fortune--2020-07-27--How Americans define being ‘wealthy’ has changed drastically during the pandemic

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The pandemic has changed people’s perceptions of how much money it takes to be “comfortable.” Americans now claim, on average, they would require $655,000 in net assets to be comfortable, while they would need $2 million to feel “wealthy.”
Those figures, shared in an annual wealth survey by Charles Schwab, mark a sharp fall from before the start of the COVID outbreak. Before the pandemic, Americans claimed it took $934,000 to be comfortable and $2.6 million to be wealthy—drops of 30% and 23%, respectively.
The survey also found that 57% of Americans say that they or a close family member have been financially impacted by the fallout from the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of people who say they are confident they’ll reach their financial goals has fallen from a third of those surveyed to just a quarter.
The study was not all doom and gloom, however. Charles Schwab found that the number of Americans who say they have a fund to cover emergency expenses has risen 36% while four out of ten are saving more.
Some things have not changed. People were still twice as likely to say their primary source of happiness was relationships compared to money. These and other factors are unchanged from prior to the pandemic, the survey found:
As for how the pandemic is affecting generational cohorts, the survey found baby boomers to be relatively the least stressed, while millennials—41% of whom say they or a family member has experienced layoffs or reduction in salary and hours—are the most stressed. Overall, 15% of Americans said their level of financial stress is higher than prior to the pandemic.
This year’s Charles Schwab survey, unsurprisingly, focused on a very different set of concerns than that from 2019. Last year, the company’s questions focused on how social media images affected people’s perceptions of wealth. The new survey did not inquire about the impact of potential future waves of the pandemic—which could be economically devastating.
The 2020 Charles Schwab findings were based on two online samplings, one from January and one from June and July, of 1,000 Americans age 21 to 75.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:


fortune--2020-07-27--U.K. to restrict junk-food advertising and promotions as COVID-19 has Boris Johnson changing tune on

U.K. to restrict junk-food advertising and promotions as COVID-19 has Boris Johnson changing tune on obesity

Everything we know so far about the second round of stimulus checks

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Boris Johnson, the U.K.’s rumpled Prime Minister, never used to be keen on governments poking their noses into people’s weight issues.
“The more the state tries to take responsibility for the problem, the less soluble the problem will become,” he wrote in 2004, back when he was just a member of Parliament, rebutting calls for the government of the day to combat obesity. “The more the state prescribes the diet of children, the more it takes away responsibility from parents.” A couple of years later, he targeted celebrity chef Jamie Oliver for campaigning to ban junk food from school meals, quipping: “If I was in charge I would get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they like.”
How times change. Now in charge—and having narrowly survived an April bout of COVID-19 that put him in intensive care—Johnson wants people in England to slim down, in order to ward off the novel coronavirus.
Junk food ads will be banned before 9 p.m.—both on TV and online—and there will also be a ban on buy-one-get-one-free deals for sugary and fatty foods, under measures unveiled Monday. Stores will no longer be able to place candy by the checkout.
Large restaurant chains will have to start labeling calorie counts on their menus, and the government will consult on mandating the same for alcoholic drinks.
Public Health England is also launching a campaign that it hopes will persuade people to get more exercise, lose weight, and reduce their risk of contracting COVID-19 or other diseases associated with being overweight or obese.
Losing weight is hard but with some small changes we can all feel fitter and healthier.
If we all do our bit, we can reduce our health risks and protect ourselves against coronavirus – as well as taking pressure off the NHS.
Our Better Health Strategy https://t.co/WdazXhuhRN pic.twitter.com/KZhW8p17FJ — Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) July 27, 2020
“I’ve wanted to lose weight for ages, and like many people I struggle with my weight. I go up and down, but during the whole coronavirus epidemic and when I got it too, I realized how important it is not to be overweight,” Johnson wrote Sunday in the Daily Express.
“The facts are simple: Extra weight puts extra pressure on our organs and makes it harder to treat heart disease, cancer, and—as we have found—coronavirus. This was true in my case, and it’s true in many thousands of others. It was a wake-up call for me, and I want it to be a wake-up call for the whole country.”
As far as the food and drink sector is concerned, the government’s new crusade may be more of a rude awakening.
“As the economy struggles to recover, new restrictions on promoting and advertising everyday food and drink will increase the price of food, reduce consumer choice, and threaten jobs across the U.K.,” said Tim Rycroft, chief operating officer of the Food and Drink Federation, in a statement. “It is extraordinary that the government is proposing a ban on promotions of food and drink in retail at such a precarious economic time.”
The sector has been hit hard by the lockdown’s effect on the hospitality industry, which is projected to lose almost half of its $170 billion in annual sales this year.
Extraordinarily, the U.K. government will try to help restaurants and pubs in August by subsidizing people’s meals under the so-called Eat Out to Help Out scheme. According to Rycroft, the juxtaposition of this and the new healthier-food drive means the “government is pulling in different directions.”
The Incorporated Society of British Advertisers is also livid, with director general Phil Smith calling the drive “a slap in the face for food and drink manufacturers, the advertising sector, and small business.
“This announcement cuts the legs out from the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, will cost families more at the checkout, denies small businesses the targeted local online advertising on which they now rely, and risks jobs at a time when government has elsewhere shown them support,” Smith said in a statement that claimed the strategy was “driven by the health lobby.”
However, there is evidence that the public will support the government’s crackdown on junk food promotions.
The U.K.’s Obesity Health Alliance conducted a poll in May that showed three-quarters of adults favored a pre–9 p.m. ban on junk food ads, and almost as many approved of a prospective checkout-candy ban. More than 60% agreed with the idea of banning supermarkets’ buy-one-get-one-free offers for unhealthy foods.
“We are delighted the government has recognized the role that the relentless marketing and promotion of unhealthy food plays in driving ill-health,” said the alliance’s chief, Caroline Cerny, in a Monday statement. “Restricting the advertising of unhealthy products before 9 p.m. is a landmark move and shows real commitment from the government to making it easier for everyone to be healthier.
“The pandemic has thrown the need to improve our health sharply into focus. We look forward to seeing more detail on the government’s proposals, and urge further action to build a healthier, stronger population.”


fortune--2020-07-27--The sacred European vacation is at risk as second-wave fears grip tourist hotspots

In Europe, vacation is serious business.
In a good year, tourism receipts add $2 trillion to the European economy, and so it was imperative for EU member states to devise a holiday-friendly action plan that could stand up to the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak. It involved opening internal EU borders and short-listing countries deemed to be COVID-safe; the U.S. did not make the cut.
Those measures first went into effect in mid-June, at the start of the busy summer travel season. But now a wave of coronavirus spikes and second-wave fears are forcing lawmakers to reassess the safety of European travel, putting the most sacred of European rituals—the lengthy summer vacation—in doubt.
Amsterdam was recently forced to close down its red-light district. “Corona and mass tourism just don’t go together—certainly not in a historic city center like in Amsterdam,” warned Mayor Femke Halsema. “There is a risk of contamination.”
That same risk is unnerving German lawmakers, who are now pushing for mandatory nasal swab tests for returning holidaymakers as the number of cases in Germany edges higher.
And the U.K. government over the weekend slapped sudden quarantine orders on those coming from Spain, creating havoc among travelers in both countries.
The U.K. measure was so sudden it caught Britain’s transportation secretary, Grant Shapps, completely off guard. He was in Spain when the decision came down. On holiday.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps caught up in Spain rule change https://t.co/zJiF3C5aDg — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 26, 2020
The U.K.’s move has infuriated the airlines—for British sun-seekers, Spain is a perennial favorite destination—and the Spanish authorities. On Monday morning, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, told reporters, “Spain is safe. It is safe for Spaniards. It is safe for tourists.”
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary sounded off too on Monday, calling the measure “a badly managed overreaction” on an earnings call with analysts and the press. Europe’s biggest budget airline can ill afford to lose more business this summer season. It’s already operating at 40% capacity across much of its network.
Beachgoers relax in Salou, Spain, on July 27, 2020. Wire photography: Angel Garcia—Bloomberg via Getty Images Angel Garcia—Bloomberg/Getty Images
The quarantine orders contributed to what’s been a brutal day for Europe’s airline and travel sectors. Ryanair shares fell more than 4% at the open on Monday. Lufthansa and Europe’s biggest holiday company, TUI, saw even bigger share declines. That’s after TUI’s British unit warned it would cancel all holidays to mainland Spain through Aug. 9.
Investors and holidaymakers may not care for the abrupt restrictions and potentially dashed travel plans, but scientists are calling the moves sensible.
The quarantining of people returning from high-risk countries may seem like a “blunt tool,” says Adam Finn, professor of pediatrics at the University of Bristol, but it may prove an effective way to reduce the risk of importing the virus.
“The U.K. epidemic in March mostly came in the noses of U.K. nationals returning from France, Italy, and Spain—so once bitten, twice shy,” he says.


fortune--2020-07-27--Facebook and Twitter are targets in Trump and Biden election ads

Social media has become the target of a dueling attack ad campaign being waged online by the sitting president and his election rival. They’re shooting the messenger while giving it lots of money.
President Donald Trump has bought hundreds of messages on Facebook to accuse its competitor, Twitter, of trying to stifle his voice and influence the November election.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden has spent thousands of dollars advertising on Facebook with a message of his own: In dozens of ads on the platform, he’s asked supporters to sign a petition calling on Facebook to remove inaccurate statements, specifically those from Trump.
The major social media companies are navigating a political minefield as they try to minimize domestic misinformation and rein in foreign actors from manipulating their sites as they did in the last U.S. presidential election. Their new actions — or in some cases, lack of action — have triggered explosive, partisan responses, ending their glory days as self-described neutral platforms.
Even as the two presidential campaigns dump millions of dollars every week into Facebook and Google ads that boost their exposure, both are also using online ads to criticize the tech platforms for their policies. Trump is accusing Twitter and Snapchat of interfering in this year’s election. Biden has sent multiple letters to Facebook and attacked the company for policies that allow politicians, Trump specifically, to freely make false claims on its site. Biden is paying Facebook handsomely to show ads that accuse Facebook of posing a “threat” to democracy.
Meantime Trump is paying Facebook to run ads trashing the medium he uses like none other, Twitter.
“Twitter is interfering in the 2020 Election by attempting to SILENCE your President,” claimed one of nearly 600 ads Trump’s campaign placed on Facebook
It’s “a huge departure from 2016,” said Emerson Brooking, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Washington think-tank. “If you were leading the Trump or Clinton campaign, you weren’t writing letters to Facebook all day long. It wasn’t so much a central campaign issue. Now it seems like it very much is.”
Americans, after all, are on high alert about the platforms’ policies after discovering that Russian trolls posted divisive messages, created fake political events and even used rubles to buy Facebook ads intended for U.S. audiences in the 2016 election. Research already shows the Kremlin is at it again.
Since the last presidential election, Facebook and Twitter have banned voting-related misinformation and vowed to identify and shut down inauthentic networks of accounts run by domestic or foreign troublemakers. Before this year’s election, Twitter banned political ads altogether, a decision a company spokesman told the AP it stands behind. And Facebook, along with Google, began disclosing campaign ad spending while banning non-Americans from buying U.S. political ads.
Facebook didn’t comment for this story.
But calls to deflate Big Tech’s ballooning power have only grown louder from both Democrats and Republicans, even though the two parties are targeting different companies for different reasons to rally supporters.
Those politics will no doubt be on full display Wednesday, when four big tech CEOs, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook, testify to a House Judiciary Committee panel as part of a congressional investigation into the tech industry’s dominance.
Biden has focused on Facebook, with a #MoveFastFixIt campaign that admonishes Facebook for not doing enough to protect users from foreign meddling or being duped by falsehoods, particularly those spread by Trump about mail-in voting.
His campaign just last month spent nearly $10,000 to run ads scolding the company on its own platform.
“We could lie to you, but we won’t,” says one of Biden’s ads. “Donald Trump and his Republican allies, on the other hand, spend MILLIONS on Facebook ads like this one that spread dangerous misinformation about everything from how to vote to the legitimacy of our democratic process.”
Despite criticizing Facebook, Biden’s campaign said it’s still purchasing millions of dollars in Facebook ads because it’s one of the few ways to counter Trump’s false posts — since Facebook won’t fact check him.
The ads are also a cheap and effective way for the campaigns to rally supporters who are unhappy with the platforms, said Kathleen Searles, a Louisiana State University political communications professor.
“We do know that anger can be very motivating — it motivates them to get their name on an email list, or donate $20,” Searles said. “What better way to get people angry than a faceless platform?”
While Biden has focused on Facebook, Trump has honed in on Twitter, and occasionally Snapchat, with his campaign running online ads that accuse both companies of “interfering” in the election.
Twitter became a Trump campaign target after the company rolled out its first fact check of his inaccurate tweet about voting in late May. Twitter has since applied similar labels to five other Trump tweets, including two that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted that “mail boxes will be robbed” if voting doesn’t take place in person.
Trump responded by signing a largely symbolic executive order challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides protections from lawsuits for internet companies that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech online.
“It’s preposterous that Silicon Valley, the bastion of diversity and liberalism, is terrified of intellectual diversity and conservative voices,” Trump deputy national press secretary Ken Farnaso said in a statement.
Republican leaders have since joined in railing against Twitter.
This month, Rep. Jim Jordan, a firebrand conservative from Ohio, demanded Twitter hand over a full accounting, including emails, of how it decided to fact check the president. Saying “big tech is out of control,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz joined dozens of conservative media outlets, Trump staffers and politicians who waged a two-day campaign last month urging their Twitter followers to ditch the platform and join Parler, a social media app that does not moderate its content as closely.
Facebook could be next for a face-off with the president and his allies now that the company has vowed to label any posts — Trump’s included — that violate its rules against voting misinformation or hate speech. Facebook has yet to take such action, though.
“Social media censorship is going to be a very potent campaign issue,” Brooking said. “And there’s going to be incentive from a number of folks running for office in 2020 to push the envelope still further, to try to invite more and more social media moderation because they see it as a potent political stunt.”
___
Ortutay reported from Oakland, California.


fortune--2020-07-27--SAP is spinning out an acquisition it once likened to Facebook’s bet on Instagram

On Sunday, SAP announced plans to spin off and list Qualtrics, a U.S.-based company analyzing customer feedback that it bought for $8 billion in 2018.
Why the news is surprising: For starters, it’s been less than two years since the German software company snapped up Qualtrics, then days before the latter (backed at the time by the likes of Accel, Insight, and Sequoia) went public. The former SAP CEO that chaired the deal, Bill McDermott, also likened it to Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram—a unit so essential to the social media company that it generated roughly a quarter of Facebook’s sales in 2019.
Companies seem to like invoking the Facebook-Instagram spirits whenever pricing comes under scrutiny. After all, Facebook acquired the photo-sharing company for a seemingly enormous sum when it had a mere 13 employees—yet that bet has massively paid off. SAP too was criticized at the time for overpaying for its Qualtrics deal. While early indications, at the time of Qualtrics’ initial IPO filing in 2018, valued it at roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion, SAP paid, well, much more than that.
In 2020, Qualtrics doesn’t appear to be a bad payoff for SAP—with the current market rally, analysts at Jefferies estimate Qualtrics could be valued at as much as 14 billion euros ($16 billion). But, as my colleague Michal Lev-Ram notes, “When viewed through the lens of the original intent of the acquisition (growing both companies as one), it’s hard to imagine that everything went as smoothly as planned.” Facebook, at least, has yet to spin off a portion of Instagram.
SAP for its part will maintain majority ownership of the newly public company, with the duo acting as partners. Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith, meanwhile, intends to be its largest individual shareholder. The deal also comes after McDermott’s departure in 2019, which eventually led to Christian Klein taking the reins fully. Read more.
CrossFit gets its buyer: All gym chain operators have been under pressure during the coronavirus. One gym that the headlines have been unusually loud about: CrossFit, a Washington D.C.-based company that licenses its name to over 14,000 locations worldwide, and whose founder and former CEO Greg Glassman stepped down in June following widespread criticism of his comments on the death of George Floyd.
Private equity firm Berkshire Partners is now acquiring the firm alongside Eric Roza, a CrossFit athlete who said in June that he would buy the company from Glassman and become its CEO.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Xingsheng Selected, a Chinese community group buying platform backed by Tencent and KKR, raised $800 million in funding, per DealStreetAsia. Read more.
- Revolut, the U.K.-based fintech startup, raised $80 million in extended Series D funding. TSG Consumer Partners was the investor. The Series D, first announced in February, valued the firm at $5.5 billion.
- cargo.one, a Berlin-based digital booking platform for air cargo, raised $18.6 million in funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Next47 and prior backers Creandum, Lufthansa Cargo and Point Nine Capital.
- OpenSpace, a San Francisco-based construction documentation and analytics startup, raised $15.9 million in Series B funding. Menlo Ventures led the round and was joined by Nine Four Ventures, Taronga Group, Lux Capital, JLL Spark, Navitas Capital, and Zigg Capital.
- Proper, a New York-based sleep wellness company, raised $9.5 million. Casa Verde Capital led the round and was joined by Redesign Health.
- WhizAI, a Somerset, N.J.-based insights platform for life sciences businesses, raised $4 million in seed funding. Healthy Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Bling Capital and Firebolt Ventures.
- Cambrian Asset Management, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based quantitative investment firm for digital assets, raised $4 million in seed funding. Investors included Howard Morgan (co-founder of Renaissance Technologies and First Round Capital), Tano Capital, Dennis Phelps (General Partner at IVP), and Kevin Ryan (co-founder, MongoDB & Business Insider).
- Swoop, a Los Angeles-based software maker for smaller transportation operators, raised $3.2 million in a seed funding. Signia Venture Partners and South Park Commons led the round. Read more.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Circa, backed by Gauge Capital, acquired America's Job Exchange, an Andover, Mass.-based maker of solutions for diversity recruitment. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- SK Capital Partners agreed to acquire Baker Hughes’ Barnsdall, Okla.-based specialty polymers business. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Francisco Partners invested in GAINSystems, a Chicago-based supply chain planning and inventory optimization solution. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Nu Pagamentos, a Brazilian digital bank backed by Tencent, acquired Cognitect, a North Carolina-based software firm. Read more.
- Centrica (LON:CNA) plans to sell Direct Energy, its North American subsidiary, for $3.63 billion to NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG). Read more.
- Perpetual (ASX:PPT) plans to acquire a 75% stake in Barrow Hanley, a Dallas-based asset manager, for $319 million.
BREAKUPS, HANGUPS, AND BANKRUPTCIES
- Rosehill Resources (NASDAQ: ROSE), a Permian shale explorer, filed for bankruptcy protection. Read more.
IPOS
- Hangzhou Tigermed Consulting, a Chinese clinical trial and research firm, plans to raise at least $1 billion in its Hong Kong listing, per Reuters citing sources. Read more.
- Dragoneer Growth Opportunities, a San Francisco-based blank check company backed by Dragoneer Investment Group, filed for a $600 million IPO. It plans to acquire a business in software, internet, media, consumer or retail, healthcare IT and financial services or fintech sectors. Read more.
- Rackspace Technology, an San Antonio, Texas-based cloud hosting services provider, plans to raise $754 million in an offering of 33.5 million shares priced between $21 to $24. It posted revenue of $2.4 billion in 2019 and a loss of $102.3 million. Apollo Management and Searchlight Capital back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “RXT.” Read more.
- Rush Street Interactive, a gaming technology operator, is in talks to go public through via merger with blank-check company dMY Technology Group, per Bloomberg citing sources. Read more.
EXITS
- Office Depot Europe, backed by Aurelius Equity, agreed to sell Spanish contract business to Lyreco. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Debenhams, a U.K.-based department store chain, put itself up for sale to prevent liquidation. Read more.
F+FS
- Menlo Ventures is seeking to raise $450 million for its 15th fund. Read more.
- Threshold Ventures, formerly known as DFJ, raised $146.6 million so far of a $250 million target for its third fund. Read more.
- Fosun RZ Capital, backed by Fosun Group, raised $186 million for the first close of its debut sci-tech innovation fund. Read more.
- Salesforce Ventures hired Katie Schwartz as a principal and Paul Drews as a managing director.
- Trousdale Capital hired Alex Schifter as a vice president in its growth equity group.


fortune--2020-07-27--Pet cat in U.K. tests positive for coronavirus, officials say

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The U.K. confirmed its first case of a pet cat testing positive for coronavirus, after the animal apparently caught the disease from its owners.
There is no evidence pets can pass the virus on to humans and the case should not be cause for alarm, officials said. No details of the location of the cat were given, but both the animal and its owners have fully recovered.
“This is a very rare event with infected animals detected to date only showing mild clinical signs and recovering within in a few days,” U.K. Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said in a statement. “There is no evidence to suggest that pets directly transmit the virus to humans. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and will update our guidance to pet owners should the situation change.”
There have been a very small number of confirmed cases in pets in other countries in Europe, North America and Asia, the government said.


fortune--2020-07-27--Wealthy donors pour millions into fight over mail-in voting

Deep-pocketed and often anonymous donors are pouring over $100 million into an intensifying dispute about whether it should be easier to vote by mail, a fight that could determine President Donald Trump’s fate in the November election.
In the battleground of Wisconsin, cash-strapped cities have received $6.3 million from an organization with ties to left-wing philanthropy to help expand vote by mail. Meanwhile, a well-funded conservative group best known for its focus on judicial appointments is spending heavily to fight cases related to mail-in balloting procedures in court.
And that’s just a small slice of the overall spending, which is likely to swell far higher as the election nears.
The massive effort by political parties, super PACs and other organizations to fight over whether Americans can vote by mail is remarkable considering the practice has long been noncontroversial. But the coronavirus is forcing changes to the way states conduct elections and prompting activists across the political spectrum to seek an advantage, recognizing the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden could hinge on whether voters have an alternative to standing in lines at polling places during a public health crisis.
Some groups are even raising money to prepare for election-related violence.
“The pandemic has created a state of emergency,” said Laleh Ispahani, the U.S. managing director for Open Society, a network of nonprofits founded by billionaire progressive donor George Soros. “Donors who haven’t typically taken on these issues now have an interest.”
How much will be spent is unclear because many of the organizations are nonprofits that won’t disclose those details to the IRS until well after the election. Even then, many sources of money will remain unknown because such groups don’t have to disclose their donors, commonly referred to as “dark money.”
Tax filings, business records and campaign finance disclosures offer some clues. They reveal vast infrastructure that funnels money from wealthy donors, through philanthropic organizations and political groups, which eventually trickles down to smaller nonprofits, many of which operate under murky circumstances.
On the conservative side, organizations including Judicial Watch, the Honest Elections Project, True the Vote and the Public Interest Legal Foundation are litigating cases related to voting procedures across the U.S.
A substantial portion of the financing comes from Donors Trust, a nonprofit often referred to as the “dark money ATM” of the conservative movement. The organization helps wealthy patrons invest in causes they care about while sheltering their identities from the public.
In other instances, funding comes from charitable foundations built by the fortunes of Gilded Age industrialists.
Litigation is a primary focus. Democrats and good government organizations are pushing to eliminate hurdles to absentee voting, like requiring a witness’s signature or allowing third parties to collect ballots.
Conservatives say that amounts to an invitation to commit voter fraud. As these issues wind their way through courts, they say judges could decide complex policy matters that often were already debated by state legislatures.
“The wrong way to go about this is to run to court, particularly a week or two before an election, trying to get judges to intervene and second-guess decisions legislatures have made,” said Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project.
His organization is a newly formed offshoot of the Judicial Education Project, a group that previously focused on judicial appointments and received more than $25.3 million between 2016 and 2018 from the Donors Trust, records show. They are deeply intertwined with the conservative Catholic legal movement and share an attorney, William Consovoy, with the Republican National Committee, which has pledged $20 million for voting litigation.
Leonard Leo, a Trump confidant who was instrumental in the confirmations of the president’s Supreme Court nominees, plays a leading role. He’s now chairman of a public relations firm called CRC Advisors, which aims to become a new clearinghouse for anonymous donors to fund conservative causes, including the fight over vote by mail.
The firm played a significant role in the 2004 election by publicizing unfounded claims made by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, which questioned Democratic nominee John Kerry’s record as a Vietnam War hero, records show.
The group’s involvement in vote by mail marks a sea change for Republicans. Claims of widespread voter fraud have long energized segments of the party’s base. But it did not elicit much interest from donors, and the handful of groups devoted to the issue operated on minuscule budgets.
But in recent years, Democrats have mounted legal challenges that threatened voting laws championed by conservatives. And Trump’s repeated focus on “rigged elections” has made the issue part of a broader culture war.
Still, some activists question the GOP establishment’s commitment to the cause.
“They aren’t going to take on Republicans like we have,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of True the Vote.
While Republicans are focused on the courts and raising doubts about vote by mail, the challenge faced by Democrats is far more daunting.
In addition to litigation, they must mobilize their base during a pandemic. That includes educating the public about vote by mail, a difficult task when door-to-door canvasing isn’t an option.
Some groups are donating directly to local governments. In Wisconsin, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit with ties to left-leaning philanthropy, has donated $6.3 million to the state’s five largest cities to set up ballot drop boxes, help voters file absentee ballot requests and expand in-person early voting.
Even before the pandemic, government funding for elections was limited. Since then, the outbreak has escalated costs while cratering tax revenue.
“Due to COVID, there definitely has been a higher cost,” said Mayor John Antaramian, of Kenosha, which received $863,000 through the grant — roughly four times what the city budgeted for the election. “Is there a financial shortfall on that basis? Of course.”
Much of the money on the left is likely to come from a series of nonprofit funds controlled by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors, which typically routes upwards of $500 million a year to causes supported by liberal donors. The firm was founded by Eric Kessler, who served in Bill Clinton’s White House.
The firm has been instrumental in financing so-called resistance groups following Trump’s election. And some nonprofits they’ve provided seed money were responsible for millions of dollars in TV advertising that blistered Republicans during the 2018 midterms.
They’ve also pioneered the practice of creating “pop-up” organizations: groups that appear to be grassroots-driven efforts to influence public policy, which use trade names that obscure a deep pool of resources from those with ideological or financial motivations.
The firm recently registered a handful of trade names for groups that appear to be focused on voting rights, records show.
Another effort Arabella Advisors are involved in, the Trusted Elections Fund, aims to raise between $8 million and $10 million in case the pandemic leads to chaos in November.
The group is preparing for potential foreign hacking of state voting systems, “election day or post-election day violence,” as well as contested results.
A Trusted Elections Fund representative declined to comment. But a two-page summary available online elaborated on their aims.
“Philanthropy has a responsibility to make sure that we are prepared for emergencies that could threaten our democracy,” it read.


fortune--2020-07-27--South Korea’s elite contact tracers combine testing and investigative techniques to track down new o

South Korea’s elite contact tracers combine testing and investigative techniques to track down new outbreaks

In May, when a coronavirus outbreak hit nightclubs in the South Korean capital of Seoul, health officials quickly unleashed their version of the Navy Seals—elite teams of epidemiologists, database specialists and laboratory technicians.
An old-school, shoe-leather investigation showed the virus had jumped from a night-club visitor, to a student, to a taxi driver and then alarmingly to a warehouse employee who worked with 4,000 others.
Thousands of the employee’s co-workers, their family members and contacts were approached and 9,000 people were eventually tested. Two weeks later, the warehouse flareup was mostly extinguished and infections curtailed at 152.
The work of such so-called Immediate Response Teams offers a look at how South Korea—once the second worst hit by the coronavirus—has succeeded in largely quelling its spread without the lockdowns that have derailed lives worldwide. At a time when cities from Los Angeles to Melbourne to Tokyo are grappling with resurgences, South Korea’s playbook offers one of the most successful blueprints yet for containing a disease that’s killed more than 600,000 worldwide.
The tally of new cases in the Asian country—which pioneered the testing blitz strategy—has never fallen to zero, but the number of daily new cases have largely ranged from 30 to 60 for two months after peaking at more than 800 in February. Compare that with Los Angeles county, which added 2,014 cases on Thursday alone.
South Korea’s strategy is also a contrast with the harsh shutdowns instituted in parts of China or the tourism blockade implemented by New Zealand in an attempt to completely stamp out the virus. The Asian nation meticulously targets dangerous hotspots and then simply allows most people to lead lives and run businesses unimpeded.
“We step in when there’s a chance of large-scale transmission and our main work is to find the connecting links between cases and prevent a flareup,” said Kwon Donghyok, deputy scientific director at the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who oversees the investigative squads. “Finding potential contacts and investigating the cause of infection are the backbone of what we do.”
The country now has one of the lowest rates for infections with unknown origin, at about 8%, compared to more than 50% for other countries with recent virus resurgences. Flareups have shrunk from a weekly average of about a dozen to less than six this week.
South Korea has a successful strategy because it learned from the bitter experience of the past, something Western countries didn’t have the benefit of. The bulk of its more than 14,000 cases and nearly 300 deaths are related to the flareup at a religious sect in February and March. Since then, processes developed after the country’s 2015 outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome have helped it prevent a second wave of the new coronavirus.
South Korea’s CDC has about 100 epidemiology investigators, up from just two during the MERS outbreak. During a large potential outbreak, several are pulled for the Immediate Response Team, which usually has about six to eight members.
On any given day, officials investigate potential flareups at diverse locations from church group gatherings to clubs for badminton or exotic cars. Infections at low-risk facilities are first handled by municipal health officials, while an Immediate Response Team is called in for high-risk locations.
Other nations have also taken steps to trace contacts and widen testing, with countries like Taiwan and Germany successfully screening to curb the virus. But some have had more difficulty recently. Infections in Melbourne spiked to a record this month because its efforts weren’t suitably designed for its migrant population. India has had some success in following contacts and curtailing an outbreak in the Mumbai slum of Dharavi, but replicating that across the breadth of a country with 1.3 billion people has proven to be hard.
“The key strength of South Korea’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is its ability to do a thorough epidemiology investigation on every patient,” said Jung Ki-suck, a former CDC director and now professor at Hallym University Medical Center, referring to the detailed public health tracing conducted by officials. “The epidemiology investigation has never been so important because we can reduce the size of outbreaks and even block new cases from occurring.”
That exhaustive and meticulous investigation strategy paid off when investigators were able to trace the warehouse outbreak after following a flareup at nightclubs in the trendy Itaewon neighborhood, said Kwon, who investigated the MERS outbreak and was in Rio de Janeiro to investigate a possible outbreak of the Zika virus during the 2016 Olympics.
The CDC discovered that a nightclub visitor who was a private tutor spread the virus to one of his students. The student, who was unaware of the infection, used a coin-operated karaoke room, transmitting the virus to a taxi-driver singing in an adjoining room.
The taxi-driver also worked as a part-time photographer and took photos of a birthday party at a buffet restaurant in the area where the distribution center is located.
Through surveillance footage and mobile phone records, investigators contacted everyone who had been at the restaurant around the time of the birthday party. Among those who were infected at the restaurant was a woman who had worked for a day at the warehouse.
To be sure, some of the tactics used in South Korea, which has a population of about 51 million, might be difficult to replicate in vastly populated emerging countries. And the Asian country has benefitted from surveillance technology that might not be acceptable to citizens of many Western nations.
Tracing potential contacts in South Korea involved reviewing hundreds of hours of surveillance camera footage and going through mobile phone and credit card transactions. So-called CCTVs are ubiquitous in South Korea as virtually all streets and workplaces have them.
“Other countries simply don’t have the capacity to do these thorough investigations on patients,” said Jung, the former CDC director. “We had a smaller absolute number of cases than other nations, but more importantly, the social norm, where people are okay with their privacy being infringed for the wider public interest, allowed comprehensive investigations, which is just unimaginable in western countries.”
South Korea has said it’s expecting some spike in cases among construction workers returning from virus hit Iraq and more cases from a Russian ship at one of its ports. While those are mostly imported cases brought in from the outside, South Korea’s virus squad knows how tenuous its gains are, and the importance of vigilance. Many countries, including Asia’s financial capital, Hong Kong, have successfully beaten back the virus for months, only to see it make a sudden comeback.
“Any mass infections we have witnessed have happened in the blink of an eye,” Kwon said. “If we miss a tiny piece of a link or let a small detail slip by, we’ll for sure be experiencing a resurgence in cases.”


fortune--2020-07-27--Amy Schumer’s ‘Expecting Amy’ displays pregnancy alongside ambition

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! WNBA players make a statement, Eileen Murray sues the world’s largest hedge fund, and Expecting Amy shows pregnancy and ambition side by side. Have a productive Monday.
Today’s guest essay comes to us from Fortune senior editor Beth Kowitt:
– What to expect. I knew comedian Amy Schumer’s new documentary Expecting Amy might feel a little raw for me. I had a baby in January, so I’m not far enough removed from it all yet to have a dulled memory of labor and, in my case, those 41 weeks that led up to it (but who’s counting!).
But what resonated for me even more than Schumer’s depiction of her pregnancy itself was the doc’s incredibly intimate and honest portrait of a woman dealing with a career and ambition. I’ve never seen the intertwining of a pregnancy and work—which is the reality for so many women—captured in all of its messy complexity like it is in Expecting Amy.
Schumer’s big personal project, as it were, coincides with the development of her Netflix comedy special, Growing, and the three-part documentary series tracks the conception, gestation, and birth of both.
Schumer’s decision to put together a comedy special during her pregnancy is an intentional one. She wants to do something big before the birth of her son to essentially bookend this stage of her life. Her pregnancy may be horrific as she suffers through hyperemesis gravidarum (HG)—a condition that can lead to severe nausea and vomiting—but it’s also fueling her work and creativity.
These scenes brought me back to some of the choices I made while I was pregnant: sleeping overnight in a lounge of the Beijing airport at 20 weeks; racing against the clock to finish a big story before I went into labor; continuing to come into the office even once my daughter blew past her due date. I felt that urgency to tie up loose ends before she arrived. But I also wanted to prove to myself, and my colleagues, that I would have the same commitment to the work I love after becoming a mom—that it would still give me the same satisfaction and joy it always had. As Schumer says in her special, “You don’t stop being you.”
Looking back now, I realize I was happy to have those war stories as evidence that I could still handle all the normal pressures of the job. I was always hesitant to talk about my pregnancy at the office unless someone else brought it up first, fearing that my identity as a hardworking, reliable employee would be subsumed by my new one of “pregnant lady” and eventually “working mom.” I hadn’t yet realized that I would find a way for all of those traits to coexist.
It’s a tricky balancing act. The physical demands of pregnancy are real—but for many women, so is the need to continue to do your best professional work. Onstage Schumer tells the audience, “I hate women who start to act, like, really just, like, precious.” She doesn’t want to be treated like a delicate flower, but she also wants her pain to be acknowledged. Less than two weeks after giving birth, she’s back onstage.
Schumer has always threaded feminism into her comedy—who else can so effortlessly land a sex joke with a punch line about equal pay? But by capturing the nuanced and complicated picture of a pregnancy, Expecting Amy may be the biggest service Schumer has done for women yet.
Beth Kowitt
beth.kowitt@fortune.com
@bethkowitt
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Up next. Last month, PBS aired the documentary And She Could Be Next about the women of color who made history in the 2018 midterm elections. One of the then-candidates featured was Rep. Veronica Escobar, who now represents El Paso, Texas in Congress. She spoke to Emma about the documentary, which is now streaming, and her evolving relationship with the U.S.-Mexico border: Fortune
- Star turn. Olivia de Havilland was one of the last surviving stars of Old Hollywood; she died at 104 years old on Sunday. Known for her Oscar-winning career and her feud with her sister Joan Fontaine, de Havilland also fought the studio system. Fortune
- More than kneeling. During the WNBA's opening game on Saturday, players for both teams—the Seattle Storm and New York Liberty—walked off the court when the national anthem played as a sign of solidarity with Black Lives Matter. New York Liberty player Layshia Clarendon said, "We're dedicating this season to Breonna Taylor." BuzzFeed
- Hedging her bets. Former Bridgewater co-CEO Eileen Murray is escalating her battle with her former hedge fund; she filed a lawsuit against the fund alleging it's withholding $20 million to $100 million because Murray "disclosed her gender-discrimination dispute to a third party." Wall Street Journal
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Mesoblast Limited named Dagmar Rosa-Bjorkeson COO. The Fuller Project named Kim Abbott chief communications officer and Lilian Tan COO.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Inclusion for all. Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In a piece for Fortune, Disability:IN CEO Jill Houghton writes that companies that want to demonstrate a true commitment to all kinds of inclusion must participate in the Disability Equality Index. Fortune
- Mask up, Denmark. Denmark is a rare European country that hasn't mandated the use of face masks. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was photographed for the first time wearing one at a summit of European leaders last week. Now Danish experts are questioning their country's mask decision. Bloomberg
- Group effort. In Belarus, a trio of women are leading an effort to unseat the country's ruler of 25 years, Alexander Lukashenko. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Veronika Tsepkalo, and Maria Kolesnikova united their three campaigns for office in a bid to replace Lukashenko. Guardian
ON MY RADAR
Rep. Ted Yoho resigns from board of Christian organization following AOC incident CNN
She defends companies accused of discrimination. She’s also helping them diversify Washington Post
The fight against fast fashion means buying fewer clothes—and this retailer encourages that Fortune
PARTING WORDS
"Theatre will be left in the dust, I think, if we don’t make substantive changes."
-Actor Audra McDonald


fortune--2020-07-27--Wednesday’s testimony will be more Kabuki theater than substance

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Some time soon, the CEOs of four tech companies worth a combined $4 trillion will testify virtually before Congress on the question of whether their various empires have too much concentrated power. The numbers tell the story: The market capitalizations of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple constitute about 15% of the S&P 500.
The testimony on Wednesday will be more memorable for its Kabuki-like nature than its substance. Members of Congress are more adept at scoring points than questioning; powerful CEOs—in this case a couple of polymath multi-billionaires (Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg) and a duo of business-trained engineers (Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai)—are masters of saying nothing when the situation calls for it.
Only a fool would suggest that any of this is anywhere near the top of the list of pressing things going on in the world right now. Nevertheless, these four companies have amassed awesome power—my mother detested the misuse of the word awesome, and I assure you it applies here—and there will be a reckoning for that. It may not happen in July in Washington, D.C. The reckoning likelier will begin in Brussels. But it will happen.
On the subject of tech wealth and power, I highly recommend the rollicking profile Maureen Dowd published last week of Elon Musk. From a journalistic perspective, Dowd is a master craftswoman at the height of her powers, converting a 60-minute interview into a revealing gem of a story. Her portrait reminds me of an observation I’ve made about the billionaires I’ve known: Musk transitions smoothly from batshit crazy to totally rational and back again in the span of a single sentence. This surely is a source of part of his genius.
For a different take on power, I also urge you to read this important article by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker about the chicken poultry magnate and Trump contributor Ronnie Cameron and his company Mountaire. This is a good example of what journalism is supposed to do: Speak truth to power.
Lastly, a reminder that power fades. I smiled at this ode to Midtown Manhattan centered on what once was called the Time & Life Building, the home for decades of Fortune Magazine. I never had an office there, but I visited many, many times before Fortune left 1271 Avenue of the Americas in 2015. I have fond memories of Cite, the restaurant that preceded the anodyne Capital Grille steakhouse that’s in the building now, including of the time the great Carol Loomis took me to lunch there when I was a newbie.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
It’s chockers in here. Speaking of Big Tech's problems, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on Monday accused Google of failing to get permission for combining users' personal information with their browsing history on non-Google sites. A fine "in the millions" will be forthcoming. Google denied any wrongdoing. In other matters, Google also says its workers will be staying home until July 2021, instead of coming back in January as previously planned.
Riding in circles. Among smaller tech companies, Garmin is having a problem. A cyberattack last week took down some of the company's systems such that its smartwatches couldn't record GPS data, its aviation devices didn't work, and many other features went offline. Functionality is slowly being restored. In more "taste of what's to come" hacking news, thousands of election officials across the country are using email programs with known vulnerabilities, cybersecurity firm Area 1 concluded after surveying the field.
Screeching the brakes. It’s been less than two years since SAP acquired Qualtrics, the Utah-based maker of “experience management” software. Now SAP's newly solo CEO Christian Klein is making a bit of a switch. SAP said Sunday night that it will take Qualtrics public via an IPO while retaining a majority ownership stake. In other IPO news, online betting site Rush Street Interactive plans to go public by merging with special-purpose acquisition company dMY Technology Group. And Rackspace, the online hosting company that has rubber-banded between public and private markets multiple times, set the terms of its latest IPO in a range valuing the operation at around $5 billion.
Go ahead and pick up all the cash. If you live in Illinois and have used Facebook or owned an Apple iPhone 6 or 7, or both, you may be eligible for a cash prize. Well, a cash class-action settlement award payment. Fortune's own Jeff John Roberts explains how to file if you qualify.
Undo. Like saying my house is 7 kilometers wide when I mean 7 meters, the metric system (at a smaller scale) confused me in Friday's newsletter. The 7-nanometer microprocessor manufacturing scale bedeviling Intel is more like 1/10,000th the width of a human hair.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Like Intel doesn't have enough to worry about, what with its manufacturing problems at 1/10,000 the width of a human hair, James Wang, an analyst at Ark Investment Management, warns of another risk: Now that Apple and Amazon are making chips on the competing ARM platform, app developers could be swayed away from Intel, too.
Amazon’s Graviton 2 ARM CPU became generally available in May 2020. AnandTech, a technology website not known for hyperbole, found that it offered almost twice the price-performance of Intel’s and AMD’s x86 CPUs, as shown below, and called the results “an x86 Massacre.”
We believe that Intel should be worried, perhaps mortally, that Amazon is building its own ARM CPU. While it does rent servers, AWS increasingly is an operating system and a developer platform. Intel’s Developer Forum drew 6,000 attendees before it shut down in 2017, while Amazon’s AWS Reinvent Conference now attracts more than 60,000 people each year. CPU platforms have given way to the cloud, a much larger opportunity.
After decades of spectacular success in winning over developers, Intel’s x86 platform now risks losing them. Apple and Amazon control roughly a third of PC and cloud developers, respectively. Both are re-platforming to ARM, potentially signaling the beginning of the end for x86.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
‘This is not a time to be silent’: The sweater that became a platform for social good By Rachel King
As stir-crazy Americans take refuge on the water, the boat industry is booming By Shawn Tully
The PPE supply chain is a black box—that needs to change By Ge Bai, Tinglong Dai, and Shivaram Rajgopa
Photo essay: What unemployment looks like in pandemic America By Alex Scimecca and Lee Clifford
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
We juuust barely managed to see Comet NEOWISE over the weekend. But if you missed it, House Beautiful has curated a gallery of some of the best pictures of the comet streaking across the night sky from around the world. Then, get your head out of the clouds and start your week strong.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-07-27--The CEO of the Naked Market on making snacks from scratch

This is an installment of Startup Year One, a special series of interviews with startup founders about the major lessons they have learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
To paraphrase an old adage: Some people live to eat, and others eat to live.
In the case of the Naked Market, its founders likely fall within the former category in ethos, but they’d like to eat better to live better, too.
The San Francisco–based company was founded in 2019 by three friends—Harrison Fugman, Alex Kost, and Tim Marbach—who say they were inspired by their collective love of food as well as displeasure with the lack of healthy snack options on the market, particularly from familiar household names. Within less than a year, the company has produced three new snack brands: Flock rotisserie chicken chips, Beach House ready-to-eat açai smoothie bowls, and Avo Crazy avocado puffs.
The Naked Market raised more than $3 million in its initial seed funding round with investors including Holtzbrinck Ventures, Econa Capital, and Sequoia Capital’s Scout Fund. Its advisory board comprises seasoned food and beverage executives, including FreshDirect founder and former CEO Jason Ackerman, and Gardein Protein and Yves Veggie Cuisine founder Yves Potvin.
Fortune recently spoke with Fugman, the Naked Market’s CEO, to learn more about the startup’s first year in business, the lessons learned, the hurdles overcome, and its plans for 2021.
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
The Naked Market CEO Harrison Fugman Courtesy of The Naked Market
Fortune: While it does sell culinary provisions, what the Naked Market is might not be as obvious, based on the company name alone. What inspired the launch of the Naked Market?
Fugman: Prior to starting the Naked Market, I spent the first seven years of my postcollege life in finance. I most recently ran Credit Suisse’s venture capital coverage business. However, entrepreneurship has been in my blood from a very young age. My first “business” was importing wallets from China and selling them to my classmates in high school. (Alex and I then ran an events business together in college.)
Throughout my time in finance, I was consistently looking for my next business venture and wanted to be sure it was something that I was incredibly passionate about, that it was a massive opportunity and a pain point I felt in my own life, and that I would be doing it with people I trusted and admired.
My background as a foodie and health and wellness maniac, combined with my time at Credit Suisse, led me to become giddy over the opportunity to get involved in the food and beverage space. We specifically wanted to bring a portfolio approach to the startup world where we could build the infrastructure to quickly and efficiently launch multiple brands, identify winners among the brands that we launch, and then scale the winners to become household names.
In terms of how we got the actual name, we wanted something that represented the clean and healthy nature of our products (i.e., Naked), reflected our multiple brands (i.e., Market), and was memorable (i.e., The Naked Market).
The Avo Crazy avocado puffs are gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, and only 100 calories per bag. Courtesy of The Naked Market
Beyond tapping into dietary trends like non-GMO and keto-friendly, how has technology shaped brand development at the Naked Market, whether it be the influence of big data or social media?
Previously, incumbents in the food and beverage world were shielded from competition via expensive shelf space in grocery stores and limited marketing channels. With the online channel opening up and consumers shifting their behavior to purchasing goods online, it has created a massive opportunity for new age brands.
For us, the bread and butter of our business is direct-to-consumer e-commerce. It has enabled us to quickly get our brands into consumers’ hands, collect massive amounts of data, and make the appropriate decisions as to resource allocation (and product changes) based on that data. For example, the way we determine what brands ultimately scale versus what brands get shut down is through an internally developed benchmarking tool which compares all of our brands’ (and select third-party brands’) performance data. By comparing each brand against each other and external brands, it enables us to identify which brands we believe have massive potential (e.g., Flock) and where there may just not be product and market fit (e.g., Beach House bowls).
The Naked Market has launched three new brands within the past six months. That sounds like an incredible feat—one that must have come with a lot of ups and downs. Aside from data, what else goes into the brand development process, and what lessons have you learned, postproduction?
Our brand development process is premised on U.S. consumers’ expectations to consume personalized brands. That means every product we launch needs to tell an authentic story to a specific group of consumers, as well as be strong enough to stand on its own.
The Beach House ready-to-eat açai smoothie bowls come with a crunchy, organic granola topping packed with superfoods. Courtesy of The Naked Market
Another key part of our process to launching multiple brands is the benefit of their shared back-end services. For example, all of our products run on the same technology, use the same supply fulfillment centers, and often leverage the same network of offline buyers (among many other things). So once R&D is done and a new product is produced, it can seamlessly integrate into our existing infrastructure.
As it pertains to our learnings, we have set up our launch strategy to optimize for a quick feedback loop with the consumer. This is done online through our direct-to-consumer presence and offline through our localized ecosystem of retailers. Both of these channels enable us to get the feedback we need about each brand to make the appropriate decisions about what the future of each holds. For example, some of our learnings in our first few months have led to flavor changes (reformulated Flock BBQ; it was too sweet), new charitable initiatives (crowdsourced ideas, which led to us making a $15,000 food donation to first responders and shelters), and new product line extensions we had not previously considered (e.g., launching a panko bread-crumb iteration of Flock per customer suggestions).
Obviously, amid the coronavirus pandemic, consumers’ purchasing power, habits, and even their relationship to food are going to change. How does the Naked Market plan to adjust and fit into whatever this new normal might be?
As a new age brand, it is vital we stay nimble, both in regards to the types of products we create and the channels in which we sell them, especially at a time when the world goes through a dramatic event such as COVID-19.
In terms of what that means for the future of the food and beverage world and our business, a few things are on our minds. First, the proliferation of online grocery penetration. Pre-COVID, the U.S. was still vastly behind other nations with regard to its online grocery consumption behavior. Only 2% of U.S. groceries were bought online versus mid-teens in China and South Korea and high single digits in the U.K. With the increased adoption rate of grocery-ordering online we’ve seen since COVID began, this channel is poised to shortly reach levels we previously thought would take multiple years to achieve. This is reflected in our business, which is up 155% since January. This growth has been completely driven by our direct-to-consumer e-commerce business, which has offset the decline in our food service revenue that went to zero overnight.
The Flock rotisserie chicken chips, made from 100% real chicken, are low in carbs, high in protein, and keto-friendly. Courtesy of The Naked Market
Second, food at home. More than 50% of the U.S. food budget is spent away from home. This number is double what it was 50 years ago. Given potential sanitation concerns around eating in crowded places, associated cost savings to cooking and snacking at home, this trend of at-home food consumption may very well reach historic new levels.
Third, new types of products. As consumers focus more on trends such as immunity, sanitation, and at-home cooking, there will likely be a new set of products and services developed to meet these needs. This will be reflected in our new set of product launches, which will hit in the back half of the year.
Looking beyond the post-pandemic era, which could be anywhere from a year to a few years from now, how do you plan to grow the Naked Market and what do you want the business to look like five years from now?
Our long-term goal is to create a portfolio of brands that are beloved household names across the U.S. and Canada. To do that, we will focus on scaling up existing winners in our portfolio, such as Flock, as well as continue launching highly innovative products with massive potential.
Learning and adapting are part of our brand’s DNA, and we’ll continue to shift our products to keep pace with the world and what consumers want. Right now, it’s chicken chips. In a few years, it could be something completely different. We’re dedicated to listening to that trend so we can remain increasingly relevant as the years go on.
More must-read lifestyle coverage from Fortune:
—The coronavirus puts the craft beer industry at risk
—Georgia’s staple cheesy bread is more than Instagram bait. It’s an economic indicator
—These dry ciders are made like wine and packaged like beer
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—File your taxes, get a free case of Natty Light
—WATCH: Can San Francisco Be Saved?
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-07-27--Ryanair shares plunge after the budget airline divulges its ‘biggest fear right now’

Ryanair Holdings Plc issued a stark assessment of the threat to airlines as they seek to rebound from the coronavirus crisis, saying it’s concerned that a series of local lockdowns followed by a second wave of infection will hold back the recovery from the pandemic.
Ryanair kicked off earnings season for European carriers Monday by posting a loss for the June quarter and saying it will lose money through the rest of the summer. While the restart of flights presents opportunities, the discount giant said it’s worried the virus could continue to roil demand for months to come.
“A second wave of Covid-19 cases across Europe in late autumn, when the annual flu season commences, is our biggest fear right now,” the Irish company said.
Britain’s surprise reintroduction of a quarantine for people arriving from Spain threatens to quell resurgent demand at carriers like Ryanair that are heavily reliant on holiday traffic, and shows how the industry is treading a tightrope as it resumes flying with the virus still raging. The company said the situation could be further compounded by “adverse trading consequences” if the U.K. completes its exit the European Union without a trade deal in January.
Shares of Ryanair, which deploys 4% of group-wide capacity on U.K.-Spain flights, according to Citigroup analyst Mark Manduca, fell 2.8% as of 8:01 a.m. in Dublin, while Luton, England-based EasyJet Plc, which has 5% of its seats in that market, was down 12%. Jet2 owner Dart Group Plc was 8.9% lower and package-holiday operator TUI AG was off 7.5%.
IAG SA, which owns British Airways Spanish network operator Iberia, lost 7.7%.
Ryanair, which predicted air travel will remain depressed for two or three years at least, had a loss of 185 million euros ($217 million) in the fiscal first quarter, when its jets were largely idled and the customer count fell 99%.
While that’s better than the 200 million euro-loss that the company forecast in May, the International Air Transport Association, among other trade groups, sees the crisis persisting for longer than first forecast, with bigger overall losses.
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska said in a note that Ryanair’s numbers offer some comfort to investors and that the carrier is “better-positioned than most to withstand negative shocks, but not immune.”
Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost airline, restarted timetabled flights on July 1 and said in the statement it will operate about 40% of the normal schedule this month, rising to 60% in August and — “hopefully” — 70% in September.
Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said the company’s aircraft are currently flying 70% full, compared with 97% in July last year. Bookings are also coming very late amid the uncertainty surrounding the reopening of borders and lingering restrictions on travel, though that should be positive for fares.
‘Very Keen’
“There is a lot of pent-up demand,” Sorahan said in an interview. “We’re seeing people, particularly those visiting friends and relations, very very keen to travel.” Setbacks such as the U.K. quarantine on Spanish arrivals will however “dent confidence for a period of time.”
Ryanair had 3.9 billion euros in cash at the end of June, up from 3.8 billion euros at the end of March, after locking down operations and tapping a U.K. government-backed loan. While there are no immediate plans to raise further funds, it will consider some refinancing to repay the British facility in March, as well as a bond maturing next summer, Sorahan said.
The company, which has 135 Boeing Co. 737 Max jets on order, reiterated that it still wants to take them even after the model was grounded in the wake of two fatal crashes. Discussions on compensation are continuing, and the CFO said the airline is open to a follow-on order if “priced appropriately.”


fortune--2020-07-27--Society’s problems need our best business minds

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
It has been nearly a year since the Business Roundtable released its statement of corporate purpose, putting the interests of employees, customers, communities and the environment on equal footing with shareholders.The change found widespread acceptance among leaders of Fortune 500 companies, and even among investors. Most of the criticism came not from people who disagree with the goals, but rather those who wonder how the words will be translated into action, and what metrics will be used to measure progress and hold companies accountable.
But there remain a few holdouts who cling to the idea of shareholder primacy. Ex-Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson–who did a turn as Trump’s Secretary of State–appears to be one of them. “I probably would have resisted that if I were still on the executive committee there,” Tillerson said of the BRT statement in a recent interview with Insigniam Quarterly. “I don’t think it’s healthy for a group of CEOs to get together and say we’re just all going to agree to behave this way—because everybody’s business is different. Their organizations are different. When you start trying to covey up like a bunch of quail to protect yourself, I’m not sure you’ve got your eye on your own shareholders’ interests.”
This weekend, economist Greg Mankiw–who served as chief economic adviser to President George W. Bush–weighed in with an op-ed piece in the New York Times. CEOs aren’t qualified to make broad social decisions, he argued. The BRT approach “expects executives to be broadly competent social planners rather than narrowly focused profit maximizers. It’s unlikely that corporate executives, with their business training and limited experience, have the skills to play this role well.” Maximize profits, he argues, and you have the best chance of maximizing social welfare.
Mankiw goes on to acknowledge three caveats to his welfare rule, in keeping with classical economics:
1) You need government to protect property rights and the rule of law, and prevent corruption.
2) While free markets may yield the largest economic pie, they do not ensure it is sliced equitably. Government must do that.
3) Market activities can have significant adverse side effects–like carbon emissions that lead to climate change–which may need to be corrected by government action.
Pretty big caveats, wouldn’t you say? In a theoretical world with well-functioning government, Mankiw’s view may make sense. But in the world we inhabit, where governments’ ability to address big problems like inequality and climate change has been heading south for decades, having our best business minds turn more attention to society’s pressing problems makes sense to me–for the sake of society, and for the long-term interests of their shareholders. (By the way, the unexpected punchline of Mankiw’s column was that he was switching party loyalties, and voting for Joe Biden.)
More news below. And speaking of inequality, do you consider yourself upper class, middle class or lower class? The answer partly depends on where you live. This calculator will give you an answer.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Tencent in India
Tencent has ceased operations for its hit WeChat app in India after the government there banned it, and dozens of other Chinese apps, most likely due to rising geopolitical tensions between the countries. Tencent told users: "We value each of our users, and data security and privacy are of utmost importance to us. We are engaging with relevant authorities and hope to be able to resume service in the future." South China Morning Post
Reliance ascent
Reliance Industries has displaced Exxon as the world's biggest energy company after Saudi Aramco. Mukesh Ambani's company, which operated the world's biggest oil refinery complex, saw its shares jump 46% this year, while Exxon's are down 39%. Fortune
Google suit
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has sued Google for allegedly misleading consumers into giving away more personal data than they thought they were giving away. The apparent duping took place four years ago, when Google changed its privacy policy and got users to click "I agree." ACCC chairman Rod Sims: "We believe that many consumers, if given an informed choice, may have refused Google permission to combine and use such a wide array of their personal information for Google's own financial benefit." ABC
British quarantine
The U.K. has abruptly imposed a two-week quarantine on travelers returning from Spain, due to a resurgence in COVID-19 cases there. The tourism industry is appalled, given the implications–who would want to travel abroad on holiday when you might unexpectedly find yourself confined on return? Even the British transport secretary, Grant Shapps, found himself caught out by his own department's surprise move. Guardian
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
PPE supplies
Accounting and operations experts Ge Bai, Tinglong Dai and Shivaram Rajgopal, of Johns Hopkins and Columbia, write for Fortune that the U.S.'s biggest personal protective equipment manufacturers (3M, Honeywell and MSA Safety) have not disclosed their supply-chain reliance on foreign countries. They write: "Making essential supply chain information public would immediately empower market participants, including activist investors, some of whom are ESG investors seeking positive social and environmental impact." Fortune
Junk food
Citing obesity as a major risk factor for COVID-19 susceptibility, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has gone to war with junk food. His government is banning junk-food ads before 9 p.m., and "buy one get one free" deals altogether. Johnson previously expressed a "libertarian" attitude towards the consumption of unhealthy food, but that all changed when he ended up in intensive care earlier this year. BBC
Digital tax
Europe's drive to establish a "digital tax" on the local revenues of Big Tech doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast. France, the prime driver, has paused its enthusiasm in the face of sanctions threats from the U.S. Germany is happy to leave the subject to the OECD, where global talks are taking place. Spain, Italy, the U.K., Austria and Czechia all have national digital taxes coming up, but none this year. Politico
Ryanair loss
Ryanair, the giant Irish budget airline, lost around €185 million ($216 million) in the first quarter thanks to the coronavirus crisis. It now says a second wave is its "biggest fear." Quarterly revenues were down from €2.3 billion to €125 million, and passenger numbers were down from 41.9 million to just half a million. Flights resumed at the start of this month, and Ryanair said it intends to be operating 70% of its normal schedule in September. The Journal
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-07-27--Vietnam had one of the world’s best COVID responses. Now that success is in peril

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Vietnam recorded its first locally transmitted COVID-19 case in 99 days on Saturday in the beach city of Da Nang, on the country’s eastern coast. By Monday, it had recorded three more local cases there, bringing Vietnam’s total to 420. Da Nang authorities have now reimposed social distancing measures and are preparing to evacuate 80,000 local tourists.
Vietnam had been a model country for its handling of the coronavirus. It closed borders, imposed lockdowns, set up quarantine facilities, and carried out rigorous contact tracing and testing early on in the outbreak. Its population of 96 million, the world’s 15th-largest, has recorded zero coronavirus deaths.
But its nascent outbreak again underscores the fragility of coronavirus success stories and the unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Da Nang outbreak
Vietnam had not recorded a local case—an infection transmitted within the community, rather than imported from an inbound traveler—since April 16, and life was largely back to normal when a 57-year-old man in Da Nang tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday. He hadn’t left the city or been in close contact with strangers, and authorities don’t yet know how he contracted the virus.
Beaches in Vietnam’s central city of Da Nang were empty in April in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. The city had attracted local tourists as the nation’s infection rate waned, but now it faces an emerging outbreak. Xinhua/Getty Images
Officials have since recorded three more local cases in Da Nang, a popular domestic tourism spot, and the government said on Monday that it is closing the city’s borders to tourists from other parts of Vietnam and evacuating the city’s 80,000 visitors who must quarantine for 14 days after returning home.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Monday told police to crack down on illegal immigration. Vietnam has been closed to foreigners since March 22, but it shares land borders with China, Laos, and Cambodia, sections of which are hard to police because of jungles or mountainous terrain.
In April, authorities in China said they were stepping up border control measures to limit the possibility of imported infections. One expert told Reuters at the time that China’s land border with Southeast Asian countries was “too long and porous to be enforced properly.” The border areas have a history of drug smuggling and human trafficking owing to the lack of strict controls.
Police arrested a Chinese man in Da Nang for allegedly heading a group that helps people illegally cross the border from China to Vietnam, Vietnamese state media reported on Sunday. However, Vietnamese authorities have not said the local cases in Da Nang are linked to illegal border crossings.
In June and early July, Vietnam launched a “travel bubble” for business travelers from Japan, and it was considering a similar arrangement with Taiwan. Thailand had named Vietnam as one of the countries it was thinking of including in its tourism bubble. The weekend’s spate of new local cases could put those plans in jeopardy. Should it grow, the outbreak could hit Vietnam’s economy, which has been one of the Asia’s few bright spots.
Fragile recoveries
Vietnam’s emerging crisis mirrors the regression of neighbors in the region that also seemed to have the virus under control.
Hong Kong, for example, is enduring an ongoing third wave of coronavirus infections, which are likely the result of quarantine exemptions. More than 40% of the city’s total cases, which now stand at 2,634, have been recorded this month, as have the majority of its 20 deaths.
Hong Kong requires all incoming travelers to quarantine for 14 days on arrival, but it’s been exempting airline crews, sea crews, and truckers driving in from mainland China. The government suspended some of these exemptions on Sunday, but some health experts said the tightening came too late.
Mainland China is also seeing a flare-up. It reported 57 local cases on Sunday, its highest daily increase since April. The cases are located in its far-western Xinjiang province and in the northeast provinces of Liaoning and Jilin, which border North Korea.
Australia is experiencing a second wave of infections that’s been linked to security staff working in hotels where returning travelers were quarantining. Staff monitoring those in quarantine failed to follow infection control measures and then passed the coronavirus onto their families and friends, sparking a community outbreak.
Like Vietnam, Hong Kong, mainland China, and Australia were considering starting travel bubbles with other regions before their new waves of cases. The relapse in Vietnam—once a model for outbreak control—is a signal to the rest of the world that reopening, even domestically, holds the risk of further outbreaks.


fortune--2020-07-27--The markets hope for a big earnings week from Big Tech. Will Washington spoil the fun?

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. From Tokyo to Frankfurt, the markets are mixed as a familiar brew of trade tensions, coronavirus spikes and a busy week of earnings and stimulus-bill negotiations take center stage.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are mixed in afternoon trade with the Shanghai Composite leading the way, up 0.3% .
are mixed in afternoon trade with the leading the way, up . Did HSBC help set “traps” to ensnare Huawei in a big U.S. sanctions probe? It wasn’t us , the bank firmly says, denying claims in Chinese media outlets from over the weekend.
help set “traps” to ensnare in a big U.S. sanctions probe? , the bank firmly says, denying claims in Chinese media outlets from over the weekend. It’s been a heckuva run for India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. Probably best known for its digital media unit, Jio Platforms, Reliance is also big in energy. How big? On Friday, it knocked off Exxon Mobil to become the world’s largest energy company after Saudi Aramco.
Europe
The European bourses are mostly down at the start with the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 off 0.5% . Ryanair fell 2.5% at the open after the budget airline forecasted passenger traffic will plummet 60% this year.
are mostly down at the start with the benchmark off . Ryanair fell at the open after the budget airline forecasted passenger traffic will plummet 60% this year. The proverbial tortoise overtaking the hare… The euro zone economy , Goldman Sachs says, is expected to show a “ steeper and smoother rebound …than elsewhere”—and that includes the U.S.—due to its more efficient handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
, Goldman Sachs says, is expected to show a “ …than elsewhere”—and that includes the U.S.—due to its more efficient handling of the coronavirus pandemic. On cue, dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. Britain has imposed surprise quarantine measures on holiday-makers returning from Spain following a big spike in COVID cases there. The Spanish government and the airlines are furious.
U.S.
U.S. futures look to reverse Friday’s losses. They point to modest gains at the open.
look to reverse Friday’s losses. They point to modest gains at the open. It’s a big week for tech. Chipmaker AMD reports quarterly results on Tuesday, followed by Facebook on Wednesday. Thursday we have Apple, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet.
reports quarterly results on Tuesday, followed by Facebook on Wednesday. Thursday we have Apple, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet. The markets will be watching Capitol Hill closely this week as lawmakers haggle over a new coronavirus relief bill. Keeping the supplemental $600/week unemployment benefits, a popular goodie enacted in March, looks like a long shot.
Elsewhere
Gold is king, up a whopping $30, putting it well over $1,900 an ounce.
is king, up a whopping $30, putting it well over $1,900 an ounce. The dollar is sputtering. Again.
is sputtering. Again. Crude is mixed.
***
Prologue
Gr. Pro (before) logos (just sayin’)
I’m at the bottom of Europe where down is up, and up is down. Inspired as I am by my surroundings here in Magna Graecia (Sicily, as it’s known these days), I’m trying something different with Bull Sheet today.
But first… why Sicily?
Answer: Because no sensible person would choose to sweat it out for even a day in Rome in sultry July or August. This was true in Augustus’ day. It’s truer today. Once the triple-digit F° temps arrive, most families pack up the car and scatter to the winds, in search of a cooler place to get through the dog days of summer. We usually head South where the meals, coffee and gelato are sublime, and the locals even sweeter. There’s an additional prerequisite for me: it’s got to be a land settled and influenced by the benevolent ancient Greeks, not those war-mongering ancient Romans. By late June each year, I’ve had enough of Romans.
This year we’re just outside Licata, staying near our Sicilian friends. Where’s Licata? Take the highway 900 KM south of Rome, and just before you drive headlong into the sea, stop. You’re there. It’s an 11-hour drive that passes three distinct volcanos (Colli Albani, Vesuvius and Etna), and three seas (Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Mediterranean). There’s also the Strait of Messina, so wicked and turbulent it’s inspired Homeric tales of sea monsters.
How do you keep three kids under 11 entertained on such a trip? Yep, Homer’s a good place to start.
Midway through the journey, we pressed play on the audio book for The Illiad and The Odyssey. I’m hooked from the moment I hear about the “wine-dark sea”—mare il colore del vino—in Italian.
Ulysees’ (okay, Odysseus for many of you) slog to and from Ithaca, off to war, and all the adventures in between, is the story of every Hollywood blockbuster, every adventure tale you’ve read your kids at night. After Homer, there’s little new under the sun. Driving along listening (somewhere between the tales of the Trojan Horse and the Cyclops), it dawned on me that we see these same characters, their motivations and the inevitable downfalls and successes in every tale of mayhem, chance and glory. That includes today’s markets.
So, here we go…. on a small adventure. Al mare il colore del vino. The wine-dark seas beckon.
***
Sing to me, Muse
These markets have everything: cunning heroes, hubris, tragic twists and turns. Here are four characters from Homer’s epic poems that I see in today’s markets most days. There are scores more, no doubt.
Cassandra
Poor Cassandra. She has a gift. The gods bestowed upon her a power to accurately see what others cannot. If only the world would listen. Cassandra is about as tragic a figure as you’ll find in Greek mythology. Her predictions, always spot-on, repeatedly go unheeded. This proves to be particularly bad news when she warns the good people of Troy that that mammoth wooden horse they’ve just admitted into the city gates is—wait for it!—no gift from the gods, but rather an elaborate trap.
Oh, Cassandra, the people of Troy groan at her warning. You’re such a bear. No matter what argument Cassandra has for the people, it doesn’t matter. If it comes from her mouth, it’s doomed to be dismissed. Tesla bears must feel some kinship with the brilliant but tragically flawed Cassandra. Tesla has become the most shorted stock in history. It’s also become the world’s most valuable car company.
Lotus eaters
In The Odyssey, Ulysses and his men are thrown off course by “foul winds.” After nine rough days at sea, they land on an island inhabited by a carefree bunch. They’re wholly unperturbed by the stresses of the modern world. The source of their bliss is the lotus leaf. For those who munch, munch, munch away, this fruit will magically wipe away any practical concerns—like, say, the seaworthiness of a wind-battered sea vessel or—stick with me for a moment here—a portfolio overweight in cruise ship stocks and bankrupt car-rental companies.
Nobody here at Bull Sheet is suggesting investors are indulging in powerful mind-erasing narcotics as they plow into iffy stocks. But investment pros must have been wondering what was up last month with Robinhood traders when they piled into Hertz shares even though executives were repeatedly warning that the company was probably worthless.
Calypso
With its endless flow of easy credit and its lender-of-last-resort beacon-like pledge, the Federal Reserve Bank is like a benevolent god. Where would this markets rally be without it? It’s as if the central bank chiefs don’t want to see us mortals get hurt by forces beyond our control.
Worried about bankruptcies? We’ve got a plan to rescue fallen angels. Concerned about credit markets? We have an unlimited balance sheet to spend, spend, spend.
Too bad there are no such goodly forces in Greek mythology. No, the gods all scheme to knock the mortals down a peg—a reminder to never mess with the gods.
The closest (upon my read) you can find to the Fed is Calypso, the fair nymph who detains Ulysses on her island idyll for seven years. An expert seamstress and songstress, Calypso promises Ulysses the world.
Stay with me, she coos, and I’ll give you immortality and a stress-free life. Just look at my island idyll! What more could you want? Of course, Ulysses doesn’t stick around. But he did get a restful seven-year vacation on her island paradise.
Pfft, you can hear the Fed hawks sniff. Seven years?! That’s nothing. We’ve given the markets a rock-bottom Fed Funds rate since 2008. And just look at our balance sheet! (See chart). Investors, stay with us. We’ll give your portfolios eternal life.
Ulysses
Our hero. He heads off to war, and eventually makes it back again. Along the way, he outfoxes forces more powerful than him. He’s seen it all over the years, but still manages to resist the sirens’ call—the equivalent to bitcoin rallies and Chinese equity bubbles.
If there’s a secret to his success it’s that he plays it (mostly) conservatively, navigating through trouble with clear eyes. Eventually, he gets back home in one piece to live the rest of his days with his beloved Penelope.
And the sun sets over the wine-dark seas… What could go wrong tomorrow?
Note: I’m sure I’ve overlooked an obvious hero or mischievous god somewhere in this humble write-up. Please email me with your feedback on my omissions, misinterpretations—or, just to share your general Homeric musings.
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow. … Before I go, a big thanks to Rey Mashayekhi who took the keys in my absence last week. Chapeau!
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
A note from my Fortune colleagues on a timely new initiative:
Many companies are speaking out against racial injustices right now. But how do they fare in their own workplaces? Black employees in the corporate world, we want to hear from you: Please submit your anonymous thoughts and anecdotes here. https://bit.ly/WorkingWhileBlack
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Today's read
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Market candy
Quote of the day
"You can't swing a purse without hitting the water here. People are tired of the four walls of their houses. It’s an awakening, the same thing that’s happening with RVs.”
That's Don Ditzel, vice president of Comstock Yacht Sales & Marina in Brick, N.J., on the boom in boat ownership in this year of the great pandemic. Fortune's Shawn Tully explores the phenomenon (from land, mostly).