fortune--2020-11-08--Canned wine might have been primed for socializing in the era of social distancing

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This is an installment of Startup Year One, a special series of interviews with startup founders about the major lessons they have learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
Kristin Olszewski got her start in the hospitality industry while working in restaurants in the Bay Area and became enamored with wine while working at Michelin-starred Saison. After pursuing a postbaccalaureate in medicine at Harvard, she realized she’d fallen in love with the wine and restaurant industries and instead went on to get her sommelier certification. From there, she furthered her depth of knowledge as a sommelier at Straight Wharf Restaurant in Nantucket and the award-winning Husk Nashville before moving back out West to head the wine program for F10 Creative in Palm Springs.
In 2017, while on the sommelier team at Nancy Silverton’s Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles, Olszewski founded canned wine brand Nomadica with Emma Toshack to change the way that people consume and think about wine. Nomadica sources its wines from boutique winemakers, packaging them in chic cans with limited-edition art from independent illustrators, painters, sculptors, photographers, and street artists. Additionally, because glass bottles are 400 times as heavy as cans, the Nomadica brand reduces emissions from shipping by up to 80%, making it a more sustainable wine-drinking choice, according to the cofounders. Olszewski is also the wine director of Gigi’s, a new French bistro opening in Hollywood this fall.
Fortune recently spoke with Olszewski, as well as Tara Hannaford, Nomadica’s new chief operating officer, about how the first year has been and what the company plans to do next.
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Kristin Olszewski, cofounder of Nomadica Courtesy of Nomadica
Fortune: Could you tell me a bit about your backgrounds? What were you doing professionally prior to launching Nomadica?
Olszewski: I majored in sustainable farming and gender studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and ended up moving to San Francisco after graduating to work in a revolving door of Michelin-starred restaurants. While working for the Sons & Daughters Group, [sommelier and wine director] Carlin Karr really introduced me to the world of wine, and it was all downhill from there. I remember being amazed that you could find incredible wine at affordable prices; before tasting with Carlin, I always felt like wine was so inaccessible.
I did a brief detour back to the East Coast on the med school track at Harvard and ended up working at this incredible wine bar, Spoke Wine Bar, in Boston. Flea Foster, the owner, took time to taste with me, develop my confidence in my own ability, and gave me the courage I needed to leave school and pursue wine. Since then, I’ve been a sommelier and wine director at Straight Wharf Restaurant, F10 Group, Husk, Osteria Mozza, and Gigi’s. I’m completely obsessed with wine; passionate about the “new” California, France, and Italy. I love that wine gives an opportunity to support farmers who are truly stewards of the land.
Hannaford: I’ve been working in wine and spirits on the brand side for 12 years. I grew up in the hospitality business so landing in the space professionally isn’t a surprise; this business is very familial and tends to be in your blood. My career has been spent working with startups, from the ground floor up to acquisition. I’ve led sales at three tequila companies: Peligroso, DeLeón, Casamigos—all acquired by Diageo. Creating products, building teams, and national strategy are all aspects of the brand-building business that I love. It’s wildly challenging, requires a daily sense of urgency, but the reward is incredibly fulfilling.
Less interesting, but to answer the question: I have a background in performance art and worked as a professional dancer for many years. When I went back to college at Loyola Marymount, I studied political science and was on my way to law school in D.C. when I deferred and jumped into the beverage industry in 2008.
Nomadica touts itself as the “only women- and sommelier-owned canned wine company.” Jonathan Garduno
What inspired the launch of Nomadica? Who is your target audience?
Olszewski: We were inspired to launch Nomadica because cans make sense in so many ways; they’re much more sustainable than glass, a great way to preserve freshness in a wine, and an amazing way to just have a single serving without having to open an entire bottle.
Our target audience is anyone who loves wine. I know that in my house, if I open up a bottle it’s not going back in the fridge; Nomadica makes it easy for wine drinkers to consume a single serving of wine or consume multiple styles of wine without having to open up multiple bottles. Just as I’ve done for over a decade on the floor of restaurants, I take so much joy in sourcing universally loved, high-quality flavor profiles that suit all occasions.
What were some of the biggest hurdles of your first year in business? What surprised you the most?
Olszewski: Our biggest hurdle was certainly the fact that we are really doing something unique in the canned wine space. Thankfully, in recent years, there have been several amazing producers also putting great juice into cans. But it can still be an uphill battle with buyers. My favorite thing in the world is to sit down and taste our wines with wine professionals and see the look of shock and surprise on their faces. As quality canned wine becomes more popular and understood, we’ve seen our business grow with it.
One of the most pleasant surprises was how many female entrepreneurs went out of their way to support us. Whether it was mentorship, collaborations, or connections, there was truly an overabundance of women supporting us.
Founded by Kristin Olszewski and Emma Toshack, Nomadica is based in Los Angeles and works with small Californian winemakers from the North and Central coasts and collaborates with artists from around the world to design the label artwork. Jonathan Garduno
While it has been a rough year for the wine industry, from uneven domestic sales over the past few years to wildfires raging up and down the West Coast, delivery and direct-to-consumer sales for wine have shot upward during the pandemic. Presumably, it would seem canned wine would also be an ideal choice for customers looking to socialize outdoors. How have the past several months gone for your company? What has it been like to work with supply chain partners and shipping services?
Hannaford: We had planned to launch our e-commerce model in 2020 but not at the speed COVID-19 threw us into. Because of our long-standing industry relationships, we built the business strategically through our wholesale channels and heavily on-premise. As a small and nimble team, we were able to pivot quickly, but to do it on-brand and at an elevated level required all hands on deck—and hiring a badass creative director to bring our vision to life.
The upside has been a much quicker conversion to our new format: cans. People love the uncontaminated, single-serving feature naturally provided in our form factor, and with many of us drinking more, the responsible consumption control it helps provide. We’ve seen a huge interest uptake in our product from both accounts offering to-go and customers wanting to share it at home during their socially distanced hangouts.
That said, what has it been like to secure funding for Nomadica? Is it primarily self-funded, VC-backed, or some mixture of both?
Hannaford: We’re funded by a mix of venture capital and wine-loving angel investors. We have been thoughtful and strategic because we want more than just a capital injection from our funding partners; they shape our culture just as much as our full-time team.
Nomadica currently offers canned rosé, sparkling rosé, sparkling white, or red wine—as well as a sampler pack of all four—starting at $50 for an eight-pack (equivalent to more than 2.5 bottles of wine). Jonathan Garduno
Post-pandemic and five years down the road, where do you see Nomadica in the market?
Hannaford: Canned wine is not a fad; the category has seen high double-digit sustained growth over the past three years with no signs of slowing down. Early entrants were familiar 750-milliliter companies simply launching a can option to less–wine focused, heavy marketing campaigned companies.
Nomadica saw an opportunity in the space for sustainability as a moral imperative, while working with respected winemakers to can product that speaks to existing wine drinkers and anyone with a refined and curious palate. We’re leading the charge in the premium segment and see more people looking for high-quality offerings in the space everyday.


fortune--2020-11-08--What’s in a name? For Tesla’s Full Self Driving, it may be danger

Federal regulators perked up when Tesla last month started letting some customers test new autonomous driving software that it had added to their cars. The regulators said they would “monitor the new technology closely” and “take action to protect the public against unreasonable risks to safety.”
One of those safety risks may be the name of Tesla’s software: “Full Self Driving.” In its current form, the software can take over from drivers to park, stay in a lane, cruise on highways and stop at red lights, but it does not make vehicles “self-driving.”
By industry standards, Tesla’s system is considered an advanced driver assistance system, or ADAS, and not autonomous driving technology. There is hope that ADAS systems will increase road safety overall. But there is also concern that if drivers place too much faith in assistive technology, they may become inattentive, undermining those safety benefits.
Names and marketing that imply higher levels of autonomy for an ADAS system increase the risk of distracted or irresponsible driving, according to a study published in September by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. In the study, 90 drivers were told they were about to test drive a vehicle with driver assistance features.
Half of the drivers were told the system was called “AutonoDrive” and given introductory information that focused on how it would reduce their workload. The other half were told they would be using a system called “DriveAssist,” and that they had to monitor it.
The system’s actual capabilities were described accurately to each group.
When surveyed after this introduction, 42% of drivers in the “AutonoDrive” group overestimated the capabilities of the system, while only 11% of drivers in the “DriveAssist” group made the same mistake. “AutonoDrive” users also reported greater “willingness to engage in potentially distracting or risky behaviors” while using the system, and greater belief that the system would prevent a collision. In fact, the system was unlikely to prevent crashes in the scenarios presented, according to researchers.
Both groups of drivers then test-drove vehicles equipped with Cadillac’s SuperCruise driver assistance system (though the system’s real name was not disclosed). Drivers who had been told they were using “AutonoDrive” spent 30% more time with their hands away from the wheel than those told they were using “DriveAssist.” Subjects in the “AutonoDrive” group were also much more likely to respond slowly (more than five seconds) to directions from the car’s automated system to take control of the vehicle.
“The results shouldn’t be very surprising,” says Greg Brannon, AAA’s director of automotive engineering and industry relations. “If you use a name that overestimates the capabilities of the system … it sets a context for a driver that the system perhaps can do more than it can.”
Brannon was not directly involved in the September study, but he leads an initiative by AAA and other auto industry groups to set standardized naming conventions for driver-assistance and automated driving systems.
The fact that systems like Tesla’s are designed to improve over time could add to user confusion. Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, have frequently predicted that the Full Self Driving software will eventually enable a Tesla to drive itself without any human oversight, and even operate as a robotic taxi. That would be considered at least Level 4 automation, according to classifications by the Society For Automotive Engineers. But today, Tesla still emphasizes that Full Self-Driving requires “active driver supervision,” meaning it qualifies as Level 2 automation on the SAE scale.
The resulting confusion is widespread: even some automotive publications refer to the software as “fully autonomous” when Tesla explicitly says it’s not. Some regulators have cried foul at the disconnect – a German court, for instance, ruled in July that “Autopilot” branding was misleading.
Tesla did not reply to requests for comment from Fortune about its naming practices.
Brannon says Tesla isn’t AAA’s sole concern, citing names like Volvo’s PilotAssist and Daimler’s DrivePilot as also potentially confusing. Confusing names could become a matter for the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces truth in advertising rules. But U.S. auto safety regulators haven’t created any naming standards, and Brannon doesn’t expect them to.
“We understand that automakers are likely to continue the individualized marketing of these systems under different names,” Brannon said.
Instead, he hopes manufacturers adopt standard names for specific system features, such as automatic lanekeeping or automatic emergency braking, under the broader umbrella of their system brand names. That could help reduce driver confusion, while also making it easier to compare the performance of different vehicles’ features using uniform tests.
Some within the autonomous vehicle industry, though, would prefer even more cautious terminology.
“As an industry, we are at the point where having the right public perception of the technology is important,” says Gautam Narang, CEO of Gatik, a startup that’s working with companies like Walmart to develop autonomous delivery systems for vans or trucks that travel fixed routes.
Narang says those fixed routes, chosen for their predictability, are a better fit for what truly autonomous vehicles are capable of right now. He’s concerned that by promising too much, manufacturers like Tesla could create confusion – and perhaps, when things go wrong, long-term disillusionment.
“The branding ‘Full Self Driving’ is a terrifying contradiction,” says Narang, “because it can’t actually be driven without close human supervision.”


fortune--2020-11-08--Amidst an explosion in personal finance apps, this startup wants to bring back the spreadsheet

A little over a year ago, Jennifer Mulder was having trouble getting her clients to perform a laborious but essential task: tracking their own spending.
The founding financial planner of Pathway Financial Services in Los Angeles, Mulder couldn’t seem to find a tool that made the budgeting process simple and easy. Quicken’s software provided a more in-depth and detailed look into personal finances than many of her clients were interested in, and Mint too often confused categories of spending––a client’s Starbucks purchase could show up as an automobile expense. Personal spreadsheets that required expenses to be inputted manually, Mulder noticed, were usually ignored and forgotten about by clients after a few months’ time.
So, she turned to a startup that was both generating some buzz on Twitter and recommended by other financial planners: Tiller Money. An automated way of tracking of an individual’s finances on the familiar platforms of either Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, Tiller Money was the exact tool Mulder was looking for, allowing users to customize their own spending categories and budget goals without having to experience the hassle of manual data entry.
“It didn’t feel like something that was all that different from what they were already familiar with, and that’s really important when you’re trying to get people to do something new––every hurdle you put in their way makes it that much more likely that they’re not going to actually do it.”
Founded in 2015 by Peter Polson, Tiller Money was originally designed to be an app, but when interviewing prospective customers before the launch, Polson came to the same conclusion as Mulder: there’s comfort in familiarity. Those Polson interviewed didn’t seem interested in an app; they liked their spreadsheets and were unlikely to switch over even if it meant they had to handle date entry on their own.
Polson understood where these people were coming from––after all, he had used them himself throughout most of his life. So, he abandoned the idea of an app and instead embraced the idea of optimizing the spreadsheet.
“What if we could actually take spreadsheets to a whole other level,” Polson remembered thinking. “What if we could automate them with financial feeds from any of your bank accounts and make it easier to use spreadsheets to give you helpful templates.”
In 2020, less than 50% of Americans say they currently have a budget and closely track their spending on expenses like food, housing, and entertainment, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s annual financial literacy survey. That behavior comes in stark contrast to many people’s saving and spending desires: 79% of Americans believe “sticking to a budget and never deviating” is key to financial stability, a Northwestern Mutual study found.
With the Federal Reserve reporting in 2019 that nearly a third of U.S. adults would need to borrow or sell something if faced with an unexpected $400 expense, the economy still in a rather precarious spot, and no stimulus bill on the horizon, carefully tracking what you are spending could very well mean the difference between being able to pay a bill on time and tripping into financial turmoil.
Tiller Money provides customers with pre-built spreadsheet templates that, like other personal finance tools, automatically connect to as many bank accounts and credit cards as a customer desires and categorizes transactions, leaving users with an understanding of whether or not they are spending too much on, say, eating out or retail shopping.
A Tiller Money spreadsheet. Courtesy of Tiller Money
There’s a foundation template that provides beginners with customizable monthly and yearly budgets, as well as more advanced templates (also customizable) for tracking net worth, savings goals, debt, and more.
Polson said Tiller Money’s base of active customers has been doubling annually, with the company now having “tens of thousands” of subscribers. Tilley Money is made up of a team of 15, including 10 full-time employees and five contractors, and has only received funding from “a private group of experienced technology investors, primarily centered in the Seattle region,” according to Polson.
And while Tiller Money will initially populate your Google Sheet with spending categories, you can change and delete them as you see fit, allowing customers to pick and choose which expenses should fall under which bucket. “We let people build their own rules,” Polson said. “I could create a rule that says if it’s a gas station and it’s under $15, it’s probably M&M’s and kombucha, so it’s eating out. And, if it’s over $15, it’s filling my tank, so it’s gas.”
Perhaps the most important distinction Polson makes between Tiller Money and competitors such as Mint involves the two companies’ business models. Whereas Mint is a free software platform, Tiller Money charges a uniform, yearly subscription fee of $79. While that hardly may seem like a competitive advantage, Polson insists that is perfect example of how Tiller Money values customers’ privacy more than others in the industry. “As the saying goes, ‘if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product,’” Polson said.


fortune--2020-11-08--Newspapers from around the world proclaim Biden and Harris’ win

After four days of waiting, when the networks announced on air and news organizations sent push notifications calling that Joe Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States, many Americans celebrated with dance parties in the streets, cheering while they watched their children at playgrounds, and honking as they drove by joyous crowds. More than 75 million Americans voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, more than any other candidate in history.
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fortune--2020-11-08--To take control of your career, ask for what you want—directly and explicitly

Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of Hint Inc., whose flavored, unsweetened Hint Water has seen its sales soar during the current pandemic. But becoming a beverage entrepreneur was perhaps the furthest thing from her mind in the late 1980s, when she set out to establish herself in media—an effort that led her, almost literally, to Fortune‘s doorstep. In this excerpt from her new memoir, Undaunted, Goldin talks about how being unafraid to show up uninvited helped her launch a stellar career.
The economy was not in good shape my senior year, and many of my classmates just wanted to get a foot in the door somewhere, anywhere. Many were settling for unpaid internships.
I didn’t want to do that, but I also didn’t know enough about the job market to chart my own path. So I did what I would do over and over again in my life to make an informed decision: I asked questions. Of anybody and everybody.
If the opportunities I want are not coming to me, I thought, I’ll have to create them for myself.
Photograph by Platon for HarperCollins Leadership.
Instead of meeting with the on-campus interviewers, I went out in search of interviews of my own. After several weeks of asking anyone and everyone for contacts in my job search, I put together a list of all the leads I got and started sending out letters and making phone calls. I pitched myself hard. I said I was excited about the company, whatever it was, that I was a hard worker, that I’d consider any kind of job, and that I’d gladly fly at my own expense for an in-person interview.
Before I knew it, I had seventy potential interviews lined up. They were all entry-level positions in all kinds of companies, from consultancies to financial service providers.
But there was one place I wanted to work at above all the rest. It was a publishing company, based in New York, whose product I really admired.
Fortune magazine.
Unlike most of the other companies I sent letters to, I didn’t have a contact name at Fortune, but I didn’t let that stop me.
I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
In fact, I’ve found that the most certain way to get what you want is to ask, directly and explicitly.
In all the letters I sent to prospective employers as a job-seeking college grad, I asked for an interview and a job, but I added a more personal touch to my Fortune letter. I wrote directly to Marshall Loeb, the managing editor of the magazine and a major figure on the New York and national publishing scene. I knew he was the person responsible for making Fortune the magazine I liked so much.
When he came on board as editor just a few years earlier, the magazine had been pretty stodgy, focused on finance and economics. Loeb livened it up with stories about business people and their companies and introduced more photos and graphics. Those were the stories that had turned me on to business and the people who drove it.
In my letter to Mr. Loeb, I explained how much I liked the magazine and said that he had taught me more about business than my finance professors had. Even though I secretly imagined myself as a reporter or an editor, with my feature stories and byline on the Fortune cover, I made it clear that I would love to work for him in any position he had available.
I got a nice letter back., thanking me for writing and proposing that if I was ever in New York, I should get in touch and they would see about arranging an interview. Signed, Marshall Loeb.
Wow.
That added New York City to my list of places to visit.
I hadn’t actually arranged for an interview, as Mr. Loeb had suggested. I thought about calling ahead, but decided to just show up instead. My plan was to walk into the human resources office, show them the letter from Marshall Loeb, and ask for a job. That’s how I had gotten jobs in high school. I had learned it’s tough to ignore somebody who’s standing right in front of you. So that was my plan: show up, do whatever it took to land an interview, get a job.
Pushing through the door
It was a cold January day in New York, 1989. I walked along Sixth Avenue to the famous Time & Life Building. I pushed through the revolving door into an almost overwhelmingly awesome lobby of glass, marble, and stainless steel, hung with enormous works of art.
For the first time, I got a sense of the magnificence and prestige of the company. Fortune was part of the Time Inc. empire, which published more than a hundred magazines, including Life, Time, Money, Sports Illustrated, and People. In those days, it was the print media, not the Internet, that shaped how people got their information and how they viewed the world.
I hesitated. Could I really go through with this? Suddenly, it felt like an impossible long shot. I took a deep breath. I got in the elevator, rode up several floors, found the human resources department, and went up to the receptionist.
“Hello. I’m interested in a job at Fortune.”
She looked at me skeptically.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. I have a letter from Marshall Loeb.”
I showed her the letter. She studied it briefly then looked at me as if uncertain what to do next. A woman standing nearby had heard our exchange. She came over and introduced herself as the head of human resources. She glanced at the letter. Obviously she had seen hundreds like it. The standard college student brush-off form letter. I had imagined Marshall Loeb read it and personally signed it. Now I realized he had probably never even seen it.
The head of HR looked at me with a mix of amusement and curiosity.
“What Mr. Loeb meant was that you should get in touch and make an appointment for an interview if you were planning to be in New York.”
Although she was saying “No,” what I heard was “Maybe.”
“Well, here I am. I’m in New York now. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’d really appreciate an interview.”
She again tried saying no. “I’m sorry, but there really aren’t any openings at Fortune right now.”
I didn’t turn to go. I just stood there. Right in front of her. Hard to ignore. There was a pause. Then she remembered something.
“You know, I think there is a job available at Time. It’s in the circulation department. Would you be interested in that?”
Now she was saying “maybe,” but I was hearing “yes.” I had only a vague idea of what circulation was. It wasn’t Fortune. It wasn’t Marshall Loeb. And it probably wouldn’t involve reporting that resulted in cover stories. But if I could work in the building, I could meet the Fortune people and eventually get hired as a writer.
“Yes! I would!”
I am forever grateful to that kind woman. “Okay. Let me see if Brooke is available to see you now.”
She disappeared for a minute, then came back and escorted me to an office on a different floor. There she introduced me to Brooke McMurray, who was head of third-party circulation and was looking for an executive assistant. I sat down and told Brooke my whole story—about how much I liked reading Fortune, my communications studies at ASU, my letter to Marshall Loeb, my seventy interviews, and my multiple job offers.
Brooke listened patiently. I can only imagine how I came across. I was twenty-one. My main work experience had been as a waitress at the Tee Pee restaurant in Tempe, Arizona. I had never lived in New York, had never even been to New York before this trip. Everything I knew about the publishing industry I had learned in class, and I knew absolutely nothing about circulation.
It must have been an okay story because Brooke didn’t kick me out. She described the kind of assistant she was looking for. I had to be committed to supporting her. I had to be the kind of person who could help her get things done.
“Do you think you are that kind of person?”
I thought for a moment. Executive assistant wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I would learn a lot about publishing, the corporate world, and about living in New York. I was in the right building, in the right city, with a person who looked like she could be the right boss. I could learn.
“Yes. Absolutely. I am that kind of person.”
“Great,” Brooke said. “I’ll be in touch.”
I flew back to Arizona. When I got home, I had a voicemail waiting. Time wanted to hire me as Brooke’s assistant. I had landed a job.
While I never wrote a story for Fortune (back then, at least), I got to work with people who were thinking creatively about how to build their business during a time of change. I discovered that I loved selling and business development. I learned that hard work and a commitment to solving problems are still the most important values in business. Sometimes, though, you need to take control of your own career, and you find that you need to move on to move up.
***
Excerpted from Undaunted, by Kara Goldin. Copyright© 2020 by Kara Goldin. Used by permission of HarperCollins Leadership. www.harpercollinsleadership.com
Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of Hint Inc. and the author of Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts & Doubters. She also hosts the podcast The Kara Goldin Show, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and other disrupters across various industries.


Home-improvement gifts

Not everyone has time to shop around (not to mention most people have no desire to shop in stores at all right now) and look for the newest items on the market that could appeal to the loved ones and colleagues on their gift-giving lists. (Or for themselves, because let’s be honest, we look at holiday gift guides and deals for ourselves just as much as for others.)
And given everything that has happened in 2020, everyone needs a bit (or a lot) of self-care after this year. With that in mind, here is a helpful list of suggestions for the best gifts around for maintaining a happier home this winter.
Courtesy of Hastens, Google, Whiled, and Aarke
Aarke: The simple power of sparkling water is that it is both refreshing and fulfilling all at the same time. Aarke has designed a more sophisticated approach to the countertop sparkling-water maker with a complete stainless steel enclosure. The newest release this fall is the Carbonator III, which provides a more luxury experience with a stainless steel precision nozzle, a more efficient carbonation system, a damper-controlled lever to allow for a more controlled release of pressure in the bottle, and a new valve with a quieter, more sophisticated sound when the water is carbonated. SRP: $219.
Branch Basics: Wellness comes in many forms, and having a clean (and sanitized) home is a good place to start. The starter kit from Branch Basics includes all the soapy necessities for one household, and it has become something of a cult favorite, with more than 2,500 five-star reviews online. The single, multipurpose concentrate formula is a one-hit wonder for every cleaning purpose in the house, from laundry to countertop spray to dish soap to hand soap and even body wash. This stuff is strong enough to clean up a greasy stove and safe enough to wash a baby with, and it’s designed with the chemically sensitive and allergen-prone in mind to keep everyone at home healthy all around. SRP: $59.
Google: On the eve of the holiday shopping season, Google dropped the newest version of its popular TV streaming dongle: Chromecast. Powered by new software called Google TV, the upgraded Chromecast is supposed to give users a more intuitive “home screen” to help them navigate their various video-streaming services and apps. And with Google Assistant, owners can now use their voices to change channels as well as perform other tasks, like bringing up the weather report on-screen. While the latest model is a bit pricier than previous generations, the new Chromecast does offer some competitive qualities, like access to HBO Max (not available yet on Roku) as well as integrations with other Google products for the home, such as the Nest thermostat. SRP: $50.
Hästens: If we’re all going to be spending more time at home this winter, upgrading your bedding is a worthy investment. Few come close to offering the longtime comfort and luxurious feeling of Hästens bedding and linens. Pillows and duvets from the Swedish brand, founded in 1852, are made from top-of-the-line pure goose down, with its own built-in ventilation system that helps the feathers breathe. And these comforters are designed to transition well from summer to winter: The down insulates and holds warmth for your body, while allowing moisture to evaporate and providing more delicate support. SRP: $1,850.
iRobot: Some people will tell you the smartphone changed their lives. For others (including myself), it was the emergence of the Roomba, not only cleaning up dust but also cutting back on the exhaustion and back pain that comes with vacuuming regularly. The S9 is iRobot’s most powerful robot vacuum yet, with up to 40 times the suction power compared to previous models and advanced sensors for cleaning deep into corners and along wall edges. The S9 is also the smartest yet. Much like Amazon, Google, or Apple devices, it will respond to commands through an embedded voice assistant. SRP: $900.
Open Spaces: Lockdown has given plenty of people time to channel their inner Marie Kondo or has them inspired by the organizational docu-series The Home Edit. For those who fall into the latter category, spring cleaning doesn’t have to wait until March. Open Spaces makes a much more elegant set of home storage products, making any space in your home Instagram-ready with just a couple of storage bins and wire baskets. SRP: $70 for two large storage bins.
Whiled: A spinoff of the popular newsletter Girls’ Night In, Whiled is creating home goods designed for downtime or a perfect cozy night in. The brand’s first collection is a set of 500-piece puzzles, all printed on 100% recycled paper, based on works by contemporary artists, with shades of surrealist and abstract inspiration from the likes of Chagall or Picasso. Sunny Side Up, by Portland, Ore., illustrator Lan Truong, stands out not only for its pop art–like construction, but also how it evokes the simplest but perhaps most beloved of weekend rituals: brunch. SRP: $37.
Vellabox: From just a small flame, a candle can provide an abundance of comfort and restoration to your mood. Vellabox is an artisan candle subscription service, offering three options for a monthly delivery of candles that provide between 25 and 75 hours of burn time. All of Vellabox’s candles are made with lead-free and paraffin-free wicks; use phthalate-free fragrance oils; and are made of 100% soy, coconut, or vegetable-based waxes. SRP: Starts at $10 per month.


fortune--2020-11-09--Pfizer and BioNTech take the lead after study shows their vaccine prevents 90% of infections

The Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE prevented more than 90% of infections in a study of tens of thousands of volunteers, the most encouraging scientific advance so far in the battle against the coronavirus.
Eight months into the worst pandemic in a century, the preliminary results pave the way for the companies to seek an emergency-use authorization from regulators if further research shows the shot is also safe.
The findings are based on an interim analysis conducted after 94 participants contracted Covid-19. The trial will continue until 164 cases have occurred. If the data hold up and a key safety readout Pfizer expects in about a week also looks good, it could mean that the world has a vital new tool to control a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide.
“This is about the best the news could possibly be for the world and for the United States and for public health,” said William Gruber, Pfizer senior vice president for vaccine clinical research and development. It was better than even the best result he had hoped for, he said.
With effectiveness for the first vaccines previously expected to be in the range of 60% to 70%, “more than 90% is extraordinary,” BioNTech Chief Executive Officer Ugur Sahin said.
‘Victory of Science’
“It shows that Covid-19 can be controlled,” Sahin said in an interview. “At the end of the day, it’s really a victory of science.”
The data do have limits. For now, few details on the vaccine’s efficacy are available. It isn’t known how well the shot works in key subgroups, such as the elderly. Those analyses haven’t been conducted. And it isn’t known whether the vaccine prevents severe disease, as none of the participants who got Covid-19 in this round of analysis had severe cases, Gruber said.
However, the strong reading from the first large-scale trial to post efficacy results bodes well for other experimental vaccines, in particular one being developed by Moderna Inc. that uses similar technology. Its big trial could generate efficacy and safety results in weeks. If that study succeeds as well, there could be two vaccines available in the U.S. by around year-end.
Pfizer expects to get two months of safety follow-up data, a key metric required by U.S. regulators before an emergency authorization is granted, in the third week in November. If those findings raise no problems, Pfizer could apply for an authorization in the U.S. this month. A rolling review began in Europe last month, and Sahin said regulators there are working with BioNTech to “further accelerate the process.”
So far, the trial’s data monitoring committee has identified no serious safety concerns, Pfizer and BioNTech said.
Leading the Race
The positive preliminary data mean the U.S. pharma giant and its German partner are on track to be first with a vaccine, after signing advance deals with governments worldwide for hundreds of thousands of doses. The companies have said they should be able to produce 1.3 billion doses — enough to vaccinate 650 million people — by the end of 2021. Only 50 million doses are expected to be available in 2020.
The shot relies on messenger RNA technology never before used in an approved medicine. Using mRNA, which essentially teaches the body’s cells to become vaccine factories, allowed it to be developed much faster than a traditional vaccine.
Pfizer had originally planned to conduct a first analysis of trial data after just 32 virus cases had occurred in the trial, which has enrolled 43,538 volunteers in multiple countries. Analyzing the data that early proved controversial among medical experts. Other companies working on vaccines planned to wait longer before scrutinizing trial information.
After discussion with U.S. regulators, Pfizer and BioNTech said they recently elected to drop the 32-case analysis and conduct the first analysis at a minimum of 62 cases, one of several changes made in the trial-analysis plan.
While Pfizer conducted those negotiations, it paused testing of participant samples for the virus, said Gruber. By the time Pfizer had made the changes in the trial plan and restarted virus testing a few days ago, some 94 cases had occurred, far more than the trial needed to meet the new threshold.
Pfizer raced to verify the data, which were still blinded to almost everyone at the company beside a few statisticians. Early on Sunday afternoon, an independent data monitoring committee that included a noted statistician and four infectious-disease experts met in a closed video session to review the results for the first time. Afterward, the panel brought Gruber, Sahin and other company representatives onto the call and told them the vaccine had easily achieved its efficacy goal.
“Everyone is pretty ecstatic,” said Gruber. He said that further details on the case breakdown weren’t available.
Uncertain Duration
The vaccine is being tested in a two-dose regimen. The trial started in July, and since most participants only received their second dose much more recently, nobody knows how long any protection will last.
Pfizer has found itself drawn into a contentious political debate about how quickly regulators in the U.S. should allow a vaccine to be given to Americans. President Donald Trump pushed to have a shot approved before Election Day, but regulators put in place rigorous standards that largely pushed that goal out of reach.
On Oct. 16, Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said the companies could seek an emergency use authorization from U.S. regulators by late November if the trial results were to show the shot is safe and effective. Writing in an open letter, Bourla quelled fears that Pfizer might be racing the clock to bring out a vaccine before the presidential election.
Moderna is considered the next closest vaccine frontrunner. It has said it could get safety and efficacy data from its late-stage trial this month. Johnson & Johnson, which has a one-shot vaccine using a different technology, could get efficacy data from a final stage trial by the end of this year. AstraZeneca Plc is also working on a vaccine using different technology, with results from studies in the U.K. and Brazil expected by year-end.


fortune--2020-11-09--Denmark’s prime minister says its mink population will be culled—but she’s facing political resistan

Denmark’s prime minister says its mink population will be culled—but she’s facing political resistance

Denmark’s government may not have the political backing it needs to move ahead with a mass cull of the country’s mink population.
The planned slaughter—17 million animals were to be gassed and either incinerated or buried in mass graves—generated global interest last week amid concerns that a Covid mutation that started in Danish mink farms might interfere with vaccine efforts.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said last week her government was in talks with the World Health Organization to figure out how to contain the outbreak, and suggested the WHO was on board with the proposed cull.
But Frederiksen’s government, which initially implied it didn’t need to pass a new law to move ahead, has since acknowledged it needs parliament’s go-ahead. Talks are now set to start Monday afternoon, and opposition parties have already said they’re unlikely to give their support.
The government can’t pass an emergency bill on the mink cull without a three-quarters majority, meaning the opposition has the scope to block the plan.
Tip of the Iceberg
Danish mink farmers and the center-right opposition bloc have voiced anger over the planned cull, which they’ve characterized as an overreaction. Meanwhile, the health ministry on Friday had to walk back earlier comments suggesting the virus had spread to the east of Denmark, which it apparently hasn’t.
The opposition has latched on to evidence that the most recent case of the mutant variant of Covid-19 — called cluster 5 — was identified as far back as September. But the government says the latest mutation is just the tip of the iceberg. It also says there’s a risk that new and more dangerous variants will develop in mink farms, unless all the animals are culled.
Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the head of the biggest opposition party, the Liberals, told broadcaster TV2 he won’t back the government’s proposal for a mass cull here and now.
“There’s no way this is going to be passed in an afternoon,” he said.
The mink industry, which represents about 0.7% of Denmark’s exports and employs roughly 3,000 people, has also received backing from other opposition lawmakers.
Hit the Brakes
Rasmus Jarlov, a member of the Conservative People’s Party and a former business minister, said the plan should be shelved until more details are known.
“There needs to be a reasonable balance between costs and risks,” he said. “Right now, it would make more sense to hit the brakes.”
Henrik Dahl, a spokesman for Liberal Alliance, said experts advising his party judge the government’s response to be a “huge overreaction,” according to Berlingske.
The mink industry, while angered by the proposed cull, signaled it would ultimately have few choices.
“I am shocked,” said Tage Pedersen, the chairman of Danish Mink Breeders, an industry group. “Over the past month, mink breeders across the country have suffered from completely insane treatment…and now this.”
Still, Pedersen said he was “urging breeders to continue the culling.” No matter how this ends, “it will still result in the closure of the entire industry,” he said.
The government has proposed support measures for mink farmers to ensure workers made redundant continue to receive at least 75% of their monthly wages, or a maximum of 30,000 kroner ($4,800).


fortune--2020-11-09--For Biden’s DOJ, a question looms: should Trump be prosecuted?

Joe Biden won the presidency promising to bring Americans together. But now his administration is sure to come under pressure from some Democrats to risk exacerbating divisions by investigating and prosecuting Donald Trump.
It would be a turnabout of the “Lock him up!” chants regularly directed at Biden by Trump’s supporters at campaign rallies.
Although Biden has said that prosecuting a former president would be a “very unusual thing and probably not very good for democracy,” he also vowed in an NPR interview in August that he wouldn’t “interfere with the Justice Department’s judgment of whether or not they think they should pursue the prosecution of anyone that they think has violated the law.”
With Republicans likely to retain control of the Senate, Biden’s nominee for attorney general will be sure to face tough questioning during confirmation hearings about the new administration’s intentions toward Trump. And Republican-led committees could strike back by amping up the investigations of Biden and his family’s finances that they’d already begun.
It’s a real question because on Jan. 20 Trump will lose the immunity from federal criminal indictment that sitting presidents are granted under Justice Department policy. Prosecutors could revive the investigation into campaign-finance violations that resulted in a three-year sentence for Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and re-examine the instances of possible obstruction of justice that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller uncovered in his probe into Russia’s 2016 election interference.
Democratic lawmakers who led congressional investigations of Trump and backed his impeachment have long vowed to press on once he was out of office. Among them: Senator Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president-elect, who as a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries said that her Justice Department would likely pursue criminal obstruction of justice charges against Trump.
Now, though, she’s echoing Biden’s formulation, saying last month on ABC’s “The View” that the Justice Department’s leaders will make the decision based on the evidence and “without any interference from the White House —period.”
Before the election, Trump publicly prodded Attorney General William Barr to prosecute Biden and former President Barack Obama, asserting without evidence that they joined with “deep state” forces in the FBI to spy on his 2016 campaign. Former federal prosecutors who criticized Trump and Barr for politicizing law enforcement say Biden should stay out of any investigation of Trump.
But that doesn’t mean prosecutors won’t take broader considerations into account on their own. A Biden-nominated attorney general would probably be wary of distracting from other policy goals or setting a dangerous precedent.
“Do we want to be the kind of country that every time someone leaves office their successor charges them for crimes?” said Barbara McQuade, who served as U.S. attorney in Detroit under Obama. “On the other hand, do we want to be the kind of country where people commit crimes and they have impunity?”
Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a House Judiciary Committee member and a constitutional law professor, said the Justice Department “should do its job without prejudice or favor.” Any involvement by the White House, he said, would be a “banana republic formulation and a sad hallmark of the Trump era that we should leave behind.”
Still, some Democrats argue that not pursuing a criminal investigation of Trump would amount to special treatment that no ordinary citizen would receive. “Either we are a nation of laws or we are not,” said Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia. “And no one—either a president or ex-president—is above the law.”
Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which investigated Trump, said he believes some of the president’s actions warrant further scrutiny.
“No one wants to give the perception of being vindictive,” Quigley said. “But, you know, I think there’s genuine concern with ongoing criminal activities. So, at the very least those should be looked at.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has suggested forming an independent commission within the Justice Department to investigate the Trump administration and pursue criminal charges if appropriate.
But Republican lawmakers, conservative media figures and many of the voters who supported the president would see a prosecution of Trump as a political attack, just as they viewed the Mueller probe and the House impeachment effort before it.
‘Sham Investigations’
Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, declined to address a hypothetical prosecution of Trump, but he warned Democrats against continuing to target the departing president.
“Democrats for the past four years have wasted time and taxpayer dollars on sham investigations,” Comer said. “It’s past time for Democrats to put Americans and country first instead of playing politics and wasting time on fake crises.”
The closest historical parallel to the choice facing the Biden administration is President Gerald Ford’s pardoning of fellow Republican Richard Nixon in 1974. In his speech announcing his decision, Ford expressed concern that Nixon’s status as a former president meant he might receive excessively harsh, rather than equal, treatment under the law. Ford also said he wanted to draw a line under “years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate,” which he feared a drawn-out prosecution of Nixon would continue to inflame.
As a freshman senator, Biden—who has said he wouldn’t pardon Trump— urged caution in the rush to impeach Nixon. Instead, Nixon resigned to avert an impeachment vote.
Mark Tushnet, a Harvard law professor, said some potential charges against Trump would probably be seen as far more political than others. The Biden administration should go after only the most “egregious” crimes, Tushnet said, rather than pursue charges based on Mueller’s findings, which the president’s supporters have dismissed as a hoax. “If there is classical bribery, that should be prosecuted,” he said.
Manhattan Investigation
An ongoing investigation into Trump and his business by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance could remove some of the pressure on the Biden Justice Department to act, said Andrew Weissmann, one of the top prosecutors on Mueller’s team. Vance has suggested in court filings that he’s examining a range of potential charges, including bank or tax fraud.
“There may be less of an interest if you know that, let’s say, New York has brought a criminal case,” Weissmann said. “That will be an important factor.”
A state-level prosecution would also be impervious to any last-minute deployment of presidential pardon power, which applies only to federal cases. Trump has previously suggested he could pardon himself, an act that might actually spur prosecutors to pursue a case against him in order to challenge its constitutionality.
Some liberal academics and former government officials have proposed another alternative to a federal criminal investigation: a bipartisan fact-finding panel, often described as a “truth and reconciliation committee,” that would focus on documenting any abuses that may have taken place during the Trump administration rather than recommending charges.
Tushnet, the Harvard law professor, said he sees such a panel as a middle path between prosecuting Trump and granting him impunity—a way to hold the previous administration accountable without creating a partisan firestorm.
“We need to get back to normal,” Tushnet said. “The question is, ‘What’s the best way?’”
–With assistance from Chris Strohm.


fortune--2020-11-09--‘A slap in the face’: Norwegian Air plunges after Oslo says no to more funding  relief

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA said it’s facing “a very uncertain future,” sending the stock plunging, after Norway ruled out providing financial support to a carrier that’s fighting to survive as the coronavirus crisis roils global travel markets.
The government in Oslo said Monday that it won’t be providing special package funding to Norwegian despite a request for a second multi-billion krone aid package, having decided that it wouldn’t be a sound use of community funds. The shares fell as much as 24%.
“The fact that our government has decided to refrain from providing Norwegian with further financial support is very disappointing and feels like a slap in the face,” Chief Executive Officer Jacob Schram said, adding that the carrier employs 2,300 people in Norway and operates many vital routes there.
Norwegian was forced to hand over almost all equity to creditors in May in order to access a state loan worth 3 billion kroner ($330 million). Since then, a revival of operations in Europe has been stymied as countries implement a new wave of Covid-19 curbs, while the North Atlantic market the airline also serves remains largely closed.
The discount carrier, which was struggling even before the pandemic, was forced to ground virtually its entire fleet as well as furlough or outright eliminate 8,000 employees, representing 80% of its workforce.
Shares of Norwegian Air were trading 23% lower as of 9:14 a.m. in Oslo, taking the decline this year to 99% and valuing the company at 1.85 billion kroner.
Norway said it will make funds available to support domestic flights.


fortune--2020-11-09--The business world welcomes Biden’s victory

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
President Trump may be slow to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory, but the business community was not. The nation’s biggest business lobbying groups—the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers—all issued statements of congratulations on Saturday. “While we respect the Trump campaign’s right to seek recounts, to call for investigation of alleged voting irregularities where evidence exists and to exhaust legal remedies, there is no indication that any of these would change the outcome,” the Roundtable said. The Chamber said it stands “ready to help break through the gridlock and help get things done through collaboration and good governance.”
You might wonder: why are these business organizations so quick to embrace a President-elect who has vowed to increase their taxes and boost regulation? The answer is partly a recognition of reality; the election is over. But it goes beyond that, as Fortune’s Geoff Colvin explains in this piece published over the weekend. Business views a Biden presidency as a not altogether bad thing.
Meanwhile, if you think it’s time to learn more about how the Biden administration will handle economic policy, you should read Nicole Goodkind’s story on his three top economic advisers. Expect these folks to play an important role in the next four years.
And finally, Anne Sraders and Lance Lambert dig into what the Biden victory might mean for another economic stimulus package, here.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Markets rise
Global markets seem chipper today, following President-elect Biden's win. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 was up 2.1% and the Hang Seng by 1.2%. European markets started the day in a similar zone, with the Stoxx 600 up 1.4% at the time of writing. U.S. futures, again, look to rise a similar amount. CNBC
SoftBank profit
SoftBank's share price is up more than 5% after the Japanese conglomerate reported a profit of $6.1 billion in the July-September quarter. In the same quarter a year ago, Masayoshi Son's behemoth lost $6.4 billion. That time round, WeWork was to blame. Now SoftBank can thank star performers such as Chinese online real-estate broker Beike Zhaofang, a Vision Fund 2 investment. Wall Street Journal
Apple and Pegatron
Apple has suspended new business with one of its biggest manufacturing partners, Pegatron, after discovering labor violations. The Taiwanese firm had apparently been misclassifying student workers and allowing them to work nights and overtime, and its employees had tried hard to cover up the violations of Apple's supplier code of conduct. Fortune
Virgin Hyperloop
Richard Branson's Virgin Hyperloop has completed the world's first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system. Lucky executives Josh Giegel (CTO) and Sara Luchian (director of passenger experience) whizzed through the firm's DevLoop site in Las Vegas at up to 107 miles per hour. If Hyperloop pans out, the aim is to transport people at 600 miles an hour or faster. Reuters
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Norwegian Air
Norwegian Air faces a very uncertain future after Norway ruled out a second bailout for the pandemic-stricken carrier. The airline's shares fell as much as 24% on that decision, which CEO Jacob Schram described as feeling "like a slap in the face." This year's overall decline in Norwegian's share price runs to a pretty terminal-sounding 99%. Bloomberg
WTO chief
The World Trade Organization was expected to appoint Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as its next director general today, but the relevant meeting has been postponed. This may be because President Trump had not backed her candidacy, and the WTO now wants to secure the backing of President-elect Biden before moving forward. Guardian
EU and U.S.
The EU is expected to imminently hit the U.S. with fresh tariffs, in the latest round of the very long-running Airbus-Boeing subsidies dispute. But Germany is pushing for a delay now that Biden has won, and the European Commission is looking for a "reboot" of relations with the U.S. under the incoming Biden presidency, and will be angling for cooperation on things like China and COVID-19. Financial Times
Self driving
Tesla's Full Self Driving software might mislead many drivers into overestimating its capabilities, an AAA survey suggests. What Tesla offers is actually an advanced driver assistance system, not full autonomous-driving technology. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-11-09--Most world leaders are ignoring Trump’s election claims—China is an exception

On Saturday evening, President-elect Joe Biden declared that his victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 election would help the U.S. regain respect around the world.
“I sought this office…to make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home,” Biden said after U.S. media outlets declared him the winner based on vote counts. “Tonight, the whole world is watching America. I believe at our best America is a beacon for the globe.”
By the time Biden spoke, foreign leaders had already started issuing their congratulations to the President-elect, as is tradition, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen.
But as of Monday morning, there remained a conspicuous holdout: China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has yet to formally congratulate Biden on beating Trump, and Beijing has indicated that it doesn’t plan on doing so as long as Trump continues to dispute the election result. (Trump has claimed voter fraud in states he lost, without providing evidence.)
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“We noticed that Mr. Biden has declared election victory,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. “We understand that the U.S. presidential election result will be determined following U.S. law and procedures.”
In the 2016 presidential election, Xi called then President-elect Donald Trump less than 24 hours after Trump declared victory over his rival Hillary Clinton. But that year—unlike Trump this time around—Clinton conceded to Trump after he passed the vote threshold needed to win.
China’s reluctance to congratulate Biden may reflect its painstaking efforts to appear neutral in American politics. Chinese state media, which often reflects the views of Beijing, also has not fully acknowledged Biden’s victory, but it appears to be preparing for the prospect of a Biden presidency.
Noninterference
In waiting to congratulate Biden, China joins a handful of notable countries that have remained silent on the election outcome.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in a press conference on Saturday that he would only congratulate a winner once legal matters related to the election were resolved. Countries like Russia, Iran, and Poland have not made statements or have signaled that they will wait for Biden’s official election by the Electoral College before congratulating him.
The reluctance of China and other foreign countries to acknowledge Biden’s victory suggests that Trump has been partially successful in sowing confusion and bucking tradition with his belligerent response to the results.
Days after vote tallies determined Biden had won the presidency, Trump’s campaign continues to insist that the “election is far from over” and has said it will continue to pursue legal challenges to the election results, though it has not cited specific evidence for such claims. Legal experts believe such litigation will not overturn the outcome.
In recent weeks and months, Beijing has been hypersensitive about not giving the appearance of interfering in American politics. China has long promoted a policy of staying out of the politics of other countries, but its government may be especially wary of the U.S. election this year since both Trump and Biden campaigned as the “tough on China” candidate.
“The dazzling dramas around the U.S. presidential election have been going on for quite some time,” a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in September amid accusations that China was interfering in the election on Biden’s behalf. “[The U.S.] can by all means save this game for themselves. We don’t ever want to be part of it.”
State media
Before Election Day, Chinese state media also was careful to not be seen as backing a specific candidate. Government authorities even reportedly pressured state media outlets to limit coverage of voting results in battleground states as they trickled in last week to avoid appearing biased toward either Biden or Trump.
Now that the election is over, Chinese state media seem to be abiding by Beijing’s official stance, showing reluctance to treat Biden as the President-elect unequivocally. At the same time, some publications have signaled that China is happy to have Trump gone.
After Biden secured the requisite 270 electoral votes on Saturday, The People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, tweeted “Haha” with a laughing emoji in reference to Trump’s claiming to win the election.
The People’s Daily has since deleted the tweet, but other media outlets have started referring to Biden as the likely next U.S. President, even as they refrain from declaring him the winner outright.
In an editorial on Sunday, the Global Times, a state-backed nationalist tabloid, wrote that it was a “foregone conclusion” that Biden would win the election. The editorial noted that “Western allies” had congratulated Biden, but the paper suggested that China would reserve its well-wishes until Trump concedes or electors officially cast their votes for Biden in December—whichever comes first.
The editorial argued that even though Trump repeatedly attacked China, a Biden presidency may not bring about friendlier relations between the two superpowers.
“China should not harbor any illusions that Biden’s election will ease or bring a reversal to China-U.S. relations, nor should it weaken its belief in improving bilateral ties,” the Global Times wrote on Sunday.


fortune--2020-11-09--These are the biggest winners and losers of the ‘Biden bump’ rally

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.
Good morning, Bull Sheeters. From Tokyo to London (and beyond), global investors are cheering the Joe Biden victory with remarkable enthusiasm— there’s green on the screens just about everywhere. Investor giddiness can be measured in the aptly named MSCI All-Country World Index, which hit an all-time high on Monday.
Meanwhile, coronavirus cases over the weekend topped 50 million worldwide, with over 20 million in the U.S. and Europe alone. Even still, it’s a risk-on day.
Let’s see where investors are putting their money.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are booming in afternoon trading with Japan’s Nikkei up 2.1% .
are booming in afternoon trading with Japan’s up . From Fiji to Israel, Germany to Canada, world leaders were quick to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden over the weekend. One notable exception so far has been China ‘s Xi Jinping. But some in China’s state media are speaking out, saying they see the change in power as an opportunity to establish a kind of Beijing-Washington reset .
‘s Xi Jinping. But some in China’s state media are speaking out, saying they see the change in power as an opportunity to establish a kind of . Netflix is making a big investment in developing original content from the Asia Pacific region, hoping to build on its latest growth surge from this market.
Europe
The European bourses are in the green with Germany’s DAX up 1.9% an hour into the trading day.
are in the green with up an hour into the trading day. British PM Boris Johnson was one of the first to congratulate Biden on Saturday. He no doubt had an eye on the week ahead in which a key Brexit trade talks deadline looms . Britain’s creaky economy can ill afford a messy break with the EU and tarnished relations with the U.S.
was one of the first to congratulate Biden on Saturday. He no doubt had an eye on the week ahead in which a key trade talks . Britain’s creaky economy can ill afford a messy break with the EU and tarnished relations with the U.S. A reboot with the U.S. is also what EU trade ministers are seeking in the post-Trump era. A big test comes this week as the European Commission is poised to slap $4 billion worth of tariffs on U.S. goods, part of the tit-for-tat Boeing-Airbus subsidy case that invades sector after sector in transatlantic trade.
U.S.
U.S. futures point to another strong open. That’s after all three major exchanges rallied last week, with the S&P 500 ratcheting its best week since April .
point to another strong open. That’s after all three major exchanges rallied last week, with the ratcheting its . Shares in Berkshire Hathaway were flat in pre-market trading after Warren Buffett’s conglomerate posted a big bottom-line beat , helped by gains in its investments.
, helped by gains in its investments. The corporate earnings season isn’t over. McDonald’s, Walt Disney, Cisco all report this week.
Elsewhere
Gold is up, trading around $1,960/ounce .
is up, trading around . The dollar is down.
is down. Crude is up, with Brent futures trading above $40/barrel .
is up, with futures trading above . Bitcoin continues to churn higher, trading above $15,300.
***
Winners and losers: post-election edition
Last Monday in this space, I broke down the winners and losers for October, something I usually do on the first trading day of the month. I’m going back to the well this morning to update the numbers after last week’s rally.
As I mentioned last Monday, October had a Jekyll and Hyde feel. The first half boomed. The second half cratered, as stimulus talks flamed out and COVID cases spiked.
At this time last week, things looked highly uncertain as we headed into a volatile election week. To recap: Germany’s Dax had fallen more than 9% and the Dow was nearly 5% last month. Much of that damage occurred in the second half of the month.
All that pessimism, however, got wiped out once it became clearer to investors that Biden would prevail. On cue, stocks, gold (up 3.1%) and Bitcoin (up 12.7%) all rallied. The Nasdaq has climbed 8.6% since Election Day. The safe-haven dollar, always a popular trade when stocks are down, sunk 1.8% in that time.
Are investors (yet again) getting ahead of themselves? After all, President Trump has yet to concede. He may never concede.
But the global markets and world leaders have concluded it’s game over for the Trump Administration. And that’s enough to remove a cloud of uncertainty—the dreaded contested election—that had been hanging over the markets for weeks. It’s also enough to ignite the rally we’ve seen over the past week.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is a market that seems to see all news as good news. Layoffs, second waves, lockdowns, recession fears—none of that can keep investor enthusiasm down for long.
Watch this space. I’ll be be back at the end of the month with another winner/loser breakdown.
***
Postscript
Ottobrata romana is an expression you hear a lot in Rome this time of year. (More so during the month of October.) It’s how you describe the sublime Indian summer weather—the sunny days, the gentle breezes, the high-pressure that sits over the city—that’s common throughout the month.
This year, that warm spell is bleeding into November, which is a real blessing for a country that’s back in a modified kind of COVID lockdown. Here in Rome, that means bars and restaurants shut down at 6 p.m. Museums, malls and gyms have closed for the entire month.
But we have the great outdoors, and the weather is still lovely—about as lovely, I imagine, as it was in Philadelphia this weekend when revelers took to the streets to dance.
With Fortune’s all-hands-on-deck election coverage quieting down, I could finally shut down my laptop and get back on my bike. On Sunday, bright and early, I headed out for the Appia antica to weave my way out of town. I’ve written about the Appian Way in this space before. But have I ever mentioned Horace?
I don’t believe so.
Horace was a well-connected poet during the reign of Augustus. He had the ear of those in power, and was often their spokesman. A gifted wordsmith and polymath, Horace had a front row seat as Rome expanded from republic to empire.
It was Horace who described the Appian Way as the “queen” of the ancient highways. And, much of her grandeur, more than 2,000 years of it, is still visible today.
The Appian Way, on the outskirts of Rome, one of the oldest and most majestic of ancient Rome’s impressive networks of roadways and trade routes. Original photo: Bernhard Warner
In Satires, Horace wrote about his journey along the Appian Way from Rome to Brindisi, down South where the road ends. His poem reads like a sort of bumbling travelogue, but the true reason for the journey was anything but a lighthearted jaunt. As the historian Erik Jensen notes, Horace was part of a diplomatic team whose mission it was to make peace between Augustus and the forces loyal to Mark Antony.
To say these were fraught times is an understatement. The republic was as divided as ever. The last thing war-weary Romans wanted was another Caesar to plunge them back into battle.
Spoiler: that peace mission ultimately failed.
But there’s something enduring about Horace’s great Appian Way journey. He brought back to the capital a story of life beyond “great Rome,” as he calls it. He met a whole mix of people on the road, many of them industrious, kindhearted souls who helped him on his journey. They swapped tales and meals and jokes.
There was nothing overtly political about Horace’s poem, and yet there was something radical about it. In Satires 1.5, Horace leaves us with a hardly subtle reminder that we need each other to finish our journeys, to help us get from point A to point B. And, if we don’t bother to lend a hand or just say hello to a stranger, then the whole journey is kinda pointless, anyhow.
Horace doesn’t get preachy. The ending of his poem is fairly anti-climactic, actually.
He writes, “I have been taught that the gods live a life free from care/ that if nature presents a marvel it is not the gods/ who send it down from the heights of heaven in their anger./ At Brundisium both our journey and my paper came to an end.”
And this is where Postscript comes to an end today—signing off from “great Rome,” wondering where our great, collective journey goes from here.
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's reads
The stimulus trade. Remember how the on-again-off-again negotiation was hanging like a dark cloud over the markets for much of October? Should Republicans hold on to control of the U.S. Senate, the logic goes, a generous new spending plan is all but dead. But if the Dems manage to win the two Georgia run-offs in January—a big if—it's a certainty. Here's what's on the line for investors.
Gridlock is good for stocks. Right? Well, not so fast. The historical data shows that not all flavors of split power are good for stocks. For example, a Democrat in the White House, a Republican controlled Senate and a Democrat House perform far better than a Republican-held White House with a split Congress. The Wall Street Journal crunches the numbers going back to 1928.
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Market candy
Quote of the day
Only in 2020 would CEOs welcome a new President who promises to raise their taxes, intensify business regulation, and massively empower labor unions. But then this is no ordinary year.
That's Fortune's Geoff Colvin who details what a Biden administration means for business.


fortune--2020-11-09--Apple suspended new business for one of its iPhone suppliers

Apple Inc. suspended new business with key supplier Pegatron Corp. after discovering labor violations at a student workers’ program, taking strong action to clean up its Chinese-focused production chain.
The Cupertino, California-based technology giant said it discovered several weeks ago that the Taiwanese iPhone manufacturer misclassified student workers and allowed some to work nights and overtime in violation of Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct. Apple has since placed its partner on probation and won’t give them new business until corrective action is completed.
Pegatron is one of just a handful of partners Apple relies on globally to assemble marquee products such as the iPhone. Like larger rival Foxconn or Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the Taiwanese company is an integral part of Apple’s global supply chain, which has been the target of criticism by labor activists over the years. Pegatron’s shares gave up gains and closed down 2.1% in Taipei.
“We have a rigorous review and approval process for any student worker program, which ensures the intern’s work is related to their major and prohibits overtime or night shifts,” Apple said in a statement. “Pegatron misclassified the student workers in their program and falsified paperwork to disguise violations of our Code, including allowing students to work nights and/or overtime and in some cases to perform work unrelated to their major.”
Apple is in the middle of producing four new iPhone models with 5G, and has been working with Pegatron to expand iPhone production outside of China. Those efforts are unlikely to be impacted by this suspension, which was first reported by local outlet The Paper, as it only covers new business.
“Upon discovery of this non-compliant activity, we immediately took the student workers off production lines and worked with our customer and third-party experts to make appropriate arrangements for them to return to their homes or schools with proper compensation alongside all necessary support and care,” Pegatron said in a statement.
Apple said it didn’t find evidence of forced or underage labor but discovered the supplier falsified paperwork to hide violations. Pegatron has fired the manager who oversaw the student worker program, it added. “The individuals at Pegatron responsible for the violations went to extraordinary lengths to evade our oversight mechanisms,” the U.S. company said.
The consumer technology giant added that it will continue working to strengthen its oversight mechanisms and that its focus is on ensuring that its supply chain workers are “protected and treated with dignity and respect.”
Pegatron said the violations took place at its Shanghai and Kunshan campuses in eastern China and that students working night shifts, over-time, and in positions unrelated to their majors was “not in compliance with local rules and regulations.” It said it took “quick action” and worked with an external firm to strengthen its procedures, and will add assessments of adherence to the code of conduct to metrics used to evaluate senior management.


fortune--2020-11-09--Why a Biden presidency won’t end the U.S.-China trade war

After days of nail-biting vote tallying and two false declarations of victory by President Donald Trump, during which he questioned the legitimacy of the democratic process, Joe Biden has emerged as the next President of the United States. But while the Trump era is coming to an end, the U.S.-China trade war that was a hallmark of the Trump presidency is likely to continue.
During his time in office, which officially ends in January, Trump imposed tariffs on $370 billion worth of Chinese imports, beginning in mid-2018. Beijing retaliated in kind, putting tariffs on close to $200 billion of U.S. imports.
In January this year, the two sides reached a truce and signed the Phase 1 trade deal, which froze tariff hikes and committed China to making $200 billion in additional purchases from the U.S. by 2021.
China is currently behind schedule on that commitment but, in the later months of the year, Beijing tried to boost its imports of American goods to make up for lost ground. Bo Zhuang, chief China economist at TS Lombard, suggested Beijing’s halfhearted push to uphold its end of the deal showed the government was just stalling until after the election.
But now that the election is over and Biden is destined for the White House, it’s unlikely he’ll bring the trade war to a quick end since the U.S. grievances underlying the conflict remain unresolved.
Keep the good
Despite deeming Chinese President Xi Jinping a “thug” and calling out Beijing’s incarceration of millions of Uighurs in Xinjiang during the Democratic debate in February, Biden’s rhetoric toward China has been markedly more constrained than Trump’s.
Biden’s relative restraint allowed the Trump campaign to label the now President-elect as soft on China. But analysts don’t expect—or even advise—Biden to simply walk back anti-China policies put in place by Trump.
“A Biden administration would need to redefine China strategy on many levels, including laying out a more coherent approach to decoupling—or prudent disengagement—that U.S. businesses and allies understand,” say analysts at independent consultancy Rhodium Group. “It should pick the elements of Trump’s approach that worked, jettison those that have not, and reframe the U.S.-China narrative.”
Tech transfers and tariffs
It’s easy to forget that Trump’s trade war was largely instigated as a response to China’s ambitious “Made in China 2025” policy, which has set aside billions of dollars in funding to make China a leader in advanced technology, displacing the U.S. One key component of that strategy is the requirement that foreign firms transfer tech and know-how to local partners in China in exchange for access to the lucrative Chinese market.
In the early days of the trade war, the Trump administration’s trade negotiators pushed China to abandon that policy of “forced tech transfers.” But as China proved unyielding, focus shifted to securing a boost in U.S. exports.
Trump’s tactic of imposing tariffs to batter Beijing into abandoning the policy isn’t widely endorsed by economists. U.S. companies have largely footed the costs of tariffs, shelling out roughly $46 billion by the end of 2019. The tariffs’ hit to the general U.S. economy is steeper: In 2019, Bloomberg Economics estimated the trade war would shave $316 billion off the U.S. economy by the end of 2020.
Still, Kurt Campbell, an adviser to the Biden campaign, told the Wall Street Journal that the Democratic Party largely believes Trump was right to call out China’s “predatory practices.”
Biden has criticized Trump’s application of tariffs as “reckless” and says that the Phase 1 trade deal delivers “precious little” for the U.S. But the Biden campaign has claimed it won’t just roll back those tariffs. In May, the now President-elect told the United Steelworkers union that he would continue to use tariffs against China “when they are needed.”
Biden claims that unlike Trump he has “a strategy…to use those tariffs to win, not just to fake toughness.” For Biden, winning likely means mitigating the effects of China’s hefty subsidies for domestic manufacturers, which enable Chinese companies to compete on price, and trade theft. He told Bloomberg those issues were “at the heart” of the trade war.
Buy American
To counter China’s advance, Biden has proposed a $300 billion “Innovate in America” fund to bolster research and development in the U.S. The innovation pot is separate from a $400 billion “Buy American” fund Biden has proposed to support the purchase of domestic goods.
Taken together, the two policies seek to keep onshore the manufacturing of high-value and critical supplies—such as medical equipment, 5G telecom hardware, and electric vehicles—so that the U.S. isn’t “dependent on China.”
Not everyone thinks that will work. Daniel Rosen, a founding partner at Rhodium Group, wrote in August that the experience of both China and the U.S. shows huge federal funding can be a “counterproductive” means to spur innovation.
“Just because we now wish we had cultivated an indigenous 5G telecommunications industry doesn’t mean that interventions would have allowed us to do so,” Rosen writes. “Washington must take a more active role in enabling innovation, but this must be targeted and well considered.”
The domestic funding component of Biden’s trade policy will also be subject to congressional approval, but it’s unclear whether his plans will pass a Senate that could be Republican-controlled.
There’s still a lot Biden can do on his own. In fact, Trump’s trade war tariffs were enacted by executive order. If Biden can’t garner congressional support for his plans to bolster the domestic industry, he might continue Trump’s more protectionist policies. Or, without domestic alternatives available, Biden may be forced to grant China more concessions.
But even with so much left uncertain for the moment, from China’s point of view, a Biden presidency should at least be a little more predictable than the past four years of President Trump.


fortune--2020-11-09--Black women put Kamala Harris in the White House. Here’s how they feel about making history

When Jotaka Eaddy watched Kamala Harris take the stage on Saturday night as Vice President-elect, her reaction was one of “pure joy.”
“I thought about the rich legacy of Black women that made this moment possible who are no longer with us,” says Eaddy, the founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies. “I thought about the Black women of Delta Sigma Theta who marched for suffrage in 1913. I thought about Fannie Lou Hamer. I thought about Shirley Chisholm, and how she was mistreated. I thought about all the Black women that have been organizing together—you just are grateful to be able to witness such a moment in your lifetime.”
In winning the presidential election alongside Joe Biden, Harris marked a massive set of milestones in American politics: she will be the first woman—and notably the first Black woman and first Indian-American woman—in history to serve as Vice President in the U.S. Eaddy’s response to that accomplishment marries two themes of this election. First, the resonance of Harris’s presence on the Democratic ticket. And second, the work Black women did to get her to the White House.
Eaddy is the founder of #WinWithBlackWomen, a collective that worked to elect the Biden-Harris ticket throughout this campaign. She is one of the 91% of Black women whose support proved crucial to Democrats in winning the 2020 race.
Of all demographics, Black women most consistently support Democratic candidates. Their turnout and loyalty has inspired others supportive of the Biden campaign to express public gratitude for helping Democrats defeat President Trump.
That acknowledgement comes with mixed emotions for Black women, many of whom are moved to see Harris in the nation’s second-highest office—but want more than simple praise every four years for how they vote.
“We consistently get out and recruit people to vote. But I think about Breonna Taylor—when things like that happen and it comes time to get justice, we don’t get that. But when it’s time to put democracy on our backs, people are in awe and amazed of what we as Black women do,” says Ashley Hicks, a 34-year-old Washington, D.C. resident and senior director at an education technology company. “After that wears off, we’re back to square one of being mostly ignored and not appreciated or valued for what we bring to American society.”
This time, at least, the Black women who helped the Democratic ticket win were fighting for a fellow Black woman (and for Hicks, a fellow Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister). Among the #WinWithBlackWomen collective, the group of almost 200 influential Black female leaders urged Biden, earlier in the presidential contest, to choose a Black woman as his VP “not only because we wanted a Black women on the ticket, but because we knew it was a pathway to victory,” says Eaddy.
That prediction rang true for voters like Ashley Bankhead, a 28-year-old Washington, D.C. resident and account manager. “Seeing more of these Black women in politics, it makes me more engaged,” she says. “Seeing people in political leadership roles who also look like me makes me care more, makes me want to show up and make sure I’m voting.”
The history-making nature of this electoral victory made a difference in how some Black female voters felt about their decisive influence—and emphasized how crucial it is for Black women to support each other, says Minda Harts, the author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table.
“This showed the collective power Black women have to help each other rise,” says Harts. “When we collaborate, we can change history.”
With Harris in the White House, some are hopeful that the gratitude for Black women may not fade for the next four years this time around. It’s a message Harris herself brought home during her acceptance speech on Saturday. “While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” she said onstage, “because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
“That message resonates with me,” says Harts. “It’s about bringing others along with you. I know that visual on that stage in Delaware will signal to CEOs, to companies, to board members, that you can sponsor women of color, you can sponsor Black women—and look how we can change history.”


fortune--2020-11-10--Here’s how President-elect Biden plans to tackle online abuse

President-elect Joe Biden is no stranger to the problems plaguing social media. Twice during his campaign, he criticized Facebook for not doing do more to fight misinformation.
After taking office in January, Biden plans to tackle another big online crisis: harassment and abuse. He says he’ll create a task force focusing on the connection between online threats and stalking, and real-world consequences like extremism and violence.
The task force is expected to be filled by state and federal leaders, law enforcement, policy advocates, and technology experts. The goal is to come up with recommendations for how governments, social media companies, schools, and other entities can address the problem.
“Nearly half of all Internet users report experiences of harassment or abuse,” a Biden campaign statement says. “The Biden Administration will shine a light on the online harassment, stalking, and abuse that now is a too-frequent reality for Americans, particularly for young people and women.”
In recent months, members of both political parties—for different reasons—have slammed Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for how they police content on their sites. In response, regulators are reviewing whether to change or repeal a law called Section 230 that protects companies from liability for what their users post.
Biden wants the task force to recommend a system that companies can use to publicly report harassment and the steps they took to stop it, and to come up with best practices for fixing the problem.
Twitter declined to comment to Fortune about the new task force. Instead, it referred to its own policies against harassment and hate, which critics say are insufficiently enforced.
Most recently, Twitter updated its policies to limit or prevent the spread of links that promote violence or include threats. It also expanded its rules against hateful conduct to include language that dehumanizes people based on their religion, age, disability or disease. And its testing ways to warn users that they may be posting hateful content before they post.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. But it, too, has recently cracked on what it considers unacceptable speech. Last month, for example, it created a new rule banning users from denying the Holocaust, but they can still deny genocides elsewhere.
In addition to creating a task force, Biden plans to fund training for law enforcement about combating online abuse. He also supports state and federal legislation that would give victims of revenge porn the ability to sue. For example, Biden supports legislation, known as the SHIELD Act, co-sponsored last year in the Senate by now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, that criminalizes revenge porn.


fortune--2020-11-09--Regulations could speed up, not slow down, A.I. progress

Andy Taylor has a goal both modest and ambitious: bring artificial intelligence, or A.I., to air traffic control for the first time. A career air traffic controller, Taylor was quick to see the potential benefits that advances in computer vision technology could bring to his profession.
Example: Every time a plane clears its runway, an air traffic controller must flag it and notify the next plane that the runway is free. This simple, repetitive task takes controllers’ attention away from everything else that’s happening on the tarmac. Even short delays can add up considerably over the course of a day—especially at airports such as London’s Heathrow, where Taylor works, which has flights booked end-to-end from six in the morning till 11:30 at night.
What if an A.I. system could handle this work autonomously? Taylor now leads the groundbreaking effort by NATS, Britain’s sole air traffic control provider, to answer that question, and to bring A.I. to bear on this and related air traffic control tasks.
His biggest obstacle to innovation? The nonexistence of A.I. safety regulations for aviation.
That a lack of regulations might obstruct innovators like Taylor might be counterintuitive to some. After all, arguments around regulation usually pit proponents of unencumbered innovation against those concerned about social harms resulting from unchecked competition.
The Trump administration falls into the former camp, advocating that agencies adopt a light-touch approach toward new regulations, which it feels could “needlessly hamper A.I. innovation and growth.”
So do many Silicon Valley elites—an increasingly powerful political constituency with a well-documented distaste for regulation.
But while a hands-off approach might foster innovation on the Internet, in aviation and other industries it can be an obstacle to progress. In a report from UC Berkeley’s AI Security Initiative, I explain why. Part of the problem is that safety regulations for aviation are both extensive and deeply incompatible with A.I., necessitating broad revisions and additions to existing rules.
For example, aircraft certification processes follow a logic-based approach in which every possible input and output receives attention and analysis. But this approach often doesn’t work for A.I. models, many of which react differently even to slight perturbations of input, generating a nearly infinite number of outcomes to consider.
Addressing this challenge isn’t a mere matter of modifying existing regulatory language: It requires novel technical research on building A.I. systems with predictable and explainable behavior and the development of new technical standards for benchmarking safety and other performance criteria. Until these standards and regulations are developed, firms will have to build safety cases for A.I. applications entirely from scratch—a tall order, even for pathbreaking firms like NATS.
“It’s absolutely a challenge,” Taylor told me earlier this year, “because there’s no guidance or requirements that I can point to and say, ‘I’m using that particular requirement.’”
A further issue is that air traffic control firms, as well as manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus, know that new rules for A.I. are inevitable. While they are eager to reap the cost and safety benefits offered by A.I., most are understandably reluctant to make serious investments without confidence that the resulting product will be compatible with future regulations.
The result could be a major slowdown in A.I. adoption: Without more resources for regulators and strong leadership from the White House, the process of setting standards and developing A.I.-appropriate regulations will take years or even decades.
The incoming Biden administration is poised to offer that leadership, striking a contrast with the Trump administration’s light-touch approach to A.I. governance.
Business leaders and technologists have a key role to play in influencing the Biden administration’s attitude toward A.I. regulation. They might start by encouraging the administration to prioritize A.I. safety research and regulatory frameworks for A.I. that support innovation in aviation and other industries. Or they could do what they do best: develop prototype solutions in the private sector (for a great example, see OpenAI’s proposal of regulatory markets for A.I. governance).
If successful, these efforts could free up Andy Taylor and other entrepreneurs to innovate in safety-critical industries from aviation to health care to the military. If not, a handful of companies like NATS will still try to develop new A.I. applications in these industries. But it won’t be easy and could increase the risk of accidents. The potential benefits of A.I.—improved medical diagnoses, affordable urban air mobility, and much more—would remain technically feasible, but always a few years away.
Pro-innovation business leaders and technologists should therefore worry less about new regulations slowing down progress and instead work on developing the smart regulations required to speed it up.
Will Hunt is a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a political science Ph.D. student at the University of California at Berkeley. He has coauthored commentary on technology policy in the Wall Street Journal, and he was previously a graduate researcher at the UC Berkeley AI Security Initiative.