fortune--2020-03-20--How Samasource’s CEO helped turn a non-profit into a fully sustaining for-profit

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
I had been planning to meet this week with Wendy Gonzalez, president of Samasource, the company that hires workers in developing countries to perform tasks for tech-industry clients. Instead we spoke on the phone from our respective homes. The subject was work, and we both were carrying on with it despite the circumstances.
Gonzalez joined Samasource in 2015 when it was a non-profit tasked with “moving from a grant-funded startup to a fully sustaining for-profit.” The outfit’s founder, Leila Janah, had initially been unable to raise money for what felt to venture capitalists like a philanthropic effort. Gonzalez became interim CEO in January when Janah died at age 37 of cancer.
As we all ponder what the world will look like a few months out, Samasource provides some hints. It hires exclusively in places where workers earn less than $2 a day, including Kenya and Uganda. Its primary focus is on machine-learning training data—in other words, using humans to tag data that train computers. Facial-recognition attributes for Microsoft’s laptops and visual search cues for Walmart’s online store are two examples of where it’s provided its work. Gonzalez says e-commerce and biotech are two promising areas of expansion. Samasource also has helped Getty Images identify information to accompany photos.
What started as a do-good project is doing rather well. Samasource had revenues of $25 million last year. It employs more than 3,000 people, including 200 staff members in places like San Francisco, Montreal, New York, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands. (The “agents” who do the work for clients are full-time employees.) It raised nearly $15 million a year ago.
I asked Gonzalez if Samasource competes against the big IT outsourcing businesses. It does, and also against “crowdsourcing” tools that conglomerate user feedback to train computers. Samasource, she says, benefits from focus. “This is what we do,” she says, compared with the many tasks of the outsourcers.
Every conversation these days turns to the coronavirus. She says the countries where Samasource operates are hyper-attuned to infectious diseases because of past crises. Incidences have been low, and she hopes they don’t rise.
***
A thought exercise: When a CEO horribly bungles their job and everyone knows it, the board fires the executive. If there were some way for Mitt Romney, to choose one well-qualified example, to become the Republican nominee in 2020, would businesspeople support his candidacy over the incumbent?
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
I would be complex. Even Elon Musk bowed to the coronavirus outbreak, closing Tesla's U.S. car factory in Fremont, Calif., on Thursday after days of resisting political pressure and trying to remain open.
I would be cool. Fear and disruption of the coronavirus outbreak are roiling the economy. A Fortune poll finds 63% of Americans are worried they won't have enough money to pay bills and 82% think a recession is likely in the next year.
Make me more of a boss to you. While some parts of the economy suffer, others are making gains. Slack said it added 7,000 new customers in the past 47 days, 40% more than it had added in the entire preceding quarter. Slack's stock price gained 17% on Thursday, leaving it still down 7% in 2020. Microsoft says its competing Teams app has over 44 million daily active users, up 12 million from a week ago.
If I was a man. Former Uber self-driving vehicle engineer Anthony Levandowski on Thursday pled guilty to one criminal count of stealing trade secrets from Google, where he'd worked earlier in his career. In return, prosecutors dropped 32 more counts. Levandowski faces a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison. In other bad news for the autonomous vehicle market, five-year-old startup Starsky Robotics is closing down.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
As mentioned yesterday, Apple announced upgrades to its iPad Pro and MacBook Air product lines via press release. The quiet releases followed news that Apple's annual developer conference, WWDC, would be held online instead of in person this year. Fortune's own Robert Hackett explores the implications of the company's inability to hold large gatherings to promote new products at this time. He spoke with Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist for software startup Canva and a former Apple marketing executive.
“In the good old days, it would be Steve Jobs and standing ovations and throngs of believers, and worshippers would fall to the ground in amazement,” Kawasaki says of Apple’s events. “We can wistfully remember those days, but those days are gone.” It’s going take a new kind of way to introduce products, given the exigencies of the pandemic and other major societal changes underway, he adds.
“Many companies will realize, ‘Why are we renting these spaces and buying hundreds of bottles of wine and thousands of pounds of shrimp and cheese and prosciutto and grapes?’ We should just go digital all the time,” Kawasaki continues. “We may look back and say this was a turning point for climate change, when people realized they didn’t have to go fly someplace.”
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads that I came across this week:
What the hell happened to Mint? (Fast Company)
In 2009, personal-finance behemoth Intuit bought Mint, an impressive startup. And then it let its $170 million acquisition wither on the vine.
The Tamagotchi Hacking Community’s Quest to Cheat Death (OneZero)
To keep their digital pets alive just a little bit longer, Tamagotchi hackers get creative.
The Art World’s Mini-Madoff and Me (New York)
Boozy nights and high-stakes art trades with Inigo Philbrick.
Capitalism’s Favorite Drug (The Atlantic)
The dark history of how coffee took over the world.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Uber’s CEO to investors: The coronavirus won’t kill our business By Danielle Abril
Don’t get cut off by the coronavirus. Here are (mostly) free tech tools for work, education, and fun By Don Reisinger
Monetizing fear? The future of anti-rape technology—and its decade of failure By Jesse McHugh
Filmmakers must make a choice as coronavirus forces festivals online By Aric Jenkins
How working parents are navigating childcare during the coronavirus pandemic By Emma Hinchliffe
Hong Kong launches massive surveillance operation to track suspected coronavirus patients By Eamon Barrett
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
I have a two-for-one for you this morning. You're cooped up at home looking for entertainment. And you're doing more cooking at home. You're in luck. PBS has put every episode of Julia Child's still-amazing cooking show, The French Chef, online. PBS members can access every show via PBS Living and a few choice episodes are available to everyone. Bon appétit!
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-03-20--Why the world’s happiest countries are up north

Goldman Sachs just made the grimmest prediction yet about the economy in Q2

Finland was once again crowned as the world’s happiest country, extending its lead over Denmark and Switzerland, according to a United Nations-affiliated research network.
Finnish contentment stems from high levels of trust, which also underpins solid rankings across the rest of the Nordic region, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network said in the World Happiness Report on Friday.
Reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, and well-functioning democracy and state institutions are also key, as are a high sense of autonomy and freedom reported by their citizens.
“The World Happiness Report has proven to be an indispensable tool for policy makers looking to better understand what makes people happy,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the network.
The results are based on an average of three years of surveys between 2017 and 2019, meaning there’s overlap in the data from previous years, and include factors such as gross domestic product, social support from friends and family, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, perceived corruption and recent emotions — both happy and sad.
Afghanistan ranked lowest among 153 countries, with South Sudan and Zimbabwe just above it. The ranking saw the U.S. rise one place, to 18th.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Business is finally starting to reckon with climate change
—South Korea has the most comprehensive coronavirus data. What it’s taught us so far
—Plastic that travels 8,000 miles: The global crisis in recycling
—Hong Kong launches surveillance operation to track suspected coronavirus patients
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Rethinking your travel plans because of coronavirus?
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-03-20--Unpaid childcare is an invisible subsidy to companies and the economy—it’s time to change that

Any working parent knows that full-time childcare is most often not as full-time as their job. Despite sick kids, caregiver absences, and more, we show up at work each day, because most of us can’t not.
The coronavirus crisis has only intensified this reality. With school closures, day care shutdowns, self-quarantines, and caregivers staying away when showing symptoms so as to keep children and others safe, parents across the country are scrambling to find backup childcare.
So who is picking up the slack?
For households with one or two working parents, the solution is most often in the “village”: a last-minute search for any collection of babysitters, grandmothers, friends, cousins, or neighbors who can provide care for little ones. This invisible village mobilizes when we need them—during school holidays, when work meetings run late, and when a fever means day care can’t take our child.
Along with a family’s primary caregivers, this village fulfills some of the most intimate and critical needs in our lives. But most of this care is unpaid: Like We Care project, with whom I have collaborated on research in the caregiving sector, found that “every year, we generate $3.67 trillion of care work, but we only pay for $393 billion of it.” And it’s disproportionately performed by women. Kristen Ghodsee and Gus Wezerek concluded in the New York Times, “If American women earned minimum wage for the unpaid work they do around the house and caring for relatives, they would have made $1.5 trillion last year.”
This unpaid care is providing an invisible subsidy to the companies parents work for and to the economy at large. That’s not right.
The time has come to redefine the village to include the companies we work for and the economy we are supporting with our labor, all of whom benefit from this kind of care. When a caregiver fills a gap, a company has an employee who would otherwise be absent, and the economy has a productive worker. The caregiver should be compensated for that labor.
I’m cofounder of Helpr, a technology company that facilitates payment to a family’s care provider and pairs families in need of backup childcare with vetted caregivers. Our business would benefit if more families, companies, and government entities used our services to pay for or provide subsidies for childcare services.
Being able to pay a last-minute caretaker for their help increases the likelihood parents will be able to find someone they can trust and makes it easier for caregivers to keep their commitment to the arrangement. Under this model, a caregiver receives extra income. In a country like ours where nearly 40% of adults can’t handle an unexpected $400 expense, an additional $40 a week could be the difference that keeps them out of debt.
If employers offered 80 hours per year of subsidized care at $15 an hour to ameliorate the potential loss of work days, the cost to the employer would be $1,200 a year, or $100 a month. That cost is likely worth it for an employer to know that an employee won’t have to drop out of work at the last minute because of unforeseen childcare issues. According to a report from the Economic Opportunity Institute, “Employees with inadequate childcare are more likely to be late for work, absent, or distracted on the job than parents who are confident about their children’s child care arrangements.”
Reliable backup care also leads to healthier families. In the 2017 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey, nearly one in four women said they had put off seeking health care because they did not have time to go to the doctor. Fourteen percent of women in the same study noted that their not getting medical care was a direct result of difficulty obtaining childcare.
There are already precedents for the idea that all forms of childcare—even when done as a favor by friends or family—should be compensated. CalWORKS, a public assistance program in California, has a parent choice program that allows a relative, friend, neighbor, licensed family day care, or childcare center of a parent’s choice to receive a subsidy to take care of their child. These subsidies are targeted toward low-income families, helping them pay for and find care that fits their oft-changing schedules, including for those seeking employment.
If you want to do something amid the current crisis, donate to the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s Coronavirus Care Fund, which is raising money to replace income for domestic workers who can’t work. But going forward, we need to give our caregivers more than our donations in a crisis.
Caregiving is a labor of love. But it’s labor nonetheless, and work that silently supports the bottom line of every single company and organization in the world. We need more stakeholders to commit to financial incentives in this space. And we need to compensate care for what it’s truly worth to our employees, families, communities, companies, and economy.
Kasey Edwards is founder and CEO of Helpr.
More opinion in Fortune:
—The next Great Recession has already begun
—Combating coronavirus starts with keeping health workers well
—6 steps to sustainably flatten the coronavirus curve
—Vague remote work policies won’t cut it during the coronavirus pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: CEO of Canada’s biggest bank on the keys to leading through the coronavirus
Listen to our audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily


fortune--2020-03-20--How to stay entertained during your weekend of social distancing

These are the workers the U.S. government deems ‘ essential ’ amid the coronavirus pandemic

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Rep. Tulsi Gabbard drops out of the presidential race, Nikki Haley resigns from Boeing’s board in protest of a federal bailout, and we share your entertainment recs ahead of a weekend of social distancing.
– Quarantainment. As the weekend approaches and ‘social distancing’ directives remain in place, you may find yourself with some time to kill and a deep desire for a distraction.
Broadsheet readers answered our call for ideas on ways to stay entertained. Today we’re sharing them so you can bolster your passing-the-time agenda.
Let’s start with a screen-less option:
E.L. suggests her fellow Broadsheeters “revisit their old journals, notes, and books.” She says: “just as important as consuming new information, it’s also impactful to realize how far you’ve come from seeing your previous reflections, or reinforce previous learnings in your notes and books.”
R.K. is using this time to undertake the “digital cleanse” she’s been putting off. “I have made a conscious decision to stay less online, [tweet] less, unfriend many people on Facebook (many of whom I don’t even know), watch no news and exit WhatsApp groups that overload me with information. I have also gone through my LinkedIn contacts to read about people who I want future connections with.”
Now is definitely the time to cross off long-languishing to-do list items and prune your digital network.
For more traditional means of entertainment, T.C.B. says she’s hooked on Bon Appetit’s Gourmet Makes with Claire Saffitz. “Every single video is just a pleasure to watch. They are wholesome and put a smile on my face—every time. I especially love her recent one where she is recreating the famous Girl Scout cookies.”
A.B. says she’s “walking around my block and listening to the podcast Women Belong in the House. “It’s never been more apparent how much we need strong leadership that can navigate us through these unchartered times,” she says. “And the stories of resilience and overcoming adversity from the women running for office are so heartening.”
The Broadsheet team also wanted to chime in with some suggestions of its own:
Emma points you to Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, the adaptation of Celeste Ng’s book starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. “It’s a little stressful to watch Witherspoon play an even more intense version of her Big Little Lies character, but I’m enjoying it so far!”
Another Emma suggestion is Younger, also on Hulu; she calls it “extremely fun, 0% stressful, and very distracting.” Sold!
Kristen is plugging AMC’s Better Call Saul, specifically the fifth season. “The show is a prequel to Breaking Bad, so the milieu and many of the characters will be familiar to fans of that series. While Breaking Bad may have left a bad taste in the mouths of some because of how certain fans reacted to female characters like Skyler White (played by the glorious Anna Gunn), I’m happy to say that BCS’s super lawyer Kim Wexler hasn’t faced the same fate—Rhea Seehorn’s performance is my favorite part of the show,” Kristen says.
My recommendation isn’t a specific movie or show but a method of deciding what to watch. Rather than scrolling through titles for hours, pick a list—maybe it’s the Best Picture winners from the past decade or President Barack Obama’s 2019 favorites—and make your way through it. That way film or television viewing feels less like binging and more like completing a mission.
We haven’t featured your book suggestions yet, but we plan to soon. Send your favorite quarantine reads our way—Broadsheet@fortune.com—and we may feature them in a future Broadsheet.
And one editor’s note: yesterday’s newsletter mentioned Shine’s partnership with Mental Health America to create a mini-site dedicated to helping people manage their COVID-19-related anxiety. The correct link for the site is: virusanxiety.com
Hang in there!
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Stock selling scandal. Along with other Senators, newcomer Kelly Loeffler (R–Ga.) is under fire for the sale of stock following a private, all-senators meeting on the coronavirus that's since hammered U.S. equities. She and her husband, who's chairman and CEO of NYSE, made 29 stock transactions in mid-February; all but two were sales. One of the purchases was stock in Citrix, a teleworking software company. On Twitter, Loeffler said the attack was "ridiculous and baseless" since she doesn't make investment decisions for her portfolio. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.) is drawing scrutiny as well for selling stock in Allogene Therapeutics on Jan. 31 and Feb. 18. Daily Beast
- Pandemic parenting. Earlier this week, we wrote about Broadsheet readers' experiences with childcare and remote work so far. Emma has another story about working parents' experiences working and parenting amid a pandemic. From the two families splitting mornings and afternoons of childcare (after agreeing not to socialize with anyone else) to the couple stuck in a two-bedroom apartment with twins, everyone is navigating this difficult time differently: Fortune
- Goodbye, Gabbard. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ended her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, meaning there are officially no women left in the race. Gabbard is not running for re-election to the House of Representatives; she also endorsed Joe Biden. Fortune
- Standing down. Nikki Haley resigned from Boeing's board of directors after less than a year because she says she opposes the aircraft manufacturer's attempts to secure government aid during the coronavirus crisis. "I cannot support a move to lean on the federal government for a stimulus or bailout that prioritizes our company over others and relies on taxpayers to guarantee our financial position. I have long held strong convictions that this is not the role of government," Haley said. CNBC
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: New Media Ventures hired SumofUs founder Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman as president.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- First (family) responders. Ivanka and Melania Trump are both responding to the coronavirus pandemic in their own way. Ivanka shared the hashtag #TogetherApart with ideas for family quarantine activities, prompting criticism considering the failures of the White House's coronavirus response. Melania will appear in nationwide public service announcements about social distancing and personal hygiene.
- Eurozone economics. At the International Monetary Fund, managing director Kristalina Georgieva has a new No. 2: Geoffrey Okamoto, a U.S. Treasury official. At the European Central Bank, president Christine Lagarde is overseeing $820 billion in bond purchases to attempt to defend the eurozone from the coronavirus economic crisis. "Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action," Lagarde said.
- Childcare obligations. Kasey Edwards, founder and CEO of the childcare startup Helpr, writes for Fortune about the need to compensate childcare workers—even when a family member is pitching in last minute. The coronavirus crisis has clarified that employers should pay for subsidized backup care for their employees' families, which allows employees to stay productive under difficult circumstances, she writes. Fortune
- Triumph over tragedy. Laura Hutfless, FlyteVu co-founder and a member of Fortune's MPW community, launched Triumph Over Tragedy, a program to provide support for survivors of and those affected by mass trauma and shootings. "When we experience tragedies, we have a choice. We can build a wall around ourselves ... or we can choose to open ourselves and walk in the journey of grief and healing," says Hutfless, whose partner, Austin Eubanks, was a survivor of the 1999 Columbine shooting and died of an overdose last year. The Tennessean
ON MY RADAR
The coronavirus is a disaster for feminism The Atlantic
Ukrainian 'Railroad Ladies' New York Times
Who qualifies for paid leave under the new coronavirus law New York Times
How Peloton’s head coach is powering me through the pandemic Gen
PARTING WORDS
"I am certain we are up to that challenge."
-Queen Elizabeth, giving the U.K. a pep talk about social-distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak


fortune--2020-03-20--How to survive the social isolation necessary to beat back COVID-19

How thinking like a golfer can help you ride out market mayhem

It’s finally Friday, readers.
Has this week felt like it’s gone on forever for you too?
I live with a few roommates in Brooklyn and their company is the only thing keeping me sane (and also, to a degree, insane!). You may have heard that multiple states including California and New York are essentially urging people to shelter in place in their homes unless absolutely necessary.
I’m a broken record on this point right now but, that’s ok, I think it’s worth saying again: it really is important to look out for each other right now. Don’t just take it from me—listen to the experts.
While we know that social distancing is critical to halting the spread of coronavirus, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this is the first time many of us have ever had to grapple with something like this. The prospect of spending weeks and months indoors is infuriating and depressing, however necessary it may be.
My heart goes out to the most vulnerable amongst us, and I hope yours does, too. I’m speaking of the homeless Americans who need our help now more than ever; the folks who can’t afford groceries and have even less contact with the humans who may help them as people remain indoors; the indigent and lonely and those who were “socially isolated”—not by choice—long before this extraordinary crisis hit.
“Public health” is one of those terms that can kind of fade into obscurity because it sounds so blasé. But the “public” aspect of it is critical. This is a collective problem. It can only be solved if we all work together. That means extending kindness and reaching out to check on other people. And thanks to today’s technology, we can, from within our isolation, connect with people we wouldn’t normally speak with.
The Fortune team’s work providing in-depth coverage of all the developments surrounding COVID-19 and coronavirus, including testing capacity, treatments, vaccines, and so much more continues.
But, in this moment on this Friday, I just want to suggest that we each keep an eye out for one another.
Read on for the day’s news.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Athenahealth adds COVID-19 capabilities to its arsenal. Telehealth firm Athenahealth, which offers cloud services for emergency care and creates a range of medical software, is also branching into the coronavirus fight. "We are mobilizing our ecosystem to support the health care community with real-time information, seamless integration with solutions from telehealth and lab test partners, and enhanced scheduling capabilities that reduce the burden on practice staff," said Athenahealth CEO Bob Segert in a statement. In practicality, this means that Athenahealth's technology could be used to deliver CDC-cleared advice to the company's customers about how they should be taking care of themselves during the outbreak.
INDICATIONS
Bayer to donate 3 million drug tablets in coronavirus fight. Bayer will be donating some 3 million tablets of chloroquine phosphate (which has the brand name Resochin), in association with the U.S. government, to fuel antiviral therapeutics meant to fight coronavirus. There are unanswered questions about how effective this particular therapy may be (although President Donald Trump touted the antimaralial as a cleared treatment, it has yet to be studied for treatment of COVID-19) and some questionable moves surrounding its pricing by other companies which sell a version of the treatment.
THE BIG PICTURE
Funerals in the time of coronavirus. My colleague Nicole Goodkind has a fascinating, if sad, foray into the state of funerals in these strange times. With social distancing measures in effect, in-person gatherings are on the decline, hugging and handshaking are discouraged, and basic traditions are seeing a major shakeup. It's a tough read, but one well worth it. (Fortune)
Americans are deeply concerned about paying their bills during the coronavirus outbreak. A new Fortune poll of nearly 3,000 Americans finds that 82% of surveyed respondents believe the current pandemic will lead to a recession. That's a sharp hike from a previous survey we did, and underscores how much public messaging from leaders can sway perceptions. For instance, just 50% of respondents were worried they or a family member would be infected with the virus last week. That number is now close to 70% amid national crackdowns. (Fortune)
REQUIRED READING
Tax deadline moved to July 15, by Chris Morris
Most 2nd quarter GDP forecasts range from horrible to catastrophic, by Erik Sherman
What to do if you're at risk of getting laid off, by Chris Taylor
Sign up for other Fortune newsletters.


fortune--2020-03-20--Goldman Sachs just made the grimmest prediction yet about the economy in Q2

Most GDP predictions for the second quarter have ranged from horrible (-8%) to catastrophic (-15%). Goldman Sachs just blew those estimates out of the water.
The bank today issued a research note with its projection for GDP loss in the second quarter of 2020: down 24%, the result of a “sudden stop for the U.S. economy.”
Overall, they expect a 6% drop in the first quarter. Even with significant positive growth in quarters three and four, that will work out to an annual loss of 3.8%.
The research note pointed to “a sudden surge in layoffs and a collapse in spending, both historic in size and speed, as well as shutdowns of many schools, stores, offices, manufacturing plants, and construction sites” as a reason for the downward revision.
The report assumed an 85% reduction in sports spending, 75% in transportation, and a 65% decline in revenues for hotels and restaurants.
Some other hard-hit sectors include domestic services (-50%), casino gambling (-90%), domestic services (-50%), social services (-30%), personal care (-30%), education (-15%), and non-profit services (-15%).
“We expect declines in services consumption, manufacturing activity, and in building investment to lower the level of GDP in April by nearly 10%, a drag that we expect to fade only gradually in later months,” the note read.
Goldman estimated unemployment to reach a 9% peak later in the year.
A note from Berenberg Capital Markets has some similarly grim predictions, with a projected -18% change in Q2 GDP. Berenberg pointed out that services use is almost 70% of total consumer consumption and almost 50% of total GDP, and of “153 million total workers, 109 million are in private service-providing industries,” with 33 million between retail, leisure, and hospitality.
Goldman expects an ongoing impact to the economy that will “fade only gradually” through at least 2121.
Plans to provide a stimulus by sending money to everyone sound ambitious but may not actually address the developing problem.
“The problem with giving people money to spend, is you have to be balancing that against the fact that you have social distancing rules preventing people from spending money,” said Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist of TS Lombard. “What are you going to do, push all this spending online? That’s fine I guess for the broader economy, but it doesn’t necessarily help the local economy.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—This famed economist doesn’t think we’re headed for another Great Recession
—These estimates of how much COVID-19 will hurt the economy are terrifying
—With the markets in turmoil, the ECB readies a bond-buying bazooka
—Here’s where Goldman Sachs predicts the stock market will bottom out
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of the CEO
—WATCH: What’s causing the looming recession
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-21--No quarter: Coronavirus is killing pinball halls—and all the other communal spaces we call ‘home’

The Coronavirus Economy : How my job managing one of the top cooking schools in Paris has changed

This article is part of a Fortune Special Report: Business in the Coronavirus Economy—a look at the impact of the pandemic on more than 50 industries.
Two miles southwest of downtown Denver, a fluorescent glow shone from the windows of a squat brick warehouse. It was nearly 3:30 a.m. on March 6, and inside, 17-year-old Colin Urban and 15-year-old Jason Zahler were about to find out which one would claim the title of North American Pinball Champion. After 15 hours of plunging, flipping, and nudging, suspense had built, and the end was near.
It took more spritzes of hand sanitizer than usual, but the crowd at the International Flipper Pinball Association’s North American Championship had trickled down to just a few family members, IFPA officials, and local organizers by the early morning final match. When Zahler and Urban stepped up to the arena—and a machine themed on Marvel’s Iron Man franchise—no one thought this would be the last pinball tournament they’d watch for the foreseeable future.
A few days earlier, just outside Urban’s hometown of Portland, Ore., officials had announced the state’s first COVID-19 diagnosis. When panic-buying neighbors cleared store shelves of hand sanitizer, Colin and his parents, Thomas and Sara, concocted a homemade substitute of aloe gel and rubbing alcohol.
The Urbans’ hygiene concerns weren’t new. The family had flown around the world as Colin competed in tournaments, and they had previously wondered about other players’ handwashing habits. But as “social distancing” because of the coronavirus had started to become a reality, they felt an increased urgency to keep clean—especially as the outbreak crashed headlong into tight-knit communities that bond over shared passions like competitive pinball.
In the past decade, the number of people competing in IFPA-sanctioned tournaments has grown annually by double digits. Last year, more than 7,000 such events took place, a 31% increase over the previous year. In pinball—or more accurately, the places it’s played—this increasingly large group has found a “third place,” a shared space away from home, work, and school, where widely divergent communities can coalesce organically.
Many of history’s best-known third places—from Prohibition-era gambling dens, to postwar bowling alleys, to ’80s arcades—have featured pinball machines. Modern-day “barcades,” dive bars, and entertainment centers even lured dedicated players from their private basement collection of machines to “location” play. There, an often-passionate, unexpectedly warm, and fast-growing global community of players turned to the game for escape, engagement, challenge, reflection, and camaraderie.
Until last week, that is.
“Pinball is somewhat unique in that it’s literally all of the bad things that you can do as far as personal health and cleanliness can go,” says Zoë Vrabel, one of Oregon’s IFPA state directors and a member of the IFPA women’s advisory board.
Unlike online video gamers and e-sports players, Urban, Zahler, and tens of thousands of other pinballers worldwide swap turns—and possibly worse—fingering flipper buttons and nudging machines with their bare hands. You can’t win a pinball tournament without pressing the same plastic buttons, leaning on the same metal lockdown bars, or nudging the same wooden cabinets that dozens or hundreds of opponents have already touched, leaned against, or nudged.
People play video games and pinball at the Replay FX festival in Pittsburgh in August 2019. The Replay Foundation, which hosts the annual 25,000-person event and a simultaneous 1,000-player “Pinburgh” pinball tournament, hasn’t yet decided whether to cancel this summer’s festival in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. Photo by Bill Lascher
When Zahler approached the Iron Man machine for his last of three balls, both he and Urban had won three games in the best-of-seven final round. After a bad bounce at the end of his final ball, Urban had finished the game with just over 5.6 million points. Zahler’s 2.1 million put him in striking distance. And with few key shots, he could still bring the title home to Long Branch, N.J.
But after Zahler plunged his final ball, it careened around the machine’s right side. Zahler trapped it on a flipper, aimed, flipped, and then watched as his hopes vanished. The ball ricocheted from a super-villain figurine, caromed right, and bounced back toward a ball-ending “outlane” near the teenager’s left hand. Unable to do anything to alter the ball’s trajectory, he shoved the 250-pound machine, wailed in frustration, and walked away, as useless warnings lit the score display.
“Danger,” the orange dot-matrix lettering flashed.
“Danger,” It flashed again.
“Tilt”
“Game Over”
Back in Portland, members of the pinball community watching online celebrated Urban, their hometown hero, with posts on the match’s Twitch live-stream and a Facebook group. “PDX!” they cheered digitally, and “Go Colin!”
But the new champion’s joy would be short-lived. By the time the Urbans returned to Portland, the world itself was hurtling toward a frenzy of social distancing and curve flattening. The goal, in this new game, was to keep the numbers as low as possible by making as little contact as possible.
The fear of the coronavirus’s spread started earlier in Portland and Seattle than in most American cities. At the time of the tournament, Seattle had the highest concentration of reported COVID-19 diagnoses in the U.S. Both Pacific Northwest cities, it so happens, are also home to two of the busiest competitive pinball scenes in the country.
“That was a vastly different world seven days ago,” said IFPA president, Josh Sharpe, a week after his organization’s championships. On March 16 he released a statement announcing that the IFPA wouldn’t sanction new tournaments until March 31—at the earliest.
Great, good game over?
“So many people have found their community in pinball,” says Vrabel, who owns pinball machines of her own. But it’s not the game itself that social distancing is destroying. Vrabel, whose job lets her work from home, calls pinball her excuse to go out into the world. “So much of what the pinball community is,” she says, “is going to bars with your pinball-playing friends. That’s evaporated.”
Vrabel, like people with other hobbies and hangouts, has lost her third place, a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 bestseller, The Great Good Place.
“The real value of a third place is that everybody is equal there,” Oldenburg says via phone from his Pensacola, Fla., home. “You don’t find that in any other kind of situation.”
Oldenburg has long lamented suburbia’s lack of third places, but in the age of the coronavirus and social distancing, residential isolation suddenly has a new value.
“The suburban world was built for the kind of problem we’re having right now with the virus, because the suburban world is designed for loneliness,” Oldenburg says. “There’s no public life.”
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While quarantining might help protected public health, it may also put third places at risk. Most of these spaces are more mundane than pinball halls, of course. Coffee shops, gyms, and neighborhood stores are just as valuable to their regulars. Third places are defined less by the walls enclosing them than by how people connect within them.
Near Oldenburg’s home, for example, Hardee’s fast-food restaurants are common third places, he says. At one location eight people gather for cups of coffee at 6 a.m., while an 8 a.m. group brings out six regulars.
“All they do is talk,” he says.
“The axis of my social life”
With the halt to public life, right now so much of people’s interaction is happening online, including on pinball-focused message boards like Tilt Forums and numerous regional Facebook groups. Anxiety in posts to these groups heightened as the first weekend of nationwide sequestering approached, and pinball events large and small were either canceled or postponed. Accounts of favorite pinball haunts shuttering and players laid off from their jobs were crippling for some to read. All anyone wanted was to get together to lament the closures together, and they couldn’t.
One post came from Dana Valatka, a drummer who lost his bartending job when another bar and arcade, Portland’s QuarterWorld, closed. Normally, Tuesday night is the highlight of the week for bartenders, restaurant servers, concert light riggers, and other locals who love pinball. That’s when a series of Flip City Weeklies take place around town. By March 17, the series had been put on hold indefinitely.
Valatka described himself as an introvert who generally feels relieved when plans get canceled. “But I’ve always [looked] forward to Tuesdays,” he wrote. “I get cranky when something makes me miss Flip City. Tuesday is the axis of my social life.”
Dana Valatka—a drummer and bartender recently laid off from Portland arcade QuarterWorld—competes in the playoffs at Pinburgh, the world’s largest pinball tournament. Valatka recently told fellow members of Portland’s tight-knit pinball community that he felt adrift after public health concerns forced organizers to suspend a series of tournaments at bars around Portland. Photo by Bill Lascher
Mario Small, a Harvard sociologist who writes about social networks, says online interactions haven’t eclipsed society’s need to interact in person.
“Physical space ends up being way more important than people realize,” Small says. “It has not ceased to be important in age of the Internet.”
Forced isolation to combat the COVID-19 outbreak will come with other costs. “What’s so ironic about this is that the thing we need most in order to preserve society,” Small says, “is abandoning the entities that we need to preserve society.”
When the owners of some pinball establishments started renting out pinball machines after closing their doors, a poster to another pinball Facebook group wondered how soon people would start opening their own “speakeasies” to play together.
The joke makes sense, says Small. “I would not be surprised if, a few weeks from now—especially here in a country where people are used to personal freedom and a strong sense of self-determination—people start coming up with alternative ways of gathering, quietly,” he says.
Carly Kocurek, an associate professor of humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology who studies the cultural history of video games, says arcades are community institutions that help players feel “like a whole person.”
But it remains to be seen how such institutions will look after this crisis, she adds: “I really hope that in 10 years we look back and see that we came up with valid solutions, and don’t just remember that time when all the restaurants closed, and all the bars closed, and all the arcades closed.”
Social creatures, solo players
Only 18 months ago, Chris Rhodes, a longtime Portland pinball operator and player, and business partner Alan Robertson opened Wedgehead, a bar, pinball parlor, and restaurant. They were just starting to feel the business turn a corner financially when the outbreak hit. Now they’re shutting their business down.
It’s a painful moment, but Robertson and Rhodes have been soothed somewhat by an outpouring of support. Robertson in particular hadn’t realized how important his business had become for its customers.
“People said things like, ‘This is our second home,’” he says. “When you run a gathering spot, it kind of takes on a mind of its own—you have a clientele that remembers all its times there.”
On March 17, instead of getting ready for a Kirk Russell birthday bash they host annually as a cheeky reply to ubiquitous Saint Patrick’s Day parties, Robertson and Rhodes spent the afternoon emptying coin boxes and liquidating whatever they could to make payroll. (Robertson stressed that as hard a hit as they were taking, it was equally hard, if not more so, for their employees.) As the coronavirus forces all nonessential business to grind to a halt, the duo can’t envision any scenario where they can reopen without some kind of business loan or other outside assistance.
“It does feel like a special part of being human is torn away from us, which is that social gathering aspect,” Robertson says. “There’s no normal coping, because we are social creatures. To be told that we can’t (gather with others) feels particularly cruel.”
Back in Denver, a week and a half and more than 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases earlier, Sharpe presented Colin Urban with a gigantic pinball-shaped trophy, a plaque, and a golden key good for a free, brand-new pinball machine from Stern Pinball.
Urban was looking forward to playing in the IFPA’s 17th World Pinball Championship in Fort Meyers, Fla., at the end of May, as well as the Epstein Cup, a tournament that pits teams of the best pinball players from the U.S. and Europe against one another, later this year. Only top players qualify for the Epstein Cup, and Urban is worried about how long he can maintain his rank. “All the best players in the world are going to be there,” he says.
At least, they might be—Urban knows the event could be canceled tomorrow. He understands, but he’d be disappointed. Urban has played against his potential teammates in tournaments, and the Epstein Cup offers a rare opportunity to be a part of something much larger than his own point total: a team.
Now, instead of the usually busy summer tournament season, the only pinball Colin might play will be the Jurassic Park–themed game he hopes to ask Stern for as his tournament prize.
He’ll be by himself, but then again, so will everyone else.
And in that, at least, he won’t be alone.
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fortune--2020-03-21--The Coronavirus Economy: How my job managing one of the top cooking schools in Paris has changed

No quarter : Coronavirus is killing pinball halls—and all the other communal spaces we call ‘ home ’

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As the second-most-visited city in the world, Paris has an enduring power to draw in visitors even after facing the most traumatic events in recent history. Its abiding appeal has largely benefited businesses in the tourism industry, such as La Cuisine Paris, a 10-year-old cooking school located in the center of the city with views overlooking the Seine. The school’s co-owner Jane Bertch has rebounded from dips in business following the 2015 terrorist attacks, the gilets jaunes demonstrations, and the pension reform strikes of 2019. Can she overcome a global pandemic?
Fortune spoke with Bertch for a new series, The Coronavirus Economy, to ask about how the outbreak of COVID-19 has affected her employment status and her plans for the future, and to get a sense of how she has been handling this news, both emotionally and financially.
Jane Bertch has been the co-owner of cooking school La Cuisine Paris for 10 years. Courtesy of Jane Bertch
Fortune: How much was your business impacted by the pension reform strikes (December 2019 through January 2020)?
Bertch: We are a good forecast of the future. By the time the strikes happened, most people had already reserved classes with us because they book four to six months in advance for their vacations. What I did observe during the strikes was a significant slowdown of all future reservations—reservations made in December and January for spring travel—since there was so much uncertainty about what was happening in France. Once the strikes were over, reservations climbed again for March and onwards.
What changed as concern mounted over the spread of the virus in France?
Initially, I was handling hundreds of emails from concerned clients. As with the strikes, most simply wanted to gauge the gravity of the situation. By the week of March 9, we still had classes running but gradually started getting last-minute cancellations from clients who literally decided to pack their bags and get on the next flight out of Paris. We were operating about two classes for an entire week versus the six on average per day (six days a week). There were a few clients who actually wanted to get into a class before the shutters came down, but by and large we were fielding cancellations and concerns left and right. Overall, 70% of our business disappeared within a span of five days.
How have you adapted your policies to be able to appease clients but also protect the business?
In general, we have a full-refund policy for cancellations made seven days or more in advance with a 10% processing fee; no refund for last-minute cancellations. In this case, we are offering a one-year credit to return. It’s still an enormous expense for us to do that, but it feels like the right thing to do. We can’t become a travel insurer for every country, but we’re doing the best that we can.
How hopeful do you feel about business rebounding?
This has certainly been challenging to my constitution, but once I got over the initial shock, I could think about the fact that nothing lasts forever. This is just a significant dip that we have to go through, and I’m determined to manage the situation. La Cuisine Paris has survived the ash cloud, terrorist attacks, floods, and strikes, but this is unprecedented. I feel like I’ve become a crisis manager over the past 10 years. The dilemma now is not knowing when this ends—that uncertainty is worrisome. But we’re taking all the necessary steps to protect our clients and our staff without whom we wouldn’t have a business at all.
What are those measures?
They are both short- and long-term steps. The best way for me to protect my staff is to ensure that I have a business for them to return to when this crisis is over. In the short-term, communication is a big part of protecting people’s morale. That also means being vulnerable and telling them I don’t have all the answers, but rest assured I’m going to manage this the best way we can. I think that gives them some element of emotional protection.
But it’s complex: The ripple effect of a crisis like this is the scary part. My greatest asset is our chef team, but many of them are freelancers: If they’re hurting, I’ve lost my business. It impacts the suppliers I’ve worked with for years. I’m in the middle of a chain; if we’re not holding classes, it means we’re not going to the nearby market to buy cheese and produce from vendors. We’re all connected. My loss is their loss.
Bertch’s cooking school, La Cuisine Paris, is located in the center of the city with views overlooking the Seine. Courtesy of Jane Bertch
Have you found President Emmanuel Macron’s announcements reassuring?
I did. I do believe in the state’s support, which we, personally, have never had to call on, but it’s very reassuring to know it’s there. But they are only short-term measures. Small businesses are such a backbone of the French economy; France can’t afford to let them completely fail. They are crucial to every community—letting them fail would be enormous in terms of employment and tax loss; they have to put them on a respirator as much as they can.
Have there been any positive moments through this ordeal?
Several. We get a lot of repeat business, and I’m very grateful for the community that has emerged over the years. The majority of clients who had to cancel did so in the most delicate and respectful ways; many people said, “Hold a credit for me—I’m coming back! I want you guys to be okay!” As a small business, those messages have been so wonderful, because it gives you assurance that people are waiting to return to you, and it gives you conviction that we are going to be here for them to return to. It boosts you at a time when things look grave.
I received an email from an older client, due to come in April, who has been taking classes at the school a couple of times a year. Her message suggested that she doesn’t want a refund and doesn’t know if she can ever return, but she loved her time with us, and she wished us well. I was bowled over by that. I think what’s special during a time like this is you get glimmers of people looking outside of themselves, conscious of what this crisis might do to others and how they may be able to lend a hand.
How has this impacted your daily life?
I live within walking distance to the school so it hasn’t changed my ability to get to work. But I will say that I feel like I’m a surgeon working on getting a body back to health. That keeps me up at night, and it’s incredibly stressful. But I’m surprised by my own resilience. I’ve had the time to be devastated by what’s happening, and now I can focus on getting through it.
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fortune--2020-03-21--These soccer stars wanted a company that aligned with their values—so they created one

After the U.S. women’s national soccer team won the World Cup in 2015, four teammates—Christen Press, Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath, and Meghan Klingenberg—started talking about the ways being the best of the best on the field didn’t translate to their off-field and, more so, financial lives.
“We didn’t feel like we were getting paid what we were worth on the field,” Press told Fortune. That led to the entire team reorganizing their Players Association and negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer, with Press and Klingenberg serving as two of the squad’s representatives in negotiations.
But that wasn’t the only thing they reorganized. Though the women could have gone after a number of high-dollar sponsors, the opportunities weren’t always a good fit. So, added Press: “We got the idea that we should bet on ourselves and reclaim that value.“
The four team members came up with the idea to launch their own lifestyle brand, Re-inc, which launched with a gender-neutral streetwear line in June 2019. Back on the field a few weeks later, the newly-minted co-CEOs helped the USWNT won its second consecutive World Cup.
Re-inc’s founders sporting some of their designs. Courtesy of Re-inc.
“As female athletes, we wear a lot of street clothes. That’s what we work in, that’s what we’re photographed in, and all of the clothing is made by men and for men, so we didn’t have the sizes or the fit that we liked,” Press said. “We learned a lot about fashion and found that like the higher-end you go, the less size diversity you see.” They wanted to go beyond model sizes and offer clothes that would fit a wider range of people.
“We intentionally wanted to disrupt that male-dominated space and create a line of clothing that was fit for an individual,” said Press.
Re-inc’s first collection, RWB, included a t-shirt that said “Liberté, égalité, défendez.” The first 1,000 liberty, equality, defend shirts—priced at $125 for an oversized version and $75 for the cropped edition—sold out in in less than a week. The collection, all sold through the company’s online store, were designed to work “as a system and you can pull which pieces you want based on your individual masculinity and femininity to find something that’s right for you,” said Press. “If we can create some small change in the way people feel when they’re getting dressed every day to create a new normal, that’s something that really excites us as a company.”
Re-inc’s market space gives them room to grow. Companies from Nike to Carhartt have launched women’s collections, and female-led brands Ambush and Sacai have made waves but aren’t dominant. Streetwear and women’s branding expert Reggie Casagrande, who has worked with companies including Converse, Adidas, and Stussy, said their approach is perfect for this moment in time, when consumers are looking for clothing that makes a social statement.
“The women’s streetwear space is pretty small. Top streetwear brands out there like Bape, Stussy, and Carhartt don’t have a purpose or ethos, really. So, we are very excited to see a brand of this caliber with such an authentic narrative come to market,” Casagrande told Fortune. “The clothing is very basic, which is where you want to start, and the price points are comparable to other players in the space.”
Casagrande said the women’s standing in the world and positions on civil rights will also bolster the brand. “The fact that they are all women, world champions, and advocates for both women and LGBT rights is extremely important.,” she said. “That is something that will really resonate with zoomers and millennials who care about the bigger picture message and want to support brands that match their values. I think it’s a great beginning.”
The purpose-driven narrative, Press said, is woven into the company name: “redefining business, reimagining products, and reinventing culture.” She said those ideas are helping turn fans of their on-field work into fans of the brand.
“They’re the people that followed soccer but loved something other than soccer about us. It’s what we stand for: women’s rights and human rights,” she said. “Meghan Klingenberg always says this really well: financial liberation is the only way to get to social liberation of minorities and marginalized groups. It’s a for-profit business, but there’s this other element to it that, as we do this, we want to do it the right way, with the right products, the right ideas, the right people. With Re-Inc, instead of fighting for a slice of the pie, we want to create a new pie.”
But, of course, soccer skills don’t translate directly to the apparel industry. “I spent hundreds of hours talking about hemlines, colors, and Pantone—all these things that are very outside of my wheelhouse,” Press said. “Tobin led design, with Pinoe as a close second in terms of the artistic side, and I had a heavy hand in logistics, operations, and communication of those ideas. That included sketching, approving every single sample, and making ⅛-inch modifications.”
Models wearing pieces from Re-inc’s first collection. Photo by Kathy Lo for Re-inc.
They’re still learning about supply chain issues, making sure their production is sustainable and eco-friendly. “That shouldn’t be something that’s special,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to go to a special brand to find clothing that was consciously made. With this next line, we moved to a factory in India that is really well known for its consciousness, from using solar power to not using chemicals when they’re growing the cotton. That should just be normal.”
The new line, “BW,” is due this spring. A painting by Heath, a self-taught artist, hints at the line’s style. Another clothing line and the company’s first lifestyle products will follow later this year. They’ll have to balance that with prepping for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics (though, in the wake of the coronavirus, several countries have started calling for the event’s cancelation) and the upcoming trial for their equal-pay lawsuit against U.S. Soccer.
No matter the challenges, Press said Re-inc isn’t just an add-on in her life. The women are not just the faces of the company, they are the company. “Personally, I always felt football was a vehicle. I know that’s a crazy thing to say when you’re playing at the highest level, but I always craved something more my whole life,” she said.
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fortune--2020-03-21--Privacy could be the next victim of the coronavirus

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Our modern conception of civil liberties was largely developed following one of humanity’s worst crises, the Second World War—its horrors spurred the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now, in our greatest crisis since then, some see a threat to one of that document’s key elements: the right to privacy.
Fighting the coronavirus pandemic means getting an idea of who is infected and the opportunities those people had to unwittingly pass on the virus to other people.
For that reason, countries including China, South Korea, Iran, and Israel have deployed technological tracking measures, largely based on tracking the movements of people’s phones, and a host of surveillance companies—from the secretive data-mining outfit Palantir to the controversial Israeli spyware firm NSO Group—are offering their services to governments around the world.
Even some privacy advocates are pushing to use tracking tech in the fight against the outbreak, albeit with the subjects’ permission. Earlier this month, medical professionals, epidemiologists, and technologists signed an open letter urging Apple and Google to tweak their mobile operating systems so users could get notifications when they had been in the same space as a confirmed carrier—the signatories included Peter Eckersley, a distinguished technology fellow at the digital rights–focused Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Tristan Harris, a former Google ethicist who has become a notorious critic of Big Tech’s anti-privacy practices.
But alarm bells are ringing, too.
Controversial tracking
The Israeli situation is causing particular concern because of its context. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing corruption charges and may soon lose his job, as—following the third election in one year—rival Benny Gantz has been tasked with forming a government. This week, Netanyahu’s cabinet approved emergency powers that, along with shutting down the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) and the country’s court system, allow the Shin Bet spy agency to secretly track the cellular location data of confirmed and suspected coronavirus carriers.
It’s a move that made it possible for hundreds of Israelis to receive a text message Wednesday night that told them they were “in close proximity to someone with corona,” but some are also portraying it as a power grab: Gabi Ashkenazi, a senior politician in Gantz’s Blue and White Party, said it was “inappropriate to approve such a measure in this manner, without public and parliamentary supervision.”
China has long had a mania for intrusive state surveillance, so many observers see scope for “mission creep” in its deployment of surveillance systems to combat the coronavirus. Once rolled out, these facial recognition and location-tracking systems are unlikely to go away.
In South Korea, widespread CCTV deployment and financial and phone tracking have also been credited with helping to manage the outbreak, though the resulting “safety guidance texts” have reportedly exposed unwelcome details about people’s private lives by disclosing their movements.
In these cases, the populace is relatively aware of and used to being tracked. In Iran, however, the government has rolled out an app for citizens to download “to determine if you or your loved ones have been infected with the coronavirus,” without making it clear that the app sucks up personal information and allows the tracking of its user’s location, in real time. What the “AC19” app does not do is diagnose a coronavirus infection.
The anonymity question
The world’s toughest privacy regulators say it is possible to use tracking in the coronavirus fight without infringing on people’s rights.
On Thursday, the European Data Protection Board—comprising all the EU’s national and local data protection authorities—said the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation does “not hinder measures taken in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.” So if public authorities and employers need to process people’s data in the context of an epidemic, they don’t need to get their consent first.
The board also said governments were able to pass emergency laws allowing them to ask mobile operators for people’s phone location data—even if the data is not anonymized or gathered with consent—conditions usually imposed by the relevant EU legislation, the ePrivacy Directive.
However, it added: “Public authorities should first seek to process location data in an anonymous way (i.e., processing data aggregated in a way that individuals cannot be re-identified), which could enable generating reports on the concentration of mobile devices at a certain location…The least intrusive solutions should always be preferred, taking into account the specific purpose to be achieved.”
This appears to be the approach that’s being taken in the U.K., where the government is talking to mobile operators about using their anonymized location data.
But is it possible to make the best use of people’s mobile location data while retaining anonymity? According to Eiko Yoneki, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in England, the issue is tricky.
Yoneki, who in 2011 codeveloped an app called FluPhone to track people’s behavior during epidemics, says anonymized data can provide insight into how diseases spread through human networks. However, it can sometimes be possible to de-anonymize the data by correlating it with other information held by the government—and if the aim is to identify infected individuals and take action to stop them spreading the disease, then the situation changes substantially.
“If you want to protect or prevent future infections, or if any action is required, then my guess is you have no chance to [maintain anonymity]. A certain level of identity should be revealed,” Yoneki says.
Setting limits
Then there’s the issue of what happens to the data—and the whole surveillance mechanism—once the emergency is over.
Eva Blum-Dumontet, a researcher with the U.K.-based civil liberties group Privacy International, draws a comparison with the mass surveillance measures that were instituted after the 9/11 attacks but never quite went away. These are the online spying systems whose ongoing use formed the basis of Edward Snowden’s bombshell revelations in 2013, and over which Privacy International has repeatedly sued the British authorities.
“One of our key concerns is: Is it just for the period of the coronavirus crisis, or what happens next?” asks Blum-Dumontet. “We’ve seen this before with the question of terrorism…We never seem to return to normal.”
Israel’s new coronavirus surveillance measures, which were approved directly by the country’s attorney general without parliamentary oversight, offered “no clarity on what is happening and no deadline on ending the use of the measures,” she noted. It was left to Israel’s Supreme Court to step in and demand legislative oversight of the measures.
A representative of Israel’s health ministry told local media yesterday that the surveillance measures would continue even if the country imposed a full lockdown on its citizens because it would make it possible to track people even within their homes. “Quarantine doesn’t mean just being at home. It’s being in a separate room,” the spokesperson reportedly said.
So how should governments be playing this? As Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, “There must be procedures to keep this information safe, to delete information once it’s no longer in use,” and, in the U.S. context, “to ensure it isn’t used against Americans by law enforcement.”
According to Blum-Dumontet, surveillance measures should be introduced only on the recommendation of public health officials and following parliamentary discussion about their proportionality.
“We are starting to see what works in terms of addressing the crisis,” she says. “It’s having a situation where the population is ready to go on lockdown; it’s testing a lot; it’s having a robust health care system. The World Health Organization is not advocating for the surveillance of people en masse.”
The WHO has indeed not said much about the subject: A spokesman said Thursday he did not think it had a position on surveillance measures as they are a human rights issue.
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fortune--2020-03-21--TikTok’s newest viral influencers? Personal finance stars

Humphrey Yang, a 32-year-old e-commerce entrepreneur, spent a recent Saturday night counting 10,000 individual grains of rice to explain the scale of money to teenagers on TikTok.
He wanted to help them visualize $1 billion and provide context about what it means to have that kind of money. His example: Amazon’s billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos, whose net worth was estimated to be $122 billion at the time of Yang’s video.
“Jeff Bezos has 58 pounds of rice if each grain of rice is $100,000. Look at how big that is, guys. That’s insane,” Yang says in the video, as he sticks a keyboard in the pile of rice meant to represent Bezos’s riches.
Courtesy of Humphrey Yang
The project culminated in two viral 60-second videos that garnered a combined 2.2 million views on TikTok, a short-form video app popular with teens. He told Fortune that part of the reason he thinks it resonated with viewers is that it provided “a shocking visual representation.”
This isn’t the first time Yang has posted an explainer on the topic of money. He has videos about Social Security taxes, the stock market, and credit scores. With more than 2.1 million video likes on TikTok, he’s one of a growing number of personal finance influencers gaining prominence and clout on the platform.
Even though TikTok is a platform largely used by teens to post silly dance videos, Yang uses his channel to impart lessons on budgeting, saving, and investing to his 305,000 followers—all in under 60 seconds.
“I’m just trying to capture your attention and give you some information to pique your interest so that you go do the research yourself,” Yang said. “It’s pretty often that I get messages saying, ‘I wish my school taught this.’”
Yang has a point. Twenty-one states mandate that schools integrate personal finance content into existing classes, such as math, economics, and technology courses. But only six states require that high school students take a stand-alone personal finance course to graduate.
The statistics paint an even bleaker picture. In 2012, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted a worldwide financial literacy study that measured the proficiency of 15-year-olds in applying financial knowledge.
How did American teens perform?
“The average American student doesn’t fare very well compared to the countries and economies that participated in [the global financial literacy study],” says Annamaria Lusardi, an expert on financial literacy and financial education who helped lead the PISA study. “And then when we look at the adult population, the numbers are really frightening.”
Lusardi, who teaches at George Washington University, teamed up with Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the Wharton School, to develop five questions that indicate a person’s financial literacy. For example, one of the questions posits: “Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?”
Only one-third of the U.S. population was able to answer these questions accurately.
“In finance, ignorance is not bliss,” Lusardi says.
Lusardi conducted a study on financial knowledge among young people in 2010, and she found that women were less likely to respond correctly to each of the “Big Three” questions that indicate financial literacy. The small group of young people who were deemed to be financially literate was disproportionately young males from college-educated families.
“If we don’t have financial literacy in schools, some groups will have a lot of difficulty in learning it,” Lusardi says, “because where are they going to learn it?”
To Haley Sacks, the answer to that question was Google. Sacks had just secured her first full-time job when she was asked how much she wanted to contribute to her 401(k). “I sort of faked that I understood it, and then I tried to learn about it and felt really underserved by the content that was available to me,” she said.
In doing research, she realized just how important these seemingly small decisions were to her financial future. So she asked herself the question: Why hasn’t anyone told me about this?
She began learning about it, and to hold herself accountable, she began making content about complicated topics in a way that she and her friends could grasp. Sacks started a YouTube channel called Mrs. Dow Jones where she uses pop culture to explain thorny financial concepts to an audience that doesn’t understand Wall Street jargon.
Sacks has used Taylor Swift’s career arc to explain stocks, the Kardashians to show the difference between a 401(k) and a Roth IRA, and The Bachelor to liken finding love on TV to investment banking.
Sacks, who has roughly 3,000 followers on YouTube and 120,000 on Instagram, says, “I want to help ease the transition for young people into adulthood and onwards for their own financial journey.”
Lately, Sacks has leaned heavier on the personal finance content, adding that she’s currently studying to become a certified financial planner so she can go a step further and give her followers actionable advice.
“With Gen Z, we’re going to see the biggest generation of entrepreneurs,” she says. “That means that all those people are going to have to learn how to pay themselves, manage their money, and pay their taxes. We just have to arm them with information.”
Katie Swanson, a mother of two, has become a full-blown celebrity on the platform for a hobby that’s been popular across generations: couponing. Known as “Coupon Katie,” Swanson has amassed 1.3 million followers on TikTok, and her coupon-clipping videos have received more than 36 million likes.
“A lot of people tell me that they thought couponing is something their moms or grandmothers did, but they never thought that they can actually supplement an income with it,” she said.
Swanson admits that TikTok is consumed largely for entertainment, so most of her videos are a mix of “silly and informative.” The line between education and entertainment can be a fine one, especially on a platform that only allows videos that last 60 seconds or less.
The quality of the content is precisely what researcher Lusardi worries about. “We have to be careful because you can lose a lot of the substance,” she says. “We cannot leave it to the people on TikTok to teach personal finance. This is a topic that belongs in school.”
Three tips for taking charge of your finances:
1. Figure out how much it costs to be you: “We all used to watch the show The Fabulous Life of…, and you learned how much it cost to be Beyoncé. You have to do that for yourself. Print out the last three months of your spending, and figure out how much it costs to be you. That will inform how big your emergency fund needs to be.” —Haley Sacks
2. Forgo instant gratification: “Short-term satisfaction is usually not worth the sacrifices you make long-term. Is buying that $200 Supreme shirt really worth it in the long run? My answer would probably be no. The majority of young people are too shortsighted. As a result, they might get themselves into credit card debt.” —Humphrey Yang
3. Invest in knowledge: “Knowledge is that essential ingredient that allows people to navigate all sorts of financial decisions. Finances are personal, so these very generic tips and suggestions sometimes do not apply to our very specific cases. We need to gain that basic knowledge because it really does pay high interest. If you’re a young person in school or college, get educated. Don’t miss that opportunity.” —Annamaria Lusardi
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How the founder of Jersey Mike’s started a billion-dollar business
—Why dog walkers make more than childcare and eldercare workers
—How to take over for a hands-off boss
—Accenture CEO Julie Sweet on her company’s rapid-fire transformation
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Can you be a leader and an introvert?
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fortune--2020-03-21--Coronavirus doesn’t stop Apple from debuting new devices

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Despite the coronavirus outbreak, Apple is still introducing new devices and planning to unveil updated iPhones later this year.
The company this week announced a new MacBook Air and iPad Pro, and increased the storage capacity for its Mac Mini desktop. The announcements were made despite Apple keeping retail stores outside of Greater China closed for an indefinite period. Indeed, Apple quietly changed its website this week from a promise to open its stores next week to one that says its retail locations will be closed “until further notice.”
Meanwhile, a new report this week said Apple’s long-rumored iPhone with 5G compatibility will be released in the fall.
If nothing else, we learned this week that not even COVID-19 can stop Apple’s hardware.
Apple’s new hardware
Apple unveiled a new iPad Pro this week that has the same design as the previous model, but comes with a new sensor for measuring distance and depth up to 16 feet from the device to help users measure real-world objects, take better-looking pictures, and more. It also has an improved camera and now works with trackpads, which are typically found in laptops. Additionally, Apple debuted a new MacBook Air that has increased processing power and more storage. Apple slashed the MacBook Air’s price by $100, to $999 for a basic model. Apple also said that it doubled the Mac Mini’s storage to 256GB on the base model and 512GB on the premium version. All three devices are available now.
A future without events?
My Fortune colleague Robert Hackett wrote this week about Apple’s hardware announcements, and the implications of the company unveiling its devices in a press release instead of a major press event. Apple has, of course, heavily relied on press events. But with COVID-19 spreading around the world, it was forced to use a press release. Will that have an effect on its new hardware’s success?
New iPhones are still on track
Apple is still working on a new iPhone for the fall, Bloomberg’s sources said this week. Apple plans to bundle ultra-fast 5G network connectivity into at least one iPhone model this year, and that device similarly shouldn’t be delayed, the sources said.
A small, but important Apple Store change
When announcing the closure of all its stores outside of Greater China earlier this month, Apple said those locations would reopen on March 27. But this week, Apple quietly changed a notice on its website, saying that its stores would be closed “until further notice.”
Measuring the Apple Store’s impact
Experts say Apple’s store closures don’t pose much of a financial threat to the company. Analysts and industry experts told Fortune this week shoppers that would have bought Apple products in stores are now shopping online. They said Apple would take a small revenue hit of around $100 million, but that the amount would be minimal for a company that generates tens of billions of dollars in quarterly revenue.
Apple limits bulk buying
Apple has cracked down on shoppers bulk buying its devices online. In an unannounced change to its online store, Apple is limiting customers to buying two of each iPhone and iPad model. For Macs, Apple is limiting the number bought to five per order. Apple didn’t say why it placed limits on purchases, but it could be due to slowdowns in production because of COVID-19.
A new feature for older iPads
Apple’s new iPad Pro works with trackpads, allowing users to control the device like a laptop with a cursor. A wireless trackpad connects to the iPad Pro and lets users control the tablet’s software like they would on a laptop without a touchscreen. In its iOS 13.4 update, which Apple plans to release on March 24, Apple will also add trackpad compatibility to the iPad Pro model it released in 2018.
One more thing…
Apple CEO Tim Cook said this week that Apple will make “a substantial donation” to Italy to help the country fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Cook didn’t say how much Apple would give.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Inside Xerox’s audacious quest to buy much bigger rival HP
—Uber’s CEO to investors: The coronavirus won’t kill our business
—A new iPad—and era, perhaps—arrives via press release
—Hong Kong launches surveillance operation to track suspected coronavirus patients
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
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