fortune--2020-03-25--Will ‘The Great Cessation’ be worse than the Great Recession? Here’s what we can tell so far

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Which is moving faster: the spread of the coronavirus, or the damage to the U.S. economy?
That’s the question on the minds of tens of millions of American workers, small-business owners, managers, and investors. And as the economic effects pile up, many are wondering: Are we on the cusp of the kind of yearslong descent that began in 2008?
Never in recent decades has America suffered a deterioration in our economic outlook as swift and shocking as the tremors of the past five weeks caused by the coronavirus crisis. The 30% drop in the S&P 500 since its all-time high in mid-February is the fastest slide on that scale in its history; since Valentine’s Day, $10 trillion in shareholder wealth has vanished. The short-term funding that’s the lifeblood of corporations is freezing up as folks withdraw cash from money-market funds to pay for rent and groceries. An economy that was rebounding a few weeks ago after President Trump called a trade war truce is now universally viewed as heading for what could be the steepest one-quarter contraction in history.
Why 2008 was so terrifying
Americans are looking to crashes of the past for a prognosis on how sick the coronavirus will make our economy. And the one that’s top of mind is the most recent, the Great Recession, or what I’ll simply call “2008.” The Great Recession is such a terrifying precedent because it was both extremely deep, and it was long—a full recovery took not a quarter or two, but years.
GDP shrank by 4% over six quarters, bottoming in mid-2009, and national income didn’t rebound to late 2007 levels for 14 quarters, until mid-2011.
In the depths, unemployment spiked to nearly 10%. Yields on investment grade debt hit 9%, and junk bonds fetched 13.4%. The S&P 500 plunged 58% by the spring of 2009; it took five years, until the close of 2012, for equities to regain the summit of late 2007, the level first reached in 1999.
So far, it appears that the U.S. isn’t threatened by a fundamental fissure that will crack and wrack the economy for years to come, like the housing bubble that caused the Great Recession. “This doesn’t seem to be another Great Depression or Great Recession,” economist and Nobel laureate Robert Shiller told Fortune. “The story isn’t the same. It seems to be a virus story and a stock market story, not like the housing story of 2008.”
But in some ways, this crisis is more serious than 2008. That’s because the early devastation hit much faster, and caused far more damage, than in 2008. To prevent an economic contagion that parallels the virus’s rampage, the federal government needs to provide emergency funding for beleaguered businesses at a speed, and size, never before achieved. The paramount threat isn’t the kind of ticking time bomb—the subprime mortgage crash—that caused 2008. It’s the danger that America’s credit markets, already under severe stress, freeze up, sending cash-strapped companies into bankruptcy and causing cascading layoffs that deprive workers of cash, triggering more failures and layoffs. If the Fed, Treasury, and Congress don’t deliver a gigantic package within days making the government the lender of last resort, America could experience another Great Recession even in the absence of a ticking time bomb like the subprime craze.
Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, compares the current shock to a heart attack. “The heart of the economy is the credit markets, and it’s under attack because of the fear of lending,” he says. “We’ve got to do an angioplasty or valve surgery, or the heart will shut down.” He says that what makes this crisis so dire is the lack of time. “In 2008, it took months for the credit markets to dry up.” Now, he says, the U.S. has only days to act before the economy goes into cardiac arrest.
The Fed and Treasury have already taken important steps to bolster short-term funding. But the failed Senate vote on a $1.7 trillion package on March 22 undermined confidence and sent debt markets into a tailspin. We could be facing another onslaught of volatility in the quicksilver credit markets if Congress doesn’t quickly pass the emergency funding measures in the augmented, $2 trillion bill agreed to by the Senate and White House on March 24.
That’s because America is experiencing a completely new phenomenon, the nearly total shutdown of large swaths of the economy. It’s as if the 9/11 attack that brought America to a standstill for a few days has morphed into a kind of Groundhog Day in which Americans awaken to the sight of empty streets and shuttered stores that shows no signs of ending. “In 2008, it wasn’t as if we didn’t go to restaurants and the gym,” says Jared Franz, an economist at asset management giant Capital Group. “People went about their daily lives. Now, businesses are completely shut down, or close to it.”
Franz notes that the virus is attacking the backbone of the U.S. economy, services that account for over two-thirds of GDP. He points out that around half of the 20% economic activity contributed by restaurants, airlines, in-store shopping, live entertainment, and hospitality is totally shuttered. “If you had to invent the perfect takedown of the U.S. economy, this would be it,” says Franz.
Delta Airlines predicts that its second-quarter revenues will drop by $10 billion, or 80%. JetBlue collected $4 million from customers in March, versus its average of $22 million. Marriott’s global hotel business has dropped 75% below normal, prompting CEO Arne Sorenson to label the current situation “worse than 9/11 and the financial crisis combined.” Analysts predict that Nike’s sales will drop by one-third in its Q4 ending in May, and the suspension of the NBA and English Premier football league schedules is depriving the footwear colossus of crucial promotions. On March 19, GM and Ford shut down all production in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico until further notice.
The economy was already fragile when the coronavirus hit
To understand where we are now, you have to go back to the aftermath of the Great Recession, when the U.S. economy shifted into a slogging new normal, delivering slower growth and fewer new jobs than in the preceding decades. That trend reversed in Donald Trump’s first two years as President. Business confidence revived, and growth jumped to over 3% from mid-2017 to mid-2018. But although job growth remained robust and the stock market notched peak after peak, the economy entered 2020 back on its heels. The pandemic that would have weakened a strong economy is decimating a weak one.
To assess where the economy is headed, it’s crucial to review its more than yearlong downshift. Fearing that that overheating would stoke inflation, the Fed lowered its benchmark rate four times from December of 2017 through September of 2018. But a signature Trump onslaught was already tapping the brakes: the trade war. Starting in early 2018, Trump slapped tariffs on over $300 billion of U.S. imports from China, raising prices for consumers and businesses. “It was the trade war that was mainly responsible for sucking out growth,” says Zandi. Nevertheless, in December, the Fed made the mistake of imposing yet another rate increase, an ankle weight that further slowed the already halting jog.
Through much of 2019, big parts of the economy, notably farming, energy, and manufacturing, all hit by the trade conflict, sat mired in a downturn. By midyear, the U.S. seemed headed for recession. In July, the Fed reversed course, slashing its benchmark three times through October. “Then Trump connected the dots and called a truce,” says Zandi. Late last year, Trump announced a deal that would roll back some duties on Chinese goods and suspend other planned tariffs.
The gambit worked, at least in part. In January and February, business and consumer confidence was rising. The Fed forecast mediocre expansion of 2% for 2020, slowing to 1.8% by 2022, but no recession. The 10-year Treasury yield had fallen from 3% in mid-2018 to 1.5%, a signal that GDP could well wax more slowly than the Fed predicted. “If not for the pandemic, we might have muddled through,” says Zandi. “But it would have been a struggle. Manufacturing was still in recession. The economy was already fragile, and vulnerable to a shock that could send it into a tailspin.”
How deep will the next recession be?
Experts’ predictions on how deep this recession will go must be setting records given the distance from the depressing best to the previously unimaginable worst. What most economists at the banks, brokerages, and research firms have in common is that they’re positing that the shutdown lasts another nine to 12 weeks or so, and that a sharp recovery begins in the third quarter. Once again, that “this isn’t 2008” scenario hinges on heroic action to keep credit flowing.
According to most forecasts, the deep devastation hits in the second quarter. Just about the most optimistic outlook comes from Steven Blitz of TS Lombard, who foresees a fall of 8.4% in Q2. At the other extremes, Goldman Sachs sees a 24.5% drop in the three months from April through June, and Bank of America is just as pessimistic at 25%. Jim Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, warned GDP could crater by 50% without drastic emergency action from Congress, the Fed, and the Treasury. The contractions predicted by other notables: UBS at 10%, Oxford Economics at 12%, and JP Morgan Chase at 14%. Here’s a guide to how fast the numbers are deteriorating. On March 16, Goldman called for a decline of 5% in Q2 and four days later upped the number almost fivefold.
With the forecasts worsening so rapidly, it’s hard to find a middle range that could provide a reasonable view of how much the economy could shrink. Right now, the median appears to be around –15%, and that’s optimistic, since it’s been heading lower. Most banks also expect shrinkage in Q1 in single digits—a ballpark number would be 2%. Goldman is typical in projecting a strong rebound in the second half, foreseeing plus 12% in Q3 and 10% in Q4.
Where do those negative 3% and 15% predictions, followed by the Goldman-posited rebound, take us by year-end? By Fortune’s calculations, GDP for 2020 would shrink by over $1.3 trillion to $20 trillion, and decline 6.3%. As we’ll see, that’s more than half again the total shrinkage in the Great Recession. The difference is that the Q2 fall would be a passing hangover, since the economy would be recovering strongly moving into 2021.
The rolling lockdown of businesses, however, is already creating a job crisis. The week beginning March 3, 211,000 Americans filed unemployment claims. Just two weeks later, the number, by Goldman’s estimates, jumped to a staggering 2.25 million. Morgan Stanley predicts an average unemployment rate in the April to June period of 12.8%, more than triple today’s 3.6%.
Aid to families and industry
On March 25, the Senate and the Trump Administration reached agreement on a colossal relief package providing $2 trillion in aid to businesses and families, and make as much as $4 trillion in emergency loans available for all types of large businesses from brokerages to automakers. Single adults making up to $75,000 a year would get a one-time payment of $1200, and couples making $150,000 or less would receive $2400, as well as $500 per child. Those amounts would be reduced for earnings above the $75,000 and $150,000 thresholds. On the business side, the bill earmarks $58 billion in aid for airlines. A crucial plank is a $367 billion infusion targeting America’s 30 million small businesses that account for half our economy and employ 58 million workers.
The plan would provide “retention loans” available to all enterprises with 500 employees or fewer. Restaurants, flower shops, printing outfits, and the like would deploy the funds to pay their employees wages for the next two months. If they meet that test, the Treasury would forgive the loans. The program provides a crucial bridge so that small businesses can keep employees on the payroll so they’re ready to go when folks can finally get back to shopping. Right now, a long extension to prevent a cycle where wave after wave of workers lose their paychecks and clamp down on spending, causing big-company revenues and capital expenditures to keep shrinking, triggering still more layoffs that send us into another 2008.
Fortunately, the Senate and the White House also moved to forestall a credit crisis that would unleash armageddon. The Senate bill provides a $500 billion facility that would cover losses on loans provided by the Federal Reserve. The Treasury’s backstop would enable the Fed to lend as much as $2 trillion to corporations that either can’t obtain loans or refinance bonds in the private markets, or could only borrow at super-high rates.
Still, it’s unclear when a final bill will pass so that the sorely needed cash will start flowing. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi in championing a substantially different, $2.5 billion measure. It’s unclear if she’ll put the Senate version to a vote that would probably assure quick passage, or demand a compromise that would prolong getting that sorely needed cash to families and businesses. The stock market’s 10% plus leap on March 24 was a reaction to the a huge infusion of liquidity was on the way. More days of squabbling in Congress could kill that show of confidence.
Growing risks in repos and commercial paper
What could turn a damaging but temporary storm into a hurricane requiring years of rebuilding is that aforementioned lockdown in credit. The danger lies in both of two distinct sectors of the credit markets. The first is the short-term financing provided by two types of vehicles: repurchase agreements, known as repos, and commercial paper. Repos aren’t exactly a household name, but they constitute one of the world’s biggest debt markets; the average amount of repos outstanding stands at $3.9 trillion, one-fifth the size of the U.S. economy.
Repos are ultra-short-term loans, usually asset-backed, mainly provided by money-market mutual funds. The borrowers are financial institutions that aren’t funded by deposits like the big banks, nor do they rely on those banks for quick financing; the money market’s chief customers are brokers and hedge funds. The broker, say, sells the money-market fund, which has lots of cash to invest, a contract enabling it to borrow $100 million overnight, and the next day buys back the contract at a slight premium, giving the fund a fraction-of-a-basis point return. The brokerages use the cash to back equity and bond trading, and the hedge funds can deploy the funds to quickly acquire securities without selling parts of their portfolios.
As security, the hedge fund or broker furnishes Treasuries or Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac “agency” bonds. The major commercial banks do a thriving “clearing” business ferrying contracts, cash, and collateral between lenders and borrowers, and handling custody.
In almost all periods, repos are a supersafe vehicle for the money-market lenders. But in rare times of extreme volatility, they turn away borrowers, and the market seizes up. The money-market funds fear that hedge funds are taking big losses, are desperate for cash, and that the value of even the Treasuries supplied as collateral is fluctuating so fast that they may not get repaid. That’s what’s been happening intermittently for the past few weeks. In addition, money-market fund customers are taking out the cash, creating a shortage of funds available to borrowers.
If hedge funds and brokers face a liquidity crunch, the former will dump their Treasuries and other bonds to raise emergency cash, and the latter won’t have the funds to ensure a smoothly working fixed-income market. The freeze will send prices plummeting and yields soaring, further tightening the vise on credit.
A second critical source of funding is commercial paper, short-term IOUs that all kinds of companies obtain to finance inventories or receivables. That flow of ample, cheap cash enables the likes of automakers or restaurant chains to pay bills without liquidating their fixed-income holdings, and once again, the fear contagion virtually shut down the market briefly in mid-March.
It’s the Fed’s role to keep the repo and commercial paper markets liquid, and so far, it’s stepping up. In mid-March, the Fed stood in for the money-market funds and purchased $1 trillion a day in repos, averting a cash crunch for brokers and hedge funds. The Fed also is dusting off the Commercial Paper Funding facility from its 2008 playbook, agreeing to buy up to $1 trillion in the IOUs from corporations, bolstered by a big backstop from the U.S. Treasury, that can’t get funding from money markets. Keep an eye on these two crucial funding sources. Only if the Fed continues to fill the role of the fleeing lenders, and only if the Fed pledges to keep doing so no matter how bad it gets, can America weather the crisis without a catastrophe.
Looming stress in corporate bonds and loans
In the recovery from the financial crisis, U.S. companies steeply increased their leverage and shrank their safety cushion. “For 11 years, everyone had a big appetite for risk,” says Alicia Levine, chief economist at BNY Mellon. “Companies gorged on debt. In 2008 the banks’ balance sheets were at risk. Now, corporate America’s balance sheets are threatened. We have a potential liquidity crisis not in the banks, but in the corporate sector.”
The jump in leverage was especially pronounced in such sectors as energy, notably fracking, utilities, and materials. Franz of Capital Group reckons that U.S. enterprises have borrowed a total of $5 trillion in high-yield, leveraged loans used in LBOs, and BBB-rated corporates, the lowest Moody’s level above junk status. That’s an increase of well over 100% in the past decade, says Franz.
The junk bond market is already flashing red: Yields have catapulted from under 5% to around 6.1%. Companies are constantly refinancing the waves of maturing corporate debt. As the business lockdown raises the risk of defaults, yields could rise so high that companies can borrow only at ruinous rates, if private lending doesn’t shut down altogether.
To make matters worse, big asset managers are banned by their charters from holding bonds rated lower than BBB. So if those securities are downgraded to junk, mutual funds will dump them in bushels, once again, sending yields skyward.
It now appears that over the next few months, the shrinkage in cash flows will become so severe that private lenders retreat from the market or demand rates that drive corporate America to even deeper losses, causing a spillover into job losses and bankruptcies.
Once again, the government needs to provide credit that will bridge corporate America through the crisis. The Fed is barred from taking credit risk, so it’s the Treasury that must take the lead. Fortunately, the Senate bill allows Treasury to partner with the Fed to provide that $2 trillion in liquidity.
But that $2 trillion still isn’t available. That’s because the House has yet to pass the Senate bill, or a comparable measure, that includes that relief. Time is short. Any surge in bad news could spook the debt markets. More delays in Congress could provide just that disastrous shock.
The outlook beyond the crisis
Of course, it’s unknowable at this point whether the U.S. will emerge from this dark tunnel into the sunlight by spring or summer. Keep in mind that even the forecasts that get us to a shrinkage of 6% of GDP by year-end, a figure seldom seen, assume that folks will be back on the streets and offices by late spring or early summer.
Assuming we get to the other side, the outlook, frankly, isn’t great. Since stocks looked wildly overpriced prior to the crisis, it’s likely that a lot of the wealth families had in stocks isn’t returning. High tariffs that weren’t hurting us two years ago will probably be a permanent feature—no matter who’s elected President. That’s a major negative for growth. The exploding public deficits and debt can only be addressed with much higher taxes that would impose still another burden.
So the best bet is that we’d return to the same old, same sub-2% growth we were expecting before the crisis hit. It’s not the animal spirits of the early Trump days.
But it’s sure a lot better than 2008.
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fortune--2020-03-25--The U.S. needs more ventilators. Why can’t it make them in time?

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This article is part of a Fortune Special Report: Business in the Coronavirus Economy—a look at the impact of the pandemic on more than 50 industries.
More hands are rapidly coming on deck to make ventilators for American coronavirus victims. There still might not be enough.
Medical manufacturers large and small have spent weeks ramping up production of the expensive, lifesaving machines that can breathe for critically ill patients. Last week, President Trump vaguely invoked the Cold War–era Defense Production Act, asking automakers and other companies to help make ventilators and other medical supplies—though he has so far stopped short of wielding the law’s full powers to order more ventilator production. General Motors, Ford Motor, and Tesla have all said that they are trying to chip in by partnering with medical-device manufacturers, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the weekend relaxed some guidelines to ease their way.
But ventilator industry executives and experts warn there is a limit to how much these emergency measures—or even greater federal assistance—could speed up production, especially in time for the rapidly growing hospitalizations of U.S. coronavirus victims. The grim reasons come down to the necessary regulations involved in medical manufacturing, ongoing supply-chain problems, and a shortage of trained personnel who know how to use the complex, life-or-death machines.
“It is not a question of throwing enough money and people at the issue,” says Bob Hamilton, the CEO of Hamilton Medical Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Swiss-based Hamilton Medical AG.
“Ventilators are highly specialized lifesaving machines that need to be built with the utmost care and precision,” he adds, in an emailed response to questions from Fortune. “So it needs trained people to do it, and it needs time.”
Hamilton Medical makes 15,000 ventilators annually, and has already said it’s ramping up overall production by up to 40%. Hamilton adds that he plans to at least double the production of the company’s “most needed” transportable ventilators, which can be used in intensive care units and elsewhere. Those two models, the Hamilton-T1 and the Hamilton-C1, together accounted for more than half of the ventilators it made last year, the company said.
Competitors including Medtronic, General Electric, Getinge, Philips, and Dräger also make hospital-grade ventilators, which can cost between $25,000 and $50,000 each. But the U.S. has fewer than 175,000 of them, including about 12,700 in the government’s National Strategic Stockpile. That’s far short of the estimated 1 million ventilators the country’s hospitals may need for coronavirus cases alone, according to some calculations.
Now politicians, health care officials, and executives across several industries are working to supply more breathing machines to already stretched hospitals—and to avoid the tragic shortages seen in Italy. But even under the best possible circumstances, manufacturing enough of the lifesaving machines for American needs will be a matter of months, not weeks, experts warn.
If President Trump invokes the Defense Production Act to specifically order more ventilators and open new lines, “a production increase would take at a minimum 90 days, even if you have every part and everything you need,” says Julie Letwat, a health care lawyer with McGuireWoods in Chicago.
“But anything you say is a moving target,” she adds. “It also depends on employees coming in and not getting sick,” when “one COVID-positive test could clear a manufacturing floor.”
Procurement problems
For ventilator manufacturers, obtaining enough necessary parts and materials is a widespread industry challenge, made even more acute as the global nature of the supply chain is colliding with the global nature of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The biggest threat is that our suppliers cannot ramp up their production accordingly, because their supply chains are interrupted or are hindered by export restrictions,” says Hamilton.
His company has already faced one such minor incident: Romania restricted exports of medical products, meaning that Hamilton Medical couldn’t receive some expected humidifier supplies. Hamilton says the problem was resolved “quickly,” but he’s now worried that other countries could “do the same, and that might interrupt our supply chain.”
His company, founded in 1983, is one of several established ventilator manufacturers that have been working overtime since the emergence of COVID-19 in China late last year. Hamilton says he has hired additional employees, retrained existing staff, and kept production going through the weekends.
But he is not yet working with a car manufacturer—and sounds skeptical about the efficacy of doing so, even as some of his competitors team up with the likes of GM and Ford.
“It is not enough just to screw the devices together. They must also be tested accordingly. And every medical manufacturer in the U.S. needs approvals by the FDA, which are not easy to obtain,” Hamilton says. “In our opinion, it is far more efficient to expand production where the know-how and approvals are already available.”
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In the past few days, General Motors has said it is partnering with Ventec Life Systems to help the small ventilator company increase production and to “leverage GM’s logistics, purchasing, and manufacturing expertise.” Ford announced it is working with GE Healthcare “to expand production of a simplified version” of the latter company’s ventilators, and Elon Musk has, of course, tweeted about having “engineering discussions” with Medtronic. (The Tesla CEO also helped buy more than 1,200 ventilators from China and donated them to officials in Los Angeles.)
But it’s unclear how quickly most of these discussions or partnerships can yield physical results. “We’re talking about early June,” Ford CEO Jim Hackett said on Tuesday.
And many industry experts warn that it’s optimistic—and potentially dangerous—to expect car manufacturers to switch their production lines over to medical devices swiftly or easily.
“It doesn’t really matter if your phone doesn’t work, because it wasn’t put together right,” says Marcus Schabacker, a physician and the CEO of ECRI, a nonprofit patient-safety organization that tracks medical devices. “If your ventilator doesn’t work because it wasn’t put together right, that’s a problem.”
Relaxed regulations
The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday temporarily loosened some guidelines for ventilator manufacturers, granting manufacturers more flexibility to make changes to suppliers or materials, and making it easier for automakers to repurpose their production lines.
“They have the people, and they have the factories,” says Madris Tomes, a former FDA employee who now tracks medical-device industry data at her Device Events firm. “There are certain parts of making ventilators where they can definitely” step in.
Still, Tomes and other experts warn that the FDA’s restrictions on medical-grade materials, devices, and processes exist for good reason: Like a rushed and potentially lethal vaccine, a rushed and potentially dysfunctional breathing machine can be worse than useless.
“If [ventilators] are not properly developed, designed, manufactured, and operated by skilled clinicians, you can kill a patient,” says Patrick Keane, an intellectual property lawyer at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney who works with Hamilton Medical. “You have to be really careful about how they’re manufactured, how they’re put into practice, and then how they’re actually used.”
Xu Gang, managing director and partner at the Boston Consulting Group who leads BCG’s automotive sector in Greater China, is more optimistic. Big automakers are “quite a good fit” for ventilator production, Xu says, because of their experience in large-scale manufacturing, established quality control mechanisms, and a skilled labor force.
“I think fundamentally they will be able to do it,” Xu says. Still, he adds, workers will need retraining, and factory plants will likely need to be retrofitted before they can start making ventilators or ventilator parts.
Schabacker adds that he expects the loosened FDA guidance will help—eventually. “It will be easier to make parts and components,” he says. “But it will still not be a quick fix.”
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fortune--2020-03-25--College students struggle to find housing as the coronavirus pushes them off campus

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John Rovin thought he’d be studying abroad in Brazil from February until December. But on March 13, a month after the college junior arrived in São João del-Rei, the University of Texas at Austin canceled its study-abroad programs. The World Health Organization had declared coronavirus a pandemic, and less than a week later, Rovin returned to Texas. Back in Austin, he no longer had stable housing or income.
While Rovin prepared to return to the U.S., a dispute between students and administrators erupted at Pomona College in California. The liberal arts school informed students they needed to leave campus. Students said their appeals to remain in campus housing were widely rejected. (Many have since received approval to remain.) Marie Tano, a junior, worried that returning home could endanger her immunocompromised father, and she wondered where she would live.
As COVID-19 sweeps across the country, institutions of higher education are rushing students off campus. For many students, the university served as home. Suddenly the food, housing, or income provided by educational institutions were replaced by health fears, uncertainty, and a precarious financial future. Over the past week, more than two dozen graduates and undergraduates described to Fortune how campus support mechanisms have all but disappeared, leaving a trail of bewildered students, a sense of betrayal, and questions about how to obtain basic necessities.
Seventeen percent of U.S. students have faced a lack of safe and reliable housing due to COVID-19-related closures, according to a survey conducted by RISE, a group that advocates for free college. International students remain stuck in limbo, with many afraid to return to their home countries. Others told Fortune they lacked a stable home situation.
Administrators “seem to have this drive to make sure everyone gets out no matter what. They’re definitely putting the institution first. This is all about risk management. It has nothing to do with taking care of us,” Hector Kilgoe, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, says.
UPenn told undergraduates on March 11 to leave campus, but graduate associates, who often live on campus year-round, received permission to remain in their housing.
“All in [College Houses and Academic Services] cannot understate how much we appreciate you and your contributions to the College House system. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” the director of four-year houses and residential programs wrote in an email on March 12. Days later, the university terminated graduate associate (GA) contracts.
Graduate associates, who work for free housing and limited meal swipes for their labor, could appeal to stay on campus. If rejected, they had less than a week to leave campus.
The university permitted Kilgoe, who has been a GA for three years, to stay on campus until June 1, though it terminated his GA access. He’s unable to enter communal kitchens, where he previously stored food, and now subsists primarily on ramen and Easy Mac.
“We’re not sure what will happen June 1,” Kilgoe says, noting he would need to scramble for money if UPenn demanded he leave on June 1. “Some people are still trying their best to find other places to stay because it seems like people are trying to make it so that it’s miserable here.”
College students across the country echoed Kilgoe’s concerns. They understood the complications of balancing public health guidance with student needs in a rapidly evolving situation. They noted that schools have established appeal systems for those who need to remain on campus. Some institutions have set up emergency relief funds and refunded housing costs.
“Institutions are trying to do what they can in this uncertain time,” says Carrie Welton, senior policy consultant for the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. “Institutions have to make the tradeoffs about are we supporting employees in this time? Are we providing resources to students? It’s put even well-intended institutions in a bad position, frankly.”
Almost universally, though, the students described anxieties exacerbated by poor communication from their schools. Decisions changed daily, forcing scrambling responses from students. Information arrived through automated email addresses, inhibiting answers to follow-up questions. At larger schools, decisions filtered through more bureaucratic systems shrouded by layers of authority, preventing a streamlined appeal process.
Even for smaller institutions, muddled communications complicated efforts for guidance. Bennington College, a 735-student institution in Southwest Vermont that requires full-time students to live on campus, told residents on March 13 to leave campus within eight days.
Junior Katharine Ruegger, whose asthma makes her a higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19, appealed multiple times to stay on campus. On March 20, the college approved her request to remain in campus housing—but only after she sent a picture of the amount of mold in her parents’ bathroom in Indiana.
Fearing the worst, while witnessing lockdown orders in states including California and Illinois, Ruegger drove to her friend’s cabin in Pennsylvania.
“The school doesn’t know I left,” Ruegger said, voicing concern about what would happen if she returned to campus. “If this is not the peak of the crisis right now, if we have months to go, what happens at the end of May when the semester is over? What happens to the students who were able to remain on campus?”
Of the universities named in this piece, only the University of Texas at Austin and Pomona College commented. The University of Texas at Austin said it was helping students with emergency housing needs through May 20, and its website listed a series of circumstances allowing students to qualify for emergency housing. This relief housing costs $1,472, including $200 in cashless payment accepted on campus and by nearby stores.
“Student Emergency Services is exploring additional resources for students whose housing needs extend beyond what is currently being offered,” a communications strategist from the University of Texas at Austin wrote, when asked if the university would provide housing into the summer if needed.
After extended pressure from undergraduate organizers, Pomona agreed to allow students who remained on campus to stay through the end of the semester. Those who departed school housing before March 20 “will receive a credit to their student account for 50% of their room fees and 50% of their board plan for the spring semester,” wrote Patricia Vest, Pomona’s associate director of news and strategic content. She noted that the school is providing other support services, including free laptops and WiFi hotspots for those who need it.
While the other universities have also offered various emergency services, as academic institutions scramble to respond to COVID-19, alternative aid systems have emerged. Instead of tapping into the deep coffers of million- and billion-dollar endowments, students have turned to alumni.
Organizations like Believe in Students, which supports living expenses, have started fundraisers. College organizers have mobilized rapidly, crowdsourcing financial assistance, and distributed money to classmates in dire situations. Students track administration responses, share recommendations for helpful organizations, and offer advice. They connect stranded students with temporary housing and food insecure ones with meals.
These accommodations will provide resources only for a limited time. Leases end. Financial resources dwindle. And many students will be returning to their campuses, the place they viewed as home, with a tainted perception.
“I feel like the university doesn’t really care about me as much as I used to think that they did,” says Tano, the junior from Pomona College who is temporarily staying in a stranger’s Los Angeles apartment, while discussing the housing appeal process. “They made us sell ourselves and exploit our trauma, and some students still got rejected.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—The Supreme Court has shunned technology. Could coronavirus change that?
—10 questions about the 2020 election during the coronavirus pandemic, answered
—The workers the U.S. government deems “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-03-25--Travel startups begin laying off employees. They won’t be alone

While delivery services and Zoom are bursting at the seams in this work-at-home economy, startups that promised to transform the state of travel are hurting badly.
Last valued at $4 billion, TripActions laid off 350 employees Friday via Zoom, sources told Fortune. The Wall Street Journal reports the layoffs consist of about one-quarter to one-fifth of the total company. The corporate travel planning company said in a statement: “We’ve cut back on all non-essential spend and made the very difficult decision to reduce our global workforce inline with the current climate.”
Wanderu, which aggregates intercity bus and train information, also tells Fortune that it has put a third of its 40 or so employees on unpaid leave in a bid to lengthen its cash runway. “We needed to make some very difficult decisions that would allow us to minimize our current costs as much as possible and give our company the ability to get through these uncertain times,” Wanderu CEO Polina Raygorodskaya said in a statement.
And Silver Lake-backed Vacasa, which helps manage and stage short-term rentals, has laid off “hundreds,” per sources and confirmed by the company. Vacasa, which had 6,000 employees prior to the development, declined to say exactly how many employees had been let go, but added: “Our CEO is not taking any salary, and our leadership team is taking a 50% reduction in salary through the end of the year.”
Amid this downturn, the travel industry is trying to strike as optimistic of a tone as it can about what comes after, when companies will seek to travel again.
“We look forward to when the strength of the global economy and business travel inevitably return and we can hire back our colleagues to rejoin us in our mission to make business travel effortless for our customers and users,” a TripActions spokesperson said in a statement.
The thing is—will those laid-off employees stick around and wait for the still uncertain end of this pandemic? Fortune reached out to former employees who say they are already on the hunt for new jobs. And in this environment, they’re looking for positions in more financially stable or established companies that aren’t as likely to be affected by the coronavirus.
I have no doubt that more cuts are to come—including those outside the travel industry—especially as the World Health Organization warns that the U.S. could be the next epicenter of coronavirus.
Hot stuff: This company’s core business focuses on refining oil—but now America’s big tech is looking to own a part of it. According to sources interviewed by the Financial Times, Facebook is seekinga 10% stake in Reliance Jio, an Indian mobile internet services provider and ecommerce giant, valued at about $60 billion by one analyst. The company launched in 2015 as a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, a conglomerate founded by India’s wealthiest person that got its start in textiles and oil refining. Talk about pivoting.
Facebook isn’t the only one trying to broker a deal in the hopes of entrenching itself in the world’s second largest mobile market. FT, which caveats that the deal could be impacted by the coronavirus, also reports Google has been in talks with Reliance Jio, and Microsoft announced last year it would partner with Jio on cloud services.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Apexigen, Inc., a San Carlos, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical company focused on antibody therapeutics for oncology, raised $65 million in funding as an extension of a previously raised $58 million Series C round. Decheng Capital and new investor Oceanpine Capital led the round.
- Alma, a Paris-based consumer fintech, raised €12.5 million ($13.5 million) in funding. Investors include Idinvest and Isai.
- Diligent Robotics, an Austin-based hospital robotics maker, raised $10 million. DNX Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including True Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, E14 Fund, Promus Ventures, and Grit Ventures. Read more.
- Fritz AI, a Boston-based AI development platform for iOS and Android, raised $5 million in seed funding. The Foundry Group led the round, and was joined by investors including NextGen Venture Partners and Inner Loop Capital.
- mPower Technology, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based solar tech company, raised an additional $1.85m in Series A funding for a total of $4.35 million. Cottonwood Technology Fund, NMA Ventures, and angel investors participated.
- ClinOne, a Denver, CO-based remote clinical trial patient management platform, raised $3.6 million in Series A funding. The CU Healthcare Innovation Fund led the round.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- TierPoint, a St. Louis-based provider of data centers and cloud solutions, will raise $320 million in a deal expected to close mid-April. Argo Infrastructure Partners, Wafra, and Macquarie Capital Principal Finance invested. Existing investors including Cequel III, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, RedBird Capital Partners, The Stephens Group, and Thompson Street Capital Partners also participated.
- Quad-C Management closed on an investment in Textum Weaving, a Belmont, N.C.-based manufacturer of high-tech textiles. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Navacord, a portfolio company of Madison Dearborn Partners, acquired Benemax Financial Group, a Richmond Hill, Ontario-based benefits management company. Read more.
- Guy & O'Neill, Inc., a portfolio company of Centre Partners, acquired Boomerang Laboratories, Inc., a Spring Park, Minn.-based manufacturer of liquid personal care and household cleaning products. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Everbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVBG) acquired one2many, a Netherlands-based provider of cell broadcast solutions for emergency alerts.
- Centric Health Corporation (CHH.TO) agreed to acquire Remedy Holdings Inc and Remedy's Rx Specialty Pharmacy business, a specialty pharmacy serving assisted living residents in Ontario and Western Canada, for $44 million in cash and stock.
- Neiman Marcus, a Dallas-based luxury retailer, is reportedly considering bankruptcy in a bid to lower its $4.3 billion debt load, Bloomberg reports citing sources. Read more.
EXITS
- Fulcrum Capital Partners has sold Verdant Environmental Technologies, a Montreal-based provider of energy management solutions for the hospitality industry, to Emerson (NYSE: EMR). Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Lead Equities will sell MCL Computer & Zubehör, a GermanIT services company, to One Equity Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
F+FS
- Gryphon Investors plans to raise $2.7 billion for its sixth lower-mid-market buyout fund. Read more.
PEOPLE
- April Underwood, formerly chief product officer at Slack, joined Obvious Ventures as a venture partner. Read more.


fortune--2020-03-25--IBM and The Weather Channel debut coronavirus map

IBM and its subsidiary, The Weather Channel, have created an online map that tracks the spread of U.S. coronavirus cases.
The new map, which debuted nationwide on Wednesday after a few days of testing, shows a state-by-state and county-by-county breakdown of confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths.
People can see specific information from their counties that includes the percentage increase of new COVID-19 cases from the previous week and a graph detailing the daily progression of new cases and deaths. The service, which can be accessed from the Weather Channel’s website or mobile app, also features safety tips from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as news articles.
Cameron Clayton, the general manager of IBM Watson Media & Weather, said his team gathered data from state and local governments. To do so, the Weather Channel staff used software that scans government websites for information, like updated COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
IBM and The Weather Channel launch a coronavirus incidents map.
Because each government may post coronavirus-related information in formats like PDFs that are hard for computers to easily decipher, IBM had to use computer-vision technology to analyze the documents and obtain the relevant information.
While The Weather Channel has built similar interactive maps during previous national catastrophes, the process was longer and more tedious then because A.I. technology was less sophisticated than it is today, Clayton said.
By next week, Clayton said, the interactive map will update every 15 minutes. Those updates depend on county governments adding new information online, which some may fail to do because they’re understaffed, Clayton acknowledged.
He said he hopes the map “reinforces why people of all ages should be heeding the warnings from their government officials about staying in place.”
Eventually, The Weather Channel plans to debut additional maps in other countries and new features that can predict the spread of the coronavirus, to help with “scenario planning.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—The Supreme Court has shunned technology. Could the coronavirus change that?
—What medical experts say about Everlywell’s at-home coronavirus testing kits
—TikTok’s newest viral influencers? Personal finance stars
—Privacy could be the next victim of the coronavirus
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro vs. the Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-03-25--World ventilator demand is now 10 times what’s available, says China’s top medical device maker

The growing number of patients critically sick with the coronavirus is fueling demand for ventilators to at least ten times of what’s available at hospitals around the world, said China’s top medical device maker.
Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., along with other Chinese ventilator makers, has seen overseas orders surge as countries scramble for more of the machines used in intensive care units. In severe cases, the availability of a ventilator to help a Covid-19 patient breathe can determine if he lives or dies.
“The demand is several times the orders we can take, the orders are several times our current capacity, and our capacity now is already several times what it used to be,” said Li Wenmei, the company’s board secretary in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday.
As the global death toll from the coronavirus crosses 18,000, doctors from Milan to New York are desperately seeking ventilators. Hospitals which usually have just a few of the machines now face the need for one per critically ill patient. While U.S. President Donald Trump has given the go-ahead to auto-makers like Tesla Inc. to try to manufacture ventilators to make up the shortfall, the complex devices aren’t as easily churned out as other medical supplies like surgical masks or disinfectant.
Overall in the U.S., the Society of Critical Care Medicine estimates that 960,000 patients would need ventilator support due to Covid-19, but the nation only has about 200,000 such machines. In Italy, the country with the most number of fatalities from the pandemic, a severe ventilator shortage has forced doctors to triage patients.
Mindray, which makes as many as 3,000 ventilators a month, is now trying to delay delivery of orders to domestic clients so as to ship products to overseas buyers in more urgent need first, said Li. China’s new cases of coronavirus infections has dwindled and its people are resuming work and normal life, even as the epidemic accelerates globally.
Production of patient monitors, which tracks the vital signs of those in critical condition, have also ramped up nearly threefold since last year, said Li. Mindray now makes 30,000 monitors a month.
Ventilators pump oxygen into the lungs and remove carbon dioxide from the body. Many patients inflicted by the novel coronavirus need the machine because their blood oxygen level drops precipitously — a condition called hypoxemia — which can cause organ damage and be potentially life threatening.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—All the moves the Fed is making to bolster the economy
—2020 Tokyo Olympics will be delayed by about one year due to coronavirus
—Which stores are open—and closed—during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.?
—As the U.K. goes into lockdown, London faces isolation—and clear skies
—17 companies that are hiring during the coronavirus crisis
—President of the Tenement Museum on what we can learn from previous pandemics
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-25--Female entrepreneurs pivot to meet challenges of the coronavirus pandemic

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Greta Thunberg thinks she had coronavirus, Justin Trudeau is solo parenting, and female founders race to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Have a productive Wednesday.
– Female entrepreneurs v. pandemic. In a new Fortune story this morning, Emma asks a fascinating question: Why are women-led health care startups leading the pack in designing Silicon Valley’s response to the coronavirus pandemic?
Two startups Nurx, led by CEO Varsha Rao, and Everlywell, led by CEO Julia Cheek, have both developed at-home coronavirus tests in recent weeks. They saw their efforts scuttled by a new FDA guidance that essentially bans at-home tests, at least for the time being. (Everlywell has pivoted to selling its tests to health care providers.)
Nevertheless, the startups’ pursuit of a solution to the U.S.’s test shortage speaks to women’s role in health care in general, Cheek says.
“Women are often the centers of health care planning in their homes—they make 75% of health care decisions for their families,” she says. “For women running health care companies, we have to step in and we want to lead for the community.” Adds Rao: “A deep commitment to public health is something that speaks very much to female leaders.”
Female-led startup are meeting this moment in other ways too. Ava, a wearables startup led by CEO Lea von Bidder, offered its hardware to researchers who want to undertake a study of coronavirus and possible early detection. Women’s telehealth company Maven, led by CEO Kate Ryder, is seeing an uptick in users as patients avoid in-person doctor’s appointments. It’s also started offering six-month contracts to employers that want to provide telehealth benefits to employees during the crisis.
Cheek says women leaders are “staying calm” amid the mayhem. “We’ll soon be seeing their collective response,” she said.
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Get well soon, Greta! Greta Thunberg says it is "extremely likely" that she had COVID-19, although she is now mostly feeling better and was not tested, in line with Sweden's testing standards. She and her father began experiencing symptoms after a trip to central Europe and are self-isolating. Another high-profile diagnosis: Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II's heir to the throne. Guardian
- Devastating delivery news. The coronavirus-induced ban on any visitors—including partners—in the delivery room at some New York hospitals is confusing and devastating pregnant women. "A lot of desperate moms-to-be ... are totally on the verge of a nervous breakdown," one woman whose due date is this week told The Cut. "I have not stopped crying after hearing that my husband can’t be with me," Samantha Moshen, due in June, told the New York Times.
- Solo parenting. With Sophie Grégoire Trudeau in isolation as she recovers from COVID-19 and the Canadian first family's usual staff not coming to work, Justin Trudeau has been on his own looking after three children, keeping the house in order, and running Canada. "Daddy’s on an important phone call right now," the prime minister has told his kids while talking to his advisers. New York Times
- Pause on pay. Because of the coronavirus crisis, the U.K. government has suspended its requirement that companies report their gender pay gaps for the 2019-2020 year. Minister for Women and Equalities Liz Truss and Equality and Human Rights Commission chair David Isaac said it was "only right" to suspend the mandate as employers face "unprecedented uncertainty and pressure." Reuters
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Draft decision. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service will soon recommend to Congress that all Americans—men and women—between the ages of 18 and 25 should be required to register with the government in case of a military draft. While there hasn't been a draft in 40 years, the bipartisan commission argues that women should be included if there ever is one again. "If the threat is to our very existence,” said Debra Wada, a former assistant secretary for the Army who served on the commission, “wouldn’t you want women as part of that group? New York Times
- Missing medication. After President Trump tweeted the unverified claim that the drug hydroxychloroquine could treat the coronavirus, patients with lupus—who are mostly women and who rely on the medication—found they were unable to refill their prescriptions. ProPublica
- Sew for it. Amid a shortage of N95 masks, professional and amateur seamstresses across the country banded together to sew masks for U.S. healthcare workers. Handmade masks aren't as effective as medical-grade masks, but the women, who organized through the Facebook group "Sew You Care," want to contribute as long as there's a need. Fortune
ON MY RADAR
Here’s to the USA Olympic women skateboarders—who would’ve ripped it up in Tokyo Vogue
Just give in to Alison Roman The Cut
A New York City restaurant owner on responding to racism and making difficult decisions during coronavirus Vogue
The 'Niqab Squad' wants women to be seen differently New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"Whatever you’re going through right now, I want you to know you aren’t alone."
-Michelle Obama, on Instagram


fortune--2020-03-26--How one of America’s best places to work is navigating an uncertain, high-tech future

Mark Cuban has advice for CEOs in the coronavirus era

Navy Federal Credit Union has a simple strategy for navigating an uncertain future of artificial intelligence: it’s all hands on deck.
The Vienna, Va.-based credit union, which provides financial services to those connected to the U.S. armed forces, Department of Defense or Coast Guard, invites all its employees to share ideas for improving the business. It also is actively upskilling its people, preparing front-line member service representatives to offer higher-value guidance to credit union members as computer systems take on basic tasks like providing bank balances.
There’s a final, critical way Navy Federal creates a sense of solidarity as it sails into the uncharted waters of an ever-more high-tech financial services industry. Navy Federal leaders make it clear that even if things get rough and some jobs disappear because of automation, no one should expect to walk the plank. The 87-year-old organization has never laid anyone off. And it has no plans to change that informal policy, says Stacy Keller Williams, vice president of enterprise change at Navy Federal.
“I hear executives at every level of the organization who continue to talk about it,” Keller Williams says. “I’m very confident we will continue to go down that road of finding a place for our people.”
Employees share that confidence. Fully 93 percent of Navy Federal’s 21,500 employees say they believe that “management would lay people off only as a last resort.”
With that sense of financial security, Navy Federal’s employees feel free and motivated to generate ideas. Eighty-four percent employees say the organization celebrates people who try new and better ways of doing things, “regardless of the outcome.” Last year, 44 employee-generated ideas from the contact center department alone were implemented at Navy Federal. Some of them were small shifts with a big impact. For example, one employee suggested putting Navy Federal’s bank routing number directly on the home page—all but eliminating the need for the credit union’s nine million members to have to ask a customer service representative for the digits.
No wonder Navy Federal has ranked No. 1 among U.S. companies in KPMG’s U.S. Customer Experience Excellence Report for two straight years. Or that it is the largest retail credit union in the world, having seen its assets grow from $63 billion in 2015 to nearly $113 billion in early 2020. Or that it earned a spot on this year’s list of the Fortune Best Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance. Great Place to Work, the global authority on workplace culture, just published this ranking in partnership with Fortune.
For the second straight year, Edward Jones ranked #1 in the category of financial services and insurance companies with 1,000 or more employees. Rounding out the top five in the large-company group were American Express, Baird, Pinnacle Financial Partners and Veterans United Home Loans. Navy Federal Credit Union ranked sixth among large firms.
In the small and medium-size category, WestPac Wealth Partners ranked first, followed by First American Equipment Finance, Bankers Healthcare Group, Network Capital and Promontory Interfinancial Network.
To create the ranking of the Fortune Best Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance, Great Place to Work analyzed anonymous survey feedback representing nearly 780,000 employees working in the financial services and insurance industry in the United States. Employees responded to over 60 survey questions describing the extent to which their organization creates a Great Place to Work For All™. Eighty-five percent of the evaluation is based on what employees say about their experiences of trust and reaching their full human potential as part of their organization, no matter who they are or what they do. Great Place to Work analyzes these experiences relative to each organization’s size, workforce make up, and what’s typical relative to their peers in the industry.
The remaining 15 percent of the rank is based on an assessment of all employees’ daily experiences of innovation, the company’s values, and the effectiveness of their leaders, to ensure they’re consistently experienced. To be considered, companies had to meet the Great Place to Work-Certified standard.
Great Place to Work has found that in the average U.S. workplace, only two employees experience a lot of meaningful innovation opportunities for every six who say they have just a few or no chances to innovate. Navy Federal Credit Union turns this discouraging ratio on its head. At the credit union, there are roughly six employees who report many meaningful chances to contribute new and better ways of doing things for every two who have just a few or no such opportunities.
Consider the experience of Navy Federal employee Doug Thomas. A five-year veteran at the credit union, Thomas is a training instructor for new hires. Last year, he participated in Navy Federal’s program for generating and collecting ideas from staffers. Called “Employee Voice,” the initiative is what sparked the 44 changes from the contact center alone, and it goes well beyond a traditional suggestion box. Ideas are visible to all employees, who vote on them. Those proposing ideas also get support from departments affected by the suggestion.
Thomas, for example, proposed streamlining the process for announcing training classes and their location. Instead of having to spend a couple of hours each week hand-writing information on a white board with dry-erase markers, Thomas suggested displaying the information on a digital monitor. Within a day, he received a response and help from the I.T. department to figure out the budget for the initiative.
When his idea won, Thomas not only saw the monitor installed but saw his name highlighted in internal communications as creator of the “Idea of the Quarter.”
“It was really cool, not only to be able to do it, but be recognized,” he says.
Navy Federal Credit Union is a family affair for Thomas. His wife also works at the company. Even though the financial services industry is undergoing dramatic shifts and A.I. may well eliminate whole classes of jobs in the industry, Thomas sleeps easy at night. He is grateful for the opportunity the company gave him to upgrade his skills—Thomas has advanced from a customer service position to his current training role. And he doesn’t worry about being laid off in the future.
“I don’t have any fear,” he says. “Navy Federal’s reputation precedes it.”
Keller Williams says this same confidence is allowing customer contact center staffers in general to embrace upskilling. They are learning to become more like financial advisors, addressing more complex questions for members like what steps to take to create a savings plan even when funds are tight or how to prepare for home ownership.
As those jobs become less robotic, Navy Federal is seeking to deepen the human connections its employees have with credit union members. Indeed, market research by Navy Federal discovered that its members appreciate interaction with an actual human being more than the typical civilian consumer. This might have to do with the way military families relocate so often, and it helps explain why Navy Federal has 343 brick-and-mortar branches worldwide and is adding more.
For another example of Navy Federal working to provide an empathetic customer experience, consider a museum exhibit of sorts created by a team led by Keller Williams. The exhibit helps Navy Federal team members better understand military life, beginning with basic training to deployments to reintegrating into civilian society.
It’s all part of the way Navy Federal is tapping the power of everyone to move into the future. In fact, it’s not just all hands on deck. It’s all hearts, heads and hands. And while the organization might have had strategies in the past for moving from point A to point B, things are more fluid now.
“There really isn’t a point B anymore,” Keller Williams says. “Change is the only thing that is constant and we are embracing the endless possibilities that come with it.”
View the 30 Best Large Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance and the 30 Best Small and Medium Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance. To Read Great Place to Work’s report on the Future of Work, including the impact of artificial intelligence on workplace culture, click here.
Ed Frauenheim is the senior director of content at Great Place to Work. He is co-author of A Great Place to Work For All.


fortune--2020-03-26--Mark Cuban has advice for CEOs in the coronavirus era

How one of America ’ s best places to work is navigating an uncertain , high-tech future

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
The coronavirus pandemic has quickly led to a collision between corporate values and corporate finances. Marriott may well view its employees as family, but when hotel bookings are down by 70% or more, what’s the company to do? What it did was furlough tens of thousands of employees. (Watch CEO Arne Sorenson’s emotional message to those employees here.)
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban took a different approach. When the NBA shut down earlier this month, he promised to pay all hourly employees in the Mavericks arena the same amount they would have made if the season had continued. I invited him to join me yesterday on Leadership Next, our new podcast (subscribe here), to tell how he did it. His answer: “I’m rich. I’m lucky. I’m blessed…It’s not going to cost me as much as it will cost those hourly employees. It was just the right thing to do.”
How about CEOs who don’t have the resources to be so generous? How should they lead in the face of this crisis? “There is no right way,” Cuban said. “If you can afford it, like I’ve told my portfolio companies, you keep on paying because it is the right thing to do. If you can’t afford it, then you have to communicate with your employees and stakeholders and tell them exactly why you are doing what you are doing.”
For small companies in the U.S.—less than 500 employees—help may come from the bill passed by the Senate early yesterday morning. It provides those companies loans that can be used to cover payroll for two months. If a company maintains its workforce at pre-virus levels, the loan will ultimately be forgiven. The goal is to keep more people in their jobs…although as we reported yesterday, this month already looks to be a record for new unemployment claims.
I asked Mark Cuban whether he plans to apply for government relief. “We haven’t decided yet,” he responded.
The folks at Just Capital are doing their best to keep track of companies that are stepping up to help employees and other stakeholders. They have created a “COVID-19 Corporate Response Tracker,” which you can view here. It looks at how big companies are dealing with sick leave, work from home policies, dependent care, community relief, and even CEO pay. Singled out for praise by the group: Target, which Just Capital says “stands out as one leading example” of aggressive policies “to support its workers.” Martin Whittaker, who runs Just Capital, has agreed to join us on the Leadership Next podcast in the next week or so, to talk about how companies are responding to the crisis. Stay tuned.
More news below. And be sure to read Shawn Tully’s analysis of whether the “Great Cessation” will be worse than the “Great Recession.”
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
U.S. stimulus
The Senate has approved (96-0) the $2 trillion, bipartisan economic stimulus package it negotiated with the White House. Now it's over to the House, which will consider the bill tomorrow. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now talking about a floor debate, as "Republicans have told us [passage by unanimous consent is] not possible from their side." Wall Street Journal
Lockdown timing
The New York Times worked with epidemiologists to model what would happen to infection, hospitalization and death rates given different lengths of lockdown in the U.S. Turns out that, if President Trump "reopens America" by Easter Sunday as he wants to do, the result would be "an explosion of infections, hospitalizations and deaths." Experts recommend extending the lockdown to a full month. NYT
WHO scolding
The World Health Organization has taken the rare step of criticizing countries for wasting time in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world "squandered the first window of opportunity" by not acting a month or two ago. Now the world has a second chance he said, recommending a range of actions including the ramping up of testing and the expansion of the health care sector. Bloomberg
Markets falter
The markets appear to be over the optimism we saw earlier this week. Locked-down India saw its BSE Sensex index jump 4.9%, but the Japanese and Chinese markets were down, and the trend is continuing in Europe, where the Stoxx 600 is down 1.6% at the time of writing. Expect something similar in the U.S., where yesterday saw modest gains. Financial Times
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Trillion-dollar coins
Fortune's Robert Hackett has a fascinating piece on Rep. Rashida Tlaib's proposal for the striking of two $1 trillion coins that—when deposited at the Federal Reserve—would effectively raise funds for a coronavirus stimulus package. It's a divisive proposal, to say the least, but not an unprecedented one. Fortune
Zoom security
Staff at the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence have been at least temporarily banned from using Zoom, the videoconferencing service that has gained great popularity in the current crisis. MoD bosses are investigating the service's security, as well they might given Zoom's much-publicized flaw last year that let attackers turn on users' webcams. Metro
Coronavirus leverage
With China, Russia and Cuba having won plaudits for sending much-needed equipment to help Europe fight the coronavirus outbreak, EU countries are scrambling to demonstrate solidarity with their neighbors—witness Germany sending medical supplies to Italy and taking critical-care patients from France. Some say the future of the European project is at stake here. Politico
Food supply
Don't fret about the U.S. food supply, United Natural Foods CEO Steven Spinner writes for Fortune. "Just like we’ve done during past national emergencies, the food sector is working to rise to the occasion and keep the country fed," he says. "While demand has surged in recent weeks, distributors—such as my company—have increased their output and taken a number of steps to keep food readily available throughout this pandemic’s life cycle." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-03-26--The markets rally hits pause as investors weigh the impact of stimulus measures

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Good morning. The streak of gains is in jeopardy this morning.
Here’s what’s moving markets.
Markets update
Investors have witnessed a rarity this week: a two-day rally in equities. The Tuesday-Wednesday gains marked the first time in the past six weeks we’d seen consecutive “up” days. It was touch and go for a while. “Despite a hectic last few minutes of trading on Wednesday prompted by Bernie Sanders threatening to stall the $2 trillion stimulus bill, indexes managed to stay in the green,” my colleague Anne Sraders detailed.
This morning, the equities picture is not looking quite so rosy.
Asia is mixed. Japanese stocks are selling off, and the Chinese and Hong Kong indices are edging down, as I type. Singapore announced a new emergency stimulus package today worth $33.2 billion that includes tax breaks for hotel operators and retailers, a move that barely budged shares.
Europe too is in the red. The major European bourses in Frankfurt, London and Paris are all down about 2% in the first hour of trading. That’s despite some progress on getting emergency lines of credit open to the Euro zone’s most fragile economies. Here’s a bit of promising news: some market watchers say European equities may have already bottomed.
***
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are all set to open down. But, as I type, they’re gaining some ground. Progress in Washington on a $2 trillion stimulus package has propelled the Dow to a two-day 13.7% gain. A historic aid package full of all kinds of goodies—loans, tax breaks and direct injections of cash into Americans’ bank accounts—has taken the attention off of corporate America’s struggles for now.
***
The Nasdaq didn’t fare quite so well yesterday, but Apple’s 9% pop on Wednesday was enough put it back into the $1 trillion valuation club.
***
Elsewhere, the dollar is lower on Thursday, as is oil. Earlier in the week, Brent crude had climbed above $30 a barrel. It’s since slid down to 26 and change. So much for the Trump Administration’s efforts to get the Saudis to call a truce in the oil price war.
***
It may be looking like a risk-off day, but investors can’t complain about the equities rally over the past week. Most global markets hit multi-year lows last week as lockdown measures went into effect across much of Europe and the U.S.
If you were bold enough to put some spare cash back into stocks last Wednesday, on March 18, you’d be seeing pretty impressive gains in your portfolio today. German and Japanese equities are leading the way, as today’s chart shows.
***
Bear market bounce, or a comeback?
Now, a word of caution: even with the 17% climb on the DAX over the past seven days, it’s still down 26.2% year-to-date. And it’s giving up further gains this morning.
But the moves by central bankers and lawmakers over the past seven days cannot be overstated in bringing some calm—and even a glimmer of hope—to global markets. The trillions in fiscal stimulus measures and pledges by central banks to buy corporate and government debt is a sign that policymakers will do everything in their power to avert a wave of corporate insolvencies, which would set off an unemployment time bomb and a deep global contraction in trade. We saw all of those things the last time, during the Great Recession of 2008.
Postscript
A friend in Bengaluru (aka Bangalore) sent my wife and I a note, sharing his thoughts about India’s “total lockdown” orders. He’s never been a fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. True to form, he finds these latest steps to curb the coronavirus contagion to be particularly cruel on the country’s most vulnerable. “He is not ‘pro-poor,’” my friend wrote of Modi. “Even at this stage he has no heart for the lower middle and economically backward people whose daily survival is a big challenge.”
A former priest, my friend is now an activist for India’s poor. I spent a lot of time with him in the spring of 2017, shooting a short documentary film on India’s Dalit women. I slept (or tried to) most nights in a kind of orphanage. Former street children bunked on the floor below me. The beauty of the people and the place overwhelmed me, as did the unceasing clamor of street life.
A group of elementary school kids in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh try gamely to teach your correspondent a few words of Telugu. Original Photography: Pravash Das.
Here’s what I want to know: how do you lock down nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, particularly when so many of them live in the most humble of dwellings—no electricity, no plumbing, no doors? How do you practice social-distancing in a country of 1.3 billion, for that matter?
I have to make a confession. These days I spend more mental energy worrying about the fate of the beautiful people I’ve met over the years in places like India, Kenya and the DR Congo than I do about my portfolio.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
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Today's reads
Turn back the clock. Most of us remember the 2008-2009 financial crisis as if it were yesterday. Unemployment cratered. The S&P 500 tanked. The yields on corporate debt went to the moon. Will the coronavirus pandemic send us straight back to those conditions? In a must-read, Fortune's Shawn Tully explains how this time we're looking at a very different scenario. Let's hope we've learned a few lessons in the past decade.
Forget the thin mints. "If a 5¢ coin is a nickel, 10¢ a dime, and 25¢ a quarter, what is a $1 trillion coin? Call it an emergency plan." So begins Robert Hackett's fascinating deep-dive into one lawmaker's plan to pay for the stimulus package by minting two $1 trillion coins. Yes, it sounds crazy. But it's gaining surprising support.
When $2 trillion isn't enough. If you think the historic coronavirus pandemic relief bill will be a one-and-done move, think again. Justin Lahart of the Wall Street Journal explains why the aid package might not be sufficient to keep vital sectors of the U.S. economy—namely, small businesses—afloat. He reckons that for the U.S. government, it "might not be its last trip to the well."
Market candy
$198,000
As things stand now, that's the earnings cut-off for married couples to qualify for coronavirus relief checks. (It's $99,000 for individuals and $146,500 for heads of household). As long as you're under that threshold you'll get a $1,200 check (or a direct deposit) and $500 for each child. Fortune's Rey Mashayekhi explains the fine print—including when the stimulus money will be mailed out—right here.
Note: Most Fortune stories are behind a paywall. We are offering our newsletter readers a nice deal: one year of access for just $25.


fortune--2020-03-26--Winners and losers in Congress’s $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package

Days of negotiations between the Trump administration and Congress — and fierce lobbying by industries eager for assistance dealing with the coronavirus outbreak — has yielded a rescue package worth more than $2 trillion in spending and tax breaks. It was passed by the U.S. Senate late Wednesday night.
Here are some of the winners and losers:
More aid for companies, strings attached
The plan would include about $500 billion in loans and assistance for larger companies, as well as states and cities, according to the latest drafts being circulated. But the aid comes with strings attached after pressure from Democrats.
Companies receiving a government loan would be subject to a ban on stock buybacks through the term of the loan plus one additional year. They also would have to limit executive bonuses and take steps to protect workers. The Treasury Department would have to disclose the terms of loans or other aid, and a new Treasury inspector general would oversee the lending program.
The bill is largely a win for the retail, hotel and restaurant industries that initially viewed lawmakers as favoring the airline industry. Trade groups representing those sectors lobbied Congress hard for loans, grants and unemployment assistance because their businesses have also suffered coronavirus-related revenue losses.
“We see it as an important win,” said Austen Jensen of the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “Yes, airlines are in a tough spot, but the retail industry is equally in a difficult position.”
Jensen said he hopes “necessary” oversight measures won’t delay “getting this capital out into the businesses.”
The details of the stimulus plan pushed the broader market to session highs, with the S&P 500 gaining as much as 5.1% before paring gains to close up 1.2%. The S&P Supercomposite Hotels Index, which includes cruise operators, also extended gains, as did restaurant and casinos stocks.
Airlines win loans, cash-for-equity bailouts
Struggling U.S. airlines would be eligible to receive federal loans and direct cash assistance if they are willing to give an option for an ownership stake to the government.
The program allocates $25 billion to passenger carriers and $3 billion to airline contractors providing ground staff such as caterers, while cargo haulers would see $4 billion.
The addition of direct cash relief — earmarked specifically for payrolls — was sought by airline and industry unions, which feared massive job losses if loans were the only option.
The S&P Supercomposite Airlines Index advanced further, rising as much as 17% on the day, before closing up 9.8%.
U.S. airlines probably will avoid applying for some $25 billion in loans under a federal aid package designed to help them survive the collapse in travel from the new coronavirus, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
But the carriers will tap a similar amount in cash assistance for payrolls that should eliminate the risk of near-term bankruptcies, JPMorgan analyst Jamie Baker said in a report Wednesday.
The legislation doesn’t include emissions limits for airplanes that were sought by House Democrats, Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, said on a press call.
Other transportation winners include rail and transit operators. Amtrak would get $1.02 billion to cover coronavirus-related revenue losses and support state-funded routes. State and local transit agencies would get $25 billion for operating and capital expenses.
Small businesses wanted cash injections
The bill carves out more than $350 billion in aid for small businesses, much of which would be in loans through the Small Business Administration and banks, guaranteed by the federal government. The loans would be forgiven provided the businesses meet certain requirements, including limiting reductions in pay and layoffs, though with more flexibility for employers than the original Senate bill.
Industry advocates previously said loans weren’t enough, especially for the smallest outfits, although some expressed more optimism on Wednesday. An instant cash injection is the only way to save them from failing, according to the Small Business Majority.
Cash for citizens, gig workers
The package would provide direct payments to lower- and middle-income Americans of $1,200 for each adult, as well as $500 for each child.
Democrats were able to secure a change from a previous version that allows low-income taxpayers to get the full $1,200 payment. The initial plan would have given smaller checks, or in some cases, no money at all, to very-low income people.
Unemployment insurance payments were bolstered and recipients would be eligible to receive those funds for an average of four months, up from three in the prior GOP plan. It also would extend eligibility to the self-employed and workers in the gig economy such as drivers for Uber Technologies Inc.
Money for hospitals under health-care ‘Marshall Plan’
The legislation calls for $117 billion for hospitals and veterans’ health care, as well as $16 billion for personal protective equipment, ventilators and other medical supplies for federal and state response efforts. It also includes $11 billion for vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and other medical needs, and at least $250 million to improve the capacity of health-care facilities to respond to medical events, according to a summary by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The bill would require insurers to cover tests for Covid-19. Labs would be required to post cash prices for the tests on public websites, and insurers would have to pay those prices or another privately negotiated rate. Any vaccines or other preventive services would have to be covered with no cost-sharing.
The measure would temporarily lift Medicare payment cuts and includes a 20% increase in Medicare payments to hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients.
The hospital industry supported the measure for providing emergency funds, boosting payments and suspending some funding cuts. But “more will need to be done to deal with the unprecedented challenge of this virus,” Rick Pollack, head of the American Hospital Association, said in a statement.
Mortgage relief for wide swath of borrowers
Many U.S. homeowners and businesses hit hard by coronavirus could get relief from making their monthly mortgage payments through the bill.
Borrowers with loans insured by government agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs would be eligible for forbearance. Consumers whose mortgages are backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would also be eligible to skip payments.
U.S. regulators have already mandated forbearance to borrowers facing financial hardships due to coronavirus, in addition to suspending foreclosures and evictions through the end of April and in some cases longer.
Under the Senate bill, borrowers would be eligible for 60 days of forbearance if they can demonstrate virus-related financial stress. The relief can be extended for 30 days up to four times.
Mortgage servicers, who collect homeowners’ monthly payments, couldn’t demand documentation proving economic hardship. Instead, borrowers would just have to attest that they’re struggling, according to the text of the legislation.
Commercial borrowers with federally backed loans could potentially skip payments for at least 30 days with a possible extension of up to 60 additional days. Unlike individual consumers, businesses would have to document financial hardship and they would be barred from evicting tenants as long as they are missing mortgage payments.
Emergency aid for farmers included
The stimulus package includes up to $23.5 billion in farm aid. It would provide $9.5 billion in emergency funds for agriculture, including livestock producers and growers of specialty crops such as fruits and vegetables. And it would authorize $14 billion in new borrowing authority for the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a Depression-era entity the Trump administration has used for its farm-bailout programs the past two years.
Agriculture groups including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the United Fresh Produce Association and livestock groups had sought aid in the stimulus package.
State and local governments get relief
A coronavirus relief fund with $150 billion would be created for states, cities and other local governments. Additional funds will be set aside for territories, tribal governments and other entities.
The package includes $400 million for the Election Assistance Commission to provide grants in response to the coronavirus outbreak. The funds could be used to expand voting by mail, early voting and online registration and bolster in-person voting, according to a Senate aide. The bill doesn’t create a national requirement for voting by mail, which Republicans objected to.
No aid for Trump properties
Democrats won language that would bar any business owned by President Donald Trump or his family from getting loans from Treasury. Businesses owned by members of Congress, heads of executive departments and Vice President Mike Pence also would be blocked from receiving aid under the stimulus program.
Oil industry, renewables both lose
A $3 billion provision in the original GOP bill to buy oil for the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve was cut by negotiators. The funding for the emergency stockpiles had been requested by the Trump administration for the purchase of up to 77 million barrels of crude oil to support the domestic industry and boost reserves at cheap prices.
Democrats sought to add billions in funding for clean energy in exchange and in the end both were scuttled. But the issue could arise as Congress takes up additional coronavirus-related legislation in coming weeks.
The omission of expanded tax incentives for renewable energy and spending on green infrastructure is a blow to advocates of solar, wind and electric vehicles who worry that a buildup of new federal debt from stimulus spending will discourage green investment and lending in the future.
The measure disappointed reneweable advocates, who are seeking more flexibility to claim existing credits as project timelines slip. Abigail Ross Hopper, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said that half of the industry’s jobs are at risk as a result of the pandemic.
Supporters of oil purchases said they still expected the acquisitions to take place. The Energy Department can use other agency funds and it can seek more money in future stimulus legislation.
Anne Bradbury, head of the American Exploration and Production Council that represents independent oil producers, said the group is “confident that DOE will be able to meet the president’s directive to purchase as much as $3 billion in U.S.-produced crude.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—The Supreme Court has shunned technology. Could coronavirus change that?
—10 questions about the 2020 election during the coronavirus pandemic, answered
—The workers the U.S. government deems “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
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fortune--2020-03-26--Why Mark Cuban is focusing his time—and money—on coronavirus relief

“I’m rich.”
That’s Mark Cuban’s answer when asked why he is paying all hourly employees their regular wages despite the Dallas Mavericks’ home arena being closed, along with the entire NBA, as a result of the coronavirus.
“It’s not going to cost me nearly as much as it would cost the hourly employees to go without,” the Mavericks owner, Shark Tank investor, and serial entrepreneur said.
On the latest episode of Fortune CEO Alan Murray’s Leadership Next podcast, Cuban explains how and why he is stepping up to help health care workers, small businesses, employees, and the government get through the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crash.
As a CEO or entrepreneur, Cuban said, if you can afford to keep paying your employees, you should, simply because it’s the right thing to do. And if you can’t afford it, prioritize clear communication to explain why you’re taking the steps you are to get to the other side of the crisis.
In the stimulus bill agreed upon early Wednesday morning by the Senate and President Donald Trump, there are provisions for small businesses that Cuban has been following closely, as he invests in over 150. He said it is every CEO’s responsibility to be up to date on legislation like this in order to usher their companies through tough financial times.
“As an entrepreneur, it’s your responsibility to be up to speed,” he said. “Not just to yourself, not just to your bank account, but to each and every one of your employees and stakeholders. It’s your job, nobody else’s.”
He also said he wants the support bill to pass sooner rather than later to perhaps avoid some layoffs, coronavirus cases, and deaths. The bill Trump agreed to with the Senate isn’t perfect, according to Cuban, but it will do. It now must be passed in both the House and the Senate before it reaches the President’s desk.
“Any deal that ends the bleeding in this particular case and gets money in people’s hands so they feel a little sense of control and stability, that’s a good thing,” he said.
Cuban has also been taking to Twitter recently to voice his opinions on the coronavirus crisis, criticizing companies like 3M, which produces the N95 respirator masks that have been in short supply around the world owing to the pandemic.
BS!!! @3M. Why did you wait? You could have ended this panic! Why are distributors price gouging? Why require LOCs/Escrow from established providers w/ good credit? @maggieNYT @jaketapper @maddow @DRUDGE  https://t.co/yewNDEfliT — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 23, 2020
“They could have come out and talked to America about the supply chain, about the industry, about where the masks are going, and how we’re going to get through this,” he said. “Instead they were silent besides saying, ‘We’re making as many masks as we can.’ To me that’s just wrong.”
He said the lack of information perpetuated by 3M leads to price gouging, which is being seen globally as hospitals and consumers alike frantically search for masks.
On top of paying the Dallas arena workers, staying informed for his businesses and employees, and voicing his opinions on the crisis, Cuban has also been working with the Small Business Administration and helping Dallas-area first responders along with Mavericks players.
When Murray asks him why he feels compelled to do these things on top of his many day jobs, Cuban asks, “Why wouldn’t I? If I can contribute, if I can help, if I can set an example, why wouldn’t I?”
As he focuses on righting whatever COVID-19-caused injustices that he can, he said that getting the Mavericks arena seats filled for games is pretty low on the totem pole. He does hope to have games played in empty arenas, available to stream, by mid-May or June, though.
“Right now we need sports. We need sports really, really bad,” he said. “We have nothing to cheer for. We have nothing to rally for, we have no communal excitement that we can all get behind our team. So even if we play in front of nobody, but the games are on TV and we stream them, the energy and the excitement and the release and the cheering, that’ll serve such a unique purpose that only sports can serve.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Coronavirus economic relief proposals are overlooking the 57 million self-employed
—The workers the U.S. government deems “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic
—Italy’s only ventilator maker works round the clock (and at cost) in the coronavirus fight
—Which stores are open—and closed—during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The greatest designs of modern times
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