fortune--2020-05-08--Two men charged with murder in the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery

What to watch this weekend on Netflix , Hulu , and more

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
Happy Friday! Outrage leads to arrests in the Ahmaud Arbery case, a police shooting is livestreamed on Facebook, and some history behind Sesame Street’s creation.
But first, your week in review, in Haiku.
In an alternate
world, he would have come home from
his run, sweaty and
smiling, grateful to
be able to get outside.
In an alternate
world, it would be his
birthday today. And no one
would know, except his
people, who would mark
the day with wishes for his
next 25 years.
In an alternate
world, we would need no justice,
we would be the peace.
Wishing you a safe and peaceful weekend.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
.
On point
"Ahmaud Arbery should be alive" There is no way to parse this story without coming to this conclusion, though people will try. Arbery was jogging through the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Ga. last February, when he was pursued by three white men in a truck, who "believed" him to be a possible burglar. Two chased, shot, and murdered him, one videoed it all. It is horrific. The three men, father and son Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael, and their neighbor William Bryan, were not credible at the time of the incident, and it took the recent release of the video to force enough outrage to trigger their arrest. The outrage has surfaced a powerful desire for justice. I’ll let Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith take it from here. “We should reshape our thinking about that conception of ‘justice,’ however, as we confront yet another murder of a young black person, visual evidence of that crime, and the insidious and racist justification of it,” he says. “True justice cannot be served until we change the system that allows for human rage and frailty to indulge itself at a whim, seizing its own sick justice while the real thing must be more deliberate.”
Rolling Stone
Another police shooting filmed live on Facebook A man identified as Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, 21, was shot and killed on Wednesday. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said they were pursuing Reed because he had been driving recklessly. Reed appeared to have started the livestream himself and was reportedly asking for help—he appeared to have been tasered, multiple shots were heard on the video. Some 4,000 people, including family members of Reed, watched the stream. Reed’s video picked up one detective joking, “think it’s going to be a closed casket, homie.” The incident sparked widespread protests. The Indianapolis Police are facing additional scrutiny after having killed three people in an eight-hour period, including an officer fatally striking a pregnant woman.
Washington Post
Quarantine inspires India’s push toward renewable fuel sources India is the second-largest coal consumer in the world, but forced lockdown has dampened energy demands by some 30%. Experts are hoping that the downtime could speed the country’s switch to solar power. “There is potential for India to really surprise the global community and contribute to the decarbonisation story while doing it in a very cost-effective way,” says the director of energy finance studies for the Australia and South Asia region at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Climate Change News
Coronavirus in the community
On background
Did you know that Black people held conventions for human rights before, during, and after the Civil War? For seven decades starting in 1830, African Americans convened throughout the U.S. and Canada to discuss urgent matters of civil and human rights. I had never heard of these Colored Conventions until I stumbled upon this extraordinary project from the University of Delaware. The Colored Conventions Project is preserving this history and digitizing a trove of understudied documents associated with the conventions. They are doing the work, folks. Follow them on Twitter here, explore their digital records here, more background below.
The Colored Conventions Project
The man behind a beloved institution of New York boxing history dies of COVID-19 Jimmy’s Corner was a popular Times Square bar, a throwback to an earlier time in many ways. A towel’s throw away from Madison Square Garden, it was a place where boxers and fans could mingle, and listen to owner Jimmy Glenn, a former boxing cornerman who told all the tales. The final scene of Raging Bull was filmed there. Glenn was 89, the cause was complications from coronavirus.
New York Daily News
The incredible true story of the black psychiatrists who changed television After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, the Black Psychiatrists of America convened with a singular goal: To force the psychiatric community to acknowledge its own racism and to address the racism in the entire country. Led by Dr. Chester Pierce, and driven by the quest for widespread cultural change, Pierce decided to focus on television. He worried the messages conveyed by mainstream television were psychologically harmful to young people of color. He wanted mass media to “serve rather than to oppress the black people of this country.” Pierce worked his way into an advisory position for a new show that aimed to bring education into the homes of kids everywhere. And that is the little known and true story of how we actually got to Sesame Street, the most ground-breaking and racially diverse show the country had ever seen.
The Daily Beast
The big number
2.23
This is the number of miles that protesters are running today, to safely demonstrate in Ahmaud Arbery's honor; Arbery was shot and killed on February 23.
Today's mood board
Courtesy of Matthew Grabelsky
The family business


fortune--2020-05-08--Apple to start reopening some U.S. stores next week

Apple will start reopening U.S. retail stores next week, beginning in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama and Alaska.
The company said Friday it will require “additional safety procedures, including temperature checks, social distancing and face coverings to ensure customers and employees continue to stay healthy.”
Apple said its primary focus in the stores will be providing technical support to customers forced to work and attend school from home amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“Our team is constantly monitoring local heath data and government guidance, and as soon as we can safely open our stores, we will,” Apple said in a statement. “As local guidance varies around the U.S. there may be slight modifications to our procedures.”
The iPhone maker said earlier Friday that it will reopen its 15 retail stores across Germany on May 11 with limited hours and health precautions. The moves expand on Apple’s other recently opened locations in South Korea, Austria and Australia.
Apple’s stores in all other regions outside of China, including the Japan, U.K. and Canada, remain closed. Apple has more than 500 retail stores worldwide.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook previously told Bloomberg News he expected at least a few U.S. locations to reopen by mid-May, while retail chief Deirdre O’Brien had said she expects “many more” locations to re-open during the month.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—Remote work, online grocery shopping, cord cutting: What coronavirus trends will stick
—No buses, no problem. Some cities provide subsidized Uber rides amid pandemic
—How to choose a video chat app? Grade it on privacy
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Zoom’s ups and downs since the coronavirus crisis
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-05-08--The Coronavirus Economy: How an elementary school teacher teaches P.E. online

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Like many other teachers, Carrie Swidecki has had to adapt to conducting her classes virtually over the last couple of months. But the fourth-grade teacher from Bakersfield, Calif. isn’t just giving math and science lessons over the internet—she’s also teaching physical education, straight from her laptop.
“One student told me she watched six hours straight of TikTok videos,” says Swidecki. “It’s very concerning for me.”
The shuttering of schools, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, has led to many concerns that academic progress will slip this year. But Swidecki is equally concerned that kids are now lacking what used to be daily opportunities to move. The long-time teacher points out that elementary school kids are missing out on recess, lunch break, P.E. classes and after-school sports. This loss of physical activity should be alarming to all—according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18.5% of American children ages two through 19 already fall under the “obese” category.
Swidecki has an answer for this: Prioritize P.E., even over the Internet. She’s particularly well-positioned to do so.
Swidecki started teaching at Laurelglen Elementary about 20 years ago. Around the time she started teaching, she weighed 210 pounds. Then, she discovered dance video games—back then, it was Dance Dance Revolution, the pioneer of the genre. Swidecki became obsessed with dance video games, eventually earning 13 Guinness World Records titles, including longest video game marathon on a Just Dance game (a later entrant to the genre) and most high scores achieved on a dance video game in 24 hours. She also lost 75 pounds, and began incorporating her passion for dance video games into teaching.
In 2013 Carrie Swidecki set two Guinness World Records at the same time (the Longest Marathon on a Motion-Sensing Dance Game and the Longest Marathon on a Dance/Rhythm Game) by playing Just Dance for 49 hours 3 minutes 22 seconds. Carrie Swidecki
“It has helped me connect with kids and parents in a whole new way,” says Swidecki, who has launched several lunchtime, after-school and family fitness programs over the years, all centered around dance video games.
Almost immediately, as soon as California instituted a shelter-in-place order and schools shut down in mid-March, Swidecki figure out how to incorporate physical activity into her daily lessons with her class, now conducted over video conferencing tools.
“We do GoNoodle for 20 minutes each day,” says Swidecki, referring to a popular site for “movement and mindfulness” videos that’s used by many teachers. “We do a virtual dance party over Zoom.” (GoNoodle enables educators to share their screen and “host” dance parties over other video platforms too.)
The move to teaching—and dancing—online wasn’t a hard one for Swidecki. She had already been incorporating technology into her curriculum and her fitness routine for years, and was comfortable adapting to new sites and services. (Swidecki is also a “streamer” on Twitch, the Amazon-owned site where gamers livestream themselves playing video games.) But the move has forced her to work many more hours than before.
Carrie Swidecki is a teacher from Bakersfield who holds various dance game world record. In 2018 she was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame. Brent Peters
“All teachers are putting in more hours,” says Swidecki. “Not because they feel they have to, because they want to try and help the kids.”
To be sure, some teachers are having a tougher time adapting to the tech tools they are now forced to use. “We’ve all been supporting each other,” says Swidecki, who also serves as the “technology specialist” at her school.
For Swidecki, the hardest part of the shutdown has been, well, sitting down. “I’m not used to it,” says Swidecki, who exercises 35 to 55 hours a week. “In the classroom, I don’t sit down. I stand up the whole time, and interact with the kids.”
Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—The Rebuild Program: A project to help small businesses reopen amid a pandemic
—The pandemic makes the case for more transparent layoffs
—Reopening of Shanghai Disneyland is a proving ground for pandemic-era theme parks
—Photo essay: What life looks like in Europe as the continent starts to reopen
—Goldman Sachs doubts there will be a Round 3 of PPP loans for small businesses
—Most college students won’t get stimulus checks—but they should
—How the film industry is planning its post-pandemic return
—PODCAST: How Marc Benioff is helping out during the coronavirus pandemic
—WATCH: Fortune’s top 10 heroes of the coronavirus pandemic
Subscribe to How To Reopen, Fortune’s weekly newsletter on what it takes to reboot business in the midst of a pandemic


fortune--2020-05-08--What to watch this weekend on Netflix, Hulu, and more

Two men charged with murder in the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery

Between traditional television, video-on-demand releases, and a growing number of streaming services, it can be hard to keep up with what one should watch week to week. Fortune is here to help you keep track of new releases as well as the occasional older title worth checking out. Take a look at this weekend’s notable arrivals, a couple you may have missed earlier in the week, and what else is coming soon:
Netflix
Dead to Me (Season 2): The Christina Applegate-Linda Cardellini series, part black comedy and part mystery, returns for its second season May 8. The first season, which led to Applegate’s fifth Emmy nomination, focused on two grieving women who bond after losing their partners, and ended with a cliffhanger. The new season’s twists and turns remain to be seen, but early reviews indicate that the actors remain in top form.
The Eddy: If you’re a fan of France and jazz, this limited series from Oscar winner Damien Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash) might be the one for you. Starring André Holland (The Knick, Moonlight) as a jazz club owner in Paris, the series tackles everything from music—of course—to a family tragedy and murder mystery. (Read Fortune’s interview with Holland here.)
The Hollow (Season 2): If you’re seeking something a little more tween friendly, this animated sci-fi/fantasy series returns for another season on the streamer. The first season was certified 100% fresh by critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and can be fun viewing for adults too.
Nadiya’s Time to Eat: In case you missed it when the episodes dropped during the middle of last week, this one hits the sweet spot if you’ve run out of Great British Bake Off episodes to watch, but need more cheerful food shows to watch. Half-hour episodes hosted by past Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain are packed with quick recipes for busy families, along with educational segments on food production, making it a particularly relaxing binge in stressful times.
And as mentioned last week, Jerry Seinfeld’s 23 Hours to Kill and Michelle Obama documentary Becoming are now both on Netflix.
Hulu
Solar Opposites: The new animated comedy from Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty) features a family of aliens trapped on Earth after their home planet is destroyed… and as expected, wacky hijinks ensue. All eight episodes of the first season arrive on Hulu May 8.
On TV
Mark Ruffalo plays identical twins in the HBO miniseries “I Know This Much Is True,” based on the novel by Wally Lamb. Courtesy of HBO
Mark Ruffalo stars as identical twin brothers in I Know This Much Is True, an HBO miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Wally Lamb. The premiere takes place May 10 at 9 p.m. Eastern.
CBS‘s Sunday movie nights continue with Forrest Gump at 8 p.m. ET on May 10.
Coming Soon
Ready to choose your own adventure? The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend is an interactive special that arrives on Netflix May 12.
A number of finales hit TV in the coming week: Part two of Fox procedural 9-1-1’s season finale airs May 11 at 8 p.m. ET. Survivor will have a virtual reunion for its season finale May 13 at 8 p.m. ET. And the series finale of ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder airs May 14 at 10 p.m. ET.
Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How the film industry is planning its post-pandemic return
—How CBS legal drama All Rise made its virtual coronavirus episode
—The Last Dance director is racing to finish episodes
—Billions creators on releasing season five of the New York drama in uncertain times
—Chris Hemsworth calls Extraction the “most exhausting” shoot of his career


fortune--2020-05-08--Privacy in times of coronavirus

Privacy in times of coronavirus

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As entire economies move online, crime has followed and put cybersecurity into overdrive.
Zoom is case and point. On Thursday, video-conferencing platform Zoom acquired its first company in its history, Keybase, a security startup that will help Zoom offer end-to-end encryption to paid users in the near future, according to a blog post by Zoom CEO Eric Yuan.
The acquisition comes as critics have aired multiple security issues around the company, from Zoom bombings, to strangers jumping into meetings, to issues with data sharing—leading governments and schools to ban the product. In response, Zoom initiated a 90-day-plan to fix its security flaws, with the most recent buyout as a part of that roadmap to create a “truly private” platform.
In the blog post about the acquisition, Yuan largely focused on what Keybase could mean for the future of Zoom, putting Keybase’s future as a company into itself on the sidelines. Which makes sense: For the many, encryption and cybersecurity is that necessary but unseen part of the office and is less important than flat out knowing if your 12-year-old’s digital class could be inundated with porn. But security is now front-and-center in the context of coronavirus, as we as a society consider how to rollout things like contact tracing while still maintaining some semblance of privacy.
Per my colleague, David Z. Morris on the acquisition: “The type of secure and private digital technology Keybase is focused on could also be significant in the fight against the coronavirus. Many plans for reopening the economy include contact tracing to help slow the spread of the virus, but some solutions could also threaten user privacy. Privacy-protecting contact-tracing infrastructure currently in development by Apple and Google relies on encrypted communication systems similar to those used by Keybase—and, soon, Zoom.” Read more.
Amazon vs. Facebook vs. Walmart: Everyone appears to be on the hunt for the next Alibaba of India. On Thursday, tech-focused private equity firm Vista Equity Partners invested $1.5 billion in Jio Platforms, an Indian telecom and ecommerce company, following on a $5.7 billion investment from Facebook and a $750 million infusion from Silver Lake. Facebook’s investment in Jio in particular underlines the social media giant’s push into retail in India: As part of a partnership with Jio, Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging platform now allows users to buy goods from mom-and-pop shops in India. Meanwhile, Amazon, which has already made investments in India, is also reportedly in talks to acquire a larger stake in Future Retail, a struggling Indian retailer. And don’t forget Walmart’s $16 billion bet on Flipkart.
Quayside falls by the wayside: Alphabet abandoned controversial plans to build a “smart city” in Toronto as part of its Sidewalk Labs arm, the company revealed. In a Medium post, Sidewalk Labs CEO and Founder Daniel Doctoroff cited the current economic uncertainty that’s settled into the Toronto real estate market—though the project had long been on rocky grounds even before the coronavirus pandemic. While the project envisioned a more eco-friendly and tech-heavy city of the future, concerned and vocal citizens saw an already much-too-large tech giant out to grab their data.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Zoox, a Foster City, Calif.-based self-driving vehicle company, is weighing a sale, per the Information citing sources. Read more.
- Kurly, the Korean grocery delivery startup, raised 200 billion won ($164.3 million) in Series E funding. DST Global led the round and was joined by investors including Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Fuse Venture Partners, SK Networks Translink Capital, and Aspex Management. Read more.
- Gojo & Company, a Tokyo-based micro lender, raised $22 million in ongoing Series D funding. Seven Bank, Credit Saison, and SBI Group were among the investors.
- Groove, a San Francisco, Calif.-based sales engagement platform, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Level Equity and Capital One Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Uncork Capital and Quest Venture Partners.
- Workstream, a San Francisco-based hiring platform for onboarding hourly workers, raised $10 Million in Series A funding. Keith Rabois of Founders Fund led the round, and was joined by investors including Basis Set Ventures, CRV, and GGV Capital.
- Genetesis, a Mason, Oh.-based medical technology company developing non-invasive cardio imaging, raised $9.2 million in Series B funding. CincyTech, Ohio Innovation Fund, and Mark Cuban were among the investors.
- StructionSite, an Oakland, Calif.-based provider of reality capture software on construction sites, raised $7 million in funding. D20 Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Prelude and existing investors CEMEX Ventures, Obayashi, and 500 Startups.
- Dtex, a San Jose, Calif.-based cybersecurity firm, raised $17.5 million in funding. Northgate Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Norwest Venture Partners and Four Rivers Group. Read more.
- Locatee, a Zurich, Switzerland-based workplace analytics solution for office management, raised $4 million in Series A funding. FYRFLY Venture Partners and Tomahawk VC were the investors.
- Nextmv, a Philadelphia-based provider of decision making models for the logistics operations industry, raised $2.7 million in seed funding. FirstMark Capital and Dynamo led the round and was joined by investors including XFactor, Atypical and 2048. Read more.
- Toposens, a Munich-based startup that’s developing an echolocation sensor for vehicles, raised an undisclosed amount of funding. ALPANA Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Basinghall Partners and In-Q-Tel.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Latitude 27 Capital acquired JK Findings, a provider of jewelry components. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Boyne Capital acquired Pilot Power Group, a San Diego, Calif.-based provider of electric utility billing and data management services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOS
- Warner Music Group, New York-based record label, has been approved for an IPO on the Nasdaq. The firm posted revenues of $4.5 billion in the year ending Sept. 2019, with a net income of $256 million. Len Blavatnik backs the firm. Read more.
OTHERS
- WEX (NYSE: WEX) said it may walk away from a $1.7 billion deal to acquire eNett and Optal, travel payment services providers, citing the coronavirus outbreak. Travelport owns eNett. Read more.
- AMP (ASX: AMP) scrapped plans to divest its New Zealand wealth management business due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Read more.
- Unity Technologies acquired Finger Food Advanced Technology Group, a Vancouver-based VR/AR company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
EXITS
- Target is acquiring some tech assets of Deliv, a delivery service startup. Deliv is in the process of shutting down. Deliv’s venture investors include General Catalyst, PivotNorth Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Upfront Ventures. Read more.
- Julius Works acquired HYPR Brands, a New York City-based influencer marketing company and platform. Investors including Edgewater Capital Partners, Klingenstein Fields Wealth Advisors, LaunchCapital, Maverick Capital, Prudence Holdings, Resolute Ventures, Silvertech Ventures, and World Trade Ventures backed HYPR.
F+FS
- Energy Spectrum Capital announced $969 million in capital commitments for the first close of Energy Spectrum Partners VIII.
- AXA Venture Partners raised €200 million ($217 million) in its first closing of AVP Diversified II, a Fund of Funds strategy.


fortune--2020-05-08--In jazz, acting, and ‘The Eddy,’ André Holland listens for ‘the notes you don’t play’

Music comes before lyrics in the opening minutes of The Eddy, a new limited series from La La Land director Damien Chazelle on Netflix Friday.
A character, shot first from behind, raps under his breath while fetching ice from the back of the modern-day Parisian jazz club around which the series is set. Even his shoveling of cubes into a pail carries a certain meter; but the show starts in earnest once he passes back through to front-of-house, the stage band striking up a lively swing ballad as he enters. Trumpet and saxophone melodies interweave, a piano player dances down sparkling keys, steady percussion and the rhythmic pulse of a double-bass lending the performance its backbone—and last comes the smoky voice of lead singer Maja (Cold War’s Joanna Kulig), serenading a faraway lover in English and French.
But Chazelle’s camera only stops to watch this ensemble for a moment, taking in each player before turning away from the stage to push in on an especially attentive audience member: Elliot Udo (Moonlight’s André Holland), the Eddy’s co-owner, cigarette in hand and a pensive look on his face. Elliot’s business partner, Farid (Tahar Rahim, A Prophet), sidles up to remark that Maja seems tired; so does Elliot, for that matter. Well, responds Elliot, “I’m not trying to sing.”
As The Eddy’s scope broadens across eight hourlong installments—Chazelle directing the first two to establish tone, before passing the baton to Houda Benyamina, Laïla Marrakchi, and Alan Poul, for two episodes each—Elliot remains its star player, and Holland’s understated performance its dramatic anchor.
Once a celebrated jazz pianist back home in New York, Elliot has fled to Paris following the death of his son, and his efforts to keep The Eddy afloat double as a way of keeping the grief at bay. But when Elliot discovers that Farid may have been involved in some questionable business practices under his nose, he soon has bigger issues to contend with than musicians having off nights. And after his estranged daughter, Julie (The Hate U Give’s Amandla Stenberg), arrives in Paris to live with him, Elliot’s past begins to collide fully with his present.
“He’s a guy who’s had a pretty traumatic event in his life, and his way of dealing with that is to just throw himself into his work and his art, at the expense of all the other relationships in his life,” explains Holland, speaking with Fortune by phone. “That’s something I understood and Damien understands, so we spoke a lot about how one can find a human connection while also remaining connected to creativity.”
Across a series that features French, English, and Arabic, music is the universal language its characters all speak, though Elliot struggles at first to unlock what it is he has left to say—especially to those around him, from his also grief-stricken daughter to Maja, with whom he’s romantically involved. The first music audiences hear Elliot play in The Eddy comes once the club has closed, and the rest of the band has retired for the evening. As a lone bartender finishes balancing drawers and cleaning his space, Elliot sits down at the piano onstage and slowly, uncertainly, lets something subconscious—a memory, an instinct, seemingly out of focus even to him—guide his fingers along the keys.
“He’s really in search of what his musical voice is now,” says Holland, 40. “What we learn about him throughout is that once upon a time, before the loss he experienced, he was a really famous musician and had a really good sense of what his sound was.”
Holland (left) with Kulig, who plays Maja, in “The Eddy” on Netflix. Lou Faulon—Netflix
The Eddy flows between its players, with each episode told from the perspective of another individual in Elliot’s orbit; increasingly, this expands its world, with one episode focused on Farid’s wife, Amira (Leïla Bekhti), and another devoted to Maja. But as the series progresses, Elliot’s journey toward rediscovering his voice continues to be a major through line. “One of the things I was interested in and really pushed for was that we would get to see Elliot trying to reconnect with himself, with parts of himself that he’s locked away, through the music,” says the actor.
Few actors are better than Holland at conveying in an instant the unsettled souls of their characters, who’ve learned to survive in the world by burying their feelings and vulnerabilities deep. It’s those expressive eyes and the quiet dignity with which he’s carried his parts—from an underestimated New York surgeon in Cinemax’s 1900s-set series The Knick to an unflappable sports agent in Steven Soderbergh’s High Flying Bird—that most underpins his movie-star charisma. But he’s best known for his brief, unforgettable turn in Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-winning Moonlight, playing a pivotal role in its third act.
“I heard someone once say, ‘In acting and in music, it’s as much about the notes you don’t play as the ones that you do,’” says Holland, of his approach to acting.
“I’ve always been drawn to actors and performers who are able, who are brave enough, to sit in silence and find their way—emotionally, intellectually—without always feeling the need to do something,” adds the actor. “It feels good in the moment, when you’re performing, to play a character who’s always doing something—having a big fight, throwing a chair, whatever. But for me it’s actually much more satisfying to linger in the silences of a character. I think it’s more revealing, that way, and it allows the audience to weigh in.”
In the case of Elliot in The Eddy, Holland relies on expressive looks and body language—shoulders that sag ever-so-slightly downward, hands that can’t stay still—to communicate all that his character leaves unsaid, doesn’t yet know how to articulate, or can’t bring himself to admit. Scenes between him and daughter Julie, who’s grieving in her own sometimes volatile ways, are freighted with a particular melancholy.
“When you’re brave enough to sit in a silence, you allow an audience’s imagination to project onto you what their version of the story is,” he says. “But if you’re always doing something, you build this wall between yourself and the audience. For me, it’s all about finding ways to let other people into the experience I’m having.”
Without going into specifics, Holland says that he was particularly struck by similarities between his personal path these past few years and the one Elliot gradually is forced to travel in The Eddy.
“I’ve been in real pursuit of self-knowledge, coming into a better sense of understanding who I am, what I have to offer to the world, who I want to be in the world,” the actor explains. “That process for me, personally, has been a turbulent one. When I read the script for this as well as the script for Moonlight, I really connected to those characters. I understand what it is to be in that place of turmoil, and the hope is, anyway, that playing the part will teach me something about myself and my own journey.”
To that effect, Holland sought to bring his own background, growing up in the deep South, into the character. “It was important to me that whatever Elliot’s in search of, whatever his sound is at the end of this series, that it feel more black, frankly,” he says. “It’s something that needs to feel like it’s coming from a deeper, more historical place.”
Though Elliot’s dexterous skills as a jazz pianist are on full display in The Eddy, Holland says he was actually raised more on gospel and blues. “My grandfather was a preacher in a Pentecostal church, so we often had gospel music playing in the house and the car,” the actor explains.
“When I listen to jazz, what I like feels similar to that,” he adds. “There’s a yearning, a cry or a call in it, that I recognize. People who are better musicologists than me can explain it better, but what I hear from my own layman’s ears is some of that call and response that was in the church.”
Amandla Stenberg (left) plays Julie, the grief-stricken daughter of Elliot Udo (Holland, right), in Netflix’s limited series “The Eddy.” Lou Faulon—Netflix
Bringing his long-held love of gospel and blues into The Eddy was only one of many contributions Holland made to the series. But it was a particularly vital one, given that—even before Holland became involved—The Eddy’s path to production had started with its music.
In late 2013, executive producer Alan Poul (Six Feet Under) had been approached by the six-time Grammy-winning musician Glen Ballard, perhaps best known for cowriting and producing Alanis Morissette’s 1995 record, Jagged Little Pill. Ballard had written a suite of songs and put together a band specifically to perform them, drawing inspiration from the jazz scene in contemporary Paris, where he’d lived on and off throughout his adult life. Would Poul be interested, he wanted to know, in building a series around the songs set in that world?
A few months later, Poul connected with Chazelle, then a rising star who’d brought Whiplash to Sundance and left with the festival’s top audience and grand jury awards. A blistering portrait of the relationship between a future jazz prodigy (Miles Teller) and his sadistic bandleader (J.K. Simmons) at an elite conservatory, Whiplash introduced Chazelle to the masses as not only a formidable filmmaker but one with an exceptional grasp of pace and rhythm. (By the time he cemented that reputation in 2016 with La La Land, reviving the movie musical in grand fashion with a tale of two lovers—played by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling—chasing dreams in Los Angeles, The Eddy was already well into development.)
After Chazelle saw Ballard’s original Eddy band perform, he quickly committed to the project; his family roots in France, where his father was born and Chazelle spent years living, made The Eddy an even more appealing proposition. Jack Thorne, the English screenwriter and playwright best known for his Tony-winning stage play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was tapped to write all eight episodes, strolling around various parts of Paris with Chazelle, Ballard, and Poul as all four traded anecdotes and story ideas that would later inform the series.
It was important to all of them that The Eddy be set in the modern day, as opposed to at a point in history when American jazz musicians flooded Paris en masse. In the years after World War II, Paris played host and inspiration to many American artists, particularly black musicians drawn to the city for its thriving jazz scene, work opportunities, and relative lack of racism. Everyone from singer Billie Holiday to saxophonist Charlie Parker spent long stretches of time there, and the city’s scene swelled with an influx of influential figures, among them writer James Baldwin and jazz drummer Kenny Clarke.
Says Thorne, speaking by phone: “The central premise was the idea that there was this American jazz pianist in our time—not from those years when so many American jazz musicians were going to Paris. So the question for us was: Why is he still there? And what is he looking for?”
Director Chazelle (left) on the set of “The Eddy” with Holland. Lou Faulon—Netflix
When it came time to cast Elliot, Holland was high up on Chazelle’s list from the beginning. The pair had previously intersected in 2016 on the festival circuit, as each of them represented one of the two films that would reach front-runner status at that year’s Oscars ceremony.
Moonlight and La La Land were reductively, albeit memorably, framed as adversaries in that year’s awards race by more than a few prognosticators. Moonlight’s focus on the experiences of gay black men led many to deem it the kind of story Hollywood rarely awards but should. La La Land, by contrast, was seen as emblematic of the status quo: a more traditional choice for a film industry inclined toward honoring itself (not to mention a movie about and directed by white people, competing at a historically very white awards show).
When Moonlight won Best Picture, following a disastrous, much-publicized moment when La La Land was mistakenly called to the stage, it tied the two films together in an unusually fraught manner.
None of this generated any ill will between those involved in the projects, says Holland. He’d been a major fan of Whiplash and told Chazelle as much whenever they were at the same parties and festivals. “I think I just came over to him at a party one time and said, ‘Look, man, I really like what you’re doing and would love to work together one day,’” recalls the actor. When Chazelle reached out in January of last year to arrange a lunch meeting, the stars aligned.
“We set out to create a diverse array of faces, sounds, and experiences,” says Holland of “The Eddy.” Lou Faulon—Netflix
The Eddy marks Chazelle’s most headlong dive into the world of jazz musicians yet—no small feat, given that Whiplash and La La Land both explored the same style of music at length. (Even his first film, shoestring indie Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, starred a jazz trumpeter.) In Whiplash, both student and taskmaster are white, within the hermetically sealed environment of their music college. In La La Land, it’s Gosling’s jazz pianist who bemoans the genre’s decline to other characters and becomes convinced he must single-handedly revive it.
As the latter film picked up steam en route to the Oscars, some critics accused Chazelle of perpetuating a white-savior narrative, denying jazz some element of its rich, historical blackness through his choice of protagonist. In preparing for The Eddy, while Holland and Chazelle didn’t directly discuss the La La Land controversy, the actor says, with a small laugh, “I definitely made clear my feelings about white people teaching black people about jazz.”
Chazelle was open to that conversation from day one, adds the actor. All involved sought to convey the truth of Elliot as a character and include a multiplicity of voices in its depiction of a modern, multicultural Paris. “We really just scratched the surface, and there are so many more young musicians that deserve a place,” says the actor. “But we set out to create a diverse array of faces, sounds, and experiences.”
Holland worked closely with Thorne to share his thoughts on how best to capture the duality of Elliot on the page, as well as how to properly navigate the series’ discussion of black identity. “When André came in, he had loads of questions that he posed brilliantly, that we tried to answer,” says Thorne. “It was a very exciting thing, to work that closely with an actor and to have him provoke a discussion of who Elliot was and how he lived.”
Both Holland and Thorne were struck by Elliot’s lofty standards of musical perfection, a characteristic he’d feel more comfortable expressing among the artists of Paris than he did back home in New York.
“There are maybe 150 people in the world who can tell a really good jazz drummer from a great jazz drummer, but there are musicians out there intent on impressing those 150 people,” says Thorne. “Jazz is a music so immersed within itself. Gaining perfection is such a lonely pursuit in so many ways, but it brings this group of people together.”
Across its eight episodes, The Eddy dives into the criminal underworld of Paris, hails the history of black musicians inhabiting the city, and later in the season explores the political attitudes governing contemporary France. But its thematic arc is most broadly about the comfort its characters find in making music at the titular club, the power it has to heal their wounds, raise their spirits, and unite them in a common place of refuge.
To Holland, a series that offers such hope and solidarity—not to mention an unabashedly romantic view of the arts—couldn’t come at a better time.
“These are the moments where artists are called to step up and create and interpret the moment, giving the world some art to look forward to,” he says. “I’m happy to be a part of that in any small way.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How the film industry is planning its post-pandemic return
—How CBS legal drama All Rise made its virtual coronavirus episode
—The Last Dance director is racing to finish episodes
—Billions creators on releasing season five of the New York drama in uncertain times
—Ricky Gervais on releasing After Life season two in a global pandemic
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-05-08--Where to find more fun online diversions during the pandemic

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
After a day of pondering Elon Musk’s contributions to society, let’s shift our focus from big innovations to small and even tiny ones.
There is no professional sports play in the United States right now and that’s left many sports fans bereft. ESPN’s amazing documentary series “The Last Dance” about Michael Jordan’s last year with the Chicago Bulls notwithstanding, there’s not much to get excited about right now. Some are turning to e-sports, and Amazon’s Twitch network is doing quite well. But if you’re looking for something a little more physical and happening IRL, may I introduce you to the Marbula One racing circuit? Yes, that’s marble racing. It’s got enthusiastic announcers, high production values, and even some drama as the marbles roll over the finish line.
Maybe e-sports are your thing. The teens tell me Animal Crossing is keeping them sane. Ars Technica has the story of some players who are getting even more out of the Nintendo title. Using the “gold farming” strategy first seen eons ago in games like World of Warcraft and Ultima, some players are gathering all the bells they can (Animal Crossing‘s in-game currency) and then selling them for real cash.
Finally, I know lots of you watched the amazing Juilliard video from Tuesday’s newsletter, but obviously many, many more singers, musicians, comedians, and artists of all kinds have taken to Zoom to release their work. It’s hard to keep up with all the great stuff. Theater writer Elisabeth Vincentelli has a great list of some online options, and Fast Company also published a bunch of worthy links. If you see other worthwhile compilations, please send them my way.
Take time to enjoy the small pleasures and have a good weekend.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
Double, double toil and trouble. Trying to bring order to chaos, Google put one of its top app execs, G Suite boss Javier Soltero, in charge of all of its messaging offerings. That reportedly includes Google Chat, Google Duo, Google Meet, Google Voice, plus the Android phone dialer and a new RCS messenger. Soltero has only been at Google for about six months. He was previously at Microsoft but is best known as the brains behind the Acompli email app that was bought by Microsoft. He tells The Verge there are no plans to thin the herd yet. That's disappointing.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Elsewhere at the Googleplex, Sidewalk Labs dropped its controversial plan to build a smart city in a Toronto neighborhood. Opponents said the 12-acre planned community would have been inundated with surveillance gear and lacked safeguards to protect residents' privacy.
Calgon, take me away. Easy-to-find online streaming entertainment continues to kill it. ViacomCBS said its CBS All Access and Showtime Internet services hit record viewing levels in the first quarter. Paid subscriptions reached 13.5 million people, up 50% over the past year. And the company's free-with-ads service, Pluto TV, increased even faster. Its monthly active users hit 24 million, up 55%.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. On Wall Street, Uber shares got a lift, Dropbox broke through the clouds, and Roku got a fuzzy reception on Thursday. Uber said first-quarter revenue rose 14% to $3.5 billion, slightly beating already lowered analyst estimates. Its shares, previously up 4% in 2020, gained 8% in pre-market trading on Friday. At Dropbox, the company reported its first proper profit since going public two years ago. Revenue increased 18% to $455 million and net income totaled $39 million. Its shares, already up 22% this year, gained another 5% in pre-market trading. Roku's revenue jumped 55% to $321 million, better than expected, but the company also warned of a big ad slowdown ahead. Roku's stock, up just 3% in 2020, lost 9% in pre-market trading.
We can help. Fortune wants to help businesses survive this pandemic, so we're connecting small business leaders with experts to share insights and answer questions. All U.S.-based companies with less than 500 employees are eligible and can sign up here. The deadline is Monday.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Computer science professor Cal Newport is a leading proponent of using technology wisely and blocking out the noise of modern day digital life. Recently, he had a thoughtful essay about how working at home can lead to overwork and inefficiency.
[The loss of being at the office] might even collapse into a dismal state I call inbox capture, in which essentially every moment of your workday becomes dedicated to keeping up with email, Slack, and Zoom meetings, with very little work beyond the most logistical and superficial actually accomplished — an incredibly wasteful form of economic activity.
What’s the solution to this particular issue? Knowledge work organizations might have to finally get more formal about how tasks are identified, assigned, and tracked. This will require inconvenient new rules and systems, but will also, in the long run, probably be a much smarter way to work, even when we can return to our offices.
More generally, I think this is just one example among many where the sudden disruption that defines our current moment will force us to confront aspects of knowledge work that up until now have been barely functional, and ask: what’s the right way to get this work done?
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads that I came across this week:
Forget Smartphones: It’s Time For Our Phones to Interact With Us (Medium)
There was enough computer power sitting on my desk to make a 1960s-era NASA moon rocket engineer suffer a stroke through pure excitement, and it was just…well, it was all just sitting there doing absolutely nothing interesting unless I first did something to it.
An AI can simulate an economy millions of times to create fairer tax policy (MIT Technology Review)
Deep reinforcement learning has trained AIs to beat humans at complex games like Go and StarCraft. Could it also do a better job at running the economy?
What to Ask Instead of ‘How Are You?’ During a Pandemic (The Atlantic)
Everyone’s doing badly. We need better questions to ask.
The Quarantine Moment That Finally Broke Me, According to 10 Dads (Fatherly)
Broken printers. Stepping on Beyblades. A Keurig machine glued shut by a mischievous toddler. These are the moments that finally broke these quarantined parents.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff describes what office life will be like after COVID-19 By Jonathan Vanian
A tale of two entertainment companies—one thriving, one struggling By Lucinda Shen
Zoom acquires encryption startup Keybase to help make video calls more secure By David Z. Morris
Sonos cofounder hits back at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek for complaining about Apple By Aric Jenkins
IBM thinks tech being tested by astronauts could help us take care of isolated loved ones By Jeremy Kahn
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
This week's trawling for distractions at Casa Pressman turned up the work of Carnegie Mellon senior and visual artist Lumi Barron. We particularly liked her series of videos of...how to describe it? Squirrels...in the woods...playing ...with tiny human things...sort of. Just check it out. And see you back here on Monday.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-05-08--20.5 million lose their jobs in April, sending U.S. unemployment rate to 14.7%, an 80-year high

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed from 4.4% in March to a staggering 14.7% in April—the highest since 1940.
The jobs report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday showed that the number of unemployed Americans rose from 7.1 million in March to 23.1 million in April. These dismal payroll figures come just two months after the U.S. had been sitting, in February, at a 50-year low in the unemployment rate of 3.5%.
The 14.7% figure is actually lower than many expected. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett had predicted the unemployment rate for April could come in at between 16% to 20%.
But this official unemployment rate undercounts the actual level of joblessness. The BLS defines the unemployed as people without jobs who are also looking for new positions. The current U.S. labor market is far more complicated than that. A Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll of 4,717 U.S. adults between April. 25-28 finds that 17% of workers who recently lost their jobs aren’t currently looking for work. Given the nature of the virus and the stay-at-home orders, some laid-off workers may be waiting it out before starting their job search.
“If everyone who filed unemployment insurance claims showed up as unemployed it would be a much higher unemployment rate,” Dante DeAntonio, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Around 7 million of those initial jobless claims came after this rate was compiled April.
And keep in mind that this unemployment rate is through just mid-April. If you included everyone who has filed jobless claims since that week, the real unemployment could be sitting at a rate of 24.9%. That’s just under the Great Depression peak of an unemployment rate topped 25.6%.
Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:
—Saving lives vs. saving the economy is a false tradeoff, economists say
—ExxonMobil’s CEO is banking on a return to normal, but most others aren’t so sure
—Cybercriminals adapt to coronavirus faster than the A.I. cops hunting them
—How cannabis purveyors are coping during the pandemic
—Inside the chaotic rollout of the SBA’s PPP loan plan
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Why the banks were ready for the financial impact of coronavirus
Subscribe to How To Reopen, Fortune’s weekly newsletter on what it takes to reboot business in the midst of a pandemic


fortune--2020-05-08--Virtual board meetings and ‘forced downtime’: What it’s like to chair a stock exchange in a pandemic

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A new coalition asks for a childcare stimulus, Melania Trump celebrates two years of Be Best, and we get crisis leadership insight from the first woman to chair the Hong Kong stock exchange. Have a relaxing weekend and, for those of you celebrating, a wonderful Mother’s Day.
– Taking stock. Last week, Emma provided perspective on coronavirus crisis management from Enterprise CEO Chrissy Taylor, who’s based in St. Louis, Mo. For the latest installment in the series that asks female business leaders to talk about leading through the public health and economic crisis, we get perspective from Hong Kong, which has emerged as a standout in its response to the outbreak.
Hong Kong Stock Exchange Chair Laura Cha, who also sits on the boards of HSBC Holdings and Unilever, shared her insights on leading through this moment.
Cha, the first woman to chair the bourse, says HKEX is “carefully executing our staged return to the office,” as the city itself eases social distancing restrictions. The exchange’s new workplace strategy will feature “split-team arrangements” and will continue to encourage “digital communications and meetings where possible to minimize personal contact at this still-critical time,” Cha says.
Beyond the return-to-the-office strategy, I was especially interested in what Cha sees as long-term—even beneficial—effects of the pandemic. By cutting off nearly all air travel, the crisis has forced Cha to reconsider how often she gets on a plane. Rather than fly to London and Rotterdam for board meetings, she’s participated remotely. Directors’ camera shyness notwithstanding, she says virtual board meetings are becoming the new norm. The change has been so sudden, so dramatic that she thinks it will prompt her industry to operate differently from now on.
“This crisis shows that the travel we did as an industry in financial services was huge, and now we are able to do that with a lot less,” she says. A narrower definition of essential business travel could help reduce carbon footprints.
The crisis has—of course—affected Cha’s personal life too, prompting what she calls “forced downtime.”
“I got to clean up a lot of things in my study,” she says, “all the emails and reading, and I’ve never watched so much Netflix.”
You can read the entire Q&A here.
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Mother's Day Zoom. San Francisco's director of public health warned residents that the greatest gift they can give their moms this Mother's Day is to "stay away." Ahead of what is sure to be an emotional holiday, read about seven ways to celebrate from afar.
- Reade interview. Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who has said that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her (he has denied the allegation), sat down for an interview with Megyn Kelly; in the portion of their conversation released so far, Reade says that Biden should drop out of the presidential race. For Vox, reporter Laura McGann writes about how she's investigated Reade's claim for more than a year and hasn't been able to prove it out.
- The level below Lagarde. The European Central Bank, led by Christine Lagarde, aimed to have women in 28% of senior management roles and 35% of all manager roles. The institution achieved the former, with women holding 30.8% of those senior positions, but fell short of the latter, with women in 30.3% of the jobs. Bloomberg
- Childcare crisis. Women in Italy are already employed at lower rates than women throughout the rest of Europe, and the pandemic is putting more pressure on them; Italy has reopened workplaces without reopening schools. In the U.S., parents are already encountering the same problem; a coalition of businesses and advocacy organizations yesterday asked Congress for a targeted stimulus for childcare providers.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Carolyn Tisch Blodgett is leaving her role as Peloton's head of global marketing. The Human Rights Campaign hired Jennifer Fiore, former senior advisor for communications and digital on Secretary Julián Castro’s presidential campaign, as SVP of communications and marketing. The delivery service Deliv is shutting down operations; CEO Daphne Carmeli will head to Target, which purchased the startup's technology assets.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- No, NY1. The five women who filed a lawsuit alleging gender and age discrimination at New York's local news network NY1 say they have been retaliated against, isolated, and even further sidelined in the months since. An NY1 spokeswoman said the channel "reject[s] these claims of retaliation." Vice
- Stay inside in Scotland. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planning to ease lockdown restrictions, but Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says she won't agree to lift stay-at-home orders before it's safe. Sturgeon says the lockdown could continue for longer in Scotland, even if it's over in other parts of the U.K. Bloomberg
- Still being best. It's been two years since First Lady Melania Trump launched Be Best; she celebrated the program's anniversary with a Zoom call with a class of first-graders. Plus, some bonus Mother's Day reading: how was President Trump influenced by his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod?
ON MY RADAR
Misty Copeland launching virtual ballet performance to benefit dancers affected by COVID-19 The Root
Michigan governor to allow state’s auto manufacturing plants to reopen next week CNBC
How racism is shaping the coronavirus pandemic The New Yorker
Hayley Williams on what went wrong with Paramore, Warped Tour war stories, and her new solo life Vulture
PARTING WORDS
"We think of ourselves as halfway down Everest. I think it’s clear that no one wants to hike back up that peak."
-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on coronavirus in New Zealand


fortune--2020-05-08--The coronavirus has forced Hong Kong Stock Exchange Chair Laura Cha to rethink business travel—forev

The coronavirus has forced Hong Kong Stock Exchange Chair Laura Cha to rethink business travel—forever

Laura Cha has witnessed other economic crises: the 1987 crash, the Asian financial crisis, the Great Recession. What’s different about the one prompted by the coronavirus is that it didn’t originate in the financial sector, where the chair of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has worked for decades. “It’s unlike any other crisis,” she says, which makes it especially hard to navigate.
At the same time, Cha’s home base of Hong Kong has emerged as a standout in its public health response to the outbreak, adopting face masks early and en masse, implementing robust quarantine measures, and now, testing every arrival at its airport. It reopened gyms and cinemas on Friday and eased some social distancing restrictions; you can now gather in groups as large as eight.
That means Cha, who previously worked at the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Securities and Futures Commission and sits on the HSBC Holdings and Unilever boards, finds herself ahead of some global peers in considering how the exchange can ‘reopen’ as a workplace, after a spell of remote work. What’s more, shortly after Fortune’s interview, the exchange announced CEO Charlies Li would step down next year, adding another kind of transition to Cha’s plate.
With few historical guideposts, Cha says her management strategy amid the pandemic is to focus on maintaining the exchange’s “core values;” by “[doing] our job keeping very vigilant about market stability and operation resilience.”
Her interview is the latest in a Fortune series that asks female business leaders—including those who appear on Fortune‘s annual Most Powerful Women in Business lists—to talk about leading through the public health and economic crisis. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Fortune: What’s your No. 1 concern related to the coronavirus and your business?
First and foremost, our concern has always been our people, the health and safety of our staff. Hong Kong has done a very good job of managing through this pandemic and with the signs of the virus slowing globally, we are now carefully executing our staged return to the office. We will be using a strict split-team arrangement to pave the way for everyone to return. That said, we will continue to encourage digital communications and meetings where possible to minimize personal contact at this still-critical time. Office hygiene is also a top priority—robust cleaning and face masks have become the new normal.
How do you expect the crisis to impact your business in the long term?
Our first quarter earnings announced this week showed the robustness and resilience of our business, with core business revenues up by almost 20% year-on-year. Our IPO pipeline also remains strong, and in the first quarter we were again the No. 1 for number of IPOs globally. As the global economy gradually moves into recovery, our focus will be on maintaining our competitiveness and capitalizing on the opportunities presented to us. Hong Kong and HKEX remain uniquely placed to further connect Asia and the world to support the global recovery. [Editor’s note: HKEX reported a 13% drop in first-quarter net profit.]
What management lessons or principles are you drawing on as you face this unprecedented crisis? What, if any, roadmap are you following?
My position today is different from when I was a regulator during previous crises. In previous crises, we were concerned about systemic risk; for example, the small brokers who might not be able to survive, and I think there will be some that face a similar situation now with a reduced business, etc. But that is a concern of the regulators. For us as a market regulator, we are less concerned about the health of our market participants than the health of our market because the small broker is only a small percentage of our market participants, so [compared to my] previous experience that’s a distinction.
Is your company taking any direct measures to aid in the coronavirus response?
Quite early on, during a February board meeting, we committed to donating HK$10 million ($1.3 million) to coronavirus relief. [Editor’s note: The exchange says it’s put some of that money into action through local partner charities in markets where it operates, such as ChickenSoup and Senior Citizen Home Safety Association. It will continue to work with other organizations to extend support to people and communities in need.]
What—if any—good do you think will come from this crisis?
Sustainability…definitely the reduction of the carbon footprint. This crisis shows that the travel we did as an industry in financial services was huge, and now we are able to do that with a lot less travel. I think that has to be an impact on the industry, with knock-on effects.
What’s the biggest way your professional life has changed amid this crisis?
A lot less travel. Because I’m on the HSBC Holdings board in London and the Unilever board has six board meetings—three in London and three in Rotterdam…and the miscellaneous roadshows for the exchange, for example, so that adds up. Now it’s been reduced and I can see going forward I don’t need to travel that much and I welcome that.
How have your virtual board meetings been?
The first virtual meeting was Unilever; it was interesting. We could do video in additional to audio, only two of us opted for video and halfway through we said, ‘Only two of us…’ so we turned off the video. People were not used to it; this was early March. I think people are getting used to it, so now we have the grids of different people in different places.
What’s the biggest way your personal life has changed in all of this?
It gave me forced downtime…which was very welcome. I got to clean up a lot of things in my study, all the emails and all the reading, and I’ve never watched so much Netflix.
More on the most powerful women in business from Fortune:
—Chrissy Taylor on keeping Enterprise’s rental fleet moving, and her family’s business afloat
—A Harvard Business School professor reimagines capitalism
—Sheryl Sandberg: The pandemic is creating a “double double shift” for women
—Inside Lyft’s coronavirus response team
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: The double burdens that hold women back
Keep up with the world’s most powerful women with The Broadsheet newsletter.


fortune--2020-05-09--Clear your throat and spit: What it was like to take my  at-home coronavirus test

The Trump administration wants U.S. supply chain to leave China—but U.S. companies want to stay

Make the noise of “Kruuua” from the throat to clear saliva from deep throat.
It was step No. 5 of the coronavirus test guidelines, accompanied by a photograph of a man wearing a surgical mask and holding a plastic vial, the word ‘Kruuua’ splashed across the image in white text.
I mustered my strength, took a breath, and cleared my throat as hard as I could, sounding like a weak espresso machine, and then spat into the small plastic cup in my hand.
My contribution to an at-home coronavirus test was complete.
At the end of April, I felt a tickle in my throat. By the next evening, the pain made it difficult to swallow food. I knew that a sore throat was one of the symptoms of COVID-19, and I knew that Hong Kong, where I live, had not reported a locally-transmitted coronavirus infection for almost two weeks. Besides the worry that I might be sick and could have passed it on to others, I could think of few things worse than being the one to ruin that streak.
But I had no fever and no other coronavirus symptoms—dry cough, fatigue, or shortness of breath. I also recalled that a woman I’d interviewed for a story in April, who’d recovered from COVID-19, described a pain “very low down in the throat” that felt unlike any sore throat she’d had before. Mine didn’t feel like that.
Still: the streak. The next morning I made an appointment with my doctor. I described my symptoms over the phone and confirmed that I had no recent travel history or contact with a confirmed case.
To my relief, she diagnosed me with tonsillitis, and prescribed a course of antibiotics. But then she asked if I wanted to take a coronavirus test.
For me, the administration of a diagnostic coronavirus test conjured images of patients, heads tilted back, with hazmat-suited medical workers shoving giant Q-tips up their noses or down their throats. One person likened the swab test to “being stabbed in the brain.”
“Not something I want to do every day, I can tell you that,” U.S. President Donald Trump has said of his swab experience. “Nothing pleasant about it.”
My doctor must have seen the fear in my eyes, because she added that it would be a take-home test. There would be no swab, only spit.
I went home with a doggie bag of tools: written instructions, the specimen collection bottle—a small plastic screw-cap cup—and two sealable plastic specimen carrier bags, labeled ‘DANGER OF INFECTION’ in capital letters and the spiky trefoil biohazard symbol in yellow and black, with ‘BIOHAZARD’ emblazoned underneath for good measure. (Subtlety is not a virtue in a global pandemic.)
After spitting into the cup in the next morning—before eating, drinking, or brushing my teeth, as instructed—I twisted the lid shut and sealed it in the plastic bags. The sample was labeled with my name, gender, birth date, and Hong Kong identity card number.
My take-home coronavirus test kit.
A friend dropped off the sample at the clinic that same day—I was advised to stay home, since I might have coronavirus—and the clinic sent it to the Hong Kong public health lab that processes the tests. The following afternoon, the clinic emailed me the results. (They’d called first, but I missed it.) SARS-CoV-2 RNA had not been detected in my sample. I had tested negative, and Hong Kong’s streak remained intact.
Spit vs. swab
The saliva test like the one I took is available in Hong Kong at government outpatient clinics and some private clinics, including the one I went to. All samples are sent to a public hospital lab that conducts at least 2,000 tests per day.
Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world that offers the spitting method to test for the coronavirus, said Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.
Most countries use the more common swab test, which is also available in Hong Kong, and is the “standard procedure” to test whether people have viral infections, Cowling said.
Cowling said Hong Kong developed the saliva test because health workers were “reluctant” to carry out swab tests for fear of getting infected during the process that requires close interaction with a potentially infectious patient. In early February, public hospital union workers went on strike for various demands, including more face masks—there was a shortage in Hong Kong at that time—and protective gear for medical staff.
The swab test must be carried out by a health professional, who inserts the six-inch swab into the patient’s nose or throat to reach the nasopharynx (the cavity between nose and mouth) and swirls the swab around for 15 seconds to collect enough material.
The swab and saliva tests use the same process—the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method—to detect the RNA of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19.
The saliva test largely eliminates the risks the swab test poses to health care workers and is far less invasive. The one potential downside is that it may have a slightly lower sensitivity than the swab test, Cowling said, but “it’s still an acceptable test to do for everybody.”
The nasopharynx is typically the best area to sample for respiratory diseases. People who have mild symptoms or are in the early stage of infection might have a concentration of virus RNA in the nasopharynx that a saliva test might miss. (The ‘KRUUUA’ is meant to bring up that back-of-throat sputum.) But an April 22 study by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health said the saliva tests were a “viable and more sensitive alternative” to swabbing for coronavirus.
Supply shortages
Since April 8, every single passenger flying into Hong Kong International Airport must take a deep throat saliva test and test negative for COVID-19 before they can enter the city. From the airport, travelers are shuttled to the nearby Asia World-Expo, a major concert venue repurposed as a “temporary specimen collection centre” for coronavirus testing.
Some people have raised concerns about giving their biodata and other personal information to the government. Hong Kong’s health ministry disposes of the saliva samples according to lab protocols, Bloomberg News reported, but the ministry did not specify what the protocols were.
The at-home spit test could prove helpful for places like the U.S., where there is an ongoing nationwide lag in coronavirus testing, in part due to swab supply shortages across the country. The at-home component could also ease the burden on the U.S.’s overwhelmed medical system—people could mail in their tests, instead of traveling to a clinic or hospital where workers need to don fresh personal protective equipment, also in short supply, for each patient they see.
A saliva test developed by a Rutgers University lab is now available in some parts of New Jersey, the first place in the U.S. to offer such a test.
For me, the at-home test provided pain-free peace of mind that I was not infected with coronavirus. Meanwhile, my tonsillitis has cleared up, and May 8 marked the 19th straight day with zero new local infections in Hong Kong.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—The Rebuild Program: A project to help small businesses reopen amid a pandemic
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—IBM thinks tech tested by astronauts could help us take care of isolated loved ones
—PODCAST: How Marc Benioff is helping out during the coronavirus pandemic
—WATCH: Fortune’s top 10 heroes of the coronavirus pandemic
Subscribe to Fortune’s Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.


fortune--2020-05-09--At home with travel photographer Gray Malin while releasing a new book from quarantine

Clear your throat and spit : What it was like to take my at-home coronavirus test

Gray Malin is a celebrated fine art photographer, known for dreamy, eye-popping pictures from all corners of the world. Among his books are the New York Times bestsellers Beaches, Escape, and Italy.
Fortune recently spoke with Malin, who shared details about the inspiration for his new book published this week, A World of Opposites (Abrams), an unintentionally appropriate title for a work published while the world feels upside down.
This new book includes photography from Antarctica to Africa, with each spread featuring a pair of photos that are clear opposites. Shot with specifically kid readers in mind, the photos are meant to appeal to satisfy readers’ sense of imagination.
Gray Malin is an American fine art photographer, perhaps best known for his aerial beach photography. He inspects all of his poster prints sold from his Southern California studio before shipped. Courtesy of Abrams Books
The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Fortune: Your new photography book, A World of Opposites, is intended for children. How do you hope your photos inspire readers of all ages?
Malin: As soon as you open this book it is clear that all ages can enjoy the subject matter. The photos explore the far opposites of the world, and they are as beautiful as ever, spread across the pages of the book. I really wanted readers to focus on discovering a new perspective of the world and appreciating all it has to offer, which is something I think that we can all enjoy.
In turn, what inspired you to develop A World of Opposites? What was the planning and research process like, and where did you travel to shoot the artwork?
The collection of photographs shown in the book are all images from various fine-art series I have photographed over the past 10 years. I carefully curated the images for this book in order to serve the aesthetic, interactive, and educational purpose that I desired. I developed the book as a spin on the classic opposites books, wanting kids to enjoy this book not only in terms of learning their opposites but also for them to learn about the vastly different locations of the world as they enjoy the pictures.
There are very few photographic kids books in the marketplace—most are traditionally illustrated. And as photography becomes more and more prominent in children’s lives thanks to the smartphone, I believe A World of Opposites will be more special to young readers.
This new book includes Malin’s incredible photography from Antarctica to Africa; each spread features a pair of photos that are clear opposites. Courtesy of Abrams Books
So many of your photographs and coffee table books inspire wanderlust. Normally, that would be a good thing. But while the pandemic continues and so many travel plans have to be put on hold indefinitely, travel photography might inspire mixed feelings. What would you hope your readers get out of your books right now?
I think this is exactly why we need travel books right now, especially for kids. I wanted this book to be educational and entertaining, allowing parents and children to experience learning about the world together. Most of my work centers around bringing destinations from all over the world into peoples home and whether they buy my art for nostalgic reasons, to inspire dreams and adventures for the future, or just merely because it is beautiful and different from any place they’ve seen before, I think it is important to continue showing people the world.
So much of your job and your work revolves around travel. What have you been working on while at home over the last several weeks? How are you keeping busy?
Honestly, I’ve really appreciated having this time to spend with my family. My twins are 17 months, and keep us laughing and running literally all day. While at home, I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about ways to keep my brand relevant for our customers while they’re at home as well. This first manifested as fun ideas such as downloadable travel Zoom backgrounds, coloring pages, and dreamy phone backgrounds all available for free.
Following the successes of “Beaches” and “Escape,” Malin turned his unique eye to the coasts, beaches, and landscapes of Italy. Courtesy of Abrams Books
However, my creative energy also has sparked a whole new world of video content. I started filming three weekly IGTV (Instagram Television) shows to try and interact with my audience in a new way. One show is called More Than a Photograph: The Stories of Gray Malin, and each 10-minute episode details the story of my career from the very beginning while also exposing the stories behind some of my most beloved images.
Another show is called How I Got the Shot, and each sixty second episode takes you behind the scenes to see that ultimately what you see in my photographs is real, not photoshop. The last show is a weekly invitation on Saturday morning into my home (or a part of my personal life) which I have not exposed before. I have found that this video content has really engaged my audience in a much deeper way, not only with my creative process, but also with my entrepreneurial journey.
And one last question, going back to the bit about wanderlust: When shelter-in-place mandates are lifted and things shift back to normal, where do you want to travel first?
I find myself dreaming of South Africa. That will be high on my list.
More must-read lifestyle coverage from Fortune:
—Inside the earliest days of CNN and the birth of 24-hour cable news
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fortune--2020-05-09--The Trump administration wants U.S. supply chain to leave China—but U.S. companies want to stay

At home with travel photographer Gray Malin while releasing a new book from quarantine

At the start of the year, China looked like a bad place for manufacturers to be.
In late January, factories across the country shut down in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. In February, the manufacturing index, which measures factory output, plunged to a record low. U.S. companies with Chinese production lines issued earning warnings. Shortly after, pundits predicted more manufacturers would leave China as the coronavirus proved that concentrating supply chains in China was a risk.
Recently, Washington’s eagerness to blame Beijing for the coronavirus pandemic has added intrigue to the idea that U.S. manufacturers will up and leave China, as politicians seek to hold China “accountable” for the outbreak that first emerged within its borders.
Reuters reports the Trump administration is contemplating deploying tax incentives and re-shoring subsidies to lure companies into relocating. An anonymous official says there is a “whole government push” on the initiative. But despite the pressure from public sentiment against China and the appeal of tax breaks, not many firms look ready to take the bait.
Good to be here
According to a survey from the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai last month, over 70% of U.S. companies operating in China had no plans to relocate production and supply chains. In fact, only 4% have plans to move manufacturing out of China—compared to roughly 20% of respondents to a similar survey last October.
Workers produce desks for export to the U.S., France, Germany and other countries, at a factory in Nantong in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on September 4, 2019. The coronavirus has reignited calls for U.S. manufacturers to exit China. STR/AFP via Getty Images
In 2019, when the Trump administration’s trade war tariffs were biting hard, tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Amazon all announced they would shift supply lines of U.S.-bound exports to other countries. Even then, however, few companies were planning to exit China altogether and instead opted for a “China plus one” strategy.
“China plus one was a tariff play,” said Trent Davies, a manager at professional services firm Dezan Shira in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. “Companies didn’t want to move all the way out of China, but they did want to change the country of origin on their products in order to avoid the tariffs. To do that you need to move a significant part of production to another country.”
Vietnam was the primary landing ground for U.S. manufacturers exiting China in order to skirt the trade war. The South Asian nation has seen a steady rise in low-tech manufacturing, such as textiles and toy-making, as China’s rising wages prompted companies to find cheaper labor.
Davies says that during the height of the pandemic, the majority of companies planning to exit China actually put their plans on hold. The outbreak created too much uncertainty. Next year, however, Davies expects there will be a resurgence of interest in Vietnam, as China-based manufacturers seek to mitigate the risk of another China shut down.
Looking upstream
Mitigating risk might mean moving a portion of manufacturing out of China, but with China’s economy slowly reopening while much of the world remains in lockdown, the country is once again among the best locations for manufacturers to be.
“The notion that getting out of China is the answer is proven to be wrong. China has recovered quicker than anybody else,” said Olaf Schatteman, a partner at consultancy Bain & Company. Factories in China began opening up again in February, after two weeks of lockdown. By March the government was declaring a resumption rate above 90%, although that figure counted even a single returning employee as a ‘resumption.’
The real problem, Schatteman says, is that many companies concentrate their supply lines through single points in China, leaving them prone to failure. Auto parts manufacturers, for example, are heavily concentrated in Hubei province, where the outbreak began. In February, Hyundai had to close its assembly plant in South Korea because its component manufacturers in Hubei had temporarily closed.
So the answer is not to leave China, but to build flexibility into existing supply lines by nurturing alternative suppliers and, importantly, maintaining a macro view of issues affecting a supplier’s suppliers.
Drew Woodhouse—another partner at Bain & Company, who co-authored a report on supply chain resilience with Schatteman—calls “upstream visibility” the “holy grail of risk mitigation.” However, even in China—where most supply chains are comprehensive, running all the way from parts to finished products—gaining insight on the challenges facing your supplier’s suppliers is not easy.
Many Chinese component makers are small “mom and pop” shops that lack the technology to plug in to a comprehensive supply chain registry where they can share stock and sale data with other suppliers. Woodhouse says the disruption caused by the pandemic likely gave big manufacturers an impetus to invest more in upgrading the data collection capabilities of their smaller suppliers.
“What we need to build is more resilience at a single point of failure, you need an agile network with multiple points of supply and a good overview of problems affecting your suppliers,” Woodhouse said. According to the Bain report, published last week, maintaining a flexible supply chain expands output by up to 25% while “cutting costs and improving cash flow.” Olaf says “unit costs may go up but system costs go down.” Avoiding disruption improves overall efficiency so the real cost of manufacturing is reduced.
Those are costs that could be saved not just when the next disruption hits, but during more placid times too—whenever they may come.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
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—WATCH: Why the banks were ready for the financial impact of coronavirus
Subscribe to How To Reopen, Fortune’s weekly newsletter on what it takes to reboot business in the midst of a pandemic


fortune--2020-05-09--Documents show top White House officials buried CDC report on how to reopen

Why the stock market is up , even though all the economic data is down

The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.
The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.
The trove of emails show the nation’s top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.
The document, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.
This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30.
As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.
Three days later, CDC’s upper management sent the more than 60-page report with attached flow charts to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a step usually taken only when agencies are seeking final White House approval for documents they have already cleared.
The 17-page version later released by The AP and other news outlets was only part of the actual document submitted by the CDC, and targeted specific facilities like bars and restaurants. The AP obtained a copy Friday of the full document. That version is a more universal series of phased guidelines, “Steps for All Americans in Every Community,” geared to advise communities as a whole on testing, contact tracing and other fundamental infection control measures.
Redfield weighed in publicly for the first time Saturday, issuing a statement that apparently contradicts his internal emails, and supports the White House assertion that he had not formally approved the guidance.
He said in the statement that the CDC guidance was in draft form and had not been vetted fully. “This is an iterative effort to ensure effective, clear guidance is presented to the American people. I had not seen a version of the guidance incorporating interagency and task force input and therefore was not yet comfortable releasing a final work product.”
But on April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by The AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees — including one for meat packing plants.
“We plan to post these to CDC’s website once approved. Peace, God bless r3,” the director wrote. (Redfield’s initials are R.R.R.)
Redfield’s emails contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light.
Two days after his email to Birx and Grogan, on April 26, the CDC still had not received any word from the administration, according to the internal communications. Robert McGowan, the CDC chief of staff who was shepherding the guidance through the OMB, sent an email seeking an update. “We need them as soon as possible so that we can get them posted,” he wrote to Nancy Beck, an OMB staffer.
Beck said she was awaiting review by the White House Principals Committee, a group of top White House officials. “They need to be approved before they can move forward. WH principals are in touch with the task force so the task force should be aware of the status,” Beck wrote to McGowan.
The next day, April 27, Satya Thallam of the OMB sent the CDC a similar response: “The re-opening guidance and decision tree documents went to a West Wing principals committee on Sunday. We have not received word on specific timing for their considerations.
“However, I am passing along their message: they have given strict and explicit direction that these documents are not yet cleared and cannot go out as of right now — this includes related press statements or other communications that may preview content or timing of guidances.”
According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.
On April 30 the CDC’s documents were killed for good.
The agency had not heard any specific critiques from either the White House Principals Committee or the coronavirus task force in days, so officials asked for an update.
“The guidance should be more cross-cutting and say when they should reopen and how to keep people safe. Fundamentally, the Task Force cleared this for further development, but not for release,” wrote Quinn Hirsch, a staffer in the White House’s office of regulatory affairs (OIRA), in an email to the CDC’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.
CDC staff working on the guidance decided to try again.
The administration had already released its Opening Up America Again Plan, and the clock was ticking. Staff at CDC thought if they could get their reopening advice out there, it would help communities do so with detailed expert help.
But hours later on April 30, CDC’s Chief of Staff McGowan told CDC staff that neither the guidance documents nor the decision trees “would ever see the light of day,” according to three officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
The next day, May 1, the emails showed, a staffer at CDC was told “we would not even be allowed to post the decision trees. We had the team (exhausted as they are) stand down.”
The CDC’s guidance was shelved. Until May 7.
That morning The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration had buried the guidance, even as many states had started allowing businesses to reopen.
After the story ran, the White House called the CDC and ordered them to refile all of the decision trees, except one that targeted churches. An email obtained by the AP confirmed the agency resent the documents late Thursday, hours after news broke.
“Attached per the request from earlier today are the decision trees previously submitted to both OIRA and the WH Task Force, minus the communities of faith tree,” read the email. “Please let us know if/when/how we are able to proceed from here.”