fortune--2020-09-10--Review of the Microsoft Surface Duo folding phone: Very pretty but just how useful is it?

Microsoft stopped making its own line of phones four years ago, as consumers rejected its mobile platform in favor of those from Apple and Google. But if you can’t beat them, join them, so the saying goes.
On Thursday, Microsoft puts on sale its new Surface Duo device, a unique take on the folding phone trend that runs plenty of the company’s own mobile apps on top of Google’s Android operating system. I’ve been using the slick $1,400 device for a few weeks, and there’s a lot to love in Microsoft’s return to the mobile market. But there are also a few missing elements included in most rival phones—folding and traditional—that are hard to live without.
The Surface Duo specs
Known for most of its history as a software powerhouse, Microsoft has certainly upped its hardware game under chief product officer Panos Panay. And the Surface Duo is one of Panay’s proudest accomplishments yet.
The hardware is absolutely stunning, from the bright white glass exterior to the dual 5.6-inch sharp interior displays. Thanks to two cleverly designed hinges, the Duo opens and closes silently and smoothly over a full 360 degrees. Unlike folding phones that have bending glass screens, the Duo has two distinct screens separated by a clearly visible air gap at the crease in the middle of the device.
Microsoft’s Surface Duo costs $1,400, runs Android, and folds like a book. Aaron Pressman—Fortune
When opened, the Surface Duo is the thinnest mobile device I have ever beheld at just 4.8 millimeters, barely enough room to fit its USB-C port. Even folded, it’s hardly thicker than an iPhone 11 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. And there’s no ugly camera bump (a mixed blessing—more on that below).
Another hardware highlight is the screen ratio of 3 to 2, just like Microsoft’s Surface laptops. While most smartphone screens are getting taller and narrower, with screen ratios of 16 to 9 up to even 21 to 9, the Surface Duo goes the other way. The decision to go with wider, squatter screens enhances productivity, as apps have more room to spread out and show more information. Websites can take advantage of the extra width to display more stories.
The Surface Duo (at right) displays more content from a web page than the outer screen of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold2. Aaron Pressman—Fortune
The Surface Duo is compatible with Microsoft’s line of Surface styluses, useful for writing notes, highlighting and editing text, and generally using in place of your fingers to scroll around. The wider display makes it more comfortable to scrawl across the screen than on thinner, taller phones, too.
Still, the Surface Duo has been in development for a long time, and that shows up in some less than cutting-edge specs.
The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, which generally powered flagship phones released in 2019. There’s also no 5G, the superfast new wireless technology that carriers are slowly rolling out across the country and have included in most new phones this year. And the two screens have massive top and bottom bezels compared with rivals that have moved to nearly all-glass front displays.
Some people find the act of using the Surface Duo as a phone awkward, with the wide device folded in half pressed to your ear, but I got used to it pretty quickly. Call quality is fine and even better using your favorite pair of wireless Bluetooth earbuds (sorry, no headphone jack).
There is also the matter of the camera. Panay has said that photography was not an emphasis of the Surface Duo, and it shows. There is just one camera, located above the right-hand interior screen of the device, and there are no cameras on the outside. That means no wide angle or telephoto lenses.
The 11-megapixel shooter is decent enough for selfies, but taking a regular picture requires folding the Surface Duo with both screens facing out, and correctly pointing the side with the camera at the desired subject. Maybe it’s because I’m right-handed or maybe it’s because the camera is on the right side of the fold, but I occasionally found it awkward to fold the phone and take a picture. After I folded the Duo, sometimes I ended up with the camera facing toward me, not my subject, and the Duo remained in selfie mode. Flipping the phone over fixed the problem, as the software instantly adjusted, but it was annoying every time it happened.
All of the resulting photos looked a little lacking in vibrant color and fine detail compared with some of the top cameras on other phones. But the portrait, panorama, and video modes all worked well.
A productivity app machine
The obvious benefit of the Surface Duo’s split-screen design is that you can display two different apps side by side.
It’s great to read an article in Chrome on one screen and take notes in OneNote on the other screen. Or do a Zoom call on one screen and review a PowerPoint on the other screen. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is said to have fallen in love with using the Surface Duo to read a book on one screen and take handwritten notes on the second screen.
Microsoft even added a feature to Android that lets you create preselected pairs of apps that can be launched at once from a single icon on the home screen.
The two distinct screens offer an experience for dual apps that’s a bit smoother and less janky than phones and tablets that let you display multiple apps on a single screen. On the other hand, the Duo’s software had some glitches of its own, not always quickly adapting to changes in orientation or swiping away apps immediately. Microsoft posted one software update during the review period, which was a big improvement, and says more will be forthcoming.
You can also stretch one app across both screens, but it’s unsightly and awkward to have your content sliced down the middle with a big blank bar. Despite its size, the Surface Duo doesn’t really give you the ability to watch videos across a bigger screen, the way other folding phones can, for instance.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold2 (at left) does a better job with expanded video than the Surface Duo. Aaron Pressman—Fortune
On the other hand, Microsoft and Google cooperated to add a new split-screen mode for Android apps, and many of Microsoft’s apps take advantage of the new mode.
Spread Outlook across both screens and you get a list of emails on one side and the contents of a selected email on the other. Microsoft’s News app has a “book mode” that spreads articles across the two screens like two facing pages in a book. I didn’t find any Google apps that could use the new mode, however, and there aren’t many other third-party apps that have been updated yet to take advantage of the two screens. Amazon’s Kindle e-reader has been updated and looks fantastic picking up the two-page “book mode,” as well.
The Surface Duo running Amazon’s Kindle app. Aaron Pressman—Fortune
Not quite there yet
There are so many things to love about the Surface Duo, from the “dropped in from the future” looks and smooth feel to the clever hinges and the new split-screen app mode. But there are also a few big misses, perhaps to be expected in any innovative first-generation product. Few people, if any, need 5G in a phone at this point, but the photo features the Duo lacks may prove a disappointment for those who rely on their mobile device as their main camera.
That’s left me torn. I reach for the Duo first to read e-books, to check websites while tweeting, and generally to get things done on the go (as limited a situation as that is these days). But when I want to snap a cute picture of my dog or kick back and watch some YouTube videos, other devices come to mind.
When BlackBerry first came on the scene, a lot of people used to carry two phones, one for work and one for personal stuff. I don’t think I want to go back to those days. But I’m not ready to rely solely on the Surface Duo yet, either. Here’s hoping for a great version 2.0.


fortune--2020-09-10--Book recommendations from Fortune’s 40 under 40 in government and policy

Pelosi to Britain : ‘ No chance ’ of a U.S. trade deal if you jeopardize the Good Friday accord

An investigation of an elite cadre of American plutocrats recommended by Missouri’s state auditor; a New York Times bestselling portrait of contemporary unmarried women recommended by the youngest Black woman ever to serve in Congress; and Toni Morrison’s first novel recommended by an immigrant rights activist.
Here are a selection of book recommendations from this year’s 40 Under 40 in government and politics.
How to Say It at Work by Jack Griffin
What I learned both from the book, and through some great management coaching, is how important it is for a leader to adapt to the needs of their team. It’s not just about managing tasks, it’s about managing and caring about people. You have to truly take people’s experience into account and evaluate how your message is being received. It seems intuitive now—of course that would be the most effective. But, especially when you are new to management, if you’re only focused on getting to the outcome, executing tasks and achieving the goal, these aspects are easy to underestimate. When I truly internalized that understanding my team—not just their tasks—would make us more effective, I became a better leader and that propelled me through my career. —Melissa Kilby, executive director, Girl Up, United Nations Foundation
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in eighth grade was life-changing. I was assigned to read the book a couple of years after arriving as an immigrant kid from the Philippines. A year after reading it, while applying for a driver’s license, I discovered I was in the country illegally. That was when Morrison’s book and her reason for writing it––she said she wanted to expose “the master narrative” of America––became a personal and professional touchstone. I refuse to surrender to “the master narrative” of immigration and undocumented people like me. —Jose Antonio Vargas, founder, Define American
All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister
The book that has had the most meaningful impact on my adult life is All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister. I first read this book right before my 30th birthday during a long plane ride. This book was really validating for me. The concept of the book is that young, single women have been trailblazers, taking risks, and changing the world for decades. Women who have shown us that it’s okay to defy expectations and take big risks. Because there is a whole sisterhood of women who are ambitious, visionaries, and who recognize the change that we need to see in the world. After reading this book, I was in a mindset that allowed me to take risks. It was a risk that eventually resulted in my decision to run for Congress, be elected, and become the youngest Black woman ever to serve in Congress. This book is so meaningful to me, and I recommend everyone read it—especially young women who may be unsure of decisions you are facing and how they may impact your ability to reach your dreams. I say, girlfriends, go for it! —Lauren Underwood, U.S. Representative for the 14th Congressional District of Illinois
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston writes about the disappointments of everyday life and about a Black woman finding her voice in a hostile world. When you start working in politics you have a West Wing–esque vision of what the workplace is going to be—fast talking, getting things done, full of camaraderie. What you usually get is messy, frustratingly slow progress, and self-doubt about your own voice and skills.
In Hurston’s book, power is shown through who is given a voice. The same thing is true in politics, and I’ve always evaluated my workplace not by what they say but by who is doing the most talking. And politics isn’t like most workplaces; the people I’ve worked for control the lives and livelihoods of millions. If it’s clear that they’re only there to hear themselves or a privileged few speak, it’s probably also true that they are deaf to the concerns of the people they represent. In more traditional workplaces, this power dynamic is still there. Does your boss give you the ability to own your work product? Are you empowered to do your job to the best of your ability and lead in your expertise or are you micromanaged and questioned? Looking at who is given the microphone is the best way to identify the values of an organization. —Jalisa Washington-Price, vice president, political and advocacy, iHeartMedia
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
Jane Mayer’s book gave me a deep understanding about the problem I wanted to fix. I was in the job to help fix it, but did I really realize the tentacles of dark money and how it has permeated our political system and the neutral institutions we rely on? I also believe that we should always have a healthy skepticism of our institutions, of our politicians, and our government. Dark money has gotten us away from having a healthy skepticism, and now we have a total distrust of government. So I guess I would say that Dark Money gave me my drive and purpose. —Nicole Galloway, Missouri State Auditor


fortune--2020-09-10--Europe is on high alert after a deadly swine virus emerges in Germany

A deadly pig disease has just entered Germany for the first time, threatening to hammer exports from Europe’s biggest hog-producing nation.
A confirmed case of African swine fever has been identified in the eastern state of Brandenburg, Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner said Thursday at a briefing in Berlin. The virus, which kills most infected pigs within 10 days but is not harmful to humans, was detected in the corpse of a wild boar found near the Polish border.
Tests were conducted at Germany’s animal health institute and sensitive areas will now be cordoned off to try to prevent the disease spreading, Kloeckner said.
A key supplier to China, the largest consumer, Germany stepped up efforts to prevent the disease from entering the country since it emerged in western Poland late last year. That included training dogs to sniff out dead wild boar, stockpiling electric fences along the eastern border and urging drivers not to toss ham-sandwich scraps out the window. Eastern Europe has dealt with ASF outbreaks for several years, and neighboring Belgium has also seen cases in wild animals since 2018.
The ASF case in Brandenburg deals a further blow to Germany as it struggles with the coronavirus pandemic. A nationwide lockdown plunged the economy into its worst recession since World War Two and activity isn’t expected to return to pre-crisis levels until the end of next year at the earliest.
Germany’s largest pork plant was shuttered for a month this summer after more than 1,000 workers tested positive for Covid-19, and additional abattoirs also faced temporary closures from outbreaks. That’s kept output below normal levels and meat producers throughout Europe and the Americas saw similar problems as slaughterhouses became hotspots for the virus.
Export ban
As soon as a case of ASF is confirmed, even if it’s a wild pig, German pork exports to countries outside the EU are no longer allowed, while sales to the bloc are still possible under certain conditions, according to the DBV farm lobby.
A verified case could bring German exports outside the EU to a “fairly rapid halt,” Justin Sherrard, an animal-protein strategist at Rabobank, said before Kloeckner’s announcement. That may benefit sales from other European shippers, including Spain or Denmark, as well as U.S., Canada or Brazil.
That would come at a time when Chinese purchases have been surging as the nation attempts to rebuild its own herds after outbreaks there decimated production. The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects global pork shipments to climb by almost a fifth compared with 2019. Chicago hog futures reached a four-month high on Wednesday.
“This is very friendly, bullish, to U.S. pork prices, if German pork exports are shut down,” said Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services. America has been exporting record amounts of pork to China recently.
Kloecker said Germany informed China overnight of the outbreak, but declined to comment further. China accounted for more than half of EU pork exports in the first six months of the year, government data show.
German sales in the EU would be protected by using “regionalization” rules to contain the outbreak and maintain trade within the bloc, Kloeckner said. Germany will ring-fence the state of Brandenburg where the case occurred, banning pork-product and livestock shipments, she said.
“Continue to creep across Germany”
Still, prices across the continent are likely to be pressured amid excess supply, said Rupert Claxton, meat director at consultant Gira. While it’s possible some nations may restrict imports on a regional instead of national basis, many key Asian markets banned Belgian supplies after an outbreak in 2018.
Plus, more cases in wild pigs are likely as the disease is highly infectious and there’s no vaccine.
“There’s no question that we expect it to continue to creep across Germany,” Claxton said. “Once it’s in wild boar in the forests there, it can be very difficult to control.”
Neighboring Poland has recently seen a rise in cases, including more than 80 this year at domestic pig farms or backyard holdings. European Commission estimates show the nation has more than 3,000 confirmed infections, mostly in wild boar. ASF can be spread by direct contact between sick and healthy animals, as well as through feeding on garbage containing infected meat and by soft ticks.
Brandeburg, a state on Germany’s border with Poland, will adopt measures to contain the disease, restricting the movement of people and livestock close to the outbreak area and ordering hunters to cull wild boar, Kloeckner said.


fortune--2020-09-10--‘A real uphill battle’: Why China will struggle to counter U.S.’s attack on Huawei

The U.S. in August introduced new rules that forbid foreign chipmakers that rely on U.S. technology from selling any chips to Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei Technologies without obtaining a special license.
The sanctions will further starve Huawei of critical semiconductors. Just this week, Samsung Electronics and South Korean memory chipmaker SK hynix reportedly acknowledged that they will be ceasing their supply of semiconductors to Huawei on Sept. 15, the same day the new U.S. rule takes effect.
The new U.S. mandate means Huawei’s supply chain has gone from being “restricted” to “almost totally shut off,” particularly in regards to advanced semiconductor technology, said Paul Triolo, geo-technology practice head at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, focusing on global technology policy, cybersecurity, Internet governance, and emerging areas such as A.I. and fintech. He is also a China Digital Economy Fellow at the Washington, D.C., think tank New America.
Beijing has taken steps to strengthen its domestic semiconductor industry, but the restrictions against Huawei mean China faces an “uphill battle” to “wean [itself] off of U.S. technology” in manufacturing chips, Triolo said.
“This is a global industry that’s taken 20 or 30 years to develop,” he said. “It’s just really hard for China and Chinese companies to re-create these global value chains that took so long to develop.”
In a Eastworld Spotlight conversation with Fortune‘s Clay Chandler on Tuesday, Triolo talked about Huawei’s ability to keep up manufacturing with dwindling stockpiles of semiconductors, the company’s chances of survival, and the supply chain battle between the U.S. and China. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.
Fortune: The U.S. has set a Sept. 15 deadline on shipping semiconductors made with American technology to Huawei. How long can Huawei last before exhausting its stockpile of high-speed chips?
Paul Triolo: The ability of Huawei to last with those stockpiles depends on the product line. With smartphones, for example, Huawei was at one point producing over 250 million smartphones per year. They were using a lot of semiconductors that are key to smartphones’ advanced features. I think one estimate is that they’ll only be able to produce 50 million phones next year, so there’s a huge drop. They’ll run out of those advanced semiconductors probably sometime early next year because the volume is so high. For 5G base stations, they might be able to last a little bit longer because the volume there isn’t as high.
But at some point, the big issue is that they can’t compete internationally. When the initial entity list action happened, Google was not allowed to provide Google mobility services [to Huawei]. So right away nobody wanted to buy a [Huawei] handset outside of China, particularly in places like Europe, because they couldn’t get Gmail and YouTube and all the other things they were used to. So Huawei’s handset sales were already under stress from the software side; now, of course, you have the hardware part of it.
Is there a risk that this is so disruptive it could threaten Huawei’s existence as a company?
Yes, I think definitely that’s the case. The company has been able to get around this [restriction] initially by redesigning their base stations and some of their other products. But there’s no real alternative once the U.S. has basically restricted [chipmakers’] ability to produce these cutting-edge semiconductors [for Huawei].
For example, the leading Chinese domestic foundry, [Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation], is just not at the same level. They’re two or three generations behind leaders like [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company], Samsung, and Intel. And the U.S. has acted to cut off their ability to acquire advanced lithography equipment, for example, so [SMIC can’t] move to more advanced nodes in semiconductor manufacturing. Huawei has nowhere to turn here. There’s no domestic champion that’s going to come to Huawei’s rescue on the semiconductor side. So that’s existential.
The company, in my sense, is going to have to reorganize, potentially spin off parts of the company. They’re still competitive, of course, in things like software and cloud services. But all those things still require semiconductors at some level. So all parts of their business are eventually going to be affected.
For the U.S. to exploit this technological monopoly and threaten the existence of a $100 billion company feels almost like going for the nuclear option. What options does Beijing have to counteract this threat?
Senior leaders in Beijing are sort of trying to run the clock out…hoping that if they got a change of administration in November, some of these policies would be reexamined under a Biden administration. So they’re being very careful and disciplined in responding.
On the other hand, they’re taking a lot of steps domestically to shore up the industry. Already there’s a huge national [integrated circuit] investment fund, which has been providing subsidies to Chinese semiconductor companies. In May there was a big announcement of the new infrastructure initiative, which is designed to focus on 5G and mobile edge computing to encourage domestic companies to take part in that. They’ve been beefing up the Star Market in Shanghai, the high-tech [stock] market, encouraging semiconductor companies to list on that. They’ve changed some of the [initial public offering] requirements and are trying to get companies in China to raise funding through both the Star market and the Hong Kong stock exchanges.
The problem is these are tough technologies to master. It’s not really a function so much of funding as it is of talent and technology know-how. That’s going to take time. Certainly China has come a long way in the last five years, in terms of design and manufacturing of semiconductors. But this is a global industry that’s taken 20 or 30 years to develop some of the division of labor. And it’s just really hard for China and Chinese companies to re-create these global value chains that took so long to develop, and cutting-edge things in the software services side or in the semiconductor manufacturing side. So China [is facing] a real uphill battle.
Let’s talk about global technology supply chains. In a recent report, you foresee the emergence of a “red chain” and “blue chain.” What do you mean by that?
We’re seeing it as a result of the recent series of U.S. government policies—the attempt to really force countries and companies to choose sides in this U.S.-China conflict. We’ve seen this very clearly, for example, with this new clean initiative that the Trump administration is pursuing. In August, [Secretary of State Michael Pompeo] announced an expansion of this so-called clean network, which really includes things like 5G [and] cloud services. Now it includes mobile application stores. And you know, “clean” means really free of Chinese technology.
We saw this initially with Huawei, which was a path that the U.S. followed over the last two years to convince allies, in particular in Europe and in Asia, to exclude Huawei from their 5G network rollouts. Initially, that looked like it wasn’t going to gain a lot of traction. But over the last two years, over the last year in particular, it’s gotten traction in part because the U.S. has also implemented these other restrictions on Huawei, passing doubt over the ability of the company to succeed in those markets.
Going forward, the clean initiative has really expanded into every part of the technology stack. That really is an attempt to sort of force the world into either the “blue supply chain,” which is the U.S. and other Western democracies in Europe and in Asia. And a “red supply chain,” one that China would lead.
This story is part of Eastworld Spotlight, a series of conversations on matters of business, tech, and finance with executives, experts, entrepreneurs, and investors in Asia. Subscribe to Fortune’s Eastworld newsletter to get them in your inbox.


fortune--2020-09-11--Book recommendations from Fortune’s 40 under 40 in media and entertainment

The CEO of mining giant Rio Tinto is forced out following the destruction of an ancient archeological site

Curious about what some of the most influential young minds in the media and entertainment industries read for inspiration? Here is a selection of book recommendations from the 40 under 40 in media and entertainment, including suggestions from Emily Ramshaw, founder of the new nonprofit newsroom the 19th; Peloton star instructor Robin Arzón; and music mogul Scooter Braun.
Over my career and life, I’ve read and listened to many different helpful books and podcasts, I couldn’t name just one. One book I recently read was Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss. It’s a very interesting book and allows us to think of our lives in not such a finite way, but rather grasp the idea that we are all here to continue our path of learning. —Scooter Braun, founder and chairman, SB Projects & Ithaca Holdings LLC
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
You may laugh at this, but it has helped me so much improve as a leader and person. I’m a big fan of Simon Sinek, who is a British-born American author and motivational speaker. He has a lot of fantastic videos on YouTube around leadership and inspiration, and in one of those talks he recommended the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. It really allowed me to do a better job as a leader managing people from different countries, cultures, backgrounds, personalities, and expertise. —Ryan Wyatt, head of gaming, commerce, brands, and immersive, YouTube
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, et al.
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series has been an invaluable tool to go back to look at as inspiration for how far, wide, and deep storytelling can go. —Michael R. Jackson, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, lyricist, and composer
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Bob Iger
I love reading memoirs and biographies about business leaders I admire. The insights I’ve gained by seeing the challenges, opportunities, and decision-making they’ve experienced through their eyes have helped me navigate various pivot points and opportunities within my own career. One of my favorites is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, and, most recently, I finished The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger. —Nazanin (Naz) Aletaha, head of global e-sports partnerships and business development, Riot Games
Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi
While over a decade old, Ferrazzi’s book is a timeless approach to the strength of relationships in business. It taught me to never “network,” but to build actual authentic relationships. MasterClass wouldn’t exist today without building strong and meaningful relationships from signing instructors to bridging two distinct industries: tech and entertainment. —David Rogier, cofounder and CEO, MasterClass
Also, don’t miss…
Erica Anderson, executive producer, New York Magazine (Vox Media): The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson; Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public by Helen Thomas
Robin Arzón, head instructor and vice president of fitness programming, Peloton: The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
Max Cutler, managing director of Parcast, Spotify: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Carolina Garcia, director of original series, Netflix: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson; The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Emily Ramshaw, cofounder and CEO, the 19th: Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott


fortune--2020-09-11--The future of the call center

The future of the call center

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Is the call center dead? That’s one of many interesting questions COVID-19 has raised about the future of work. It’s been two decades since I first heard an enthusiastic telecom CEO talk about how call center workers would soon work from home. But now, because of COVID, it has finally happened. And according to a J.D. Power study out today (CEO Daily got an early peek) 86% of 124 customer service organizations surveyed say they plan to implement permanent work-from-home models even after the pandemic passes.
The J.D. Power survey covered May and June, and 92% of those surveyed say their customer experience scores stayed the same (56%) or increased (36%) during work-at-home. The report noted customer satisfaction scores may have been boosted by the fact that many callers were seeking deferred payment arrangements during the pandemic—and getting them. Satisfaction could go down once those payment leniency programs end.
It also found that “Average Handle Time” for each call increased for 55% of companies. That reflected an increased complexity of calls, but also an increased degree of interaction between agents and customers. “Much of the work-at-home staff who were previously in the office live alone and have been forced to quarantine,” said one call center operator. “With this sense of social isolation has come longer AHTs as both customers and employees are using their time on calls to help bridge some of the social distance.”
Looking forward, the report said isolation and lack of support in the work-at-home model “will take its toll on performance and agent attrition.” Training new hires is also expected to be a challenge.
Bottom line: “Combine the risks of underperforming agents, agent attrition, and the scaling back of consumer-friendly financial policies, and the stage is set for a significant decrease in employee experience and customer experience for the next several quarters. Smart brands will do well to take action now to understand how well their employees fit emotionally and psychologically in a work-at-home environment.
More news below, including Citigroup’s decision to name Jane Fraser its next CEO—the first woman to head a major Wall Street bank. That was becoming a noticeable problem, as Fortune’s Claire Zillman noted in this foresightful story last year.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Vaccine timing
Aimin Hui, the vice president of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Development, reckons one or more coronavirus vaccines will be "available to the public in the fourth quarter this year or early next year." Fosun has partnered with Pfizer and BioNTech to develop a vaccine that's in late-stage trials, so here's hoping. Fortune
Citigroup CEO
Citigroup's global consumer banking chief Jane Fraser is set to become the bank's CEO when Michael Corbat retires in February. In doing so, she will become the first woman to lead a major Wall Street Bank. Fraser was responsible for some of Citigroup's toughest tasks, such as helping it find its way after the financial crisis. Fortune
Rio Tinto CEO
Rio Tinto CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques has quit, due to investor pressure over the company's destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred site in Australia. Rio Tinto's iron ore chief Chris Salisbury, and corporate relations chief Simone Niven, are also leaving. The mining giant destroyed two rock shelters in Western Australia that were of huge cultural and archeological significance, in order to expand one of its iron ore mines. CNN
TikTok deadline
TikTok owner ByteDance will reportedly miss the White House-imposed Sept. 15 deadline for selling off its U.S. operations, but President Trump insists he won't bend. Trump: "We’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it will be sold…There will be no extension of the TikTok deadline." Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Election interference
Microsoft is warning of massive attempted U.S.-election interference coming from Russia, again. The software giant says Russian government hackers have in recent weeks tried to attack at least 200 organizations tied to the election—including consultants working for either side of the electoral divide. Microsoft also said China has been trying to launch cyberattacks on people tied to the Biden campaign, while Iran has been targeting the personal accounts of people associated with the Trump campaign. Wall Street Journal
Altice vs volatility
Patrick Drahi is trying to take Altice, the French telecommunications firm in which he reportedly owns a 32% stake, private. The move is intended to end five years of debt-related volatility in Altice's share price. Drahi would pay €4.11 per share through the Next Private vehicle. Bloomberg
Nikola allegations
Short-seller Hindenburg Research has published a report full of claims about zero-emissions-car firm Nikola, which just struck a major deal with GM. Hindenburg alleges that Nikola made deceptive claims about its battery-development efforts and staged a 2018 video of its hydrogen fuel-cell semi truck moving under its own power. Nikola strenuously denies all of this, but the report hit both its and GM's stock yesterday. Fortune
This year
2020 is like a colonoscopy, proposes Aaron M. Sackett, associate professor of marketing at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. How so? As Sackett explains in this piece for Fortune, patients' retrospective evaluation of their colonoscopies have less to do with their average pain levels than with their peak pain levels during the procedure, and those at the end: "On Jan. 1, 2021, our evaluation of 2020 will likely be most influenced by how bad it was at its worst, and how bad it was at its end. If 2020’s peak 'pain' levels have already passed, a good ending can go a long way toward salvaging the year in retrospect." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-09-11--The CEO of mining giant Rio Tinto is forced out following the destruction of an ancient archeologica

The CEO of mining giant Rio Tinto is forced out following the destruction of an ancient archeological site

The Nasdaq is again on the precipice of correction territory .
Have investors lost faith in Big Tech ?

Rio Tinto Group Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastien Jacques will step down amid an investor backlash over the destruction of ancient Aboriginal heritage sites in Australia.
The change comes only weeks after Chairman Simon Thompson said Jacques had the board’s backing to handle the fallout from the company’s destruction of the ancient sites. Chris Salisbury, iron ore unit CEO, and Simone Niven, group executive of corporate relations, will also exit. Jacques will remain in his role until the end of March next year, or a successor is appointed, Rio said Friday in a statement.
Talks with about 75 investors and Indigenous community leaders in the past few weeks made clear that many were unsatisfied with penalties delivered by a board-led inquiry that found no single individual was at fault for the blasts and reprimanded the three senior executives by trimming bonus payments, Thompson said in a phone interview.
“It became clear that this issue of individual accountability was just an obstacle to rebuilding trust,” Thompson said. “If these three individuals do not have the confidence of critical stakeholders to lead the required changes then we have got to move on.”
Explosions in May to open up a mining area at an iron ore operation impacted two rock-shelters—shallow, cave-like structures—in the Juukan Gorge region of Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The sites, used by Aboriginal Australians for cooking and shelter as long as 46,000-years ago, were among the most significant of their type in the country, according to archaeologists.
“Repairing those relationships”
The successor to Jacques, CEO since July 2016, will need to convince investors, regulators and legislators in Western Australia that Rio can address governance failings in its iron ore unit—the division that accounted for more than 90% of first-half earnings. The new CEO will also take on a flagship copper mine expansion in Mongolia that’s been beset by delays and a budget blowout.
That will likely require an executive with experience of Australia’s iron ore sector, an ear for community relations and the capability to usher through complex growth projects, said Andy Forster, senior investment officer at Argo Investments Ltd., which holds Rio shares. “Clearly a big issue for the next few years is just going to be repairing those relationships,” he said.
Rio, which is headquartered in London and has been criticized for a lack of understanding about community issues in Western Australia, should move to appoint an Aboriginal person to its board, Marica Langton, associate provost at the University of Melbourne, and a prominent Indigenous academic told Bloomberg Television Friday in a interview.
While the May explosions were lawful under a state government decision, Rio has been accused of failing to act on information that later showed the heritage sites had greater significance than first understood.
Jacques also told a Parliamentary committee hearing last month that the region’s traditional land owners, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation, were not made aware that Rio had three alternative options that could have avoided damaging the Juukan Gorge shelters. The PKKP will continue to work with Rio on the aftermath of the blasts and advocate “for wide-ranging changes to ensure a tragedy like this never happens again,” the corporation said in a statement, declining to comment on the executive changes.
Rio’s next top executive will face a potentially lengthy task to restore the company’s relationships in local communities, and the ability to carry out that work will shape the board’s decision on replacing Jacques, Thompson said. Both internal and external candidates will be assessed, he said.
“They will have to take responsibility for what is going to be a process running over months, if not years, of restoring confidence in our ability to manage communities and heritage effectively, and that will be one of the key criteria,” Thompson said.
The departure of Jacques, 48, who joined Rio in 2011, comes amid wider upheaval in the top ranks of the mining industry, as the sector prepares for a longer-term slowdown in demand from China and navigates moves to decarbonize the global economy. Top miner BHP Group installed Mike Henry as its new CEO in January, while leadership transitions are seen looming at both Anglo American Plc and Glencore Plc.
Under Jacques’s leadership, Rio’s London-listed shares have doubled, beating gains by BHP and the Bloomberg World Mining Index, and the company has handed back record amounts of cash to investors. Rio’s Sydney traded shares closed 0.6% lower Friday.
Salisbury and Niven will leave Rio on Dec. 31, while Ivan Vella will be appointed as Rio’s new head of the iron ore division, the company said.


fortune--2020-09-11--The Nasdaq is again on the precipice of correction territory. Have investors lost faith in Big Tech?

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Happy Friday, everyone. We look to close off a volatile week on an up note as the U.S. futures point to decent gains. But it’s a mixed picture everywhere else. Brexit uncertainty is holding back European stocks and global stocks are on track for their second consecutive week of losses.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major indexes are mostly in the green with Japan’s Nikke i leading the way, up 0.75% .
i leading the way, up . The fate of TikTok’s U.S. operations is very much uncertain, but one thing is clear: President Trump will not budge on his Sept. 15 deadline to shut it down if an acquisition fails to materialize.
is very much uncertain, but one thing is clear: will not budge on his Sept. 15 deadline to shut it down if an acquisition fails to materialize. Rio Tinto has announced CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques and top unit heads are out of a job as the controversy around the mining giant’s destruction of ancient Aboriginal heritage sites in Australia intensifies.
Europe
The European bourses were down at the start with the Stoxx Europe 600 off 0.2% , before ticking upwards.
were down at the start with the off , before ticking upwards. A summer-holiday surge in COVID cases means Europe has once again overtaken the U.S. as a major coronavirus hotspot. The 27-country bloc reported more than 27,000 new cases yesterday. These region-by-region comparisons are hardly perfect measures; Europe’s population is 450 million versus 330 million in the U.S. Still, it’s not a good trend.
means Europe has once again overtaken the U.S. as a major coronavirus hotspot. The 27-country bloc reported more than yesterday. These region-by-region comparisons are hardly perfect measures; Europe’s population is 450 million versus 330 million in the U.S. Still, it’s not a good trend. If you were suffering from Brexit fatigue, don’t change that dial. The odds of a chaotic divorce are on the rise as the EU is now giving Britain to the end of the month to back down from its threat to rewrite the terms of the deal. Britain is even getting heat from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to do anything drastic, like put the Good Friday according in jeopardy. Threatening to walk away with no deal may be a negotiating tactic, but it comes with huge risks. Nearly two-thirds of Britain’s exports flow to the EU and U.S., according to economists at Berenberg Bank.
U.S.
The U.S. futures are in the green this morning, looking to recover some of yesterday’s losses. Disappointing jobless numbers and the Senate’s failure to even vote on a slimmed-down stimulus relief package didn’t help stocks yesterday. The Nasdaq fell nearly 2% .
are in the green this morning, looking to recover some of yesterday’s losses. and the Senate’s failure to even vote on a slimmed-down stimulus relief package didn’t help stocks yesterday. The fell nearly . Yesterday’s sell-off came despite an incredibly bullish GDP call from Goldman Sachs which now predicts the U.S. economy will grow as much as 35% this quarter , well above economists’ estimates.
from Goldman Sachs which now predicts the U.S. economy will grow as much as , well above economists’ estimates. The coronavirus pandemic is ravaging New York City’s economy. It’s also taking its toll on the city’s quality of life, the region’s biggest employers complain. The top execs at 160 companies, including Citigroup, Mastercard, and Nasdaq, sent a signed letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urging him to restore basic services that were cut when the outbreak hit the city.
Elsewhere
Gold is down, trading below $1,950/ounce .
is down, trading below . The dollar is down.
is down. Crude is flat with Brent trading near $40/barrel.
By the Numbers
35%. The consumer is the engine of the U.S. economy, responsible for roughly 70% of GDP. And so Goldman Sachs economists are heartened to see that consumer spending picked up in July and August, suggesting the economic rebound is on firmer footing than previously assumed. The rapid rebound in consumer spending is one of the big reasons Goldman is now predicting a Q3 GDP leap of 35%.
-9.4%. The Nasdaq is roughly a half-percent away from returning to correction territory. Since its Sept. 2 record close, the tech-laden index has fallen 9.4% as investors rethink the lofty valuations of Big Tech stocks. Apple is down 15.3% since its Sept. 1 high. Tesla is faring even worse, plunging 25% from its split-adjusted all-time high, achieved on Aug. 30. That’s solidly in bear territory. Alas, although Nasdaq futures point to a rebound as I write, trading has, as we know, been incredibly volatile recently.
4.9%. Quiz time: which of these four major exchanges is the top-performer over the past month?
A) Nasdaq
B) S&P 500
C) Dow Jones Industrial Average
D) Germany’s Dax.
The answer is D. Since the second half of August, investors have increasingly turned to European equities, with the Dax one of the clear winners. It’s up 4.9% over the past 30 days. The Dow and Nasdaq are both in the red over that same period.
***
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
***
Have a nice weekend, everyone. I’ll see you here on Monday.
Today's reads
Shattered glass. A hearty congratulations to Jane Fraser! She will take over the top role at Citigroup, becoming the first woman to helm a major Wall Street bank, "shattering one of the most enduring glass ceilings in finance."
The other crisis. America's financial system faces another existential threat: climate change. That makes sense, particularly to those of you on the West Coast who have been squinting at ash-choked skies this week. A new report from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, lays out in stark detail that there are physical and transition risks of climate change that will exact "unprecedented disruption in the proper functioning of financial markets and institutions."
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
$70 million
That's Tesla's average net profit in recent quarters. In other words, the EV pioneer is barely profitable—any shock could send it back into the red. S&P 500 bean-counters know this, and no doubt figured the carmaker is just too precarious at the moment for inclusion in the benchmark index. But what could possibly dent Tesla's earnings potential? The Wall Street Journal's Charley Grant lays out a whopper of an argument: the biggest threat to Tesla profitability—and, in turn, S&P inclusion—is a series of payments due to founder Elon Musk.


fortune--2020-09-11--When will a COVID vaccine be ready? The fourth quarter or early 2021, top Chinese vaccine executive

When will a COVID vaccine be ready? The fourth quarter or early 2021, top Chinese vaccine executive says

A COVID-19 vaccine will likely be available to the public by this winter, said Dr. Aimin Hui, vice president of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Development on a virtual call for Fortune’s Global Tech Forum on Thursday.
“The evidence suggests that one or more vaccines will be available to the public in the fourth quarter this year or early next year,” Hui said.
Fosun Pharma is a Chinese pharmaceutical company that has partnered with American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German vaccine maker BioNTech to co-develop an mRNA vaccine that is currently in late-stage trials.
Hui said that 25,000 participants already have enrolled in the candidate’s phase III trials, which are intended to test the efficacy and safety of a vaccine on tens of thousands of human volunteers. He expects to see results from the trials as early as October.
“The data on early clinical trials are promising,” Hui said. “It is highly likely there will be one or more vaccines getting [Food and Drug Administration] approval in the next few months.”
Hui’s comments follow Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla’s Wednesday remarks to Fortune, in which he said there is a 60% chance that Pfizer, Fosun Pharma, and BioNtech would know by the end of October whether the vaccine they are producing is effective and safe enough to bring to market.
Currently, there are nine vaccine candidates in phase III trials, and vaccine executives have been increasingly optimistic that at least one will be approved for widespread use in coming months.
In August, Liu Jingzhen, CEO of Sinopharm told Chinese media that he expects his company’s vaccine candidate, one of the nine in phase III, to reach market before the end of 2020.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Sariot told reporters this week that he expects the candidate his company is producing in partnership with Oxford University to be ready to submit to regulators this year, even after a sick patient caused a delay in phase III trials this week.
Hui called the global effort to produce a vaccine “unprecedented,” and other panelists said that condensing the years-long development process into less than 12 months has only been possible through collaboration between scientists and companies around the world.
“Never before in mankind’s history have we had so much technology, so many scientists, so many companies, so many countries, and so much money focused on one single infectious disease,” panelist Dr. Chen Ling, head of Chinese vaccine maker Guangzhou nBiomed Medicine Technology, said on the Thursday call.
Chen explained that the scale of the global effort gives him confidence that a vaccine will eventually reach market. But he cautioned that after a vaccine is approved, public health officials will face another enormous task: manufacturing and distributing it to the entire world. Chen called on leaders beyond healthcare and government to contribute to the vaccine effort since they will reap the rewards of the world returning to ‘normal.’
“We need to find a mechanism for CEOs in industries [impacted by the pandemic] to facilitate or accelerate processes for logistics and pricing,” said Chen. Aviation, tourism, and hospitality sectors worldwide will benefit once a vaccine is available to the public, Chen argued, so companies in such industries should provide financial support to the development and distribution of a vaccine.
“If [these industries] chipped in with 10% of the losses” incurred in the pandemic, it could make a huge difference in speeding up the distribution of a potential vaccine, said Chen. “Someone should take a leap to make this happen.”


fortune--2020-09-11--Rapper T.I. to pay $75,000 fine for promoting fraudulent initial coin offering

Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza on the importance of doing the work

Clifford Harris Jr., the Atlanta-based rapper better known as T.I., agreed to pay a $75,000 penalty to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims that he played a role in promoting an unregistered and fraudulent initial coin offering.
T.I. promoted FLiK tokens to his social media followers in 2017, falsely stating that he was a co-owner of the “Netlifx on the blockchain,” which was advertised as creating a streaming media platform with products that could be purchased with digital tokens, the SEC said in a statement Friday. The company’s founder, a film producer, is facing claims that he misappropriated money raised in the offering to buy a Ferrari, a million-dollar home, diamond jewelry and other luxury goods.
T.I., 39, agreed to the penalty without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings. An attorney for the rapper didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The musician joins Boxer Floyd Mayweather and music producer DJ Khaled as celebrities who’ve been sued by the Wall Street regulator for hyping initial coin offerings. Celebrity endorsements of ICOs — in which companies raise money by selling digital tokens instead of shares — became increasingly common in 2017 as the price of Bitcoin surged to a record high.


fortune--2020-09-11--Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza on the importance of doing the work

There ’ s now even more evidence that restaurant dining sharply increases COVID spread

America mourns 9/11 amid the coronavirus pandemic, white faces dominate the country’s most powerful positions, and remote work disadvantages the marginalized.
But first, here’s your 9/11 memorial-themed week in review in Haiku
Where were you when the
Towers fell? When the sky was
the kind of blue that
made you believe that
all is well and good if just
for a brief moment?
What did you think when
the smoke began to billow,
the Pentagon shook,
and the news anchors
blinked back tears? I remember
all the WHERE ARE YOU????
voice mails, the wringing
hands, the need to say “I love
you” just one last time.
On this sober anniversary, and at this strange and terrible time, please know: We are grateful for all you are and do.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
In Brief
Last night I had the chance to have a virtual dinner with Alicia Garza, Principal at the Black Futures Lab—a non-profit dedicated to understanding and engaging Black political power—and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Also at the “table” were a wonderful and eclectic group of women journalists and purpose-driven entrepreneurs. Over food we individually prepared inspired by two of Garza’s favorite recipes, we connected with each other and with her work. It was delightful.
Garza has been busy. She has a new book coming out in October, called The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart. And although she left the day-to-day operations of BLM in 2017, her organizing work has never stopped.
Here’s just one example.
The Black Futures Lab has conducted what she believes is the largest survey of Black people ever completed since Reconstruction. She says it’s a necessary response to a political system that panders to Black voters at game time, but never really finds out that what they want. “We meet over plates of soul food, usually from Sylvia’s in Harlem, with people who are seeking our votes by trying to appeal to us culturally. But there is no substantive engagement on the issues we really care about.”
The Black Census surveyed 30,000 Black people across the U.S. to find out what issues were top of mind and what solutions they might embrace. “The number one thing heard from people,” says Garza, “is that nobody ever asked them what they think and what they care most about.”
I'll let you click through to find out what those issues are.
I’ll be following up with Garza for a longer interview when her book is available, but I did ask her for some words of advice for anyone who is looking to create a bigger impact in their work or in the work, particularly if they are newcomers.
Don’t try to jump ahead. “Racism is not about people being mean to each other,” she says. “These are intentionally designed systems that permeate everything in our society. It’s important for us to deeply understand how these things came to be.”
Then remember, nothing works if the voices of marginalized stakeholders aren’t centered. This is the time to amplify the “bold and radical imagination of people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” she says.
Hold a beautiful vision of what’s possible. “It’s easy to know what it is we don’t want. But ‘the negative’ keeps you involved for about 15 seconds.” After that, expect cynicism and apathy to follow.
Instead, “take the time to cultivate a clear vision of what it is that you want moving forward.” Think big, bold, collaborative.
Then get busy. “If there was ever a time to do something wacky and wild [that] makes you sweat, it’s 100% now,” she says. “If you’re wondering if you can make an impact—if you have an idea that will help people prepare for this moment—do it.”
On Point
Remembering September 11th, amid another national tragedy Today marks 19 years since the 9/11 attacks. A look at the ceremonies in New York City shows how warped the mourning is this year amid a global pandemic that has left 192,000 Americans and counting dead. In Manhattan, mourners wore masks and kept their distance. The usual stage for families to read names of the victims was absent; instead a pre-recorded list was broadcast over speakers. Vice President Mike Pence and presidential hopeful Joe Biden were both in attendance, exchanging a masked elbow bump in solidarity. For many, 9/11 was the defining moment of a generation. Now, we are in the midst of an agonizing new one.
CNN
Four-fifths of the country’s most powerful people are white A new analysis by the New York Times found that of the more than 900 officials who head the likes of government, media, finance, and law in the U.S., a staggering 80% are white despite an increasingly diverse population. As the Times puts it, these are the people who “pass our laws, control Hollywood’s studios, head the most prestigious universities, own pro sports teams and determine who goes to jail and who goes to war.” Maybe that isn’t too surprising when considering the makeup of the Trump Administration (three people of color out of 24). But other categories are just plain absurd. Not a single Asian or Black academic leads U.S. News and World Report’s top 25 universities—just one is Hispanic. The 15 combined leaders of the Big Five book publishers and the 10 most-read magazines are all white. And just three state governors are Asian, Hispanic, or Native American. There are currently no Black governors, and just two Black governors have been elected in American history.
New York Times
Remote work is all well and good if you’re wealthy and white While the transition to telework has been bearable for those in industries like education, information services, and finance, it’s a different story for those who work in the service sector. Recent analysis found that just 1 in 100 service employees have the ability to telecommute. At the same time, one fifth of Black and Hispanic men work in these occupations. The other aforementioned industries, as well as positions in professional, scientific, and technical services, management, and insurance, are overwhelmingly dominated by affluent white Americans. It’s no coincidence, then, that Black and Hispanic Americans die of COVID-19 at a much higher rate than their white counterparts
PBS NewsHour/The Conversation
On background
Saying goodbye to the Twin Towers There have always been as many New Yorks as there are people who have lived there, and this beautiful essay by Colson Whitehead encapsulates the unique pain of watching your personal New York transform. “You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building,” he writes. You never really say a proper goodbye to the parts of the city that made you, and especially to the ones that you never expected to. It works for 9/11 and it works for the post-COVID New York that I assure you is far from over. #NeverForget
New York Times
Would you help if you saw someone being bullied? This is the premise of a deeply affecting and effective social experiment and accompanying three-minute video created by the Miami office of David, the agency partner for Burger King. Called “Bullying Jr.,” it was originally created in honor of National Bullying Prevention Month, but given the current state of always-on harassment, now makes an even more chilling point. The David team hired teen actors to harass another kid in a real Los Angeles-area BK restaurant. The premise was simple: Would customers be more likely to stand up for a bullied junior human or a bullied Whopper junior?
Burger King on Youtube
Study: Evolution is not here for your selfishness A study published in Nature Communications, is upending a long-held notion that selfishness was preferable from an evolutionary perspective. The research revisits game theory experiments—most people will remember that as the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ scenario put forth by mathematician John Nash, which favored selfishness—only to find that any rewards from putting oneself first were short-lived. "For many years, people have asked that if he [Nash] is right, then why do we see co-operation in the animal kingdom, in the microbial world, and in humans," said the lead author. Microbes, they get it.
BBC
raceAhead is edited by Aric Jenkins.
Today's mood board


fortune--2020-09-11--TikTok pushing forward with deal to meet looming deadline

TikTok is pressing forward with plans for a sale of its U.S. operations ahead of a mid-September deadline, according to a person familiar with the matter, even as signs emerge that the video-sharing app is facing pressure to shut down rather than make a deal.
The app, owned by China’s ByteDance, is still considering bids from two possible buyers — Oracle and Microsoft, which has teamed up with Walmart. TikTok intends to bring a proposal to the White House for approval before a deadline imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing internal plans. It will then be up to the Trump administration to approve a deal.
Reuters on Friday reported that the Chinese government has privately expressed that it would rather ByteDance close TikTok in the U.S. than be forced to sell its U.S. assets. In response to the report, a TikTok spokesman said, “the government has never suggested to us that we should shut down TikTok in the U.S. or any other market.”
TikTok has been at the center of deal negotiations and a political debate since early August, when Trump threatened to ban the app from the U.S., citing national security concerns. He then ordered it sold and has said he wants a deal by Sept. 15. Later that month, the Chinese government announced a handful of new restrictions around the sale of certain technologies, which has slowed a possible deal.
Part of the confusion around sealing any deal is the number of interested parties that TikTok’s parent company must satisfy. Not only does it have to come to agreeable terms with an acquirer, as well as its profit-seeking venture capital backers, ByteDance also must find a way to please both the Chinese and U.S. governments. In China, ceding a top technology asset in the middle of a contentious battle with the U.S. is seen as unpatriotic. Within the Trump administration, certain advisers are pushing for an all-out shutdown of TikTok rather than a sale to an American company.
China’s U.S. embassy referred Bloomberg to comments made Friday by Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry. “The U.S. should immediately correct its mistakes and stop its unjustifiable suppression on Chinese companies and other non-U.S. companies,” he said. “The Chinese side retains the right to take all necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese companies.”
It also remains unclear which deal deadline TikTok has to abide by. The company is working toward a Sept. 20 deadline to provide something to the Trump administration, one person close to the company said, sticking with the 45-day timeline imposed in an executive order signed by Trump Aug. 6. But Trump has been insisting on a Sept. 15 deadline in media comments. TikTok also faces a November deadline to divest its U.S. assets in an order based on a recommendation from an interagency national security panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS.
The companies involved in the negotiations were focused on getting a preliminary agreement by Sept. 20, and completing the sale by December, said one person familiar with the matter. But China’s move to assert authority over a sale upended talks, said the person, and now it’s uncertain whether that deadline can be met. Whether a deal can be struck will depend on ByteDance navigating a difficult negotiation that wins support from China and the Trump administration, said the person.


fortune--2020-09-11--There’s now even more evidence that restaurant dining sharply increases COVID spread

Growing evidence indicates that proximity to other people is among the easiest ways for coronavirus to spread, especially indoors. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) adds to the thesis and points to a very specific culprit: Restaurant dining.
In a survey of more than 800 adults, the CDC found that people who had contracted COVID were twice as likely to say they had dined at a restaurant in the preceding two weeks.
The CDC survey examined behaviors ranging from shopping at a mall to visiting people in a home. But the consistent culprit, according to the study, was going to a restaurant.
“No significant differences were observed in the… analysis between case-patients and control-participants in shopping; gatherings with less than 10 persons in a home; going to an office setting; going to a salon; gatherings with more than 10 persons in a home; going to a gym; using public transportation; going to a bar/coffee shop; or attending church/religious gathering,” the agency says in its report. “However, case-patients were more likely to have reported dining at a restaurant… in the 2 weeks before illness onset than were control-participants.”
To put it more simply: The conditions required for dining at a restaurant are significantly more complex than other public activities during the COVID pandemic.
You can’t put on a mask while you’re eating; group dining will inevitably lead to conversations and, well, revelry that may sway people to throw caution to the wind. Sitting close together at a table also makes it pretty difficult to stay six feet apart.
There’s been plenty of focus on how indoor proximity can spread COVID; agencies ranging from the CDC to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has its own report, have release plenty of material about how this may exacerbate the problem.


fortune--2020-09-11--On COVID-19 vaccines, Big Pharma knows to just say ‘no’

Reflecting on the aftermath of the atomic bomb, Albert Einstein famously warned that “politics is more difficult than physics. This admonition over fusing politics and science rings true in the present COVID-19 vaccine development effort, haunted by a tragic historic trail from earlier epidemics.
With reference to the White House’s “Operation Warp Speed,” President Trump announced with confidence on Labor Day that “We’re going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I’m talking about.” (That “special date,” of course, was a clear reference to Election Day.)
The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community was to call into question the credibility of the president’s statement. Just a few days before the president’s remarks, Moncef Slaoui, the lead scientist on Operation Warp Speed, had stated that “there is a very, very low chance that the trials that are running as we speak” could result in a useable vaccine before the end of October.
The President’s politicization of science on Labor Day was, sadly, nothing new. It immediately followed a stunning week that featured multiple public reversals by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration over COVID-19 testing guidelines, as well as regarding the safety of treatments involving convalescent plasma. Just this week, Politico released a trove of recent emails showing that Health & Human Services political appointees tried to suppress Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, from discussing the risks that the coronavirus poses to children. Perhaps most startling of all, Bob Woodward this week released taped conversations in which President Trump said that he intentionally tried to minimize and downplay the truth about the severity of the pandemic, thus hampering public heath efforts to restrict its spread.
Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health and member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus, has warned that the confusion caused by the administration could seriously undermine public confidence needed for recovery. Omer cited recent national surveys by Gallup and Harris pollsters, each finding that a third of Americans would be reluctant to take a newly developed COVID-19 vaccine. A new September 10 Kaiser Family Foundation poll across political parties reported that most Americans believe political pressure from the Trump administration will cause the FDA to rush approval of a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day on Nov. 3.
Fortunately, the pharmaceutical industry has raced to rescue the public from confusion. Nine of the world’s premier drug makers—including Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and AstraZeneca—signed a joint statement pledging they would not file for regulatory approval of experimental COVID-19 vaccines until the immunization was shown to work safely through late-stage clinical testing.
J&J CEO Alex Gorsky explained, “As an industry, we are guided by science and data in these efforts. With many vaccines now being tested in clinical trials, we believe it is important to affirm for people everywhere that we will only move forward with regulators to make a vaccine available to them when the data demonstrate it is safe and effective.”
Gorsky was wise to show such caution. The next day, AstraZeneca halted its most advanced Phase 3 study of a Covid-19 vaccine, one involving 30,000 participants in 80 sites across the U.S. and many others across the world, due to a serious adverse event in a participant in the U.K. The reaction appears to involve a transverse myelitis or inflammation of the spinal cord; determining whether this is related to the vaccine may take weeks
This example of the extraordinary precaution and rigor needed in conducting a vaccine trial is a direct rebuttal to President Trump’s attack on his own officials. In an Aug. 22 tweet, Trump wrote, “The deep state, or whoever, over at the F.D.A. is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after Nov. 3. Must focus on speed and saving lives!”
A lesson from a polio vaccine disaster
This pathology of political pressure rushing research in pursuit of speed is sadly not new—even in the world of virology and pandemics.
The infamous Cutter pharmaceutical disaster of 1955 refers to the tragedy that occurred when companies rushed to produce the polio vaccines developed by Jonas Salk. Fully 200,000 people were inadvertently injected with live, virulent polio virus: 70,000 became ill, 200 were permanently paralyzed, and 10 died. The rushed production of the vaccine at industrial facilities including those operated by Cutter, Wyeth and other companies led to the firing of top officials, including the secretary of health, education, and welfare and the director of the National Institute of Health for their failed oversight. The production of vaccines already licensed were halted, and the development of new vaccines to prevent other fatal diseases was hindered.
Big Pharma is far from perfect—for example, there may be outlier companies that have charged rapacious prices on drugs. However, we should congratulate the pharmaceutical industry not just for taking risks with large R&D investments to advance public health, but also for having the courage to say “no,” even when public health officials have acquiesced to political pressure and said “yes.”
In the face of intense pressure to produce the rushed Salk vaccine, Merck was the only involved company to withdraw from the flawed national rollout. During the testing, Merck researcher. Bettylee Hampil noticed that brain lesions had begun to appear at higher levels than those allowed by the FDA. This was a clue that the polio virus used in the vaccines might not have been fully inactivated as was intended even though the samples otherwise tested negative for live polio virus.
The former head of Merck Research Laboratories, Max Tischler, recalled: “I’ve never forgotten Bettylee for that correct decision because she was just a little tiny woman and she spoke to a whole group of men and said that ‘I can’t, in good conscience, release this and I don’t think that you want me to.’ Everyone went away disappointed, but we knew she was right. Thank god we made that decision.”
Dr. Bettylee Hampil’s spirit may be alive and well in our pharmaceutical industry today, in its espoused willingness to say “no” to political pressure.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is a senior associate dean and Lester Crown Professor of Management Practice at the Yale School of Management. You can follow him at Twitter @JeffSonnenfeld.
Albert Ko is professor and department chair, epidemiology of microbial disease, at Yale School of Public Health, and professor of infectious diseases at Yale School of Medicine.


fortune--2020-09-11--‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is being delayed again

Following the less-than-stellar theatrical debut of Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” Warner Bros. is delaying its next big release, “Wonder Woman 1984,” to Christmas.
The postponement of the “Wonder Woman” sequel, which had been scheduled to hit theaters Oct. 2, comes on the heels of Hollywood’s strongest attempt to lure moviegoers back to theaters during the pandemic.
Warner Bros.’ $200 million “Tenet” fared well in its international-first release, but found ticket sales harder to come by in the United States. About 25% of U.S. theaters remain closed, including those in the top markets of Los Angeles and New York.
“Tenet” grossed about $20 million in its North American rollout, which included two weeks of showings in Canada. Some believed that was as good as possible, given the circumstances, and enough evidence that audiences would follow new releases into theaters. The “Wonder Woman 1984” postponement suggests Hollywood’s fall may go little better than its summer.
“Wonder Woman 1984,” one of many blockbusters originally set for the summer, had been the next big-budget release on the calendar. Now, that gap extends to the Walt Disney Co.’s “Black Widow,” a Marvel release slated for Nov. 6. Other, smaller productions are going ahead. Sony Pictures this weekend is releasing the rom-com “Broken Hearts Gallery.”
Announcing the move to Dec. 25, Toby Emmerich, Warmer Bros. Motion Picture Group chairman, said in a statement: “We’re very proud of the film and look forward to bringing it to audiences for the holidays.”


fortune--2020-09-11--What to watch this weekend on Netflix, HBO, and more

Between traditional television, video-on-demand releases, and a growing number of streaming services, it can be hard to keep up with what one should watch week to week. Fortune is here to help you keep track of new releases as well as the occasional older title worth checking out. Take a look at this weekend’s notable arrivals, a couple you may have missed earlier in the week, and what else is coming soon:
Netflix
From left: “Coastal Elites” on HBO, Hulu’s “Woke,” and Netflix’s “The Duchess” are among new offerings out this weekend. Courtesy of HBO; Joe Lederer—Hulu; Simon Ridgway—Netflix
The Duchess: Katherine Ryan stars as a single mom in London—who’s debating having a child with her ex, while juggling career and life stuff—in the first season of this new series, which drops on the streamer Sept. 11.
Pokémon Journeys: Part two of this kid-friendly animated series will be available to watch on Netflix starting Sept. 11.
The streaming service continues to add some popular sitcoms from back in the day by bringing Girlfriends into the mix on Sept. 11. Documentary The Social Dilemma, which explores the “dangerous human impact of social networking,” also debuted on the streamer earlier this week, along with Cuties—the French coming-of-age comedy-drama, which has been the subject of much controversy.
HBO
Coastal Elites: The “socially distanced comedic satire” starring Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson, and Issa Rae comes to HBO and HBO Max at 8 p.m. ET on Sept. 12.
Hulu
Woke, starring Lamorne Morris (New Girl) as a Black cartoonist who gets embroiled in a case of police brutality, arrived on Hulu earlier this week.
On VOD
I Am Woman: This biopic from director Unjoo Moon tells the story of “I Am Woman” singer Helen Reddy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) whose song became the unofficial anthem of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s. The film is available via VOD on Sept. 11. Read Fortune’s interview with Moon, Cobham-Hervey, and Danielle Macdonald (who plays journalist Lillian Roxon) here.
Coming Soon
Chloë Sevigny stars in HBO’s “We Are Who We Are.” Yannis Drakoulidis—HBO
Six-part series The Third Day, starring Jude Law and Naomie Harris, comes to HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. on Sept. 14. We Are Who We Are, the series from Luca Guadagnino, also arrives that night on the channel and streaming service at 10 p.m. ET.
And coming soon on VOD: documentary House of Cardin, which already came out at select theaters and via virtual theatrical release, will officially be available on demand Sept. 15. Read Fortune’s interview with the filmmakers here.


fortune--2020-09-11--COVID proves that companies need to reduce their dependence on China

For decades, China has served as the go-to manufacturing destination for global companies. But recent events suggest that the tide may be turning. Consider these examples:
Apple supplier Foxconn announced in July that it plans to invest $1 billion in India, part of a quiet and gradual production shift by Apple away from China.
Hasbro, the world’s largest publicly traded toymaker, has said that it hopes to have only 50% of its production coming from China by the end of 2020, shifting away from China in favor of new plants in Vietnam and India.
Nintendo is shifting some production of its Switch videogame console to Southeast Asia from China.
Japan passed a record economic stimulus package to help Japanese companies shift manufacturing away from China and either back to Japan or other countries.
Geopolitical tensions are fueling this trend. The U.S. and China have been in a wide-ranging trade war for more than two years. Military conflict along the India-China border, rising tensions between the Beijing government and Taiwan aggravated by aggressive Chinese behavior in the South China Sea, and China’s tightening restrictions on democracy in Hong Kong are all making global businesses warfy. And China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early days has increased distrust among its trading partners.
The COVID-19 crisis has illustrated both the soft risks (such as reputation damage) and rigid risks (such as disruption of supply chains) of relying on China as a chief manufacturing hub. Companies outside China may now feel pressure to reshore manufacturing to home countries or find more suitable low-cost alternatives in Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Americas. Alternately, they may now feel a need to develop a diversification strategy that includes a combination of those regions, including the one where their global headquarters is located.
The argument becomes more convincing every day. The government of China’s moves in recent years signals harsher government control at home and more geopolitical and economic bullying overseas. Germany and other European countries have had to call on firms to reduce their dependence on China. And long before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States had concerns about its growing reliance on China.
Diversifying investments—and supply chains
In my earlier years, I was taught to diversify my investments, always, to hedge against the risks associated with certain stocks, bonds, and funds. But are global companies ready to diversify?
Any company currently dependent on China will need to manufacture their products in an increasingly larger group of low-cost countries possessing the human capital, quality standards, logistics, and supply chains to deliver goods on time to customers.
But this next-wave of countries can’t operate like China. This group of nations must have amenable regulations and trade policies to attract international investors, understandable labor laws, and clear respect for intellectual property. They also must enact quality certification processes to offset risks of disruptions in times of uncertainty.
Apple, Hasbro, and Nintendo are only some of the latest companies to make a move to shift some production away from China. Many apparel companies have successfully moved and mitigated the risks to other low-end alternative options to China. For example, Nike now makes its lower-end shoes in Vietnam. Since 2010, Adidas has cut the share of footwear it makes in China in half, and most of that manufacturing business has moved to Vietnam.
For longer-term success, new-country partners will need to train and develop senior business leaders. And organizations must be inculcated with effective cross-cultural tools to thrive with a global mindset toward working with new clients in a new environment—and away from over-reliance on yesterday’s game, China.
Short-term challenges, long-term sustainability
The pandemic has given some businesses a rude awakening about their dependence on China. But there is no reason to believe that relocation of supply chains can’t be achieved. Companies will have to embrace short-term challenges associated with diversification from Chinese locations and go through the growing pains needed to design a long-term sustainable future, one without reliance on China.
It does not pay to rely on a single place for manufacturing operations and supply chain processes. The global companies that are heavily reliant on China for global sourcing and production must diversity away of China to reduce future disruptions and risks to their business and customers.
Nilesh Patel is chief executive and global management strategist at Opitive Consulting.


fortune--2020-09-11--Nikola shares slump after blanket denial of short-seller report

Nikola Corp. shares dropped as much as 18% after the company issued a blanket denial of allegations made in a short-seller report without offering any specifics to refute allegations it lied about its technology and staged events.
The electric-truck startup said allegations made by Hindenburg Research are false but did not provide evidence to refute specific claims in the report. Chairman and founder Trevor Milton had vowed earlier Friday to issue a detailed rebuttal after “working through the night.” Nikola instead said it hired law firm Kirkland & Ellis to consider its legal options and plans to bring unspecified documentation to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We have nothing to hide and will refute these allegations,” the company said Friday in a statement. “To be clear, this was not a research report and it is not accurate. This was a hit job for short sale profit driven by greed.”
Milton said in tweet Friday he wouldn’t make any further comments “on the advice of counsel” other than to say that “Nikola approached the SEC, not the other way around.” He earlier said he would provide a “detail report” to address the allegations.
Judy Burns, an SEC spokeswoman, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hidenburg Research’s founder, Nathan Anderson, said his firm welcomed Nikola’s pledge to petition securities regulators. “We are pleased that Nikola is engaging with the SEC and we are not surprised that Trevor Milton is not commenting further on advice of counsel,” he said in a phone call.
Nikola’s reply came in an effort to reassure investors after the report — issued Thursday by a firm that may stand to gain from a decline in the share price — alleged the startup made non-working products appear as fully functional, staged misleading videos and told “dozens of lies” about its capabilities, partnerships or products.
Nikola fell 17.8% to $30.87 as of 10:39 a.m. in New York. The shares extended their losses after another short-seller weighed in. Citron Reseach thanked Hinddenburg in a tweet, offering to pay for half of any legal expenses incurred.
A two-day plunge has wiped out all of the gain the stock accrued after a surprise announcement Tuesday that General Motors Co. would take a $2 billion equity stake in Nikola.
The deal committed GM to manufacturing the startup’s debut electric pickup, called the Badger. The Detroit giant also will provide fuel-cell and battery technology for Nikola’s semi trucks, which are due to be built at a factory under construction in Coolidge, Arizona.
In June, Bloomberg News reported that, according to people familiar with the matter, Milton had exaggerated the capabilities of its debut big rig during an unveiling event in December 2016. Hindenburg refers to that story in a portion of its report.


fortune--2020-09-11--Nikola, which went public via a SPAC, is accused of deception

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Electric-truck maker Nikola led the wave of mergers with blank-check companies this year.
In March, it agreed to merge with VectoIQ Acquisition Corp., a SPAC created solely with the purpose of acquiring another business, with Fidelity and ValueAct supporting the deal with a $525 million private placement. And riding on Tesla’s soaring stock as well as a recent partnership with General Motors, Nikola’s valuation has exploded to $14 billion (compare that to its $3.3 billion price tag when its plan to go public was first announced).
On Thursday, Hindenburg Research, a short seller betting against the zero-emissions startup, accused Nikola of making a series of deceptive public statements and false representations regarding its technology and business in a scathing report.
Per my colleague David Z. Morris, it makes a claim that is somewhat…unintentionally comedic:
“The Hindenburg report’s most striking claim is that a January 2018 video purportedly showing a Nikola One hydrogen fuel-cell semi truck moving under its own power was staged. According to Hindenburg, the video in fact showed the truck rolling down a long, gentle slope. Hindenburg’s report includes a test confirming that the section of road shown in the video could accelerate a coasting vehicle to highway speeds, along with text messages from a former Nikola employee appearing to confirm the tactics.
Given these claims, it is notable that Nikola repeatedly described the video as showing the truck “in motion,” which would be technically true even if the truck were not moving under its own power.”
Nikola refuted the allegations, calling Hindenberg’s report a “hit job for short sale profit driven by greed.” The company made allusions to potential legal action and also said it plans to bring the report to the attention of the Securities of Exchange Commission.
Of course, short sellers are sometimes wrong and they do have financial incentive to tarnish a company’s image. But they’ve also been very, very right before.
And this brings me back to Nikola’s decision to go public via SPAC: Despite the financing method’s raging popularity in 2020, SPACs are still trying to shed their historical association with fraud. And while proponents emphasize the limited risk of investing in a SPAC before it finds an acquisition target (with funds going typically into, say, U.S. treasuries), it remains to be seen what comes after.
EVERLANE RAISES: Everlane, the sustainable fashion brand that has been accused of failing to live up to its ethical image, has raised $85 million in Series F funding led by L Catterton.
The new funding comes after former employees accused the company of anti-Black behavior and of selling an image “to the world that did not reflect their damaging experiences inside the company,” per the New York Times in July. Everlane later announced that the Chief Creative Officer Alexandra Spunt, who took much of the criticism, would no longer lead the creative team. In response to the report, Everlane CEO Michael Preysman told the Times that the company would open up a seat for a Black board member, roll out anti-racism training, and add a Black person to the senior leadership team.
With the most recent funding round, Everlane added Jonathan Mildenhall, CEO of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, and Matt Leeds, Partner at L Catterton, to its board of directors. Mildenhall is of a mixed-race background.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Korro Bio, a Cambridge, Mass.-based provider of a platform for RNA editing, raised $91.5 million in Series A funding. Wu Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Atlas Venture, New Enterprise Associates, Qiming Venture Partners USA, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Cormorant Asset Management, MP Healthcare Venture Management, and Alexandria Venture Investments.
- OncoImmune, a Rockville, Md.-based clinical-stage biopharma firm, raised $56 million in Series B funding. HM Capital, 3E Bioventures Capital and Kaitai Capital led the round and were joined by GBA Fund and GF Xinde. Read more.
- EverC, a New York-based company money laundering detection startup, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Red Dot Capital Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Maor Investments, Viola Ventures, Arbor Ventures, and American Express Ventures.
- Casma Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech, raised $50 million in Series B funding. The Column Group led the round and was joined by investors including Eventide Asset Management, Schroder Adveq, and Third Rock Ventures.
- Orasis Pharmaceuticals, an Israel-based ophthalmic pharmaceutical company focused on treating presbyopia symptoms, raised $30 million in Series C funding. Bluestem Capital and Visionary Ventures led the round and were joined by investors including Sequoia Capital, SBI (Japan) Innovation Ventures, Maverick Ventures Israel, and LifeSci Venture Partners.
- Chairish, a San Francisco-based marketplace for home furnishings, raised $33 million in Series B funding. Tritium Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Altos Ventures Ltd, Azure Capital, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.
- Capitolis, a New York-based capital markets platform, raised $11 million. Citi, J.P. Morgan and State Street were the investors.
- Curio, a London-based curated audio platform of journalism, raised $9 million in Series A funding. Earlybird VC led the round and was joined by investors including Draper Esprit, Cherry Ventures, and Horizons Ventures. Read more.
- Agragene, a San Diego, Calif.-based company developing eco-friendly alternatives to chemical pesticides, raised $4 million in Series A funding. Ospraie Ag Science led the round.
- Britive, a Los Angeles-based provider of cloud-native security solutions, raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Upfront Ventures led the round.
- StatHero, an Arizona-based fantasy sports platform, raised a “multi-million round” of seed funding from Breslow Forsythe Group.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Colibri Group, backed by Gridiron Capital, acquired HomeCEU, a Plano, Texas-based continuing education for healthcare professionals platform with a focus in therapy professions. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Dynamo Software, backed by Francisco Partners, acquired Imagineer Technology Group, a New York City-based cloud software solution to the alternative investment industry. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Eze Castle Integration, backed by H.I.G. Capital, acquired Alphaserve Technologies, a New York City-based provider of digital IT services for the financial services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Baring Private Equity Asia agreed to acquire Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU), a Southborough, Mass.-based provider of IT services and solutions, in an all-cash transaction valued at about $2.0 billion.
OTHERS
- Reliance Industries is offering to sell a roughly $20 billion stake in its retail business to Amazon, per Bloomberg citing sources. Read more.
- Traton SE, Volkswagen AG’s heavy-truck business, boosted its offer to buy the rest of Navistar International, a U.S. manufacturer, for $3.6 billion. Read more.
- Euronext NV plans to submit a bid along with an Italian state-owned lender for Borsa Italiana SpA, the Italian bourse owned by the London Stock Exchange, valuing it at about 3.5 billion euros ($4.1 billion) to 4 billion euros. Read more.
- Evolution Gaming Group AB (ST: EVO) offered to acquire NetEnt AB (ST:NET-B), a Swedish gaming systems provider, valuing the latter at about €1.9 billion (USD2.1 billion).
EXITS
- American Bath Group, a Savannah, Tenn-based maker of bathtubs that is backed by Lone Star, is exploring strategic options including a sale. Read more.
- TPG is exploring the sale of Strive Communities, an operator of mobile-home parks. The deal could raise $750 million. Read more.
- Atar Capital has acquired WinCup, a Georgia-based food packaging manufacturer, from BlackRock. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- EQT agreed to acquire Idealista, a Spanish property site, from Apax Partners for about $1.5 billion.
IPOs
- C4 Therapeutics, a preclinical biotech developing protein degraders for oncology and immunology, filed to raise $100 million in an IPO. Cobro Ventures, Perceptive Advisors, and Cormorant Funds back the firm. Read more.
SPACs
- Opendoor, a property technology startup, is in advanced talks to go public through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II, a blank check company. The company would be valued at $5 billion in the deal. Firms including SoftBank and GV back the firm. Read more.
- Vesper Healthcare Acquisition, a blank check company targeting the healthcare sector, filed to raise up to $400 million in an IPO. Former Allergan CEO Brenton Saunders leads the firm. Read more.
- Climate Change Crisis Real Impact I Acquisition, a blank check company targeting sectors fighting climate change, filed for a $200 million IPO. PIMCO backs the firm. Read more.
F+FS
- Bonfire Ventures, a seed-stage VC firm that invests in B2B software, raised $100 million for its second core fund.
- Banco Santander launched Mouro Capital, a venture capital fund focused on fintechs, with $400 million in allocated funds.
PEOPLE
- Battery Ventures hired Paul Morrissey as its first partner in London and promoted Zak Ewen to principal.