fortune--2020-07-18--Nikki Haley and former Walmart U.S. president Bill Simon: Coronavirus makes the case for bringing ma

Nikki Haley and former Walmart U.S. president Bill Simon: Coronavirus makes the case for bringing manufacturing back to America

The Goya boycott isn ’ t an example of cancel culture—it ’ s the free market at work

As the former governor of South Carolina and as the former president of Walmart U.S., we know that trade is a fundamentally beneficial part of the American economy for both consumers and businesses. But the coronavirus pandemic has shown that not all trade is created equal.
The past few months have demonstrated just how dependent the U.S. is on foreign manufacturers for things we need in a crisis. Urgently needed goods from medical equipment to pharmaceuticals have faced shortages as overseas factories have shut down or stopped exporting. While American companies have rapidly shifted their supply chains to meet this unprecedented challenge, more production at home or from U.S.-friendly companies would be much better. Not only will this help our country come through this difficult time, it will protect the American people in future crises.
The two of us have proved that it’s possible to bring jobs and manufacturers to America.
Even before the current pandemic, many American companies sought to move production to the U.S. Walmart has long helped facilitate this through its Made in America program, a pledge to purchase an additional $250 billion in products that support American jobs through 2023. One way that Walmart has made good on this commitment is by connecting business owners looking to strengthen American manufacturing with states offering business-friendly environments.
We met through this initiative in 2011. One of us knew dozens of companies that wanted to make their products in the U.S. And the other knew her state was one of the best places in the country to do business, with a workforce second to none.
As governor, Nikki understood that time was money, so she set out to save job creators as much of both as possible. Her state cut regulations and created a low-tax, pro-worker environment. It invested heavily in infrastructure, from railroads to port facilities to pipelines. And South Carolina understood the importance of providing a skilled workforce to fill the jobs created—giving students at technical colleges the training they needed to hit the ground running.
These policies caused companies to give South Carolina a serious look. But it wasn’t just the policies they liked. For many, the decisive factor was the personal touch they felt.
Nikki’s office personally recruited companies, giving CEOs her cell phone number with the instruction to call anytime with questions or concerns. Companies coming to South Carolina knew they were a part of a team. From energy needs to permitting delays, if a business faced a challenge, state officials knew to do everything possible to fix it quickly—and if it couldn’t be fixed, to find another solution.
The combination of strong policies and a personal touch worked. Businesses flocked to South Carolina like never before.
One such company was Kent International, a third-generation bike manufacturer. Its production had been in China since 1987. In 2014, the company relocated its assembly to Manning, S.C., where it built a factory and announced the company would hire up to 200 workers to make bikes for Walmart. It was the first major bicycle production facility built in America in decades.
Another example was Giti Tire. In 2014, it agreed to build its first-ever U.S. factory in Chester County, S.C., along with a distribution center. All told, the company announced it would bring 1,700 new jobs and $560 million in investment to the state. The news broke on the largest day of jobs announcements in Palmetto State history.
These examples show what’s possible. America can renew its manufacturing, regardless of industry. Defense contractors, electronics makers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers can all thrive by making products on American soil using American workers.
State leaders should be on the front lines of this effort. While Washington has a role to play by enacting sensible policies at the national level, America is at her best when our states and their people shine. Every state is different, and so is every business, which means states should compete to be the best fit for specific firms. The more involved Washington gets, the more it risks becoming an exercise in counterproductive top-down control, rather than bottom-up innovation.
The opportunity is already here. In the past few months, both of us have heard from businesses that want to set up shop in America—some after a long time away, some for the first time. Making that happen is especially important as our country works to come out of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s time to ensure that our nation has the things our people depend on in times of trial.
This should be a top priority. It’s a matter of ensuring that our country can rise to any occasion, overcome any challenge, and persevere through every crisis. Made in America is more than a slogan—it’s a statement of American strength.
Nikki Haley is the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2017–2019) and former governor of South Carolina (2011–2017). Bill Simon is the former president and CEO of Walmart U.S. (2010–2014).


fortune--2020-07-18--Marcus’s Adam Dell says Goldman Sachs’s consumer strategy is paying dividends during pandemic

For Adam Dell, Marcus—Goldman Sachs’s consumer banking platform—is better equipped than most to deal with the banking industry’s new, post-COVID-19 normal.
“There’s been a profound acceleration in the adoption of digital [banking] tools by consumers,” Dell, head of digital product management at Marcus, told Fortune on Wednesday in the wake of Goldman Sachs’s impressive second-quarter earnings report. “There’s a large segment of the population that has shifted from, ‘I want to go into a branch to be able to see my money,’ to, ‘Wait a minute—I think it’s better if I do this in a digital fashion.’”
That’s exactly the shift that Marcus is looking to address, given its branchless, online-only approach to consumer banking. Since launching nearly four years ago as investment banking giant Goldman’s foray into the consumer market, Marcus has grown its footprint with an array of product rollouts and acquisitions. Those include products like no-fee personal loans, savings accounts with comparatively high yields, as well as its 2018 purchase of personal finance startup Clarity Money—which Dell (the brother of Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell) founded and where he served as CEO before moving to Marcus as part of the acquisition.
So far, the approach appears to be reaping dividends. Goldman reported earnings on Wednesday that far exceeded expectations, despite a terrible second quarter at large for a U.S. economy that’s been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. While Goldman’s continued reliance on investment banking and securities trading activities undoubtedly gave it a lift, there was good news on the consumer front as well; revenues in its consumer and wealth management division were up 9% year over year, to $1.36 billion, while consumer banking revenues alone were up 19%.
Marcus has now raised $92 billion in deposits to date, according to Goldman, with $32 billion of that raised in the first half of 2020 and $20 billion raised in the second quarter alone. For Dell, that reflects the bank’s commitment to “a world where consumers can do anything they want, vis-à-vis their money, on their mobile device”—particularly at a time when the pandemic has prompted many to question the viability of traditional, brick-and-mortar means of commerce.
“[Marcus] is well positioned because we don’t have a branch network to support,” he notes. “We think there’s 100 basis points (1%) of cost per individual customer tied up in branch networks, and we can eliminate that cost by delivering our service to consumers in a digital fashion…Consumers now recognize that they can deposit a check, pay a bill, manage their finances with their phone.”
Of course, Marcus is not immune from the macroeconomic headwinds now impacting the banking sector and the economy at large. Like many of its competitors, Goldman has slashed the interest rate on its “high yield” savings account to factor for a lower-rate environment—cutting it down from more than 2% last summer to just over 1% today.
But Dell says that hasn’t stopped customers from flocking to savings products in the wake of the pandemic, as difficult economic conditions have prompted many to “appreciate the importance of having savings for situations like this.”
“I think the most relevant metric is our savings rate relative to the other options that consumers have across the market,” says Dell. “What you’ll find is that we’re still quite high relative to our competitors. It’s our aspiration to be among the top high-interest-rate account providers to the market.”


fortune--2020-07-18--1 in 3 Amazon Prime members are likely to subscribe to Walmart+

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Walmart is reportedly planning to debut a $98 annual subscription service called Walmart+ that includes unlimited same-day delivery and discounts at its gas stations. Walmart+ would be a direct competitor to Amazon Prime. And it would cost $21 less per year than Prime.
The Bentonville, Arkansas retailer has spent years and billions on investments in e-commerce in an attempt to leverage its more than 4,700 U.S. stores to challenge Amazon. Walmart+ heats up the showdown between the No. 1 ranked Fortune 500 company (Walmart) and the No. 2 ranked company (Amazon).
Will Americans pay for the new Walmart service? To find out, Fortune and SurveyMonkey polled 2,717 U.S. adults between July 13 and 14.*
The data points to Walmart+ having a strong launch. Among U.S. adults, 27% say they’re likely to subscribe to Walmart’s $98 annual subscription service. That could mean tens of millions of signups.
And Amazon Prime could lose droves of members to Walmart+. Amazon Prime members (31%) are more likely than all U.S. adults (27%) to say they’ll sign up for Walmart+. What’s more, 40% of Prime members who earn under $50,000 say they’d likely sign-up for Walmart+. The jury is still out if they’d subscribe to both services at once. If they switch over, that’d be a massive blow to Prime’s membership base of 150 million.
Americans who shop in store at Walmart are the most likely to say they’ll sign up for Walmart+. The more often they shop in person, the more likely they’ll go online: Among weekly in-store Walmart shoppers, 43% are likely to get Walmart+, compared to 32% of monthly shoppers. (That does beg the question: As Walmart+ grows, would it undercut the company’s in-store sales and traffic?)
As for current online shoppers, 41% of U.S. adults who purchased goods or service from Walmart.com since the onset of the pandemic say they’re likely to subscribe to Walmart+.
This all suggests Walmart+ could quickly build a massive membership base based on existing fans—and maintain that all-important recurring revenue stream.
Amazon Prime members skew towards higher income households, according to this Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll. That makes sense for a company that has strategically worked to cultivate affluent Americans in its base. After all, it purchased Whole Foods.
This might have created an opening for Walmart+ to seize customers on the other end of the spectrum. 33% of U.S. adults earning under $50,000 are likely to sign-up for Walmart+, compared to 23% of $100,000 and above earners.
*Methodology: The Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll was conducted among a national sample of 2,717 adults in the U.S. between July 13-14. This survey’s modeled error estimate is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The findings have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography.


fortune--2020-07-18--With food tourism in crisis, virtual pasta and paella courses take off

For Traveling Spoon, the coronavirus pandemic was a body blow to a business that organizes bespoke meals and cooking lessons for intrepid travelers at the homes of local hosts.
Steph Lawrence, who launched the company in 2013, watched her business dry up virtually overnight. At the time, Traveling Spoon was close to break-even and preparing to hit up venture capitalists for a new round of financing. As the pandemic intensified, revenue fell by more than 95%, the funding round was postponed, and some of their local hosts were struggling to survive.
Lawrence and cofounder Aashi Vel rushed to save the business. First, they set up a a series of grants partly funded by previous customers to help sustain 19 of their most vulnerable hosts. About 80% are women, many of whom are heads of households relying on Traveling Spoon to make ends meet.
Then in April, they went virtual, tapping a network of hosts in 67 countries to offer online cooking classes. The initial six lessons quickly ballooned to 131, and with prices starting at $25, they are seen as a bargain. Some people are turning to Traveling Spoon in lieu of canceled holidays, while it’s also popular with travel enthusiasts who for health or financial reasons can’t move around as freely as they used to, she says.
The online shift hasn’t compensated for the revenue hit caused by the pandemic, but the classes are keeping the company alive and offer a new revenue stream that could add appeal when the business does seek fresh funding, Lawrence says.
Online Cooking
“The quality of the experience is so incredible, but where we often get pushback is that international travel is a low-frequency event,” Lawrence says. “Being able to layer in online cooking classes addresses that repeatability issue.”
Looking at the offerings, you sense the site’s Asian roots. Vel hails from Chennai, India, and Lawrence spent time living in China, learning Mandarin and seeking out local food experiences. So, if you fancy making Thai green curry you can connect with Pea, who lives with her son in a traditional teak house in Chiang Mai, or you can choose from an array of Indian classes, ranging from butter chicken to Goan seafood stew.
I started a little closer to home. I first connected with Juan in Spain’s Almeria to improve my paella. Juan, a retired civil servant, is from Valencia, the coastal city that gave the world the famed rice dish. When I looked at the ingredients, I realized this was the real deal, not some paella for tourists or a Jamie Oliver take that risked causing an international incident.
One problem—I was pretty sure my local Tesco Plc grocery store in London wasn’t going to carry chopped rabbit. After a few emails, we switched to a mixed paella of chicken, shrimp and squid. Paella may seem like a straightforward dish; after all, it’s prepared in a single pan with no tricky sauces. But I had made paella many times, and while it was always a crowd pleaser, I often felt I wasn’t nailing it and getting the rice “en su punto” — just right.
Juan showed me some great tricks like only heating the center of the pan when cooking the meat and seafood, creating a ring of salt outside the area to prevent burning and add flavor. More importantly, he offered tips on how to adjust the water levels as it was absorbed. It was definitely among the best paellas I’ve managed and I dared to serve it to a Spaniard, who gave it a thumbs up.
Mediterranean Adventure
I then moved across the Mediterranean to Sicily where I connected with Fabio and Annarella for fresh ravioli stuffed with ricotta. Traveling Spoon menus can be adjusted to taste, but I soon learned that authenticity trumps customer preference. My request to change the dessert from fried ravioli to panna cotta, a personal favorite, was turned down because it was a northern dish and not typical to Sicily. I’m glad Fabio stuck to his guns as the crispy ravioli oozing with creamy ricotta and melted chocolate was a big hit.
Fabio and Annarella walked me through kneading the eggless pasta and rolling out sheets. I then made a line of small piles of ricotta stuffing, before folding over the pasta and squeezing out air pockets to avoid the raviolis bursting in the boiling water. The stuffed pasta was topped with a local tomato sauce seasoned with fennel seeds and made thick with carrots and potatoes. Unusual and delicious.
Between courses, Fabio and Annarella gave me a mini tour of Zisolhouse, their organic farm where they produce almonds, oranges and olive oil.
After months of lockdown in London, both classes offered me a taste of better times, and while it would have been nice to down a glass of Rioja with Juan or sample Fabio and Annarella’s organic oil, I was at least able to serve up a piece of their world with friends and family and feel hopeful about trips to come some day.


fortune--2020-07-19--How to see the Neowise comet this month

How to see the Neowise comet this month

How Fitbit and other wearables can help detect the spread of COVID-19

A space-born visitor, the Neowise comet, is dazzling skygazers this month.
The brightest comet to grace our skies in nearly a quarter century is visible in the Northern Hemisphere through mid-August. The celestial guest will make its closest approach to Earth on July 23 at a distance of 64 million miles—about equal to Mercury’s average distance from Earth.
People can view the comet, officially, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)—with the naked eye in the northwest skies. The comet will appear all night under the Big Dipper constellation.
Each evening the comet climbs higher in the sky until eventually it fades from view. The space-rock is expected to return again in 6,800 years.
In addition to its nighttime show, Neowise is temporarily visible for early risers in the morning too. Look to the northeast about an hour before sunrise for the telltale trailing tail, which will slip beneath the horizon and out of view in the coming days.
Visit NASA.gov for additional observational details, or Sky & Telescope magazine. People can also enter their locations into a helpful online app developed by a NASA volunteer to determine the best viewing opportunities.
Comet Neowise on July 5, shortly after its closest approach to the sun. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab/Parker Solar Probe/Brendan Gallagher
What do we know about the Neowise comet?
Neowise is a hurtling, dusty ball of ice that’s as old as the solar system at 4.6 billion-years old.
The 3-mile-long space icicle is believed to have originated in a region of outer space called the Oort Cloud. The cloud is a graveyard of frozen rocky fragments leftover from the formation of the planets, and it exists far past the orbits of Neptune and Pluto.
Despite its age, scientists discovered Neowise only very recently. NASA astronomers detected the snowball on March 27 using a space telescope, also called NEOWISE, the comet’s namesake. (The name stands for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.)
Comet Neowise from NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, in June.
NASA uses NEOWISE, the telescope, to hunt for celestial objects that could endanger Earth. One such missile—the Chicxulub impactor, named for its collision site in present-day Mexico—is believed to have annihilated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
“We want to spot objects like Comet Neowise well before they can make any close approaches,” Amy Mainzer, principal investigator for the NEOWISE project and professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona, said in an email to Fortune. She notes that this one is “very large, about as big as the object that wiped out the dinosaurs,” but that it fortunately “poses no hazard.”
By studying comets like Neowise, scientists hope to learn more about the solar system’s origins—and avoid potential extinction “We need to know what comets and asteroids are made of and how crumbly they are—or solid—if we ever have to push one out of the way,” Mainzer says.
What does the comet look like?
To the naked eye, Neowise will appear as a fuzzy star streaking across the sky.
The comet will be about as bright as the stars appearing close by in the Big Dipper, a constellation also known as Ursa Major, or the Great Bear. While not required, a pair of binoculars or a telescope will enhance the view.
Even astronomers look on in awe. “As a byproduct of these searches, we get to see something really beautiful that reminds us of our connection to the larger universe.,” Mainzer says.
Neowise, like most comets, has two tails that extend for millions of miles. The first, made of dusty debris, shines golden as it reflects sunlight. The second tail, made of electrically charged gas particles blasted by solar radiation, glows faintly blue toward the left.
The last time a comet blazed this intensely from our earthly vantage point was during the Hale-Bopp Comet’s visitation in the mid-’90s.
Infamously, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed ritual suicide in a San Diego suburb during the astronomical event. They believed doing so would enable them to hitch a ride on an accompanying extraterrestrial spacecraft.
The Neowise comet is seen above the “Seven Magic Mountains” art installation by artist Ugo Rondinone, in Jean, Nev., south of Las Vegas. David Becker—AFP via Getty Images
Photos of the Neowise comet
Neowise made its closest approach to the sun on July 3. The comet is now swinging back out into space, propelled by our star’s gravitational slingshot.
Unlike Neowise, most comets present no spectacular show. Comet ATLAS and Comet SWAN, also discovered earlier this year, fizzled out during their cosmic circuits.
The most famous comet, Halley’s, is an anomaly. It is the only known, reliably visible comet with a short enough period to be witnessed in the span of a lifetime. (Mark your calendar for the next appearance: July 28, 2061.)
More commonly, comets are unpredictable and capricious; there’s no knowing exactly when the next one will gleam. So photographers and astronomers of all stripes are jumping at the opportunity to capture the beauty of Neowise’s sojourn.
Here is a sampling of our favorites.
Neowise as seen on July 6 above the northeast horizon just before sunrise in Tucson. Vishnu Reddy—NASA
On July 9, astronaut Robert Behnken captured an image of Neowise comet from the International Space Station. NASA
Neowise shining at sunset from Molfetta, Italy on July 11. Davide Pischettola—NurPhoto/ Getty Images
Neowise passes St Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay, U.K. in the early hours of July 14. Owen Humphreys—PA Images via Getty Images)


fortune--2020-07-19--How Fitbit and other wearables can help detect the spread of COVID-19

What we ’ ll lose if the pandemic puts an end to the sharing of food

Dr. Eric Topol has an plan for an early warning system that detects small COVID-19 outbreaks before they spread out of control.
Instead of requiring people to take frequent coronavirus tests, which have proven costly and slow in being processed, the Scripps Research professor’s system works by relying on anonymized data collected from thousands of volunteers who wear smartwatches and fitness trackers. During a trial that started in March, the system has been able to provide an early warning of small regional outbreaks by looking for a telltale symptom of infection that’s easy to spot in the health data collected by wearables: a rise in resting heart rates.
“There’s no way to get real surveillance with just testing,” Topol says. “We can’t do it frequently enough on a mass scale. But this you can do on that scale and you’re going to get a continuous signal.”
The entire wearables industry has mobilized to help combat the spread of COVID-19, as scientists have found that even simple data collected by the devices such as heart rates, amount of sleep, and number of steps per day can be used to help predict disease outbreaks. Then health authorities can home in on the hotspots early to limit the spread of the disease.
Fitbit, Apple, Garmin and others have donated devices to further some early studies and have helped spread the word by encouraging their customers to participate. Some research is also looking at whether apps could be designed to give warnings to individual users, suggesting that they should quarantine and get tested as soon as possible.
There’s still one major problem for Topol’s project, called the Digital Engagement & Tracking for Early Control & Treatment, or DETECT, study. With only about 40,000 participants, it’s too small to provide strong warning signals nationwide. “To do it well, we need pretty dense coverage,” Topol says, like hundreds of thousands to millions of participants.
Fitbit and pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens have helped spread the word, but it hasn’t been nearly enough yet. Anyone who is interested can sign up at the web site that Scripps set up.
In Germany, the national health research agency, the Robert Koch Institute, backed a similar effort and quickly signed up more than half a million volunteers. Combined with other measures, like contact tracing teams, the wearables data helped Germany get the epidemic under control. The country is seeing only about 500 new cases daily, down from a peak of almost 7,000 daily in March.
“We don’t have anything like that coordinated national effort here,” Topol says. “We don’t have national support.”
At Fitbit, the hope is also to develop a warning for individual users in addition to contributing to regional warning systems like DETECT. Researchers are looking for a confluence of symptoms indicating an early sign of infection.
“How can we help say that someone should go get testing and when they should go get testing,” Fitbit co-founder and chief technology officer Eric Friedman asks. “We thought some of the disease detection work that we were already working on could be useful.”
So the company added a COVID-19 tracking study right in its own app. So far 100,000 people have agreed to participate including 900 who have tested positive for the disease. That has allowed researchers to review the Fitbit data from before the positive tests to look for warning signs and the early analysis is promising.
“We are hoping to have something available to people at some point,” Friedman says without getting more specific. The company isn’t ready to announce any kind of COVID-19 warning feature yet, he says.
Apple, the maker of the Apple Watch, declined to comment.
Garmin said it is participating in many studies related to COVID-19 detection but doesn’t have a feature to alert individual users. Still, Garmin users could monitor trends in their own health data to look for warning signs, says Scott Burgett, director of Garmin health engineering.
“The more you know about your body and what your ‘baseline’ is, the more you’re able to tell if something is off,” he says. “Because Garmin lets you see your health stats over time, it is easy to track trends and notice deviations.”
A study at the University of California San Francisco is monitoring volunteers who wear an Oura Ring, a $300 smart ring worn on a finger that collects data including pulse rate, temperature, and movement. UCSF Prof. Ashley Mason, who is working on the study, said it was too soon to draw any conclusions, however. “We can’t comment on implications in the absence of rigorously collected and reviewed data,” she says.
One potential problem with the wearables-based COVID-19 warning systems, which has plagued other tech-related health initiatives, is the uneven distribution of the devices. If people in low-income neighborhoods are less likely to own smartwatches or sign up to participate in the warning projects, for example, they won’t get the benefit of the early warnings.
For Duke University’s COVID-19 wearables study, called CovIdentify, the researchers are trying to address the problem of unequal access by seeking donations from companies like Apple and Garmin and distributing free devices.
“We are absolutely concerned,” says Dr. Jessilyn Dunn, who is leading the university’s efforts. “We are seeking additional funding and/or partnerships with wearables companies to better include underserved communities so that the technology is developed equitably.”


fortune--2020-07-19--Meet the new dating app for parents and people who want kids

It’s an interesting time to launch a new dating app. But Chas McFeely, Diko Daghlian and Rene Van De Zande, the three founders of newly formed Heybaby, think they’re on to something particularly suited for these strange and turbulent times: Their dating app, announced earlier this week, is made for singles who have kids, or who want to have kids. (Yes, all three founders are dads; and no, none of them are single.)
Fortune recently sat down with the entrepreneurs to find out why they are launching their app now, how three male founders plan to get female input on their new product, and which other startup names they considered before settling on “Heybaby.” The following is a condensed and edited version of our conversation.
Fortune: How did this all start?
Chas McFeely: When I turned 40, I, like a lot of people, was feeling a shift in myself as I was looking for something else. I had this realization that setups were the best thing, and I created this wacky site called HookChasUp.com. [The site offered $10,000 to the person who introduced Chas to his future wife—and didn’t work.] Years later, after the dust had settled, Diko and I were talking about dating apps. We knew each other from the advertising world, and had always wanted to do something together. No one was going after people who want kids and want to start families
Rene Van De Zande: I knew both Chas and Diko, and they started wining and dining me. I liked the idea—we’re all dads. And I thought this had great potential internationally. Initially, I was only an investor.
Why launch the app now, during a pandemic?
McFeely: People are isolated and craving connection right now. A lot of people are dating, getting on video dates and Zoom calls.
Diko Daghlian: At the same time, people are getting burned out on casual dating. People have almost become disposal, always thinking someone better might be out there. Timing-wise we’re hitting at the right time, when people are thinking more what matters. Being at home more has brought the family topic up front.
Van De Zande: And we are convinced that this product will do very well in different countries. The challenge that we find here is very universal, you see it in Europe and the Middle East and particularly in Asia.
How are you making sure you’re getting enough female input–you’re three male founders launching this?
McFeely: We’re very aware of that and we definitely need that diverse perspective.
Daghlian: We’re hiring a lot of women and a lot of our advisors are women. We realize we’ve got the dad and man perspective. We need it to be super broad: gay, straight, male, female, white, brown, Black.”
I have to ask: What other names did you consider for the company?
McFeely: “MotherFather” was a good one.
Daghlian: We came up with a few hundred names. “I Can Has Family” was also a good one. But with Heybaby, we took something with a negative connotation and turned it positive.


fortune--2020-07-19--What we’ll lose if the pandemic puts an end to the sharing of food

My 2-year-old has a hard time sharing. Open a bag of Goldfish crackers, and good luck getting one or two for yourself. Lucky for him, now that he spends most of his time within the confines of our home, he no longer has to do nearly as much sharing as before.
When my son’s Bay Area daycare shut down in mid-March, so did many of the opportunities for him to learn—and grapple with—the art and discipline of accepting that we don’t get everything to ourselves all the time. It’s an important lesson for toddlers. But lately, I’ve been thinking about how the pandemic, and all of the new restrictions the crisis has introduced into our daily life, has cut down on opportunities for us adults to learn to share as well. Case in point: Food, once the most communal of all necessities, is no longer a public good—in either the personal or the professional realm.
“Gone are the days of that big, glass jar of gummy bears in the office,” says Diane Swint, head of marketplace for ezCater, an online corporate catering service. The Boston-based company, which initially took a hit from the shuttering of offices in many states, is now trying to pivot its business. Last month, ezCater launched Relish, a service that allows companies to keep feeding employees both on site and remotely by offering individually-wrapped food distributed via contactless delivery. It’s a smart move for the catering company, but also indicative of the necessary and consequential shift away from more communal, family-style meals and buffets, once common in many corporate cafeterias and lunch rooms.
To be sure, the pandemic isn’t only impacting the eating habits of office workers. Dinner parties with friends have also taken a hit, at least in many parts of the country. So have wine tastings or sitting at a bar, shoulder to shoulder with other people.
Food isn’t the only thing we share, but eating is a particularly good example of a shared activity because it’s necessary, and because we engage in it throughout our lives—unlike playing with blocks, perhaps. It’s also, inherently, one of the most social activities we partake in, from childhood to old age, in personal and professional settings. (My grandparents, whom I spent lots of time with as a child, once told me I couldn’t have a friend over because there was “no meat in the house.” I tried to explain that my 8-year-old friend wasn’t coming for the kebabs, but it didn’t go over well.)
Just how much does sharing food impact and inform us, in addition to nourishing our bodies? A study conducted by researchers Kaitlin Wooley and Ayelet Fishbach, published in the journal Psychological Science, looked at whether eating food from a shared plate, compared with eating food from individual plates, can increase cooperation between two individuals. Not surprisingly, the results of the study showed that “shared consumption increases cooperation among strangers.”
Sharing food is like glue for societies. And yet, here we are, in a world where individually packaged food is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Even when the pandemic is behind us, individuals and organizations will be left with new habits. To be sure, these new practices are rightfully instituted and enforced to protect and keep us safe from harm, but some will not only change the way we eat, but profoundly alter the way we interact.
“Snacks that you have to stick your hands in to get is not gonna happen,” Robby Kwok, senior vice president of people at collaboration service Slack, told me in a recent interview. Doing away with in-office snack bowls might not sound earth-shattering (and frankly, it’s probably something that should have been nixed a long time ago). But what about the missed opportunity to sit next to strangers at communal tables in restaurants? Or the inability to sample your friend’s food—another no-no now that we’re all hyper-aware of hygiene.
To be sure, food isn’t the only commodity with sharing potential. Another study, conducted by researchers Zoe Liberman and Alex Shaw, examined the impact that sharing secrets has on children. As it turns out, kids infer a lot from the sharing of secrets, primarily that passing secrets from one individual to another is an even stronger indicator of close ties than the sharing of a physical resource—like a cookie. (Yes, cookies were part of the study.)
“If you see people eating the same food from the same bowl, you make inferences around their relationships,” says Liberman, co-author of the study and an assistant professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. “But we also learn a lot from sharing non-physical things like time and secrets.”
Unfortunately, time and secrets aren’t something I have a lot of. But the point is, there are non-touchable things that can teach us about sharing. There is a reason why Zoom, the videoconferencing service, is booming. Same goes for Twitch, the Amazon-owned streaming platform for gamers. We all feel the need to connect—to share—even when breaking bread together isn’t an option.
“Humans are incredibly socially motivated,” says UC Santa Barbara’s Liberman.
Human beings are also incredibly innovative. According to this recent article from Fast Company, Dixie cups were the “breakout startup” of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Believe it or not, before that outbreak, communal metal cups were common, and shared by hundreds of people. Gross, right? Then again, so are in-office, glass jars of gummy bears.


fortune--2020-07-19--United Farm Workers president: Why we’re striking for Black lives

By joining the Strike for Black Lives on July 20, the United Farm Workers (UFW) proudly upholds a legacy of solidarity with other oppressed people going back five decades.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram to Cesar Chavez in 1966, early in the five-year-long Delano grape strike. “Our separate struggles are really one—a struggle for freedom, for dignity, and for humanity,” King stated. “We are together with you in spirit and in determination that our dreams for a better tomorrow will be realized.”
Chavez carefully followed King’s career beginning with the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott. Two key UFW strategies were borrowed from King: nonviolence, which both King and Chavez learned from Mahatma Gandhi, and the boycott, which had never before been applied in a major American labor-management dispute. The union boycotted California grapes. We learned righteous protests like boycotting that rely on genuine solidarity among divergent groups of people can move powerful forces, either corporate or governmental.
Moreover, Chavez and other early UFW organizers embraced a transformational vision of trade unionism that transcended focusing solely on economic improvements—better wages, hours, and working conditions—for union members. They were convinced the UFW also had to address the crippling dilemmas farm workers faced in their communities such as substandard housing, lack of educational opportunities, and discrimination based on ethnicity and language. They likewise believed the union had to work closely with other communities struggling for change against the slow violence of oppression and poverty.
So during the late 1960s, Chavez and the union strongly opposed the Vietnam War, despite support for the war by many national labor leaders who backed the UFW. As early as the mid-1970s, Chavez unequivocally endorsed gay rights, long before it was popular. He attended events with Harvey Milk. How could you demand equality for your own people when you tolerate prejudice against anyone else because of who they are, he reasoned.
Chavez led the UFW in working with disparate groups from the Black Panther Party in Oakland to Neighbor to Neighbor’s international boycott of Salvadoran coffee that helped end the death squads in El Salvador.
The UFW will continue that tradition on July 20 by participating in the Strike for Black Lives along with labor and racial justice organizations such as the Poor People’s Campaign, Fight for $15, and the Movement for Black Lives.
Most farm workers, living and laboring in remote rural regions, have difficulty engaging in mass urban protests. But the movement in which we now take part stretches beyond city streets to the fields, orchards, and vineyards that feed this country. Standing in solidarity with fast food and other workers in Los Angeles and across the nation, the UFW will host a number of worker-led actions on July 20, communicating the simple message that none of us are free until all of us are free.
Farm workers at companies under union contracts in California and Washington state will strike in solidarity for eight minutes and 46 seconds—how long George Floyd lay under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee—to affirm the truth that Black lives matter. Seattle labor activists will car caravan to the state’s Yakima Valley to witness how workers laboring at different jobs can share in common cause.
Campesina and the Forge are Spanish- and English-language radio networks, respectively, owned and operated by the Cesar Chavez Foundation, a sister organization with the UFW in the farm worker movement. They have aired extensive programming since early June for their 1.5 million listeners and followers over 11 stations in four states educating Latino audiences about Black Lives Matter, the Black experience, and nonviolent calls to action. They cover topics ranging from the history of slavery to modern-day racism and police brutality.
King sent a second telegram to Chavez while Chavez fasted over 25 days for nonviolence in 1968. “The plight of your people and ours is so grave that we all desperately need the inspiring example and effective leadership you have given,” it read. King was assassinated the following month. Chavez later wrote that King’s life and death “gives us the best possible opportunity to recall the principles with which our struggle has grown and matured.”
The successors of Cesar Chavez will carry on that struggle by striking for Black lives on July 20.
Teresa Romero is president of the United Farm Workers of America. She is the first Latina immigrant to lead a national union in the U.S.


fortune--2020-07-19--Howard Hughes CEO Paul Layne on why suburban real estate will thrive in a post-COVID world

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When it comes to forecasting trends in one’s business, The Howard Hughes Corporation is practicing what it preaches.
Last year, the publicly-traded real estate development firm announced that it would move its headquarters from Dallas to The Woodlands, Texas—the master-planned community of more than 100,000 residents, located in the suburbs of Houston, which Howard Hughes itself owns and operates.
While the company holds a diverse portfolio of residential and commercial real estate in both urban and suburban areas across the U.S., it is sprawling master-planned communities like The Woodlands that have fared the best during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Bridgeland, Texas—another of Howard Hughes’ communities, also located on the outskirts of Houston—set an all-time monthly sales record in May with 111 new home sales, according to the company.
When Elon Musk floated moving Tesla’s headquarters from Silicon Valley to Texas or Nevada earlier this year, none other than Bill Ackman—the high-profile hedge funder who serves as chairman of the Howard Hughes board—publicly pitched Musk on the company’s “master planned cities” as a potential option.
These days, there are question marks over the future of living and working in high-density urban areas, and signs that a gradually aging millennial population is setting its sights on a more suburban lifestyle. And while Howard Hughes does own prime commercial real estate in urban cores—such as the Seaport District in Lower Manhattan, and the under-construction Bank of America Tower in Chicago’s Loop—CEO Paul Layne believes his company is primed to capitalize on these emerging trends.
“After America has been quarantined and sheltered in place for three or four months, people are starting to realize that they want to have a bigger house, or a house with a backyard,” Layne told Fortune. “They see the parks, the lakes, the amenities, the fantastic school districts, and 3% interest rates [on mortgages], and they realize they can have that quality.”
Speaking from his home in the Houston area earlier this month, Layne discussed the appeal of master-planned communities in the time of COVID-19, whether he’s nervous about developing a downtown Chicago office tower in the middle of a pandemic, and why he’s optimistic about the future of retail.
After years in which the prevailing trend saw young professionals flocking to live and work in urban areas, what do you think is driving some to migrate to a less dense, more suburban lifestyle? How much of that shift has been driven by COVID-19, and how much is a more natural demographic evolution?
There has been a shift. I think that as millennials age, get married, and have children, they start thinking about schools, open spaces, parks, amenities—and master-planned communities are suited to all of that.
I think that shift absolutely was already happening. But then you have a three-to-four month quarantine period in which people are cramped in their homes, and maybe they see the blemishes in their home or apartment. And they realize that with low interest rates, if they’re secure in their jobs, perhaps they can do better.
I heard a story recently about a couple living in a high-density urban center in the northeastern U.S. that decided they did not want to take public transportation anymore and wanted a change in lifestyle. So they Googled the best communities with open spaces in which to live, and they picked The Woodlands—28% of our 28,000 acres is open [green] spaces. They ended up renting one of our apartments, and are now looking for a home to buy.
I think the pandemic has given people that push to make a change and think differently about how they’re living, and go to quality.
How has COVID-19 changed the way you’re approaching the development of certain projects, or how you’re operating certain properties?
First and foremost, the safety and security of our tenants, residents, customers, employees, and vendors is the most important thing. We’ve set up a “Welcome Back Task Force,” to welcome back our office and retail tenants and make sure that when they do choose to come back, that we’re going to do it in the safest way possible.
There are questions about what development will look like in a post-COVID world. Can it be frictionless? How will air filtration systems work? This applies for multifamily [residences], suburban offices, condos in Hawaii, retail. It applies to the 55-story Bank of America Tower that we’re opening in Chicago, which is now 80% leased during the pandemic. Things could shift and change from an architectural and technology standpoint.
We’re being patient, but we are positioning ourselves for the future also. We’re finishing, over the next three-to-four months, architectural drawings for three different new multifamily projects in three different master-planned communities, and we’re also working actively on the design and architecture for Victoria Place, our next high-rise condo in Hawaii. We are not starting any new projects yet, and I don’t know that we will start any this year; we take a very long-term view. But we will evaluate every possible best practice post-COVID.
You’re developing a massive new office tower in the heart of Chicago’s central business district. Are you concerned about the future of such properties, given our new work-from-home paradigm and the flight away from an urban lifestyle that you’ve described?
That site [110 North Wacker Drive, also known as the Bank of America Tower] was accepted as the best office site in Chicago when we started the project. The leasing velocity has been amazing; to open it 80% leased, if we do no other leasing between now and [its expected opening date in] October, would be phenomenal.
You’re correct that it is a very vertical project. I think companies will take steps to socially distance their employees inside their spaces. The office density you’ve seen in some urban markets with the most expensive office space—the benching, with long narrow tables where you’re elbow-to-elbow with colleagues—I believe companies will be shifting away from that, at least until there’s a [COVID-19] vaccine.
But I do think that lower-density suburban offices will also be popular for some companies. In December, we did the largest transaction in the history of our company, buying The Woodlands Towers from Occidental Petroleum [for $565 million] and moving our headquarters there. As part of that transaction, we also bought Occidental’s West Houston office campus: 63 acres of low-density office space, interwoven with lakes, green space, and amenities. We’ve put that campus up for sale, but for the right company looking for a lower-density campus, I think it would be a phenomenal solution.
What’s your outlook for the retail sector moving forward? Large swaths of the retail market had been struggling for years even before the pandemic, and things appear to have only gotten worse.
We have more than 700 retailers throughout our portfolio, from Hawaii to Manhattan, and at one point almost all of them were shut down. We worked with each of our retail tenants individually through this; we want to come out of this with great relationships with our tenants. Many of them were able to take advantage of the government’s Paycheck Protection Program, but it’s been challenging.
Being that most of our retail is typically inside of master-planned communities where people live, those people want retail to be part of a walkable experience—someplace where they can get out and gather as a community. Will retail change? Yes, and we’re engaged with our leasing teams around the country to understand what retailers are thinking and how they’re changing.
A lot of our retail is what we call “service retail,” servicing the everyday needs of the tenants that live in our communities. And that I don’t see being affected as much: grocery stores, hair salons, nail salons, dentists, doctors, exercise studios, restaurants. If you’re going to buy a pair of running shoes, most people I know want to try them on first. We try to find out what people want, and fill those needs—the services that attract and retain homebuyers, the people that rent our apartments and stay in our hotels.
While some segments of your business have done well, like many companies, Howard Hughes’ overall revenues and earnings took a hit in the first quarter as the U.S. economy felt the impact of the pandemic. How would you evaluate the company’s performance during this difficult time, and what’s your outlook for the future?
I’ve been CEO for about eight months now, and we had our best-ever quarter in the history of our company in the fourth quarter of 2019. And January, February, and the first week or two of March were on pace to beat that—and then the rug was pulled out from under us, and I had to make a lot of tough decisions quickly.
We shut down three hotels, we shut down the Seaport [in Manhattan], we went through dramatic temporary layoffs of our employees. We’re hoping that the business will progress and we’ll be able to get them back to work. A lot of decisions were tough to make and we made them, because we wanted to make the best decisions possible for our shareholders.
We’re excited about what’s happening. What we’re seeing is what America wants: the flight to quality in our master-planned communities. Coming out of quarantine, it’s very exciting. We will be positioned for growth when the time is right. We’ll be prudent and thoughtful about kicking off our next several projects, but we will be ready.


fortune--2020-07-19--How one toy store owner  used his PPP loan to pivot online—and saw sales soar

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It was in mid-March when the orders came to shut down stores.
For business owners like Brad Ruoho, who owns Minnesota-based toy store Legacy Toys, the pandemic was especially brutal. He founded the now-seven store company in 2012 in the Northwoods of Minnesota with a key focus: It’s “very interactive, hands-on, lots of stuff for the kids to do,” he tells Fortune. In fact, “In our first store, we had a full tree we built in the middle of the store and we built a saltwater aquarium.” Interactive installments like those feature prominently in Ruoho’s 7,500 square-foot store in the Mall of America—a way to entice kids to have “more hands on play, interactive play, rather than just all video games,” he says.
A shopper exits the Legacy Toys store at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Photo by Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images KEREM YUCEL—AFP/Getty Images
Three new locations had been open for less than a year when the order came to shut down. Ruoho’s employee count dropped from around 80 to only four across seven stores as he furloughed most of the staff. Ruoho says he had to quickly pivot his business and accelerate plans (which were already in motion before the pandemic) to build an online store immediately.
“Fortunately we were able to launch the new website quickly and it just instantly turned into thousands and thousands of sales happening all the time. Then we were pivoting to figure out, how do we ship all of this stuff? How do we package all this up? We quickly adapted and tried to make it work,” he says. In addition to fast-tracking plans to launch a website, Legacy Toys (like many retail stores) has started doing curbside pickup and even having employees deliver within a 10-mile radius of their stores, which reopened in the middle of June.
But the pivot likely wouldn’t have be possible without financial help to bring back employees to work on the company’s new website.
Built as a bridge loan for small businesses to ride out the shutdowns, the Small Business Administration’s $670 billion Paycheck Protection Program was set up hurriedly to give small businesses forgivable loans up to $10 million each. But the program has been engulfed in controversy nearly from the onset, as many small businesses were initially shut out of the program while funds went to large, (in some cases) publicly-traded companies. Still, the program has thus far doled out emergency loans (which can be converted into grants if used properly) to nearly 5 million businesses.
Legacy Toys applied “right away” for a PPP loan, and received $160,000. According to Ruoho, the loan was “a huge piece of what has been able to keep us going.”
After Legacy Toys launched the new site, early sales plus the PPP loan allowed the company to bring back roughly 60% of their pre-COVID workforce, says Ruoho. Since the online store took off, Ruoho says he’s hired new jobs in IT and marketing to help boost the growing new part of their business. Indeed, Ruoho says Legacy Toys is now shipping internationally for the first time, to customers who “have never heard of us before” and found the company through Google Shopping and other channels. In fact, the website sales now equal Legacy Toy’s pre-pandemic sales across all of their stores.
“We grew so quickly from literally shipping nothing to shipping several hundred packages a day,” he notes. One hot seller, says Ruoho: “We were just shipping ridiculous loads of puzzles—500, 600 puzzles a day.”
Legacy Toys used its PPP loan to build out an e-commerce business which has seen huge demand. Photo by Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images. KEREM YUCEL—AFP/Getty Images
Yet while the federal loan (and gumption of his employees) has helped Ruoho’s business muscle through the pandemic thus far, what happens next is still up in the air. The fate of malls and retail stores is a question mark as cases keep spiking across the country, and Ruoho still hasn’t been able to rehire all of his employees.
But Ruoho is determined to make the best of things in the meantime—He says the company is working with educators to develop a curriculum and products for the slew of families who expect to be homeschooling their children come fall.
“We see that as an opportunity and necessity for parents. We can be a resource for them and help them out,” he says.


fortune--2020-07-20--Rep. Pramila Jayapal was arrested three times for civil disobedience. Serving alongside Rep. John Le

Rep. Pramila Jayapal was arrested three times for civil disobedience. Serving alongside Rep. John Lewis made it feel ‘appropriate’

Why this health care startup felt launching early during a pandemic was the best business strategy

Before Rep. Pramila Jayapal was elected to Congress in 2016, she was an organizer and activist. The Washington State congresswoman brought that spirit with her to Washington, D.C., and has been arrested three times while participating in civil disobedience.
In an interview conducted before Rep. John Lewis’s death on Friday, Jayapal said that serving alongside the civil rights legend made that kind of political action feel “appropriate.” Said Jayapal: “I’ve had the honor to serve with John Lewis so I don’t feel like getting arrested—‘good trouble’ as he calls it—is out of bounds for us as elected officials.”
The congresswoman wrote about her history of activism, starting her congressional career at the beginning of the Trump administration, and her personal experience with issues from immigration to LGBTQ rights in her new book, Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics and Political Change.
As the title implies, Jayapal offers reflections and a path forward for other women of color seeking political office. “The first time I saw my name on the gold plate outside my office,” she writes, “tears came to my eyes. What a moment this was: The immigrant woman of color makes it to Congress! I felt the weight of the responsibility I had: to represent, to speak truth, to bring a different set of voices and tactics to this center of power, to navigate the halls of an insanely arcane body that looked nothing like the rest of the country, so that people would have better opportunities for a future of dignity and respect.”
Jayapal spoke to Fortune about the new book, being shaped by the fight against anti-Muslim discrimination after Sept. 11, 2001, and the path forward for other women of color in politics. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Fortune: What does the subtitle of this book—A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics and Political Change—mean to you?
Rep. Pramila Jayapal: It meant to me that there are specific barriers and things we have to deal with as women of color that just aren’t talked about enough. I wanted the book to address so many of the questions I get asked about the barriers to getting to Congress, but also how you cope with things when they come up.
There are barriers to running for office, from the Democratic Party machine that determines who the best candidates are to the fact that there wasn’t a tremendous amount of outreach to folks of color or women of color. Of course, fundraising is a big challenge. Once you get to Congress, because of the nature of the institution—and the institutionalized racism and sexism that is built in—that is the environment in which you’re operating.
The book chronicles your journey from outside activist to working on the inside of state and federal government. Now that you’re in your second term, how do you feel about that transition?
Well, I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I did it. I still believe this is an incredible organizing platform. I feel that my theory of change—needing more organizers on the inside to be able to drive change—is absolutely right.
You write about being “an unusual elected official, in that I have been arrested three times for leading and participating in civil disobedience.” How have you reflected on those experiences during recent nationwide protests?
I’ve had the honor to serve with John Lewis so I don’t feel like getting arrested—“good trouble” as he calls it—is out of bounds for us as elected officials [Editor’s note: This interview was conducted before Rep. John Lewis died on Friday]. I know some people don’t feel comfortable with it, but I feel it’s very appropriate.
As I look at these uprisings across the country, what occurs to me is they’re creating so much space for us to take a much bolder position than ever would have happened without those protests. If you look at the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act we passed through the House, the remarkable way in which we were able to move that very quickly—that would not have happened without those protests. I think it is critically important we keep the street heat on and we continue pushing the boundaries of what is seen as possible. If politics is the art of the possible, then it’s our job as activists and organizers, regardless of where we sit, to push the boundaries of what is seen as possible. Because the possible is not static.
What is the role of the South Asian community in anti-racism and anti-Black–racism work?
It’s been so important to lift up the anti-Blackness that exists within our other communities of color. That’s something I’ve tried to do for years in the South Asian community. It stops us from going to a hierarchy of oppressions and helps us to underline the deep historical significance of anti-Blackness and why it is so different from what immigrants might face coming from other places or what any of us in different circumstances might face. That’s been a really beautiful thing to watch. To see many of our brown communities and our Black immigrant communities take on the differences in our experiences and the historical legacy of anti-Blackness and racism and white supremacy as it affects African-Americans.
You write about your grandmother and about attitudes toward women in Kerala, India, where your family is from. What lessons did both she and your family’s background teach you that you’ve used in your political career?
There was this really clear sense that women were powerful. Women had the power of the purse. Property was passed down matrilineally. That was a very deep thread through my consciousness from when I was a very young child. My grandmother would tell me stories about how you just married to be able to have a child—so if you got tired of your husband, you would put his shoes outside the door, and he would come home and know it was time for him to clear out his things. There were funny stories like that that were part of giving me a real sense that I could control my destiny, which I think is not always true for many women in many societies.
There was also a legacy of achievement. My mom and every one of her sisters and brothers were highly educated. That gave me a sense that I can achieve things and I can work to bring my own beliefs and values to a profession and be able to succeed at it.
What did you learn about how to make change in favor of racial justice while working on related issues in the Washington State Senate?
I learned that it’s really hard. Race is not something that’s easily taken on, whether you’re a Republican or Democrat. It’s even harder across the aisle, but frankly, we’ve got work to do in our own party. I also learned that just because something’s hard, you can’t stop fighting for it. When I first got to the State Senate, one of the first bills I wanted to write was to end the transfer of military equipment to local police departments. I was told by many people in my own caucus that that was crazy. Now we’ve passed that through the House. I’ve learned that it’s important to stick to your values, to fight for what you believe in, to know it might take some time, to be open to when you have an opportunity to bring in people that may not have been there before. You always try to call people in as well as call people out.
In what ways does the Democratic Party have work to do?
We’ve come a long way. But Democrats have presided over some bills that have criminalized immigrants, including the war on drugs and Bill Clinton’s welfare reform bill. That is where a lot of the criminalization of Black people, of poor people, of immigrants really started to come into play. We’re still living with that legacy. We took too long to recognize that for-profit prisons should not be around—that the whole incarceration system is fundamentally racist. We are moving, we have moved, and we are 8,000 times better than most of the people on the other side, no question about that, especially in this Trump environment, but we have to look at how things like austerity politics and austerity spending, trying to focus on budget deficits at a time when there’s so much devastation—that that is actually advancing institutionalized racism as well.
You write about how your “activism was shaped in the crucible of Sept. 11, 2001.” What has that meant during the Trump administration?
It prepared me in an odd sort of way. Because I had gone through that after Sept. 11—so much of what we fought against was this anti-Muslim sentiment and many of these other similar things we’re seeing now again under the Trump administration—it prepared me. It gave me the relationships. It taught me about how to respond rapidly to an administration that you’re fighting. After Sept. 11, taking on the Bush administration around Somali deportations, around special registration—it felt familiar in a terrible sort of way to then come into the Muslim ban and so many other things this President has been doing.
How did your experience as you describe it in the book—navigating immigration restrictions while dealing with the difficult birth of your child—inform your views on immigration policy, especially over the past few years?
It had always been a central part of how I think about why I’m here and how I have to pay it forward. It’s not sufficient for me to say, Thank goodness I got my citizenship, now I don’t have to worry about anyone else. It’s more like, I’ve been fortunate, I’ve been one of the lucky ones, and I have to work to make sure other immigrants have these opportunities. I saw myself the stress, the fear, the anxiety, the isolation that policy can cause to human beings. That has been threaded to everything I do in recognizing how much human harm there is when you pass a policy or make a statement that is so exclusionary to a whole group of people. In my mind, immigration has never actually been about immigration policy. It has always been about who we are as a country and what we’re willing to stand up for.
In a 2019 speech on the House floor during a debate over the Equality Act, you spoke about your child, Janak, coming out as nonbinary. What has being the parent of a nonbinary child taught you?
There’s no profession that has taught me more about everything than parenting. It really is a phenomenal opportunity, responsibility, and often a huge challenge. From being the mother of a preemie baby that had a lot of health issues to whatever the regular challenges are as kids go through their different phases. Being able to share with Janak their full identity and their coming out and being able to fully support them and to see from a mother’s perspective what it meant to Janak to be able to fully express themselves was so unbelievably beautiful. I’ve always been a supporter of LGBTQ rights, but you see from a very different perspective the detail of what a child worries about when they have to wonder which bathroom they go to. Or they’re afraid to go into a store and try on a dress because they’re afraid of what people are going to say. It just gives you a depth of knowledge. The conversations that have followed from that have been so beautiful and educational. I think Janak has taught me about the intentionality of language and the distinctions of how we think about gender and sexuality and of identity more broadly.
What made me so furious is the way [Republicans] were talking about transgender and nonbinary people during the Equality Act. I was not planning to say anything about Janak. But it felt like I could speak now from the very personal perspective of being the mom of a nonbinary kid about how offensive this was and how important it was to recognize the crucial nature of identity. I would have spoken out on it anyway, but I’m not sure it would have been as powerful. I spoke from the heart. Merriam-Webster added they/them to the dictionary, and they cited my testimony as one of three instances that led to a giant search for those pronouns in the dictionary.
There are a record number of women running for Congress in 2020, even more than in 2018. What’s your advice for them?
Think about what you want to do, not who you want to be. Stay focused on the goal of having power of elected office. Bring that into everything you do in the campaign. And I also tell people; work really hard. We as people of color and women of color, we always have to work harder. Sometimes people say to me, “It’s so frustrating, we have to work so much harder.” I admit I’ve felt that too, but the other way to look at that is: Think about how much better the world would be if everyone worked as hard as we do. We’d have much better policy, much better results, if people took their work as seriously as we do. The last thing is to really be yourself. Stick to your values, don’t allow somebody to make you sound like a robot because you’re supposed to be dispassionate. Bring all of yourself to what you do. All of your identity, all of the things that are part of who you are, don’t shy away from them. Bring them in. People want to know who you are.


fortune--2020-07-20--Why this health care startup felt launching early during a pandemic was the best business strategy

U.S. will finally use coronavirus testing method that let Wuhan test 6.5 million people in 10 days

This is an installment of Startup Year One, a special series of interviews with founders about the major lessons they have learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
Launching a startup during a pandemic sounds unfortunate. Launching a health care startup during a pandemic sounds unfathomable—but the founders of medical supplies seller Tomorrow Health suggest it was the best strategy possible.
Cofounded by Vijay Kedar (an Oscar Health veteran) and Gabriel Flateman (a cofounder and previously chief technology officer at Casper), and backed by Silicon Valley venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz, the company wants to upend at-home health care—a market worth $60 billion today, and the second–fastest-growing area of health care spending—by making it easier to purchase at-home health care products, such as orthopedic and respiratory aides.
Although the company formed in 2019, the official kickoff was scheduled for later in 2020. But the cofounders moved up the launch date to mid-May to address a need that is deeply personal but affects millions of people nationwide. Kedar says he experienced cracks in the U.S. health care system firsthand when his family was in need of dependable at-home care following his mother’s months-long span spent on a ventilator in the ICU for stage 4 cancer.
Total home health spending in the U.S. rose to $108 billion in 2018. And now, the COVID-19 pandemic has given many patients no choice but to stay home, even as they deal with ongoing, non–COVID-related health care needs. This current public health crisis has put home health care squarely in the spotlight, and illuminated gaps in the ability of the nation’s infrastructure to fully support patients where they live.
Fortune recently spoke with Kedar and Flateman to learn more about the startup’s first year in business, the lessons learned, the hurdles overcome, and plans for the next year.
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Tomorrow Health cofounders Vijay Kedar (left) and Gabriel Flateman. Courtesy of Tomorrow Health
Fortune: Could you tell me a bit about your backgrounds? How did you two connect?
Kedar: Growing up in a family of physicians, I often say that was I premed coming out of the womb. I spent hundreds of hours volunteering in hospitals in middle school and writing medical research papers in high school. It was ingrained in me at a young age the impact that solving health care problems could have on the lives of patients and their families.
After a few years of investing in health care and technology companies, I joined Oscar Health as an early employee and wore a number of hats as we grew from a few dozen to more than 1,200 employees and $1 billion in revenue. I launched the company’s Texas division as general manager, building a business that covered over 50,000 Texans for health insurance and drove care management efforts at the national level. As senior director of care innovation, I worked alongside my colleagues to enable patients to manage health care at home and to better coordinate the care of our sickest members. At Oscar, I learned what it took to drive real change within the health care ecosystem, marrying a detailed understanding of the realities and complexity of U.S. health care with technology, data, and design to yield better outcomes for patients.
Flateman: I’m a repeat founder and self-taught engineer, focused on using technology to drive consumer change in areas that need it most. At Tomorrow Health, I lead engineering, product, design, and analytics across the company. Before that, I spent over five years as cofounder and chief technology officer of Casper, where I built and scaled the business to drive over $1 billion in cumulative sales. Leading a team of over 100 across technology, digital product, and customer experience, I developed the technology to power Casper’s expansive logistics infrastructure across multiple channels, geographies, and product lines. I also focused on building and growing Casper’s award-winning consumer experience on our website and in retail stores. I’m a lifelong musician and initially graduated with a degree in music from Brown University.
Kedar: Gabe and I had been friends for years. As I began to develop the business model for Tomorrow Health, I initially approached him for advice. We spent hours whiteboarding the technical architecture and mapping out the components of the business. Before too long, it was clear that his experience designing tech-enabled operations and creating a seamless consumer experience in an industry sorely lacking one was critically relevant. Combining our experiences, we’ve built a team that similarly reflects the marriage of deep health care services and operations tenure with some of the brightest technology, logistics, and member experience minds.
Health care is a byzantine industry by nature, but in the United States, especially. What inspired the launch of Tomorrow Health? What kinds of gaps do you think your company can fill, and what can it fix in a system that many critics would argue is broken—made only more apparent by the current public health crisis?
Kedar: During my time at Oscar, my mother was diagnosed with Stage 3 rectal cancer. After a few months in the hospital, she required a year of intensive home-based care. Coordinating her care at home opened my eyes to the stark challenges faced by so many patients and families as they make the transition to home-based health care. From working with nearly a dozen different providers to spending hours faxing documents to utilize her insurance benefits [to witnessing] the pervasive lack of patient education or guidance, I knew there had to be a better solution. We’ve built Tomorrow Health to be that solution to support millions of patients in managing their health care in the place they want to be most: home.
Some of the biggest problems in U.S. health care include misaligned incentives between key stakeholders, tremendous fragmentation of care (with care providers only fulfilling very siloed roles), and a lack of commitment to the patient experience. Against that backdrop, we provide our patients a seamless and connected care experience, coordinating with their physicians to identify the products and services best suited for their needs; navigating their insurance benefits; providing the home-based care resources they need; and guiding them through every step of the journey. We combine a full-stack health care provider with a tech-enabled logistics platform, driving a cost and quality value proposition to patients, their care providers and insurers, and tying it together with personalized service. The result is a health care experience that feels a lot more like what we would all expect for our loved ones in a time of need.
Launching a new health care business in the middle of a pandemic is daunting, to say the least. And you moved your launch timeline up. What prompted you to take this action, and how did it turn out?
Kedar: As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, we saw its impact on the patients we served. Hundreds of millions of Americans were suddenly homebound, including seniors and at-risk individuals. As the need for home-based care increased dramatically, we heard of many patients facing access issues as many local retail providers closed their doors or were unable to serve patients at home. We knew we could help. We had a nationwide distribution network, the ability to deliver virtual care, and a team that adapted quickly to the realities of remote work. And so we acted.
Since our launch, we’ve served both the COVID-infected and the COVID-affected. We’ve provided critical respiratory equipment and support to elderly patients managing step-down care after weeks on a ventilator battling COVID-19, and medical supplies and guidance to some of the millions of Americans currently managing chronic conditions without traditional access to their health care providers. We are partnered with over 100 regional and national health plans and have launched a dedicated program with the New York City Health and Human Services department to provide medical equipment, supplies, and support to the city’s seniors. We have been grateful to be able to serve those in need during these deeply challenging times, and I was continually inspired by the way in which our team stepped up to heed the call.
Looking back a little farther, what were some of the biggest hurdles you faced in the past year before launch? What surprised you the most?
Kedar: As mentioned, innovating within health care requires an understanding and recognition of the industry’s complexity. You cannot just build better technology on top of broken health care infrastructure and expect materially better outcomes. You must rebuild the infrastructure, and that takes time. For us, that meant building a full-stack home-based care provider, entailing dozens of regulatory licensing applications, identifying where to build and where to partner, and continuous learning on the best ways to serve our patients and our partners.
We were grateful to have deeply aligned investors at Andreessen Horowitz, BoxGroup, and Rainfall Ventures and advisers who have supported our journey at every stage. Our advisers Trent Haywood, former chief medical officer at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and Beth Bierbower, former segment president at Humana, helped to inform our insurer partnerships and the ways to drive the most value to our partners. Trevor Fetter, former CEO of Tenet Healthcare, provided invaluable advice on leading during a time of great uncertainty, as the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Given the current economic climate, how does the pandemic and the downturn affect the future of your business, from product development to raising capital?
Kedar: The transition of care to the home was inevitable far before the pandemic, with 90% of senior citizens choosing to age in place and the systemic shift to value-based care. But there is no doubt that this trend has been meaningfully accelerated by COVID-19. We have found that across our base of customers—patients, insurers, and providers—there is increased demand and need for the resources that enable home-based care. We have partnered closely with insurers and integrated health systems aiming to retool their care-delivery networks toward the home and have received inbound inquiries from dozens of potential channel partners.
As we grow our team, we’ve been fortunate to see strong interest from candidates from a range of backgrounds eager to work on solving problems that impact the health and well-being of many during this crisis. Additionally, we’ve received meaningful inbound [queries] from investors, interested in broader themes around home-based and virtual care.
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 Tomorrow Health, and what do you want the business to look like five years from now?
Kedar: Our vision for Tomorrow Health is to be America’s trusted platform to deliver and coordinate health care at home. Over the coming years, we will expand nationally, develop new partnerships with industry stakeholders and expand our capability set, enabling us to serve a wider base of patient needs. We will expand our team across technology, operations, business development, and care advocacy.
Ultimately, we aim to be a partner and advocate for millions of patients and families as they manage chronic conditions or recovery from surgery in the comfort of their homes. While our footprint, team, and capabilities will grow, we want to retain the same ethos and values that guide us today, striving to build the health care experience we believe patients deserve, always reporting to the mission, and treating every patient as we would our own family members.


fortune--2020-07-20--Shares of tiny U.K. firm up 2,581% for year after drug reduces risk of worst COVID-19 symptoms

Shares of Synairgen Plc, a tiny pharmaceutical firm born out of a U.K. university, soared as much as 373% after the company said its experimental drug cut the risk of developing the worst symptoms of Covid-19.
In a clinical trial involving 220 subjects, the probability of a patient requiring ventilation or dying dropped 79% for those who got Synairgen’s SNG001 versus those who received a placebo, the Southampton, England-based company said in a statement. Those receiving SNG001 also were more than twice as likely to fully recover from the illness, it added.
The inhaled product is a formulation of a naturally occurring protein, known as interferon beta, that Synairgen has previously said may be deficient in those with greater susceptibility to the new coronavirus, such as the elderly or those with heart and lung complications or diabetes.
Synairgen rose 332% to 157.50 pence at 10:10 a.m. London time. The stock’s latest surge takes its year-to-date gain to about 2,581%, giving Synairgen, which trades on London’s AIM venue for growth companies, a market capitalization of about 235.4 million pounds ($296 million).
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“Valuing the Covid-19 opportunity is nigh on impossible,” FinnCap analyst Mark Brewer said in a note to clients, adding that upcoming discussions with regulators should clarify SNG001’s route to market. Finncap is also corporate broker to the company.
Synairgen, founded by three professors from the University of Southampton, previously partnered with AstraZeneca Plc in 2014 to study SNG001 in severe asthma, but the trial was halted two years later after an interim analysis showed a very low number of reported severe exacerbations, making it difficult to draw conclusions.


fortune--2020-07-20--U.S. will finally use coronavirus testing method that let Wuhan test 6.5 million people in 10 days

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Saturday gave emergency use authorization to a coronavirus testing method that could massively ramp up testing capabilities for the country.
The FDA is allowing Quest Diagnostics to test individual samples for coronavirus using a method known as batch testing, which mixes specimens from multiple people and tests the combined sample for coronavirus instead of testing samples one by one.
The Quest Diagnostics test will be the first in the U.S. with approval for use in batch testing. The FDA is allowing Quest to pool samples of up to four people.
Batch testing played a key role in two of the most impressive mass testing efforts to date—in Wuhan, China, in May, when the city government tested almost 10 million people, and in Beijing in June, when authorities tested thousands of workers in factories that reported one confirmed case. The technique could be a game-changer for the U.S., representing a big step toward safely reopening the economy.
Scott Borton, Quest Diagnostics’ national air logistics manager, loads samples at Reading Airport in Pennsylvania, on April 24, 2020. Most of the specimens Quest is transporting are for COVID-19 tests. Lauren A. Little—MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images
Public health officials in Wuhan—the site of the very first coronavirus outbreak—used batch testing in May during the city government’s campaign to test the entire population for the coronavirus. The city tested 9.9 million people, the majority within 10 days, to help contain a small second outbreak. It used batch testing to speed up the process.
Officials in Wuhan tested up to five combined samples at once. If the test came back positive, all five people were tested individually, but if it came back negative, then all five could be declared free of coronavirus without needing individual tests, which consume more time and resources. Patients with negative results also receive the result faster than they would with individual tests.
Batch testing is most useful when trying to test a large number of people who likely have a low infection rate. If infection is widespread, then batch tests will turn up positive results frequently and won’t end up cutting down on processing time. Wuhan’s mass testing of 9.9 million people yielded 300 positive test results, all of which were asymptomatic cases, according to government data.
Public health officials in Germany, Israel, and Thailand have also carried out batch testing for coronavirus. Beijing deployed the method in June during an upswing in new cases that health authorities managed to curb. City officials tested every one of the city’s more than 100,000 delivery workers, who were seen as a bellwether for Beijing’s infection rate.
“This [emergency use authorization] for sample pooling is an important step forward in getting more COVID-19 tests for more Americans more quickly while preserving testing supplies,” FDA commissioner Stephen M. Hahn said in a statement. “Sample pooling becomes especially important as infection rates decline and we begin testing larger portions of the population.”
There were some concerns during Wuhan’s batch testing that the samples might be diluted and lead to false-negative results. The FDA said in its statement on the emergency use authorization that Quest ran tests to check whether dilution could be a problem, and the tests correctly identified all the positive samples.
The batch method also saves testing kits. The technique uses one kit for four samples, instead of four separate kits; this could aid U.S. cities still suffering from shortages months into the pandemic.
Batch testing could help the U.S. ramp up its daily testing numbers to the level recommended by researchers for a “safe social reopening.” In an April 20 report, Harvard University researchers estimated the U.S. should reach 5 million tests per day by early June and 20 million tests per day “ideally by late July” to return safely to pre-pandemic economic and social activity. According to the COVID Tracking Project, the highest number of tests the U.S. has processed in one day was 851,788 tests on July 17.


fortune--2020-07-20--Crown jewel of Jack Ma’s Alibaba empire plans simultaneous IPOs

Billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group is kicking off its much-anticipated initial public offering, with plans to list simultaneously in Hong Kong and on China’s new tech bourse in Shanghai.
The parent of China’s largest mobile payment company is marching toward what could be one of the largest listings seen in years. It was valued at $150 billion in its last funding round. Ant will pursue a dual-listing in Hong Kong and the Shanghai stock exchange’s STAR board, the Hangzhou-based company said in an emailed statement. It’s seeking a valuation of at least $200 billion, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified talking about a private deal.
The crown jewel of the sprawling Alibaba empire, Ant has been accelerating its evolution into an online mall for everything from loans and travel services to food delivery, in a bid to claw back shoppers lost to Tencent Holdings Ltd. The company’s Chief Executive Officer Simon Hu wants people to just think of Alipay as more than just a niche provider of financial services and the payments gateway for the world’s biggest e-commerce platform. Alipay now caters to a wide array of consumer needs from groceries to wealth management, and hotel booking to loan applications.
Ant generated $2 billion in profit in the fourth quarter, based on calculations made from Alibaba’s filing. The company’s goal is to derive more than 80% of revenue from local merchants and finance firms in five years via so-called technology services fees, up from about half at the end of 2019. The contribution from proprietary services, such as Ant’s own money market fund and loans, would shrink as a result.
Those technology solutions would include services in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and risk control. Ant aims to assist banks to dole out loans to consumers, and partner with brands like KFC Holding Co. and Marriott International Inc. to attract and manage customers.
Hu is betting that those strategies will help Ant defend its dominance of China’s $29 trillion mobile payments space. Alipay’s share of mobile payments has increased for three consecutive quarters, rising to 55.1% in the fourth quarter, according research consultant iResearch. Tencent has 38.9% of the market.
It also diversifies Ant’s business into less-sensitive areas after the firm drew regulatory scrutiny for its blistering expansion in financial services with in-house products.
To mark the transformation, Ant changed its registered name to Ant Group Co. from Ant Financial Services Group at the end of May.
Ant’s origins are not without controversy. In 2010, Ma hived off the six-year-old Alipay from Alibaba over the objections of shareholders including Yahoo! Inc., citing potential regulations that may curb foreign ownership of financial businesses. Alipay then expanded into loans, wealth management and consumer credit under the entity that’s now known as Ant Group. The dispute was eventually settled via an arrangement that granted Alibaba a proportion of Alipay’s income. Alibaba ended up buying a 33% stake in Ant last year.