflix, or Mellody Hobson of Ariel Investments, the corporate world must commit to centering Black women, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris emphasized in her victory speech on Saturday. Corporations must decide whether this current moment is one that demands change within, and beyond, the boardroom.
Read the full Sadie Collective white paper here.
***
Fanta Traore is a graduate of Howard University’s economics department, a former Federal Reserve employee, and current dual degree MPP/MBA candidate at Yale University. Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a researcher, speaker, and writer who is an alum of Harvard University’s Research Scholar in Economics program and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. They cofounded the Sadie Collective, which addresses the underrepresentation of Black women in economics and related fields, and the viral digital campaign #BlackBirdersWeek. Follow them on Twitter (@itsafronomics, @TheFantaTraore) and Instagram (@annagiftyo, @TheFantaTraore).


fortune--2020-11-11--Will another $1,200 stimulus check ever come? Here’s what we know

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With the election in the rearview mirror, leaders on Capitol Hill are back to discussing another economic aid package. But the dynamics of these talks are changing—fast.
Before the election House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was holding firm at her ask for $2.2 trillion, while the White House worked up to its final offer of about $1.9 trillion. But a deal was never reached, and with President Trump having failed in his reelection campaign, fiscally conservative Senate Republicans are sidelining the White House’s offer and looking to pass something with a reduced price tag.
“I don’t think the current situation demands a multitrillion-dollar package,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “So I think it should be highly targeted, very similar to what I put on the floor in both October and September.” That would likely match the size of the $500 billion “skinny” stimulus package that was blocked twice by Senate Democrats this fall. But a more modest stimulus package means some items could get left out altogether. Indeed, Senate Republicans’ plans have excluded another round of $1,200 stimulus checks from the package—an item both the White House and House Democrats have supported for months.
Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters a smaller bill “doesn’t appeal” to her, reiterating her stance that the Senate Republicans’ “skinny” bill was a nonstarter for Democrats.
But McConnell taking the reins for Republicans in stimulus negotiations isn’t the only hurdle facing stimulus checks.
Vaccine hopes could ‘delay’ a package
Another reason more stimulus may be pushed back? An encouraging report from Pfizer and BioNTech on the efficacy of their COVID-19 vaccine, currently in late-stage trials. The vaccine would be great news for the country—but potentially bad news for stimulus talks.
“I worry that for those in Congress who were already squeamish about passing a large stimulus bill, this might encourage them to delay a little bit longer or to pass something smaller because it is good news,” Eric Winograd, senior economist at AllianceBernstein, tells Fortune. “That prospect might encourage a smaller bill, which I don’t think would be the right policy choice.” (He believes $1.5 trillion would better serve the recovery.)
The problem, Winograd notes, is that the promise of a vaccine “a few months from now“ doesn’t help the more than 11.1 million Americans who are currently unemployed. And the latest vaccine developments don’t change the “urgency” for stimulus to renew those expiring benefits.
Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, doesn’t necessarily think there needs to be a multitrillion-dollar package (he believes something around $700 billion may suffice as a “bridge”), but agrees the vaccine “takes some of the edge off the urgency with getting it done sooner than later.”
Stimulus checks are a ‘lower priority’
Notwithstanding the vaccine, some economists note a stimulus check might not be in the cards at all, even if a package is passed.
“I think [more stimulus checks are] going to be a very hard sell. If you have a Republican Senate, I think that’s almost a nonstarter,” RBC’s Porcelli tells Fortune, referring to the future balance of power if Republicans secure two runoff Senate seats in Georgia come January. AllianceBernstein’s Winograd on the other hand argues that nothing “is off the table, because who really knows? But I would think that is a lower priority item than is extending unemployment benefits.”
Meanwhile, stimulus checks aren’t high up on some economists’ wish lists for the next bill, either: Porcelli, Winograd, and UBS Global Wealth Management senior economist Brian Rose all agree more enhanced unemployment benefits and small-business Paycheck Protection Program loans are more important to aiding the most affected groups.
A lame-duck deal?
While there is broad consensus among most economists that more aid is needed—and soon—getting a deal passed in the lame-duck session before 2021 is looking like a tall order.
To be sure, it’s not impossible a deal could get done in the lame duck, as those like McConnell have even recently said a deal needs to be done “before the end of the year.” But Pelosi thus far doesn’t seem willing to capitulate on the size and key sticking points, and neither does McConnell.
Indeed, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) outlined it Monday: “Both sides are saying they want one. But both sides are saying they want the one they want. So we’ll see.”
According to RBC’s Porcelli: “The direction that it goes, and the person that will ultimately end up getting what they want, is going to be entirely contingent on the virus. I think the urgency will rise if case counts really do start to advance from here in a more dramatic way.”
Many economists agree a deal in the lame duck would be smaller than iterations of the bill discussed leading up to the election, but if a deal does get pushed until next year, its passage is largely dependent on the composition of Congress.
If Congress is split and Republicans maintain control of the Senate (a scenario many find most likely), Winograd finds it “hard to believe that Republicans in the Senate who were not eager to pass a stimulus bill in the midst of an electoral campaign would be willing to do so in the early days of a Democratic administration.”
But if Democrats win the two runoff seats in Georgia and clinch control of both the House and Senate, some economists believe that could mean a bigger deal early next year and possibly follow-up stimulus legislation later in the year.


fortune--2020-11-11--Sweden imposes partial lockdown on bars and restaurants for the first time since pandemic started

For the first time since the pandemic started, Sweden is imposing a partial lockdown on bars and restaurants by banning the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m.
The restriction marks a departure from the country’s previous guidelines that relied mainly on voluntary measures to stop transmission. The new measure applies across the country from Nov. 20 and means all businesses with a license to serve alcohol must close by 10:30 p.m.
“We are facing a situation that could turn black as night,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said at a press conference in Stockholm. “We risk ending up in the situation we had last spring.”
Amid a new wave of curbs on movement, authorities in 13 of Sweden’s 21 regions have issued recommendations that, among other things, urge citizens to avoid physical contact with people with whom they don’t share a home.
But those guidelines appear to be having limited effect. In the past week, the number of daily coronavirus cases hit a record and hospitals are seeing a rising influx of patients.
Lofven said he’s ready to consider stricter measures to limit public gatherings, if the latest steps fail to rein in infections.
On Wednesday, 129 patients with COVID-19 were being treated in intensive-care units. While that is less than a quarter of the peak seen in April, the number of ICU patients has doubled in the past 10 days.
How Sweden acts now will determine “if we will be able to celebrate Christmas as normal,” the prime minister said.


fortune--2020-11-11--Now that Pfizer is the vaccine front-runner, should you buy the stock?

Following an overwhelmingly positive update on the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer earned pole position in the race, causing its share price to jump nearly 8% on Monday, hitting a 52-week high of nearly $42.
Though on Tuesday the stock closed a bit lower, just below $39, the vaccine news has certainly provided shareholders with hope that the company’s stock would finally break out of its pandemic funk. Of course, others were left wondering whether or not the jump in share price was simply an overreaction to news that ultimately wouldn’t have a significant impact on the pharmaceutical giant’s bottom line.
The bullish case? That Pfizer’s status as the front-runner (in partnership with German company BioNTech) will in the short term provide a decent revenue bump and give investors a bridge to other equally promising drugs the company has in development. “Our enthusiasm on the company is not driven exclusively by the vaccine,” notes Vamil Divan, managing director of Mizuho Securities, who has raised his price target to $44 and has a “buy” rating on Pfizer shares. “It’s obviously good news both from a broader public health perspective and a company perspective. But our view overall is that within the broader Pfizer pipeline, the company has a very good sales and earnings growth outlook for the next five years or so.”
While Mizuho and Morgan Stanley project that the company will take in roughly $8 billion in sales between 2020 and 2021 as a result of its COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer brought in over $50 billion in total revenue in 2019, with core products such as Lipitor, Lyrica, Celebrex, Zithromax, and Viagra, among others, leading the way. Divan believes some of Pfizer’s other promising drugs in the pipeline—targeting diseases such as muscular dystrophy and psoriasis—are underappreciated by the market and have the potential to be blockbusters.
Divan believes the COVID-19 vaccine should provide Pfizer with a financially meaningful and steady revenue stream in the immediate future––fresh cash that can be used to fuel other M&A and R&D ventures––so long as it is effective and not outdone by the vaccines currently being developed by Big Pharma competitors. And that’s a big “if” for some.
For example, while Carter Gould, director of biopharma equity research at Barclays, acknowledges that the vaccine could “provide a pretty sizable revenue opportunity,” he believes that “one of the main takeaways of yesterday was, given the overwhelming efficacy, that you’re probably going to see multiple vaccines be efficacious.
“We’re neutral-rated on Pfizer,” Gould says. “In the long scheme of things, the stumbles they had with Ibrance [a potential treatment for early breast cancer patients that failed a recent trial] earlier in the year are going to weigh more on the company’s long-term financial prospects than the win on COVID…At $39, $40, you’re starting to get at points where the benefits of COVID are largely already priced in.”
Nonetheless, analysts note that a win was badly needed for Pfizer, as the company is facing a variety of patent expirations––its Prevnar 13, Eliquis, and Xtandi products to name a few––in the latter half of the decade. “Maybe this shows how the new Pfizer is going to be going forward,” Divan says. “A much more nimble, fast-acting company that can work quickly to address situations. Whereas the vast majority of people at the beginning of the year when asked about which company would get the market first and find the vaccine would not have said Pfizer, because it’s viewed as this old, slow-moving company.”


fortune--2020-11-11--Will the supply chain have to be remade for a COVID vaccine?

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News of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine sent waves of relief throughout the world.
But here’s the question: How will the vaccine be distributed? The mRNA-based treatment is expected to require a vast and expensive supply chain to remain effective: The vaccine will need to be kept in extremely cold storage—in subzero temperatures—and used within five days after being thawed out.
And then the process must repeat all over again for a second booster shot a month later. Already, experts are pointing out the difficulties of delivering a vaccine, especially to rural spots and poor nations.
It’s a costs-to-benefits analysis with the highest stakes. There are other approaches to a COVID vaccine that could be cheaper, but they have yet to show the same level of promise. Per Bloomberg:
“It also presents a choice now faced across the developing world: to pay for the expensive construction of subzero cold-chain infrastructure for what seems like a sure bet, or wait for a slower, more conventional vaccine that brews batches of protein or inactivated viral particles in living cells, and can be delivered through existing health-care networks.”
The need for cold storage is already a challenge, most noticeably in food transportation. Rachel Drori, CEO of Daily Harvest, told me during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Next Gen virtual conference that early in the pandemic, the startup faced difficulties delivering frozen meals thanks to a nationwide shortage of dry ice—a product used to also transport medicine.
It’s also one investors are honing in on. Earlier this year, Lineage Logistics, a cold storage company, raised $1.6 billion from investors including Oxford Properties Group, BentallGreenOak, and D1 Capital Partners.
REMEMBER TIKTOK? The Trump administration may have…forgotten about the company. Earlier this year, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States ordered ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent company, to effectively divest of assets used to support its U.S. operations by November 12. ByteDance’s tentative solution was to shift TikTok’s U.S. assets to a new entity which would see Oracle and Walmart take a 20% stake in the new firm.
Now, on the heels of a protracted U.S. election, ByteDance says it has yet to receive substantive clarity on its new framework, nor has it received approval by CFIUS for a 30-day extension on the deadline. With the deadline—and its unclear implications—just around the corner, ByteDance filed a petition Tuesday with a U.S. Federal Appeals Court challenging the order to divest. Read more.
HOW COULD FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY FOSTER FINANCIAL INCLUSION? Join Fortune’s next Brainstorm Finance gathering to discuss alongside Goldman Sachs Chief Strategy Officer Stephanie Cohen; SoFi CEO Anthony Noto; Mastercard President, North America, Craig Vosburg; and Coinbase COO Emilie Choi on Wednesday, November 18, at 12:00 PM ET. REGISTER HERE.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- SentinelOne, a Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of machine learning-based solutions, raised $267 million in funding valuing it at over $3 billion. Investors include Tiger Global, Sequoia, Insight Partners, Third Point Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. Read more.
- Carbon Health, a San Francisco-based primary and urgent healthcare provider, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Dragoneer Investment Group and was joined by investors including Brookfield Technology Partners, DCVC, and Builders VC.
- LinkAja, an Indonesia-based state-owned payments company, raised $100 million in funding. Grab led the round. Read more.
- Endpoint, an El Segundo, Calif.-based digital title and escrow platform for real estate agents, buyers, and sellers, raised $40 million from its parent company, First American Financial Corporation.
- Buoy Health, a Boston, Mass.-based symptom checker using A.I., raised $37.5 million in Series C funding. Cigna Ventures and Humana led the round and were joined by investors including Optum Ventures, WR Hambrecht + Co, and Trustbridge Partners.
- Remote, a San Francisco-based maker of an HR technology platform for international payroll, benefits and compliance, raised $35 million in Series A funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Sequoia Capital, Aaron Levie, Zach Weinberg, Kevin and Julia Hartz, General Catalyst, and Two Sigma Ventures.
- Thoughtexchange, a Vancouver-based polling and rating platform, raised $34 million in funding. HarbourVest Partners led the round.
- Isovalent, a Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud-native networking company, raised $29 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz and Google led the round and were joined by Cisco Investments.
- Bond Vet, a New York-based animal health company, raised $17 million in Series A funding. Talisman Capital Partners led the round.
- R-Zero, a San Francisco-based company with a germ-killing UV device, raised $15 million in Series A funding. DBL Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Bedrock Capital and HAX / SOSV.
- Coherent, a Hong Kong-based provider of digital platforms to insurers, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Cathay Innovation led the round and was joined by investors including Franklin Templeton.
- Fnatic, a London-based esports brand, raised $10 million in an internal round led by Beringea and was joined by investors including Unbound, LVL1 Group, and JHD.
- Highwing, a Denver-based commercial insurance tech startup, raised $4 million in seed funding. Baldwin Risk Partners and BrokerTech Ventures led the round.
- Dimension Inx, a Chicago-based company developing regenerative medical implants that repair tissues and organs, raised $3.2 million in seed funding. KdT Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Better Ventures and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
- AppBrilliance, an Austin-based payments technology startup, raised $3 million in seed funding. Investors including Studio VC.
- Spora Health, a healthcare provider focused on people of color, raised $1.2 million in seed funding. Human Ventures backs the firm. Read more.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- TransDigm Group (NYSE: TDG), Cinven, and CVC Capital Partners are competing for Cobham Ltd.’s communications and navigation division, per Bloomberg. Read more.
- Apollo Global Management plans to acquire Great Canadian Gaming Corp (TO:GC), a Canadian Casino operator, for about C$2.2 billion ($1.7 billion).
- Alliance Holdings, backed by Align Capital Partners, acquired Blue Mountain Environmental Management , a Decatur, Ala.-based provider of emission testing services to those in the Northeastern and Midwestern U.S. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Dyal Capital Partners acquired a passive minority stake in TowerBrook Capital Partners, a London and New York-based investment firm.
- LP First Capital and Centre Partners acquired O'Hara Management, an Orlando, Fla.-based provider of hardscape, irrigation and landscape installation services to commercial home builders. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- PKWARE, backed by Thompson Street Capital, acquired Dataguise, a Freemont, Calif.-based personal data protection company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- SmartWave Technologies, a portfolio company of Northlane Capital Partners, acquired Multi-Tech Systems, a Mounds View, Mn.-based supplier of industrial communication devices and services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Trace4, a portfolio company of H.I.G. Capital, acquired Groupware Technology, a Campbell, Calif.-based IT solutions provider. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- AEGIS Hedging Solutions, backed by Trilantic North America, acquired Nexidus Commodities, a commodity trading advisor and pioneer in metals hedging. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
EXITS
- Uber Technologies $2.7 billion acquisition of Postmates, the food delivery company received the go-ahead from the U.S. Justice Department. Read more.
- BrightSphere Investment (NYSE: BSIG) is considering a sale of its majority stake in Landmark Partners, the private equity fund, that could be worth $1 billion, per Reuters. Read more.
- CVC Capital Partners is weighing a sale of its majority stake in Kount, a U.S.-based cybersecurity company, that could value the latter at over $750 million including debt, per Reuters. Read more.
- Take-Two Interactive Software will acquire Codemasters Group, a U.K.-based videogame developer, valuing it at about 759 million pounds ($1 billion).
OTHERS
- Huawei plans to sell Honor, its brand of budget smartphones, for 100 billion yuan ($15.2 billion), to a consortium including Digital China and the government of Shenzhen, per Reuters. Read more.
- SGS will acquire Germany-based Synlab's analytics & services unit for 550 million euros ($650.3 million). Read more.
- Spotify agreed to acquire Megaphone, a provider of podcast advertising and publishing, for $235 million.
IPO
- Telos, an Ashburn, Va.-based maker of cybersecurity products, plans to raise $210 million in an offering of 12.4 million shares priced between $16 to $18. Read more.
- Silverback Therapeutics, a Seattle, Wash.-based biotech developing therapeutics for solid tumors and other diseases, filed to raise $100 million. Its investors include OrbiMed, U.S. Venture Partners, and Hunt Pacific. Read more.
SPAC
- Natural Order Acquisition Corp., a blank check company seeking businesses focused on technologies and products related to plant-based food and beverages, raised $200 million. The company previously planned to raise $250 million. Read more.
- Edoc Acquisition Corp., a blank check company seeking healthcare businesses in North America and Asia-Pacific, raised $90 million, raising $10 million less than expected. Read more.
F+FS
- Spearhead, a fund created by Jeff Fagnan at Accomplice and Naval Ravikant, closed on $100 million in commitments for its fourth fund. Read more.
- Seedcamp, a Europe-focused fund, raised £78 million in commitments for its fifth fund. Read more.
PEOPLE
- Cognitive Capital Partners named Dave Bornhoeft as a Partner leading the firm’s healthcare investments.
- General Catalyst named Zak Kukoff as a principal. Kukoff was previously an associate at Emergence Capital.
- Norwest Venture Partners named Dave Zilberman as a general partner. Zilberman was previously senior managing director at Comcast Ventures.
- Atwater Capital named Meri Khananashvili, formerly an executive at Creative Artists Agency, as principal.


fortune--2020-11-11--Chipotle plans to upgrade pickup and delivery options with first digital-only location

Chipotle Mexican Grill is opening its first digital-only restaurant in the U.S. this weekend as it leans into the pick-up and delivery model customers increasingly want.
The concept, located in Highland Falls, N.Y., requires customers to order in advance online or through a third-party delivery company, it said. Orders can be picked up from a lobby that it says will have the “sounds, smells and kitchen views” of a traditional restaurant. The model will allow Chipotle to enter more urban areas where a full sit-down restaurant doesn’t make sense, it said.
Even before the announcement, the company had been moving in that direction, adding a second food-preparation line to some of its restaurants that only served a digital and delivery customer. At times during virus outbreaks, Chipotle temporarily shut its in-person dining and only served digital customers from specific locations, Brian Niccol, Chipotle’s chief executive officer, said during an interview with Bloomberg News in October.
“For Chipotle we’re definitely looking at all different forms of assets,” Niccol said in that interview. “If you can cut opening costs in half because now you need a lot less of a footprint and you can still do a million dollars of sales through your digital business, it opens the door to do now a digital-only restaurant, which in the past, we haven’t had that kind of scale.”
Chipotle shares climbed 1.2% at 9:34 a.m. in New York. The stock rose 48% this year through Tuesday, about five times as much as the S&P 500 Index.


fortune--2020-11-11--The U.K. will follow the U.S. and Europe in getting tougher on ‘hostile’ foreign investment

The British government has proposed a new law that would give it more leeway to investigate and intervene in cases of “hostile foreign direct investment.”
The National Security and Investment Bill, unveiled Wednesday, could mean extra scrutiny for takeovers of U.K. companies in sectors such as artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics, and quantum technologies, if there are potential national security implications.
Crucially, the new law would—if passed in its proposed form—cover not only full M&A, but also deals around the transfer of assets and intellectual property. This would close what some lawyers see as a loophole in the U.K.’s existing regime for scrutinizing foreign direct investment, or FDI.
That law, the Enterprise Act, is almost two decades old now, and the government is touting its new bill as a much-needed modernization of the rules.
‘No back door’
“The U.K. remains one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world, and we want to keep it that way,” said Business Secretary Alok Sharma in a statement. “But hostile actors should be in no doubt—there is no back door into the U.K.”
The government’s move echoes those made in recent years by key intelligence-sharing partners such as the U.S. (2018’s Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act) and Australia (where reforms to the 1975 Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act were proposed in June.)
European countries including Germany, France, and Italy also tightened their FDI scrutiny rules this year, expanding their scope to include more sectors outside the traditional areas of concern, such as defense, and lowering thresholds for the levels of investment that could trigger a review.
These changes largely implemented guidelines put forward by the European Commission, following demands by EU lawmakers to protect vulnerable European companies during the pandemic’s economic chaos.
The U.K. proposals had been in the works since before the pandemic and may have been delayed by it. Former Prime Minister Theresa May supported reforms as far back as 2016, though it took a few years for her government to officially signal new legislation in October 2019.
The current government of May’s successor, Boris Johnson, did tighten FDI controls earlier this year, but that was specifically aimed at countering potential threats to the U.K.’s pandemic response, such as activity around vaccine research.
According to Barri Mendelsohn, a corporate and securities partner at the London office of law firm King & Wood Mallesons, Wednesday’s proposals are “along the lines” of what was expected.
“Although the new bill may not be helpful for some investors, we’re interested to see how the government intends to apply it in practice,” Mendelsohn told Fortune Wednesday. He added that the addition of asset and IP transfers as possible triggers for scrutiny would close a “potential loophole” in the existing rules.
Retrospective reviews
In terms of sanctions for noncompliance, the bill would allow fines of up to 5% of global revenues and jail terms of up to five years. If companies try to execute covered transactions without notifying the authorities, those transactions would be legally voided.
Notably, the law would allow the government to retrospectively examine transactions that took place over the preceding five years—but this would not apply to transactions that took place before the bill was introduced to Parliament.
Relevant transactions would have to be reported to a new Investment Security Unit, just as those in the U.S. need approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
CFIUS gained prominence during the Trump administration as its cudgel against Chinese companies that were starting to make inroads into the U.S. market, such as Huawei and TikTok. Similarly, much of the EU’s drive to step up FDI scrutiny was triggered by concerns over Chinese companies buying up key European tech players (the 2017 takeover of German industrial-robotics firm Kuka by China’s Midea Group was widely seen as a wake-up call.)
The British government noted in its Wednesday statement that “the new regime will apply to investors from any country,” and Mendelsohn warned against seeing the bill as a defensive move against China in particular. “It’s dangerous to use a broad brush,” he said.


fortune--2020-11-11--To honor veterans and make the country stronger, expand the JROTC

We are four veterans—one Navy helicopter pilot who flew missions throughout Europe and the Middle East, and three Marines who served in the same unit during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This Veterans Day, after another bitter election, we need to focus on uniting our country and re-instilling a sense of duty that transcends petty partisanship. That is why we are now working together to improve and expand opportunities for more Americans to serve their country—in or out of uniform.
One of the most promising service programs for young Americans is the U.S. Armed Services Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC. We are working on a plan before Congress today that would double the size of the program nationwide and equip the next generation to lead through civic duty.
Among its other effects, the coronavirus pandemic has eroded the quality of education across the country, especially in disadvantaged rural and urban communities, where young people long for purpose-driven futures. JROTC and similar programs like the Young Marines are promising means to empower young Americans with strong civic education and a commitment to serve others, in or out of uniform.
Established in 1916 at the eve of America’s entrance into World War I, JROTC’s mission is to instill in students “the values of citizenship, service to the United States, and personal responsibility and a sense of accomplishment.” There are more than 3,000 JROTC programs in operation in high schools across all 50 states and overseas, serving an estimated 500,000 eighth- to 12th-grade students.
One of us has seen the impact of junior military programs firsthand. After retiring from 24 years as a Marine Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician and, later, a Human Intelligence officer, Mike Dubrule took over and led a Young Marines unit in Venice, Fla., from 2013–2019. In those years, Dubrule led cadets with the same passion for country and sense of service that he used when leading troops in Iraq. As Dubrule explains, JROTC and similar efforts are often a place for adolescents to “find their voice” during the defining and sometimes turbulent years of early adulthood.
Dubrule recalls the journey of a young woman who emigrated from Thailand. Struggling to find a community in high school, she was so bashful that she totally avoided speaking in public environments. Her parents, who supported their family by working at a local restaurant, encouraged her to join Dubrule’s unit. She found her voice and rose to become the unit’s student commander. On a trip to Pearl Harbor to mark the 75th anniversary of the attack, she took command of her unit and several other units from across the country and conducted a parade formation with the full confidence of every peer she led. She is now attending university and aspires to be a medical doctor. “She is the living embodiment of the promise of the United States,” Dubrule reflected.
Transformative stories occur every year across the country in JROTC units. According to the Rand Corporation, students who participate in JROTC see “improved academic and behavioral outcomes.” These results include higher grade-point averages, higher graduation rates, higher college acceptance rates, higher standardized test scores, and increased community service participation. The inherent cost to each school is relatively small, as the respective military service subsidizes most costs like textbooks, uniforms, and equipment among other material, but there is a waitlist of hundreds of high schools requesting a JROTC unit.
Congress could act now to bring JROTC to thousands of additional students around the country. Funding for JROTC programs is approved every year in the National Defense Authorization Act. Two of us, Rep. Mike Gallagher and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, are members of the congressional bipartisan For Country Caucus. They’re working with their military veteran colleagues and Rye Barcott’s With Honor Action, a nonprofit policy organization, to build consensus around two new provisions in the defense bill that would strengthen and expand the JROTC program across the nation. One provision will expand JROTC and implement a plan to establish at least 6,000 units, doubling the current corps, by 2031, while the other provision will integrate more STEM education to make the curriculum applicable and competitive.
“We experienced war together,” Dubrule says of his relationship with Rep. Gallagher and Barcott, who both served under his command. “Each of us is now settled down in our separate corners of America, but the belief we share in our nation binds us forever. I did not think I would ever establish bonds built on community, trust, and love like that until I was introduced to the cadets at that school in Venice, Florida.”
The year is about to end, and these provisions can help begin the long path of healing our country and equip the next generation of young Americans. We can take a large step forward with these provisions to double JROTC and enhance its curriculum in the next National Defense Authorization Act. Please join us this Veterans Day in calling on your elected officials to support it.
Rye Barcott is a Marine Corps veteran and cofounder and CEO of With Honor Action; Michael Dubrule is a Marine Corps veteran and former unit commander of the Young Marines in Venice, Fla.; Mike Gallagher is a Marine Corps veteran and the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District, and Mikie Sherrill is a Navy veteran and the U.S. Representative for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.


fortune--2020-11-11--Expect to see a lot more drones in the sky in the coming years

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.
President-elect Joe Biden looked a little surprised when his Saturday night fireworks show was suddenly interrupted by some additional sky art spelling out his name, the number 46, and then a map of the country.
The secret behind the magic? A choreographed drone swarm, much like the ones pioneered by Intel and used to light up everything from Coachella to the Super Bowl half-time show. The Biden display even prompted Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler to quip: “When does Lady Gaga parachute in?”
Expect to see a lot more drones in the sky in coming years. The pandemic has accelerated a variety of experiments and commercials trial to use drones for deliveries, crop monitoring, firefighting, and a thousand more jobs beyond wowing us by spelling out presidents’ names with LED lights. Industry leader DJI, flocks of startups, and tech giants like Google and Amazon are all working on perfecting the flight hardware, sensors, and software.
Plenty of new gadgets flow through Fortune’s suburban Boston bureau, from 5G phones to 5G laptops, mostly supplied as review units by the manufacturers or wireless carriers. The occasional item is bought and paid for by our household, including the recent purchase of DJI’s new Mini 2 drone (much to my wife Whitney’s dismay, as she takes a strict line against such self-purchases so close to the holiday gift-giving season).
Aaron Pressman/Fortune
But I have to tell you, the capabilities packed into this tiny 249 gram (8.8 ounce) drone are remarkable. It can fly for more than half an hour on one battery charge and travel a distance of up to six miles from where it takes off. The camera takes decent photos and more impressive 4K videos. And the whole thing folds up small enough to fit in the palm of my hand or the pocket of my jacket. The propellers can be pretty buzzy (just ask Whitney), so I’ll try not to annoy the neighbors. But it’s quite a thrill getting a bird’s eye view of the world and some fantastic opportunities for photography:
Aaron Pressman/Fortune
With such technical marvels, drones for business should keep their momentum too. The outgoing Trump administration worked hard and orderly under Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to expand the playing field for drones while keeping an eye on safety and security. Not every move was on target—rules requiring constant Internet connections may be too much, for example. But the incoming Biden administration would do well to follow a similar flight path.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
A view to a CPU. As expected, and as Data Sheet readers may be sick of hearing about by now, Apple rolled out new Mac computers running on a processor of the company's own design dubbed the M1. The new Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro look identical to their Intel-powered predecessors, but can run programs up to three times faster and last almost twice as long on batteries, Apple claims. We'll have to see how the boasts hold up IRL next week when they arrive in customer's hands. In court, however, Apple suffered a setback as District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected the company's counterclaim of theft against Epic Games. "This is a high-stakes breach of contract case and an antitrust case and that’s all in my view,” she said.
Casting about for a new role. Speaking of the incoming Biden administration, the former vice president announced the composition of his transition teams for a host of agencies and departments. A smattering of tech industry participants made the list, including execs from Airbnb, Lyft, Dropbox, Stripe, Microsoft's LinkedIn, and Amazon.
Stop interrupting my grinding. Hot stocks attract celebrity endorsements like jam on toast. So it's probably no surprise that pop star Beyonce Knowles is teaming up with Peloton. The company says its members request to hear Beyonce songs over any other artist. Now Knowles will return the favor and create a series of workouts for Peloton members. Meanwhile, Spotify continues its quest to become the king of podcasts. The music streaming service is buying podcast publisher Megaphone for $235 million.
Costly protection. Shares of Chines tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com have plummeted since the country unveiled new competition rules on Tuesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng tech index lost 8% on Wednesday, the biggest one-day drop since 2008. Elsewhere on Wall Street, Lyft said revenue plunged 48% to $500 million, but that was better than analysts expected. Lyft's shares, still down 16% this year despite the recent Prop 22 rally, gained 5% in premarket trading on Wednesday.
You smell like, light, gas, water, electricity, rent. Amazon's Ring unit had to recall 350,000 or so of its video camera-equipped doorbells because some of them are overheating and even catching on fire. The problems are caused by installation with the wrong kind of screws, Ring says.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Several trends, including the rise of Google and Facebook, have decimated the local news industry. Reporter Steven Perlberg takes a deep dive for Digiday into some of the startups trying to crack the business model challenge. One idea: podcasts.
Owned by Graham Holdings Company (the company affiliated with the family that sold the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos), City Cast will be a national network of daily local podcasts. (CEO David) Plotz said he is on the hunt for hosts and producers that embody the voice of particular locations, which are still yet to be determined. “If you think about the way cities used to work a generation ago, there were these iconic figures that embodied the spirit of the city. The anchor on the evening news or the newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin type,” he said.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
When Apple’s Big Sur software update will arrive By Robert Hackett
A.I. recruiting startup wins competition to help military veterans find jobs By Jeremy Kahn
Uber to give users a $50 credit if their scheduled rides don’t show up By Danielle Abril
What a Biden-Harris administration means for artificial intelligence By Jonathan Vanian
The pandemic dramatically accelerated the digital shift. These CEOs explain how they got it done By Aric Jenkins
No, VF isn’t the death knell for Supreme By Lucinda Shen
Michelle Wie West on her golf comeback plan: I want my daughter to see me play By Emma Hinchliffe
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Sure, hackers want your credit card number, the local hospital's health records, maybe even your city's tax records. But what do they want with thousand-year-old ancient manuscripts? Due to constant cyberattacks, the Vatican's library, which is digitizing 41 million pages from its vast collection, has had to enlist the A.I.-powered guardians from Darktrace to keep out the online crooks. Could Botticelli or Michelangelo have ever dreamed of the bits and bytes protecting their legacy?


fortune--2020-11-11--Improving inclusion is more about allowing failure than rewarding success

Amid a confluence of paradigm-shifting events in 2020—the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in anti-racist activism following the police killing of George Floyd, and record-breaking natural disasters—corporations are taking a long, hard look in the mirror and recognizing the scope of their social responsibility.
In their effort to improve diversity, inclusion, and equity in much more meaningful, intersectional ways than before, organizations are deeply reckoning with the gap between intentions and progress.
“At 3M, we are over 100 years old and we’d never had a conversation about race until now,” said Ann Anaya, the company’s chief diversity officer, during a Fortune Global Forum event on Tuesday.
Many companies today can point to significant diversity efforts and the placement of executives like Anaya. Still, there is clearly more work to do than ever before, said Carin Taylor, chief diversity officer at Workday (who noted that the role is a “tough job” at this moment in time).
Companies are acutely aware they have influence within their communities—a sphere that encompasses not only their employees but also the wider external world they operate within. To best wield that influence, however, they must evaluate how to speak about social issues, then detect and help remedy inequities.
Even for companies that have openly discussed issues of race in the past, such as Microsoft, this moment marks a juncture. “There’s no longer the ability for a senior leader to delegate the conversation or the accountability,” said Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Microsoft’s chief diversity officer. “That has resulted in lots of conversations about—not ‘Why do I do this?’ because we’re far beyond that, but—‘How do I do it in a thoughtful way, so that the community will hear my heart, hear my intention?’”
This is especially true for leaders speaking up for the first time, McIntyre added, whether in front of their employees or more publicly.
While it’s important for CEOs to listen, have conversations, and do this work, it’s unreasonable to assume the results will be perfect. “We have to remember that [being] a senior leader doesn’t make you any more qualified or knowledgable about this topic of race,” Taylor said.
But senior leaders generally aren’t comfortable with the idea of openly failing in general. Diversity and inclusion officers therefore have the challenge of facilitating an “ongoing conversation,” as McIntyre puts it, in which those leaders may feel safe asking questions and talking about, and learning about, these issues.
Today’s leaders are expected to be able to answer questions like, “How are you changing your own habits, your own social feed?” McIntyre said. “What do you say on the dimension of diversity and inclusion when there aren’t lawyers or diversity or HR people in the room? Does it come up? How does it come up?”
Another key aspect to walking the walk is finding ways to thoroughly assess the disadvantages and needs of a community. Many companies accomplish this by conducting surveys.
Workday, for example, has created what it calls a “Belonging Index” to determine which groups within the company’s ranks do not feel a sense of belonging within the company, Taylor explained. Every Friday, the company sends two questions to employees. It then breaks down feedback intersectionally, taking multiple demographic factors, as well as geographic location, job category, and tenure, into account to home in on specific groups’ specific needs.
Recently, Taylor said, the company brought in a third-party partner to help construct a program and provide more resources to one subset of employees who demonstrated, through survey feedback, feelings of a lack of belonging within Workday.
“Our employees want to give us the data, because they know we’re going to do something with it,” she said.
Both 3M and Microsoft also have developed ways of measuring their leaders’ commitment and effectiveness with regard to diversity and inclusion. At 3M, Anaya said, her team has developed a method of collecting feedback throughout the year regarding how inclusive the day-to-day actions of middle managers are. “Powered by inclusion” is one performance pillar the company’s leaders are evaluated on. Similarly, McIntyre said, Microsoft has incorporated accountability to inclusion into evaluations for senior promotions and, further, for employees at all levels. Discussion of and accountability for diversity and inclusion are part of manager-employee reviews at Microsoft.
These approaches are, in effect, incentives. However, when the concept of compensation rewards surfaced, Workday’s Taylor dismissed the idea.
“I’ll be transparent and say I’m not a huge proponent of compensating, especially senior leaders, who, I kind of have the view that they make enough money,” she said. “So why compensate them to do the right thing?”
Doing “the right thing” extends beyond a company’s own initiatives. Outside of Tuesday’s conversation, Taylor, Anaya, and McIntyre speak regularly with other diversity and inclusion leaders (and sometimes each other) about what has been effective for their organizations. Taylor and McIntyre mentioned programs their companies facilitate to help upskill workers who otherwise may not have access to training opportunities, even though those programs don’t always yield hires, or when the individuals they’ve invested in go on to work for competitors.
Improving inclusion and equity is not a competition, the executives agreed, and there is plenty of room for companies to collaborate more. To hark back to the importance of excusing leaders’ failures as learning opportunities, when companies compare notes, “they should also share what’s not working,” Taylor said. “Don’t just share best practices.”


fortune--2020-11-11--Meet the married couple behind Pfizer’s COVID vaccine

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! Senate races in Georgia lead Republicans to back President Trump’s refusal to concede the election, Ulta Beauty partners with Target, and we meet the couple that spearheaded Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. Have a good Wednesday.
– The science of relationships. If you, like me, are in awe of couples who manage to maintain their relationships while working together, just imagine what it must be like not just to start a company with your significant other—but to develop a vaccine together in the midst of a pandemic.
That’s how Drs. Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s chief medical officer and CEO, respectively, spent much of 2020.
Understandably, many of us who read Monday’s news that Pfizer had reported early data that its COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective may have missed that fact that the pharma giant’s vaccine was developed in partnership with the couple and their company, BioNTech, which is based in Germany.
Türeci and Sahin, who are both of Turkish descent (Sahin was born there), balanced the effort, called Project Lightspeed, with caring for their teenage daughter. Perhaps this all-encompassing world of science and family is second nature for them; several stories note that the pair went back to their lab on their wedding day. Their partnership also seems to buttress the idea that a company’s commitment to gender diversity starts at the top: Deutsche Welle reports that more than half of BioNTech’s employees are female.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- All about Georgia. Why are Republicans standing by President Trump as he continues to claim voter fraud with no evidence and refuses to concede the election? The answer may lie among Trump-supporting voters in Georgia, where two January races—including Sen. Kelly Loeffler's bid—will decide control of the Senate. And, by the way, the First Lady and First-Lady-elect haven't been in touch either. Politico
- Ulta-mate Target. Ulta Beauty, led by CEO Mary Dillon, will open mini-stores inside 100 Target locations. The bold partnership unites two competitors as beauty becomes more important to the retail experience. Fortune
- Competition's steep. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager took a step this week toward an antitrust decision against Amazon. The Big Tech foe sent a "statement of objection" to the tech giant over alleged misuse of the data on third-party merchants. Fortune
- Inside CZI. A former employee for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the nonprofit funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, filed a racial discrimination complaint. Raymond Holgado says that "Black employees who want to advance within the organization are shut down." A CZI spokesperson said the complaint was "unsubstantiated." The Verge
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: KPMG hired Elena Richards as chief diversity and inclusion officer. Karen McCormick, chief investment officer of Beringea, joins Fnatic's board of directors. Raegan McDonald-Mosley is the new CEO of sexual health advocacy organization Power to Decide. BetterUp named chief innovation officer Gabrilla Kellerman chief product officer.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Deep breaths. One group that was closely watching President Trump's electoral loss? The women who have accused him of sexual assault and misconduct. "It was the first time in four years that I actually felt like I could really breathe deeply again," says Karena Virginia, who says Trump groped her in the late 1990s. (Trump has denied all allegations.) The Daily Beast
- Another election. In non-U.S. elections news, the ruling party in Myanmar, the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, said it had won a parliamentary majority. Only a few election winners, however, have been named. Time
- Considering clemency. Saudi Arabia will host the G20 Summit later this month. Ahead of that convening, the kingdom is considering clemency for female activists who were jailed after advocating for women's rights, including the right to drive. Guardian
ON MY RADAR
Peloton teams with Beyoncé to produce new workout series Fortune
How The Queen’s Gambit started a new debate about sexism in chess New York Times
After a scary crash, U.S. cycling star Chloe Dygert plans her next ride Wall Street Journal
Joe Biden's campaign manager told the political future—and was right Vanity Fair
PARTING WORDS
"I expect to get the same filet mignon that white actresses get. ... You cannot throw me a bone with a really nice little piece of meat still on it and expect that’s good enough for me."
-Viola Davis