fortune--2020-08-20--A year after launching a ‘Racial Justice’ investing tool, OpenInvest adds 13 companies to its list—a

A year after launching a ‘Racial Justice’ investing tool, OpenInvest adds 13 companies to its list—and cuts seven underperformers

Last year, asset management platform OpenInvest launched a new “Racial Justice Cause” indexing tool—one of 16 such ’causes’ featured by the impact investing startup that focus on an array of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values.
The indexing tool allows investors and asset managers to customize their portfolios to prioritize companies with a positive track record on issues like workforce diversity.
Now, more than a year on from the Racial Justice tool’s launch—in the wake of a massive public reckoning with that very cause after the killing of George Floyd in May—OpenInvest is providing a progress report of sorts for some of America’s largest public corporations.
The platform has announced 13 S&P 500 companies that are newly included in its Racial Justice Cause, while naming seven others that have been removed for failing to meet its criteria. Companies that clear this bar are “overweighted” in portfolios that use OpenInvest’s indexing tool. While hundreds of companies are included in OpenInvest’s Racial Justice Cause, only 70 of the S&P 500 currently make the grade.
Those that have freshly made the cut are (in alphabetical order): Accenture, Alaska Air, Best Buy, Carnival, Citigroup, Comcast, Hewlett Packard, Marriott, MGM Resorts, Nvidia, PepsiCo, Under Armour, and Yum! Brands.
OpenInvest’s methodology also looks to exclude from its customers’ portfolios firms that it judges to have a history of race-related lawsuits and controversies involving their treatment, as well as those that heavily pollute in areas more populated by people of color. A total of 61 companies in the S&P 500 currently fall in this category. Those that OpenInvest has newly removed from the indexing tool include: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Ecolab, General Motors, Waste Management, U.S. Bancorp, and ViacomCBS.
In response to a question from Fortune about being downgraded, a spokesperson for American Airlines referred to a letter released by the company’s senior leadership in June, in which it highlighted various measures and initiatives taken to “increase [American Airlines’] focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.” The spokesperson also points to a note written by CEO Doug Parker to the airline’s employees earlier this summer, in which he detailed a conversation with a Black flight attendant about systemic racism.
A spokesperson for Ecolab tells Fortune that the company is “committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and are transparent about our values, commitments and action.”
“We would appreciate more transparency from OpenInvest because we cannot think of any reason why our standing would change,” the Ecolab spokesperson adds, noting that the company has been positively recognized by the likes of Diversity Best Practices, DiversityInc, Forbes, and Bloomberg for its diversity practices.
In a statement to Fortune, a Delta spokesperson wrote: “Delta will take a close look as to why it is reportedly omitted from this Index. Meanwhile, our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion remains strong and vibrant, including our actions toward becoming an anti-racist, anti-discrimination organization.”
Representatives for the other companies recently removed from the indexing tool did not provide comment on the matter. (Fortune will add comment as companies respond.)
“We didn’t [launch the Racial Justice Cause] because of the current tumult; we did it because it’s the most pernicious social issue in this country, and it’s kind of amazing that the ESG industry hasn’t addressed it [adequately],” OpenInvest co-founder and chief strategy officer Josh Levin tells Fortune.
Levin says part of the reason why racial justice has been under-accounted for within the ESG investing community is a lack of “transparency and data in the marketplace” from companies—something that’s changing as more businesses are being held accountable for their practices. Indeed, one of OpenInvest’s criteria for inclusion in its Racial Justice Cause is transparency, with companies that regularly publish diversity reports on their employee base—and set targets for a more diverse workforce—duly rewarded.
As more companies have held themselves accountable to such standards, new investing products—like the NAACP-sponsored Minority Empowerment ETF, as well as the Racial Justice Cause indexing tool—have cropped up to serve investors who want their portfolios to align with their values. So far, the indexing tool has proven popular with OpenInvest’s clients, with 57% of its financial advisor clients selecting the cause to craft client portfolios.
But with more corporate interests than ever flocking to show their commitment to the cause of racial justice in the wake of the George Floyd protests, Levin notes that the bar is rising for companies hoping to be included under criteria like OpenInvest’s.
“We’re grading companies along a bell curve, and as the standard increases around companies getting more transparent and setting diversity targets, you’ll naturally get a shift based on the cutoff on that bell curve,” Levin says. “We often say that to be a leader in a benchmark, you need to be in the top 20% of the bell curve—and as more folks are added to your data set, it naturally raises the bar as far as who makes the cutoff.”
But Levin adds that when it comes to racial diversity at the highest levels of corporate America, “Unfortunately, the bar is still relatively low.” With the resignation of Tapestry CEO Jide Zeitlin last month, there are now only four Black CEOs on the Fortune 500.
Update, August 20, 2020: This story has been updated to include comment from American Airlines and Ecolab.
Update, August 22, 2020: This story has been updated to include comment from Delta Air Lines.


fortune--2020-08-20--Lyft plans to suspend California rides at midnight, barring a court decision

COVID-19 has spurred rapid transformation in health care .
Let ’ s make sure it stays that way

Update: On Thursday afternoon, a California judge extended the amount of time Uber and Lyft have to make the change. The court will hear arguments on Oct. 13.
Lyft said it will shut down its ride-hailing service in California at midnight on Thursday if a judge doesn’t grant it additional time to reclassify drivers from contractors to employees.
“This is not something we wanted to do, as we know millions of Californians depend on Lyft for daily, essential trips,” the company said in a blog post on Thursday. “We’re personally reaching out to riders and drivers to share more about why this is happening, what you can do about it, and to provide some transportation alternatives.”
Uber has not yet responded to a request for comment, but the company previously said it also expected to “immediately shut down” for the same reason.
The news comes a week after a California judge denied Uber and Lyft’s request for more time to make the switch. It also comes as a group of Uber and Lyft drivers plan to protest outside of Uber’s headquarters opposing the ride-hailing giants’ latest moves. The drivers plan to display an 8-foot inflatable baby outside Uber’s headquarters, suggesting the companies are acting like children by “threatening to take their ball and go home” if they don’t get their way.
The companies argued they don’t have the systems in place to pay and track their drivers as employees. But the judge has said he didn’t see any reason to extend the deadline for the two companies, which have known about the new law since it was passed nearly a year ago. The California law, which makes it harder for companies to classify their workers as contractors, took effect in January.
Lyft said it plans to keep fighting for benefits that work for “all drivers” and encouraged people to support Proposition 22, a November ballot initiative both Uber and Lyft are backing that would give drivers more benefits but not require them to be reclassified as employees. The drivers participating in Thursday’s protest plan denounce the initiative, which they say doesn’t do enough for drivers.


fortune--2020-08-20--5 crazy details from the case against Steve Bannon—including ‘a boat named Warfighter’

The Justice Department announced on Thursday that Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former campaign guru and White House aide, had been arrested and charged for his role in a scam to defraud donors to an online campaign to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Bannon was one of four men accused of misappropriating funds raised for a $25 million “Build the Wall” campaign started by Brian Kolfage, a disabled Air Force veteran.
According to the Justice Department’s announcement, Bannon and Kolfage each pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the campaign, even though Build the Wall had repeatedly described itself as a “volunteer” operation, while Kolfage assured donors “he would not take a penny in salary or compensation.”
The men have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which comes with a maximum 20 year prison sentence.
The indictment is a fall from grace for Kolfage, who had held himself out as a selfless war hero, and for Bannon, a wealthy Washington, D.C., power broker and former Goldman Sachs investment banker who was a key advisor to the President in the early days of Trump’s Administration.
“This case should serve as a warning to other fraudsters that no one is above the law, not even a disabled war veteran or a millionaire political strategist,” said Inspector-in-Charge Philip R. Bartlett of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
The case also includes a number of colorful details about how Bannon and Kolfage spent their ill-gotten gains and how they got caught. Here are five of them.
The U.S. Postal Service was key to exposing the scam
In a press release announcing the news, a U.S. Attorney provides special thanks to the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).
The USPIS is the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service, and conducts investigations related to crimes involving the mail service, as well as to banking and financial fraud. In one recent high-profile case, the USPIS was integral to bringing down the online drug site known as the Silk Road.
The indictment does not provide details about how the USPIS uncovered the Build the Wall fraud, but it does state that a financial institution told Bannon and Kolfage that the campaign was the target of a federal criminal investigation. This suggests the USPIS may have learned of the fraud as a result of suspicious bank transfers.
GoFundMe was suspicious of ‘We Build the Wall’
The indictment does not say which platform the Build the Wall campaign used to raise money, referring only to a “Crowdfunding Website.” But other documents show the site in question was GoFundMe.
According to the indictment, GoFundMe had “concerns” about Kolfage and his plan to give the more than $20 million he had raised to the U.S. government. As a result, the site suspended the campaign and said it would refund the donations unless Kolfage identified a non-profit that would receive it.
GoFundMe’s concerns in turn led Kolfage to turn to Bannon for help, and the creation of a scheme to reallocate the money to a series of non-profits and shell companies.
The We Build the Wall funds went to a ‘boat called Warfighter’ and other luxury items
The Justice Department says some donors to the Build the Wall campaign told Kolfage they didn’t have much money and distrusted online fundraising. In response, he assured them that 100% of the money would be used for the wall.
In reality, Kolfage went on a shopping spree that included home renovations, a golf cart, a boat, a luxury SUV and plastic surgery. He also used the campaign mailing list to urge donors to buy coffee from a business he was running on the side, saying the coffee sales were the only way he could feed his family.
The Justice Department, as part of its response to the scam, says it seized a series of bank accounts as well as a Land Rover SUV and a “2019 Jupiter Marine boat named Warfighter.” Twitter users recently circulated a photo of what was believed to be the same boat, taken at a recent campaign event for the President.
It gets better: Kolfage used boat he bought with illegally-siphoned "We Build the Wall" funds to sail in the July 4 Trump boat parade in Destin, Florida https://t.co/eyK1WOvWWf (spotted by @ZacAlf) pic.twitter.com/uEUuQx0Yle — Evan Hill (@evanchill) August 20, 2020
Bannon paid for fake ‘social media’ services to hide the fraud
Once GoFundMe questioned the group’s plans to give the donations to the U.S. government, the campaign had to go back to the original donors and ask them to give money to a “We Build the Wall” corporate entity instead. Most of them did so.
In order to get their hands on the funds, Bannon arranged for We Build the Wall to pay invoices to an unnamed non-profit he controlled. That non-profit, as well as other shell entities, made sham payments to the defendants.
In order to conceal the sham payments, Bannon even created 1099 tax forms to pay Kolfage’s wife for “media work,” as well as to document unspecified payments for “social media.”
Bannon and his co-conspirators left a damning trail of text messages
The Build the Wall case is another example of alleged crooks’ text messages coming back to haunt them. According to the indictment, Bannon texted one of his cronies to “send a wire of cash” to the non-profit he controlled, and also texted “no deals I don’t approve.”
Meanwhile, his codefendants sent text messages saying “as far as the public knows, no one is getting paid” and—in relation to the tax obligations that Bannon’s non-profit would incur—”better than you or me lol.”
The Justice Department does not state how it obtained the text messages but, based on previous investigations, it’s likely the agency used a subpoena to obtain them from Apple or another phone maker. The indictment also notes that Bannon and his alleged co-conspirators began using encrypted messaging apps after learning a federal investigation was underway.


fortune--2020-08-20--Palantir and Amazon pick Denver

Palantir and Amazon pick Denver

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The work-at-home frenzy has led to the natural prediction that tech companies may decentralize their workforces away from the typical and pricey New York and Silicon Valley hubs to less trafficked areas.
The question was and still is, where will they go?
One apparent pick: Denver, Colorado.
Palantir, the big data company that is reportedly seeking to go public via a direct listing, recently changed its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Denver. And e-commerce giant Amazon is planning to add some 3,500 corporate jobs and 900,000 square feet of office space in Dallas, Detroit, New York, Phoenix, San Diego, and, yes, Denver.
Meanwhile, startups in California, New York, and Boston raised about 74% of venture capital dollars in 2019. But as more dollars chase fewer ideas, investors are starting to look outside the typical hubs. And Colorado-based startups did rank in the top 10 states—raising about $2.5 billion that year, representing about 1.9% of all U.S. VC dollars that year, per the NVCA’s 2019 yearbook.
If the prediction comes to pass, a new crop of startup founders could rise from these newer hubs.
That’s not to say the top hubs are dead. Amazon has, after all, named New York among the cities in its expansion plans. As for Palantir, it’s still unclear the exact scale of the move.
AIRBNB’S IPO: The short-term rental company filed confidentially for a listing on Wednesday. It’s been a trying saga: The company previously considered a listing. Then the pandemic hit. Revenues dropped off the cliff. Firms like Silver Lake swooped in with new terms. Now the travel-focused mega-unicorn must still contend with the uncertainty of the pandemic.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- BlockFi, a Jersey City-based financial services company developing products for cryptocurrencies, raised $50 million in Series C funding. Morgan Creek Digital led the round and was joined by investors including Valar Ventures, CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, SCB 10X, Avon Ventures, Purple Arch Ventures, Kenetic Capital, HashKey, and NBA player Matthew Dellavedova.
- Exo, a Redwood City, Calif.-based health information and devices company, raised $40 million in extended Series B funding. Investors included Action Potential Venture Capital and Intel Capital.
- Icon, an Austin-based 3D construction tech company, raised $35 million in a Series A funding. Moderne Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Citi, Vulcan Capital and CAZ Investments.
- Cobalt, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity platform, raised $29 million in Series B funding. Investors included Highland Europe.
- Chili Piper, a San Francisco-based platform for sales teams, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Base10 Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Gradient Ventures.
- CoPilot, a Chicago-based platform for high-value purchases, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Next Coast Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including SciFi Ventures, Arthur Patterson, and Chicago Ventures.
- Yalochat, a Mexico City-based conversational commerce platform in emerging markets, raised $15 million in Series B funding. B Capital Group led the round and was joined by investors including Sierra Ventures.
- Castor, a Hoboken, N.J.-based provider of clinical trial technology, raised $12 million in funding. Two Sigma Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures and INKEF Capital.
- Perishable Shipping Solutions, a Youngstown, Oh.-based e-commerce market for perishable cold and frozen food fulfillment logistics, raised $8.7 million in Series A funding. SJF Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Grotech Ventures and Supply Chain Ventures.
- Podimetrics, a Somerville, Mass.-based virtual care management company, raised $8.6 million in Series B-2 funding round from investors including Polaris Partners, Rock Health, Norwich Ventures, and Scientific Health Development, bringing its total Series B funding to $24.6 million.
- Offr, a London-based platform for real estate agents and buyers, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Barclays led the round and was joined by investors including Delta Partners on behalf of Bank of Ireland, AIB, Enterprise Ireland, The European Investment Fund and Frontline Ventures.
- Apheris, a Berlin-based deep tech company, raised €2.5 million ($3 million). LocalGlobe led the round and was joined by investors including Dig Ventures, the family office of MuleSoft Founder Ross Mason, and Patrick Pichette (former CFO of Google).
- Rimsys Inc., a Pittsburgh-based regulatory software maker designed specifically for medical technology companies, raised $1.5 million in funding. Allos Ventures led the round.
- Riff, a London-based voice-first chat company, raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Balderton Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Seedcamp.
- Welcome, a New York-based hiring management startup, raised $1.4 million. Ludlow Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Weekend Fund, Global Founders Capital, Shrug Capital, and Basement Fund. Read more.
- VRAI, a Dublin-based AI powered VR simulation training maker for high hazard environments, raised €1.2 million in seed funding.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Hg led a majority investment in Sovos, a tax software company. TA Associates also joined as a minority investor. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Newlight Partners invested in Propeller Industries, a New York-based provider of financial and accounting services for venture-stage companies. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Carrick Capital Partners made a “significant” investment in Factor, a New York-based solution for legal work. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Sweaty Betty, a London-based women’s activewear retailer, is preparing a sale that could value it at 400 million pounds ($524 million), per Bloomberg. Read more.
- DAZN Group, a U.K.based sports-streaming service backed by Len Blavatnik, revived talks to raise new funding, per Bloomberg. It is considering a stock-market listing, divestment, or combination with a SPAC. Read more.
IPOS
- Eleva Educação SA, a Brazilian education chain, is weighing an IPO to raise about 1.5 billion reais ($271.05 million), per Reuters. Read more.
- ThredUp, a San Francisco-based marketplace for second hand clothing, is weighing a public offering next year that could $200 million to $300 million, per Bloomberg. Read more.
EXIT
- Flexis Capital, along with Eurazeo Brands and Moore Strategic Ventures, acquired a controlling stake in Waterloo Sparkling Water, an Austin-based independent sparkling water brand, from Waterloo co-founder CAVU Venture Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- EQT Infrastructure agreed to acquire EdgeConneX, Inc., a data center operator, from an investor group led by Providence Equity Partners.
- KBR Inc. agreed to acquire Centauri, a national security and space contractor, for about $800 million, in cash and debt from Arlington Capital Partners. Read more.
F+FS
- Hangar, a New York-based venture firm for government-focused tech startups, raised $15 million. Investors include Kresge Foundation endowment and Michael Bloomberg.
- Stride Consumer Partners, a mid-market PE firm, is seeking $300 million for the fund, per the Wall Street Journal. Read more.
PEOPLE
- Freestyle Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, announced that co-founder Josh Felser plans to step away from full-time duties to focus on “companies that foster a more resilient business.” He will continue as a Board Partner.
- 8VC, a venture capital firm founded by entrepreneur and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, named Dr. Francisco Gimenez as partner.


fortune--2020-08-20--Why Manchestery City owner CFG’s play for France’s Troyes is shaking up professional soccer

City Football Group, the company that owns U.K. Premier League soccer team Manchester City as well as Major League Soccer’s New York City FC , is in talks to purchase French team ESTAC Troyes, according to a report in The Financial Times.
Troyes currently plays in France’s Ligue 2, or second division, but has been in contention for promotion to Ligue 1, the top tier, over the past several seasons. CFG is reportedly offering a price in the “low single-digit millions” for the squad, sources told the newspaper.
The deal is just the latest example of CFG’s effort to build a world-spanning stable of professional soccer franchises. In addition to Man City and NYC FC, the company now owns Lommel SK, which plays in Belgium’s second division, Sichuan Jiuniu in China’s second league, and Mumbai FC in India. It has a large minority stake in Spanish club Girona FC, and investments in Uruguay’s Montevideo City Torque and Japan’s Yokohama F. Marinos. It also owns Australian-rules football team Melbourne FC and several women’s teams, including Manchester City Women and Melbourne City Women.
Like any “roll-up” play, CFG has sold its acquisition strategy as being partly about economies of scale and distribution: while it insists it wants each club to be independently profitable, the company is pursuing marketing deals across its portfolio. It is also hoping to win new supporters for its anchor team, Manchester City, in emerging markets, like India and China—opening up new opportunities for sponsorships and merchandise sales.
An admirer of Disney and its business model, Ferran Soriano, CFG’s chief executive offier, has also talked about consolidating back-office functions and technology platforms across its teams. He has said owning a stable of clubs allows CFG to better spot and develop talent, both in terms of players as well as coaches and managerial staff, and he’s spoken of having all CFG’s team learn the same attacking, possession-based style of play that Manchester City has adopted under its current head coach Pep Guardiola.
The sheikh bankrolling the clubs
The soccer “roll-up” strategy has proved controversial—with some accusing CFG of engaging in it largely to elude league spending caps—but it has attracted support from some big-time investors. Last year, U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake, which paid $500 million for a 10% stake in CFG, and in 2015, Chinese investor China Media Capital spent $400 million for a 13% share.
The real money behind CFG though remains Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a billionaire member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family who also serves as deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City in 2008 for $276 million and founded CFG in 2013.
Sheikh Mansour’s wealth has allowed Manchester City to spend heavily on talent, with the team splashing out almost $2 billion to acquire new players during the European pro-soccer association’s transfer process over the past decade. The spending spree has helped enable Man City, once a struggling squad, to win the Premier League championship four times since Sheikh Mansour bought the team, most recently in 2019.
But critics grumble that Man City has repeatedly tried to evade spending caps designed to ensure fairer competition and that CFG’s investment in smaller teams around the world is largely an effort to obscure the funneling of additional cash back to Man City.
In 2014, Man City agreed to restrictions on transfers and to pay a $58 million fine to settle allegations it had violated spending cap rules. Then in February, The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the sports governing body in Europe, imposed a two-season ban on Man City participating in Champions League competition as well as a $35 million fine after German magazine Der Spiegel published leaked emails suggesting the club had artificially inflated the value of a sponsorship deal with Abu Dhabi-based Ethihad Airlines, using the airline as a conduit for money actually provided by Sheikh Mansour through another company he controls. But Man City appealed the ban, and last month, the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland ruled in the club’s favor, overturning it.
A much emulated business model
Whatever the real intent of CFG’s strategy, other investors in global soccer are starting to emulate its business structure, which is known as a MCO, or multi-club ownership model.
Italy’s wealthy Pozzo family now owns both Italian team Udinese Calcio and English Championship League team Watford FC, and once owned Spanish club Granada CF too, before selling it to Chinese businessman Jiang Lizhang.
Red Bull, the energy drink company, has bought a portfolio of soccer clubs in the U.S., Austria, Germany and Brazil. Spanish team Atletico Madrid has purchased Mexican soccer team Atletico San Luis, and owned a team in the Indian soccer league for a time as well. AS Monaco bought struggling Belgian team Cercle Brugge in 2017, while King Power International, which owns English Premier League team Leceister City, bought Belgian squad OH-Leuven in 2016. OH-Leuven then hired former Leceister City manager Nigel Pearson to run the club and Leceister City has used Leuven to sign talented young players that it may one day wish to acquire, potentially lowering the transfer fees the club will eventually have to pay.
“A larger club network has helped to minimize player acquisition costs while maximizing the profit from surging transfer fees as players were loaned between ‘sister clubs’ and later sold at a premium,” noted a 2017 report on the trend from consulting firm KPMG.
Transfer fees are the economic lifeblood of international soccer, with big-name signings, such as Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo, running well north of $100 million. Successfully navigating the transfers market often translates to wins on the playing pitch. But formalized “farm systems” — the kind of feeder clubs you’d find in, say, Major League Baseball— are limited, with some leagues formally prohibiting them. Critics of the MCO strategy complain this is effectively what the likes of CFG are trying to create on the sly through their network of clubs.
The KPMG same report noted that MCOs posed serious challenges for national and international governing bodies hoping to ensure fair competition between teams with varying financial resources. It’s been getting harder and harder for even very successful clubs, such as FC Barca, which is one of the world’s few clubs owned through a broadbased membership model, to compete as standalone businesses.
For now, though, soccer’s consolidators look poised to keep on scoring.


fortune--2020-08-20--Millions of jobless Americans cut spending following the expiration of their $600 enhanced unemploym

Millions of jobless Americans cut spending following the expiration of their $600 enhanced unemployment benefit

Karen Engels, a mother of a sixth-grader and a third-grader, has been out of work since March, when she lost her job at a country club in Florida. The 44-year-old was among the 28.3 million unemployed Americans who relied on the $600 enhanced unemployment benefit to keep her family on-top of their bills before it expired the week ending July 25.
“We’ve stopped doing just about everything,” Engels, who is still receiving a $175 weekly state unemployment benefit, told Fortune. “We don’t go anywhere. The grocery bill was cut in half. Our kids need clothes, but we can’t buy clothes.” And her husband, who saw his pay cut, is looking to trade in his car for a cheaper used vehicle.
To find out how jobless Americans are faring without the $600-per-week federal pandemic unemployment assistance, Fortune and SurveyMonkey teamed up to poll 2,478 U.S. adults between August 17-18.*
Among Americans who were receiving the pandemic unemployment assistance when it expired in July, 31% say they have cut their household spending since the benefit receded in July—a response that indicates a decline in spending in millions of households. Meanwhile, 21% of unemployed Americans have since intensified their job search, and 20% sought out other sources of income. These figures are likely to rise as unemployed workers go more weeks without the enhanced benefit.
In all, nearly $70 billion was being pumped into households each month by the $600 weekly pandemic unemployment assistance, according to an analysis by Fortune. Considering that consumer spending amounts to two-thirds of U.S. GDP, this cutback in spending could slow down or even derail the economic recovery.
“Without extra unemployment insurance we could go back into recession,” Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi told Fortune. Zandi believes the current levels of mass joblessness—an unemployment rate of 10.2% in July—warrant the government continuing to boost unemployment benefits.
The additional unemployment assistance would also help Americans who can’t return to work because of the pandemic, Zandi says. Homebound parents who rely for childcare on schools, which in many cases aren’t reopening in-person, are particularly affected (a dilemma that has had a particularly harsh impact on working mothers). That’s the case for Engels, who is keeping her job search sidelined because her kids’ school in Florida’s Palm Beach County isn’t returning to in-person classes.
“I can’t go to work if they’re home,” Engels said.
President Trump signed a memorandum earlier this month that grants $300 enhanced weekly unemployment benefits to people out of work if their state opts into the program. That $300 weekly enhanced unemployment benefit replaces the $600 enhanced benefit. As of Wednesday, nine states have been approved to send out $300 per week in federal funds on top of regular unemployment benefits.
The $44 billion allocated by Trump for the enhanced unemployment benefit is estimated to last through the week ending Aug. 29, according to a report by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And there still remains the possibility the memorandum will face a legal challenge.
*Methodology: The Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll was conducted among a national sample of 2,478 adults in the U.S. between August 17–18. This survey’s modeled error estimate is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The findings have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography.


fortune--2020-08-20--When cell phones were a “hot new industry”

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.
Good morning. Newsletter editor Karen Yuan here, filling in for Adam.
Tech predictions—they’re fun to make, but can either be eerily prescient or wildly off-base.
Take Phaedrus’ classic argument against the invention of writing: Plato says that putting words to paper (or papyrus) is dangerous because “if men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written.”
The 1984 Fortune classic “Mobile phones: Hot new industry,” makes for another amusing retrospective.
In 1984, only the wealthiest could afford a mobile phone. They cost $2,500, but analysts saw the promise of the budding wireless networks, or, as the writer Colin Leinster puts it, a “cellular explosion.”
The experts he interviews imagine a brave new world: “When you fly from New York to Washington, you’ll be able to take your phone with you,” one marvels. They envision a national network—“a universe unto itself” where cell phones would share a single area code.
But, Leinster says, lots could go wrong. “Prices won’t drop fast enough to make a phone in the car as irresistible as it sounds,” he writes. “Another grim possibility is that cellular might prove so popular that emerging systems would be temporarily swamped, driving potential users away.”
That’s not the case with today’s smartphones, of course.
Leinster actually speculates about super-phones of some kind that have functions beyond mere calls. “Mobile phones will be able to link up with computers to receive information on stock movements, inventory availability, sales orders, and other data.” Burglar alarms could even be hooked up to phones, he continues.
It sounds like he’s getting at something, but then the prediction becomes quintessentially 80s: “These services could be provided as hard copy, using printers or facsimile machines.”
As phones get more and more advanced, “competition will be especially tough because there is little to differentiate products,” Leinster also says. “Salesmanship makes the difference.”
Yes and no—what no one could have predicted at the time was the obsession with smartphone design that Apple would kick off.
Leinster does write that some customers may pay almost any price to get fancier and fancier phones. He describes a quaint version of today’s enthusiasm over new drops: When one cell system got approval in New York, hundreds of early-bird fans began to line up. “Everybody’s got to be first. Me. Me. Me,” one seller told Leinster, exasperated.
It seems like one thing stays consistent, especially in tech: hype. That “hot new industry” may stay hot for a while.
Karen Yuan
@karenyuan_
karen.yuan@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free. The strong tech IPO market is attracting bigger and bigger companies. Now one of the white whales of the unicorn scene, boy, that's a terrible metaphor...one of the longest-horned unicorns? In any event, Airbnb says it filed confidentially to go public the old-fashioned way, using Wall Street brokers to sell a bunch of shares at a set price. Another prominent unicorn, Alex Karp's Palantir, did not file for an IPO, as many anticipate it will soon, but is leaving Silicon Valley and moving its headquarters to Denver, which is kind of like Elrond leaving Rivendell and moving to the Shire.
A lot of zeroes. Speaking of the stock market, Apple became the first U.S. company in history to reach a stock market value of $2 trillion on Wednesday morning (and I won my bet from last year that a tech company would overtake the world's first $2 trillion company, Saudi Aramco). The stock slipped a bit later, however, and closed at something like only $1.979 trillion, alas. That didn't stop the hot takes predicting that the "next trillion won’t come so easily." How about the next $0.021 trillion?
Alexa, join my Zoom meeting. In a power move to solidify its lead in video conferencing, Zoom announced it was adding apps for smart displays like the Amazon Echo Show, Facebook's Portal, and the Google Nest Hub Max.
Cloudy with a chance of GPUs. Investors in Nvidia's stock have already doubled their money in 2020, so perhaps they shouldn't get greedy. The graphic chip leader announced its second quarter revenue jumped 50% to $3.9 billion (in part thanks to its Mellanox acquisition), better than analysts expected. Nvidia shares, previously up 106.35% in 2020, lost 1% in pre-market trading on Thursday. Shares of rival Intel, scuffling to a 19% loss so far this year, gained 4% pre-market on news of a new $10 billion stock buyback program. You know that old lawyer's saying about if you don't have the facts or the law on your side you pound the table? Stock buybacks are the table-pounding of business.
How’s that for a slice of fried gold? While we're on the topic of zombies, oh wait, we weren't on the topic of zombies? Even after AMC released some scary photos of the upcoming sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead yesterday? Well, we should be because a company named OnwardMobility has obtained rights to the BLACKBERRY phone brand and they're going to make a new phone with a keyboard. Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern is kvelling. Also, people are trying to sell used Apple iPhones with now-banned app Fortnite already installed for like $10,000! I'd rather be stuck with a Blackberry.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Way before Slack and Reddit and pretty much anything online, people used to swap information about technology and computers by meeting up in real life. Tech writer Esther Schindler has a great deep dive at Ars Technica into the history of computer user groups.
Back when the microcomputer industry was smaller, it was easy to get access to the movers-and-shakers—often before they moved or shook anything. User groups gave everyone the opportunity to learn about technology, often from the people who invented it.
Harry McCracken attended Boston Computer Society meetings beginning in 1979, and he recalls its Q&A sessions with fondness. “The questions were so tough,” the longtime tech journalist reminisces. “There was no hero worship, just smart computer users asking sensible questions.”
“Microsoft, WordPerfect, and Adobe were the headliners,” recalls a 1980s member of the Oklahoma City PC User Group. “They gave presentations that drew hundreds and provided wonderful giveaways of full versions of their software. You could always expect that the introduction of new versions of their products would be a big event, much like the way Samsung and Apple launch new hardware today.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
‘Work to your strength’: Huawei’s CTO weighs in on U.S. efforts to build a Huawei alternative By Veta Chan
Casper’s CEO is filing for a blank check company. What does he plan to buy? By Lucinda Shen
This chipmaker was a winner in the U.S. crackdown on Huawei. Now, it’s another victim By Grady McGregor
Will Facebook’s QAnon crackdown succeed? What people are saying so far By Jeff John Roberts
Samsung Note20 Ultra review: Why this big phone works for the COVID era By Aaron Pressman
It would cost $1 trillion to move global supply chains out of China—but the long-term gains could be worth it By Rey Mashayekhi
Generation Z is ‘traumatized’ by climate change—and they’re the key to fighting it By Sarah Jaquette Ray
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access.Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Many bad things are going on in the world today, but the residents of Olten, Switzerland, awoke to a sweet surprise in the sky on Wednesday. Due to a ventilation system malfunction at the local Lindt factory, the air was filled with cocoa powder raining down like snow. What did they say about Willy Wonka?
Who can take a sunrise
Sprinkle it with dew
Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two
The Candy Man
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-08-20--Why Kamala Harris’s Big Night was bittersweet

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The EU responds to elections in Belarus, women’s sports struggle with how to address transgender athletes, and Kamala Harris makes history. Have a productive Thursday.
– Kamala’s Big Night. It was a historic night in Delaware. On night three of the all-virtual Democratic National Convention, Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) officially accepted the party’s nomination for vice president, becoming the first woman of color to ever get the nod on a major party ticket.
In her speech, Harris did what Joe Biden selected her to do: act as his chief surrogate and fiercely prosecute the case against the president. “Donald Trump’s failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods,” she said.
She also decried “structural racism,” a cause that has drawn millions to the streets to call for the kind of change that Harris herself—arguably—represents.
“[T]here is no vaccine for racism,” she said. “We’ve gotta do the work.”
Harris also addressed her barrier-breaking status head on: “That I am here tonight is a testament to the dedication of generations before me. Women and men who believed so fiercely in the promise of equality, liberty, and justice for all.”
But the evening also had a bittersweet feel to it, as Hillary Clinton, speaking earlier in the night, used her 2016 loss to Trump as a means to get out the vote. “This can’t be another woulda-coulda-shoulda election,” she said.
Clinton’s comments were a stinging reminder that being a first doesn’t mean you don’t fail; that female politicians are still judged by a different set of rules; that Americans still see women in power as a novelty.
Even with all the digital fanfare surrounding her nomination, Harris is no doubt profoundly aware of those realities. In fact, she and Clinton both mentioned the suffragette movement in their speeches. In paying tribute to the activists who a century ago Tuesday won (white) women the right to vote, they recognized a movement whose legacy is not a one-and-done battle but a fight that started seven decades before Aug. 18, 1920 and endured long after.
“These women and the generations that followed worked to make democracy and opportunity real in the lives of all of us who followed,” Harris said. “And these women inspired us to pick up the torch, and fight on.”
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Primary report. On Tuesday night, Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming went to the polls. Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, was behind her opponent for Miami-Dade county commissioner by just 1% of the vote. GOP primary winner Kat Cammack is now expected to succeed Rep. Ted Yoho (yup, that Yoho) in his Florida district. In Wyoming, all major-party nominees for Congress were women, which means the state will send its first woman to the Senate; Republican Cynthia Lummis, previously a congresswoman in the House, is favored to win in November.
- NYT CEO. How did Meredith Kopit Levien become the New York Times' youngest CEO in its history? In this profile, colleagues describe Kopit Levien's remarkable work ethic (one former boss tried to keep up with her laptop use on an Amtrak until 1 a.m.) and how she's pivoted along with the news industry. Digiday
- EU on Belarus. The EU rejected the recent election in Belarus that led opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya to flee the country. She had called on the EU to reject the "fraudulent elections;" the coalition, however, did not call for a new election. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Plaid hired Capitol One SVP, chief counsel, regulatory advisory, Meredith Fuchs as general counsel. Total Brain hired Maven chief revenue officer Melissa Frieswick in the same role. Checkr hired SmartRecruiters VP of marketing Prachi Gore in the same position. Sparks & Honey added to its advisory board former U.S. ambassador Kathleen Doherty, African Star Communications founder Farah C Fortune, FutureMatters cofounder Lynn Lin and WIN/WIN founder Nim De Swardt.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Power couples. Jill and Joe Biden have campaigned for together multiple times over their decades of marriage. Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, in comparison, have been married for six years, two years longer than Harris has served in national office. The potential Second Gentleman's unofficial campaign slogan for his wife is: "I’ve got you." Washington Post
- Athletic decisions. Sports leagues around the world are developing rules—with little standard between them—around the participation of transgender women in women's sports. Meanwhile, in the U.S., some states have attempted to bar transgender women from competing in these leagues. New York Times
- WFH—but where? Is the home office sexist? Elizabeth Patton, author of Easy Living: The Rise of the Home Office, connects its history to the study or den, traditionally a male domain in the home. Women are more likely to work from a table in the kitchen or other non-dedicated work space. Fast Company
ON MY RADAR
Olivia Wilde tapped to direct untitled female-centered Marvel movie Deadline
Britney Spears seeking substantial changes to conservatorship New York Times
The mythology of Karen The Atlantic
Vivian Stephens helped turn romance writing into a billion-dollar industry. Then she got pushed out Texas Monthly
PARTING WORDS
"Why am I carrying laundry?"
-Tracee Ellis Ross on speaking up about her Black-ish character doing gendered chores onscreen


fortune--2020-08-20--The oil sands triggered a heated global debate on our energy needs. Now, they could be a sign of wha

The oil sands triggered a heated global debate on our energy needs. Now, they could be a sign of what’s to come

Hi there, this is Katherine in London filling in for Eamon, who is off on a well-deserved holiday.
I’m just back from holiday myself, part of a long trip (involving a full month in quarantine) to my home province of Alberta, Canada.
I grew up in an oil and gas region, in an oil and gas town, in an oil and gas family. I was born in a bust (or at least not a robust boom), and first left Calgary for university in the midst of a spectacular boom. When I was 17, “petroleum engineering” was the degree du jour. But the pay was pretty good in the services industries, too—it was hard to keep coffee shops staffed. By the time I was 18, working a summer internship at an energy company, oil was hitting its record high—in July 2008, even as the financial crisis had begun, Brent went for nearly $150 a barrel.
Things are different now. For today’s oil price, lob about $100 a barrel off (and then some.) COVID-19, and this spring’s oil crash, when oil briefly went into negative territory—a feat of technical trading, but also a symbolic moment—has hit the sector hard. The last oil crash, in 2014, left a lasting impact, too.
I watched these historical moments from London, as a reporter, and while working in the energy sector itself. Now, most of my time is devoted to looking at the intersection between the oil and gas sector, and climate change. I wanted to at least understand my own home town.
So on the advice of a source, I traced the sweaty, mostly empty streets of downtown Calgary, in face mask and ball cap, looking for a copy of local author and journalist Chris Turner’s 2017 book The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands.
The book is about the history and politics of my home province’s oil sector, from the technical feats of oil sands extraction (it does, however you feel about it, involve extreme feats of engineering), to the celebrity-studded international environmental campaigns, to the story of The Beast—the mammoth wildfire that destroyed swathes of Fort McMurray, the oil sands’ company town, in 2016.
And it’s a deeply humane book, too: a gentle rejection of easy answers, easy categorizations, easy dismissals. A call to understand how and why the industry developed, and the impact it’s had, and the trade offs it’s required, both for better and for worse.
“When the Patch’s boosters say they are simply supplying a product every one uses every single day, they are not wrong,” Turner writes. “When the prime minister says, “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there,” he’s not wrong. When antipipeline protestors say some of that oil has to stay in the ground, they’re not wrong. When Indigenous people say they’ve never been properly consulted about what those pipelines and bitumen mines are doing to their land, they’re not wrong.”
“There’s more to the debate, though, more to the way forward, than being right,” he says.
The book is a few years old now, but many of its messages—of blame, complicity, compassion, and endless nuance—are timelier than ever, as the needle for action on climate change has shifted rapidly this year.
Just this week, BHP said it would sell off its thermal coal assets; and Citi said its clients must reduce their emissions. Major oil and gas companies, particularly in Europe, have pledged to cut their emissions dramatically—leaving the future of their assets, some of them still un-drilled, in question. And yet, the world still depends overwhelmingly on oil and gas.
While the entire world is feeling the effects, oil and gas cities and regions are on the frontline of those changes—the results produce huge shifts in employment, public funding, even migration. In the past, a bust brought calls for economic diversification. Now, some in those regions are calling urgently for reinvention, on a massive scale. Others are insisting the oil sands will remain the economic heart of the region for decades to come.
Calgary and Alberta are just one oil and gas city, just one oil and gas region, among many. But the deep internal division over their future holds lessons for all of us, as we try to shape what comes next.
More below.
Katherine Dunn
katherine.dunn@fortune.com
CARBON COPY
Arctic Season
Earlier this week, the Trump administration finalized its plan to open up Alaska's vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the last remaining wilderness in the country, to oil and gas development. The refuge has been the source of years of legal battles between environmentalists who say development will threaten the refuge's population of caribou, polar bears and wildlife, and those who say the region is a lucrative source of energy. New York Times
Decision Time
Bill McKibben, the environmental writer and activist who now has a regular feature with the New Yorker, writes that this is the year that "karma stops playing nice." Searing summer temperatures across the world have helped dislodge ice shelves; a huge monsoon engulfed Mumbai, and the world's largest oil and gas companies are rapidly changing their tune. New Yorker
Coal sale
The global mining giant BHP said it would sell off its thermal coal mines within two years, under pressure from investors. The departure from coal isn't total—the company would retain a stake in a coking coal venture used for steelmaking—but it's certainly a sign the winds are changing not just in Europe's largest oil and gas companies, but mining companies, too. The Guardian
Europe's drought
Europe is facing the consequences of its third consecutive summer of drought, threatening the bloc's mammoth agricultural sector and water levels on the Rhine, a vital transport route for barges delivering everything from food to oil throughout western Europe. “Everything depends on the rainfall,” said one official. “If we get rain then it will be all right, but if the drought continues then we will run into trouble.” Financial Times
The end of exploration?
The oil industry is already grappling with a major transition and pressure from shareholders, but they're also facing the prospect that even major drilling assets that have already been discovered will have to remain unexploited—aka, "stranded assets." That begs the question of whether it's worth looking for oil at all. Bloomberg
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Is oil giant BP finally ready to 'think outside the barrel'? by Vivienne Walt
An electric revolution is coming for American trucking by David Z. Morris
Generation Z is 'traumatized' by climate change—and they're key to fighting it by Sarah Jaquette Ray
The hottest temperature in history may have been recorded Sunday in Death Valley. Why the data is confusing by David Z. Morris
Another casualty of the pandemic: we're 'drowning' in single-use plastics again by Katherine Dunn
The key to making your company greener? A strong finance team by Gerald Walker
CLOSING NUMBER
6,754
That's how many wildfires California has already had this year—compared with 4,007 last year, already a famously bad year for fires in the region. Those fires present logistical challenges this year when lock-downs are in order and the risk of people congregating means new outbreaks. And, yes, record-breaking fires year after year are a reflection of a changing climate.


fortune--2020-08-20--A Prime Minister said a COVID-19 vaccine might be mandatory. Hours later, he backtracked

The Australian government will not make a coronavirus vaccine compulsory for its citizens, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, backtracking on an earlier remark that he expected a COVID-19 vaccine “to be as mandatory as you could possibly make it.”
“There are no mechanisms for compulsory [vaccination]. I mean we can’t hold someone down and make them take it…that doesn’t happen anywhere in Australia today under any of those systems, and that’s not what people are proposing,” Morrison said on Australian radio station 2GB on Wednesday evening.
Morrison had suggested earlier on Wednesday on 3AW, another Australian radio station, that a coronavirus vaccine might be mandatory, saying that medical grounds “should be the only basis” for vaccination exemptions.
Karen Andrews, Australia’s minister for science and industry, echoed Morrison’s remarks on Wednesday, saying on 2GB, “The Prime Minister’s made it clear that we are looking at it being a mandatory vaccine.”
But hours later, after online backlash from anti-vaccination groups in Australia and elsewhere, Morrison backtracked on his earlier remarks, telling 2GB the vaccine would not be compulsory. Morrison also said there was “a bit of an overreaction” to his remark about a mandatory vaccine.
The swift public reaction to Morrison’s comments underscores the politically fraught nature of population-wide vaccination campaigns, and the delicacy with which governments will need to handle the issue if and when a COVID-19 vaccine is ready.
Vaccines are some of the safest medicines in existence; distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, once one proves safe and effective, will be key to saving lives and ending the pandemic.
Australia on Tuesday reached an agreement with British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to produce and distribute 25 million doses of the AstraZeneca- and Oxford University–developed coronavirus vaccine candidate, AZD1222, for the Australian population.
AZD1222, widely considered the global frontrunner for a coronavirus vaccine, is currently undergoing human clinical trials. Morrison said he hopes to make the vaccine doses free and available to all Australians in early 2021 if the trials are successful.
Hundreds of anti-vaccination protesters rallied across cities in Australia in May, calling the pandemic a “scam,” breaching social distancing regulations, singing anti-vaccination songs, and holding up placards that opposed “mandatory” vaccines.
Morrison has long been associated with vaccination efforts. When he served as Australia’s minister for social services in 2014 and 2015, Australia passed national and state legislation called “No jab, no play” that required children to receive certain immunizations in order for their families to be eligible for childcare fee assistance and other benefits.
The immunization requirement originally exempted people with medical reasons, people who submitted a conscientious objection to immunization, and members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. In April 2015, Morrison announced that the Christian Scientist and conscientious objector exemptions would be removed.
Morrison pointed out that he had established “No jab, no play” while speaking to 3AW earlier on Wednesday, raising speculation that the government might introduce similar measures to encourage uptake of the coronavirus vaccine.
“There will be no compulsory vaccine, but there will be a lot of encouragement and measures to get as high a rate of acceptance as usual,” Morrison told 2GB.
The Prime Minister did not specify what the measures might entail. He said he hoped Australia would achieve at least a 95% vaccination rate for the coronavirus, and he cited the country’s high immunization rates for other diseases as evidence that it would be able to achieve a similar rate for coronavirus vaccination.
In the U.S., by comparison, 35% of Americans say they won’t take a coronavirus vaccine, according to an NPR–PBS NewsHour–Marist poll released last week. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Tuesday he does not see the U.S. government making a coronavirus vaccine compulsory.


fortune--2020-08-21--The U.S. economy is shedding over 1 million jobs per week. They won’t come back for years, the IRS s

The U.S. economy is shedding over 1 million jobs per week. They won’t come back for years, the IRS says

This chipmaker was a winner in the U.S. crackdown on Huawei .
Now , it ’ s another victim

The Internal Revenue Service projects that lower levels of employment in the U.S. could persist for years, showcasing the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
The IRS forecasts there will be about 229.4 million employee-classified jobs in 2021—about 37.2 million fewer than it had estimated last year, before the virus hit, according to updated data released Thursday. The statistics are an estimate how many of the W-2 tax forms that are used to track employee wages and withholding the agency will receive.
Lower rates of W-2 filings are seen persisting through at least 2027, with about 15.9 million fewer forms filed that year compared with prior estimates. That’s the last year for which the agency has published figures comparing assumptions prior to the pandemic and incorporating the virus’s effects.
Read: Millions of jobless Americans cut spending following the expiration of their $600 enhanced unemployment benefit
Read: Another huge unemployment wave is coming—and there’s an obvious way to stop it
W-2s are an imperfect measure for employment, because they don’t track the actual number of people employed. A single worker with several jobs would be required to fill out a form for each position. Still, the data suggest that it could take years for the U.S. economy to make up for the contraction suffered because of Covid-19.
The revised projections also show fewer filings of 1099-INT forms through 2027. That’s the paperwork used to report interest income — and serves as a sign that low interest rates could persist.
There’s one category that is expected to rise: The IRS sees about 1.6 million more tax forms for gig workers next year compared with pre-pandemic estimates.
That boost “likely reflects assumptions with the shift to ‘work from home,’ which may be gig workers, or may just be that businesses are more willing to outsource work — or have the status of their workers be independent contractors — now that they work from home,” Mike Englund, the chief economist for Action Economics said.


fortune--2020-08-21--Corporate values under a Biden presidency

The U.S. economy is shedding over 1 million jobs per week .
They won ’ t come back for years @ @ @ @

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning. David Meyer here in Berlin, filling in for Alan one more time before he returns from vacation.
The presidency of Donald Trump has fueled many national debates in the U.S., particularly around subjects such as immigration and racial injustice, that have in turn led the country’s corporate leaders to speak out and assert their companies’ values. It is surely no coincidence that, in this febrile atmosphere, the Business Roundtable last year felt compelled to herald a shift to “stakeholder capitalism”—the first anniversary of which sparked some expert analysis from Fortune‘s Geoff Colvin earlier this week.
So what will happen to that trend if, as the polls suggest is likely to happen, Joe Biden wins the presidency come November?
As Colvin pointed out, this outcome would make it “highly likely that large-scale legislation—raising taxes, giving employees more power, and increasing business regulation—will be enacted under the banner of stakeholder capitalism.”
“Whether the CEOs of the Business Roundtable will like it is by no means certain,” he added pointedly.
Evergreen Strategy Group cofounders Nick Merrill and Dan Schwerin (both former Hillary Clinton staffers) also tackled the issue in a Fast Company piece yesterday, warning CEOs that “the bar for corporate conscience could soon get a whole lot higher.”
“If Biden wins, expectations for what it takes to be a values-driven company will increase and business leaders will have to step it up,” they wrote. “A glossy ad campaign or generous philanthropic commitment won’t be enough. Getting your own house in order—which many companies still fail to do—will be necessary, but not sufficient. Without the foil of President Trump and his antics, CEOs will have to back specific policy proposals, build coalitions, and put real political muscle behind their principles.”
The piece looks back to Levi Strauss’s gun-violence-related activism, as well as BlackRock’s sustainability drive, for lessons. I found it a thought-provoking read.
Separately, here’s a spot of Friday feedback, regarding my essay yesterday about the hype around 5G and its geopolitical importance.
“I think you may be misinformed as to the importance and impact of 5G. 5G is the network that will enable a global company’s digital infrastructure to run. It’s the foundation for A.I., and IOT.”
—K.C.
“5G is only part of the puzzle and…there is a need for other legacy infrastructure to also be updated if the benefits of 5G are to be realized.”
—I.M.
I’m juxtaposing these two pieces of feedback because I think the second largely answers the first. Yes, 5G promises a lot, but it’s not a magic bullet. The well-rehearsed 5G-is-needed-for-driverless-cars pitch is a case in point: the communications standard being used is one thing, but getting automated vehicles to coexist with cars steered by human drivers is quite another, particularly when the pandemic’s economic fallout will likely hit funding for the necessary roadside infrastructure.
Anyhow, enjoy your weekend. News below.
David Meyer
@superglaze
david.meyer@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Ant Group
The Chinese fintech outfit Ant Group is hoping for the biggest IPO ever, with a targeted valuation of $225 billion. Ant is an Alibaba affiliate, and Alibaba—also founded by Jack Ma—also took the biggest-IPO title back in 2014, when it raised $25 billion. Saudi Aramco broke the record last December, by raising $25.6 billion. Ant is targeting $30 billion. Fortune
Bannon charges
Former Trump campaign guru Steve Bannon has, with three others, been arrested and charged for allegedly defrauding donors to a crowdfunding campaign for the border wall. Here are some colorful details from the indictment, including the U.S. Postal Service's involvement in the case, the alleged use of fake "social media" services to hide the fraud, and a boat called Warfighter. Fortune
Amazon and Biden
Amazon has removed t-shirts from it platform over the vulgar anti-Joe Biden and Kamala Harris phrase that was printed on them. An Arkansas attorney had written to Amazon decrying the apparel's "racist, sexist and offensive" nature, though it is not clear whether Amazon was responding to her, or to Twitter users who made similar complaints. CNN
British retail
British retail sales last month rose above pre-pandemic levels, according to the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics. Capital Economics economist Ruth Gregory: "Shoppers are starting to return to the High Street." The ONS also said the clothing sector was worst-hit during lockdown. BBC
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Crypto flight
A new report from blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis shows more than $50 billion in cryptocurrency has been moved out of China in the last year. This suggests Chinese investors have been transferring more money out of the country than they are allowed; wealthy citizens previously used loopholes involving real estate and other assets, but the authorities have been cracking down on those. CNBC
Brexit drama
The latest round of talks around the U.K. and EU's post-Brexit trade arrangements didn't provide any breakthrough, according to the EU side. Reminder: any deal has to be ready in time for a mid-October approval by the EU's national leaders, if it is to gain ratification in time for the transitional period's end-of-year expiry. Reuters
USPS drama
In a piece that begins by quoting The Marvelettes' classic "Please Mr. Postman"—just try shaking that earworm now—Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld writes for Fortune that President Trump's predictions of widespread, pro-Democrat mail-in-voting fraud "are not matched by evidence," and that the U.S. Postal Service's mission is supposed to be driven by public service, not profitability. Fortune
Vaccine U-turn
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a remark about making a potential coronavirus vaccine compulsory for citizens, and his science minister reinforced the idea—but then, following backlash from anti-vaxxers, the government backtracked. The vaccine, if and when it appears, will not be made mandatory in Australia after all. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-08-21--Investors ride the Big Tech rally even as COVID cases and unemployment spike

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Happy Friday, Bull Sheeters. Lousy U.S. labor data can’t stop Big Tech. The Nasdaq yesterday hit yet another record and FAAMG stocks helped the S&P eke out a gain. Momentum from the tech rally, and some promising vaccine news are pushing global equities and futures higher this morning.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major indexes are in the green, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng leading the way, up 1.3% in afternoon trade.
in afternoon trade. Jack Ma’s fintech powerhouse Ant Capital plans to file a dual-listed IPO in Hong Kong and Shanghai in the coming weeks. There’s increasing speculation it could break a record for must funds ever raised as the firm seeks a $225 billion valuation .
plans to file a in Hong Kong and Shanghai in the coming weeks. There’s increasing speculation it could break a record for must funds ever raised as the firm seeks a . Australia’s PM has backtracked on his earlier words to make a future COVID vaccine jab mandatory. Australia is yet another country dealing with a recent surge in cases.
Europe
The European bourses were climbing at the open with Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.4% .
were climbing at the open with up . On the vaccine news front: Pfizer and BioNTech SE say the U.S. and German trials of their jointly produced COVID vaccine is on track for regulatory review as early as October , a development that’s lifting stocks and futures this morning.
as early as , a development that’s lifting stocks and futures this morning. Europe could use a shot in the arm right now…. “We want to avoid closing borders again at any cost,” Germany’s Angela Merkel said yesterday as Europe’s coronavirus cases continue to spike, and officials across the Euro zone mull new measures to control the rate of infections.
U.S.
U.S. futures are a tick higher as all three indexes closed higher on Thursday.
are a tick higher as all three indexes closed higher on Thursday. That’s despite a worse-than-expected reading on U.S. jobless claims yesterday morning before the bell.
Shares in Lyft and Uber took off after a California appeals court agreed they can operate as usual while challenging a judge’s order to comply with a state labor law on benefits for drivers.
Elsewhere
Gold is down slightly, below $1,950/ounce .
is down slightly, below . The dollar is flat.
is flat. Crude is in the red again, with Brent trading below $45/barrel.
By the Numbers
>1 million. Just last week we were cheering a weekly jobless claims number that came in below 1 million for the first time since March. Yesterday’s figure though climbed back above seven figures, far worse than economists’ estimates. The forecast was for 923,000. The markets—well, tech bulls, anyhow—shrugged off the disappointing number, sending all three indexes higher. But yesterday’s 1.1 million handle is bad news no matter how you look at it, signaling the labor market recovery will be gradual and choppy. And the IRS now projects that millions of these jobs will be lost for years.
23.4%. I continue to struggle to put into words the Tesla rally. So, let’s just stick with the numbers. Shares of the carmaker soared again in the past five trading days by more than 23%, or 380 points. Yesterday, it closed above $2,000 as investors bet the company will be added to the S&P 500; the five-for-one stock split is also driving up volumes. Tesla is up 378% YTD. If you’d bought 10 grand worth of TSLA on Jan. 2, your stake would be worth $47,853 today. This is today’s stock chart:
This is the chart I posted here precisely seven days ago:
***
Postscript
The news is quiet here in Amandola, which is probably what you want during a pandemic.
Yesterday morning, as I was wrapping up the newsletter, I got a bit distracted by some commotion on the street. A group of architects were surveying the nearby 15th-century convent, a sturdy structure my good friend Michael lovingly restored about 20 years ago.
Years ago, I helped Michael pour the concrete floors. And I grabbed a paintbrush every now and then; any excuse to restore a piece of history. Michael eventually turned the place into a spacious home, with a downstairs apartment for B&B renters and an artist studio for his real passion: painting and teaching courses to unlock our creative side. We used to sit around his stone fireplace, chatting about everything under the sun, wine flowing and Leonard Cohen playing somewhere in the background.
Michael called the place Sambuco—in Italian, elder flower, which runs wild on the hillsides here. In our little hilltop hamlet, Sambuco is the most historically significant structure. It predates the rest of the houses here—the road, the electric lines, the now ubiquitous wifi, too. Long before Michael came along, it was a kind of refuge or way station for pilgrims making the journey on foot to Rome. From here, the road to Rome involves crossing an arduous, but spectacular, mountain pass. Somebody named the crossing the gola del infernaccio (throat of hell), and the name stuck.
Under a shady oak on the hills behind Sambuco. The old pilgrim route headed straight up and over the mountains in the foreground. Original photo: Bernhard Warner.
Fast-forward to 2016. Michael had sold the place and moved to the coast a few years earlier. The timing was fortuitous. In August 2016, and then again in October of that year, two major earthquakes socked the region, leaving Sambuco and thousands of other historic dwellings uninhabitable.
The most recent owners, hailing from seismically stable England, gave up on the place. They’re literally selling it for a song, the architects told me yesterday.
Over the centuries, Sambuco has seen and survived all kinds of earth-shaking events: the odd pandemic, plague and seismic tremor. We imagine somebody will come and restore it again. Or at least, we hope.
Sambuco in the early morning light today. The place has been deemed uninhabitable since the August 2016 earthquake. Original photo: Bernhard Warner.
Things have been kinda stuck in neutral in these parts since the 2016 quakes. The coronavirus outbreak was just the latest setback, putting the larger re-build on hold. So we all greeted the architects’ arrival this week as a sign that things are finally starting to nudge back in the direction of normal.
In other words, it’s news.
Stop biting
I have a question to my dog-loving readers: How do you get a puppy to stop biting? Scilla, our Lagotto pup, is in that classic teething stage where she locks her teeth on anything she can. Usually my sandals. When I’m wearing them.
She’s pretty good with the girls. She won’t bite them. But she loves to nip at my ankles, even at 6 a.m. when only one of us is fully awake.
Can you recommend any good strategies to get the message across that she should stop biting the hand that feeds her?
And is it normal for a dog to so enthusiastically jump into the shower with you? Is that a water dog thing?
Have a nice weekend, everyone. I’ll see you here on Monday.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
***
Today's read
The engine of the economy. Consumer spending makes up, typically, 70% of U.S. GDP. When consumers start to cut back on spending, the economy usually takes a hit. That makes this new survey data, courtesy of Fortune and SurveyMonkey, so worrying. American households are cutting back on spending now that the $600 weekly unemployment supplement has expired, the survey found.
Build the wall...from a super yacht. That Americans would give some $25 million in their savings to a GoFundMe campaign that promises to build a border wall is not necessarily the most preposterous detail to emerge from yesterday's arrest of Steve Bannon and his associates. Here are the five craziest details to come out of the investigation so far.
The big match. The big Champions League final is this weekend, pitting some club from Munich against Paris Saint-Germain. But another French club, ESTAC Troyes, is getting a whole lot of attention from a different kind of crowd. Fortune's Jeremy Kahn explores why a potential blockbuster deal by City Football Group, the company that owns U.K. Premier League soccer team Manchester City, to buy ESTAC Troyes could literally shake up the world of international soccer.
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Market candy
Party's over
A new rule for Airbnb renters goes into effect this weekend: no more fun. Okay, not quite. But there will be no more parties. Anywhere. "Today we’re announcing a global ban on all parties and events at Airbnb listings, including a cap on occupancy at 16. This party ban applies to all future bookings on Airbnb and it will remain in effect indefinitely until further notice." Apparently, customers have been turning rental properties into club and party venues. "We think such conduct is incredibly irresponsible," Airbnb says. You've been warned.


fortune--2020-08-21--Survey of India’s 9th-largest city finds COVID antibodies in 52% of the population

More than half the residents in one of India’s largest cities may have developed antibodies for the coronavirus, according to the results of a serological survey released this week.
The survey was carried out in Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra with a population of 4 million. Researchers tested 1,664 participants’ blood samples for the presence of coronavirus antibodies, the proteins that the body produces in response to a coronavirus infection. They detected antibodies in 51.5% of the blood samples.
The participants hailed from five areas of Pune; in one of the areas, 65% of participants had coronavirus antibodies.
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The results indicate that a much higher proportion of people in Pune may have been infected with the coronavirus, and recovered from the disease it causes, COVID-19, than official numbers show.
India’s coronavirus tally as of Friday was nearly 3 million confirmed cases and almost 55,000 deaths, putting it behind the U.S. and Brazil as the third hardest-hit nation in absolute numbers.
If the serological survey’s indications are accurate, the actual number of cases in Pune would be 20 times as high as the official number.
Previous serological studies in other parts of India found comparably high antibody levels among the surveyed population, suggesting that India’s official case number is much lower than the actual number of people infected.
A serological survey conducted in Delhi in the first week of August found that 29.1% of Delhi’s population had coronavirus antibodies—an increase of more than six percentage points since the last serological survey of the city in early July. The earlier survey indicated that Delhi’s case count was 40 times as high as its confirmed case number.
One July survey of people across Mumbai, including residents of the city’s densely packed slums, found that 57% had coronavirus antibodies, prompting one scientist to say that those areas “may have reached herd immunity.”
Reaching herd immunity means enough people in a given area have contracted a disease, recovered from it, and developed immunity to it that the disease stops spreading. It is a controversial approach to the coronavirus pandemic because, in allowing the disease to spread unchecked, it puts more vulnerable groups, like the elderly and immunocompromised, at greater risk of death.
It’s also not yet known exactly how long immunity to the coronavirus lasts. One of the research groups involved in the Pune serological study cautioned that the survey results didn’t account for potential reinfection.
“[The] study does not provide information on immunity from subsequent infection,” the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, one of the groups involved in the research, wrote on Twitter.


fortune--2020-08-21--A Jack Ma company is poised to break the record for biggest IPO—again

For the second time in six years, billionaire Jack Ma may see a company he founded break the record for the largest initial public offering in history.
Chinese fintech firm Ant Group is targeting a $225 billion valuation for dual listings in Hong Kong and Shanghai in what would be the biggest IPO ever, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. Ant declined to comment.
Ant is an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has a 33% stake in the fintech firm. Ma founded Alibaba and Ant, and both companies are headquartered in his hometown of Hangzhou.
In 2014, Alibaba debuted on the New York Stock Exchange and raised $25 billion, earning it the title of the biggest IPO in history and launching the Chinese tech giant onto the global stage.
Saudi Aramco broke Alibaba’s record in December 2019 when it listed and raised $25.6 billion; if Ant achieves its $30 billion target, it will surpass Aramco.
Ant, currently the world’s most valuable unicorn, aims to raise around $30 billion in simultaneous dual listings on the Hong Kong stock exchange and Shanghai’s Star market, and may float its shares as soon as October, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Ant’s decision to list in Hong Kong and Shanghai rather than the U.S. is in line with a growing trend of Chinese companies opting for listings closer to home—including U.S.-listed Chinese firms pursuing secondary listings or delisting from the U.S. entirely—as political tensions between the U.S. and China spill into the finance and tech sectors.
U.S. regulatory scrutiny of Chinese companies has intensified in recent months, making the listing environment there more uncertain for Chinese companies looking to go public.
According to Alibaba’s Thursday earnings report, Ant made a profit of $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2020. Ant owns the digital payments platform Alipay, which has 900 million users in China and over 1 billion worldwide.
Ma stepped down as executive chairman of Alibaba in 2018, saying he wanted to focus on philanthropy. He controls around 50% of the voting interest in Ant.


fortune--2020-08-21--Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine is on track for regulatory review in October

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE said the Covid-19 vaccine they are jointly developing is on track to be submitted for regulatory review as early as October, as they released additional data from an early-stage study.
The companies said the vaccine was well tolerated with mild to moderate fever in fewer than 20% of the participants. The companies are continuing to analyze data from the Phase 1 trials in the U.S. and Germany, they said in a statement.
The confirmation of their October goal, first announced last month, helped lift S&P 500 futures early on Friday as part of a drumbeat of positive news on inoculation efforts that have the potential to end the threat of damaging lockdowns.
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The timeline would make the vaccine one of the fastest-moving in the world. Some analysts expect a vaccine to be approved for use by November in the U.S., a move which may give President Donald Trump a new foothold in the election.
Pfizer and BioNTech last month clinched a $2 billion deal to supply an initial 100 million doses of the vaccine to the U.S. Governments around the world are looking to lock up supplies of still-experimental candidates in hope of stabilizing local economies and stopping spread of the virus that’s taken almost 800,000 lives globally.


fortune--2020-08-21--Baby chicks are dying in the mail. One hatchery lost 4,800 in a single shipment

Thousands of baby chicks shipped to New England farmers have arrived dead since the U.S. Postal Service cut operations in recent months, adding to concerns about mail-delivery disruptions under investigation in Congress.
Haden Gooch, 29, who raises broiler chickens on a farm in Monmouth, Maine, said he’s received 500 dead chicks over his last two shipments, losing about a fifth of his stock each time. Over six years of farming, he can’t remember losing more than 25 in a shipment before.
“I’m kind of freaked out. For me, that’s a significant loss,” Gooch said. “You’re talking thousands of dollars in lost revenue each time, and farming is such a thin-margin business.”
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Representative Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat who raises chickens on her own small organic farm, said her office recently started receiving numerous complaints about such losses. She’s raising the issue in a letter she’s circulating among congressional colleagues that she plans to send Friday to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
DeJoy is set to be questioned Friday by the Senate Homeland Security Committee on an efficiency drive that spurred complaints of delivery disruptions. That’s amid a broader fight between President Donald Trump and Democrats over mail-in voting.
Steve Doherty, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Boston, said it’s “not aware of any upsurge” in dead chicks. “We have no claims locally that would approach the numbers reported,” he said in an emailed statement.
Survival Window
Hatcheries have been sending chicks through the mail since the postmaster general granted such permission in 1918, according to the U.S. Postal Service website. Newborn chicks can survive 72 hours without food or water, thanks to nutrients from the egg yolk, which they ingest immediately before hatching.
“Only because of what I would call these made-up problems at the post office, a system has broken down that has worked well for a hundred years,” Pingree said in a telephone interview. “It appears to be either the delaying of mail or mishandling by private contractors.”
Pingree said in her letter that one hatchery had a shipment of 4,800 chicks arrive in New England with all of the animals dead.
If problems with mail delivery of baby chicks become prevalent, it could cause price increases and spot shortages in specialized chicken and eggs such as locally grown, free-range and organic products that are more often produced by smaller operations, said Sanchoy Das, a professor of supply chain engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Mass-market chickens and eggs are mostly produced by larger operations that don’t rely on mail delivery of chicks, Das said.
But mail delivery of chicks is especially important to smaller poultry farms and enthusiasts who raise chickens in their backyards, a pastime that Pingree said has grown more popular in rural Maine since the Covid-19 crisis forced families to spend more time at home.
Gooch, who produces 6,500 pasture-raised chickens for a local meat company during the six months of warmer weather, said he could drive to Pennsylvania to pick up chicks from a hatchery. But he’d have to take time off his other job and would have to buy or rent a larger truck.
The Portland Press Herald of Maine previously reported the delivery problems with chicks.


fortune--2020-08-21--A pair of twin YouTubers offer a lesson in openness

The impact of the coronavirus on people of color may be worse than we thought, a long overdue apology from pediatricians, a lesson in inclusion from a pair of YouTubers, and it turns out that the big companies who posted solidarity statements after George Floyd are lagging behind in representation.
But first, raceAhead readers respond to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, in Haiku.
Michelle put it down
Biden then picked it back up.
We all need to vote.
Roses are red, some
Nikes are blue, we all must
vote! That means you too.
The “Second” Lady?
Ha! She graded papers and served.
Let her be First now.
The roll call was great!
One stood apart from the rest:
The Biggest Little
Vote for me, vote for
you, vote for us. Fix the past:
A better future.
Bonus haiku on the resilience of nature:
Wolverines are back
Stalking prey on Mount Rainier
Good news amid bad
Thanks to Kevin Bethune, Mike Spinney, Anjuan Simmons, Robert Caruso and others for contributing to the haikus.
Vote to take care of yourself this weekend.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
In Brief
One of the most surprising things about the modern age is that it has become a legitimate form of entertainment to watch people do things that I would never have considered interesting before. Unbox technology. Play video games. Whatever.
Enter Tim and Fred Williams, Gary, Indiana-based twin 22-year-old YouTubers who have upped the “watch me do something on the internet” game significantly.
The idea behind their TwinsTheNewTrend channel is simple if unoriginal: Fans suggest a song they've never heard before. They record their reaction to it, typically filmed in Tim’s bedroom at his mom’s house. That’s it. That’s the concept.
It’s their execution that makes it so special.
Because they’re so young — and Tim's been focused on hiphop —there’s a lot of music they’re unfamiliar with. A lot. “I think we were late bloomers of everything,” Tim said in a phone interview with LeafyPage.com. “That’s why we didn’t hear none of this music.” But the two bring a tender mix of earnestness, humor, and an authentic sense of discovery to their work. They appear to be listening exactly as if a friend shared something special with them. And they're very funny.
“What’s up YouTube? Back with another video, back with another banger, back with another reaction, man!” Tim says at the start of every video. And then they start listening.
They picked on the Hey There, Delilah vibe right away. Nine seconds after Hozier started to Take [Them] To Church, the two had to pause to acknowledge the intensity. “They didn’t even let me get ready,” said Tim, as the pair mimed putting on imaginary seat restraints. They were blown away by Dolly Parton’s Jolene. Nina Simone brought joy to Tim’s heart. Aerosmith, Tim's first-ever rock song, gave him "chills." They even checked out Pavarotti. (“Do you really think they can break glass?” asks Tim. “I think that’s just a metaphor,” says Fred.)
The two broke through to the "mainstream" after they posted a nearly eight-minute video on July 27 of their reaction to Phil Collins’s 1981 hit, “In The Air Tonight.” People familiar with the song knew there was a big surprise coming halfway through. “I ain’t never seen nobody drop a beat three minutes in a song!” Fred says, as Tim chortles, wide-eyed.
Evidently, it was really good internet. Their “Air” video now has more than 6.5 million views. Shortly after it was posted, Phil Collins woke up one morning to discover that he was trending on Twitter.
And by mid-August, “In The Air Tonight” returned to the Billboard charts after a 39-year absence.
The song was No.1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart with 15,000 downloads for the week ending August 13, a first for Collins. The song also debuted at No. 3 on the all-format Digital Song Sales chart and drew 3.3 million all-format airplay impressions in the week ending Aug. 16.
By way of comparison, "Air" never made it past No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1981.
For all their newfound cultural influence, it’s easy to dismiss their channel as just another internet thing. But I think it's more than that.
The Williams brothers are sometimes hazy on the details — they didn’t really know who Whitney Houston was — but never mean. They seem to understand what a gift it can be when someone wants to share a part of themselves, and music is an easy way to get a little window into someone who lives a different life than you. They're effortlessly open-minded, and they always end up finding an authentic common ground.
Plus, it's been fun listening to your favorite tunes with some new friends.
Their channel now has 528,000 subscribers, and they've have added a Patreon and a merch strategy. Great for them. But as unexpected role models for inclusion, we could do worse.
Maybe they should write a leadership newsletter! I’d pay to watch Jim Collins read it out loud. Maybe even Phil Collins, too.
On Point
COVID-19’s impact on communities of color is worse than we realize The numbers are stark: In the last seven months, deaths in the U.S. from all causes have gone up 9 percent for white people, but more than 30 percent in communities of color overall. Worse, while the disparity of COVID was most pronounced on Black, Native and Latinx communities early on, AAPI populations are now also at high risk. Experts believe that the fuller picture of all deaths is a better way to get understand the many factors in play in equitable access to things like health care. “The toll of the pandemic shows just how pervasive structural racism is,” Olugbenga Ajilore, senior economist at the Center for American Progress tells The Marshall Project.
The Marshall Project
Where are the Black executives in executive leadership? I asked this very question back in 2016 with this story, then again with this one, in 2017. Jessica Guynn and Brent Schrotenboer bring the story up to date with their deep dive into the question, which has yet to be answered. Their analysis shows that while corporations and boardrooms have added Black talent for years, they’re not making it to the executive suite. Worse, that remains true even when companies have diverse boards. Further, a review of the proxy statements of the 50 largest companies in the S&P 100 as of July 15 — a list that includes Apple and Facebook — showed that while nearly all issued strong statements after George Floyd’s death, of the 279 listed as top executives, only 5 (1.8%) were Black, two of whom had recently retired. What gives?
USA Today
Pediatricians own up to a racist past The American Academy of Pediatrics, which turns 90 this year, has much to atone for. One of their first great racist acts was denying admission to the first African American to pass the pediatric board exam in 1934. Dr. Roland B. Scott went on to establish the sickle cell disease center at Howard University, and won wide acclaim for his breakthrough research. But the all-white board that reviewed his application and that of another Black pediatrician thought they wouldn’t be a “culture fit.” “If they became members they would want to come and eat with you at the table,” one academy member said. The Academy has issued an apology, which was long overdue, says the organization’s president Dr. Sally Goza. “[W]e must also acknowledge where we have failed to live up to our ideals.”
New York Times
A Nigerian film about a lesbian couple takes to the internet to avoid censorship Same-sex relationships are technically illegal in Nigeria, part of a frightening but largely unenforced law enacted in 2014. So, to avoid any risk of being shut down by Nigerian censors, producer and LGBTQ advocate Pamela Adie has announced she’d be releasing the film online herself. Ife, which means “love” in the Yoruba language, is a story about two young women in love, trying to navigate a society which condemns them. The lovely trailer is here; more on the film below.
Reuters
On background
A neglected historic cemetery for enslaved people is getting the respect it deserves The first-known burial in the small patch of land off of Route 416 in a town called Montgomery — not the one in Alabama, but in upstate New York — dates from 1756. The cemetery, which was in use until 1900, has some 171 sites, now only marked by white metal poles. The town has created a revitalization committee to restore the site, honor the dead and memorialize the history. Bernard Bowen, the first Black elected official in the nearby town of Walden, is on the committee. "It's here. I want to be a part of it; it's history. I may not have liked it," said Bowen. "But I want to help be part of beautifying it and acknowledging it." Oh, in case you were wondering, the current population of Montgomery is 91% white, 3.6% Black and some partial percentages of other folks.
Spectrum Local News
Why upstate New York knows only one kind of barbecue chicken It’s kind of a funny story. In 1950, Robert C. Baker, a professor at Cornell University, had a big quest: to get meat-loving Americans (ie. white ones) to each more chicken. It was a tall order at the time, but the agricultural extension specialist was determined to grab some market share from the growing pork industry. To get the locals on board, he published a recipe for a vinegar-based brine in a Cornell newsletter that ended up igniting a type of chicken-fueled mania across upstate New York that rivals the Popeye drama of 2019. The recipe was so popular that families wouldn’t show up for community or sporting events unless it was served. Put some respect on his name: He also invented the chicken nugget. Click through for the story and the recipe.
Atlas Obscura
Let’s talk about system change Sheila Cannon is a researcher and assistant professor of social entrepreneurship at Trinity College Dublin. In this fascinating piece, she explores what it actually takes to get entrenched systems and societal attitudes to change, using what she’s learned, in part from her research on the LGBT movement in Ireland and the decades-long quest to turn same-sex relationships from a crime to a human right. In this case, she’s tackling climate change, building on the momentum created by Greta Thunberg, the teen Swedish climate activist. The idea is to not adopt “token gestures” that may hurt more than they help. “System change happens when we don’t take our assumptions for granted, which allows more and more people to question the status quo,” she says. Click through for her whole rationale and be prepared to do some soul — or bottom-line — searching. “Capitalism may seem permanent, but research shows that systems inevitably change over time, and are ultimately created and reinforced by us. But in order to change anything, people must question their own role in the system first.”
Silicon Republic
This edition of raceAhead is edited by Karen Yuan.
Today's mood board
My face when you share all your amazing DEI breakthroughs with me: