fortune--2020-03-02--Dow surges 5% on hopes for central bank help on the economy

Robinhood goes down , the stock app missing an entire trading day due to a ‘ system-wide outage ’

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 1,200 points, or 5%, on hopes that central banks will take action to shelter the global economy from the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. The huge gains clawed back some of the ground lost in a massive sell-off last week. Technology companies led the gains.
The Dow jumped 1,293 points to 26,703. It was the biggest-ever point gain for the Dow and the biggest percentage gain since March 2009. The S&P 500 index rose 135 points, or 4.6%, to 3,089. The Nasdaq added 384 points, or 4.5%, to 8,952. Bond prices rose again, sending yields lower.
The market recouped part of the losses it took in a seven-day rout that gave stocks their worst week since the financial crisis of 2008.
The big bounce in stocks came after an especially wild day of trading on Friday in which the Dow sank more than 1,000 points before a late wave of buying left it down 350.
Investors are increasingly anticipating that the Federal Reserve and other major central banks around the world will lower interest rates or take other steps to shield the global economy from the effects of the outbreak.
“Investors have convinced themselves that global central banks will likely be even more accomodative in order to short-circuit any psychological damage, ” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.
Bill Nelson, chief economist at the Bank Policy Institute and a former Fed economist, said the Fed and other major central banks, possibly including China’s, could announce coordinated rate cuts by Wednesday morning. The cut would at least be a half-point and perhaps even three-quarters, he said.
“The only way to get a positive market reaction is to deliver more than expected,” he said.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank announced simultaneously Monday that they are ready to help countries affected by the coronavirus through their emergency lending programs and other tools.
“We will use our available instruments to the fullest extent possible,” the IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, and World Bank President David Malpass said in a joint statement. “International cooperation is essential.”
The statement echoed similar promises to act if necessary from the Federal Reserve on Friday and the Bank of Japan over the weekend. Traders have priced in a 100% probability that the Fed will cut rates by a half-percentage point during or before its March meeting.
There were signs that the economic impact was continuing to mount. A measure of China’s manufacturing output plunged last month to its lowest level on record, as the viral outbreak closed factories and disrupted supply chains.
And the Organization for Economic Development, a research organization made up of mostly advanced economies, said Monday that the viral outbreak “presents the global economy with its greatest danger since the financial crisis” in 2008.
The OECD cut its world growth forecast and said that even if there are only limited outbreaks outside China, the global economy will grow just 2.4% this year, the weakest since the crisis. That forecast matches several private estimates.
If other countries are hit with outbreaks similar to China’s, growth could fall as low as 1.5%, the OECD said.
Separately, economists at Goldman Sachs slashed their forecasts for U.S. growth to just 0.9% in the first quarter and to zero for the April-June quarter.
For investors, the great amount of uncertainty over how consumer behavior and spending will be affected has been unsettling.
“It’s not a typical economic blow,” said Bill Strazzullo of Bell Curve Trading. “What if major cities are on some kind of a lockdown? What will that do to restaurants, entertainment, shopping, travel? It’s almost impossible to game this out.”
Last week’s rout knocked every major index into what market watchers call a “correction,” or a fall of 10% or more from a peak. Market watchers have said for months that stocks were overpriced and long overdue for another pullback. The last time the market had a drop of that size was in late 2018, when the trade war with China was escalating and investors were worried about rising interest rates.
The virus outbreak that began in central China has been shutting down industrial centers, emptying shops and severely crimping travel all over the world. More companies are warning investors that their finances will take a hit because of disruptions to supply chains and sales.
Shoppers stocking up on everyday goods as fear over the coronavirus’ spread hits consumers helped lift shares in household goods companies. Costco jumped 8.1%. Walmart rose 6%. Procter & Gamble gained 3.5%.
Stocks in travel-related companies have been among the hardest-hit as the outbreak has led to canceled flights and disrupted vacation plans. Cruise operators continued to pile up losses Monday. Royal Caribbean Cruises fell 2.5%, Norwegian Cruise Line dropped 8% and Carnival fell 4.7%.
Technology and health care stocks accounted for a big share of the gains. Apple climbed 5.9% and Gilead Sciences rose 6.4%. The biotechnology company has been testing one of its drugs as a potential treatment for the coronavirus.
Given that the main economic impact so far of the virus outbreak is on the supply side of economies rather than on the demand side, questions are being asked as to whether looser monetary policy will have any meaningful impact.
“For all the talk of lower rates the one thing a rate cut can’t do is get people back to work and supply chains back running again,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
Stimulus hopes nevertheless helped shore up markets in Asia earlier. The Nikkei 225 index closed 1% higher, while the Shanghai Composite index rose 3.2%. The benchmark for the smaller exchange, in Shenzhen, jumped 3.8%, while South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.8%. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong climbed 0.6%.
China has seen most of the 90,000 or so virus cases worldwide. In the United States, authorities have counted at least 80 cases of the virus, two fatal, and concern was driving some to wipe store shelves clean of bottled water, hand sanitizer and other necessities. Both deaths were men with existing health problems who were hospitalized in Washington state.
Oil prices have also slumped as traders price in the prospect of lower demand as a result of the virus outbreak. Last week, oil prices tanked by around 15%. On Monday, benchmark U.S. crude was up $2.07 to $46.83 per barrel. Brent, the international standard, rose $2.28 to $51.95.
AP Economics Writers Christopher Rugaber and Paul Wiseman and AP Business Writers Bernard Condon and Pan Pylas contributed.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How to think about COVID-19
—Coronavirus spreads to a previously healthy sector: corporate earnings
—Coronavirus is giving China cover to expand its surveillance
—Coronavirus shows why we need vaccines before, not after, an outbreak
—Before coronavirus, there were SARS and MERS. Do epidemics really end?
Subscribe to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health newsletter for daily updates on biopharma and health care.


fortune--2020-03-02--Robinhood goes down, the stock app missing an entire trading day due to a ‘system-wide outage’

Dow surges 5 % on hopes for central bank help on the economy

Robinhood, a stock app popular with millennials, crashed when markets opened on Monday, and missed the entire trading day.
“On Monday, we experienced an issue with a part of our infrastructure that resulted in an outage, preventing customers from using our app, website, and help center,” a Robinhood spokesperson said in a statement provided to Fortune. “We realize we let our customers down, and we’re committed to improving their experience.”
Service at the stock trading app was only restored early Tuesday morning, but even then Robinhood struggled to keep it online. By mid-morning, a company Twitter account stated the service had gone down anew:
Our systems are currently experiencing downtime. We’re determined to restore full functionality as soon as possible. We’ll be sharing updates here and on https://t.co/ZS733Gooqj. — Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) March 3, 2020
In its statement to Fortune sent early Tuesday morning, Robinhood said it would reach out to customers affected by the outage, and work with them on a case-by-case to consider “billing credits and/or other potential compensation.”
The spokesperson also urged users to check for updates on a status page (status.robinhood.com) that on Monday described a “System-Wide Outage” across all of Robinhood’s apps, trading and banking services. A screenshot from Monday reflects the scale of the outage:
Missing the entire stock trading day is an unprecedented situation for the company, and one almost unheard of in the brokerage industry, where outages that last minutes are enough to cause a hubbub.
#RobinHood is coming up on 3 hours app outage. Honestly the most insane thing I have ever seen. I know programmers who could make an entire platform in that time. WTF are these people doing? — BenFranklinsGhost🇺🇸 (@The1stAmerican_) March 2, 2020
Early on Tuesday morning, a Robinhood spokesperson described the cause of the outage as “instability in a part of our infrastructure that allows our systems to communicate with each other,” and stated that it was not caused by a failure to code for Leap Year.
A further possible cause of the Robinhood outage is a surge in volume spurred by investors spooked by gyrations in the market related to news of the coronavirus.
According to an executive from Apptopia, a service that analyzes apps, the number of active daily Robinhood users has been “skyrocketing” since early January. The executive added it’s unclear if most of these Robinhood account holders are buying or selling.
Robinhood’s outage comes at an awkward time for the company, which had been distancing itself from several controversies last year, and recently touted growth that saw the app top more than 10 million users.
Meanwhile, the startup must persuade investors it can grow into a $7.6 billion valuation, even as traditional brokerage rivals have started to match its zero-fee commission model.
The goodwill Robinhood enjoys with millennial customers, who have flocked to its sleek design and feel-good ethos, is likely to be tested by the stock-trading app going down, which has led to users besieging Robinhood’s Twitter accounts with complaints.
Me trying to get #Robinhood to work at opening bell every morning 🙄 pic.twitter.com/OyLlW5e1wL — Steve (@GLASSNAPKINS) March 2, 2020
Numerous users have also complained on Twitter that Robinhood outage had hurt their ability to profit from trading, with some suggesting they would take legal action.
@AskRobinhood I will be seeking legal advice about lost profit due to platform not working, this is outrageous that you can't get this working properly. Crashes and other issues constantly. #robinhood — RO (@ryaninfw) March 2, 2020
This story was updated to reflect comments provided by Robinhood at 3:45am ET on Tuesday.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Coronavirus spreads to a previously healthy sector: corporate earnings
—A Fed rate cut won’t cure what’s ailing the stock market
—How companies like Ernst & Young are going to extremes to avoid infections
—These cities have the most jobs with six-figure salaries
—Credit Karma was acquired rather than pursuing an IPO. Will more companies follow suit in 2020?
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fortune--2020-03-02--‘Inside the Actors Studio’ host James Lipton dies at 93

James Lipton, longtime host of “Inside the Actors Studio,” died Monday, his wife said.
Lipton died of bladder cancer at his New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, told the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter. He was 93.
Lipton interviewed hundreds of master actors and Hollywood luminaries for nearly 25 years on Bravo’s “Inside the Actors Studio.”
The Detroit-born Lipton was an actor-turned-academic who became an unlikely talk show host and celebrity when he began the show in 1994 that also served as a class for his students at the Actors Studio, where he was dean.
His first guest was Paul Newman, and future guests would include Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Glenn Close, Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand.
Lipton said his favorite guest on the show was Bradley Cooper, because he was a former student.
“The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing,” Lipton told Larry King in 2016. “It turned out to be Bradley Cooper.”
Lipton and Cooper, who can be seen asking Sean Penn a question in a 1999 episode of the show, both teared up when he returned as a guest in 2011.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—The Greek economy is back—which could lead to mass evictions
—Trump budget cuts could become a problem as coronavirus spreads
—Should consumers be wary of Apple’s heartbeat monitoring app?
—One of Bordeaux’s most revered estates is launching a wine in Napa
—5 reasons coronavirus statistics seem inconsistent
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-02--Amy Klobuchar to drop out of 2020 presidential race

Amy Klobuchar ended her bid for the presidency Monday and plans to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, a day before the biggest primary night of the 2020 campaign.
The Klobuchar campaign said she will fly to Dallas late Monday for a rally with Biden where she will officially suspend her campaign and endorse him.
The Minnesota senator performed poorly in three of the four early-voting states, depriving her of any path to the nomination. The momentum she gained from a third-place finish in New Hampshire quickly vanished when she finished in sixth place in both Nevada and South Carolina.
Klobuchar had positioned herself as the Democrat most likely to reach voters who went for President Donald Trump in 2016, but her lack of appeal to the minority voters who are key to a Democratic win ultimately sank her candidacy.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Are we undergoing an industrial revolution or a phase change?
—Twitter’s testing new ways to fight misinformation. Is open-source the answer?
—Meet Trump’s Giuliani-approved power broker—and Melania’s new senior adviser
—Angela Merkel is on her way out. Meet her potential replacements
—How the 2020 election could influence your personal finances
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-03-02--The legacy of the first openly gay presidential candidate

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
South Bend’s ambitious former mayor, Peter Buttigieg, ended his historic presidential bid last night. He was the first openly gay man to run for the office. “Today is a moment of truth,” Buttigieg said from South Bend, Indiana. “The truth is the path has narrowed to a close, for our candidacy, if not for our cause.”
Buttigieg is a young white man in a sensible blue suit, a quietly polished overachiever who exhibited enormous courage as he won hearts, minds, and votes. (Just not enough, particularly among Black voters.)
But, as Tim Teeman notes in this opinion piece for The Daily Beast, this historic candidacy received constant friction from the intra-LGBTQ debates over the kind of gay man Mayor Pete represents:
“It has been, simply put, exhausting and not a little depressing, with Buttigieg’s candidacy seen in starkly polarized terms: a celebration of progress or an indictment of heteronormativity; a gay man standing on the American national stage, speaking eloquently about his own struggle for self-acceptance; or just another privileged white man able to ‘pass’ without offering much to LGBTQ people who are not what he is perceived to be.”
Buttigieg’s identity has been mocked, his earnestness dissected, his attempts to bring an Obamaesque cadence to his rallies derided. His heartfelt confession — that he’d struggled well into his 20’s to come out, saying, “If there was a pill, a pill that I could take and not be gay anymore, then I would’ve jumped on it” — was singled out by critics as a dangerous admission of self-loathing.
The Atlantic’s Spencer Korhhaber puts it like this: A “gayer” candidate “might be more idiosyncratic in their style, and more confrontational toward straight voters, and would boast a yet-bolder political agenda.” But that candidate might not have had Pete’s success with so many different types of voters.
And yet Pete’s performance of queerness had a varied reception too. “On one end of the Buttigieg reaction spectrum is the homophobic voter in Iowa who tried to reclaim her ballot after being told, during the caucus, that the candidate she just cast a vote for is gay,” he writes. “On the other end of the spectrum are queer commentators taking offense at his inoffensiveness.”
Can you be a trailblazer if your presence doesn’t offend your oppressors? If your words don’t move the people who were once willing to allow you to be marginalized into a new allyship?
“Finding a space between, a path spanning accommodation and authenticity, is what queerness has often meant,” says Kornhaber, in defense of Buttigieg’s legacy.
Buttigieg’s husband Chasten brought a distinct joy, openness, and love to his own surprising role as a first-ever. It is a historic legacy of an equal sort.
Before Pete Buttigieg ended his campaign last night, his husband set the emotional stage. “About a year and a half ago, my husband came home from work and told me, well, he asked me, ‘What do you think about running for president?’ And I laughed. Not at him but at life. Because life gave me some interesting experiences on my way to find Pete.”
Chasten Buttigieg’s coming out story, which he does not tell often or as easily, was different from his more buttoned-up husband’s. His was one of bullying, sexual assault, and an estrangement from his family. “There’s a lot of baggage there, a lot of hurt , and he was so patient,” Chasten tearfully told The Washington Post about his courtship with Pete, in an interview last May. “I’ve never felt so seen.”
So it made sense that Chasten would relish the chance to help his husband run for president, despite all the terrors.
“After falling in love with Pete, Pete got me to believe in myself again,” he told the crowd last night. “And I told Pete to run because I knew there were other kids sitting out there in this country who needed to believe in themselves too.”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
Rep. John Lewis returns to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate “Bloody Sunday” It was a surprise appearance for the civil rights icon; after Lewis had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in December, it was unclear if he would be able to attend the annual commemorative march in Selma, Alabama. His appearance electrified the crowd. "Fifty-five years ago, a few of our children attempted to march ... across this bridge. We were beaten, we were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge,” he said in an emotional speech. "We must use the vote as a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of America." On March 7, 1965, Lewis had his skull broken by white police officers during the now-famous march for voting rights, from Selma to Montgomery.
CNN
COVID-19 imperils working Americans and by extension, all of us Amanda Mull makes it plain: millions of vulnerable working-class folks and gig economy workers have a lot more to worry about than the threat of a deadly virus. “For all but the independently wealthy in America, the best-case scenario for getting sick is being a person with good health insurance, paid time off, and a reasonable boss who won’t penalize you for taking a few sick days or working from home,” she writes. The people who stock your shelves, prepare and serve your food, drive you across town or check you out at the grocery store are not in a position to stay home because they aren’t protected by paid-leave laws and can’t afford to lose an hourly wage. Now what?
The Atlantic
Health care researcher discovers that your private health care data is at risk on Facebook Private Facebook groups have become a sanctuary for people coping with health conditions for which they need support, but would like to keep private — everything from cancer to depression, addiction, HIV diagnoses and beyond. Andrea Downing, a tech project manager and breast cancer advocate, runs the BRCA Sisterhood, a private Facebook group for women who have a gene mutation that puts them at risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Working with a cybersecurity expert, she discovered a loophole that would let allow developers, marketers and anyone else download the membership lists of her group, and by default, any others. In a flash, everything about their lives, including mastectomy photos, were available. "In less than an hour, I had extremely personal information that could be used against these women," the researcher told CNN. "The kinds of things that they don't tell their husbands about in some cases."
CNN
Flavor Flav fired from Public Enemy over Bernie Sanders rally For fans of Public Enemy, this is Yoko Ono-level drama, and frankly, a little painful. The dismissal happened after Flav sent the Bernie Sanders campaign a cease-and-desist letter over Chuck D’s appearance at a Bernie Sanders rally in Los Angeles yesterday. “While Chuck is certainly free to express his political view as he sees fit — his voice alone does not speak for Public Enemy,” the letter says. “Those who truly know what Public Enemy stands for know what time it is. There is no Public Enemy without Flavor Flav.” Flav has not endorsed any candidate. The letter reveals the longstanding rift between the two. “Flavor chooses to dance for his money and not do benevolent work like this. He has a year to get his act together and get himself straight or he’s out,” said Chuck D in response. Chuck D is the sole owner of the Public Enemy trademark.
Rolling Stone
On Background
How to deal with the really problematic people in your life This is a fascinating review of a book I confess to not have read (yet) that combines organizational psychology, negotiation science, conflict resolution and counterterrorism expertise to help you manage the thorniest, recurring conflicts in your life. Optimal Outcomes, a new book by organizational psychologist Jennifer Goldman-Wetzler, offers eight practices that if mastered sound promising. You’ll learn what an “optimal outcome” is, how rational problem solving won’t help you get there, and how to draw a “conflict” map, which helps identify key players and the forces that pressure them. I focused on the concept of "shadow values." And if you want to understand the “weird” behavior of others, understanding their unstated values is a good place to start.
Quartz
The embedded racism in the Electoral College It is the secret irony of complaints about racial entitlements, argues Wilfred Codrington III, a fellow at Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law: They exist, but they benefit white voters. “For centuries, white votes have gotten undue weight, as a result of innovations such as poll taxes and voter-ID laws and outright violence to discourage racial minorities from voting," he says. “But America’s institutions boosted white political power in less obvious ways, too, and the nation’s oldest structural racial entitlement program is one of its most consequential: the Electoral College.” While there are plenty of valid reasons to constrain executive power and diminish the temptation of corruption, in advocating for the electoral system, the slaveholding South held significant sway. He quotes future president James Madison: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.”
The Atlantic
Where are the people of color in academia? Their Winter 2017 issue alone is worth the subscription to the Harvard Educational Review, a quarterly publication. Every article focuses on race or identity in some focused way, but if you only have time for one, start with this one from academics Özlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, who identified the concept of “white fragility.” They rigorously examine the hiring practices of predominantly white universities to discover why their dreams for diversity are never fulfilled. “We argue that through a range of discursive moves, hiring committees protect rather than unsettle Whiteness. In so doing, they actively close the gates against racial diversity,” they write. Culture fit – we’re looking at you.
Harvard Educational Review
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
“Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness.”
—Richard Wright, from his autobiography, Black Boy, 1945


fortune--2020-03-02--Supreme Court to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide a lawsuit that threatens the Obama-era health care law, but the decision is not likely until after the 2020 election.
The court said it would hear an appeal by 20 mainly Democratic states of a lower-court ruling that declared part of the statute unconstitutional and cast a cloud over the rest.
Defenders of the Affordable Care Act argued that the issues raised by the case are too important to let the litigation drag on for months or years in lower courts and that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans erred when it struck down the health law’s now toothless requirement that Americans have health insurance.
The case will be the third major Supreme Court battle over the law popularly known as Obamacare since its passage in 2010. The court has twice upheld the heart of the law, with Chief Justice John Roberts memorably siding with the court’s liberals in 2012, amid President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. The majority that upheld the law twice remains on the court, Roberts and the four liberal justices.
The Trump administration’s views on the law have shifted over time, but it has always supported getting rid of provisions that prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against people with existing health ailments. Congressional repeal of the law narrowly failed in 2017, when the Republicans controlled the House and the Senate.
The entire health care law is in effect pending the ongoing court case. About 20 million people now have coverage through the ACA, including its subsidized private insurance and Medicaid expansion.
The Democratic states had asked for a fast-track review with a decision by late June, before the 2020 elections in November. Instead, the justices probably will hear arguments in the fall, with a decision likely in the spring of 2021.
Still, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra welcomed the court’s decision to take up the appeal.
“As Texas and the Trump Administration fight to disrupt our healthcare system and the coverage that millions rely upon, we look forward to making our case in defense of the ACA. American lives depend upon it,” Becerra said in a statement.
The high court action takes the case out of the hands of a federal district judge in Texas who had previously struck down the entire law.
The new case stems from the 2017 passage of tax legislation that left the health insurance mandate in place but eliminated the financial penalty for not buying insurance. Congress made no other changes to the law.
Texas and other Republican-led states sued, arguing that the elimination of the penalty rendered the mandate unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed, adding that the mandate was so central to the law that without it the rest of the law must fall, too.
While finding the health law’s individual mandate to be unconstitutional, the appeals court made no decision on such popular provisions as protections for people with preexisting conditions, Medicaid expansion and coverage for young adults up to age 26 on their parents’ policies.
The 5th Circuit sent the case back to O’Connor to determine whether other parts of the law can be separated from the insurance requirement and thus remain in place.
University of Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett said the high court’s decision to “intervene now, and not — as it could have — to wait for the case to develop more below, suggests that the justices are skeptical about the challengers’ sweeping argument that the entire Act is unconstitutional.”
Besides expanding insurance coverage, the 900-page law also made many changes to other programs, including Medicare, community health centers and fraud-fighting. Sorting out whether some provisions could remain while others go with the insurance mandate would be a colossal effort.
The justices on Monday granted two different appeals, one from the Democratic states and the other from the Republican side, that essentially put all the issues in front of the court, from the insurance mandate to the validity of the entire law if the mandate does not survive. The court took no action on a separate appeal filed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—The Greek economy is back—which could lead to mass evictions
—Trump budget cuts could become a problem as coronavirus spreads
—Should consumers be wary of Apple’s heartbeat monitoring app?
—One of Bordeaux’s most revered estates is launching a wine in Napa
—5 reasons coronavirus statistics seem inconsistent
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-02--Too good to be true? Beware of fake online jobs

The posting on a big, reputable job board seemed perfect: An opening at a well-known company you’ve always admired, with generous pay and benefits and the option of working from home. Of course you submit a resume and after an interview or two by phone or video—usually with, say, the HR director and one other senior manager—you get a terrific offer, which you happily accept.
Naturally, once you’ve signed the employment contract that comes to you by snail mail, your new employer needs all kinds of personal information about you, including your bank account number for direct deposit of your paychecks, so you fill out and return the forms they send.
Then the nightmare starts.
When you show up for your first day of work, no one at the company where you’ve supposedly been hired has ever heard of you—or, for that matter, of the “executives” who interviewed you. It gets worse: The balance in your bank account is now $0. And of course, you’ve already quit your old job.
Unthinkable, right? But, according to a recent bulletin from the FBI, this scenario, or some diabolically clever variation of it, has been on the rise since early 2019. Not only that, but the scams have gotten more sophisticated, hence harder to spot. Technology now makes it pretty easy, for example, for crooks to create corporate web sites that look uncannily like the real thing. So, even if you skip the job boards and apply directly through what looks like a company’s site, you may be stepping into a snare.
These phony-hiring schemes have become so widespread that real employers are alarmed. “We have Fortune 500 clients who have called us in to figure out why so many people have come to them claiming that someone at the company hired them,” says Daniel Linskey, a managing director at security and risk management firm Kroll. The supposed new hires, he adds, are usually not just (understandably) upset, “they’re also out several thousand dollars.” Depending on how much information they’ve divulged to what they believed was their new employer, their identities may have been stolen, too.
Want to protect yourself from a similar fate? For now at least, you’re on your own. “Police departments don’t have the resources to investigate these incidents, and it has to be a multi-million-dollar swindle before federal authorities get involved,” notes Linskey, who is a former superintendent-in-chief of the Boston Police Department. “So the scammers just keep getting away with it.”
Even so, a little caution can go a long way. “One problem is that job hunters tend to ignore the red flags,” says Linskey. Here are four ways he and the FBI recommend to recognize—and avoid— a possible scam:
1. Never send money, or provide credit card information, to an employer.
As obvious a mistake as this might seem (heard from any Nigerian princes lately?), a common ploy is to request cash or credit up front — most often for health insurance premiums — that the scammers promise to repay in the new hire’s first paycheck. “People who are between jobs and need medical coverage” are particularly vulnerable to this kind of social engineering, Linskey says.
2. Beware of non-company email addresses and insecure websites.
A real hiring manager “is not going to contact you through a gmail address,” says Linskey. As for web sites, the FBI bulletin notes that many fake corporate sites begin with “http://” rather than “https://.” That’s not foolproof either, though, because “criminals can also use ‘https://’ to give victims a false sense of security,” the report adds. “A decision to proceed should not be based solely on the use of ‘https://’.”
3. Research the prospective employer online
You’d do this anyway, of course (wouldn’t you?), but the FBI advises “conducting a web search of the hiring company using the company name only.” Results that show “multiple web sites for the same company (abccompany.com and abccompanyllc.com) may indicate fraudulent job listings.”
4. If in doubt, call the company directly.
Got an appointment for an interview by phone or video? Great! Now, says Linskey, “call the main switchboard at the company and ask to speak with the person who will be interviewing you, just to confirm the appointment.” If the company operator has no phone listing for the hiring manager, or if such a person exists but he or she has no clue who you are, well then…you’ve just avoided a whole mess of trouble.
One more suggestion from Linskey: “Just to be on the safe side, be sure and take these steps before you quit the job you have now.” Noted.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Mansplaining in meetings: How can we get him to stop?
—These cities have the most jobs with six-figure salaries
—You don’t have to become a manager to grow your career
—8 good reasons to turn down a promotion
—WATCH: Can you be a leader and an introvert?
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fortune--2020-03-02--NASA hiring new astronauts for the first time in four years

Wanna get away – like … really, really away? NASA might have the job for you.
For the first time in four years, the nation’s space agency is once again accepting applications from people who want to be astronauts. You’ve got until the end of the month to apply.
So what does it take to potentially be part of the crew that returns to the moon with the Artemis program or heads to Mars? Well, you’ll need to be smart. The job demands a master’s degree in a STEM field or an equivalent, a medical doctorate or you’ll need a STEM-based bachelor’s along with having completed test pilot school program. You also have to be a U.S. citizen and at least two years of “progressively responsible, professional experience”.
“America is closer than any other time in history since the Apollo program to returning astronauts to the Moon. We will send the first woman and next man to the lunar South Pole by 2024, and we need more astronauts to follow suit on the Moon, and then Mars,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine in a statement. “We’re looking for talented men and women from diverse backgrounds and every walk of life to join us in this new era of human exploration that begins with the Artemis program to the Moon. If you have always dreamed of being an astronaut, apply now.”
The job is based in Houston, though you’ll be traveling about 75% of the time. Salaries range between $104,898 and $161,141.
Should you get the job, you’ll spend about two years learning the ropes —from spacewalking to robotics to teamwork skills. And from there, you’ll wait until you’re assigned a spaceship, handing “responsibilities within the astronaut office ranging from supporting … fellow astronauts in space to advising on the development of new spacecraft.”
NASA says it expects to receive a high number of applications for the jobs and will begin selecting final candidates by the middle of next year. It didn’t say how many positions it was looking to fill, but only 11 of the 18,300 who applied in 2015 got the job.
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fortune--2020-03-02--A Fed rate cut won’t cure what’s ailing the stock market

Will the Fed rise to the rescue?
Wall Street overwhelmingly expects the Federal Reserve’s policymaking arm to cut interest rates when it next meets on March 18. If not sooner. And the Street’s wish may well come true.
Trouble is, there’s a lot of justifiable skepticism about whether a rate reduction will do much good fending off the economic destruction that the worldwide coronavirus outbreak is starting to spawn.
Historically, the Fed’s role hasn’t been preventing catastrophes. Rather, it has been damage control—easing the pain after an economic plunge and trying to get strapped businesses and consumers to borrow and spend again. Those remedies take a while to kick in. These days, should people across the globe be too petrified to work or consume, due to the China-originated flu, lower credit card interest won’t be much help.
“A Fed rate cut won’t reopen Chinese factories,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Advisory Group. “Or get people to travel. Or go out to eat. Or buy cars. Or make companies increase capital spending.”
The dire economic scenarios surrounding the contagion begin with choking off the international supply chain. The widespread shutdown of Chinese production threatens to ripple across the face of the earth. That’s why Goldman Sachs predicts that U.S. corporate earnings growth for the rest of this year will be zero. Shipments to West Coast ports are down around 25%, according to Bank of America, creating a major problem for the likes of Apple, whose iPhones are assembled in China.
Right now, the fed funds rate, the Fed-set benchmark for short-term U.S. interest rates, is in a target range of 1.5% to 1.75%. The Fed futures market, which reflects investors’ expectations about the central bank’s policy, is unanimous that rates will be cut at the March meeting, with 26% forecasting a quarter-point cut and 74% a half-point.
Fed monetary easing will at least provide “psychological relief,” said Rich Sega, global chief investment strategist at investment management firm Conning.
The Fed fizzle
Fed Chair Jerome Powell last Friday issued a brief statement saying the central bank was open to lowering rates if need be. Acknowledging that “the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity,” Powell indicated the Fed would monitor developments and deploy “our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.”
Investors have come to assume that when things get bad, they have the comforting assurance of what’s called “the Fed put.” In other words, the Street expects the Fed to stop the economy from really going to hell. (The “put” term originates from shareholders selling a put option on a stock, which provides them downside protection: When the share price is tanking, they can bail out at a predetermined price.)
For years, the Fed has been intervening in the economy to provide recession-fighting stimulus. In response to the 2008-09 financial crisis, between Bush and Obama, the government spent $939 billion on stimulus. The Fed, in addition to reducing the funds rate to almost zero from 5.25%, bought an enormous amount of bonds, almost $4 trillion, to pump cash into the economy.
The reality, however, is that the Fed’s rescue operations served as a palliative for a damaged economy, not an elixir that magically restored the old mojo.
Despite the Fed’s preventing the Great Depression 2.0, corporate borrowing limped along for years after the downturn was over. The U.S. gross domestic product’s post-recession growth seldom has logged much more than 2% per year, an unusually tepid pace for a recovery. Corporate capital spending expansion was sluggish for a long time. Company borrowing took a while to return, only matching its pre-crisis levels in 2013.
Another reason for the sluggish comeback could be that low, low rates have reached a point of diminishing returns. Making money even cheaper may not deliver the old bang of a rate cut. As University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece, “after 10 years of extremely low interest rates, there probably aren’t many consumers with pent-up demand.”
Today, “the Fed is not as effective as it used to be,” said Michael Reynolds, an investment strategist at Glenmede Trust. “Even lower rates won’t fix the risk that U.S. businesses will run out of inventory” from China’s shuttered industrial base, not to mention cascading factory and distribution freeze-ups around the world.
Low, low rates are the Fed’s lot, as people nowadays are addicted to cheap money. Fed officials discovered this the hard way in recent years when they set out raising rates again, figuring that economic health had finally been restored and borrowing costs should return to a more normal level—read: pre-crisis. The idea was to give the Fed more room to lower rates in a crisis: Dropping them from 5% is more effective than from 1.75%.
Unfortunately, the result of the rate-hike campaign was a credit crunch and a 15% stock market plunge in late 2018. Chastened, the Fed last year whittled 0.75 point off the funds rate. As Norm Conley, CEO of JAG Capital Management, drily observed, by boosting rates, “the Fed saw that it had made a policy mistake.”
Why the Fed will cut rates
But, argues Kathy Jones, chief fixed-income strategist at discount broker Charles Schwab, the Fed has other motives to lower rates.
One, she said, centers on the threat that a pandemic panic may bring about deflation, meaning slumping prices, which the Fed views as economic poison. Such a condition, a noxious feature of the 1930s Depression, might appear if no one is buying many goods and services anymore. Then the value of people’s assets—real estate, stocks, etc.—would shrivel, a body blow to the economy.
Another impetus for Fed action, she said, would be to pull the credit markets back from their present discombobulation. A case in point is the tumbling prices of junk bonds, a circumstance that has long served as the harbinger of bad times coming to the economy.
The low-grade bonds’ credit spread—the distance between junk yields and those of risk-free Treasuries—has widened by almost a full percentage point since mid-January. That’s a signal that junk is becoming riskier, which means nervous investors are dumping the bonds, so their prices have dropped; yields move in the opposite direction. A number of junk-rated companies, which sought to float new issues of bonds, lately have pulled them from the market because they wouldn’t fetch much money.
Even worse is the advent of an inverted yield curve, where short-term rates exceed long-term ones. An inversion is a classic warning of an impending recession. This scary development stems from the free fall of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note’s yield, now at 1.3% (half of what it was a year ago). The three-month Treasury bill is above this, at 1.45%. Typically, the longer-term Treasury yields far more, as holding a bond for years is riskier than for a few months.
In other words, normally investors think they know what will happen in the immediate future, but the far future is the big unknown, which is why the 10-year almost always yields more. People need to be paid extra interest because their money is tied up longer. An inversion occurs when the near term uncertainly pushes them towards buying oodles of long-maturity bonds, driving up those securities’ prices and driving down their yields. If the Fed lowers short-term rates, the 10-year would presumable return to its rightful place in the bond yield hierarchy. And one destabilizing worry would get removed from the table.
A final catalyst to push down rates: the stock market bloodbath. The Fed likes to say that it does not follow the market. That’s a dubious assertion at a time that 55% of Americans own stocks, by Gallup’s count. With a big chunk of the public’s wealth tied up in equities, much of that in workplace retirement accounts like 401(k)s, last week’s epic market rout is not something that Fed policymakers can shrug off. After all, the market is a barometer of what people think, or fear, is about to happen. Restoring confidence could convince investors to buy stocks again.
What could make this whole sorry set of affairs better? An antidote to the disease and a peaking of new infections, said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust. Note that he didn’t say lower rates. Absent good news on the epidemic front, he said, forging a good plan is very difficult. “What we must do is not well-defined, as the duration of this virus is unspecific.”
Meanwhile, at a minimum, a Fed rate reduction would give the public the temporary solace, or perhaps the necessary illusion, that someone at the upper levels is getting a handle on this dreadful dilemma of lost money—and lost lives.
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fortune--2020-03-02--Judge rules head of U.S. immigration agency was unlawfully named

A federal judge has ruled that Ken Cuccinelli was unlawfully appointed to lead the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency and, as a result, lacked authority to give asylum seekers less time to prepare for initial screening interviews.
Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and an immigration hardliner, was named to a new position of “principal deputy director” in June, which immediately made him acting director because Lee Francis Cissna had just resigned. The agency grants green cards and other visas and also oversees asylum officers.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington found Cuccinelli’s appointment violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a 1998 law governing who is eligible to lead federal agencies in an acting capacity.
Cuccinelli, in an interview with Fox News Channel on Monday, said that President Donald Trump’s administration would appeal the ruling and that his agency would take steps to try to prevent the invalidation of other decisions made under his tenure.
The ruling, issued Sunday, was at odds with Trump’s penchant for temporary appointments. At Homeland Security, Chad Wolf is acting secretary, and the heads of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services are also in acting roles.
The judge wrote that Cuccinelli didn’t qualify for exceptions for officials who won Senate approval for other positions or spent 90 days in the previous year at the agency.
The administration’s reading of the law “would decimate this carefully crafted framework,” Moss wrote in his 55—page ruling. “The President would be relieved of responsibility and accountability for selecting acting officials, and the universe of those eligible to serve in an acting capacity would be vastly expanded.”
Moss, an appointee of President Barack Obama, set aside a Cuccinelli directive to give asylum seekers less time to consult attorneys before an initial screening interview, but his decision applies only to the five Hondurans who sued. He did not address other Cuccinelli actions.
The asylum directive gives asylum seekers at least one calendar day to prepare for the screening interview, instead of 72 hours for families and generally 48 hours for single adults. Extensions are granted only “in the most extraordinary circumstances,” such as a serious illness or mental or physical disability.
The directive is a foundation for new policies aimed at quickly completing the screening, known as a “credible fear interview,” without leaving Customs and Border Protection custody.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Heather Swift said, “We obviously disagree with the court’s opinion and are looking more closely at it.”
Cuccinelli is now acting deputy Homeland Security secretary, the department’s No. 2 position. Joseph Edlow, a longtime congressional aide who joined Citizenship and Immigration Services in July, was named last month to run the agency’s day-to-day operations.
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Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-02--Demands to cancel SXSW grow amid coronavirus fears as organizers tout new guests

As more and more major conferences are canceled due to growing coronavirus fears, the organizers of South by Southwest are moving forward with plans for the show. But that’s not sitting well with everyone.
An online petition to cancel the show had gathered more than 17,000 signatures as of Monday morning (and the number was escalating steadily). And major attendees are starting to pull out of the show, including Twitter (CEO Jack Dorsey has cancelled a talk and the company will no longer offer Twitter House, one of the bigger gathering spots of the show, which hosts both panels and big musical acts.)
Show officials, though, say they have no current plans to cancel or postpone the show. And Monday morning, they touted new scheduled guests including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Adam Schiff and Beto O’Rourke.
“SXSW is working closely on a daily basis with local, state, and federal agencies to plan for a safe event,” organizers said in a statement on Sunday. “As a result of this dialogue and the recommendations of Austin Public Health, the 2020 event is proceeding with safety as a top priority.”
SXSW is scheduled to take place from March 13-20 in Austin. The show, which blends technology, music, movies, games, comedy and more, is one of Austin’s biggest events. Last year, it drew over 417,000 people to the city from 106 countries. The show brings in nearly $356 million to the Austin economy.
Show officials say they’re working with local and federal health officials, but see no reason to alter the show at present.
“At this time, no health departments in the state have requested the cancellation of any gatherings as the current risk of person-to-person spread in their jurisdictions remains low,” they said. “Historically, March is not a peak international travel month in Austin, but we will continue to monitor. Information and practices are changing during this rapidly evolving situation and we will continue to follow national guidelines. This being said, there are no imminent plans to postpone any current events.”
Some people planning to attend the show are still uncomfortable, though.
SXSW: ignoring all cancellations and warnings and still going on
People going to SXSW: let me spread my germs all over
Me: 🦠😵❌❗ INSIDE IS SAFE, GET AWAY FROM ME INFECTIOUS TECH CREATURES OF THE NIGHT ❌❗😵🦠 — Kate McGuire (@KateMcG88217756) March 2, 2020
"Safety is a top priority for #SXSW.".. right behind the other top priority of $3555MM revenues on the line. Requesting travelers to "practice usual precautions" is short-sighted and naive. You should refund everyone's ticket in light of #Coronavirus "di… https://t.co/dedj5SUsfI — Ken Michaelside (@kmside) March 2, 2020
I dunno, if a 25k thousand attendance tech conference cancels for the coronavirus then maybe a 12k writing conference should consider it. Hope a firm decision is made today regardless, so people can make arrangements. — Sequoia Nagamatsu (@SequoiaN) March 2, 2020
Coming in from Toronto and didn't start thinking about it until last night. Planning to make a final call on Monday the 9th. Wish that @sxsw would provide some "if this, then that" information around next steps, hotel costs, etc. — Kate Heron (@KateHeronWorks) March 2, 2020
I've got a film I shot screening at SXSW this month and I'm not going. SXSW is too nonchalant about this. — Earned Not Given (@hockeynightdoc) March 2, 2020
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Subscribe to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health newsletter for daily updates on biopharma and health care.


fortune--2020-03-02--Coronavirus concerns push baseball’s final Olympic qualifying event to June

Baseball’s final qualifying event for the Tokyo Olympics has been postponed from April to June because of concerns over the virus outbreak that has infected nearly 89,000 people and caused more than 3,000 deaths, mostly in China.
The World Baseball Softball Conference announced Monday the qualification event scheduled for Taichung and Dou Liu in Taiwan on April 1-5 had been postponed to June 17-21 because of “player, personnel and spectator health and safety measures against the spread of the coronavirus.”
Hundreds of new cases of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease have been announced in recent days outside of China. There have been 40 cases and one death in Taiwan.
The Olympics are scheduled to open July 24, with baseball competition set to be played at Fukushima and Yokohama from July 29 to Aug. 8.
The second- and third-place teams from the Americas qualifying tournament in Arizona next month will advance to the final qualifying tournament in Taiwan, joining a field that will include Australia, China, Netherlands and Taiwan.
Baseball was an Olympic event from 1992-08 and has been restored for the Tokyo Olympics.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Trump budget cuts could become a big problem as coronavirus spreads
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—China tries to restart economy as outbreak slows. Is it heading back to work too soon?
—5 reasons coronavirus statistics seem inconsistent
—Coronavirus may be the straw that breaks the back of oil fracking
Subscribe to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health newsletter for daily updates on biopharma and health care.


fortune--2020-03-02--Pharma vet and former Biogen chief to lead biotech industry’s coronavirus response

This is the web version of Brainstorm Health Daily, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top health care news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, readers! I hope you enjoyed your weekend.
The biotechnology industry now officially has a coronavirus czar—and he’s a longtime veteran of the drug sector.
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the industry’s largest trade group, has reportedly tapped George Scangos for the role. Scangos served as the CEO of drug giant Biogen for six years and is currently chief executive at Vir, a San Francisco startup that’s working on a coronavirus treatment of its own.
The details about Scangos’ exact responsibilities remain a bit fuzzy. “The role is still evolving but it is clear someone needs to pick up the reins. It is only natural for us here at Vir to take on a leadership role,” Scangos told the New York Times.
But given BIO’s decision to tap a startup CEO (with a history at much larger drug makers), it seems likely that Scangos will help smaller firms navigate tricky regulatory waters as they attempt to fight the coronavirus threat.
That may include helping facilitate partnerships between startups and the bigger firms that have more advanced manufacturing capacities or advising BIO member companies on how to deal with regulatory agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
To date, a slew of firms ranging from Gilead to Moderna to Vir have announced they’re working on coronavirus treatments or vaccines. Gilead’s experimental therapy remdesivir has received the most public praise from health officials and is speeding through the clinical trial process.
Read on for the day’s news.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Teladoc easily bests analyst expectations in earnings report. Telehealth firm Teladoc reports that its fourth quarter 2019 earnings were up an eye-popping 27% compared to the same period one year ago, soaring past Wall Street expectations and sending the company's stock flying. If you're wondering if there's a coronavirus angle to the story, there is—the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has urged further use of telemedicine and virtual doctor visits in order to contain the virus' spread.
China, coronavirus, and the surveillance state. My colleague Eamon Barrett explores China's expansion of its surveillance capacity in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak—and how they may persist long after the crisis has abated. Eamon looks into what the computer facial recognition firm Sensetime has been up in recent months. "Sensetime has tweaked its algorithms to develop software that can recognize individuals from just their eyes—as many in China are now wearing surgical masks," he writes. "Conversely, Sensetime has also developed a program that can detect when someone is not wearing a mask—a useful tool as authorities in Wuhan, the outbreak epicenter, and other locales have made wearing masks mandatory in public." (Fortune)
INDICATIONS
Gilead pulls the trigger on $5.9 billion Forty Seven deal. It finally happened—Gilead is actually buying a company. And this time around, the rumor mill was right. The biotech giant has agreed to purchase Forty Seven, a cancer drug specialist, in a $4.9 billion deal. Gilead has long tried to expand its reach in the oncology sector in order to grow its portfolio beyond the antivirals and hepatitis C treatments it's best known for. (Reuters)
THE BIG PICTURE
A twist in South Korea's mounting coronavirus woes. South Korea, the nation with the most number of reported coronavirus cases outside of China, is seeking murder charges against leaders of a church who they say stymied preventive efforts that could have led to fewer deaths from the pathogen. The church's leader, Lee Man-hee, said the organization tried its best to stop the infection's spread but was unsuccessful. (Reuters)
Pence says coronavirus testing will ramp up significantly. Vice President Mike Pence, the Trump administration's coronavirus czar, announced on Sunday that America's capacity to test for coronavirus will ramp up rapidly in the coming weeks as state agencies get the green light to develop their own tests and the CDC fixes problems with its coronavirus diagnostic. "And, more importantly, we’ve established a process in a number of cities across the country where if somebody presents at the local hospital with a respiratory ailment, we want them also tested for coronavirus," Pence said during an appearance on CNN's State of the Union. The U.S. has only tested for several hundred coronavirus cases, and the ramped up testing capacity will likely lead to a massive spike in the number of reported infections. (Politico)
REQUIRED READING
Coronavirus spreads to a previously health sector: corporate earnings, by Anne Sraders
How to think about COVID-19, by Sandro Galea
Funding for female founders increased slightly in 2019, by Emma Hinchliffe
Do epidemics ever really end? by Naomi Xu Elegant
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fortune--2020-03-02--Japanese electronics maker Sharp will start making face masks to meet coronavirus demand

Electronics maker Sharp Corp. said Monday it will start making surgical masks, which are in high demand because of the virus outbreak, using a plant in central Japan that usually makes displays.
Sharp, owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., also known as FoxConn, of Taiwan, said mask production at its Mie Prefecture plant will start by the end of this month, at 150,000 masks a day, rising to 500,000 a day.
Electronics displays are generally made in what are called “germ-free” plants for the sake of high quality. So small particles can’t get into the manufacturing process, making it a good place for mask-making.
Masks are hard to find on store shelves in many places. In Japan, long lines form outside some drug stores, even before they open.
Japanese have long worn face masks to prevent spreading colds or alleviate allergies. That practice has grown more widespread since the recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus that causes the disease known as COVID-19.
Shoppers have been clearing store shelves of other supplies seemingly directly unrelated to viruses, such as toilet paper and rice.
Sharp, based in Osaka, Japan, said in a statement it hoped to contribute to society by making the masks.
Their prices, sales channels and other details are still undecided, it said.
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Subscribe to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health newsletter for daily updates on biopharma and health care.


fortune--2020-03-02--Jack Welch, the GE chief who became a superstar, has died

Jack Welch, who transformed General Electric Co. into a highly profitable multinational conglomerate and parlayed his legendary business acumen into a retirement career as a corporate leadership guru, has died. He was 84.
His death was confirmed Monday by GE. The cause of death was renal failure, his wife Suzy told The New York Times.
Welch became one of the nation’s most well-known and highly regarded corporate leaders during his two decades as GE’s chairman and chief executive, from 1981 to 2001. He personified the so-called “cult of the CEO” during the late-1990s boom, when GE’s soaring stock price made it the most valuable company in the world.
A chemical engineer by training, Welch transformed the company from a maker of appliances and light bulbs into an industrial and financial services powerhouse. During his tenure, GE’s revenue grew nearly fivefold, and the firm’s market capitalization increased 30-fold.
Welch’s results-driven management approach and hands-on style were credited with helping GE turn a financial corner, although some of the success came at the expense of thousands of employees who lost their jobs in Welch’s relentless efforts to cut costs and rid GE of unprofitable businesses.
Business success and outspokenness brought him wide fame.
In 1999, Fortune magazine named Welch as its “Manager of the Century.”
For his first book, “Jack: Straight From the Gut,” Welch received a $7.1 million advance. Although released on the very morning of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the book became a best-seller, and led to frequent speaking engagements where he took his candor on stage.
“From the day I joined GE to the day I was named CEO, 20 years later, my bosses cautioned me about my candor,” Welch wrote in ‘Straight from the Gut.’ “I was labeled abrasive and consistently warned my candor would soon get in the way of my career … and I’m telling you that it was candor that helped make it work.”
Welch did not slow down after leaving GE.
He became a senior advisor with private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in 2001. He also taught a course on business leadership at MIT’s Sloan School of Management in 2006. In 2009, Welch founded the Jack Welch Management Institute, an online MBA program that is now part of Strayer University.
While Welch was known for being hypercompetitive, he also stressed giving everyone a fair shake.
In the 2005 book, “Winning,” Welch wrote that he would like to be remembered “as a huge advocate of candor and meritocracy, and believing everyone deserves a chance. And I’d like to be remembered for trying to make the case that you can never let yourself be a victim.”
Along with Welch’s fame came greater scrutiny. Welch found himself defending his retirement compensation. Amid a wave of corporate scandals, details of Welch’s GE perks emerged in court papers during his 2002 divorce from his wife of 13 years, Jane Beasley. He received millions of dollars in benefits, including unlimited personal use of GE’s planes, office space and financial services.
After the perks became public, Welch reimbursed the company for many of them, and paid for use of aircraft and other services.
His first marriage, to Carolyn, ended amicably in divorce after 28 years in 1987. Plans for his second divorce were disclosed shortly after Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Wetlaufer revealed she had become romantically involved with Welch while working on a story about him.
Welch didn’t blame the media for the attention the affair generated.
“Christ, if I was a journalist, I’d write a scandalous story,” Welch told the CBS television news magazine “60 Minutes” in a 2005 interview. “I mean, it’s a good story, but I don’t care. I fell in love.”
Wetlaufer resigned the Harvard editing post in 2002 because of a furor caused by her relationship with Welch. In a January 2012 interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan, when asked how he persuaded Wetlaufer to marry him, Welch replied, “My charm and probably my wallet.”
“We had a little scandal at the beginning,” he continued. “And it’s been the greatest 10 years of our lives.”
The couple wrote a regular column, called “The Welch Way,” in Business Week magazine for four years. They also wrote management books, including “Winning” in 2005.
The Welches resumed writing a regular column in 2012, this time for Reuters. They used the column to dole out advice for business and political figures, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whom they supported.
Welch was also active on Twitter, where he opined on everything from politics to business to sports and had 1.4 million followers.
Some of those opinions generated controversy.
He questioned a monthly jobs report in October 2012 that showed the unemployment rate had fallen below 8% for the first time in three and a half years. The report came two days after President Barack Obama had performed poorly in his first debate with Romney and a month before the election.
“Unbelievable jobs numbers,” he tweeted. “These Chicago guys will do anything…can’t debate so change numbers.”
Obama hailed from Chicago. While some Republican members of Congress echoed his views, his criticism was mostly derided by economists and by former Labor Department officials from the Bush administration, who vouched for the accuracy of the data.
In his writing and speaking, Welch shared the wisdom he gained in a GE career that began right after he left grad school. He quickly climbed the ranks, and became the company’s youngest chairman and CEO in 1981, at age 45. Welch quickly shook up GE, laying off tens of thousands of employees in his first five years. That earned him the unwanted nickname “Neutron Jack,” after the nuclear weapon that kills people but leaves buildings largely intact. Welch bristled at the name, insisting that successful companies needed to be agile. Welch also divested GE of billions of dollars in businesses that didn’t live up to his mantra that they be No. 1 or 2 in their markets. The early moves dismantled GE’s bureaucracy and eliminated many layers of reporting relationships.
“He’s quick on the trigger — sometimes too quick,” Noel Tichy, the author of a 1993 book on Welch and a former leader of GE’s vaunted training programs, said in 2001. “He’ll make snap judgments. He’s a human being that has temper tantrums.
“With all that, I think he’s the greatest business leader I ever met,” Tichy said.
And Welch freely acknowledged his mistakes. One was Calma, a computer design firm that GE bought in 1981. The company wound up losing $50 million annually until GE sold it in 1988.
Welch delayed his retirement for one last bold move, a $41 billion bid to buy Honeywell International.
Welch predicted easy government approval for the largest acquisition GE had ever attempted, but European regulators rejected the deal as bad for competition.
In 1986, Welch made one of his boldest moves, a $6.4 billion acquisition of RCA, including the NBC television network. The deal energized GE, which made hundreds more acquisitions as the company moved aggressively into financial services, medical equipment and jet engines.
One of Welch’s greatest accomplishments, his supporters say, is the talent GE has created by placing a premium on developing leaders. Many former GE executives now lead Fortune 500 companies.
Among the leaders Welch groomed was his GE successor, Jeffrey Immelt. Welch has written that picking his successor leading up to the 2001 leadership transition was the most important and agonizing decision he ever made.
In April 2008, Immelt became the target of Welch’s blunt talk when GE missed a quarterly earnings target, a month after Immelt had promised investors the company would meet its goals. The disappointment sent GE shares down nearly 13% in a single day, prompting Welch to say that he would “get a gun out and shoot” Immelt if he allowed GE to miss earnings targets again.
After making the comment on CNBC, Welch went back on the GE-owned cable station the next day to renounce his harsh talk, saying, “Nothing, nothing, nothing is as disgusting to me as some old CEO chirping away about how things aren’t as good under the new guy as they were under him.”
And he never strayed far from GE.
“When I last saw him, what I remember most vividly was when he asked me, ‘So how exactly are you running the company?’ Jack was still in it – committed to GE’s success. And to have Jack Welch ask me how I am running GE is pretty humbling,” said GE’s current CEO, Larry Culp.
“He will be deeply missed by me and the entire GE team. And we’ll continue to honor his legacy by doing exactly what Jack would want us to do: win. We extend our thoughts and sympathies to Suzy and his family during this time.”
Born Nov. 19, 1935, as the only child of an Irish working-class family in Salem, Mass., Welch graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He later obtained master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois, finishing in 1960.
Welch joined GE that year as a junior engineer in Pittsfield, Mass.
He rose through the ranks, and built GE’s plastics business into one of the company’s fastest growing business units. He became a senior vice president in 1977, and vice chairman in 1979. In 1995, Welch suffered chest pains and underwent heart bypass surgery.
The setback led to speculation that GE could be seeking a quick successor to Welch, but he remained at the helm another six years.
Welch moved to Boston after his career at GE, living in a townhouse in the city’s Beacon Hill section.
In his later years, Welch also devoted more time to passions such as baseball — specifically, the Boston Red Sox.
He is survived by his third wife, Suzy Welch, and four children from his first marriage.
Mark Jewell, who no longer works at The Associated Press, was the principal writer of this obituary. AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber contributed to this report.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
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—Should consumers be wary of Apple’s heartbeat monitoring app?
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fortune--2020-03-02--Fintech companies have been on a tear lately

Fintech companies have been on a tear lately.
Just last week, Revolut raised $500 million in funding at a $5.5 billion valuation—three times the valuation of its last fundraising round in 2018. Jumo, a South Africa-based financial services startup, also raised $55 million in fresh capital from Goldman Sachs, Odey Asset Management and LeapFrog Investments. And Starling Bank raised £60 million ($77.8 million) in funding.
Today, Public, a New York-based commission-free stock trading app,raised $15 million in funding.Accel and Greycroft co-led the round, and were joined by investors including Dreamers VC and Advancit Capital.
And Monzo and Monese are reportedly both in talks to raise up to £100 million ($129 million).
As early-stage investor Howard Lindzon explained, a multiplier of “fresh” fintech money is being unleashed on a world that will push valuations even higher. Nearly half of all capital raised by fintech startups was concentrated in 83 mega-rounds (those sized $100 million or more). According to CB Insights, 2019 was a record year for mega-rounds across the globe.
It’s a crowded, competitive market, and people have speculated that we’re in a fintech bubble. But I think there’s more room to grow. More and more fintech companies are catering to emerging markets like South America, Africa, Australia and Southeast Asia, which all topped their annual highs last year.
Curious to hear what you guys think about the fintech boom. Will valuations continue to swell or will we see a burst in the near future? Reply to this email with your comments, and they might be included in a future issue of Term Sheet.
FEMALE FOUNDER FUNDING: 2019 was a net positive year for female founders. The share of VC dollars that flowed into startups founded by a woman or a group of women crept up over 2019, hitting $3.54 billion, or 2.7% of total investment. Buuuuuuut…then you put that number in context and realize that SoftBank poured at least $5 billion just into one company: WeWork. That’s roughly $1.5 billion more than the total VC investment in all female-founded companies during the same period. Read more at Fortune.
Polina Marinova
Twitter: @polina_marinova
Email: polina.marinova@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Spinny, an India-based online platform for selling used cars, raised $43.7 million in funding. Fundamentum Partnership led the round, and was joined by investors including General Catalyst Partners, KB Financial Group, Accel, SAIF Partners and Alteria Capital.
- AudioTelligence, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup that develops a software that pre-processes the sound, raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. Octopus Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Cambridge Innovation Capital, Cambridge Enterprise, and CEDAR Audio.
- WhereIsMyTransport, a London-based developer of an urban transportation and journey planner mobile app, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding from Google, Liil Ventures, Nedbank, and Toyota Tsusho Corporation.
- Run The World, a Mountain View, Calif.-based online events company, raised $4.3 million in funding. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, GSR Ventures, Pear Ventures, 122 West Ventures, and Unanimous Capital.
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES
- Xilio Therapeutics, a Waltham, Mass.-based company developing potent, tumor-selective immuno-oncology therapies for patients with cancer, raised $100.5 million Series B funding. Takeda Ventures, Inc. led the round, and was joined by investors including SV Health Investors, MRL Ventures Fund, RiverVest Venture Partners, Bay City Capital, Solasta Ventures, M Ventures, Ipsen Ventures, F-Prime Capital and Atlas Venture.
- Primmune Therapeutics, a San Diego-based biotechnology company, raised $7 million in seed funding. Investors include CAM Capital, Charlie McDermott, BioBrit, and BioRock Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
- Sverica Capital Management made an investment in Cytracom, an Allen, Texas-based provider of cloud-based unified communications software and solutions. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Palladium Equity Partners acquired ALC Schools and Red Rock Technology to form a combined entity that will provide alternative transportation solutions to school districts in the United States, from American Logistics. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHER DEALS
- Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) agreed to acquire Forty Seven, Inc. (Nasdaq: FTSV) for $95.50 per share in cash.
IPOs
- Social Capital Hedosophia, a Palo Alto-based partnership co-founded by the team that brought Virgin Galactic public, filed to raise $300 million and $600 million for its second and third blank check companies respectively. The latter fund is seeking a tech acquisition likely outside the U.S. Read more about II and III.
- Procore Technologies, a Carpinteria, Calif.-based maker of cloud-based construction management software, filed for an $100 million IPO. It posted $289.2 million in revenue and losses of $83.1 million in 2019. ICONIQ (44.3% pre-offering) and Bessemer (14.9%) back the firm. It plans to list on the NYSE as “PCOR.” Read more.
- Accolade, a Seattle-based maker of an employee healthcare benefits management platform, filed for an $100 million IPO. It posted revenue of $94.8 million and losses of $56.5 million in the year ending Feb. 29 2020. Accretive Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, and Carrick Capital back the firm. and It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “ACCD.” Read more.
- Pulmonx, a Redwood City, Calif.-based maker of minimally invasive treatments for emphysema, filed for an $86 million IPO. It posted $32.6 million in revenue and losses of $20.7 million in 2019. Boston Scientific Corporation (30.1% pre-offering), KPCB Holdings (7.7%), and Latterell Venture Partners (7.3%) back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “LUNG.” Read more.
- ORIC Pharmaceuticals, a South San Francisco-based Phase 1 biotech developing molecule therapies for cancer, filed for an $86 million IPO. It has yet to post a revenue and posted losses of $27 million in 2019. The Column Group (22% pre-offering), Topspin Fund (16%), and OrbiMed (12%) back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “ORIC.” Read more.
EXITS
- BMC, a KKR portfolio company, agreed to purchase Compuware, a Detroit, Mich.-based provider of mainframe application development, delivery, and support solutions, from Thoma Bravo.
- Odyssey Investment Partners acquired NSi Industries, a Huntersville, N.C.-based manufacturer of electrical products, from Blue Sea Capital LLC. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
FIRMS + FUNDS
- BV Investment Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, raised $1.1 billion for its new fund, BV Investment Partners Fund X.


fortune--2020-03-02--Every company is a fintech company in some way

This article first appeared in Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. Sign up here.
For someone who proclaimed that fintech’s days are limited, I spent a lot of time last week talking about fintech. My thesis isn’t that fintech isn’t a thing, but rather that one day all finance will incorporate tech and also that the incumbent financial services companies already have some fearsome advantages.
I recently met perhaps the fintech world’s best embodiment of that thesis. He is Zach Perret, co-founder and CEO of Plaid, the company that links financial services providers digitally to banks. Perret agreed in January to sell his seven-year-old startup to Visa for more than $5 billion. The deal hasn’t closed yet, so Perret isn’t talking much about Visa, which had been an investor in Plaid. But he is clear-eyed about why selling was a good idea—beyond the huge payday for himself, his employees, and his other investors.
“Every company is a fintech company in some way,” he says. If a company collects money digitally, it needs its apps to connect to the bank accounts of customers. Visa, he says, will allow Plaid to continue to plow money into working with developers who make those apps. It also will jumpstart Plaid’s international expansion. Currently, it operates in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. (Visa is in more than 200 territories.) And, critically, Visa has direct relationships Plaid doesn’t with banks, whose importance has not gone away. “They are huge on that,” he says. “We are small.”
Like any good founder, Perret repeated Plaid’s mission several times over the course of an hour-long conversation: “Making money easier for everyone.” Visa paid a huge multiple of Plaid’s revenues to buy it. But if its technology truly sits between every financially-oriented app and the banking system, buying it is a similar rationale for why Google made its Android software free. Mobile web usage is to Google what digital financial services are to Visa: the future.
***
Aaron noted it last week, but I suspect most people made too little of Shopify, the backend e-commerce powerhouse, joining the Libra Association. The news cycle made it feel like Libra was dying, but someone forgot to tell Facebook. I hear not only that new members will be joining but also that some who left might be re-joining.
***
Today is a sad day for e-bike riders in San Francisco. Lyft has raised its prices dramatically for its game-changing pedal-assist bikes. Already-expensive Jump bikes, owned by Uber, will disappear with the expiration of their permit. Riders are annoyed, and I don’t just mean me, though I mean me too. My plan is to ride the clunky manual bikes, which are free to members, when I’m not in a hurry, and the speedy e-bikes when I am.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Inoculation. An epidemic, even a potential one, depresses business activity. The coronavirus outbreak continues to take a toll in the U.S. even with only a few reported cases. On Friday, Google canceled a major internal sales and marketing event planned for later this month in Las Vegas. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the virus-induced slowdown would hurt his company's current quarterly results and possibly beyond: "There’s reason for optimism, but we’ll see,” he said.
Holy computer concerns. An influential Vatican institute and top officials from the European Union, United Nations, IBM, and Microsoft have joined forces to push for ethical development of artificial intelligence. Called the "Rome Call for AI Ethics," the document was presented to Pope Francis on Friday. "A.I.-based technology must never be used to exploit people in any way, especially those who are most vulnerable," the document states.
Swimming with the fishes. The latest project undertaken by Google parent Alphabet's moonshot factory is targeted at saving the oceans. Project Tidal is developing cameras to track and monitor fish populations and enhance fish farming efforts, the company disclosed on Monday.
Old wine, new bottle. Cord cutters rejoice, sort of. AT&T released a modified version of its DirecTV Now online package of cable channels, this one called AT&T TV. The service starts at $50 a month for more than 100 channels and can also be paired with 1 gigabit speed Internet service in AT&T's 21-state wired region for a total of $80 per month.
Ruckus in the feed. Activist hedge fund Elliott Management has beef with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The fund, last seen harassing AT&T, has bought a 4% stake in Twitter shares and nominated four people to run for the company's board. One goal: dump Dorsey as CEO.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
As the debate over the impact of ride sharing services rages on, the Union of Concerned Scientists has stepped into the fray with a study analyzing data from seven large cities. They found each trip by Uber, Lyft, and the like increases pollution by 69% over displaced methods of transportation. But as Stephanie Mlot notes at Geek.com, the report also has recommendations for what to do about it.
“Fortunately, the industry can implement several strategies to address the negative impacts of ride-hailing and contribute to a low-carbon transportation future,” UCS said. “It must move rapidly to electrify vehicles, increase pooled trips, and complement mass transit,” the firm urged. “Governments can support those efforts with smart policies that reduce pollution and support efficient, equitable transportation systems.”
Individuals, meanwhile, can “make informed choices” to reduce congestion and pollution, and encourage companies to offer cleaner options.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The coronavirus is giving China cover to expand its surveillance. What happens when the virus is gone? By Eamon Barrett
Funding for female founders increased in 2019—but only to 2.7% By Emma Hinchliffe
Plague-themed app yanked from Apple’s App Store in China By Chris Morris
Public, a would-be Pinterest of stock-buying apps, raises more cash By Jeff John Roberts
How 5G promises to revolutionize farming By Don Reisinger
Before the new coronavirus, there was SARS and MERS: Do epidemics ever really end? By Naomi Xu Elegant
This Raja Ampat yachting adventure might be the world’s most exclusive escape By Alexandra Kirkman
BEFORE YOU GO
While you were relaxing over the weekend, Taylor Swift fans were racking up views on the pop star's newest video, "The Man." There's some ingenious low-tech special effects at work in the entertaining short bit. Fortune's Kristen Bellstrom rounds up some commentary of what she terms Swift's "most explicitly feminist" song. In a music video more Gen X-style, and while barefoot, David Byrne was brilliant as usual on SNL this weekend.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-03-02--Female founders got more funding than ever in 2019. But still less than WeWork took in.

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Actor Adèle Haenel leads a protest at the Césars, the U.S.’s lack of paid sick leave leaves us vulnerable during a pandemic, and female founders made progress in 2019—with some caveats. Have a productive Monday.
– Funding female founders. Every year, Fortune studies the portion of venture capital funding that went to companies founded solely by women. Although the general pattern is an upward one, the news is never *great*.
In 2018, for example, all female founders put together took in less venture capital funding than went to e-cigarette company Juul duing the same 12 months. That trend continued in 2019—but this time, the obvious comparison is WeWork.
Female-founded companies in 2019 got 2.7% of venture capital funding, for a total of $3.54 billion, according to data from PitchBook. Meanwhile, WeWork got a lifeline of at least $5 billion during the same period. (Another 11.5% of the year’s total funding went to mixed-gender founding teams.)
That 2.7% is better than 2018’s 2.2%—but, of course, is still a tiny fraction of the mega-dollars all-male founding teams are getting.
Which brings us to two related questions: Why are venture capitalists so obsessed with pouring billions into companies founded by men, including those that flame out, WeWork-style? And when will female founders get their fair share of the pie?
Pam Kostka, CEO of All Raise, says that the WeWork comparison is “the most visible public argument that could be made for … gender diversity in founding teams, in cap tables, at the board level, and in management at a company.” When WeWork filed for its failed initial public offering, the company had an all-male board.
Read on for more 2019 data points, as well as the top deals of the year for female founders: SpringWorks Therapeutics, Rent the Runway, Glossier, and more. In a bright spot—one could say, a unicorn—among the year’s trends, more female-founded startups than ever became valued at $1 billion.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- From South Carolina to Super Tuesday. Joe Biden swept up nearly 50% of the vote in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary on Saturday; Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in fourth with an estimated 7% and zero delegates, with Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the next spot with about 3% (and Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race). Warren pledged to fight on Super Tuesday, saying that her campaign is "built for the long haul." During coverage of the South Carolina primary, MSNBC's Chris Matthews was kept off the air following renewed allegations of sexual harassment; journalist Laura Bassett wrote about Matthews making inappropriate comments when she appeared on his show. While that behavior took place off air, she wrote the piece after an uncomfortable interview between Matthews and Warren on air last week. MSNBC didn't respond to request for comment.
- The real honor. On Friday night, Roman Polanski won best director at the Césars, or the French Oscars. Adèle Haenel, star of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, started a walkout in protest; she was followed by the film's director, Céline Sciamma, and others. Haenel has said she was sexually abused by a director as a child and has advocated for the #MeToo movement in France. Polanski pled guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977. CNN
- MPW refresh. In the lead-up to International Women's Day next weekend, Fortune podcast the Fortune 500 Daily will run episodes about some of our Most Powerful Women all week. Tune in today for Progressive CEO Tricia Griffith and keep an eye out for Kohl's CEO Michelle Gass, Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi, and more. Fortune
- A paid leave epidemic. One major concern as the U.S. prepares for the spread of the coronavirus? Our lack of paid sick leave. Domestic workers, waiters, and childcare providers are among the many who don't have access to paid time off—a problem during any illness, let alone a possible pandemic. In related news, VP Mike Pence faced criticism from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others after posting a photo of a coronavirus response meeting at which no women seemed to be present. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: The Texas Tribune hired Stacy-Marie Ishmael, formerly of BuzzFeed and the Financial Times, as editorial director and Millie Tran, deputy off-platform editor for the New York Times, as chief product officer. Kate Sampson, former VP of risk solutions at Lyft, joined Anthemis as a managing director.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Beard for the British Museum. The British Museum nominated famed classicist Mary Beard as a trustee of the institution. Then, Downing Street rejected Beard because of her public pro-Europe, anti-Brexit views (the decision is thought to have been made while Theresa May was still in office, not by Boris Johnson). The British Museum is going around the rules that allow the prime minister to veto candidates by appointing Beard to one of the five trustee slots, out of 25 total, that it is allowed to choose without interference. Guardian
- In the running. At the U.S. Olympic marathon team trials this weekend, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Molly Seidel, and Sally Kipyego made the cut to represent the U.S. at the Tokyo Games. Tuliamuk had been sidelined by injuries for the past two years; Seidel's race was her marathon debut; and Kipyego gave birth to a daughter in 2017. Des Linden, winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon, came in the dreaded fourth place—just barely missing the mark. Overall, American women raced faster than ever; hear from hundreds of them about why here.
- Downsizing. Rockets of Awesome, the children's clothing brand founded by CEO Rachel Blumenthal, laid off about half of its staff. Blumenthal says the company is moving away from growth and targeting profitability, "responding to the pressures in the market." Wall Street Journal
- Private ≠ no pressure. Shareholder pressure on public companies has led many to seek greater gender and racial diversity on their boards of directors. Private companies, however, are behind the curve. A new initiative from the Women on Boards Project aims to work with those private companies not affected by efforts like California's director quota to diversify their boards. Biz Journals
ON MY RADAR
UCLA gymnast Nia Dennis has crowd falling crazy in love with her Beyoncé-inspired routine CNN
How Megan Thee Stallion weathered the hottest summer Rolling Stone
The 'sister of the groom' dead zone of wedding etiquette Slate
Nancy Meyers: Life isn’t like the movies (even if you write the movies) New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"It is not only unacceptable, it is stupid."
-UN Secretary-General António Guterres on gender inequality