fortune--2020-04-03--Marvel adjusts release calendar; ‘Mulan’ moves to late July

The Walt Disney Co. on Friday overhauled its release schedule by moving the dates of half a dozen Marvel movies, announcing a new one for the live-action adaption of “Mulan” and pushing the fifth “Indiana Jones” film another year in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Black Widow,” the Marvel entry starring Scarlett Johansson, had been set to kick off the summer movie season. Instead, Disney said it will now open Nov. 6. Such delays have unique ramifications for Marvel movies because of their interconnection. With “Black Widow” on the move, that meant a domino effect, pushing all upcoming Marvel releases back about three months.
“Black Widow” took the release date of “The Eternals,” which now moves to February 21 next year. “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” departs that February date for May 7, 2021. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” shifts from May next year to Nov. 5, 2021. And “Thor: Love and Thunder” is pushed three months, to Feb. 18, 2022.
Disney isn’t abandoning the summer completely. “Mulan,” which been scheduled for March and already had its red carpet premiere, will now open July 24. That release date, of course, is subject to movie theaters being reopened by then and the pandemic subsiding.
While Disney shifted nearly all of its big-budget movies, it’s going to send one to its streaming service. The Kenneth Branagh-directed science fiction adventure adaptation “Artemis Foul” will go to Disney Plus instead of opening in theaters. The movie had originally been slate for release last August but had been rescheduled for May of this year. With the exception of Universal’s “Trolls World Tour,” the major studios have chosen to delay their top releases rather than push them to digital release and sacrifice box-office revenue.
The fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, which Steven Spielberg last month departed as director with James Mangold replacing him, is being delayed a year to July 2022. Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” is also delayed from July to Oct. 16.
On Thursday, the Walt Disney Co. announced they will start furloughing some workers in two weeks at its theme parks resorts in Florida and California.
More must-read entertainment coverage from Fortune:
—Hollywood’s pandemic diaries: How execs and creatives are working, and coping, at home
—Hulu could be an essential streaming service—if Disney figures out what to do with it
—What to watch on Netflix while social distancing
—What to watch on Disney+ while social distancing
—What to watch on Amazon Prime while social distancing
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: One on one with Grace Potter
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-03--From more jobs to Prime perks, Amazon’s list of coronavirus efforts is long—and growing

There are likely more unemployed Americans right now than at any time in history

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Few companies’ services are as vital to homebound life as Amazon’s. That rings even truer amid the despoliation of the coronavirus.
With its vast computing reserves, gargantuan logistics networks, raft of popular products, and enviably padded coffers, Amazon is uniquely situated to offer aid. Jay Carney, Amazon’s top spokesperson, told CNN this week that the company hosts daily meetings, attended by Jeff Bezos, its billionaire CEO and founder, for “brainstorming about what else we can do” about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even as Amazon pitches in during the crisis, critics issue gripes. The online retailer is struggling to meet a surge in demand for deliveries. It says it’s prioritizing essential supplies over products deemed less urgent, and it is removing listings for certain supplies, like coveted N95 masks.
Each day brings another controversy. On the company’s marketplace, let’s not forget the hand sanitizer hoarder. Internally, warehouse employees are protesting alleged unsafe working conditions, crowded facilities, and a general lack of hygiene. On Monday, Amazon fired one worker who organized a walkout—a situation whose negative optics were compounded when unsavory remarks about the worker made by one executive came to light, per a memo leaked to Vice.
Yet, despite the dents to its reputation, Amazon is doing more than most other businesses in this trying time. One can view its partnerships, donations, and promises as magnanimous and charitable, valiantly rising to the occasion. Or, more cynically, they can be interpreted as a corporation cleverly capitalizing on a crisis, acquiring new customers, staffing up amid a glut of layoffs, and attempting to restore goodwill with regulators.
Probably, it’s a little of all that. But whether Amazon’s motivations are altruistic, self-serving, or a little of both, its efforts are nonetheless a reminder of how large corporations can help combat the coronavirus.
Below is a breakdown of what Amazon is doing. We’ve split the list into four broad business segments: cloud (Amazon Web Services); consumer (devices, streaming services); community (logistics, delivery); and company (employees, laid-off workers). The company continues to update its activities on its Day One blog.
“People are depending on us,” as Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s billionaire CEO and founder, put it in a note last month. Is it enough?
Cloud
Amazon is home to Amazon Web Services, a cloud-computing business and profit center that is the envy of rival tech giants. Amazon is putting its spare computational power to good use fighting the pandemic.
Tapping into its cloud power, Amazon has…
Joined the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition, a group of medical and tech companies that are crunching numbers to curb the spread of the disease
Joined the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, lending computing resources to scientists and researchers
Partnered with Electronic Caregiver, a virtual health care service, to help people detect and treat COVID-19 using the voice-powered chatbots of Amazon Lex
Partnered with Conduent, a Xerox spinoff that automates businesses processes like organizing lab results, to help government agencies better track COVID-19’s spread
Consumer
From Prime to Echo to Twitch, Amazon has no shortage of popular services. People stuck at home or in bed are itching for entertainment options. Rumor has it Amazon is also looking to develop its own video games, a potentially smart move given that this is one of the few booming segments in an economy otherwise wrecked by shutdowns.
On the consumer front, Amazon has…
Community
Part of what makes Amazon work is its ability to reach everyone’s front doors. The company’s extensive delivery network is a marvel of supply chain engineering.
Across communities, Amazon has…
Teamed up with Gourmondo, a food-delivery firm, to distribute 73,000 meals to elderly and medically vulnerable residents in the Seattle area
Distributed millions of coronavirus test kits to critical workers in partnership with Royal Mail in the U.K.
Increased its capacity for grocery delivery and pickup through Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market
Donated more than 250,000 critical items to patients in quarantine or recovering across the Seattle area
Company
Amazon has come under fire for the workplace conditions facing its employees, especially warehouse workers. But the company says it is taking their safety seriously and making improvements. Amazon is also lending a hand to the many millions of people who find themselves suddenly unemployed.
For workers and job-seekers, Amazon has…
That’s a long list, but Amazon is adding more to it each day. As we were compiling it, on Thursday, Bezos donated $100 million to Feeding America, a nonprofit food bank charity. With President Trump extending social distancing guidelines through the end of April, surely there’s more to come.
Jaclyn Gallucci contributed reporting to this story.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Millions won’t be able to pay their bills this month. What financial experts advise
—“It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program
—The stock market had its worst quarter since 1987—and its worst Q1 ever
—How to job hunt during the coronavirus pandemic
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-03--FedEx is shipping tens of thousands of coronavirus tests to labs each week

The recently-announced initiative to offer coronavirus tests in the parking lots of several major U.S. retailers and at community centers is starting to ramp up, according to one of the delivery companies working on it.
FedEx Express, the delivery giant’s rush service, told Fortune that it is now handling the delivery of swabs taken at federal community-based sites, as well as at a handful of drive-up sites at national store chains, to testing labs.
The initiative to use big retailers’ large stores was announced three weeks ago, on March 13, by President Trump and the chief executives of Walmart and Target and senior executives of Walgreens and CVS pharmacy, along with C-suite executives at the health care companies carrying out the tests, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp.
The goal was to make testing widely available by offering them in the parking lots of the country’s largest store chains. Those retailers operate nearly 30,000 stores in all parts of the country. The ramp-up has been slow as the companies figure out logistics and wait for tests to become more widely available.
But the volume is starting to rise, says FedEx Express. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told Fortune on Friday that there are currently 41 federal community-based testing sites.
FedEx Express CEO Donald Colleran said that because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and HHS need swabs to be delivered overnight to labs, even if taken on the weekend, the company has added 28 flight legs by tapping its network of planes and trucks. It does not typically offer overnight service on weekends.
The $14-billion-a-year FedEx unit had to quickly spring into action to create that extra infrastructure to pick up tests and deliver them: Colleran said the White House approached the company on March 13, the day of the press conference.
“We have a really unique seat to what’s going on,” said Colleran, who took the reins of FedEx Express last year after more than three decades at the company.
The initial test case was at a CVS pharmacy store’s parking lot last week in Shrewsbury, Mass., just outside Boston—the first drive-up location. Others have followed, including two Walmart parking lots near Chicago and at a Rite-Aid in Philadelphia. At first, the tests were available only for emergency workers and not the general public. But at some locations, including the Shrewsbury CVS, that is being expanded to people 65 and older with symptoms. Last weekend alone, FedEx Express delivered 20,000 tests to labs.
Because of the nature of the item being shipped, FedEx uses extra precautions, Colleran said. FedEx creates a “geo-fence around each package, which will include several specimens” so it can be tracked in real time on its way to the destination lab. The packages have features to monitor temperature and light variances to protect the tests.
“We’re the quarterback in all this in terms of logistics,” Colleran said.
Across the country, there is a race to get faster-result coronavirus tests widely available for the broader public. Most people cannot get a test if they have no symptoms, but if someone gets the green light for a test, it typically takes days to get the test done. As of April 1, only 1.3 million tests had been given in the United States.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Millions won’t be able to pay their bills this month. What financial experts advise
—What small businesses applying to the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program need to know
—The worst part of losing 10M jobs in 2 weeks? The real number may be much higher
—Why the U.S. is changing its mind on coronavirus face masks
—Americans face hunger crisis as SNAP benefits are harder for some to get
—Tax-exempt student loan assistance is now law. It’s time to make it permanent
—Hospitals are running low on the most critical supply of all: oxygen
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: 401(k) withdrawal penalties waived for anyone hurt by COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-03--Google’s mobility data shows how each state in the U.S. is faring with social distancing

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While Washington has yet to issue a national stay-at-home order, many states and businesses have taken it upon themselves to urge people to stay home to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. But for some people, cabin fever is proving too strong to overcome.
That’s dangerous, of course. Even if you feel healthy, you could be spreading the virus to others. Now Google has launched a new website that uses anonymous location data from users of its products and services to estimate how effective people are at social distancing on a state by state (and country by country) basis.
The COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports break the data down into six categories: Retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. The data can help health care officials determine up-and-coming coronavirus hotspots, but it can also help residents get a sense of how seriously people in their state are taking social distancing precautions.
The data is being updated regularly, so it’s always worth checking the site to see if neighbors are sheltering more or less as the situation evolves. (Google notes it should not be used for guidance on personal travel plans.) But, as of March 29 (the most recent data available at the time this story was written), here’s who seems to be paying the most attention to warnings.
A note on our methodology: Our comparisons focused on the retail and recreation and parks categories, since those are two of the most popular nonessential ways people could be leaving the house, but still potentially infecting others.
Here’s what we found: Retail and recreation traffic to places like restaurants, shopping centers, libraries, movie theaters, and cafés was down across the board. This isn’t especially surprising, given how many retailers are closing their doors to protect their employees and the general public.
Parks were a different matter, though. While many people were sheltering at home and avoiding public areas (including beaches, dog parks, plazas, and public gardens), several states saw explosions in traffic at these gathering spots. In fact, traffic in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Ohio more than doubled. And North Dakota was close behind.
Curious about the numbers in your state? Here’s a breakdown of traffic compared with the baseline.
Retail and Recreation: -41%
Parks: +19%
Retail and Recreation: -48%
Parks: +18%
Retail and Recreation: -40%
Parks: -7%
Retail and Recreation: -29%
Parks: +81%
Retail and Recreation: -50%
Parks: -38%
Retail and Recreation: -51%
Parks: -12%
Retail and Recreation: -56%
Parks: -52%
Retail and Recreation: -47%
Parks: -6%
Retail and Recreation: -64%
Parks: -41%
Retail and Recreation: -50%
Parks: -48%
Retail and Recreation: -48%
Parks: -2%
Retail and Recreation: -56%
Parks: -65%
Retail and Recreation: -42%
Parks: +25%
Retail and Recreation: -53%
Parks: -29%
Retail and Recreation: -48%
Parks: +24%
Retail and Recreation: -43%
Parks: +41%
Retail and Recreation: -36%
Parks: +72%
Retail and Recreation: -37%
Parks: +68%
Retail and Recreation: -45%
Parks: -18%
Retail and Recreation: -50%
Parks: -24%
Retail and Recreation: -45%
Parks: +29%
Retail and Recreation: -59%
Parks: -56%
Retail and Recreation: -58%
Parks: +15%
Retail and Recreation: -58%
Parks: +16%
Retail and Recreation: -32
Parks: +27
Retail and Recreation: -38%
Parks: +73%
Retail and Recreation: -51%
Parks: +28%
Retail and Recreation: -34%
Parks: +109%
Retail and Recreation: -47%
Parks: -38%
Retail and Recreation: -58%
Parks: -63%
Retail and Recreation: -59%
Parks: -36%
Retail and Recreation: -44%
Parks: -12%
Retail and Recreation: -62%
Parks: -47%
Retail and Recreation: -40%
Parks: +13%
Retail and Recreation: -44%
Parks: +73%
Retail and Recreation: -43%
Parks: +117%
Retail and Recreation: -36%
Parks: +29%
Retail and Recreation: -51%
Parks: -22%
Retail and Recreation: -50%
Parks: -7%
Retail and Recreation: -55%
Parks: -50%
Retail and Recreation: -38%
Parks: -4%
Retail and Recreation: -35%
Parks: +126%
Retail and Recreation: -35%
Parks: +35%
Retail and Recreation: -45%
Parks: -27%
Retail and Recreation: -41%
Parks: +26%
Retail and Recreation: -62%
Parks: -55%
Retail and Recreation: -39%
Parks: +46%
Retail and Recreation: -48%
Parks: -11%
Retail and Recreation: -38%
Parks: +52%
Retail and Recreation: -55%
Parks: -12%
Retail and Recreation: -37%
Parks: +29%
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Millions won’t be able to pay their bills this month. What financial experts advise
—What small businesses applying to the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program need to know
—The worst part of losing 10M jobs in 2 weeks? The real number may be much higher
—Why the U.S. is changing its mind on face masks
—Americans face hunger crisis as SNAP benefits are harder for some to get
—Tax-exempt student loan assistance is now law. It’s time to make it permanent
—Hospitals are running low on the most critical supply of all: oxygen
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: 401(k) withdrawal penalties waived for anyone hurt by COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-03--3 tips from Adobe on moving employee training online in response to the coronavirus

Like most big companies these days, Adobe was already working on replacing much of its face-to-face employee training with sessions in cyberspace, which began back in 2013. “We had been planning a big push to intensify training and coaching online next year,” says Danielle Clark, senior director of global talent development. “This has certainly accelerated that.”
“This” is, of course, the coronavirus crisis, which has kept all but a few of Adobe’s 23,000 employees worldwide working from home. But social distancing hasn’t interrupted, or even much slowed, Adobe’s training and development efforts, which are part of what makes it a coveted company to work for. After San Francisco’s “shelter in place” shutdown took effect in mid-March, Clark and her team quickly redesigned the company’s class sessions and moved them online—many in as little as 24 hours.
How’d they do that? Clark’s advice to any employer who would like to follow suit is threefold:
1. Less is more
Partly because technology makes it so easy, most managers’ first impulse is simply to shift as much current training and development content as possible into digital form and put it online. Instead, Clark suggests looking hard at everything you’re now making available to employees—and then cutting it roughly in half.
Deciding what to leave out can be tricky, but Clark points out that online attention spans are generally shorter than in person. That goes double now that homebound employees are probably grappling with unaccustomed distractions. The kind of training people want and need, and that is most likely to stick, boils each session down to “three key points,” Clark says.
“Between your own in-house content and what’s out there on the Internet, there are tons of content available on, for instance, EQ,” she adds. “But what do you most want employees to know about a given topic and use in their jobs? What are the three essential takeaways?”
2. Avoid one-way communication
Once you’ve figured out what those points are, and can present them concisely online, Clark recommends a thorough communication strategy. Except for training that’s intended to convey straight technical facts (on cybersecurity updates or compliance laws, for example), just moving a lecture-style class online won’t work. “People won’t be engaged,” she says. “They’ll spend half the session checking their phones.”
By contrast, the rule of thumb at Adobe is to make sure at least 50% of each training session is interactive. Trainers pose questions, run polls, moderate panel discussions, and invite audience comments. In late March, the company rolled out a worldwide platform that asks employees to “share their tips and observations about everything that’s going on,” says Clark. “So far, the feedback about that has been great. People love to hear from their peers.”
3. Have an outside online coaching platform
This is the final piece of Adobe’s online training strategy—and part of the reason the training team was able to adapt so quickly when COVID-19 hit. Adobe uses one called Pluma. The platform provides one-on-one skills coaching via in-app messaging and video chats.
Clark is a fan.“Pluma has been great for helping people see how to apply the training they’re getting online to specific situations, and to their own careers,” says Clark. Adobe plans to expand the Pluma coaching it offers employees over the next several months and into 2021.
By fostering bonds between individual employees and their coaches over a period of six months to a year, platforms like Pluma can prove especially useful in stressful moments—giving employees a way to get expert help with career strategy in these strange times, for instance, or even just giving them a place to vent.
Not only that, but “anxiety is distracting,” says Alexandra Connell, Pluma’s CEO. For training and development to be its most effective, she adds, “it’s crucial right now for companies to do everything they can to help people feel supported and stay focused.”
More must-read careers coverage from Fortune:
—4 ways to keep networking while social distancing
—17 companies that are hiring during the coronavirus crisis
—Why it’s important to know your communication style at work
—What is a 401(k)? And why do you need one?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: Can you be a leader and an introvert?
Get Fortune’s RaceAhead newsletter for sharp insights on corporate culture and diversity.


fortune--2020-04-03--The Coronavirus Economy: What happens to all the pop-up vendors working film festivals and trade sho

The Coronavirus Economy: What happens to all the pop-up vendors working film festivals and trade shows?

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Mobile World Congress is one of the most high-profile trade shows on the tech industry calendar each year. So when the GSMA Association, the global industry body representing mobile networks worldwide, canceled this year’s expo in Barcelona in early February, that set off the initial alarm bells for many.
One by one, major trade shows, film festivals, concerts, and more events that draw hundreds to thousands of people were canceled or—in a few cases, such as Coachella and the Summer Olympics—postponed.
But it is not just the likes of Silicon Valley executives and developers or Hollywood producers and writers who attend these events, which are propped up by multiple cottage industries of vendors and crew members.
Among them are pop-up vendors and designers, which often build out elaborate and memorable booths that will attract attendees and encourage them to share whatever the brand’s message might be, either via word of mouth, or more commonly these days, social media.
Brett Hyman, founder and president of NVE Experience Agency, explains that his company “develops distinct and data-driven experiences that are rooted in cultural context.” Among NVE’s clients are Amazon Prime, Adidas, Tinder, Sony PlayStation, and Twitter. In late February, NVE produced a booth for Lincoln town cars at the 2020 Grammys in Los Angeles, showcasing the new Lincoln Corsair in the center of a curated takeover of the Highlight Room at the Dream Hollywood hotel. NVE craned a brand-new Corsair onto the roof, and guests were greeted with 180-degree views of Los Angeles from the top of the hotel, with full vehicle displays at key touch points around the installation.
But with bans on all public gatherings of groups over 10 (and in some countries, more than two people), NVE and similar vendors have seen their business evaporate overnight.
Brett Hyman is the founder and president of NVE Experience Agency, which “develops distinct and data-driven experiences that are rooted in cultural context.” Courtesy of NVE Experience Agency
Fortune spoke with Hyman for a new series, The Coronavirus Economy, to ask about how the outbreak of COVID-19 has affected his business and plans for the future. Check out what he has to say in the exclusive video above.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—USPS might have to shutter by June as stimulus package provides no funding
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—Political activists make sure Americans register to vote—from a distance
—During the coronavirus crisis, equal pay is more important than ever
—Coronavirus fight could prove fatal for addressing climate change
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-03--Can the private sector provide better coronavirus data? Experts are skeptical

Confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. crossed 200,000 on Thursday, but experts agree the actual number of infected people is much higher. The lack of reliable data—a persistent problem since the pandemic began—has made it impossible to determine the actual size of the outbreak, hampering the U.S. response.
This may explain why health startups, which generate data of their own, are getting new attention during the crisis. The startups, which seek to harvest data from products and self-reporting online, believe they can collect and publish information that will provide a better picture of the pandemic—even as medical experts question if such data is reliable.
The most prominent of these startups is Kinsa, a maker of Internet-connected thermometers that has created an online map that purports to show “atypical” illness spikes in different U.S. counties. In past years, Kinsa says it has been two weeks ahead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in predicting flu outbreaks, and its CEO, Inder Singh, says its data can be a powerful tool during the current pandemic.
“The intuition is simple. If there’s rising level of fever in an area that doesn’t appear to be cold and flu, it’s something else—and that something else is COVID,” says Singh. “What we’re seeing is extraordinarily unusual—it’s a black swan event when it comes to data.”
Singh qualified his comments by noting the data Kinsa has produced for its COVID map has yet to be peer-reviewed, an important step in verifying the reliability of medical information. But he says the company’s data scientists are authorities in health and have been running similar models for years at the eight-year-old company.
Kinsa isn’t the only startup that wants to augment the data collected by government about the extent of coronavirus contagion. On Wednesday, entrepreneur and health consultant Jillian Kowalchuk, who claims to have caught the virus from the wife of Canada’s Prime Minister, launched an initiative called Operation COVID-19.
Operation COVID-19 aspires to collate a new data set based on anonymized, self-reported questionnaires. The project is open source, and Kowalchuk says the team building it includes developers from companies like Google.
“The more people who can contribute their COVID-19 experiences, we can turn the table on this pandemic and build more intelligence to save lives,” Kowalchuk told Fortune by email.
But while the prospect of more—and possibly better—data to assess the pandemic sounds promising, medical experts are doubtful that the startups can produce meaningful information.
James Hodge, director of the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University, says medical statisticians are unlikely to turn to private companies for health data. He described such data as “unreliable and unnecessary,” especially in the case of self-reported COVID cases.
“As for self-reporting, let’s just say that’s pretty useless,” said Hodge, noting that the potential for people to misdiagnosis their illness or provide false information in such situations is enormous.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, tech news site TechCrunch removed the article about Operation COVID-19 from its website, citing an absence of academic or medical validation for the project.
Statistical sampling
Shimrit Keddem, a Ph.D. statistician and medical researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, likewise expressed skepticism about private data collection efforts—including those of Kinsa, the smart thermometer company.
“There’s a huge potential for bias in that data, including the type of people who will buy the thermometer in the first place,” said Keddem, adding it was unlikely the Kinsa data offered an adequate geographic sample.
Both Keddem and Hodge said the best model for assessing the true number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. is the use of statistical sampling based on data from public health authorities.
This method, they say, is what informed the fatality projections of 100,000 to 200,000 recently put forth by the CDC and White House adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci. (While statistical sampling typically produces quite specific predictions, the projected range for fatalities is so broad in part because the mitigating effects of social distancing orders remain to be seen.)
Other academics, however, appear more open to new ways to gather COVID-related data. These include a consortium of researchers who on Thursday announced an app called “How We Feel,” which invites users to report health symptoms along with their zip code.
“Each health check-in may feel like a small act, but together they’ll make a huge difference for researchers like myself who are trying to understand this outbreak and develop intervention measures to control it,” said Xihong Lin, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard University, in a statement.
The consortium also includes researchers from Stanford University, Cornell University, and the University of Maryland, as well as a volunteer team from the social media company Pinterest.
Meanwhile, Singh, the Kinsa CEO, is adamant that his company—which like the CDC relies on statistical sampling to inform its predictions—can play a critical role in assessing the pandemic.
He says Kinsa is currently consulting with federal and state health authorities, and that it is sharing its analytics with them for free. Singh adds the company has also been working with cities like St. Augustine, Fla., to supply its thermometers to a larger share of the population and make its data more representative.
“We’re not a tech company trying to come in and revolutionize public health. We’re public health people using technology,” he says.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—How the coronavirus stimulus package would change gig worker benefits
—Inside the global push to 3D-print masks and ventilator parts
—Apple focuses on what’s next amid coronavirus outbreak
—A startup is building computer chips using human neurons
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-03--What to stream (and skip) at home this weekend

Stay home. As COVID-19 spreads, that’s the sentiment stressed by epidemiologists racing to combat the virus, who have implored Americans to avoid all nonessential travel and limit all person-to-person interactions. “Social distancing,” it seems, is our new normal—at least for now.
Though it can be challenging to look for silver linings in times as tumultuous as this, those sheltering indoors can at least rest assured that there’s now little reason to put off catching up on Netflix. And particularly with movie theaters shuttering across the country in response to the growing pandemic, Americans are looking to VOD and streaming platforms in search of their next binge-watch.
Fortune’s (still) here to help you navigate the week’s latest offerings, boiling down all the entertainment out there to a few distinct recommendations: Put more simply, should you rent it, stream it, or skip it? Find out below.
RENT: ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ (VOD)
This soft-spoken, hard-hitting film, the latest from Beach Rats director Eliza Hittman—a word-of-mouth sensation after its Sundance Film Festival premiere earlier this year—saw its theatrical run curtailed by the closure of movie theaters nationwide in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Moving quickly, Focus Features is making it available on VOD platforms today, a relief to those worried the film—one of 2020’s strongest so far—would fall too soon from audience radars. That would have been a crying shame, given the all-important specificity and compassion with which Never Rarely Sometimes Always approaches its seldom-discussed subject.
Those who heard the film discussed ahead of its original theatrical bow will know it as an “abortion drama,” and that’s entirely accurate, though its framing of the odyssey one Pennsylvania teenager, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), undertakes to terminate her unwanted pregnancy is quietly radical all the same. Compared with past films on the subject, which often emanate a raised-fist fury toward patriarchal systems that work to deny women agency over their own bodies, Never Rarely Sometimes Always stands out most through its naturalism.
Through Hittman’s precise script and graceful direction, there’s little accommodation for moral hand-wringing, and in that restraint exists a striking aversion to big-picture lensing, something that allows Never Rarely to maintain unblinking, gradually mesmeric focus on its young protagonist. Hittman, an established force in the independent film world, is exceptional at spotting young talent, and that’s entirely true of Never Rarely. Flanigan, her performance carried by quick-flickering expressions and an air of worn resignation, is a remarkable find. Excellent, too, is Talia Ryder as Autumn’s devoted cousin, who accompanies her through the hellish bowels of New York City as they seek her treatment at a clinic there.
As the pair navigate the big city, low on funds and ground down by a world in which men loom as obstacles at every turn (from the sneering grocery store manager who’s unsympathetic to Autumn’s morning sickness, to a subway pervert whose entitlement is just as upsetting), Hittman pulls no punches. The misogynistic nightmare that is modern America comes, gradually, brutally, into focus. But Never Rarely doesn’t need melodrama to drive its points home, and it’s more of a character study than an issue picture. That cinema-verité approach matters, putting the raw humanity of its young characters on full display; if there was ever a film that could change hearts and minds about abortion, this is it.
STREAM: ‘Tales From the Loop’ (Amazon)
There’s never been a sci-fi series quite like Amazon’s Tales From the Loop, a mournful and invitingly mysterious new anthology adapted not from books or pre-existing films but the viral, prescient-meets-pastoral paintings of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag.
The creative appeal of Stålenhag’s paintings (many of which are viewable on his website) is manifest; they often blend together mundane countryside vistas with science-fiction elements that loom over their surroundings or fit so naturally into the backdrop one begins to question whether they’ve always been there, new gods asserting their place amid the old ones. Conceptually as well as visually, they wrestle with questions as much philosophical as they are logistical, provoking lengthy thought-trains about how the future of civilization will alter even its most rural reaches.
In translating that tone to the screen, showrunner Nathaniel Halpern has made a number of smart choices—at least within the hypnotic, gently moving first three episodes, out of a total eight, sent to critics ahead of the series’ premiere. Set in the quiet hamlet of Mercer, which rests atop a sprawling underground particle accelerator known as the Loop, the series broadly concerns itself with the emotional and existential connections among townsfolk, none of whom are really main characters. Instead, in a way most reminiscent of Amazon’s little-known Philip K. Dick miniseries Electric Dreams from two years back, the residents of Mercer drift in and out of loosely connected but mostly stand-alone stories, all of them governed by the surreal and sometimes wondrous energies the Loop harnesses.
Halpern has brought in a remarkably capable crew of collaborators to realize the chilly and beautiful world of this series, with director Mark Romanek setting the tone through a particularly somber, enigmatic tale of Loretta (Abby Ryder Fortson), a little girl lost, abandoned after her mother (Elektra Kilbey) steals a mysterious crystal from a subterranean lab. In a haunting, unexplained image, Loretta sees her house floating upward in fragments, as if gravity has reversed course to pull it into the heavens. In searching for her parent, Loretta is aided by Cole (Duncan Joiner) and his enigmatic mother (Rebecca Hall). In another episode, helmed with a more wistful sense of rusted nostalgia by Wall-E director Andrew Stanton, Cole moves to center stage, struggling in his own arc with death, aging, and life’s transience; playing his grandfather, Jonathan Pryce delivers some of his best work in years.
There is a subdued narrative arc to the series, and more is eventually discovered about the Loop and those who work to untangle its myriad questions. Those looking for easy answers and story lines tied up in a neat bow might be advised to look elsewhere. Most of all, Tales From the Loop succeeds in letting the mystery be.
The score, from Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan, is of particular importance. Laden with heaving, jagged arpeggios and solemn piano keys, it’s often so stirring as to overpower the emotion of the actors on-screen, heightening Tales From the Loop into something that feels thoroughly dreamlike in its chasms of grief and yearning—for forgotten pasts, nebulous futures, and the experience of living while suspended between the two.
SKIP: ‘Coffee & Kareem’ (Netflix)
It’s never a good sign when a film’s best joke is its title, especially when that title is a play on words as minor-key and ultimately trivial as Coffee & Kareem. But, then again, humor is so damnably absent from this witless, noxious sludge of a comedy, now streaming on Netflix, that one suspects those involved may have worn out their rotator cuffs high-fiving over such an innocuous, caffeine-related pun.
Ed Helms (who also produced) stars as James Coffee, a Detroit police officer whose consummate ineffectuality is a running joke around his department. Fellow cops, especially one played at a permanent sneer by Betty Gilpin, pepper him with crude jokes about his inability to measure up, as both a cop and a lover. (The mustache doesn’t help, making Coffee look uncannily like Doofy, the Scary Movie franchise’s send-up of David Arquette’s deputy sheriff Dewey, from Scream.) Outside of work, Coffee’s navigating a new romance with Vanessa (Taraji P. Henson), whose foulmouthed 12-year-old son, Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh), hates the idea of his mom dating anyone new—let alone a white guy and a cop.
Kareem is fast-talking and exceptionally spiteful toward Coffee, and—through the remarkably sloppy work of first-time feature scribe Shane Mack—is soon asking a local drug dealer (RonReaco Lee) to put a hit out on him. But when Kareem sees the dealer’s associates kill a corrupt cop, he and Coffee are forced to go on the run. Racist overtones aside, that setup jerkily moves Coffee & Kareem onto a buddy-cop track, the pair trading all manner of lazily homophobic barbs as they flee through a series of increasingly improbable action set pieces. Kareem frequently threatens in graphic detail to frame Coffee as a child rapist, Coffee must prove he’s man enough to date Vanessa, and the banter largely flows from there, with some particularly cringe-inducing cracks about the racial dynamics between Coffee and Kareem, and those between him and Vanessa. That said, just as many jokes aim at I-don’t-see-color territory, as where Coffee mocks Kareem for not being fast enough to run from bullets and later on says he expects the kid to end up in jail. After a decade in which police brutality and institutionalized racism have moved to the forefront of national discourse, it’s somewhat enraging that a comedy as lazily exploitative as Coffee & Kareem can still get made, and wholly unsurprising how few of its jokes land.
As in Stuber, director Michael Dowse’s last big-screen effort, moments of brutal violence are memorably callous and tossed off as if already forgotten. One moment in which a supporting character explodes into bloody chunks is almost reptilian in its excessive force and futility. That the character in question is black, a low-level enforcer in the employ of the bigger-deal baddie, and that his cause of death is one of two grenades lobbed by the crusading white hero-cop (part of a puerile, repeated gag explicitly tied to the size of his gonads), gives you a sense of the lamebrained, tone-deaf material in play. Not since Get Hard have performers this generally funny (Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart there, Helms and Henson here) lowered themselves to material so ugly and outdated. Both films also share a certain obliviousness when it comes to their narrative’s racial politics, either in the prison system or the institution of policing, skirting any real satirical skewering of them by instead doubling down on every homophobic and scatological punch line in sight. It’s an idiot’s provocation, empty and inadmissible, from some last vestige of the old Netflix crank factory that brought you The Ridiculous 6 and is curiously eager not to let you forget it.
The best of the rest
Now on Netflix, all six seasons of Community are available for streaming. The perpetually underrated sitcom, from creator Dan Harmon (who’d then go on to be properly rewarded for his pop-culturally savvy blend of snark and surrealism by creating Rick and Morty with Justin Roiland), follows a group of students at fictional Greendale Community College, who convene to form a study group. But that was just a jumping-off point for what would become one of the smartest, boldest, funniest TV series of the ’10s. As the actors (especially Danny Pudi, as the meta-aware Abed, and then-unknown Donald Glover, as his endearingly goofy partner-in-crime, Troy) grew more comfortable in their characters, Harmon scaled up Community’s storytelling ambitions, delivering theme episodes (paintball! musicals! Claymation!) that set the standard for all sitcoms that have followed since.
Another Sundance darling, the achingly beautiful Georgian drama And Then We Danced, is getting a specialty art-house rollout. Set in modern-day Tbilisi, where conservative traditions still loom large, it follows a competitive dancer (Levan Gelbakhiani) whose pursuit of his training at the National Georgian Ensemble is imperiled by romantic sparks between him and a rival (Bachi Valishvili). In blurring the physical and emotional into a uniquely sensory experience, one in which the head and heart are thrown hopelessly out of alignment, the film is the best of its kind since Call Me By Your Name.
Also on VOD, urgent doc Slay the Dragon looks at the political hot-button issue of gerrymandering, arguing (convincingly) that the United States is in the midst of an extreme legislative crisis through which elected officials have carved up voting districts in such a way as to help their political parties stay in power. Not simply an exposé, the documentary (directed by Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance) implores its viewers to take action, shining a light on various grass-roots movements that have sprouted up in opposition to gerrymandering and the political hostage-taking that has resulted from it.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Hulu could be an essential streaming service—if Disney figures out what to do with it
—Hollywood showrunners assist the assistants amid coronavirus pandemic
—The coronavirus pandemic is changing broadcast and streaming TV as we know it
—As the coronavirus forces people home, interest in streaming services is surging; so is piracy
—What to watch on Amazon Prime while social distancing
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-03--Coronavirus takes out Corona beer

Coronavirus takes out Corona beer

Corona beer has taken its share of unfair knocks as the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has spread worldwide. Now it’s at risk of becoming a victim of the virus.
Grupo Modelo, the maker of the beer and a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev, announced it was halting production and marketing of Corona after the Mexican government ordered all nonessential businesses to close.
The shutdown also impacts the production of Modelo and Pacifico beers.
Mexico has ordered nonessential companies to remain closed until April 30 as it tries to curb the virus’s spread. Grupo Modelo is working with the government to be qualified as essential and says it is proceeding with a plan to “guarantee the supply of beer” worldwide. It does not expect shortages in the short term.
Corona has been the subject of plenty of jokes since the outbreak began, but sales of the beer were actually on the rise as of late February, according to Bart Watson, chief economist of the Brewers Association.
While plenty of people are enjoying adult beverages as they stay at home, the outbreak has not been good for beer sales so far. Several brewers have been forced to close plants, and craft breweries and craft beer bars, which rely on foot traffic, have seen massive sales shortfalls.
More must-read retail coverage from Fortune:
—Which stores are open—and closed—during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.?
—How re-commerce players like Poshmark and eBay are adapting to the coronavirus
—How Nike is overcoming the coronavirus impact on its China business
—It may be a while before many of America’s stores open again
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: The greatest designs of modern times
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-03--As if a pandemic weren’t bad enough, hurricane season could be a bad one

As the U.S. struggles to cope with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, scientists at Colorado State University are sending up a flare that this summer and fall could see hurricanes bring a different sort of crisis.
Researchers at the school are predicting an above-average level of activity this hurricane season, with 16 named storms. That’s four more than in a typical season.
Of those 16, say researchers, eight could become hurricanes—and four of those could reach major hurricane strength (hitting a category 3, 4, or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale). And there’s a 95% chance at least one will make landfall in the U.S. this year.
Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
The 2020 hurricane season is exhibiting characteristics similar to those of 1960, 1966, 1980, 1996, and 2008, said officials. “1966, 1980, 1996, and 2008 had above-average Atlantic hurricane activity, while 1960 was a near-average hurricane season,” said Phil Klotzbach, research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State and lead author of the report.
If the prediction proves accurate, it will be the fifth consecutive year that hurricane season involves above-average activity. The 2019 season saw 18 named storms and 20 tropical cyclones, causing over $11 billion in damages. The year also saw two category 5 storms—Dorian and Lorenzo.
More must-read energy sector coverage from Fortune:
—The oil sector is quickly running out of storage for its unprecedented surplus
—The great African air conditioning boom is about to begin—and it could strain the planet
—The coronavirus fight could prove fatal to addressing climate change
—Business is finally starting to reckon with climate change
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: PSEG CEO on climate change action: “It should have been done yesterday”
Subscribe to The Loop, a weekly look at the revolutions in energy, tech, and sustainability.


fortune--2020-04-03--Bank of America is the first big bank to accept SBA Paycheck Protection Program loan applications

Small businesses are desperate to access loans. But there’s a problem: Most banks aren’t ready to lend.
On Friday, the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program loan applications were expected to be open and ready for small businesses across the country to get emergency, forgivable loans—intended to help them retain employees amid the COVID-19 crisis.
But as of Friday morning, only one big bank managed to start accepting applications: Bank of America.
The Brian Moynihan-led bank launched its portal for the small-business loans on Friday, going live at about 9 a.m. ET. Yet even BofA’s rollout perplexed some customers, as the bank is prioritizing existing customers with online accounts who are active borrowers as of last month.
Fortune reached out to Bank of America for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
CEO Moynihan said on CNBC that the bank would initially focus on “borrowing clients.” “We have to focus on the borrowing clients to make sure we can take care of them,” he said. Bank of America reportedly since noted it was adjusting its policy to address all small-business customers, but some customers report still being unable to access the application. The bank has reportedly already received nearly 60,000 PPP loan applications worth $6 billion since 9 a.m. ET Friday morning.
This morning, the other of the big four banks—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo—hadn’t yet managed to begin accepting applications on Friday morning. JPMorgan Chase’s website initially told customers that “We aren’t accepting applications for this program at this time. Check back for updates,” but has since started accepting applications by midday Friday. Wells Fargo also told customers online to “check back often” and that “As soon as we can start accepting applications, we’ll add the link to the online application.”
But the failure-to-launch wasn’t a huge surprise. Ken Logsdon, a partner at international law firm Dorsey & Whitney, told Fortune on Thursday: “I would be absolutely shocked if it gets rolled out [Friday].”
Banks have been harried by the SBA and Treasury Department to get applications up and running, but many still had concerns over how the lending process would logistically work as late as Thursday evening (when more guidelines finally arrived in the form of a 31-page document from the SBA and Treasury at around 7 p.m. ET). The new guidelines came “literally hours before [the process] starts,” Richard Hunt, head of the Consumer Bankers Association, told CNBC Thursday. He added that banks are moving “heaven and earth to get a system in place and running to help America’s small businesses and the millions of men and women who work at them.” And those like Wells Fargo and Citigroup seem to still be moving heaven and earth to launch their programs.
That’s why Dorsey & Whitney’s Joseph Lynyak, who specializes in the banking and financial services industry, believes “this is kind of a work in progress, in that it’s almost changing on a daily basis,” he told Fortune on Thursday.
Worse, some small businesses are worried that even if banks do get the loans up and running, it might not be enough. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed this sentiment on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on Friday, saying that “it’s not enough.” Added Pelosi: “Let’s do what we just agreed to, except make it more current.”
While many small businesses await the other big four banks to launch portals (or their community banks or credit unions), they may have to wait still longer to actually get the money from the loan.
Given how banks “are being inundated with applications,” notes Lynyak, “I would personally be really surprised if money is going to be flowing before the end of May.”
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:
—What small businesses applying for SBA PPP loans need to know
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Social distancing creates $8 trillion in economic benefits, study says
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—Millions won’t be able to pay their bills this month. What financial experts advise
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The U.S. tax deadline was pushed from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-04-03--Chinese struggle to return to work as coronavirus controls ease

After two months in locked-down Wuhan, Wei Lei was eager to get back to work on a railway construction site. Instead, the 22-year-old found himself stranded at an expressway toll plaza where police decided who was allowed in and out of the city where the coronavirus pandemic started.
The authorities wanted a letter from his bosses saying he was needed, but Wei said he didn’t have one because employees who would prepare it had yet to return to work.
“It was boring staying at home and I was embarrassed to be fed by my parents,” Wei said Thursday.
Chinese leaders are trying to revive the economy, but local officials under orders to prevent new infections are enforcing disease checks and other controls that add to financial losses and aggravation for millions of workers.
Beijing told companies to keep paying employees and promised loans and other aid. But millions of migrants, day laborers and others without regular jobs need to return to work before they can start getting paid after two idle months.
More than 100 million workers who visited their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday were stranded after travel controls imposed Jan. 23 on Wuhan to fight the virus were extended to cover most of China. The holiday was prolonged to keep factories and offices closed and the public at home.
Even after the ruling Communist Party reversed course in early March and started allowing some businesses to reopen, travel curbs remained in place in many areas, keeping workers away from their jobs.
Chinese officials say state-dominated industries such as steel are almost back to normal production. But many private employers — the sector that generates most of China’s jobs and wealth — say they are operating at a fraction of normal levels in part because employees haven’t come back to work.
The People’s Daily newspaper reported March 20 that about 100 million migrant workers, or about 80% of those who returned to their hometowns for the holiday, were back at work. No official figures for possible job losses have been reported.
One of the bleakest estimates came from Liu Chenjie, an economic commentator and chairman of Upright Capital, a hedge fund. He said in comments reported by the website Sina.com that as many as 200 million people might have lost jobs or were underemployed due to the virus.
Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in Hubei province, is the industrial and transportation hub of central China.
At the Wuhan East toll plaza where Wei waited, police in gloves and face masks were turning away vehicles without Wuhan plates.
Wearing masks and carrying children, returnees showed a green “health code” on a smartphone app that indicates they are symptom-free. Occupants of cars waiting inside the barrier to pick up returnees were checked for fever by police.
Cai Luo, a saleswoman for an internet company in Wuhan, was returning from her nearby hometown of Huanggang.
“I had to show my green code and be checked at every stop on the way back,” said Cai, 24. “I felt panic because I had never come across before.”
Huanggang also was quarantined but controls there and on other cities were lifted last month.
“We weren’t allowed to walk out of our home, let alone shopping at a supermarket,” Cai said. “They knew I was back from Wuhan so they put stricter grounding on me.”
Cai said she worked from home but her parents couldn’t and had no income.
“It is hard for ordinary families to have no income for two months,” she said.
The final controls on Wuhan, which had three-fourths of China’s virus deaths, last through April 8.
Returnees who were allowed into Wuhan were picked up by their employers or squeezed into private cars. Divers earned extra cash as informal taxis on a day when many businesses had yet to reopen.
Despite easing controls that shut down most of China’s air, rail and bus service, authorities still require fever checks at public buildings nationwide and try to keep track of where individual travelers go.
Wei said he worked on a construction site in Huangmei County on the boundary between Hubei and neighboring Jiangxi province. He showed a reporter a copy of a letter given to a coworker by their employer bearing the red approval seals of a village committee and local government.
After two hours at the roadblock, Wei said he was “not hopeful” he could get his own approval letter.
“I prepared documents the day before yesterday, but today something changed and the documents didn’t work anymore,” he said. “I have to go back to do it again.”
More must-read international coverage from Fortune:
—Why Iceland’s approach to coronavirus testing may be better than America’s
—The oil sector is quickly running out of storage for its unprecedented surplus
—Health officials shut down this Austrian Alps village over coronavirus fears
—Researchers race to design a face mask that kills the coronavirus
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Rethinking your travel plans because of coronavirus?
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-03--How do you automate venture capital?

How do you automate venture capital?

This is the web version of Term Sheet, Fortune’s newsletter about deals and dealmakers. Sign up here.
In recent years, quantitative hedge funds have made a killing in public markets with their data-first approach (coronavirus aside). But skeptics say the strategy makes less sense for venture capital, where public financial reports are nonexistent.
Six-year-old venture firm SignalFire is among those seeking to challenge that assumption. The firm, which tends to invest in the seed stage, says it is using a plethora of data to source deals and help portfolio companies find early employees. The firm raised $500 million for a pair of funds in December.
Managing director and CEO Chris Farmer thinks of the firm as more of a Google than a venture fund—saying that they focus on finding opportunities using alternative data from their constantly shifting database of some 15 million companies and 10 million engineers.
Granted, the method comes at a premium. When asked if the fund uses the traditional 2-and-20 model—2% management fee and 20% carry—Farmer declined to specify, but added that everything is at a higher price.
Here is our conversation, lightly edited for clarity, on how to (or how not to) infuse data into venture capital’s experience.
How have you used the data to source potential deals?
Grammer.ly is one of them. They were way off the radar at the time, bootstrapped and avoiding venture capitalists, but we saw it in the credit card data. Similarly, OneSignal, a messaging platform—we picked it up based on the adoption rate of the product.
There is no single company score [to determine yes or no]. We use the data for benchmarking and for tracking companies, but it is a human decision at the end of the day. There are tons of times when we get founders based on referrals—and the data is then super helpful in terms of triaging.
SignalFire invests heavily in the seed stage—an area that traditionally doesn’t have a lot of data. How do you try to predict if someone has the potential to be a founder or early employee?
We tend not to talk about our data sources, so I’m trying to state the more obvious ones—but It’s everything from tracking people through multiple social networks, to academic papers, to patents, to regulatory filings, to H1B visas to company websites.
We predict, for instance, the probability of someone changing their job. There are unknown billions of factors that go into someone changing their jobs—is the stock down, has a senior executive that you followed left the team, do you have a higher propensity for changing jobs than your peers, have you tuned up your resume—we predict that and put it in the hands of our founders so that they know not only if someone might be a good candidate [as an early employee], but how likely they are to move.
[In the case of finding founders], it also depends on the sector. What you look for in a social media company is completely different from in a storage infrastructure business. Social media tends to have young, first-time founders without a history—so the background is underweighted. It’s all about traction and virality. Twitter at the beginning didn’t have a super notable engineering team—they were known for the “fail whale”—but they had such a strong product-model fit that Twitter grew a stronger team over time.
If you’re building core database infrastructure, though, very rarely is it going to be a 22-year-old that has no history. It’s going to be someone with deep expertise: the guy who, say, built TensorFlow at LinkedIn or the woman who built the largest community of WordPress websites and is now building a WordPress infrastructure company—or, say, the team that built YouTube’s infrastructure that is now building PlanetScale, but they were totally anonymous engineers that were known inside [YouTube] to be total badasses, and we picked them up with the data that they had this massive open-source following.
What are the shortcomings of machine learning in venture capital?
We have invested in travel companies and the signals were positive. We didn’t predict the coronavirus pandemic. We also can’t predict when a competitor could pivot, or when a business model might not work. Early traction does not mean long-term success—but without early traction, it’s hard to have long-term success.
And at the end of the day, you can’t tell the grit and determination of a founder using data, nor can you see their vision from historical data. So you have to take a hybrid approach. Even if you’ve found opportunities [using data], you need people who can do traditional venture, who can assess people and understand where markets are going, and who can win the deal.
So much of this industry is about who you know and how you know them. How do you avoid the issue of baking in systemic discrimination in datasets?
We are gender- and race-blind. But there are also discriminatory elements we try to be cognizant of, such as rate of promotion within a company. We can’t change biases in history, so we try hard to weigh other things. For example, they may be big in the open-source community. You also can’t skew to tenure, because senior executives are always going to rank higher and you’re never going to catch the next Collison brothers [of Stripe] because they have just never risen inside a company.
We specifically don’t use the data of who your investors are. Almost by definition, if another top investor is in there, you’ve missed [the deal]. Those firms make mistakes too—every one of them do. It’s not about where you went to school: There’s a lot of catch-up mechanisms. You may not have gone to Harvard, but you may have been a top person in the open-source community, or you may have great metrics around your business or great retention or customer dynamics.
How are your portfolio companies faring through coronavirus?
We have some that are doing fine—we have a large telemedicine portfolio or companies like ClassDojo that have significant tailwind. But some companies are going to have slow quarters, and then there are companies we don’t know how are going to get out of this and will need to go down to a skeleton crew and go into cockroach mode, particularly in the travel sector.
We’ve been generally bearish. That’s not the data speaking, but the general experience of having been through two downturns myself and my partner having been through five. We knew when we started that statistically we were likely to hit a correction, so we avoided capital-intensive businesses like autonomy even though we were super bullish on autonomous driving in the long term. We knew these businesses would depend on research and development dollars from the auto industry, which gets clobbered in every downturn.
VENTURE DEALS
- RemeGen, a Yantai, China-based biopharmaceutical company, raised $100 million. Lilly Asia Ventures and Lake Bleu Capital led the round, and were joined by investors including Vivo Capital, Janchor Partners, OrbiMed, Hudson Bay Capital and existing investors. Loyal Valley Capital and China Reform Conson Soochow Overseas also invested by acquiring from existing shareholders.
- SteadyMD Telehealth, a St. Louis, Mo. and Westlake Village, Calif.-based digital tech startup, raised $6 million in Series A funding. Pelion Venture Partners and Next Ventures led the round, and were joined by investors including First Trust Capital Partners, The Daube Family office, Crosscut Ventures, M25, Wild Ventures, and Hyde Park Venture Partners.
- Atmosphere, an Austin, Texas-based provider of streaming content for businesses, raised $5 million additional for its Series A from Valor Siren Ventures. S3 Ventures also participated, closing the round at $14 million.
- Concertio , a New York-based provider of AI-powered performance optimization software, raised $4.2 million in seed funding. Differential Ventures led the round.
- JennyLife, a Seattle-based life insurance provider focused on women and moms, raised $3.5 million in Series A funding for a total raise of $5 million, from investors including CMFG Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Ardian acquired wind farm Lakiakangas 1 from CPC Finland Oy, a German based wind power company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Knox Capital Holdings invested in Collabtech Group, a Mesa, Ariz.-based provider of collaboration technology services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Jazwares, a portfolio company of Alleghany Capital, acquired a majority stake in Kellytoy Toys Holdings and Kelly Amusement Holdings, Los Angeles, Calif.-based plush toy makers. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Alleghany Capital acquired a majority interest in Wilbert Funeral Services, an Overland Park, Texas-based provider of products to the funeral and cemetery industries. Alleghany Capital has owned a 45% equity interest in Wilbert since 2017. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Pythian, backed by Mill Point Capital, acquired Agosto LLC, a Minneapolis-based cloud services and development company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- PSP Investments invested in SitusAMC, a Houston-based provider of services and technology supporting the real estate finance industry. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- TSG Consumer Partners acquired a majority stake in Pathway Vet Alliance, an Austin, Texas-based operator of general practices and veterinary hospitals, to investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Accenture (NYSE:ACN) acquired Yesler, a Seattle, Wash.-based business-to-business marketing services agency. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- JTC PLC (LON: JTC) agreed to acquire NES Financial a fund administrator. The combination will have over $130 billion and over 900 employees.
- VizyPay acquired Echo Daily, a Minden, NV-based payments competitor. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Appy Pie acquired AppMakr/Infinite Monkeys, an app development platform. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Otis Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: OTIS), a Farmington, Conn.-based elevator maker, will commence its first day of trading on the NYSE after completing its separation from United Technologies (NYSE: UTX).
F + FS
- Insight Partners closed of Insight Partners XI at $9.5 billion.
- ARCH closed two new funds, ARCH Venture Fund X and Fund X Overage, with $1.46 billion in capital.
- Flagship Pioneering raised $1.1 billion for its Flagship Pioneering Origination Fund VII.


fortune--2020-04-03--Tax-exempt student-loan assistance is now law. It’s time to make it permanent

In response to the coronavirus crisis, Congress has approved the largest emergency relief bill in U.S. history, flooding every sector of the economy with over $2 trillion. While the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act’s (CARES) corporate bailouts and helicopter money will dominate the headlines, a largely unheralded tax subsidy buried deep in the legislation may prove to have a longer-lasting impact.
Included as Section 2206, it gives companies the ability to help pay down their employees’ student debt without the payments being taxed. Similar to contributions made under a 401(k) plan, an employer can pay down an employee’s loan balance every month, and neither the company nor the employee pays tax on those payments. This tax exemption will be temporary, lasting until the end of this year. A separate clause (Section 3513) will suspend all federal student-loan payments until Sept. 30 without interest.
While these provisions will help the nearly 45 million Americans saddled with student debt to weather the immediate crisis, it won’t do much for them over the long run. Making student-loan repayment a permanent tax-exempt employee benefit represents a lasting solution to the $1.6 trillion student debt problem.
My company, Tuition.io, works with companies to develop means for their employees to pay down student-loan debt. We would therefore benefit financially from the implementation of this legislation, which can lead to more potential customers for our business.
Companies are used to offering their workers financial benefits such as 401(k) contributions. Based on our experience working with over 200 companies over the last four years, we have found that by implementing student-loan repayment assistance as a benefit, companies can reduce the time needed to retire an average student-loan balance by four years. For many young adult workers, the choice between saving for retirement or becoming debt-free is a no-brainer, due to the burden of compounding interest.
The only problem is that most companies in America have yet to give their workers this choice. By making the benefit tax exempt, it will be much easier for firms to adopt student-loan assistance. Even without a tax benefit, student-loan assistance has already been adopted by companies like Aetna, PwC, and our client Estée Lauder.
Critics of the measure have argued that it’s a regressive tax subsidy, since its benefits are greater for higher-income workers who often have higher debt loads from more advanced degrees. Others point out that the plan neglects unemployed people who struggle with student debt. These criticisms are valid, and those issues should also be tackled by the government.
But we need to focus on the bigger picture first. Financial insecurity affects every aspect of people’s lives, from their productivity in the workplace to the quality of their personal relationships. According to a 2019 Bankrate survey, millennials who have carried student debt have postponed getting married, buying homes, and having children because of their debt.
This financial insecurity is also holding back millennials as they enter their prime years of spending. Millennials were set back by the Great Recession and have been struggling to gain ground for the past decade. Now the COVID-19 shock threatens to derail their ambitions just as they were starting to recover.
In addition, a 2015 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed that student debt negatively impacted the formation of businesses with one to four employees, which are key drivers of our economy. If you’re bound by monthly payment obligations and growing interest, why would you take the risk of starting a business?
While the positive impact of student-loan assistance will be felt right away by individuals, the broader boost to our economy will likely take longer to manifest, as more companies help reduce workers’ debt over time. This is why there is only one thing wrong with the recent congressional legislation: It is temporary. Nine months is hardly enough time to achieve meaningful adoption among companies, despite the burgeoning interest in this type of employee benefit.
We should applaud the legislators who fought to have the student debt provisions language included in the larger bill. Perhaps they believe its inclusion as an emergency measure can lead to more permanent legislation.
But at the same time, we need to call on lawmakers to do more. By making the tax credit for employer student-loan assistance a lasting part of the tax code, we can improve the lives of millions of Americans and give a sustained boost to our economy at the same time.
Scott Thompson is CEO at Tuition.io.
More opinion in Fortune:
—The coronavirus has shattered the drug development status quo
—2 things every business must consider before laying off employees in a recession
—There will be another pandemic after the coronavirus. It’s time to start preparing
—Why the coronavirus won’t cause widespread chaos in the U.S.
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: CEO of Canada’s biggest bank on the keys to leading through the coronavirus
Listen to our audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily


fortune--2020-04-03--NYC mayor de Blasio urges national enlistment program for doctors

Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called Friday for a national enlistment program for doctors and nurses to handle an expected surge in coronavirus cases in New York and other places around the country where virus cases are straining existing health care systems.
“Next week in New York City is going to be very tough—next week in New York City and Detroit and New Orleans and a lot of other places,” de Blasio said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “And unless the military is fully mobilized and we create something we’ve never had before, which is some kind of national enlistment of medical personnel moved to the most urgent needs in the country constantly, if we don’t have that we’re going to see hospitals simply unable to handle so many people who could be saved.”
De Blasio said on CNN that the country should be on a wartime footing to meet the coronavirus threat. “We’re fighting a war against an invisible enemy that is increasingly taking the lives of Americans in vast numbers,” he said.
The new virus causes mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with chronic health problems, it can cause more severe illness and can be fatal.
Public health officials say more than 1,500 people in New York City have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. There have been nearly 50,000 confirmed cases and more than 10,000 hospitalizations.
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FUNERAL HOMES SEE STRAIN
Funeral homes in New York and around the globe are in crisis as demand surges amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Funeral directors are being squeezed on one side by inundated hospitals trying to offload bodies and on the other by the fact that cemeteries and crematoriums are booked for at least a week.
Pat Marmo’s Brooklyn funeral home is equipped to handle 40 to 60 cases at a time. It was taking care of 185 on Thursday morning. “This is a state of emergency,” he said. “We need help.”
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TEMPORARY HOSPITALS PLANNED
Tennis courts, college dorms and a cruise ship terminal are among the New York City facilities that are set to be converted into temporary hospitals in the coming weeks as the coronavirus crisis deepens. but officials worry whether the massive effort will be enough in the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that the outbreak’s expected peak was still seven to 30 days away.
Officials say New York will need 140,000 hospital beds when the peak arrives, compared to the 53,000 it had before the virus reached the U.S. So many seriously ill patients are anticipated that New York City is preparing to turn all its 20,000 permanent hospital beds into intensive care ones while trying to add 65,000 temporary beds for other patients.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Millions won’t be able to pay their bills this month. What financial experts advise
—”It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program
—The stock market had its worst quarter since 1987—and its worst Q1 ever
—How to job hunt during the coronavirus pandemic
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-03--Google’s coronavirus aid for small businesses is too little, too slow

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Just a few thoughts to end what for so many has been a difficult week.
It didn’t get much attention, but on March 27 Google announced a Covid-19 relief plan with a very large headline number, $800 million . As Danielle Abril reported this week in Fortune, the largest chunk of that aid, $340 million in “ad credits” for smaller companies, is only a tiny percentage of Google’s sales to those so-called SMBs, businessspeak for small- and medium-sized businesses. The fine print is important too. The deal is only valid for existing Google customers who’ve been actively buying ads since January 1, 2019. And the credits will be applied in “coming months,” hardly the kind of detail imperiled businesses need right now.
. As Danielle Abril reported this week in Fortune, the largest chunk of that aid, $340 million in “ad credits” for smaller companies, is only a tiny percentage of Google’s sales to those so-called SMBs, businessspeak for small- and medium-sized businesses. The fine print is important too. The deal is only valid for existing Google customers who’ve been actively buying ads since January 1, 2019. And the credits will be applied in “coming months,” hardly the kind of detail imperiled businesses need right now. Speaking of lack of detail, the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses announced as part of the $2.2 trillion Congressional aid package looks to be an anxiety-inducing shot in the dark for companies hoping to benefit from it. Jenna Schnuer dug into the details for Fortune: The program looks to be confusing as all get-out and is likely to provide a mere drop in the bucket for what businesses need to survive. (I’d love to hear from a tech company that is trying to get one of these loans and would be willing to walk me through it.)
for companies hoping to benefit from it. Jenna Schnuer dug into the details for Fortune: The program looks to be confusing as all get-out and is likely to provide a mere drop in the bucket for what businesses need to survive. (I’d love to hear from a tech company that is trying to get one of these loans and would be willing to walk me through it.) A headline on a Fortune commentary piece caught my eye this week: “After coronavirus, we need to rethink densely populated cities.” Author Joel Kotkin of the Urban Reform Institute argues convincingly that besides the obvious correlation between density and ease-of-spread for infectious diseases, the commercial imperative for dense cities may be on the wane too. The word “density” has been a rallying cry among a certain set of housing advocates, particularly in sprawling California, who argue that increasing density is the key to lowering home prices. They may be losing the argument for a reason that they hadn’t even considered.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Keeping the shelves stocked. I don't know how your gadget usage is going so far in the time of coronavirus, but our household's has definitely skyrocketed. Apple is rumored to be ready to feed the need, with a new version of its lowest priced phone, the iPhone SE, about to launch. With the pandemic crushing retailers, however, new phone sales are projected to decrease 13% in 2020, dropping to under 1.6 billion devices, the lowest in a decade, CCS Insight says.
Mega trends. Google will start releasing public monthly reports about declining visits to stores, parks, and transit centers in 130 countries. The data will come from the anonymized movements of more than one billion people who use Google's Maps app.
I promise not to repeat things other people say. Tech company of the moment, for better or for worse, Zoom, disclosed that its user base has jumped from 10 million people a day in December to 200 million currently. CEO Eric Yuan had another blog post, this time apologizing because "we have fallen short of the community’s – and our own – privacy and security expectations." The company will stop adding new features and focus on fixing the problems, he vowed.
In the spotlight. Another tech company in focus during the pandemic, Amazon, is rolling out new safety measures including temperature checks and masks for employees at warehouses and Whole Foods markets. The company also had a plan to denigrate fired New York warehouse worker and labor organizer Christian Smalls, Vice reports.
Zoom, zoom, zoom. On Wall Street, Tesla impressed, beating expectations for how many cars it could deliver in the first quarter. Tesla's stock price, already up 9% this year, jumped another 16% in pre-market trading on Friday. Airbnb had hoped to be trading on Wall Street via an initial public offering this year, but that looks more and more unlikely. Business is down 90% and the startup lowered its private valuation by 16% to $26 billion, the Financial Times reports.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
At one point, not long ago, it seemed like e-commerce and online marketing had allowed a new breed of direct-to-consumer, or DTC, retailers to take off. You know the brands: Warby Parker, Casper, Everlane, etc. But even before the pandemic hit, the market was experiencing a culling. Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger, Harvard MBA student Shaye Roseman, and VC Matt Higgins have surveyed the field in an article for the Harvard Business Review (phew, that's a lot of Harvard) and have some explanations and advice for the next generation. They offer one strategy of going beyond digital.
A new crop of retail concepts have sprouted up to meet this emerging need. Showfields, Bulletin, Story, and Neighborhood Goods are all variations on the same theme, curating and aggregating DTC concepts under one roof without requiring long-term lease commitments and expensive build-outs. Although it’s unclear how viable or scalable this new incarnation of master-lease retail will prove to be, many DTCs who have dabbled in at least some offline presence report customers who interact with their brand in the physical realm have lower merchandise return rates and more repeat purchases than their online counterparts. Whether a brand’s retail strategy should include company-owned stores, national retail networks, Amazon listings, or some combination of the three depends on the strength of its community, the level of control it requires in storytelling, and the scale it aims to reach.
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads that I came across this week:
DJI Won the Drone Wars, and Now It’s Paying the Price (Bloomberg Businessweek)
China’s flashiest global brand has a 77% share of America’s consumer drone sales. It also has to deal with coronavirus, the trade war, a $150 million fraud scandal, and skeptics in the U.S. and Chinese governments.
Gem Fatale (Bookforum)
There are a lot of hustles in the jewelry business. It’s a cash business with big numbers and independent spirits, and that creates a kind of pure capitalism, with all of its flaws.
The Woman Who Lives 200,000 Years in the Past (Outside)
As we confront the reality of COVID-19, the idea of living self-sufficiently in the woods, far from crowds and grocery stores, doesn't sound so bad. Lynx Vilden has been doing just that for decades, while teaching others how to live primitively, too.
How I Wrote Five Novels While Commuting (Wall Street Journal)
"For years, I got nowhere with my efforts. Then I realized I had a lot of time on my hands. So I started typing."
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Zoom meetings keep getting hacked. Here’s how to prevent ‘Zoom bombing’ on your video chats By David Z. Morris
Hulu could be an essential streaming service—if Disney figures out what to do with it By Aric Jenkins
Garmin’s CEO on fending off Apple and Google By Danielle Abril
Why China’s tech-based fight against the coronavirus may be unpalatable in the U.S. By Jonathan Vanian
‘It’s going to be a mess’: What small businesses applying to the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program need to know By Anne Sraders
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
As creative writers are cooped up at home, they're producing some interesting serialized online work. Damon Lindelof, of Lost fame, is penning a thriller called Something, Something, Something Murder. And Girls creator Lena Dunham is writing a serialized relationship story called Verified Strangers for Vogue. If you've done enough reading, HBO decided yesterday to start offering free access to many of its best series, including The Sopranos, The Wire, and Silicon Valley. Stay busy and healthy out there.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-04-03--Australia is providing free childcare during the coronavirus crisis

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The 2020 Olympics postponement is especially tough on gymnasts, female authors are frontrunners for the International Booker Prize, and Australia provides free childcare. Have a relaxing weekend.
– COVID-era childcare. As the coronavirus continues to ravage the globe, its path is revealing which services countries value the most. In Australia, childcare ranks high.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government on Thursday announced that it would provide 1 million families with free childcare during the COVID-19 crisis. It sees the upside of the benefit as two-fold: it keeps the childcare industry—and its tens of thousands of jobs—afloat as the virus upends citizens’ normal work routines, and it makes it easier for parents employed in ‘essential’ jobs to continue their critical work. The first three months of the initiative will cost Australia roughly $1 billion.
The issue of childcare shaped, to some degree, the conversation about closing schools in the U.S. since shuttering them would mean essential workers—those in the healthcare system, especially—would suddenly have to find a way to care for their kids during their workdays. Most schools closed anyway amid valid concerns about the virus’s spread.
The U.K. has tried to address the issue by keeping open school and nursery facilities for the children of essential workers. New York City is trying a similar scheme.
“These services are vital for so many parents so they can provide for their family, and children need as much familiarity and continuity as we can help provide at this unsettling time,” said Morrison in announcing that disadvantaged children and families with working parents will get top priority.
The coronavirus crisis is already teaching us some painful lessons, including that services like childcare—powered almost entirely by women—are vital to the world’s economic and physical well-being and have been underpaid and under-appreciated for far too long.
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Pregnancy protections. Pregnant health care workers, scared for their safety and the safety of their babies, are being forced to keep working without extra accommodations or safety precautions through the coronavirus pandemic, they tell ProPublica. The doctors and nurses are weighing whether to continue in jobs they view as dangerous or to quit and leave colleagues even more overwhelmed. ProPublica
- All-around challenge. The postponement of the 2020 Olympics is tough on all athletes who were planning to go to Tokyo, but it's especially difficult for female gymnasts who compete at younger ages than most of their Olympian peers and whose careers are generally shorter. Simone Biles says she worries about the mental toll of another year of training—and dealing with USA Gymnastics for another year.
- Reading list. The frontrunners for the International Booker Prize for literature translated into English are again mostly women. Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police and Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season are among the contenders. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Bridgewater co-CEO Eileen Murray joins Compass's board of directors. Kim Popovits, former CEO and chair of Genomic Health, joins the board of directors at 10x Genomics.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Joe's potential justices. Joe Biden has promised, if elected president, to put a black woman on the Supreme Court. Who would that future Supreme Court justice be? California Supreme Court Justice Leondra R. Kruger and U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are two possible candidates. LA Times
- Curl class action. The brand DevaCurl is the subject of class-action lawsuits alleging that its products, promoted as part of curly hair acceptance, caused women's hair to become damaged and fall out. The company maintains that "we can conclusively say that our products are safe." New York Times
- Multi-tasking. Kim Kardashian West is lobbying President Trump on criminal justice reform and promoting her new shapewear line Skims at the same time. This profile examines how the two parts of her work blend—and sometimes help each other. New York Times
ON MY RADAR
Saying 'I do' over Zoom The Verge
Coronavirus is a weapon in an increasingly bizarre gender war MEL Magazine
Why men started wearing female athlete jerseys GQ
Finding beautiful baby decor in a sea of plastic Curbed
PARTING WORDS
"You never know who's going to stop by. Wait a minute, nobody's stopping by."
-Chef Ina Garten, making a giant cocktail at home on Instagram