fortune--2020-11-02--How the election results could impact tech investors

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Most investors are on edge this election season. But tech investors in particular are grappling with what the sector will look like after Nov. 3.
Tech and the election-related “ripple effects” from Tuesday’s presidential contest have been a topic of several notes from Wall Street analysts in recent days. And for a sector that has seen returns far outpace the overall market over recent months, there’s understandable angst around valuations and future performance.
According to Dan Ives, managing director of equity research and analyst at Wedbush Securities, one “major ripple effect” from the outcome of the election for tech will be “the future direction of the US/China relationship as tensions between the two powerhouse countries have morphed into a ‘technology cold war,’” he wrote in a note Monday.
To be sure, President Trump has warred with China over his four-year term, taking a “hard stance on Chinese IP, trade, and security, which has led to a seesaw battle on a number of issues including Huawei, Broadcom/Qualcomm merger blockade, TikTok’s forced sale and ultimately partnership with Oracle, and the 5G technology battle,” notes Wedbush’s Ives.
Given Trump’s hard-line stance, Ives notes the Street largely views a Biden administration as more favorable to China tech, expecting Biden to “take a relatively softer tone on China technology and policy issues,” which could “ratchet down tensions and rhetoric between the US/China across the enterprise and consumer technology ecosystem,” he notes.
But that’s not to say tech will be in the clear after Nov. 3 if Biden wins the presidency. Wedbush’s Ives argues the “long-standing issues around piracy and IP theft are not going away,” and investors should beware: The likes of “Apple, Cisco, and the semi food chain remain the most impacted by this US/China decoupling path, in our opinion.”
Others like David Bianco, the chief investment officer for the Americas at DWS Group, aren’t convinced that either party will pose a meaningful threat to tech’s supremacy. Bianco doesn’t think investors will see any “difficult legislation” around tech no matter who secures the White House on Tuesday, he recently told Fortune. “There’s competition of Western tech versus Eastern tech, and I don’t think U.S. politicians are going to do things that hobble the ability of Western tech to compete,” he argued.
Yet while Biden’s administration may go somewhat easier on Chinese tech, some analysts argue a Blue Wave (or a Biden win plus a Democrat-controlled Congress) could negatively impact the antitrust concerns of some of the biggest names in the market.
A possible Blue Wave on Tuesday would “make a formidable force going after antitrust law changes with breakups possibly on the radar,” Ives believes. “For now this is a contained risk, but ultimately this could morph into a threat for Big Tech as we head into 2021…[And] we also believe the ongoing DOJ and State AG antitrust movement will play an important role in this Big Tech vs. Beltway issue over the coming year.”
If there remains a divided Congress, however, analysts like Ives don’t see any major legislative changes being enacted.
To help dampen tech sector worries as much as possible, portfolio managers earmarked a few names that may be somewhat out of the crosshairs from either election result in Fortune’s Q4 investor guide, including Microsoft and Taiwan Semiconductor.
But some firms like J.P. Morgan are cooling off tech heading into the election, cutting the sector from “overweight” to a “neutral” rating, and arguing “the markets are primed for a broadening in leadership, having seen record-ever bifurcation so far year-to-date,” J.P. Morgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka wrote in a note Monday. That rotation would likely happen “irrespective of the U.S. elections winner, while the regional rotation would be more dependent on the actual election outcome,” they wrote.
Leading up to the election, investors have been antsy: The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.5% on Friday ahead of Election Day, having traded off over 5% for the week, but managed to close in the green on Monday.


fortune--2020-11-02--Big Tech draws record revenue, harsh criticism with election ads

Swing states , COVID , and the Electoral College : Why Trump ’ s odds of winning are better than @ @

The campaigns for President Donald Trump and Joe Biden spent a combined $192.3 million on Facebook advertising in the first 10 months of 2020, with over a quarter of that coming in October alone, according to data from Facebook Inc.
The presidential campaigns for each party more than doubled their ad spending on the social network compared with the presidential candidates in the 2016 race, when experts agreed that Trump outmaneuvered Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton online.
Biden spent slightly more on Facebook than Trump this year, at $99.8 million compared with $92.5 million, though the president poured more into Alphabet Inc.’s Google, where the two campaigns have spent a combined $215.5 million on ads on Google since May 2018. That spending came largely on YouTube, including a wave of Trump ads on the video site’s homepage this week.
But even as candidates pour tens of millions of dollars into advertising on the platforms, there is widespread discontent both about the rules the companies have set around the election and the manner in which they’ve enforced them. Case in point is a policy that Facebook announced in September to ban new political ads in the week before the election.
The ban didn’t actually keep campaigns from running ads during that period, only from introducing new ads that could introduce misleading messaging into the campaign’s final days. The logic of the move was lost on Gautam Hans, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School focused on the First Amendment. “If we’re worried about political ads and their effect on voting, voting is well underway,” he said, noting the wave of early voting that began before the moratorium took effect.
There have also been issues with execution. Facebook blocked thousands of ads, mostly from the Biden campaign, even though they’d been posted before the cut-off date. The campaign said the disruption, which Facebook attributed to a technical glitch, had likely cost them over $500,000 in donations. The company said it has not been able to resolve issues with some of the ads, and is unlikely to be able to do so during the restricted period. Rob Flaherty, Biden’s digital director, said the incident made it “abundantly clear that Facebook was wholly unprepared to handle this election despite having four years to prepare.”
The Trump campaign, for its part, attempted an end-run around the policy by doing a limited run of new ads the day before the ban went into effect. These ads included language like, “Vote today!”and “Election day is today,” presumably with the intention of promoting them more heavily when those statements actually made sense.
Facebook blocked the ads, citing a policy that forbids paid messaging that misleads people about the electoral process. But it allowed other ads claiming record economic growth in the U.S. days before the statistics were actually published. Samantha Zager, a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign, accused Facebook of making rules and selectively enforcing them because the company was “working against President Trump.”
Daniel Kreiss, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina who tracks political communication, said the platforms have failed to create predictable guardrails for political actors. “We still see way too much uneven enforcement policies, and way too much changing of those policies months or weeks out from a presidential election,” he said, adding that Facebook’s performance has been particularly bad. “It never ceases to amaze me that a company with so many billions in market cap can’t figure this out.”
Facebook, Google, and Twitter Inc. all found themselves at the center of a political firestorm for their handling of the 2016 election. The following year, federal lawmakers made a high-profile push to create new rules for online political advertising, but it failed, leaving platforms to develop safeguards on their own. All three companies created databases where people could track political spending, and began developing other policies.
Last October, Twitter announced it would ban political ads altogether. Facebook and Google,also considered bans, at least for the final days or weeks before an election. Sridhar Ramaswamy, a Google executive who ran its advertising operations until 2018, said he advocated internally for dropping political ads altogether. Google also considered a pre-election moratorium on political ads on YouTube’s homepage, some of the most expensive real estate on the internet. Instead, it sold the space to the Trump campaign, Bloomberg reported in February.
Shirin Raza, a former lawyer for YouTube, believes that Trump’s ads have been particularly damaging to the democratic process, and said the company itself bears part of the responsibility. “They say they care about election integrity, They say they care about Covid misinformation. But they continue to elevate someone who violates both those principles,” she said. “Doesn’t that make you complicit?”
A Google spokeswoman said it welcomes ads from all political advertisers as long as they comply with the company’s policies. It has restricted targeting on election ads, barring campaigns from mixing public voter records with information like searches, web browsing, and YouTube viewing histories. Facebook didn’t limit targeting, and has also infuriated Democrats with its policy of declining to fact-check political ads. (Republicans have subsequently attacked the company each time it put labels on misleading posts from President Trump.) Both companies have said they’ll stop allowing political ads in the days after the election, in an attempt to stem attempts to confuse people about the outcome of the voting.
Not everyone who is skeptical of social media companies’ handling of political ads has supported restrictions on targeting or outright bans. People who run down-ballot campaigns have expressed concern that restrictions on targeting make it harder for them to afford ads tailored to their constituents. Some campaigns felt that the restrictions on targeting kept them from the kind of granular messaging on Facebook and Google that worked so well in 2016. “It changed buying to actually look more like TV,” said Reid Vineis, a vice president for Majority Strategies, a political ad firm.
Some people who study political speech also say a political ad ban would undermine the electoral process. “I think political advertising is important,” said Kreiss of UNC. “Most ads are mobilizational—how else do you get people to turn out to vote?”


fortune--2020-11-02--Swing states, COVID, and the Electoral College: Why Trump’s odds of winning are better than they see

Swing states, COVID, and the Electoral College: Why Trump’s odds of winning are better than they seem

Joe Biden has maintained a relatively consistent and significant lead over President Trump in the polls in the past several months, but races have a tendency to change shape quickly in the final days. And in a year like 2020, where COVID-19 is driving specific voting behaviors on each side, anything can happen.
I direct the IBD/TIPP Presidential Tracking poll, which was one of the only national polls to accurately predict that Donald Trump would win the presidency in 2016, and in analyzing all of the 2020 data, I believe this year’s race remains too close to call. Let me explain why.
The importance of swing states
To date, Biden’s substantial lead comes from blue states, but, as the Democratic candidate, he should be expected to win these states. Relying on this margin obfuscates the real race being fought—that in the swing states. If we look at what’s going on in battleground areas, there is a possibility that we could see the largest gap between the popular vote and the Electoral College in U.S. history.
Although it appears Trump has little chance of capturing the popular vote at this point, Biden leads in swing states by just 7.8 points. If Trump manages to run the table, it wouldn’t be completely shocking to see him reelected.
A Trump win in 2020 would mark the third time in the past six presidential election cycles that the popular vote failed to elect the President of the United States. The commonality in these cases is that it would be a Republican who lost the popular vote but won the presidency—Al Gore vs. George W. Bush in 2000, Hillary Clinton vs. Trump in 2016, and potentially Joe Biden vs. Trump on Nov. 3. If a hypothetical Trump win were to happen, this would reveal a true disconnect between party politics, the Electoral College system, and the voice of the people.
Trump faces a tough road ahead to ever make it to the scenario above, but the American people still must go into the election with eyes open and consider the possibility. To get a real gut check of where the race really stands, we have to compare what’s happening specifically in swing states with what’s going on in red and blue states, as well as situate them historically.
Red states
Red states currently make up 41.7% of the popular vote. Here, according to our daily tracking poll released this morning, Trump leads by 12. Compare this lead with 2016, where he was up by 15.1, and it’s a notable decline. Looking back further, Trump is performing below Romney (+12.8), but he is ahead of McCain (+8.6).
Blue states
Blue states represent 39.9% of the popular vote. Biden is up 16.4 points right now. This compares with Clinton +20 in 2016, Obama +19.6 in 2012, and Obama +21.7 in 2008.
Swing states
Compare these margins to swing states, however, and you can see just how different the race starts to look. As mentioned above, Biden is currently up by 7.8 points in our latest poll in states that account for 18.4% of the popular vote. Because the swing states have a small sample compared with red and blue states in our national poll, Biden at +7.8 has a large margin of error, so we must look at the battleground state polls average in RealClearPolitics, which shows Biden +2.9. This is a reason to give pause.
The COVID factor
COVID-19 has become a key factor in this race, affecting the performance of both candidates. If you look at blue states that have the highest death rates (defined as greater than two deaths per 1,000 registered voters), Biden sits at +13.1. This looks impressive, until you compare it with Clinton who did not have COVID to contend with in 2016, when she was up by 20.5 in these same states. Breaking it down further, Biden is also running below Clinton in blue states with the lowest COVID death rates (defined as less than one death per 1,000 registered voters), where he is up 17.8 compared with Clinton’s 20.3. Again, Biden is still up by a large margin, but it shows that COVID is having an impact on this race in its final stages.
Now consider Trump. If you look at red states with a low COVID death rate, where his supporters are most enthusiastic, he’s currently up by 5.5 points. For comparison, he was ahead by 18.4 in these same states in 2016. While Trump could potentially put a dent in the popular vote by gains in these states, this would not affect the Electoral College count.
What we really need to examine are the swing states with low death rates because they will most likely decide the election at this point. This means paying careful attention to what goes on in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Our national poll cannot accurately gauge the race here due to sample size limitations.
Wild card considerations
A few other catalysts could come into play in the waning days of the race. First, and most significantly, 10% of registered voters remain undecided. This number spikes to 14% in the swing states. Depending on which way they sway—or if some opt out of voting altogether—we could see some shifting. Additionally, Thursday’s blowout GDP report, arriving just before the election, showed that the U.S. economy grew over 30% in the third quarter. When you consider that people have historically voted with their pocketbooks, this could have an impact.
Also, Trump’s energetic campaigning style has proven to generate strong voter enthusiasm, which might draw a historic number of people to the polls, even with more than 90 million votes already cast. Further scrutiny of business deals involving Biden’s family could hurt Biden and boost Trump, as well.
There remain issues such as the surge of COVID cases and varying timelines and procedures for counting ballots. Enough small movements across all of these factors in the final hours could lead to a difference in outcomes.
So, while it may seem on the surface that Biden is a lock to become the next President of the United States, a few obstacles still exist. As such, it is simply too early to call this race.
Raghavan Mayur is president and founder of TechnoMetrica and leader of the IBD/TIPP poll.


fortune--2020-11-02--‘Fire Fauci’ is easier for a crowd to chant than for Trump to do

As a career civil servant, Anthony Fauci is not an easy man to fire, despite the pleas of a crowd of Donald Trump supporters chanting at a weekend rally.
The latest tiff between Fauci and the president came following Trump’s campaign statements that the U.S. has “turned the corner” on the pandemic. Fauci, in a Washington Post interview on Saturday, said America “could not possibly be positioned more poorly” as it heads into the winter. The U.S. recorded nearly 100,000 new cases Friday, the most at any point in the pandemic.
Fauci also offered praise for the campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, saying it was taking the coronavirus “seriously from a public health perspective.” Then came the “fire Fauci” chants from the crowd at a Sunday evening rally for the president in Florida, mirroring the “lock her up” rally chants targeting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election. I appreciate the advice, I appreciate it,” Trump replied to the crowd. “No, he’s been wrong on a lot. He’s a nice man, though. He’s been wrong on a lot.”
Fauci, a member of the Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since being named in 1984 under then-President Ronald Reagan. Trump routinely muses about things in his rallies, and it isn’t clear whether he is considering firing Fauci. The president, though, has all but frozen out Fauci, who has lost influence to Scott Atlas, an adviser who downplays the risk of the virus.
It’s not the first time the issue of firing Fauci has surfaced. Speaking to reporters on Oct. 19, Trump said he didn’t want to fire Fauci. “I don’t want to, I don’t want to hurt him.” Trump said. “He’s been there for about 350 years.”
Biden, meanwhile, had a different message at a rally in Ohio. “Elect me and I’m going to hire Dr. Fauci,” Biden said.
Fauci is a Title 42 senior-level federal employee, covered under the performance management system for members of the Senior Executive Service. The White House declined comment Monday on whether it believes it has the authority to fire him.
But Diane Seltzer Torre of the Bethesda, Maryland-based Seltzer Law Firm, which concentrates on employment law, said that under Fauci’s current status, Trump can’t fire him directly.
Fauci can only be fired by Francis Collins, his supervisor as the head of the National Institutes of Health, or Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary, for cause such as poor performance or misconduct, Seltzer Torre said.
“Even if that was proposed, it would have to be in writing and give specifics, and then Dr. Fauci would have an opportunity to respond orally and in writing,” according to Seltzer Torre. If a decision is made to go through with the firing, Fauci would have appeal rights to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and ultimately to federal court, she added.
Collins, in a CNN interview in July, said, “I could not imagine doing something of that sort, no” when asked if he would fire Fauci if ordered by the president.
Calling Fauci “a national treasure,” Collins said in the interview that there is “nobody I know on this planet who is more knowledgeable about infectious disease, and has more experience over 50 years of his career.”
Being praised on CNN by your boss could be seen as evidence Fauci is doing a good job, if there was a move to fire him by Azar without Collins’s involvement. Collins didn’t directly answer whether he would resign rather than fire Fauci himself.
“Francis would never fire Tony,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, referring to Collins and Fauci. “The only way the president could fire Tony would be to fire the NIH director and appoint a yes man in his place.”
If Trump is re-elected, though, “all bets are off,” Gostin said.
Executive Order
The question of whether Fauci’s status could be changed under a executive order affecting the status of civil-service workers — and thus be fired more quickly — likely will be resolved no later than Jan. 19, when a preliminary review from federal agencies of eligible policy making positions is due.
Based on the text of the executive order and initial guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, it’s unclear that Fauci’s status can be changed, said Deborah Hopkins, president of the Federal Employment Law Training Group, which provides employment law training to federal managers.
“It remains to be seen” whether the application of the executive order “will be narrow or broad,” Hopkins said. The guidance, she added, “indicates a lot of flexibility.”
Tim Stretton, a policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, said the order could well make it easier to fire Fauci. Under the order, Stretton said, agencies would identify employees who work on policy, including directly making it or influencing it in some way.
Those workers would not receive the same protections as civil servants do today. Given Fauci’s role in the coronavirus response, it’s “not hard” to see how he could be deemed as a person with a hand in shaping policy, Stretton said.
Taking the Hammer
To Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, this situation embodies the purpose of protecting career government employees: So the U.S. can hire workers and they can speak freely without fear of political retribution.
”President Trump is taking the hammer to career civil servants and the purpose of it,” Stier said of the recent executive order.
Fauci has been a frequent Trump foil since early in the pandemic when he urged caution about ending social-distancing measures in testimony before Congress in early May. Additionally, he would sometimes push back against claims made by Trump about drugs or science.
‘Real Risk’
When Trump began pushing for reopening the country, Fauci warned a Senate panel in early May that doing so too soon could lead to new outbreaks. “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you might not be able to control,” Fauci testified on May 12.
Last week, 14 states spanning the Rocky Mountain West to Pennsylvania recorded all-time highs in cases, the most of the pandemic.
Even if Fauci’s status isn’t changed, scientists who work for him easily could be, said Diane Seltzer Torre of the Seltzer Law Firm in Bethesda, Md. “Why are we targeting these people?” she asked.


fortune--2020-11-02--Valerie Jarrett: We need a President who understands the challenges of working women

Last week, President Trump addressed his supporters at a rally in Michigan and made his version of an appeal to women, proclaiming: “We’re getting your husbands back to work.” When I watched it, I thought: How, in 2020, could the President of the United States only view women’s lives through the lens of their husband’s ability to provide for them? How could he ignore the devastating impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on working women—and particularly women of color?
Millions of women have lost their jobs since the pandemic began, causing a she-session. Nearly 900,000 women left the workforce last month alone—four times the number of men.
Trump doesn’t have a plan to contain the virus or grow our economy. He has been telling us that we are “turning the corner”—and yet we are seeing spikes all over the country. Make no mistake: Women who are often the sole or primary breadwinner in their families are paying a particularly painful price. And many other women have been forced to make the difficult decision to exit the workforce because of Trump’s failure to have a plan to safely reopen schools and childcare centers.
We need a President who understands and is prepared to address the challenges of working women. And in this election, that candidate is my friend Joe Biden.
As the former chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, I had the opportunity to work closely with Joe during my time as a senior adviser to President Obama. And I know how deeply he cares about women getting an equal shot at earning a fair wage.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have a plan to effectively contain COVID-19 and get us safely back to work and our children back to school. And once they do, they’ll build our country back better and move us toward an inclusive, equal, and just society for all Americans.
And recognizing that our nation faced a caregiving crisis long before the pandemic hit, Joe and Kamala have a caregiving agenda that is central to their economic recovery plan. They will make high-quality childcare more affordable and accessible, providing every 3- and 4-year-old free preschool, ensuring low- to middle-income families won’t spend more than 7% of their income on high-quality childcare for young children, and offering an option of an $8,000 tax credit for childcare.
They will expand access to dignified care for aging family members and people with disabilities by eliminating the current wait list for home and community-based services under Medicaid and helping states invest in innovative new programs, like those that make homes safer, and those that provide meals, day programs, and rides to appointments. And they will provide up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for all workers.
Their plan will ease the squeeze on working families that are raising their kids and caring for aging loved ones, get their loved ones the care and education they need, and create millions of good jobs for caregivers who have been undervalued for too long.
When my daughter was young, I experienced the same structural and cultural challenges faced by far too many working moms—which force us to compete on an unequal playing field. I realized it would be impossible for me to thrive, especially after I became a single mom, without the benefits of a workplace that values diversity and an inclusive culture. When women succeed America succeeds, and we need a President who is in our corner—not a President who views us through the lens of husbands and ignores our full potential.
If this economy is going to recover from this pandemic, we need women to help keep the country running. Joe and Kamala get that. They respect the contributions of women to our economy and communities. They are competent, decent, empathic leaders who will support and stand with us. And they’ll always ensure we have a seat at the table—from making sure the federal workforce looks like the country it serves, to creating a White House Council on Gender Equality, to making sure the needs of women and girls are front and center in the federal government’s efforts to work for all Americans.
As Joe often says, he is campaigning as a Democrat, but he will govern as President for all of America. If you care about ensuring women thrive in the workforce; if you care about building this economy back better; if you care about your economic future, there is only one ticket that represents your interests: Joe and Kamala’s.
They will get us all back to work.
But first, let’s get to work electing this historic ticket. Let’s vote.
Valerie Jarrett was the longest-serving senior adviser to President Barack Obama, overseeing the White House Office of Public Engagement and Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and chairing the White House Council on Women and Girls.


fortune--2020-11-02--What’s expected at Apple’s just announced virtual event on Nov. 10

Blocked from holding its usual live product announcements by the pandemic, Apple is turning to a virtual event for the third time this fall.
The company, which introduced a new watch and iPad in September and new iPhones last month, didn’t specify what products it may unveil during the online event on Nov. 10 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. But Apple has previously promised to announce by year-end new Macintosh computers powered by its own processor designs instead of those from Intel.
In an emailed invitation, Apple offered the tagline “One more thing,” a reference to late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who used that expression at the end of events when he wanted to surprise the audience with a final new product. During Apple’s quarterly call with analysts last week, CEO Tim Cook said the company was “in the midst of our most prolific product introduction period ever,” hinting that more big announcements were to come.
Apple has used Intel chips to power its Mac line of laptop and desktop computers since 2006. But Intel’s manufacturing effort has stumbled for the past several years, delaying the introduction of faster chips. In June, Apple said it would dump Intel in favor of its own design, which relies on a basic chip architecture from ARM and is already used in iPhones and iPads.
Switching to its own chips could enable Apple to introduce faster computers more quickly, help lower its costs, and allow for new features like laptops with cellular modems and multiday battery life.
Several other rumored Apple products could also premiere at the Nov. 10 event. For months, rumors have circulated that Apple has developed small tags that could be attached to other items and provide a tracking capability. Dubbed Airtags by the rumor mill, the tags would communicate wirelessly with iPhones and other Apple products to keep track of their location.


fortune--2020-11-02--We could tackle COVID under an effective leader. Trump is not that leader

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial accuses Vice President Biden of weaving a fairy tale about COVID-19 and contrasts this with President Trump’s “sensible” response to the pandemic. The editorial argues that Biden simply wants voters to trust him, without his having presented a coherent plan that would be any different from the current President’s.
It is true that in a democracy, we don’t normally put faith in the ability of any single individual to solve complex social challenges, let alone deliver us salvation from a once-in-a-lifetime crisis like the one we have been in the midst of for months. However, the current administration’s approach has been such a massive failure, with a reluctance to undertake even the most basic, cost-effective defensive actions that were well within our nation’s financial and technological capabilities, that there is reason to be hopeful about our prospects under any future functional administration.
Biden’s science-based strategic plan commits to simple, effective steps like mask wearing, physical distancing, hand and surface hygiene, restricting indoor gatherings to small groups in spaces with excellent air quality, scaling up testing and contact tracing, and restoring the nation’s faith in scientific expertise and confidence in our public health infrastructure. Importantly, Biden leads by example and is clear and consistent in his messaging. These are the leadership attributes we now desperately need to undo the damage to evidence-based decision-making wrought by our current President. With new leadership, there will be no more ridiculing simple, sensible public health responses that prevent many thousands of unnecessary deaths in our nation.
Leadership is key to control of any crisis. As many other countries around the world have shown, a more effective response to the pandemic requires sensible, decisive, and empathetic leaders who inspire all citizens to make small sacrifices to protect each other in the interest of our collective well-being. President Macky Sall of Senegal self-quarantined because he was exposed, even after testing negative for SARS-CoV-2. Contrast this with the behavior of U.S. government leaders who continue to ignore basic social distancing and mask guidelines set by their own CDC. Many sub-Saharan African countries that the President has derided in the past began planning their COVID response as soon as the virus alerts were sent internationally and began screening and quarantining travelers at their airports. The comparative indecisiveness and slowness of the U.S. response, in contrast, is likely to cost many thousands of lives. Rwandans are now allowed to travel to Europe, while Americans remain prohibited. The Foreign Policy global COVID-19 response index ranks New Zealand, Japan, Kenya, Australia, and Ghana as the best responders, simply because their leaders followed scientists’ recommendations, and communicated clearly with their citizens to encourage positive behavior change. The U.S. ranks among the bottom five.
Recommendations from public health experts—based on classic, tried-and-tested strategies—have fallen on deaf ears at the White House since the beginning of this pandemic. In February, President Trump’s team failed to deliver necessary quality testing, to rationally coordinate distribution of personal protective equipment, to highlight key hygiene messages, or to educate the public about the threat of the novel coronavirus. For every statement from Drs. Birx and Fauci, there was a counterstatement undermining their guidance.
In March and April, the need for mask use and physical distancing were given lip service in the White House even as the President and his top aides modeled bad behavior, ignoring recommendations from the public health community. While hawking ineffective medicines and dangerous fringe “therapies” (remember bleach injections and internal light therapy?) and failing to take even basic respiratory transmission precautions within the White House or at mass political rallies, our President ridiculed those who are more responsible than he.
Global progress toward safe and effective vaccines to prevent infection and better therapies to save lives and lessen hospitalizations will allow us to resume our normal lives and more fully restore our economy, perhaps by late 2021. Yet our President has consistently undermined regulatory authorities and ridiculed scientists; and, not coincidentally, vaccine hesitancy in the general public is now at a record high, according to the Pew Research Center.
The best bet for restoring our nation’s health and economy is to restore the primacy of science and evidence in battling the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, we will also begin to reverse White House mistakes ranging from deregulation of environmental and health protections for the public, failing to confront global climate threats, passivity in the face of falling health insurance coverage rates, and inadequate investments to blunt the pandemic economic crisis. Qualified public health experts will no longer be removed to fill slots with political appointees from regulated industries. Classic public health measures can tide us over until the arrival of effective vaccines and superior therapies, but they must be promulgated and respected.
Sten H. Vermund is the dean of the Yale School of Public Health. Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak is professor of economics at Yale University and founder of the Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE). Howard Forman is professor at the Yale School of Medicine and director of the Health Care Management program at the Yale School of Public Health, and has advised the Biden campaign.


fortune--2020-11-02--A key county in Michigan has voted for election winners since 1980. Here’s how swing voters there ar

A key county in Michigan has voted for election winners since 1980. Here’s how swing voters there are feeling now

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For the past 40 years, Van Buren County has made a habit of picking winners.
Whether Ronald Reagan in 1980, Barack Obama in 2008, or Donald Trump in 2016, the rural Michigan county just outside Kalamazoo has voted for the winner of each of the past 10 presidential elections, supporting six Republican and four Democratic candidates in the process.
Economically, Van Buren County has long been driven by a mix of farming, manufacturing, tourism, and collection of small businesses and restaurants. Wineries in particular are a specialty in the county seat of Paw Paw (population 3,000). Located on the coast of Lake Michigan, the county boasts a mix of Chicago tourists and full-time retirees, especially in the town of South Haven. A bedroom community for some, residents may drive into nearby Kalamazoo for employment. With a median household income of $52,351, the county is slightly less well off than the nation’s median of $60,293. It’s Van Buren’s small businesses that have been hit hardest in the four years since the last election, with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing on hardship that is troubling some owners as they fill out their ballot.
“My husband and I have not been able to make a decision,” said Sarah Cox, a restaurant owner in the county. “Because if we went based on our morals, it would go one way. And if we base our opinion on our business, it goes in a completely different way. I think that’s excruciatingly common for people around here.”
But according to County Clerk Suzie Roehm who’s worked in the clerk’s office for the past 25 years, most people in the county have no clue about their reputation for picking winners. “I don’t think most people are aware of it,” Roehm said. “If you are involved at all in the political arena, you probably are aware of it. But I don’t know that the general public would actually know that––I’ve never had a lot of people bring that up to me.”
Just ask 75-year-old Trump supporter John Hunt, who hadn’t heard of the trend and didn’t think he should have either.
“Now, how the hell would I know that?” Hunt said. “I’ve voted Republican all my life except for John Kennedy.”
Democrat Jenna Radabaugh, a 22-year-old daytime manager at a local tap house who cast her Biden ballot last week, was equally taken aback by Van Buren County’s history as a bellwether, as were Paw Paw restaurant owners Eric Cook, 36, and Cox, 44, who both gave similar versions of the “No way! Are you serious?” reaction.
“No, I’ve never heard of that,” Radabaugh said. “But that is kind of shocking to me. Because ever since I’ve been here, it has felt pretty Republican.”
While the county obviously voted blue in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, helping keep its streak intact, Radabaugh’s assumption would appear mostly correct, especially when it comes to local politics.
Van Buren County has backed the Republican candidate as the U.S. representative for Michigan’s sixth congressional district for 14 elections in a row and has shown similar support for Republican gubernatorial candidates, voting red in four of the past five such elections. Further, the county hasn’t voted for a Democrat to hold office as a state senator, representative, or secretary of state in the past 20 years.
Outside of Obama’s two terms, the county’s few instances of leaning left have largely come when supporting Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, which they’ve done in five out of the past seven elections. While the county’s broad preference for conservative politicians despite brief instances of support for liberals may be confounding to most, Paul Clements, a political science professor at nearby Western Michigan University who lost two of the aforementioned 14 races for representative of Michigan’s sixth congressional district, has some thoughts on the matter.
“I think of Van Buren County like small-town America with a few edges that take you in different directions,” Clements said. “I think there are a lot of liberals there, but they’re sort of moderate liberals. And there are a lot of conservatives there, but they’re sort of moderate conservatives.”
While Van Buren County certainly isn’t a perfect representative cross-section of America––on average, it is whiter, older, and less wealthy than the country as a whole––Clements does support the notion that Van Buren County may just simply be more moderate, especially in comparison to its bordering counties.
Whereas Kalamazoo County, a metropolitan area that sits directly to the east of Van Buren, is more progressive in nature, and Allegan County, immediately north of Van Buren, is traditionally conservative, Clements says Van Buren County is “right in the middle”––geographically and politically.
To Clements, the more moderate nature of Van Buren County’s electorate explains in part why the county has fluidly switched between right and left and back again in presidential elections. More moderate voters naturally may be swayed more by individual candidates; for example, whereas Obama’s charisma, message of hope, and potential to be the nation’s first African-American President may have swayed moderate voters to turn out to vote, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy did not, according to Clements.
Explaining Van Buren’s preference for conservative politics outside of presidential elections, Clements points to the institutional history of the Republican Party in the county. Having been around far longer than its Democratic counterpart, the Republican Party has held all of the county’s commission seats for as long as Clements can remember.
“The Democratic Party has only really begun to field candidates for a number of the positions within the county,” Clements said. “So part of the reason you know that the Republicans win down the ballot is that they’ve just been there [longer].”
According to Paw Paw locals, outward support for Trump has been more prominent than for Biden: A Trump Train Cruise of more than 200 cars came through the town over a month ago, and another one blasted through East Michigan Avenue––Paw Paw’s main road that is home to its local restaurants, diners, and movie theatre––on Saturday. Trump campaign posters appeared to outnumber those of Biden, but not by much.
Van Buren County, of course, will have little impact on the final Electoral College tally, and its previous alignment with presidential winners means little in terms of its future accuracy. Most think the vote will end up being close, and some Van Buren County residents think this is the year the trend comes to an end.
“If I had to bet, I think this is the year the streak ends,” said Cook, the owner of 120 Taphouse & Bistro in Paw Paw. “Just gut feeling––I definitely think we buck the trend. I would guess that Biden would be elected nationally, but that Trump probably has a good chance of winning this county.”


fortune--2020-11-02--The shopping mall apocalypse continues as two large operators file for bankruptcy

The ongoing shopper exodus from malls has landed another two companies in bankruptcy court protection.
CBL Properties, a large Tennessee-based developer, and Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) have each filed for Chapter 11 protection since Sunday as they look to fix their finances and make a go of it in an increasingly tough climate for their properties.
Mall owners have been slammed by a one-two punch as many tenants, notably Gap Inc., have stopped paying rent or negotiated reductions as the pandemic forced them to shutter stores in the spring, and a number of large tenants, including J.C. Penney and Macy’s, have left some malls for good.
Those trends have been tough for all mall operators, but even more so for companies like CBL, whose 107-property portfolio is made up primarily of so-called B-malls and C-malls—lower-quality malls as measured by sales per square foot. Those properties are typically occupied by weak tenants and haven’t been remodeled in years. Even the biggest mall operator, Simon Property Group, whose malls are mostly higher-end, is struggling amid the same forces.
Even as shoppers have resumed spending—just look at the stellar results at big-box stores like Walmart and Target—they are consolidating shopping trips and patronizing stores where they can focus on the essentials and tick off most of their errands in one place. Indeed, a recent survey by Coresight Research found that 55% of consumers were avoiding malls in favor of strip centers, where shoppers can park in front of the store of their choice and be quick about their errands.
More pain could be heading mall operators’ way: Gap Inc., long a core tenant of many malls, announced last month that it would be closing hundreds of its Gap and Banana Republic stores in the coming years, with the aim of having only 20% of outposts in mall locations by 2023.
Earlier this year, Coresight forecast that as many as 25,000 retail locations would close across the U.S., many more than in 2019 and primarily in malls. This year has seen many retailer bankruptcy filings, including J.C. Penney, J.Crew, Ann Taylor parent Ascena, Neiman Marcus, and Men’s Wearhouse.
The case of PREIT, a regional operator best known for the Fashion District center in downtown Philadelphia, offers sobering lessons for other mall developers: The operator of 19 malls had shed many of its weakest properties in recent years and opened more movie theaters, restaurants, and other non-store businesses to diversify its tenant base. Yet such businesses have also been hammered by the pandemic and failed to help the company make up for the loss of shoppers.


fortune--2020-11-02--Germany’s auto industry could get billions in funding to go green

The German government may give the country’s crucial auto industry billions more euros to shift to a future of self-driving cars that don’t burn fossil fuels.
On Monday, as Germany reentered partial lockdown, both Reuters and Handelsblatt reported a plan by the economy ministry to give €2 billion ($2.33 billion) to automakers and their local suppliers by 2024, to promote research and development around the industry’s reinvention and to fund the necessary retraining of staff.
The cash would reportedly come from Germany’s pandemic recovery funds.
According to Reuters, the ministry’s proposal—which now needs to be thrashed out with other ministries under a standard consultation process—argues that German car factories will need to change their methods as, with electric vehicles, “faster innovation cycles demand more flexible production facilities.”
Thomas Puls, a senior economist at the German Economic Institute in Cologne, told Fortune that €2 billion distributed over several years does not amount to the massive bailout that many in the pandemic-struck industry have been hoping for—with little success. However, he said, it could be useful for parts suppliers in particular.
“It should help especially concerning transition costs, but it’s not a big program that will solve the problem [of financing the overall transition],” Puls said. He added that it would also be important for the federal government to build out Germany’s charging infrastructure and to bear in mind that decarbonization will require “several technologies” in the vehicular space, including synthetic fuels that could greenify existing cars.
Indeed, Handelsblatt quoted the economy ministry’s proposal as saying the €2 billion fund should “initiate a sustainable, rapid and technology-neutral transformation of the vehicle industry.”
The economy ministry did not respond to a request for more information about the proposal.
Germany’s big auto industry association, the Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA), is waiting to learn more about the proposal before coming to any conclusions.
“It’s very important to look at the details of what they do with this €2 billion, to get the money efficiently and helpfully to these companies,” said VDA spokesman Eckehart Rotter.
That will no doubt be a main topic of discussion at the next Autogipfel summit in mid-November between the industry’s big players and the administration of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The auto sector accounts for around 5% of German GDP, so it has traditionally had great influence with the government, though this was seriously dented by the Dieselgate scandal.
Following the reports early Monday, the shares of Daimler, BMW, and Volkswagen all rose, as did those of Continental, one of the industry’s biggest component suppliers. However, that was likely part of a generalized recovery in the German markets from last week’s selloff.


fortune--2020-11-02--Why did anyone invest in Quibi?

Why did anyone invest in Quibi?

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R.I.P. Quibi. The short-form streaming service had its grave dug and wreathed with flowers well before consumers set eyes on a single episode, at least based on bets from onlookers.
Take a scroll through Twitter and there are any number of “I told you so”’s—and resurfaced tweets from before Quibi’s launch—assigning blame to billionaire hubris and a saturated streaming environment.
So if there was so much certainty in Quibi’s demise before the service even hit the app store (see my predecessor Polina Marinova’s post), why did any investors make the leap?
I caught up with Anis Uzzaman, general partner and CEO of Pegasus Tech Ventures, which invested some $35 million in the company in one of its later rounds of funding.
Yes, he had his doubts about Quibi when investing, but the company “already had a lot of ad revenue completed,” says Uzzaman, pointing to deals inked with T-Mobile, General Mills, and Walmart. “What kinds of companies have that for a product that has not yet launched?”
And perhaps unfortunately, there was also some follow-the-leader logic: Big-name investors such as J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs gave Pegasus some comfort with the company’s viability.
Many will point to the lack of venture investors on Quibi’s roster of backers—which, at first glance, sets Pegasus apart. But that’s not exactly the case: Pegasus invested in Quibi in part because the fund works with corporations to make investments. Japan’s Asahi Broadcasting Group, which launched a $200 million fund with Pegasus, wanted to work with Quibi in the long term.
Uzzaman was remarkably calm for an investor who expects to get none of the $350 million Quibi still holds in cash, since Pegasus flew in to a later round (though he is hoping he may recoup 20% to 40% of his investment via the sale of some of Quibi’s assets). I asked as much: Aren’t you angry?
“My first reaction was, why are they giving up so fast? In startups, there are failures all the time—but people turn it around. Why didn’t the company get rid of the titles that didn’t do well, and retry? Instead they continued with the same business model for several months,” he says. “They still had $350 million, and they are getting out? It doesn’t make sense to me. It blows.”
At any rate, Quibi’s leaders say they did try to change the model—though to no avail.
“Over the summer, we started to see a slowdown in our momentum and we tried many different things—many different product packaging models, we changed our marketing, we changed the app around many different times, but it was clear for whatever reason, this was not going to be as successful as Jeffrey and I had hoped,” Whitman said on CNBC in late October.
Meanwhile, Netflix last week said it would raise prices once again for its U.S. customers amid signs of slower customer growth—but also low turnover. Spotify is also planning to raise prices, according to CEO Daniel Ek following the company’s earnings call last week. And yes—I have no doubts consumers will pay for the Netflix bump, if only to keep bored-at-home children busy.
ANTITRUST MIXES UP THE M&A WORLD: Amid news that the U.S. Department of Justice is taking a hard look at deals by large incumbents to acquire fintech startups, one of those deals is now looking to offload a piece of the business to put out antitrust concerns. Credit Karma, which had agreed earlier this year to be acquired for $7.1 billion by tax-software maker Intuit, is looking to sell its tax preparation business to Square, per the Wall Street Journal.
VENTURE DEALS
- Polestar, a Swedish-based electric vehicle maker, is in talks to raise $500 million from investors at a $6 billion valuation, per Bloomberg. Volvo and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group back the firm. Another report though suggests that it is in talks to raise $800 million to $900 million at over a $5 billion valuation. Read more.
- Conductor, a Brazil-based card issuing software platform in Latin America, raised $150 million in funding. Viking Global Investors led the round and was joined by investors including Advent International’s affiliate Sunley House Capital.
- WiTricity, a Watertown, Mass.-based wireless power transfer firm, raised $34 million in funding. Stage 1 Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Air Waves Wireless Electricity and Mitsubishi Corp. Americas.
- Onfleet, a San Francisco-based last mile delivery management software maker, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Kennet Partners led the round.
- Transcend, a New Jersey-based provider of inventory management and reporting solutions for financial firms, raised $10 million in a Series A funding. Nyca Partners.
- Teampay, a New York-based spend management platform, raised $5 million in Series A-1 funding. Fin Venture Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Tribe, Crosscut, and Precursor.
- Lucidum, a San Jose, Calif.-based a cybersecurity platform for finding blind spots across operations, raised $4 million in seed funding. GGV Capital and Silicon Valley CISO Investments led the round.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Inspire Brands will buy Dunkin’ Brands Group (Nasdaq: DNKN), a company behind the eponymous donut brand, for about $8.8 billion not including debt.
- Ares Management offered to acquire AMP (ASX: AMP), an Australian asset management company, for about A$6.4 billion ($4.8 billion). Read more.
- Clearlake Capital Group agreed to acquire Endurance International Group Holdings (Nasdaq:EIGI), a provider of cloud-based platform solutions designed to help small and medium-sized businesses, for about $3 billion including debt.
- Advent International plans to acquire Nielsen Holdings’ consumer goods data unit for $2.7 billion. Read more.
- Anexinet, a portfolio company of Mill Point Capital, plans to acquire SereneIT, an Atlanta area-based engineering and IT solutions firm. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Belcan, backed by AE Industrial Partners, acquired Telesis Corp., technology services and solutions firm serving defense and civilian federal government customers. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Centre Partners partnered with LP First Capital to form United Land Services Holdings, a platform for landscape services provider in the Southeast. Its companies include United Landscapes, Blandford Turf, Tree World, O’Hara and River Region Sports Fields. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Comlinkdata, backed by Alpine Investors, acquired ShareTracker, an Oakland, Calif.-based telecom research and analytics firm. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Francisco Partners agreed to acquire MyFitnessPal, a San Francisco-based food-tracking and fitness app, from Under Armour (NYSE: UAA). Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- FullSpeed Automotive, backed by CenterOak Partners, acquired Uncle Ed’s Oil Shoppe, a Battle Creek, Mi.-based provider of preventative maintenance and car wash services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Granicus, a portfolio company of Vista Equity Partners, acquired Calytera, an Austin-based data platform for government agencies, from BuildGroup. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Owner Resource Group invested in SURESTAFF, an Itasca, Ill.-based provider of temporary, temp-to-hire, direct hire and on-premise staffing solutions. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Serent Capital invested in Employer Direct Healthcare, a Dallas-based surgical network. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners agreed to acquire Astound Broadband, the sixth largest U.S. cable operator in the United States that operates leading regional providers RCN, Grande, Wave and enTouch,
EXITS
- Nestlé USA agreed to acquire Freshly Inc, a Tempe, Ariz.-based deliverer of healthy meals, for up to $1.5 billion. Investors included Insight Partners and Highland Capital Partners.
- IPSY, a beauty sampling service, says it will acquire BoxyCharm, a South Florida-based provider of full-size beauty product subscriptions, to form BFA (Beauty For All) Industries. The duo is on track for over $1 billion in annual revenue this year. BoxyCharm investors included KarpReilly. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Ocado, the U.K. online grocer, acquired two U.S. robotics companies: Kindred Systems, a San Francisco-based robotics company backed by investors including Bloomberg Beta and Data Collective, for $262 million in cash; and Haddington Dynamics, a Las Vegas-based robotic arm maker for $25 million in cash and stock.
- CM Group,backed by Insight Partners, acquired Selligent Marketing Cloud, a Belgium-based marketing cloud company, from HGGC. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Oetker Group initiated plans to acquire flaschenpost, a German online beverage delivery service. Investors include Cherry Ventures, Vorwerk Ventures, and Tiger Global.
OTHERS
- Juul Labs, the vaping startup, dropped its valuation to about $10 billion, per the Wall Street Journal. It was once valued at $38 billion. Read more.
- CoConstruct, backed by Serent Capital, acquired CBUSA, a group purchase organization for home builders to combine their buying power to more compete with national builders. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Societe Generale SA plans to sell its Lyxor asset management business, with $175 billion, per Bloomberg. Read more.
IPO
- Mavenir, a Richardson, Texas-based cloud-native software company, withdrew plans to raise $275 million in an IPO.
SPAC
- Dragoneer Growth Opportunities II, a SPAC formed by Dragoneer Investment Group, filed to raise up to $200 million via IPO.
PEOPLE
- Ardian hired Scarlett Omar Broca and Heiko Geissler as managing directors in Paris and Frankfurt respectively, as part of the buyout team. Omar Broca was previously of Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division, while Geissler came from Montagu Private Equity. Ardian also promoted three to managing director: Nicolas Darnaud and Emmanuel Miquel in Paris, and Marco Bellino in Milan.
- Water Street Healthcare Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, appointed Michael S. Zappala to vice president.
- Hunter Point Capital, a New York-based mid-market alternative asset manager, was formed by Bennett Goodman and Avi Kalichstein.


fortune--2020-11-02--Electric vehicle stocks come unplugged

Electric vehicle stocks come unplugged

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Star car designer Henrik Fisker has driven another leg on his road to redemption. On Friday, his second-try electric car effort, Fisker Inc., merged with special purpose acquisition company Spartan Energy Acquisition Corp., raising $1 billion of much-needed funds in the process. In its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FSR, the stock climbed 13% to close at $10.14.
Fisker says that’s all the money he’ll need to bring his planned electric SUV, the Fisker Ocean, to market at a price under $40,000. Last month he struck a deal with Canadian auto manufacturing giant Magna International to supply key components of the vehicle, with mass production planned to start in about two years.
It’s quite a different strategy than what Fisker tried last time around. A decade ago, Fisker Automotive designed, manufactured, and sold the Fisker Karma hybrid electric sports car priced at over $100,000. It was an expensive flop, plagued by delays and quality issues, and the company ended up in bankruptcy.
The man who designed the Aston Martin DB9 and the BMW Z8 says he has learned his lesson. “You’ve got to give up your ego,” Fisker told me when I spoke to him this summer. “A lot of the hardware in vehicles is going to end up being a commodity, and therefore we are willing to share those parts with somebody else.” Like an EV version of Apple or Nike, the plan is to win over buyers with sharp looks and great design without needing to make every part itself. “Emotional design is going to be in the foreground of vehicle purchasing in the future,” he said. “We’re going to be the leader in that, both inside and outside and also the entire user interface.”
Sounds smart. On the other hand, Car and Driver magazine this month has a deep dive into the electric vehicle market and the news is not so good. Few consumers are interested in converting to EVs any time soon, the sticker prices of even the cheapest EVs are well above the price of entry-level gas-powered cars, and the big automakers don’t have the brand cache to attract the people who do want—and can afford—an EV. Beyond Tesla, no carmaker has had a major success with an electric car yet.
Then there’s the crowd of newcomers. Fisker is hardly the only EV startup to debut on the stock market this year. Two-year-old EV component maker Hyliion Holdings and EV truck maker Lordstown Motors (making a go at it in the famed General Motors Ohio factory) merged with SPACs to go public last month. Both also rose in their first day of trading but have since tumbled. Hyliion plunged 52% in a few weeks and Lordstown 31% in just a few days. Other EV stocks also had a terrible last week. Tesla lost 9%, controversial Nikola Motor fell 19%, and Workhorse Group plunged 24%.
Still, stock market machinations aside, Fisker says he has all the resources in place to bring the Ocean to market. It’s hard to root against him.
In the latest episode of our Fortune Reinvent podcast, Land O’Lakes SVP Heather Anfang explains how the agricultural cooperative dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shocks to demand for its products.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
Pulling the plug. Maybe it wasn't as bad as the downdraft hitting stocks of electric vehicle makers, but tech stocks in general got crushed on Friday, as third quarter earnings reports failed to impress. Twitter dropped 21%, Spotify lost 10%, and Square fell 9%. Among the most valuable tech players, Apple lost 6%, Amazon lost 5%, Microsoft slipped 1%, and Google was the rare stock in the green, gaining 4%.
Counter-narrative. We have heard a lot from Republican senators alleging social networks like Twitter and Facebook are biased against conservative points of view. It's a false narrative, as the Nieman Lab reports on two studies disproving the charge and the Washington Post reveals Facebook in some cases ignored its own rules to give preferential treatment to pro-Trump groups.
Domo arigato Mr. Robotto. U.K. online grocer Ocado is stocking up on automation technology. The company agreed to pay $262 million for Kindred Systems, a San Francisco-based startup building warehouse robots, and $25 million for Haddington Dynamics, a Las Vegas firm specializing in robotic arms. For a real kick, check out the new form of robot (I guess it's still a robot) debuted by some Chinese researchers last week that reconfigures itself from a swarm of metal spheres. Called FreeBOT, the group of spheres motor about and stick together via magnets.
Run hard or leave the app. Not all mergers and acquisitions work out as planned, of course. Athletic wear giant Under Armour is selling exercise tracking app MyFitnessPal to Francisco Partners for $375 million, about $100 million less than it paid five years ago. It is keeping one bit of the platform, the MapMyFitness apps, however. Under Armour is also shutting down personal trainer app Endomondo, purchased five years ago for $85 million.
Nose painting your age. As we hurtle towards election day, the Trump administration faced another setback in its effort to curb the security threat slash teen app sensation TikTok. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone on Friday issued a temporary injunction forbidding Trump's TikTok ban from going into effect while the court battle continues.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Fortune reporter Katherine Dunn has been delving into the mysterious glitches plaguing the Global Positioning System, or GPS, for some years now. Over the weekend, she updated the story with the tale of the persistent GPS hole across huge stretches of the Mediterranean.
Although the outages are assumed to be a knock-on effect from conflict zones and militaries on the ground, their sheer scale means it's not clear who is responsible for all of the outages, according to experts. The leading assumptions from experts in the area is they come from military operations from multiple countries in the region, including airbases and vessels—in the East Mediterranean, one of the rare examples where public attribution has been made, such outages have been traced to an airbase on the coast of Syria. Berz says the fact that the outages are intermittent and not continuous, and therefore difficult to predict, makes it even harder to trace the disruptions to their exact source.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Biden campaign slams Facebook for cutting off its political ads By Danielle Abril
Theft of $2.3M from GOP shows how campaigns are juicy targets for hackers By Jeff John Roberts
Apple starts selling its Apple One subscription bundles. Here’s how much they cost By Aaron Pressman
China’s new five-year plan has an ambitious aim: to become a self-sufficient, global tech superpower By Grady McGregor
The self-funded retail startup designing seasonless clothing for women By Rachel King
How a new regulation would let businesses avoid the law by classifying employees as independent contractors By Scott Casabona
The 5 best things I bought in October to make working and living at home easier By Rachel Schallom
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Instead of paying humans to operate the cameras televising its matches, Scottish soccer team Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC installed an A.I. app called Pixellot that was supposed to keep the lenses trained on the ball. It all went horribly wrong last week when the bald head of a referee confused the system. I thought for sure this was a spoof but there's video proof. Don't get mixed about this week and don't forget to vote if you haven't already.


fortune--2020-11-02--Voter intimidation, Russian influence, refusal to accept results: What could go wrong on Election Ni

Voter intimidation, Russian influence, refusal to accept results: What could go wrong on Election Night

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Hope for the best, expect the worst. That’s the motto when it comes to Tuesday’s election. Voting in the middle of a highly contagious and deadly global pandemic was never going to be easy, but woefully underfunded local election offices; President Donald Trump’s mobilization of armed “poll-watchers”; warnings of foreign interference; an unprecedented surge in mail-in ballots; the constant, typically inaccurate rhetoric coming out of the White House about mass voter fraud; and the potential for Supreme Court challenges make it seem highly improbable that anything will go according to plan.
Businesses around the country are boarding up their shop windows ahead of this week’s vote—unsure of what to expect—and election-induced anxiety is high.
So while Americans are hoping that their fears are overstated, here’s what they should expect, or at least prepare for.
Outside interference
The Department of Homeland Security ramped up warnings about election security last month, releasing a 26-page “Homeland Threat Assessment” that warned that “Russia is the likely primary covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation within the Homeland.” The paper backed an August assessment by U.S. counterintelligence chief William Evanina that found Russia was attempting to undermine the candidacy of Joe Biden.
There are no signs that Russians have actually infiltrated voting systems the way they did in 2016, but state and local election networks are still incredibly vulnerable to attack. If the election results take weeks or months to report, that creates an opportunity for Russian trolls to spread disinformation and for hackers to implement malware that security officials believe may already be lying dormant in voting systems.
U.S. security agencies, meanwhile, have been coordinating behind the scenes in an attempt to thwart hackers. The National Security Agency (NSA), for example, has been targeting Russian spies by knocking them off the Internet. The State Department has worked to revoke visas for those they deem working to influence the election.
The President, however, has refused to take a hard-line stance against Russian election interference and has repeatedly played down the threat. “He is aiding and abetting Putin’s efforts by not being direct about this,” H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, said in a recent interview with MSNBC. “This sustained campaign of disruption, disinformation, and denial is aided by any leader who doesn’t acknowledge it.”
Militias mobilize
President Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters to go to their polling places and “watch” or “monitor” for fraud, causing a fear of widespread voter intimidation.
“I am encouraging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen—I am urging them to do it,” Trump said during the first presidential debate held in Cleveland last month. “There was a big problem. In Philadelphia, they went in to watch. They’re called poll watchers—very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out; they weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.”
It is illegal in all 50 states for citizens to loiter around polling places and intimidate voters, meaning the President was urging his supporters to commit a federal crime. The Republican Party, meanwhile, responded to the President’s requests by creating a multimillion-dollar effort to recruit 50,000 volunteers to act as “poll watchers” on Election Day.
Retailers, restaurants, and shopping areas like Rodeo Drive are planning for unrest. Walmart initially removed guns and ammo from sales floors, but then quickly reversed course.
The President’s son Donald Trump Jr. used military language while discussing these watchers, calling them an “Army for Trump.” In a video posted to Facebook, he said that “the radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father, President Donald Trump.”
On Friday, a group of Trump supporters reportedly stopped and harassed a bus that belonged to the Biden campaign. Video shows the caravan of supporters surrounding the bus with their vehicles in Texas. The Biden campaign said the pro-Trump trucks tried to run the bus off the road. The FBI said on Sunday that they were investigating the violent incident. The President, meanwhile, defended his supporters’ actions.
“In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” Trump said in a tweet. “Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”
Biden said Sunday afternoon that he was worried the President was encouraging his backers to be violent and that it might manifest on Election Day.
Counting quickly is impossible
A pandemic coupled with record numbers of mail-in ballots means that local election offices will both be understaffed and overextended. Seventeen states have statutes that say mail-in ballots can’t be counted until after polls close on Election Day. Other states, like Pennsylvania, will continue to count ballots as they come in after the election, so long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3.
Counting a mail-in ballot is more time-consuming and difficult than an in-person vote: The envelope must be opened; ballots must be checked to make sure they’re signed correctly; and, in some cases, verified that signatures match. Some states require officials to contact voters who made errors on their ballots to give them a chance to correct them. It could take a very long time to process these votes.
Swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin attempted to amend their election rules to allow for early counting of votes, but Republicans in the state legislatures blocked those efforts. The longer these states take to count votes, the more time there will be for Republicans to mount legal challenges to stop their efforts.
Military votes, which are often cast as absentee ballots by soldiers serving abroad and at bases throughout the country, will also likely go uncounted until well after Nov. 3. In some states, those in service have different rules on required postmarks and deadlines. In Florida, a key battleground state where one in five military votes was cast in the 2016 election, ballots are accepted through Nov. 13. The President’s insistence that no ballot is counted after Tuesday could disenfranchise a large number of service members and impact the outcome of the election.
“We’ve seen in the past, obviously Florida is the key example, that it can come down to a single state and not very many votes,” said Jack Noland, a researcher for Count Every Hero, a nonpartisan military voting advocacy group, to McClatchy DC. “It is not out of the realm of possibility, at all, that some of these statewide or down-ballot races could be determined by overseas and military voters.”
The courts get involved
The Trump administration has already made multiple appeals to the Supreme Court asking that states discard any mail-in ballots received after Election Day—even if they are postmarked before Election Day. With Postal Service slowdowns significantly delaying delivery of ballots, these requests could have election-altering potential.
The President’s lawyers will likely continue to appeal a ruling in Pennsylvania which allowed ballots received up until Nov. 6 to be counted.
“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump told reporters last month about the election, just before he confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the bench.
Still, it’s very unlikely that the outcome of a presidential election is determined by the Supreme Court. It happened in 1876 when five justices decided the race for Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden and again in 2000 when the Supreme Court stopped a recount of votes, and George W. Bush became President over Al Gore.
The Supreme Court has already made two rulings about this election—allowing Pennsylvania to extend its vote count deadline and denying Wisconsin the same privilege—but it’s still unclear what exactly Republican lawyers would argue if they lose the election and challenge that loss. “I think it’s terrible that we can’t know the results of an election the night of the election…We’re going to go in the night, as soon as that election’s over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” Trump said to reporters Sunday evening.
If the President refuses to agree to a peaceful transfer of power, the court may also get involved.
Candidates refuse to accept the vote
Trump has reportedly told confidants that he plans to publicly declare victory on Tuesday if it looks like he’s “ahead,” even if there are still large numbers of uncounted absentee ballots. Trump has long been setting the scene to falsely say any ballots counted after election night are fraudulent and that Democrats are attempting to “steal” the election from him.
Jason Miller, communications director for the Trump campaign, said this week that Trump would win the election and that Democrats are “just going to try to steal it back after the election.” Any challenges to counts by Democrats, he said, would just be “hijinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense.”
It’s not unlikely that if he loses or results are unclear, Trump will refuse to accept defeat or calls the fairness of the election into question. Either way, once the Electoral College votes are counted in early January, the results of the election will be consecrated.


fortune--2020-11-02--Families and daycares struggle to navigate COVID rules with germy kids

Joelle Wheatley hit her pandemic-parenting rock bottom after her son was sent home from day care for a second time, with the sniffles, due to stricter health guidelines in a symptom-sensitive COVID-19 world.
It was supposed to be Jacob’s first day back after a stressful 10-day home quarantine for another mild symptom that turned out to be harmless. Frustrated, desperate — there were no other care options, and she needed to focus on work — and certain that the 2-year-old’s runny nose and cough were also benign, the Seattle mom defied the day care’s orders and brought him back the next day anyway.
“I was just so sure he had a cold, and that sounds so irresponsible,” said Wheatley, 43, who works at an early education nonprofit. “But I honestly was just in such a low place.”
As more families make the jump back to group day care this fall in an attempt to restart lives and careers, many parents, pediatricians and care operators are finding that new, pandemic-driven rules offer a much-needed layer of safety but also seem incompatible with the germy reality of childhood.
They stem largely from coronavirus guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowering the fever threshold, disqualifying even a single bout of diarrhea or vomiting and making sniffles suspect in group settings.
But the guidelines don’t take into account that young children are prone to catching the common viral infections that help build up their immune systems, or that seasonal allergies, crying, even teething and normal playground exertion can prompt a COVID-19-like symptom.
And the price parents and kids pay for such symptoms — which could easily signal either a happy, healthy toddler, or a lurking case of the disease that has now killed more than 230,000 people in the U.S. — is now a dayslong disruption.
That’s a reality Wheatley knows all too well: Jacob was turned away again on Day 2 and she then had to scramble to get him a coronavirus test and an appointment with a doctor who wrote a note confirming the boy was virus-free. It took two days to get Jacob back to preschool, causing her anxiety about his health and guilt over neglecting work.
Medical experts acknowledge the lines are blurry for kids with symptoms.
The CDC notes on its website that young children commonly have up to eight respiratory illnesses or colds each year as a matter of course. In its guidelines for K-12 schools, the CDC warns that excluding children for longer than “existing” policies over COVID-19 symptoms alone could cause unnecessary absences.
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ latest child care guidelines released in October initially didn’t include congestion, runny nose, vomiting or diarrhea on its symptoms checklist. Following questions from The Associated Press, the pediatricians’ group updated its recommendations on Friday to include those symptoms in alignment with the CDC, calling it an oversight.
Dr. Elaine Donoghue, who helped write the pediatricians’ child care guidelines, said any symptom must be taken seriously if it looks even vaguely like COVID-19. While young children are prone to minor infections, they now in theory face less exposure to those milder illnesses due to pandemic-related social distancing, and that means the calculus behind assessing symptoms changes.
“We should not be expecting certainty during a pandemic,” Donoghue said. “This is an uncertain time.”
Considered essential in many states, day cares are one of the few services that have remained open through the pandemic that’s now stretched nine months and counting in the U.S. Numerous programs have permanently closed, though there are signs families are trickling back to preschool.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people working in child care has recovered steadily in recent months. But while the 853,000 workers reported in September marks a 28% jump from April, it’s still below the more than 1 million in the field a year ago.
Lois Martin, who runs the Community Day Center for Children in Seattle, said the learning curve has been steep for her staff since most of her families returned to the day care. The preschool teachers are now being asked to take on responsibilities requiring medical expertise, such as evaluating runny nose secretions based on thickness and color.
“This is definitely not the world we want our children to be in,” Martin said.
In October, the Child Care Aware of America advocacy group released a national survey conducted by Yale researchers in May and June of more than 57,000 child care employees — including those who were and were not actively working at the time — and found no link to known positive coronavirus infections or hospitalizations among the workforce. The study’s authors say this suggests that when done under such strict guidelines, child care can be safe from widespread transmission during the pandemic.
Wheatley and her husband have seen firsthand the benefits of having vigilant sanitizing, social distancing and symptom-checking: A teacher at their day care had the coronavirus in August, but it never spread to any other workers, kids or families.
So, the couple, who also have a 10-month-old baby, now figure future day care disruptions will become just another part of the new normal, with the kids inevitably being kicked out again when there’s a hint of possible illness.
“It’s not sustainable,” Wheatley said. “Our solution is going to be suck it up and be unhappy and eventually move” to be near family who can help.
That kind of strain on families has Deeann Puffert, CEO of the Washington branch of Child Care Aware, worrying that parents may start hiding symptoms from caregivers.
“To meet the (health) requirements and maintain the joy of caregiving and early caregiving — it’s just challenging,” Puffert said. “There are no answers.”


fortune--2020-11-02--Cecile Richards: ‘Women will decide this election’

This is the web version of The Broadsheet, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Kamala Harris could take on a few different roles in a Biden administration, Cathy Engelbert reflects on how the WNBA pulled off its bubble, and women will decide this election. Go get your Monday.
– The deciding vote. “Women will decide this election.”
It’s a prediction that has drawn the attention of pollsters, candidates, and journalists alike over the past several months. From the oft-discussed white women who helped push President Trump to victory in 2016 to the Black women who have proven so critical to the Democratic Party to 2020’s remarkable efforts to turn out the Latina vote—the simple statement encompasses a lot.
In a Fortune op-ed published in the final days—or depending on when you’re reading this, hours—before Nov. 3, Cecile Richards and Amanda Brown Lierman, cofounder and managing director, respectively, of the women’s political organization Supermajority, make the argument one more time.
“We believe that when we bring women together across race, age, geography, and background, they can change the direction of this country,” write Brown Lierman and Richards, who is the former president of Planned Parenthood. “And that’s exactly what’s happening right now.”
Before election results come in, they point out a few numbers that are already clear. Women have donated $2 billion to federal candidates, including $33.4 million to Biden and $8.7 million to Trump. A record-breaking number of women are again running for office.
“The world is finally waking up to the fact that women are not a special interest group,” the Supermajority duo write. “We’re the majority of this country.”
The pair reference a recent New York Times piece that features women sharing how they’re voting in their own words. See those diverse views here, and read the rest of the Fortune op-ed here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Inside the admin? It may seem premature, but we still want to know: what role would a Vice President Kamala Harris play in a Biden administration? Joe Biden's own tenure in the position, Harris's record as a lawmaker, and a few other factors—like the age at which Biden would take office—shed some light on the question. Fortune
- Thunberg's take. In a new interview, Greta Thunberg weighs in on the U.S. presidential election. "We can’t predict what will happen. Maybe if Trump wins that will be the spark that makes people angry enough to start protesting and really demanding things for the climate crisis. ... I’m not saying that Joe Biden is good or his policies are close to being enough. They are not." New York Times
- Back to school. Grace, the 16-year-old who was sent to juvenile detention for not completing online schoolwork during the coronavirus pandemic, is back to school this fall and speaking about her experience. "You deserve better than your mistakes,” she recently told an audience of young Black girls and educators. ProPublica
- Non-compete countdown. Bobbi Brown's new beauty brand is called Jones Road, and the venture has been a long time in the making. Since leaving Estée Lauder four years ago, Brown has worn a necklace with the date her non-compete agreement expires on it. WSJ. Magazine
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Reddit promoted VP of marketing Roxy Young to CMO and VP of people and culture Nellie Peshkov to chief people officer. Broadridge promoted Naadia Burrows to chief diversity officer. Coinbase hired Katherine Minarik as VP, deputy general counsel for litigation and Google's Milana McCullagh as VP, deputy general counsel for product and commercial. Lululemon promoted Celeste Burgoyne to president, Americas and global guest innovation and hired Abercrombie & Fitch chief diversity and inclusion officer Stacia Jones as VP, global head of IDEA.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Diversity report. Why is President Trump trying to kill off diversity training programs? In this op-ed, ReadySet CEO Y-Vonne Hutchinson and Paradigm's Joelle Emerson and Evelyn Carter try to answer that question. Fortune
- Social upside. Women in Egypt are using social media—especially TikTok—to speak out against victim-blaming in sexual assault cases and to express themselves in ways they can't in broader society. A social media campaign led the government to drop charges against 18-year-old Aya Khamees, who was charged with "violation of family values" after posting about her own rape. New York Times
- Inside the bubble. How did the WNBA pull off its season in the bubble? Commissioner Cathy Engelbert reflects on what she learned from her past year with the league's players. "The players are bigger than basketball," she says. "They did not want to come and play basketball without having a mission." Marie Claire
ON MY RADAR
Hims built a $1.6 billion online empire by pushing prescriptions Bloomberg
Focus Brands president Kat Cole on how to transform the workplace during a crisis Wall Street Journal
6 new books to read in November Fortune
PARTING WORDS
"I’ve decided to give myself permission to focus on my joy."
-Beyoncé, on the cover of British Vogue, on the future of her career and life


fortune--2020-11-02--Gift Guide: What to wear when working from home

Not everyone has time to shop around (not to mention most people have no desire to shop in stores at all right now) and look for the newest items on the market that could appeal to the loved ones and colleagues on their gift-giving lists. (Or for themselves, because let’s be honest, we look at holiday gift guides and deals for ourselves just as much as for others.)
With that in mind, here is a helpful list of apparel and accessories that are both professional and comfortable for working at home well into 2021.
Beats Solo Pro headset, Jill Burrows Caramel & Silver indoor slippers, Velocity men’s blazer, Quince Mongolian Cashmere crew, Aritzia Daria pant Courtesy of Beats, Jill Burrows, Velocity, Quince and Aritzia
Aether: Based in Los Angeles, Aether’s (pronounced like “ether”) technical clothing line for men and women was designed with the outdoors in mind, but many of their durable yet comfy pieces can be worn indoors. And unlike a lot of apparel brands designed specifically for outdoor wear, Aether’s shirts and sweaters are much more aesthetically appealing, making you look cool on Zoom but keeping you warm as temperatures drop and you resist turning your heater on. The brand’s Japanese merino Henley, touted to regularly sell out, has inherent moisture-wicking qualities, keeping body temperature regulated whether the wearer is indoors or using it as a layer in colder climates. SRP: $225.
Aritzia: If you are working from home, remind yourself: You do not have to wear “hard pants.” But maybe you don’t want to sit around in your pajamas or sweatpants all the time. (No shame, whatsoever, if you do, though.) Canadian label Aritzia’s Daria pants, a set of vegan leather leggings, have become a cult favorite among fashion bloggers in the past few years given how durable and comfortable they are. They often pop up as an ideal option for wearing on airplanes, but that means they’re just as good to wear at home. For a dressier look, the brand’s Conan dress pants come with a pull-on waistband and elastic backing. They’re also made with Terado, a Japanese fabric that’s matte crepe on one side and satin on the other. SRP: $138 for the Daria pant; $148 for the Conan pant.
Apple: When talking about workwear, you might not think of headphones in the same category. But in the Zoom era, how can you not? Not only are they crucial to maintaining decent audio during a conference call from your living room, kitchen, or outdoor deck if you are so lucky to have one (we’ve all enviously seen you there), but everyone on the call can see your choice of headphones on the video chat, too. It doesn’t get much more sleek and functional than the Beats headset. For work purposes, consider the wireless Solo Pro headset, ergonomically designed for all-day wear. There are two listening modes: Noise Canceling with real-time audio calibration, and Transparency Mode, which lets you stay aware of your surroundings. Powered by the Apple H1 chip, you can take calls, skip songs, and control volume with one button on the ear cup, and then activate the headset for Bluetooth connectivity by folding and unfolding the ear cups. You can expect up to 22 hours of listening time on a single charge, or up to 40 hours if you turn Noise Canceling and Transparency Mode off. SRP: $300.
Birdies: If you’re looking for an upgrade for your slippers that make you feel as if you’re going out, Birdies touts its footwear as stylish flats that are secretly slippers. Launched this autumn, the Birdies x Minted Collection is the product of two mission-driven, female-founded companies that joined forces to support the artisanship of female creators in order to showcase their work in a unique way. Taking inspiration from nature and wildlife, artists Julie Murray, Jessie Burch, and Emilie Simpson created motifs to be embroidered on Birdies’ classic velvet flats, translating their designs into intricate embroidery to create wearable art—a first of its kind collaboration for both brands. The collection includes three styles: the Starling in Falling Fern, the Blackbird in Royal Perch, and the Heron in Wild Zebra. SRP: $165.
Jill Burrows: Many people (myself included) are not fans of wearing outdoor shoes in the house. Not only is it unsanitary, but many cultures consider it disrespectful. So maybe it’s time to consider a pair of comfortable but fancy shoes to wear only at home. Fitting somewhere between slippers and loafers, Jill Burrows’ stylish slip-on flats might elevate your mood (and your feet, ever so slightly) while working in a home office. The leather slippers are intended for all-day wear, year-round. Each pair comes in a logo shoe bag, making for special gift packaging. SRP: $128.
Ministry of Supply: Ministry of Supply is an MIT-born company that leans on “textile science” to make durable, comfy clothes that can go straight from dryer to drawer or suitcase. The brand just launched a few new pieces that are especially suited to working from home—or really working from anywhere. Almost nothing spruces up an outfit in person or via Zoom faster than a smart blazer. The men’s Velocity Blazer features a resilient stretch fabric that retains crisp lines, thanks to a soft-yet-strong fiber that’s machine washable and wrinkle-free. SRP: $495.
M.M.LaFleur: When the only time colleagues can see you is via videoconference call, you’re probably less inclined to put on a stiff, fussy dress shirt. But it’s a lot easier to keep up appearances than you think. The key is not to overthink. A simple but well-made T-shirt can even do the trick. M.M.LaFleur has made its mark in the women’s apparel industry by designing and producing luxury workwear at still-aspirational but better prices than the likes of designer fashion labels. The Choe Top, in particular, is a work-appropriate T-shirt that is both stretchy and structured and looks just as sharp tucked into a tailored skirt as it does with jeans. And it won’t require a trip to the dry cleaner as it’s machine-washable. (It’s also comfortable enough to wear on an airplane, when you’re ready to do that again.) SRP: $145.
Pairess: Launching a fashion business during the COVID-19 pandemic as retailers continue to face devastating losses is a brave venture. But launching a brand of attire tailored for working from home might be a saving grace. Founded by two Asian-American women who pivoted their careers from Silicon Valley tech to fashion entrepreneurship (they met while working together at fintech company Affirm), Pairess’s debut capsule collection was built for a longer-term shift in consumer demand for fashion products that prioritize comfort, functionality, and wellness. While there might be a shift away from so-called hard pants when working from home, winter months might call for more coverage. The Amelia 2.0 Pull-on Relaxed Slim Leg Pants are made with wrinkle-resistant, stretchy fabric and an elastic waistband. And it’s fitting that they’re named after Amelia Bloomer, a suffragist who advocated for less restrictive, more comfortable clothing standards for women. SRP: $125.
Printfresh: If you’ve been working from home for several months, chances are you might have started out working in your pajamas—and now you’re sick of it. Printfresh offers a happy and colorful upgrade, with bright and bold prints on its long and short sleep sets and nightshirts. And if you are on Zoom calls all day, these beautiful patterns really pop on camera, making you presentable with very little effort. SRP: $132 for the long sleep sets.
Quince: There are few things more classic as well as more comfortable than a cashmere sweater. Tailor-made for the everyday uniform, it can be worn when you need to look your best with dress pants, or casually with a pair of jeans around the house. Quince posits that high-quality staples shouldn’t be unattainable luxuries. Thus, the brand connects with factories to sell direct to the customer, promising consumers better prices and factories with better margins. SRP: $50 for the women’s and $60 for the men’s cashmere crewneck sweater.
Rails: If there was one piece of clothing that defined women’s fashion in 2020, it would be the nap dress. Sometimes it’s called a housedress. For others, it’s just a plain old dress. Regardless, there is something liberating about a billowy dress free of a waistline, making working from home all the more comfortable. This striped, linen, sleeveless, and flowy gown is great in both warm and cool seasons as it is easy to move around in and goes well with a cardigan or cowl-neck sweater as colder temperatures move in. SRP: $198.
Sarah Flint: The easiest way to spruce up your Zoom look comes in the form of a 45-centimeter by 45-centimeter square of fabric. That would be a neck scarf, with one twist, instantly elevating even an old sweatshirt. Handcrafted in Como, Italy, this 100% silk scarf by American shoemaker Sarah Flint and painted by artist Ella Sienna (formerly Ella Jackson), featuring florals from the British countryside, will have you dreaming of spring all through winter. SRP: $145.
The North Face: With more than 200 positive reviews, the North Face’s Motion Pants for men are touted to be comfortable for all body types, and can be worn at the office, while working from home, out at a restaurant, or even while traveling. The mid-weight, straight-fit hiking pants are crafted with DuPont’s Sorona Triexta durable fiber fabric and sport a reflective detailing under the pant cuffs that could come in handy at night. SRP: $75.