fortune--2020-12-04--The world is looking to Biden to restore trust in global trade and investment

Two big stories dominated the world press over the past few weeks: The results of the American presidential election followed by the announcement of successful COVID-19 vaccine trials by multiple drugmakers, including Pfizer and its partners. The joyful global reaction to the vaccine announcement is not a surprise, given the devastating impact of the pandemic on the world. But the surprisingly upbeat reaction to the presidential election shows, in some senses, how much the world missed American global leadership.
COVID-19 has created tectonic shifts in every aspect of the global economy, changing both internal and external dynamics of every country in the world. There are still significant uncertainties about the trajectory of the recovery and what permanent changes we will see after the dust settles. One area of concern is how globalization and, especially, economic integration will fare, and whether we will need new rules for the new reality. That is where American leadership is the key.
Even before COVID-19, under the reign of President Trump and his team, international trade faced multiple shocks in the form of increased protectionism and attacks on the World Trade Organization’s dispute resolution body, both of which undermined the rules-based international trade system. Throughout the pandemic, world merchandise trade suffered a record decline of 14.3% in the second quarter of 2020. While trade has picked up somewhat, the WTO expects an overall decline of 9.2% in 2020 from the prior year. However, the impact on trade of the latest wave of the virus could be even greater if vaccines are not widely distributed soon.
In conjunction with merchandise trade, worldwide capital flows also suffered significantly. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Report 2020, global foreign direct investment flows are forecasted to decrease by 40% in 2020 from their 2019 levels. Developing markets are expected to get hit harder compared to their developed counterparts.
Rebuilding the global economy after COVID 19 will require reinstating trust in free trade and support of increased capital flows, especially for developing and emerging nations. These flows have played a key role in lifting many out of poverty over the years. But this will require engagement from both developed and developing nations, in the form of international cooperation to rebuild the rules-based environment, as well as domestic policies that minimize the uncertainties associated with country-specific political and economic risks.
Unfortunately, the lack of leadership from the U.S. over the past four years is setting a precedent and in some sense encouraging developing nations to follow suit. According to an UNCTAD study, China and South Africa are using national security concerns to set up new and restrictive regulatory frameworks for foreign direct investment (FDI) screening. Similar to the U.S. position on the investor-state dispute settlement regime during the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations, many countries have begun questioning the fairness of the system and in some cases unilaterally pulling out of bilateral investment treaties, like Indonesia did for 20 agreements between 2014 and 2018.
There are even further arbitrary actions, like what happened recently in the country of Georgia. After an Azerbaijani company purchased a 49% share of Caucasus Online, a Georgian Internet business, the Georgian government decided to change the rules. Despite the investors having met with government officials since 2018 without any glitches and completing the purchase in August 2019 with a financial tab of 51 million euros, Georgian authorities had a sudden change of heart and wanted to scrap the deal, claiming lack of information. In July of this year, the government took further arbitrary steps by changing the telecommunications laws and appointing a special manager to oversee the company. According to some, these rules changes were the equivalent of a hostile takeover. The case has since been referred to international arbitration.
All of these developments indicate that unless there are significant changes and a rebuilding of trust in multilateral institutions accompanied by a revamped U.S. global policy in cooperation with its democratic allies, global trade and FDI flows will likely remain below previous levels. This vicious cycle will mean further economic malaise worldwide, along with economic interactions based on power rather than rules.
At a national level, smart policymakers can turn the tide for their countries through appropriate policies. As multinational companies reevaluate the weaknesses they discovered during COVID-19 and the pandemic’s impact on their supply chains, they will likely take action to strengthen the resiliency and stability of their production chains. This means capital flow to countries with less overall risk, as we observed during the U.S.-China trade war, which primarily benefited Mexico and Vietnam. A recent survey also shows the influence of policy on global investment decisions. In particular, the survey of more than 2,400 global business executives in 10 large middle-income countries found that government policies can influence FDI location decisions.
The U.S. has a vested interest in being an integral part of reformation of a rules-based system, as it is the world’s largest recipient and financier of foreign direct investment. Continuing with a general approach of open borders, with specific attention to emerging issues surrounding state-owned enterprises, arbitrary country actions, and abuse of power with a multilateral approach, is the best way to proceed to build global coalitions against global problems. The reaction to America’s recent elections shows that the President-elect and his team will have the necessary domestic and international support to do just that.
Pinar Çebi Wilber is executive vice president and chief economist for the American Council for Capital Formation.


fortune--2020-12-04--China is evidence of the world’s pent-up travel demand

Los Angeles ’ s new COVID lockdown bans most walking , driving and use of public transport

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The coronavirus pandemic has crippled the travel industry. But demand for travel? That’s alive and well.
Just look at China, where COVID-19 outbreaks are largely under control. As of September, the number of air passengers traveling within China had equaled the total for all of last year. That’s because of a surge in domestic travel, since international trips remain all but off-limits.
During a Fortune Global Tech Forum virtual conversation on Thursday, four travel experts cited China as proof that travel globally could rebound once the pandemic eases and that domestic tourism can serve as a partial stopgap for the industry until then.
The domestic travel boom in China is due to “pent-up demand” for international travel, said Craig S. Smith, group president of international for Marriott International. With cross-border trips still off-limits, Chinese consumers are choosing destinations within China instead. “They’re all heading to Hainan and Chengdu and Chongqing and anywhere they can to get a short vacation,” he said.
Other countries in Asia, like Japan and Thailand, are also benefiting from upticks in domestic travel, but not to the same extent as China. “There’s still a lot of caution in all these markets,” said Steve Saxon, partner at McKinsey & Company.
Domestic travel is a less viable alternative to international trips in smaller nations. Singapore, for instance, has largely kept a lid on new local coronavirus infections, but it suffers the disadvantage of being an island of 280 square miles with a single commercial airport.
“We don’t have a big domestic tourism market unlike, say, China or Hong Kong or Australia, and so the impact has been tremendous on our tourism industry,” said Keith Tan, chief executive of the Singapore Tourism Board.
In an effort to counter the loss of foreign tourists, the Singapore Tourism Board launched a $34 million “SingapoRediscovers” campaign to drive interest in domestic tourism, offering travel packages and various discounts to residents of the island nation.
Jane Sun, chief executive officer of Trip.com, touted the growth of domestic travel in China. Trip.com, China’s top online travel agency, reported a quarterly profit this week for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, thanks to domestic demand.
Still, Sun hopes that China will be able to set up “travel bubbles” with countries that have the virus under control—Singapore being one.
“We are hoping that with the joint efforts we have with different travel bureaus and effective governments such as Singapore, we’ll be able to unleash some of the energy for the pent-up demand,” Sun said.
Singaporeans hoping for an outbound trip in 2020 were disappointed earlier this week when Hong Kong and Singapore suspended their planned travel bubble until 2021 amid a resurgence in COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong. The delay underscores the precarious nature of such solutions.
The panelists concurred that shuttered international borders remain the primary obstacle for a global travel recovery, and that widespread vaccination against COVID-19 is a vital step in clearing the hurdle.
The U.K. on Monday became the first Western country to authorize a COVID-19 vaccine. It plans to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine next week, and the Trump administration’s vaccine chief said the entire U.S. population could be vaccinated by June.
Saxon says it’s possible travel will resume between countries in North America and Europe based on cross-recognition of vaccination.
“We do see a lot of latent demand ready to come back once those borders do open,” but “any opening up of international borders is going to have to be gradual,” Saxon said.
Tan cautioned that a COVID-19 vaccine will not be a “silver bullet.” Risk management strategies like regular testing for the virus will need to be kept in place, and even then, tourism’s rebound will likely be gradual.
Smith of Marriott is hopeful that 2021 vaccine rollouts will trigger a more robust global recovery for tourism and travel. “You know when you’re waiting for that storm to just pass? It feels like we’re getting close, the vaccine’s out there. People really want to get out to travel.”


fortune--2020-12-04--DoorDash seeks an even higher valuation

DoorDash seeks an even higher valuation

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Wow. The IPO love continues.
Food delivery giant DoorDash now plans to raise as much as about $3.1 billion from its upcoming IPO, a boost from the $2.8 billion it was previously seeking. On Friday, the San Francisco-based business said it planned to sell about 33 million shares priced somewhere between $90 to $95, up from the $75 to $85 range it initially sought.
Valued at $16 billion in its last private round of funding, the business could be minted with a $30.2 billion price tag based on the high end of the new range, or as much as $35.7 billion on a fully diluted basis.
At that high end of the range, SoftBank Vision Fund’s stake would be worth nearly $6 billion, while Sequoia Capital’s holding would be worth about $4.9 billion.
Demand for DoorDash’s services have soared amid the pandemic, with the company managing to maintain its lead as top meal-delivery company in the U.S. by sales and even grow its own market share. The Wall Street Journal has a good story breaking down why DoorDash has been able to dominate when so many other businesses are fighting to send food to you and me: In short, it got a lot of funding and focused on areas its competitors had eschewed. And while other SoftBank-backed companies burned through their capital irresponsibly, DoorDash was able to harness the millions from the Japanese business and outmaneuver its competitors.
But DoorDash, even now, still faces questions about whether the food-delivery market actually can provide the high profits investors seek—and how much of the pandemic boost it can maintain.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: In recent months, there’s been many a founder flameout and controversy—all standard in the business world. But what’s been peculiar about many of the executives at the center of these blowups: Many, many have been women. My colleague Maria Aspan dug into the difficult issue in a recent magazine piece and offers a nuanced look. Read it here.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Versatile, a San Francisco-based company startup using A.I. in the construction process, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners and Entree Capital led the round and were joined by Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, Root Ventures, Conductive Ventures, Leigh Jasper, and Rob Phillpot.
- NUBURU, a Centennial, Colo.-based blue laser tech company, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Anzu Partners led the round.
- Pockit, a London-based fintech focused on underserved customers, raised £15 million ($20 million) in Series B funding. Investors included Concentric, Jatania Family, Harold Mechleynck, Perscitus and Sir Alex Ferguson (former manager of Manchester United).
- Pave, a San Franciscob-ased compensation benchmarking company, raised $16 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round.
- Rubedo Life Sciences, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical company focused on age-related diseases, raised $12 million in seed funding. Khosla Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Longevity Fund, Refactor Capital, and Shanda.
- Fisdom, an India-based investment advisory, raised $7 million in a Series B extension led by PayU. PayU was joined by Quona Capital and Saama Capital.
- MedArrive, a San Francisco-based care management software maker, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Kleiner Perkins and Define Ventures led the round.
- Esports One, a Los Angeles-based esports platform, raised $4 million. Investors included XSeed Capital, Eniac Ventures, and Chestnut Street Ventures.
- Hydra Studios, a New York-based network of wellness studios, raised $3.8 million in seed funding. Investors included Slow Ventures, Company Ventures, Courtside Ventures, CityRock Venture Partners, Hatzimemos/Libby, and Fifth Wall.
- Avant, a Hong Kong-based non-meat protein maker, raised $3.1 million in seed funding. Investors include China Venture Capital, AngelHub, and ParticleX, as well as Lever VC, CPT Capital, Loyal VC, Artesian, 208 Seed Ventures, PTG Food, and Markus Haefeli (Chairman of Regal Springs).
- Loop Health, an India-based health insurance startup, raised $2.3 million in seed funding funding. Sierra Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Y Combinator and Soma Capital.
- Jitsu, a maker of software for data integration, raised $2 million. Costanoa Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Y Combinator, The House Fund, and SignalFire.
- Rheaply, a Chicago-based resource management company, raised $1 million from Revolution, Opportunity Hub, 100 Black Angels & Allies, and Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab.
- Fattmerchant, an Orlando-based payments company, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Greater Sum Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Nesco agreed to acquire Custom Truck One Source, a provider of truck and heavy equipment solutions for $1.5 billion.
- Investors including The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman invested $1 billion in Vantage Group Holdings, a New York-based reinsurance firm. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Battery Ventures invested in DomainTools, a Seattle-based domain name and DNS-based predictive threat intelligence company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec invested in IEX Group, a New York City-based stock exchange operator. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Exterro, backed by Leeds Equity Partners, acquired AccessData, an Orem, Yt.-based provider of digital forensic investigation software. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Hg invested in Benevity, a Calgary-based cloud software company. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Benevity’s current investors, General Atlantic and JMI Equity will remain as investors.
- MFG Partners invested in Storage Solutions, a Westfield, In.-based industrial storage equipment company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Motion Dynamics, a portfolio company of Vance Street Capital, acquired ViaMed, an Easton, Mass.-based maker of components for the medical device industry.Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Thoma Bravo acquired a majority stake in Flexera, an Itasca, Ill.-based maker of IT management software. TA Associates and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board will continue to hold a stake. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Serent Capital invested in Procurement Partners, a Brookfield, Wis.-based provider of procure-to-pay solutions for healthcare providers. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- VLS Recovery, backed by Aurora Capital Partners, acquired JBR Environmental Services, a Spartanburg, S.C.-based provider of waste management. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Prospect Partners recapitalized ProClip USA, a Madison, Wis.-based ProClip designer and distributor of mounting devices for electronics. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
EXITS
- Flutter (LOND: FLTR) has agreed to buy about 37% of FanDuel, a New York-based betting company, for about $4.2 billion from Fastball Holdings (a consortium with CapitalG, Comcast Ventures, KKR, Verizon Ventures, NBC Sports, and Shamrock). The consortium will still hold a stake.
- CVC Capital Partners agreed to acquire RiverStone Europe, an insurer, from Fairfax Financial and OMERS for about $750 million. Fairfax Financial may also receive as much as $235.7 million after the deal is completed.
- Google agreed to acquire Actifio, a Waltham, Mass.-based startup specializing in data backup and disaster recovery services. Actifio investors have included Andreessen Horowitz, Crestline Investors and 83North, per PitchBook.
- Starcity acquired Ollie, a New York-based maker of a co-living space platform. Ollie investors have included Bullpen Capital and Peak State Ventures.
- Affirm agreed to acquire PayBright, a Toronto-based provider of installment payment plans for about C$340 million ($264.5 million) Paybright is backed by Canadian Business Growth Fund.
- Olive acquired Verata Health, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based authorization solution for healthcare providers and payers. Bessemer and 3M backed Verata.
OTHER
- Ansys acquired Analytical Graphics, an Exton, Pa.-based maker of modeling, simulation, testing and analysis software for aerospace and defense organizations, for $700 million.
- Rakuten Americas, the North American division of Rakuten, acquired Fillr, an Australia-based provider of an autofill service. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
SPACS
- Dyal Capital Partners and Owl Rock Capital are in talks to merge with Altimar Acquisition, a SPAC. The combined company would be valued at about $13 billion, per the Wall Street Journal. Read more.
F+FS
- OTV, an Israeli digital health focused venture capital firm, raised $170 million.
- Scale Venture Partners closed Scale Venture Partners Fund VII with $600 million in committed capital.
IPOs
- Petco Health and Wellness, a San Diego-based pet goods retailer, filed for an $100 million IPO. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and CVC back Petco. Read more.
- Certara, a Princeton, N.J.-based maker of biosimulation software, plans to raise $500 million in an offering of 24.3 million shares (about 40% sold by existing shareholders). EQT Investor and Arsenal Investors back the firm. Read more.
- Kinnate Biopharma, a San Diego, Calif.-based oncology biotech, raised $240 million. Its backers include Foresite Capital, OrbiMed, and RA Capital Management. Read more.
SPACs
- Jaws Spitfire Acquisition Corp., the second blank check company by Starwood Capital founder Barry Sternlicht, raised $300 million.
- Far Peak Acquisition, the second SPAC by former NYSE President Tom Farley, raised $550 million.
PEOPLE
- Cultivian Sandbox named Taryn Goodman Gallery as a managing director.


fortune--2020-12-04--Why Snowflake’s stock is raging like a High Sierra blizzard

Every once in a while, a tech company comes on the scene and stirs a massive debate about its future in the market.
As a cub reporter, back in 1990, I covered that conversation over Cisco Systems. Companies had PCs for all their workers, but did they really need to connect them in networks? Turns out, yes. The next decade, Google came along promising its revenue would rise as fast as Internet growth. Indeed. And Facebook’s challenge when it went public in 2012 was whether it would be wiped out by smartphones. Ha ha.
That’s not to say that every giant reaches its projected height. Whether it’s Groupon or AT&T Wireless or the dreaded eToys, sometimes the hype isn’t justified.
Today, the company in the crosshairs is Snowflake, the inventor of the cloud database. I’ve raved about Snowflake before, which also impressed—and drew investment dollars—from Warren Buffett and Marc Benioff alongside its IPO. The company has a compelling Silicon Valley origin story, and revolutionizing the use of databases seems like pretty heady stuff. But Snowflake also has much competition from Amazon, Google, and others. And its stock market value is nearing $100 billion while it’s still losing a lot of money every quarter.
This week was Snowflake’s first quarterly report since going public. Customers, who pay by the second to analyze their data stored with Snowflake, pushed sales up 119% to $160 million. For a company still in growth mode, that generated a net loss of $1.01 per share. Both numbers were a little better than the average analyst forecast, but as we saw with Zoom and Peloton and other tech stocks, that wasn’t enough to impress the first wave of rapid traders, human and algorithmic. Snowflake’s shares initially traded down 6%.
Then investors (and reporters) delved into the details. New customers who sign up with Snowflake buy credits, almost like Amazon gift cards, that they can spend later when they actually start to use the service. Snowflake reports those credits not as revenue but in a separate category called “remaining performance obligations.” And those RPOs jumped 240% to almost $1 billion. Well-compensated CEO Frank Slootman also revealed to analysts that Snowflake had recently gotten better terms from Amazon and Microsoft for the massive amounts of cloud computing services it buys from them.
“We get really big discounts,” Slootman told me in a Zoom call from his home office on Thursday. “It’s a function of contract scale. It’s not because we’re so good-looking or anything else,” he joked. Instead of being hurt by its relationships with the big cloud providers, as some feared before the IPO, Snowflake is prospering.
On Thursday morning, the stock rallied and hit an all-time high, closing at $339.89, a 16% gain and almost triple its IPO price of $120 on September 16.
Why the run-up? In addition to its RPOs, Snowflake is expanding into new areas for analysis such as unstructured data. Those are the vast collections of images or PDF files or other items that companies have accumulated without much organization or metadata. “Our world is getting overrun with unstructured data in terms of video and audio and PDFs,” Slootman says. “It’s not easy. We have to reinvent things…but this is what we fight to do, we love it.”
Shareholders are hoping they keep on fighting, that’s for sure.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
***
On the latest episode of Brainstorm podcast, we discuss how Elon Musk is transforming one industry after another—and why he’s Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year. Brainstorm’s Brian O’Keefe and Michal Lev-Ram speak with Fortune‘s Andrew Nusca about what drives Musk. They also chat with GM’s Ken Morris, VP of Electric and Autonomous Vehicles. While Musk’s Tesla may have lit the fire under the electric vehicle market, the scale of GM means it could put many more drivers into environmentally-friendly cars. Listen to the episode here.
NEWSWORTHY
Ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or dreaming? The destruction of the movie theater business during the pandemic may continue into 2021. AT&T's Warner Brothers studio announced that it will bring its entire slate of movies next year, including the fourth Matrix movie, comic book blockbuster The Suicide Squad, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights, to streaming service HBO Max on the same day they hit theaters.
Two steps back. Timnit Gebru, technical co-lead of Google's A.I. ethics team, left the company on Thursday, saying she had been fired. Gebru said she was pushed out after writing an email to “women and allies” criticizing the company’s lack of commitment to diversity. Google didn't comment to Fortune but pointed to an email by Jeff Dean, its senior VP for research, who called Gebru's departure a "difficult moment."
Qubit grand prix. Hopefully, Robert can sort out the quantum computing race more clearly here next week (his big feature is out this week), but Chinese scientists are claiming to have pulled into the lead. Their new machine solved a particularly knotty computation problem in chemistry almost 100 trillion faster than current top supercomputers. That's billions of times faster than even Google's claims of quantum supremacy from last year. Robert, is it for reals?
Visagate. The outgoing Trump administration may or may not join an expected antitrust lawsuit against Facebook from state attorneys general, but the feds have other issues with the company. On Thursday, the Justice Department sued Facebook for violating immigration laws by hiring 2,600 foreigners on H1-B visas to fill jobs that had qualified U.S. candidates. The department has also started an investigation of Facebook's virtual reality business, Oculus, Bloomberg reports.
The tracks of my coins. As digital currencies like bitcoin move ever deeper into the mainstream financial system, they're drawing the attention of leading players. Top stock index creator S&P Dow Jones Indices said Thursday it will launch cryptocurrency indexes (as we spell that plural noun here in the USA) starting next year. In the Pressman household, we are dabbling in a tiny bit of crypto coinage thanks to PayPal's new features. More on that at a later date.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Over the past year or so, some of the most prominent women founders of startups have been pushed out, including Audrey Gelman at The Wing and Steph Korey of Away. Fortune senior writer Maria Aspan has a deep dive into the conditions for women founders and the significance of the recent wave of departures.
These trends, married with the cascade of high-profile founder ousters, are fueling a growing debate among startup industry insiders over whether female founders are facing a backlash—one that makes them more subject to public scrutiny and, ultimately, more likely to be forced out of their companies than their male counterparts.
“There’s absolutely a double standard for women,” says Alex West Steinman, the cofounder and CEO of the Coven, a Minneapolis-based women’s coworking startup. “We do walk around with a target on our backs, and people are looking for us to fail.” There’s copious social science research—and widespread real-world experience—that agrees. Women in the business world face what’s been dubbed the “double bind,” which penalizes them for “unfeminine” behaviors that are expected and often applauded in male leaders.
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few great long reads I came across this week:
A Day in the Life of an Amazon Warehouse Worker (Wall Street Journal)
Before Covid, she was an accountant. Now she works 11-hour shifts sorting Lysol wipes and Christmas decorations; ‘it has been more exhausting than ever’
Why I’m Mourning the Arecibo Telescope (Slate)
In its 57 years, the massive radio telescope made some groundbreaking discoveries, but it also connected our hearts and minds to the cosmos.
Coding the future: the tech kids solving life’s problems (The Guardian)
They’re too young to vote or drive. But meet the children writing computer programs to track our health and wellbeing, choose a new school… and even how to cheat at online games.
If You Pay a Mouse To Eat a Cookie, Will He Like It More or Less? (MIT Press Reader)
Researchers Constança Esteves-Sorenson and Robert Broce reviewed more than 100 tests — and ran one of their own — to find out if pay harms performance on enjoyable tasks. Here’s what they learned.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Airbnb debuts new rules to prevent New Year’s Eve partying By Danielle Abril
How Chinese phonemaker Xiaomi conquered India—and outperformed Apple By Eamon Barrett and Grady McGregor
Robinhood’s next adventure: Stealing market share from the rich By Jeff John Roberts
Little Big Shorts: How tiny ‘activist’ firms became sheriffs in the stock market’s Wild West By Bernhard Warner
On cloud nine: Why these cloud security stocks are soaring By Anne Sraders
Congress should legalize cannabis now—for the economy and for social justice By David Culver
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
We learned two weeks ago that the famed Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico was damaged beyond repair. Now the scientifically significant and Hollywood-starring structure has collapsed. The National Science Foundation posted a video of the Arecibo's demise (including some drone footage) that's both awe-inspiring and depressing at the same time. Hopefully, your weekend's events will be more of the former than the later. See you back here on Monday.


fortune--2020-12-04--Melinda Gates calls for a caregiving ‘czar’

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Melinda Gates calls on the Biden admin to appoint a caregiving czar, Julia Cheek’s Everlywell is valued at $1.3 billion, and Melinda Gates poses the idea of a caregiving czar. Have a wonderful weekend.
– Czar wanted. The pandemic has laid bare the shortcomings of the U.S.’s caregiving system. With schools operating remotely and daycares and long-term care facilities shuttered, women are filling the gaps, often risking or outright abandoning their careers to do so.
The crisis has prompted calls for a childcare bailout from the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), who argues that without relief, childcare providers will fold during the pandemic, leaving parents with few options when they need to return to work.
Now the crisis has prompted another demand, this time from Melinda Gates, who argues President-elect Joe Biden should appoint a caregiving czar to urgently address the matter.
“By creating a new position to lead a multiagency caregiving response, he could ensure that, for the first time ever, the federal government is formally considering the needs of caregivers in all policymaking and legislation,” Gates wrote in The Washington Post.
On Day One of the new administration, the caregiving czar could focus on extending temporary paid-leave provisions for families, passing billions in funding for the crippled childcare industry, and providing additional resources to reduce the Medicaid waiting list for long-term care services, Gates says.
Beyond the practical importance of a caregiving czar, the position would also carry great symbolism. As Gates writes, the “czar” title was first used in 1918—President Woodrow Wilson’s “industry czar” oversaw WWI supplies. Since then, it’s come to signal that the issue at hand is of urgent, national importance. (Republicans chided President Barack Obama for having, in their view, too many czars; among them a drug czar, a compensation czar, and a car czar.)
Caregiving, as a critical economic engine, has been overlooked and taken for granted, likely because of who powers it. Much of the work is unpaid and many paid facets of it offer few job protections and poverty-level wages. If nothing else, the pandemic has proved it’s worthy of czar-level attention.
And as Gates, points out, the caregiving czar is another opportunity for a Biden administration first.
“Given how many Americans have caregiving responsibilities, you might assume that such a role already exists,” she writes, “but, in fact, it never has.”
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Searching for answers. Google A.I. researcher Timnit Gebru said this week that she was fired after criticizing the company’s lack of commitment to diversity. Google didn't respond to requests for comment. Fortune's Jeremy Kahn reports on the situation, which is renewing worries among some that the tech giant is silencing whistleblowers. Fortune
- Empowerment gets political. Ivanka Trump has tried to ensure her women's development program outlasts the Trump administration by funding it through Congress. But the initiative lost its bipartisan support after Trump's office put forward its own version of legislation that removed Democrats' concerns. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi instructed her caucus not to include the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity bill in a State Department authorization, the White House retaliated by blocking that entire piece of legislation. Washington Post
- Testing, $1.3. Everlywell, the at-home collection/lab testing digital health company that was one of the first startups to work on COVID-19 testing, raised $175 million at a $1.3 billion valuation. Founder and CEO Julia Cheek says the newly minted unicorn will use this funding to improve virtual care offerings and testing infrastructure. Forbes
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: White House communications director Alyssa Farah resigned from her post. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris chose Tina Flournoy, currently chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton, as her chief of staff. Mastercard promoted president, U.S. issuers Linda Kirkpatrick to president, North America. Salesforce promoted president and chief legal officer Amy Weaver to CFO. Goldman Sachs named Meena Flynn, global head of the Markets Solutions Group, co-head of global Private Wealth Management. UBS Group appointed Chief Operating Officer and President EMEA Sabine Keller-Busse as president of UBS Switzerland. Hootsuite promoted VP of people Tara Ataya to chief people and diversity officer. Quantcast hired former H2O.ai CMO Ingrid Burton in the same role and GoodData general counsel Ileana Falticeni in that same position. HaystackID hired John Deere's Jennifer Hamilton as deputy general counsel for global discovery and privacy.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Labor loss. The WSJ has a new piece on how women are being pushed out of the labor market by the coronavirus crisis—alongside baby boomers. Both groups (and of course, the employees who fall into both) have been hard hit among the 3.7 million workers who have left the workforce. Wall Street Journal
- New blood. Stylist Karla Welch is getting into the period underwear game. The category has been led by Thinx and Knix; Welch and Sasha Markova have founded competitor the Period Company. New York Times
- All I want for Christmas is ... Apple TV+? Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" started as a song—and now it's an Apple TV+ special, premiering today. How did the pop star build her Christmas spirit into a juggernaut business? Wall Street Journal
ON MY RADAR
She built a business with $30 million in revenue—and a mission to root out racism in the construction industry Inc.
Rep. McMorris Rodgers will make history as first woman at top of Energy and Commerce Politico
By the book: Dolly Parton likes to read by the fire in her pajamas New York Times
Climbing routes are riddled with racist and misogynistic names. Meet the people trying to change it all The Lily
PARTING WORDS
"My husband does the laundry."
-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, after she was asked if she uses "smart technology at home" or turns "on the washing machine" herself.


fortune--2020-12-04--Southwest Airlines warns nearly 13% of workforce at risk of layoffs after punishing year for travel

Southwest Airlines Co. dramatically expanded its furlough warnings, telling employees that 6,828 jobs are at risk as the company and its labor unions have failed so far to agree on how to cut $500 million in costs.
Pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers and other workers got notices Thursday that they may be furloughed, Southwest said. The new warnings boosts the number of people at risk of being cut between January and April 1 to 7,273, or nearly 13% of the workforce.
Southwest’s inability to secure a 10% reduction in 2021 spending for each work group means the company is on the brink of its first involuntary job cuts in its 49-year history. With the coronavirus pandemic keeping travel demand at about 40% of last year’s levels, the airline says it has 20% more employees than it needs — at an expected cost next year of $1 billion.
“We are willing to continue negotiations quickly to preserve jobs if we can achieve the support that allows Southwest to combat the ongoing economic challenges,” Russell McCrady, vice president of labor relations, said in a statement by email.
The latest notices were the third batch in four weeks that Southwest has sent warning of potential layoffs. The earlier letters went to 445 mechanics, employees who manage parts inventory, technicians who clean aircraft and other workers. Talks began in October, with the goal of securing agreements by the end of that month. The carrier earlier reached deals with two small work groups.
‘Scare Tactic’
The airline is pushing for concessions despite recent progress toward a coronavirus vaccine, movement toward a possible extension of federal payroll aid for carriers, and the potential for rising passenger demand in the spring, said Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association.
“This is just a scare tactic and a lot of vindictiveness on their part,” he said in an interview. “We view it as a heartless negotiating stick in the eye.” The union has no talks scheduled with Southwest, he said.
Employees getting notices Thursday included 2,551 ramp workers, 1,500 flight attendants and 1,221 pilots.
Southwest and the Transport Workers local representing ramp, provisioning and freight employees are within about $10 million of reaching the $70 million in reductions sought by the carrier, said Charles Cerf, president of the unit. The airline has declined to give the group credit for $100 million in savings previously secured through voluntary early retirements and long-term leaves and has rejected other cost-cutting proposals, he said.
“We believe they’re using this furlough to try to bully the unions,” Cerf said in an interview. The union is working with Southwest to set more talks. The TWU local for flight attendants didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stimulus Package
The layoffs could be prevented if Congress approves a new financial stimulus package that includes additional financial aid to help cover airline payroll costs. Employees must be notified of potential furloughs as much as 90 days in advance.
Southwest has said it would burn as much as $11 million a day from October through December. The Dallas-based company reported a $1.2 billion adjusted loss in the third quarter.
Since seniority provisions for some unions mean Southwest can’t know which individuals ultimately will be let go, 7,990 workers got the latest notices that they could be affected. About 17,000 employees already have left Southwest temporarily or permanently through voluntary programs.
Southwest rose 2.4% to $48.59 at 2:48 p.m. in New York. The stock had dropped 12% this year through Wednesday, the smallest decline on the S&P 500 Airlines Index.(Updates with pilots union comment in sixth paragraph)


fortune--2020-12-04--Snowflake CEO collects a $95 million payout every month

Snowflake Inc. is doing well by any stretch of the imagination.
On Wednesday, the cloud-computing company reported that third-quarter revenue more than doubled from a year earlier, and its stock has surged 183% to $339.89 since its Sept. 15 initial public offering.
That has helped make Chief Executive Officer Frank Slootman one of the best-paid technology executives. A compensation package he received upon joining Snowflake in April 2019 awards him a batch of options every month — for four years — that are now worth almost $95 million each, or about $1.1 billion annually.
Slootman’s pay includes more than 13.7 million options with a strike price of $8.88. The vast majority can already be exercised but the underlying shares vest monthly over four years, beginning with the month he started.
He also gets a $375,000 annual base salary, which can go higher depending on the firm’s performance.
Once the full options package is paid out in early 2023, it would be worth about $4.5 billion at the current stock price.
A spokeswoman for San Mateo, California-based Snowflake declined to comment on Slootman’s pay package or net worth.
He hasn’t exercised any of his options and his shares are subject to a lockup period that ends in March.
The monster pay package is partly a result of Snowflake’s surging valuation. In October 2018, about six months before Slootman joined and negotiated his compensation, the company raised funds at a valuation of about $3.5 billion. It’s now worth $96 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Michael Scarpelli, who joined a few months after Slootman, has a similar compensation structure. His options are worth about $25 million a month at the current share price. Snowflake co-founder Benoit Dageville, who’s also chief technology officer, owns a $2.73 billion stake.
Snowflake is the third CEO gig for the Dutch-born Slootman in less than 20 years. He led data-storage firm Data Domain from 2003 until its takeover by EMC Corp. in 2009, then ran cloud-service firm ServiceNow Inc. from 2011 to 2017.


fortune--2020-12-04--Apple Pay limitations spark Dutch antitrust probe

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The Dutch competition regulator has opened an investigation into contactless payments on smartphones, arguing that some systems could stifle innovation in the payments market. There’s no named target for the probe, as per the watchdog’s usual procedures, but the release suggests Apple and its iPhones are the focus.
Banks and financial technology companies have long complained that only the Apple Pay digital wallet is allowed to access iPhones’ NFC chips for the purpose of contactless payments. “NFC” refers to near-field communication, the wireless technology that enables people to pay for things by tapping a card or a phone on a reader.
This stops rival payments companies from establishing their own lucrative digital wallets in Apple’s ecosystem. The Android ecosystem, by contrast, allows NFC payments with wallets other than its own.
“This problem may stifle innovation with respect to payment apps, and it reduces the freedom of choice for consumers and businesses,” the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) said in a Friday statement.
The ACM noted that there is an EU-wide financial regulation that says consumers should be able to choose their method of payment at a brick-and-mortar store.
Then there’s the question of whether Apple’s stance violates EU competition law. The European Commission in June opened a formal antitrust probe into this question and others involving Apple Pay.
“ACM will investigate whether limiting the payment apps’ access to NFC communication reduces the users’ freedom of choice,” the Dutch watchdog said Friday. “ACM may also come to the conclusion that these rules have not been violated. In that case, the investigation will be terminated. If ACM does establish a violation, it may result in a penalty, such as a fine.”
However, the regulator told Fortune the main aim of the investigation was to ensure “other payment apps will also be able to gain access to NFC.”
Responding to a request for comment, Apple did not directly refer to the Dutch investigation but instead said Apple competes “every day—working with banks, fintechs, and merchants to be the best payment option for business and consumers across the Netherlands.”
Apple has previously argued that its NFC limitations are a necessary security measure; the financial companies disagree.


fortune--2020-12-04--The EU’s biggest oil producer will end extraction by 2050—and exploration is canceled as of now

Denmark has become the largest oil producer so far to set a finite deadline for ending oil and gas extraction, in an effort to meet some of the world’s most ambitious climate targets.
While Denmark is known for its low-carbon offshore wind networks and its bicycle lanes, it is the largest oil and gas producer in the EU, based on its domestic industry centered around the North Sea. (Keep in mind: Neighboring oil giant Norway is not part of the EU.)
The government will also cancel the current and all future licensing rounds for oil and gas extraction, the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Utilities said, following a vote for the deadline in the Danish Parliament.
“Denmark’s decision to cancel its eighth licensing round comes against the background of other canceled oil exploration tenders elsewhere and a growing number of oil and gas companies who are curtailing frontier exploration activities. But it also flags an important precedent to be made,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, managing director of the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University, in a comment.
“With its decision to end exploration tenders permanently, Denmark stands out as the first developed nation to acknowledge not only the priority of the energy transition but also the need to step aside and let other less economically fortunate nations be the ones to benefit from any lingering budget for oil and gas development as we move off of oil over time.”
The country began extracting oil and gas in 1972, and oil and gas revenues played a key economic role in building up the country’s ample welfare state, the ministry said Friday. In 2019, the country made DKK5.9 billion (nearly $1 billion) in revenue from oil and gas and, as of 2016, the last year figures were collected, 4,000 people were employed in the sector. Denmark has a population of about 5.8 million people.
Danish climate minister Dan Jørgensen said that as a relatively small oil and gas producer, the country hoped to lead by example, in showing that such a cutoff was possible.
“We intend to show what an ambitious yet balanced phaseout of fossil fuel production might look like, taking into account both the urgency of climate change and the very real concerns of workers employed in the fossil sector,” said Jørgensen in a statement. The ministry said the cutoff would include a “just transition” for those workers and the regions affected.
Denmark has one of the world’s most ambitious government-level climate change targets: It has committed to lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.
But it also has a leading edge in the energy transition in other ways. Ørsted, the Danish state energy company—originally formed to exploit oil and gas in the North Sea—has transitioned over the past decade into the world’s largest offshore wind producer, and aims to be carbon neutral by 2025.


fortune--2020-12-05--The science behind the leading COVID vaccines will lead to faster manufacturing

The fate of the COVID pandemic may well be dictated by a biological building block that’s just several hundred nanometers long.
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is at the heart of both leading vaccine candidates, one from Moderna and the other from Pfizer and partner BioNTech. The companies’ clinical trial data suggest these vaccines are about 95% effective. And Pfizer’s vaccine, which has already received the green light in the U.K., may start being distributed to certain Americans in just a matter of weeks.
It will be a distribution challenge and an immunization campaign the likes of which the world has never seen. But as remarkable as that challenge will be, the science that led to the creation of promising vaccines in less than a year is equally remarkable—a process that usually takes about five years or more. And in the case of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines, their pioneering technologies could make it far easier to scale up the manufacturing process.
So how does a vaccine get made, anyway? And how did academic institutes and pharmaceutical companies pull it off so quickly in the midst of a pandemic?
How a virus births a vaccine
Drugs don’t just spring out of thin air. Creating one, whether it be a therapeutic meant to treat disease or a vaccine meant to prevent it, is a fascinating process which begins with a thorough examination of the biological foe in question.
“One of the first steps of making a vaccine is to identify the weak spot in the pathogen; to identify the vaccine target,” says Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine.
The basic role of a vaccine is to induce an immune response, which will then offer protection against a pathogen by forcing your body to create antibodies which attack antigens, the components of a pathogen that produce the immune response. So when the actual virus comes knocking, your body already recognizes the intruder and can deploy its antibody arsenal.
Many common vaccines contain little bits of the virus or bacteria itself that either have been killed after being grown in a lab or are live but greatly weakened and are therefore unlikely to get you sick.
In the case of the coronavirus, identifying the “weak spot” Hotez refers to was the crucial first step. It’s something rather sinisterly named the spike protein.
“When you think of the coronavirus, everyone’s seen the pictures of the virus that has the colored spike protein, that red bit that’s protruding off that cylindrical virus compound,” says Dean Fanelli, a partner in the intellectual property department of Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s Washington, D.C., offices.
Radoslav Zilinsky—Getty Images
That “spike protein” does exactly what you’d think a spiked object would do: It pierces something else. “The spike protein attaches to the ACE2 protein present in human cells. And so we know that’s how this virus actually infects people,” adds Fanelli.
The drugmakers knew they would have to teach the body to attack the antibody-attracting antigens on the spike protein. But the way in which Pfizer and Moderna went about that is very different from the traditional vaccine creation method.
Creating a COVID mRNA vaccine
Messenger RNA is a powerful biological tool. It’s the molecule that actually instructs your cells what to make, such as proteins.
Theoretically, that means you could harness mRNA to turn your body’s cells into mini drugmaking factories that can fight various diseases. As little as a year ago, large swaths of the biotech community were skeptical of using mRNA technology to make treatments.
But that’s just what the leading vaccine candidates have been able to accomplish. By leveraging the genetic code of the virus, which was made available globally by Chinese scientists earlier this year, drugmakers have been able to figure out how to use mRNA to force the body to mimic the spike protein and induce an immune response.
In essence, they go back one step from the traditional vaccine-making process. Rather than injecting the surface proteins that awaken the immune system directly into the body, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are injecting the RNA which codes for such proteins.
One individual who’s been a decided RNA vaccine evangelist is Phil Dormitzer, who just happens to be the vice president and chief scientific officer of Pfizer’s viral vaccines unit.
“I’ve been thinking about RNA vaccines for a long time,” he says. “Things really came together in 2018 when we agreed with BioNTech to start the new mRNA program.” That collaboration began as a quest to develop an mRNA-based flu vaccine. The focus shifted once the pandemic hit.
Dormitzer cites two specific reasons he’s enthusiastic about the technology: flexibility and the capacity to rapidly manufacture and scale up treatments. He explains that with RNA vaccines an immune response could produce both antibodies and T cells, another key immune system warrior, which is important since one or the other might be more effective against COVID.
The second reason is particularly critical at a time when these vaccines must be scaled up on a massive level for worldwide distribution.
“I think a lot of people gravitate to mRNA because you can make a piece of mRNA in a day, right?” says Baylor’s Hotez. “And there are companies that you can contract out that will make the mRNA for you.”
Unlike more traditional vaccines, you don’t have to spend months upon months manually harvesting and purifying a pathogen’s antigens in order to make the final product. You can simply let the instruction-carrying mRNA sequences loose into the body. After that, the body’s cells do that heavy lifting all by themselves.
That’s one of the reasons why Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines may have leapfrogged competitors on the regulatory front—and what may help them ramp up hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by the end of 2021.
An army of COVID vaccines
Ultimately conquering the coronavirus pandemic will likely require a motley crew of vaccines which use different technologies. Not everything is going to be an mRNA vaccine.
For instance, Hotez’s own group has been working on a COVID-19 vaccine which employs a far more traditional technology called recombinant adenovirus tech.
“We started making the new spike protein as did other groups,” he says. “It’s just that different groups are using different technologies to do it, whether it’s mRNA or adenovirus. And each of the technologies has strengths and weaknesses.”
For Pfizer, one of the more complex issues is the ultracold temperature its COVID vaccine requires for storage, about negative 70 degrees Celsius. That’s precisely because of the mRNA component of its specific vaccine, which could fall apart without being thoroughly frozen. Pfizer even had to come up with a special high-tech storage and transport case to deal with that exact dilemma.
So while mRNA vaccines present some problems, the quickness they provide is exactly what’s needed in this moment. Distributing the COVID vaccines and persuading people to get them will be the next daunting challenge—and there are still plenty of other pioneering projects to come during this pandemic.


fortune--2020-12-05--How China’s COVID-19 could fill the gaps left by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca

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In recent weeks, a string of vaccine makers including Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca have released promising phase III trial data, injecting the world with hope that the COVID-19 pandemic will come to an end.
On Wednesday, the U.K. became the first western country to approve a vaccine for COVID-19, authorizing Pfizer to distribute its vaccine on an emergency basis to frontline medical workers and other high-risk groups. The U.S. and the European Union are expected to follow suit in coming days or weeks and give vaccine makers the green light to start distributing their candidates.
But amid the optimism, experts have raised some concerns about the accessibility of Pfizer and Moderna’s candidates, which require costly cold-chain distribution mechanisms, and about the quality of the data provided by British vaccine maker AstraZeneca.
At the same time, China’s two leading vaccine makers—the private Sinovac and state-owned Sinopharm—appear close to rolling out their vaccines in coming weeks with candidates that don’t require expensive cold chain networks.
Western vaccine makers appear to have taken the lead in the global race to produce a vaccine, but Chinese vaccine makers may help fill in the gaps they leave behind.
Data limits
In mid-November, American firms Pfizer and Moderna each announced preliminary trial results for their experimental vaccines indicating that they were over 90% effective in preventing infections of COVID-19. The results far exceeded expectations, given that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it would require a vaccine to be just 50% effective or better to gain approval.
Still, Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are based on newly-developed mRNA technology that requires the candidates to be kept at sub-zero temperatures during shipments. Such temperature restrictions will make it difficult for lower- and middle-income countries to access the vaccines because they will need cold-storage infrastructure to distribute the doses.
In Indonesia, for example, the country’s state-owned vaccine manufacturer Bio Farma said that Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, effectively cannot purchase Pfizer’s vaccine given the logistical challenges in distributing it.
“Indonesia does not have such [cold-chain] capabilities, and it is hazardous if this vaccine is not stored at the proper temperature,” Honesti Basyir, head Bio Farma, told Indonesian news outlet the Jakarta Globe on Nov. 22. In India, the country’s 28,000-unit cold chain network used for distributing vaccines only handles vaccines between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius.
Pfizer’s vaccine, which was originally developed by the German firm BioNTech, must be shipped at -70 Celsius (-94 Fahrenheit), colder than average winter temperatures at the South Pole. Moderna’s needs to be kept at -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit), roughly equivalent to the temperature of a home freezer.
Pfizer has developed its own shipping containers that keep its vaccines at -70 Celsius for up to ten days. Otherwise, keeping the vaccines cold for a longer period of time requires an extensive network of airport freezer warehouses, refrigerated trucks, and on-site freezers that can cost up to $10,000.
An employee makes dry ice pellets at Capitol Carbonic, a dry ice factory, in Baltimore on Nov. 20, 2020. The vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna require expensive cold storage, making the vaccines out-of-reach for some nations. SAUL LOEB—AFP/Getty Images
These freezer-chain fears partly dissipated when, weeks later, British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca announced that its vaccine candidate was also up to 90% effective in phase III trial results. AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate, based on adenoviral technology, which induces an immune response by infecting cells with a weakened form of a live virus, only needs to be kept between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 47 degrees Fahrenheit), roughly the temperature of a home refrigerator, making it easier to distribute.
But in the days after AstraZeneca’s announcement, experts raised questions over the “transparency and rigor” of AstraZeneca’s data. Scientists questioned why the most effective results emerged from an apparent dosing error, and how datasets from multiple countries were combined and tabulated into the final results. In response, a spokesperson for AstraZeneca said its trials were conducted to the “highest standards.” Still, amid the questions over its trial data, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot pledged that the company would conduct an additional study to validate its results
AstraZeneca’s woes and the potential distribution limitations of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have left a hole in the global supply that may be filled by Chinese vaccine makers, says Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sinovac and Sinopharm, China’s two leading vaccine makers, are currently testing three vaccine candidates in phase III trials with candidates that could be distributed without cold storage chains. Sinovac’s candidate, called CoronaVac, uses inactivated forms of COVID-19 to induce immune responses. Sinopharm’s two unnamed candidates are both based on similar technology.
Beijing “absolutely” sees these Chinese-made vaccines as a potential substitution for AstraZeneca’s candidate, says Huang. In state media outlets, Beijing is presenting Sinovac and Sinopharm’s candidates as “particularly attractive to lower and middle income countries, especially the ones who cannot afford or don’t have the capacity to sustain cold chain to distribute vaccines,” Huang says.
Because they rely on inactivated forms of the virus, Sinovac’s and Sinopharm’s candidates are more stable in comparison to vaccines based on mRNA technology, meaning they don’t need to be kept quite as cold. Similar to AstraZeneca, Sinovac says its vaccine can be stored and shipped at temperatures ranging from 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. Chinese state media reports that Sinopharm’s candidates can likely be stored at a similar 2 to 8 degree Celsius range. Sinopharm declined Fortune’s request for confirmation.
Sinovac and Sinopharm
Sinovac and Sinopharm have both recently indicated that they are nearing the finish line in the vaccine development process.
Sinovac, which is conducting large-scale clinical trials in Brazil and Indonesia, said last week that it expected to release clinical data from its CoronaVac candidate in Brazil in a matter of days. The Butantan Institute, a vaccine research center and Sinovac’s partner in Brazil, told reporters on Thursday that it expects Sinovac to publish clinical data before Dec. 15. Joao Doria, governor of Brazil’s Sao Paolo state, also said Thursday he aims to begin distributing CoronaVac by January. Sinovac did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment on its trial data.
Sinovac published results of its phase II trial in mid-November that suggest CoronaVac induced immune responses among volunteers and may offer COVID-19 protection. Researchers noted, however, that Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines induced stronger immune responses.
Meanwhile, on Nov. 25, Chinese state-owned vaccine maker Sinopharm asked regulatory authorities in China to officially make its vaccine available to the Chinese public. In an interview with state-run news outlet Xinhua, a Sinopharm executive did not specify when the company expects to receive a response from Chinese regulators.
Sinopharm has not released any data to the public on its phase III trials, but says it has already distributed the vaccine to nearly a million people in China under the country’s controversial emergency-use program.
Of the two drugmakers’ candidates, Sinovac’s CoronaVac is likely China’s most “promising” vaccine, with the best chances of getting approved and distributed internationally because Sinovac has released more data, says Huang.
A boy looks at Sinovac Biotech LTD’s vaccine candidate for COVID-19 coronavirus on display at the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing on Sep. 6, 2020. NOEL CELIS—AFP/Getty Images
Authorities in Brazil, Turkey, and Indonesia have already struck deals with Sinovac to purchase tens of millions of doses of CoronaVac if phase III trials prove successful.
Admiral Craig Fuller, the U.S.’s top commander in Central and South America, told reporters this week that while the U.S. is focused “on taking care of the U.S. first,” China is poised to deploy its vaccines around the world.
Still, Sinopharm may have a built-in edge given its established distribution networks within China and the fact that it is testing its vaccine in a broader array of countries than other Chinese vaccine makers.
“[Sinopharm’s] large scale rollout [via China’s emergency use program] also means that there is already a large distribution system, which has already been stress-tested,” says Nicholas Thomas, a vaccine expert and health governance professor at the City University of Hong Kong. “This is a major advantage in the future distribution.” Sinopharm is also already distributing vaccines to the United Arab Emirates via that country’s emergency use program, and is testing, or plans to conduct trials, in at least ten countries including Egypt, Jordan, and Argentina.
Home stretch
The U.S.’s apparent success in producing effective COVID-19 vaccines has turned the global race to develop an immunization for the disease into an all-out sprint. Globally, China does not want to be seen as losing in a scientific competition with its chief rival, the U.S. Domestically, China is under pressure to quickly roll out vaccines so it can loosen travel restrictions and cease the cycle of sporadic lockdowns when new outbreaks arise.
“If the U.S. manages to mass produce their vaccines for their populations by say, May, it would make China look bad if they don’t have their population vaccinated,” says Huang. “They have strong incentives to get vaccines to their populations as soon as they can.”
If and when Sinovac or Sinopharm’s vaccines come to the market, Thomas says, the next big phase in the vaccine race will be a bifurcation of nations based on which vaccines they seek, China’s or ones made by Western countries.
“There is a significant commercial advantage to be gained if the public prefers one manufacturer over another,” says Thomas. “The competition at the global level is only just beginning.”


fortune--2020-12-05--The 10 best business books of 2020

The 10 best business books of 2020

These aren’t just self-help or how-to guides about launching your startup for the umpteenth time or networking with someone you really have no interest in conversing with ever again. These are articulate, well-researched works with concrete and valuable lessons that can be applied to your professional life.
The following are 10 of the best business books published in 2020, in alphabetical order by title.
“Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork” Courtesy of Little Brown and Company
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork by Reeves Wiedeman
Even before the pandemic started and everyone shifted to working from home, WeWork was in trouble. The coworking-space giant was already out of control, and so much of that chaos stemmed from its founder, Adam Neumann, as examined in Billion Dollar Loser (Little, Brown), a wild and well-researched book by New York magazine writer Reeves Wiedeman. This is truly the Bad Blood equivalent of 2020, tracing WeWork’s astronomical rise and unbelievable work culture that seemed too good to be true—because so much of the company’s business success was rooted in exaggerations and hyperbole to begin with.
“Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” Courtesy of Custom House
There is so much about Donald Trump’s business dealings that we still don’t know. But in Dark Towers (Custom House), New York Times finance editor David Enrich pulls the curtain back on one of the biggest mysteries in the Trump portfolio: the curious and mind-boggling relationship with Deutsche Bank. Like much else in Trumpland, a lot of what happened doesn’t make sense, from the massive loans to the Kushner family and Trump—much of which is expected to be called up for payment when the President finally leaves the White House. But Enrich does a fine job of navigating all the serpentine narratives in organized fashion, such as offering a detailed look at Deutsche Bank’s history, which included propping up another default-prone American developer as far back as the 1880s.
“Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America” Courtesy of Penguin Press
Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America by Conor Dougherty
With propulsive storytelling and ground-level reporting, New York Times journalist Conor Dougherty chronicles America’s housing crisis—pinpointing San Francisco as the current epicenter as the wage gap grew to an impossible divide before the pandemic. Dougherty examines decades of history and economic forces that brought us here, taking readers inside activist uprisings that have risen in tandem with housing costs. Sweeping in scope and intimate in detail, Golden Gates (Penguin Press) captures a vast political realignment during a moment of rapid technological and social change as punishingly high rents and the prohibitive cost of ownership have turned housing into the foremost symbol of inequality and an economy gone wrong.
“If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future” Courtesy of Liveright Publishing Corporation
If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore
They say history repeats itself. But sometimes, it’s so plainly obvious that it’s hard to dismiss as a cliché. New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize nominee Jill Lepore offers a cautionary tale in If Then (Liveright), connecting the darkest secrets of U.S. intelligence during the earliest days of the Cold War to our present-day debate over privacy and surveillance and just how unchecked Big Tech firms have become. Founded in 1959, the Simulmatics Corporation mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge. (Sound familiar?) Of course, it’s not exactly a household name today, and despite a client list that included John F. Kennedy}s presidential campaign, the Department of Defense, and even the New York Times, the company shut down in 1970. Lepore explains what went wrong and what we desperately need to learn in handling our current reality of misinformation and bad polling, as well as the gluttonous amount of private data being uploaded instantly from our phones on a constant basis.
“It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated Into Your Greatest Advantage” Courtesy of Currency
It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated Into Your Greatest Advantage by Arlan Hamilton with Rachel L. Nelson
In 2015, Arlan Hamilton was living on food stamps and sleeping on the floor of San Francisco International Airport, with nothing but an old laptop and a dream of breaking into the venture capital business. Hamilton recounts how she couldn’t understand why startup founders all looked the same: white and male. Hamilton wanted the chance to invest in the ideas and people who didn’t conform to the expected image of how a founder is supposed to look. Fast-forward five years, and Hamilton is now founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in founders who are female, people of color, or members of the LGBTQ community. Despite the extreme inequality—especially for women of color—in Silicon Valley and the business world at large, Hamilton argues in It’s About Damn Time (Currency) that a privileged background, an influential network, and a fancy college degree are not prerequisites for success, further suggesting that being undervalued simply means that a bigger upside exists.
“No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram” Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier
In No Filter (Simon & Schuster), Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier chronicles the rise of photo-sharing social network Instagram, from when it was still a location-based app named “Burbn” to the ad-driven juggernaut it is today. Given the turnover and pressure the company has experienced over the past decade—as Frier deftly streamlines from multiple interviews with some of the most high-profile executives, venture capitalists, and most-followed celebrities on Instagram—it’s remarkable the mobile app still exists in relatively the same format that made it a cult favorite among early adopting designers, photographers, and creative professionals.
“The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People” Courtesy of Experiment
The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People by Rachel Wilkerson Miller
It’s been a rough year for everyone, no matter your situation in life. And that’s going to take a long-term toll on our collective mental health. Suffice to say, showing up is harder than ever. But it’s also more important than ever—both for yourself and your colleagues. Part manifesto, part guide, The Art of Showing Up (The Experiment) is the millennial’s Chicken Soup for the Soul as VICE editor Rachel Wilkerson Miller charts a course to kinder, more thoughtful, and more fulfilling relationships—starting with learning how to define your needs, reclaim your time, and commit to self-care.
“The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks” Courtesy of Custom House
The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks by Ben Cohen
Like luck or karma, it’s easy to believe in streaks. But is there any scientific or mathematical fact to them? In The Hot Hand (Custom House), Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen offers an entertaining and provocative investigation into this question. For decades, statisticians, social scientists, psychologists, and economists have spent endless amounts of time studying and debating whether streaks actually exist. Cohen dives into some potential real-world examples where streaks could be real (or backfire), from the roulette wheel on a casino floor to the success of the Golden State Warriors, with Stephen Curry becoming the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history.
“Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms” Courtesy of Grand Central Publishing
One of Silicon Valley’s first female African-American CEOs, Shellye Archambeau recounts in Unapologetically Ambitious (Grand Central) how she overcame the challenges she faced as a young Black woman, wife, and mother, managing her personal and professional responsibilities while climbing the ranks at IBM and subsequently in her role as CEO. Part memoir, part motivational business book, Archambeau details the risks she took and the strategies she followed to steer her family, her career, and her company toward success.
“Uncanny Valley: A Memoir” Courtesy of MCD
Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener
Anna Wiener’s memoir about her transition from the traditional publishing world of New York City to the startup explosion in and around San Francisco in the years following the Great Recession struck a chord when it was released in early 2020. That’s partially because Wiener said (or printed) what so many people pushed to the sidelines—often based on gender or ethnicity, if not both, among other factors—have been thinking for years about the “culture” of the tech industry, but were not in a position of power to express publicly without repercussions. It might seem as if all of a sudden there are a lot of books revealing the “bro” culture pervasive in Silicon Valley, but for those who experienced it firsthand, titles like Uncanny Valley (MCD) are only scratching the surface of the dark side of unchecked power in the startup world.


fortune--2020-12-05--Holiday shipping deadlines 2020 for FedEx, UPS, and the Postal Service

For several years, holiday shoppers have worried about their gifts arriving late because of overloaded shipping services. That anxiety proved well-founded in 2019, when the percentage of on-time holiday deliveries by FedEx and UPS fell sharply from the year before.
But this year, things could be even worse because of the pandemic, which has pushed many people to shop online rather than in brick-and-mortar stores. Online spending rose 22% on Black Friday, the busy shopping day after Thanksgiving, compared to 2019. That’s well ahead of pre-pandemic annual growth of 14%.
Delivery companies are going to great lengths to prevent delays, but there are already signs that they’ll be unable to handle the extra load. UPS is limiting deliveries from some commercial clients, and both FedEx and UPS have suspended their money-back guarantees for on-time shipping, citing the pandemic.
That means their shipping timelines are guaranteed by good faith—but not by cash.
For all those reasons, experts advise people to be suspect of shipping deadlines this year—especially two-day or overnight options closer to Christmas.
“The earlier you buy, the more guaranteed you are to get it,” says Brendan Keegan, CEO of logistics company Merchants Fleet. “If you order Dec. 23 and you’re expecting it Dec. 24, you could be disappointed.”
Another way to improve the odds: If you’re buying gifts for local friends and family, consider picking up online orders at stores. Best Buy, Walmart, Apple, and many other retailers with brick-and-mortar outlets offer curbside pickup, which will help with your peace of mind and free up truck space for others.
Here are the deadlines for getting packages or online orders delivered by Dec. 24. They generally apply to mainland U.S. orders and deliveries.
Delivery services
UPS
Dec. 15 – UPS Ground
Dec. 21 – UPS 3 Day Select
Dec. 22 – UPS 2nd Day Air
Dec. 23 – UPS Next Day Air
FedEx
Dec. 15: FedEx Ground and Home Delivery
Dec. 21: FedEx Express Saver
Dec. 22: FedEx 2Day
Dec. 23: FedEx Standard and Priority Overnight
A full list of FedEx’s service options can be found here. FedEx also shares updates about regional shipping delays, which could increase as we get closer to the holidays.
U.S. Postal Service
Dec. 15: USPS Retail Ground
Dec. 18: First-Class Mail
Dec. 19: Priority Mail
Dec. 23: Priority Mail Express
Major retailers
Amazon
Dec. 23: One-Day Delivery for eligible items (free for Prime members)
Dec. 24: Same-Day Delivery for eligible items (free for Prime members in eligible areas on orders over $35)
Dec. 24: Two-hour grocery delivery (exclusive to Prime members in select cities)
(Note that Amazon has not provided cutoffs or guarantees for customers who are not Prime members)
Apple
Apple’s order deadlines vary widely depending on the product ordered, ranging from Dec. 8 deadline for the Mac Pro to Dec. 22 for recent iPhone models. Consult Apple’s website for details.
Barnes & Noble
Dec. 16: Free shipping for members
Dec. 22: Expedited shipping
Gap
Dec. 21: Next-day shipping
L.L. Bean
Dec. 6: Orders including monogramming or other customization
Dec. 19: Free or express shipping for most non-customized orders
More details at L.L. Bean’s website.
Macy’s
Dec. 18: Standard and premium shipping
Dec. 24: Same-day shipping (select areas only) and store pickup
See more details at Macy’s website.
We will update this article with more information as it becomes available. Amazon deadlines added 12/16.


fortune--2020-12-05--Champagne is too special to be enjoyed only on special occasions. Here are 5 bottles to pop anytime

Champagne is too special to be enjoyed only on special occasions. Here are 5 bottles to pop anytime this winter

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Along with almost every major celebration comes a call to pop open the bubbly. Champagne has a long-standing reputation for being the go-to drink to celebrate or toast to any special occasion and is even a defining drink for New Year’s Eve. But there’s more to Champagne than the big countdown or that rare milestone. After this year, a lesson worth taking away is that you shouldn’t wait for the special occasion. Instead, make the occasion special on your own. Champagne is a sublime way to do that.
First, let’s get a few requirements out of the way. Remember: For Champagne to be true Champagne, it has to be produced in the eponymous northeast region of France. Everything else is simply sparkling wine—although there are many, many equally satisfying and sophisticated sparkling wines out there that go by other names, such as Crémant (made in the same style as traditional Champagne but produced in other regions within France), Cava (Spain), and Franciacorta (Italy). And word to the wise: Officially, there is no such thing as “American Champagne” or “California Champagne.” It’s simply sparkling wine here, too. Anything else is just marketing.
And then there are three primary grapes used to produce Champagne: white Chardonnay grapes and red Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes; a blend of the three is what makes up most classic nonvintage bottles.
But there are many more styles of Champagne that deserve to be enjoyed just as often as any other wine. For those who are interested in the terroir (soil), a Blanc de Blancs is made using only Chardonnay grapes, a grape considered to be one of the most expressive of its terroir. While rosé has risen astronomically in popularity in the past decade, rosé Champagne has been produced since the 18th century. For the collectors, the Champagne houses also offer prestige cuvées, the finest Champagne the house produces and perfect for aging.
Here is a selection of certified Champagne wines in a variety of styles to consider popping open anytime this winter.
Beau Joie
Beau Joie specializes in zero dosage (no added sugar) Champagnes, aiming to appeal to a more health-conscious consumer. (That said, remember this is still an alcoholic beverage, and there is no such thing as a “clean wine” or a purely “healthy wine.”) Zero dosage allows the purity of the fruit to shine through without being masked by the addition of sugar. While it’s not easy to create such a delicately balanced bottle without adding sugar, as is common in the industry, consumer demand for this low-sugar approach has been on the rise for the past few years. Beau Joie’s bottles are extra special on the outside, too, as they are encased in an intricate suit of armor made from second-generation scrap copper, a functional design element that helps cool the Champagne quicker (ideal for impromptu celebrations) and keeps it colder for longer without the need for an ice bucket, which, shockingly, not everyone has at home. SRP: $69.
Champagne Henriot
Many wine lovers keep old bottles around for home decor, but Champagne Henriot takes it to the next level with its limited-edition Garden Box Rosé Kit: It not only includes a bottle of brut rosé but also can be used as a flowerpot. This copper pink–hued rosé blend showcases Pinot Noir grapes from the Montagne de Reims while retaining the fresh minerality of Chardonnay, with a palate of red berry fruits. SRP: $75.
Valentin Leflaive
Valentin Leflaive is the culmination of prolific Burgundy producer Olivier Leflaive and Erick de Sousa of Champagne de Sousa, from Avize in la Côte des Blancs. The result is a Champagne with unique minerality and complexity thanks to the Burgundy barrels. This Champagne rosé is made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes from the Montagne de Reims. The base wine (70% of the blend) is aged for seven months in stainless-steel vats. The 30% of reserve wine added was aged in Burgundy barrels, those used to make grands crus wines from Olivier Leflaive. Following the secondary fermentation, the wine was aged for 20 months in a cellar. Elegant and bright with red fruit flavors, the Champagne offers a fine mousse that supports the fresh and complex citrus notes with distinct hints of lemon, cherry, and strawberry. SRP: $75.
Ayala
The boutique maison, led by chef de cave Caroline Latrive (one of the only female cellar masters in the region), produces Chardonnay-focused wines that deliver immediate pleasure, freshness, and elegance. Ayala is, for the most part, an under-the-radar Champagne brand. But the 2013 Blanc de Blancs could change minds on that one. Produced only in exceptional years, this 100% Chardonnay wine is the ultimate expression of Latrive’s winemaking style. It offers remarkable minerality and roundness. And the flavors build as it sits in the glass—becoming almost velvety—with notes including passion fruit, citrus, white peaches, and honey. SRP: $110.
Pol Roger
Pol Roger is one of the few Grande Marque (most prestigious) Champagne houses that remains family-owned and operated. It is known for its tradition of aging and hand-riddling every bottle in the 4.66-mile-long cellars under the estate’s château, situated on the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay, France. The house’s rosé exhibits a deep salmon-pink color with a fine stream of small bubbles. The nose has aromas of ripe fruit with elements of citrus (blood orange), pomegranate, and small wild red berries. On the palate, a deep mineral character; a fine, creamy ripeness; and a hint of vanilla. The wine is tender and smooth, with a balance of delicate freshness and refined elegance. SRP: $123.


fortune--2020-12-05--The young and unemployed need better networks

“It comes in waves,” said Isabelle Risse, a recent graduate of St. Michael’s in Vermont. Risse has applied to more than seventy jobs since graduating in May—with no positive results yet. “One week I’ll send out fifteen applications. And then the next I am so hopeless.”
Risse is not alone. Close to one in four workers between the ages of 16 and 24 is unemployed, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. There is hope for young workers like Risse, but avoiding a career derailment and a lost generation will require young job-seekers and employers alike to focus more on connection.
More than half of the workforce finds jobs through personal connections. Decades of research has shown that people who use their personal contacts spend less time searching for jobs and end up in higher paying, more prestigious occupations. What’s more, while experienced workers are most likely to find their jobs through weaker ties—acquaintances, former colleagues, someone from the gym—that isn’t true for workers who are looking for their first real job.
Young workers are more likely to find a job through their closest connections, particularly their parents. This tendency is heightened during periods of increased unemployment, according to research by economists Francis Kramarz and Oskar Nordström Skans.
Still, despite the importance of turning to people who they know for help, young workers are less likely to use their personal contacts to look for work. A nationally representative study of unemployed workers by the Urban Institute found that only 23.6% of 16-to-24-year-olds looking for work reached out to family or friends for help, far less than older workers in a job search. There are at least three reasons why.
The young are often reluctant to network
Risse eventually realized that if she wanted to find a job, she needed to do more than look on websites like Indeed and Idealist, but upon considering that notion, she says, she “was almost put off by it.” Similarly, Kaitlyn Zorilla, a 23-year-old living with her parents in Vista, Calif., said that between COVID, the election, and the holidays, “I’ve been reluctant to reach out to people that I know less. It’s just a burden to be asking people for help right now.”
Young or not, many people feel an aversion to the idea of “networking.” When 308 adults were asked to recall a time when they either networked for professional gain or just to socialize, participants who recalled a professional networking experience were twice as likely as their socializing counterparts to think of cleansing words like “wash” when presented with a word completion exercise (such as “w_sh”). The implication was that the sheer idea of networking made them feel dirty, according to the study conducted by Tiziana Casciaro of the University of Toronto, Francesca Gino of Harvard, and Maryam Kouchaki of Northwestern University. This difficult social moment we are all living through likely intensifies our moral aversion.
One way of overcoming this, according to the research trio, is to adopt a learning mindset and think of reaching out as an opportunity to grow. Another is to think of making these connections in terms of what you have to give. While the trio’s work suggests that less seasoned workers often feel as though they have little to offer, asking for help is giving someone else an opportunity to be of service and to tap into their own sense of expertise, even mastery.
Young people’s networks are limited in scope
But even when young professionals are able to overcome the drag of moral resistance, they face yet another challenge: Their networks often don’t have the reach that they need. “You’re on your own,” reflected Veronica Wells, 24, who had been working as a waitress prior to COVID. “I’ve been on my own for a while, since I was 17. I have to build up my own network.”
Unsurprisingly, networks of the young and unemployed are often filled with other people who are the same age, also looking for a job. As Zorilla put it, “When all your other connections are also unemployed 22- or 23-year-olds, it doesn’t really help that much.” Moreover, in a recent study, my colleagues Balazs Kovacs, Nicholas Caplan, Samuel Grob and I found that networks have shrunk by more than 17% during COVID—shrinking just when young workers need them most.
The rate of joblessness among those under 24 is twice that of workers beyond this point, which is to say that if we want to lift the economy, young workers need help. Unemployment is “stunting social emotional learning and connectivity,” according to Marina Marmolejo, the executive director of Dream Kit, an organization that helps unstably housed youth find employment. “That means they don’t have people in their network that can help them to the next phase.”
Having a job makes you better at getting a job
This goes for recent college graduates as much as those who are low-income and job-insecure. Many of the skills that are essential for landing a job and succeeding in the workplace—the importance of listening, the power of knowing when to ask follow-up questions, the know-how to work in a team—are learned through social interactions on the job. This is where the young find more critical social connections as well. Mentors and sponsors are usually found at work.
The network failures facing young people will have significant effects that extend far beyond the pandemic if they go unaddressed. Lisa Kahn, a professor at the University of Rochester, found that the economic consequences of graduating during a recession persist for more than 15 years—because young workers don’t have the opportunity to learn as they work.
Reasons for hope
Despite the seemingly grim circumstances, Marmolejo is “really excited about the future. Youth who weren’t able to access the job market can now access it through technology.” Young potential employees are bored and desperate to have the opportunity to contribute. “I sit in my room all day, sitting in the same position in bed, staring at my closet door for eight months,” said. Zorilla. “I’m willing to work as an office assistant now in a field that I’m not passionate about, just because I need a job.”
For companies struggling with online work, a large untapped pool of the digitally native should be viewed as a huge opportunity. Having Zoom meeting schedulers and greeters, talent who know how to market and deliver customer service online, and those with the creative drive to devise clever online alternatives to holiday parties or client mixers would make companies better and give young workers an opportunity to engage and keep growing. As Marmolejo argued, “There are opportunities to keep that learning cycle going. The virtual world is too accessible not to invite youth in.”
Heading off the negative long-term implications of unemployment for young workers, starts with creating opportunities to connect. Young workers need an opportunity to meet people who can help them think through a career, not just give them a job. They need the chance to learn social skills that are critical for careers. For those who are firmly entrenched in a job, the young have a lot to teach employers too—about the virtual world and the real one as they see it. Solving this massive and multi-pronged problem begins with connection. If you are young and looking for work, I heartily recommend that you ask for help. If you are up the career ladder, stand ready to offer it.
Marissa King is professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, where she developed and teaches the course entitled Managing Strategic Networks. Her book, Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection, is coming out in January. Watch an interview with King here.


fortune--2020-12-05--Hospitals fighting COVID face another challenge: Hackers

By late morning on Oct. 28, staff at the University of Vermont Medical Center noticed the hospital’s phone system wasn’t working.
Then the internet went down, and the Burlington-based center’s technical infrastructure with it. Employees lost access to databases, digital health records, scheduling systems and other online tools they rely on for patient care.
Administrators scrambled to keep the hospital operational — cancelling non-urgent appointments, reverting to pen-and-paper record keeping and rerouting some critical care patients to nearby hospitals.
In its main laboratory, which runs about 8,000 tests a day, employees printed or hand-wrote results and carried them across facilities to specialists. Outdated, internet-free technologies experienced a revival.
“We went around and got every fax machine that we could,” said UVM Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Al Gobeille.
The Vermont hospital had fallen prey to a cyberattack, becoming one of the most recent and visible examples of a wave of digital assaults taking U.S. health care providers hostage as COVID-19 cases surge nationwide.
The same day as UVM’s attack, the FBI and two federal agencies warned cybercriminals were ramping up efforts to steal data and disrupt services across the health care sector.
By targeting providers with attacks that scramble and lock up data until victims pay a ransom, hackers can demand thousands or millions of dollars and wreak havoc until they’re paid.
In September, for example, a ransomware attack paralyzed a chain of more than 250 U.S. hospitals and clinics. The resulting outages delayed emergency room care and forced staff to restore critical heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level monitors with ethernet cabling.
A few weeks earlier, in Germany, a woman’s death became the first fatality initially attributed to a ransomware attack, although the link was later disproved. Earlier in October, facilities in Oregon, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and California also fell prey to suspected ransomware attacks.
Ransomware is also partly to blame for some of the nearly 700 private health information breaches, affecting about 46.6 million people and currently being investigated by the federal government. In the hands of a criminal, a single patient record — rich with details about a person’s finances, insurance and medical history — can sell for upward of $1,000 on the black market, experts say.
Over the course of 2020, many hospitals postponed technology upgrades or cybersecurity training that would help protect them from the newest wave of attacks, said health care security consultant Nick Culbertson.
“The amount of chaos that’s just coming to a head here is a real threat,” he said.
With COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations climbing nationwide, experts say health care providers are dangerously vulnerable to attacks on their ability to function efficiently and manage limited resources.
Even a small technical disruption can quickly ripple out into patient care when a center’s capacity is stretched thin, said Vanderbilt University’s Eric Johnson, who studies the health impacts of cyberattacks.
“November has been a month of escalating demands on hospitals,” he said. “There’s no room for error. From a hacker’s perspective, it’s perfect.”
A ‘call to arms’ for hospitals
The day after the Oct. 28 cyberattack, 53-year-old Joel Bedard, of Jericho, arrived for a scheduled appointment at the Burlington hospital.
He was able to get in, he said, because his fluid-draining treatment is not high-tech, and is something he’s gotten regularly as he waits for a liver transplant.
“I got through, they took care of me, but man, everything is down,” Bedard said. He said he saw no other patients that day. Much of the medical staff idled, doing crossword puzzles and explaining they were forced to document everything by hand.
“All the students and interns are, like, ‘How did this work back in the day?’” he said.
Since the attack, the Burlington-based hospital network has referred all questions about its technical details to the FBI, which has refused to release any additional information, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. Officials don’t believe any patient suffered immediate harm, or that any personal patient information was compromised.
But more than a month later, the hospital is still recovering.
Some employees have been furloughed until they can return to their regular duties.
Oncologists could not access older patient scans which could help them, for example, compare tumor size over time.
And, until recently, emergency department clinicians could take X-rays of broken bones but couldn’t electronically send the images to radiologists at other sites in the health network.
“We didn’t even have internet,” said Dr. Kristen DeStigter, chair of UVM Medical Center’s radiology department.
Soldiers with the state’s National Guard cyber unit have helped hospital IT workers scour the programming code in hundreds of computers and other devices, line-by-line, to wipe any remaining malicious code that could re-infect the system. Many have been brought back online, but others were replaced entirely.
Col. Christopher Evans said it’s the first time the unit, which was founded about 20 years ago, has been called upon to perform what the guard calls “a real-world” mission. “We have been training for this day for a very long time,” he said.
It could be several more weeks before all the related damage is repaired and the systems are operating normally again, Gobeille said.
“I don’t want to get peoples’ hopes up and be wrong,” he said. “Our folks have been working 24/7. They are getting closer and closer every day.”
It will be a scramble for other health care providers to protect themselves against the growing threat of cyberattacks if they haven’t already, said data security expert Larry Ponemon.
“It’s not like hospital systems need to do something new,” he said. “They just need to do what they should be doing anyway.”
Current industry reports indicate health systems spend only 4% to 7% of their IT budget on cybersecurity, whereas other industries like banking or insurance spend three times as much.
Research by Ponemon’s consulting firm shows only about 15% of health care organizations have adopted the technology, training and procedures necessary to manage and thwart the stream of cyberattacks they face on a regular basis.
“The rest are out there flying with their head down. That number is unacceptable,” Ponemon said. “It’s a pitiful rate.”
And it’s part of why cybercriminals have focused their attention on health care organizations — especially now, as hospitals across the country are coping with a surge of COVID-19 patients, he said.
“We’re seeing true clinical impact,” said health care cybersecurity consultant Dan L. Dodson. “This is a call to arms.”