fortune--2020-02-24--Harvey Weinstein found guilty on two counts at his sexual assault trial

Harvey Weinstein was convicted Monday of rape and sexual assault against two women and was led off to prison in handcuffs, sealing his dizzying fall from powerful Hollywood studio boss to archvillain of the #MeToo movement.
The 67-year-old Weinstein had a look of resignation on his face as he heard the verdict that could put him away for the rest of his life. The charges carry up to 29 years behind bars.
“This is the new landscape for survivors of sexual assault in America, I believe, and it is a new day. It is a new day because Harvey Weinstein has finally been held accountable for crimes he committed,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said. “Weinstein is a vicious, serial sexual predator who used his power to threaten, rape, assault and trick, humiliate and silence his victims.”
Weinstein’s lawyers said they will appeal.
“Harvey is unbelievably strong. He took it like a man,” defense attorney Donna Rotunno said. “He knows that we will continue to fight for him, and we know that this is not over.” Another of his lawyers, Arthur Aidala, quoted Weinstein as telling as his legal team:: “I’m innocent. I’m innocent. I’m innocent. How could this happen in America?”
The jury of seven men and five women took five days to find Weinstein guilty of raping an aspiring actress in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and sexually assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006 by forcibly performing oral sex on her.
He was acquitted on the most serious charges, two counts of predatory sexual assault, each carrying a sentence of up to life in prison. Both of those counts hinged on the testimony of “Sopranos” actress Annabella Sciorra, who said Weinstein barged into her apartment, raped her and forcibly performed oral sex on her in the mid-1990s.
Judge James Burke ordered Weinstein taken to jail immediately. Court officers surrounded Weinstein, handcuffed him and led him out of the courtroom via a side door without the use of the walker he relied on for much of the trial. The judge said he will ask that Weinstein, who had been free on bail since his arrest nearly two years ago, be held in the infirmary after his lawyers said he needs medical attention following unsuccessful back surgery.
Sentencing was set for March 11. The sexual assault charge carries up to 25 years in prison, while the third-degree rape count is punishable by up to four years.
The verdict followed weeks of often harrowing and excruciatingly graphic testimony from a string of accusers who told of rapes, forced oral sex, groping, masturbation, lewd propositions and that’s-Hollywood excuses from Weinstein about how the casting couch works.
The conviction was seen as a long-overdue reckoning for Weinstein after years of whispers about his behavior turned into a torrent of accusations in 2017 that destroyed his career and gave rise to #MeToo, the global movement to encourage women to come forward and hold powerful men accountable for their sexual misconduct.
In addition to the three women he was charged with attacking, three more who said they, too, were attacked by Weinstein testified as part of an effort by prosecutors to show a pattern of brutish behavior on his part.
“Weinstein with his manipulation, his resources, his attorneys, his publicists and his spies did everything he could to silence to survivors,” Vance said after the verdict. He saluted the women who came forward, saying they changed the court of history in the fight against sexual violence” and “pulled our justice system into the 21st century.”
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sex crimes unless they grant permission, as Haleyi and Sciorra did.
While Weinstein did not testify, his lawyers contended that any sexual contact was consensual and that his accusers went to bed with him to get ahead in Hollywood. The defense seized on the fact that the two women he was convicted of attacking had sex with him — and stayed in contact with him through warm and even flirty emails — well after he supposedly attacked them.
In the end, that argument didn’t seem to gain any traction. Instead, the jury had trouble with Sciorra’s allegations. Four days into deliberations, the jurors sent out a note indicating they were deadlocked on the two predatory sexual assault counts but had reached a unanimous verdict on the others. The judge told them to keep on deliberating.
In the case of the unidentified woman he was accused of raping, the jury acquitted Weinstein of first-degree rape, which requires the use of force or the threat of it, and found him guilty of third-degree rape, which involves a lack of consent.
After the verdict, jury foreman Bernard Cody was asked as he left court how the deliberations were for him personally and responded: “Devastating.” He did not elaborate.
The hard-charging and phenomenally successful movie executive helped bring to the screen such Oscar winners as “Good Will Hunting,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The King’s Speech,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Shakespeare in Love” and nurtured the careers of celebrated filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith.
Weinstein now faces charges in Los Angeles. In that case, announced just as the New York trial was getting under way on Jan. 6, authorities allege he raped one woman and sexually assaulted another on back-to-back nights during Oscars week in 2013.
The New York trial was the first criminal case to arise from a barrage of allegations against Weinstein from more than 90 women, including actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek and Uma Thurman. Most of those cases were too old to prosecute.
“For the women who testified in this case, and walked through traumatic hell, you did a public service to girls and women everywhere, thank you,” actress Ashley Judd tweeted after the verdict. She accused Weinstein of damaging her career by spreading lies about her after she rejected his advances.
During the trial, Weinstein regularly trudged into the courthouse stooped and unshaven, using his walker — a far cry from the way he was depicted in court as a burly “Jekyll-and-Hyde” figure whose eyes seemed to turn black with menace when his anger flared.
“If he heard the word ‘no,’ it was like a trigger for him,” his rape accuser testified.
One woman said that when she laughed off his advances, he sneered, “You’ll never make it in this business. This is how this industry works.”
The jury heard lurid testimony that Weinstein injected himself with a needle to get an erection, that his genitals appeared disfigured, that he sent Sciorra a box of chocolate penises and that he once showed up uninvited at her hotel room door in his underwear with a bottle of baby oil in one hand and a video in the other.
The prosecution’s task was made more complicated because Haleyi testified that she had sex with him two weeks after she was supposedly attacked, while the rape accuser whose name was withheld said she had a sexual encounter with him more than three years afterward.
Like Haleyi, she sent Weinstein friendly and sometimes flirtatious emails, such as “Miss you big guy” and “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call.”
During a cross-examination from Weinstein’s lawyers so exhaustive that she broke down in tears on the stand, the woman said she sent the flattering emails and kept seeing him because she was afraid of his unpredictable anger and “I wanted him to believe I wasn’t a threat.”
To blunt that line of questioning, prosecutors called to the witness stand a forensic psychiatrist who said that most sexual assault victims continue to have contact with their attackers and that they hope what happened to them “is just an aberration.”
During closing arguments, Rotunno charged that Weinstein had become “the target of a cause and a movement” — #MeToo — and asked the jury to ignore “outside forces.” She said the case against Weinstein amounted to “regret renamed as rape,” arguing that the women exercised their free will to try to further their careers.
Rumors about Weinstein’s behavior swirled in Hollywood circles for a long time, but he managed to silence many accusers with payoffs, nondisclosure agreements and the constant fear that he could crush their careers if they spoke out.
Weinstein was finally arrested in May 2018, seven months after The New York Times and The New Yorker exposed his alleged misconduct in stories that would win the Pulitzer Prize.
Among other men taken down by the #MeToo movement since the scandal broke: news anchors Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, actor Kevin Spacey and Sen. Al Franken.
Weinstein, the product of a working-class family from Queens, achieved success at two movie studios he created with his brother Bob: Miramax — named for their parents, Miriam and Max — and then the Weinstein Co., which went bankrupt after his disgrace.
A tentative settlement was reached last year to resolve nearly all lawsuits stemming from the scandal. It would pay Weinstein’s alleged victims about $25 million, but he would not have to admit any wrongdoing or personally pay anything; the studio’s insurance companies would cover the cost.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Breaking Bad ended six years ago—but Better Call Saul and merchandise keep gaining steam
—How ’90s cult rock band Guided by Voices flourishes despite industry odds
—With Sonic the Hedgehog big at box office, Paramount catches “lightning in a bottle”
—Rob McElhenney on exploring misogyny and censorship in gaming with Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet
—Contagion writer, scientific adviser reflect on film’s newfound relevance amid coronavirus crisis
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-02-24--Supreme Court wades into battle over Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Coronavirus fears batter the stock market , wiping out all of this year ’ s gains

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to wade into a long-running battle between developers of a 605-mile (975-kilometer) natural gas pipeline and environmental groups who oppose the pipeline crossing the storied Appalachian Trail.
On Monday, the high court will hear arguments on a critical permit needed by developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
Backed by the Trump administration, project developers Dominion Energy and Duke Energy will ask the high court to overturn a lower court that threw out a permit for the pipeline to cross two national forests, including parts of the Appalachian Trail, the historic footpath that stretches from Georgia to Maine.
The question before the Supreme Court is whether the Forest Service has the authority to grant rights-of-way through lands crossed by the Appalachian Trail within national forests.
Lawyers for Dominion and U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco argue in legal briefs that the U.S. Forest Service has jurisdiction over land in the George Washington National Forest, where a 0.1-mile segment of the pipeline would cross about 700 feet (215 meters) beneath the Appalachian Trail.
But the Sierra Club and other environmental groups say that because the 2,200-mile (3,540-kilometer) scenic trail is considered a unit of the National Park System, no federal agency can grant a right-of-way for the pipeline. They say only Congress can approve such a crossing.
Dominion is asking the high court to reverse a 2018 ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finding that the Forest Service did not have the statutory authority to approve the trail crossing.
Central to the case is the Mineral Leasing Act, a 1920 federal law that governs rights-of-way through federal land for oil and gas pipelines.
The 4th Circuit said that law allows rights-of-way for pipelines on federal land, except for land in the National Park System. The court found that the trail is considered a unit of the National Park System, so the Forest Service doesn’t have the authority to approve a right-of-way.
But Dominion and the federal government argue that the 1968 National Trails System Act, which designated the Appalachian Trail as a National Scenic Trail, did not transfer lands crossed by the trail to the National Park System. They say the Park Service is charged with overall administration of the trail, while the actual lands crossed by the trail within national forests remain under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—In China, oil won’t be the only sector battered by the coronavirus
—Energy emissions plateaued in 2019, as economies gave up coal
—Greta Thunberg and her allies are targeting CEOs now
—Looking to cut emissions, Europe eyes a ‘sustainability’ tax on meat
—WATCH: iPod/iPhone designer on kicking plastic addiction
Subscribe to The Loop, a weekly look at the revolutions in energy, tech, and sustainability.


fortune--2020-02-24--Los Angeles is literally awash with grief

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
A public memorial service celebrating the lives of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna is set for today at 1pm Eastern Time at the Staples Center in downtown L.A. Even the calendar pays tribute — Feb. 24 is a date which reflects the basketball jersey numbers worn by Bryant (No. 24) and his daughter (No. 2).
More than 80,000 people applied via a lottery for some 20,000 spots. It promises to be a high profile yet somber affair, and proceeds will benefit Bryant’s Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation.
While fans have been struggling with Bryant’s tragic loss along with his daughter and seven other people in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, Los Angeles itself has been literally awash in grief.
The Lakers legend loomed large in life, but now mural artists are expressing the city’s complex feelings on walls, under bypasses, and in spontaneous installations.
“Many of the murals memorializing Kobe document milestone moments from his career,” says Walter Thompson-Hernández, who covered the phenomenon for the New York Times. But plenty explore the profound shock of losing a doting father and a child that the city had grown to love.“You can see their images in Long Beach, in Artesia, in Downtown Los Angeles, and in Venice Beach,” he says. “A complicated figure during his playing days, Kobe has ignited a surge of emotion in death. The city’s walls have never spoken so loudly.”
Even non-traditional artists are finding a way to share their grief.
At the memorial today will be Fletcher Collins, a casketmaker from Elizabethtown, N.C., who created a customized tribute memorial casket for the Lakers legend. He and a couple of friends drove it across the country in a rented van, so it might sit in tribute in front of the Staples Center. The memorial casket is a faithful recreation of the Center’s hardwood court and includes an image of the Los Angeles skyline. “I tried to capture everything about him,” said Collins, who also is an assistant pastor, told the Fayetteville Observer.
Earlier this month, Vanessa Bryant, Gianna’s mother and Kobe’s wife, requested that memorial items left at the Staples Center be sent to the family, hinting at an enormous curatorial job yet to come.
“We will catalog and box up all the non-perishable items like T-shirts, letters, basketballs, other toys, stuffed animals, and we’re going to put them in containers and ship them to Vanessa Bryant and the family,” Staples Center president Lee Zeidman told CNN. Flowers and other perishable items will be composted for use around L.A. Live, the city’s downtown entertainment complex.
While the details of the memorial are still under wraps, the lives of the other people lost in the accident will also be remembered. The MambaOnThree fund was created to honor the memories of Alyssa Altobelli, John Altobelli, Keri Altobelli, Payton Chester, Sarah Chester, Christina Mauser, and Ara Zobayan, and is still accepting donations for their families.
For today, grief is on the program.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
The NAACP Image Awards turned 51 For anyone who was looking for a chance to celebrate the art, artists, authors, writers, and directors who had been overlooked in other award venues, the show did not disappoint. Lizzo won entertainer of the year, Just Mercywon Outstanding Motion Picture, Dolemite, won for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture, and Lupita Nyong’o won Outstanding Actress for Us. But taken as a whole, the nominees are uniformly thrilling. (While Blackishsimply cannot lose, I cheered for my own guilty pleasure, Greenleaf.)The entire nominee and winner list below.
NAACP Image Awards
Like most tech companies, Tesla addresses racism complaints in private arbitration After DeWitt Lambert, an electrician with Tesla, complained of harassment in the workplace, specifically racial slurs including the n-word, he ended in arbitration. The arbitrator dismissed his complaint, which included video evidence, because the offensive words were "consistent with lyrics and images commonly found in rap songs.” Now arbitration itself is under fire. "In many cases, it's a get-out-of-jail-free card for companies," Oakland civil rights lawyer Bryan Schwartz tells Protocol. Three racism complaints have been filed against Tesla since 2017, the arbitration process keeps details of their allegations from both co-workers and the public at large.
Protocol
Wells Fargo ends forced arbitration for sexual harassment claims Advocates for women are hoping that the recent move will encourage other financial institutions to follow suit. But eight out of nine financial firms contacted by Financial Planning refused to respond or declined to comment when asked about their use of arbitration. Wealth manager Rachel Robasciotti,co-founder of the nonprofit Force the Issue, which persuades large companies to drop arbitration for sexual harassment claims, says the Wells Fargo decision was good news. Force the Issue says they’ve persuaded some 90 firms to drop the clauses or to publicly disavow their use.
Financial Planning
On Background
There are two sign languages in America Turns out codeswitching happens even among Black deaf signers. There is a Black ASL. “I’m always told by deaf African Americans, ‘I am black first; then I’m deaf,’” says Felecia Redd, a Black interpreter. “White deaf people are deaf first and then white.” A new 30-minute documentary, “Signing Black in America,” explores how Black ASL evolved, a relic of a time when Black deaf people who have been historically marginalized by both race and hearing loss. The film is the 14th in a series produced by North Carolina State University’s Language & Life Project, which explores the linguistic diversity of the United States. (Thanks to the great Julie Felner for flagging.)
Washington Post
The tarot cards of tech Thanks to also great Vivianne Castillo for flagging this remarkable design tool, which aims to help designers and producers of all stripes consider more carefully the unintended consequences of their work. Each card asks a question that helps creators think through who might be hurt by their work and whose perspective needs to be included in their designs and processes. Instead of “move fast and break things,” take a moment to “slow down and ask the right questions.”
Artefact Group
The trauma of genocide is alive in our genes It’s called epigenetic inheritance, and there is real scientific evidence that systemic trauma causes genetic differences in descendants of the victims. Studies from holocaust survivors, only one of many events, is a centerpiece of the research. “The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents,” says one researcher. Another explains that the epigenetics helps explain the many health disparities found among Native American people, which include endocrine and immune system disorders. “The persistence of stress associated with discrimination and historical trauma converges to add immeasurably to these challenges,” says another.
Inquisitr
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
"Tonight is not really about me, because the purpose is bigger than me, right? It’s not bigger than us together, but it’s bigger than me because my part is a very small part of the work that is being done in this world and the work that is yet to be done... If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that we can only fix this world together. We can’t do it divided. I can’t emphasize that enough. We can’t let the de-sensitivity seep in. The ‘If it’s your problem, it’s not mine.’ ‘It’s a woman’s problem.’ ‘It’s a black people problem.’ ‘It’s a poor people problem.’” I mean how many of us in this room have colleagues and partners and friends from other races, sexes, religions… They want to break bread with you right? They like you? Well then, this is their problem, too. So while we’re marching, protesting, and posting about the Michael Brown Jrs. and the Atatiana Jeffersons of this world, tell your friends to pull up.”
— Rihanna, after receiving the President’s Award at the 51st Annual NAACP Image Awards


fortune--2020-02-24--The party roars on: Investment professionals are confident about making money in 2020

“I continue to be amazed at how damn easy it is to make money.” That’s how one Term Sheet reader described the current state of affairs in the business world.
And they’re not wrong. Approximately 72% of the record 614 readers who took the Semaphore survey about confidence in 2020 said they earned more in 2019 than the prior year, with only 16% earning less. A full 69% expect to earn still more in 2020.
(Approximately 24% of respondents work in private equity and 20% in venture capital, with the rest being investment bankers, LPs, operating executives and third-party vendors.)
The full results are quite interesting, but here are the highlights:
95%
… of respondents have confidence in themselves, and 75% have confidence in their own business.
51%
… have confidence in the U.S. national economy (compared to 37% in 2019).
69%
… are not confident in President Donald Trump (compared to 81% in 2019), and only 16% are highly or somewhat confident.
21%
… say that the corporate income tax rate cuts influenced the business and investments judgments they made in 2019, while 79% say they did not.
79%
… believe sexual misconduct, harassment, and gender bias are a problem in the VC/PE industry.
I was struck by some additional comments from respondents.
On private equity, venture capital, and valuations:
Bubble, baby!
The VC industry needs to revert to value. The current environment of the “Venture Bros” and “hype for the sake of hype” needs to end. Softbank needs to go away and investors need to start doing their homework on companies before they invest.
Too much money driving unrealistic valuation and create opportunities for low quality companies that will still eventually fail.
Ugh! The all too merry-go-round must end. While the painted ponies are supposed to go up and down it is unsustainable that they just go up and up and up.
I’ve never been more bullish on the industry. The technological advancements of the next decade will be revolutionary. VC funding will continue to be a huge aspect of this movement.
Silicon Valley startup pricing is absurd! There is far too much capital chasing too few quality entrepreneurs.
On sexual misconduct: (Note: respondents were 86% male, 9% female, and 5% did not disclose.)
It is an issue in society, why would this industry be any different? All signs point to this industry being worse than society due in no small part to the insular nature of the participants.
The system is rigged to be male dominated due to the lack of turnover at executive positions in VC/PE. Until there is a changing of the guard, the current bad behavior will continue.
I have seen A LOT of it at my old company and some (although somewhat less prevalent) at my current company. It is always swept under the rug because it is done by high level employees to secretaries or analysts/associates. As a male VP (somewhat junior VP), if I speak about it people will treat me differently (good boys club). This is not okay and needs to be solved.
I think there’s been so much talk and recognition of the issue, that it’s swung the other way.
I see men changing behavior out of both fear/necessity and recognition of that old habits need to die.
I have not personally witnessed anything, but that does not mean it does not happen. Men need to say something if they know it is happening.
On President Donald Trump’s tenure:
Partisan behavior is taking over the House and Senate instead of logical decision making. There will be a changing of the guard in the next senate elections in reaction to the ugly politics currently.
The alternative is socialism.
He’s been ‘bad for business’ in terms of the United State’s global economy. While he does have many fanatic fans, his overall reach has been dwindling over his presidency.
Those trying to keep him in power will also be replaced (lose their elections) in their home states. The current political system is a total joke. You will see young adults come out in droves to get rid of this buffoon.
Bloomberg or Biden will beat him.
Democrats have weak candidates or candidates with positions that non-primary votes don’t agree with.
People like entertainment.
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to take the survey. If you have any additional thoughts, share them with me on Twitter.
Polina Marinova
Twitter: @polina_marinova
Email: polina.marinova@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Behavox, a London-based provider of an employee monitoring and risk scoring system, raised $100 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
- TIER Mobility, a Germany-based provider of micro-mobility solutions, raised $100 million in Series B funding. Investors include RTP Global, Novator and Mubadala Capital.
- BharatPe, a New Delhi-based digital payments startup, raised $75 million in Series C funding. Investors include Coatue Management and Ribbit Capital.
- Udemy, a San Francisco-based marketplace for learning and teaching online, raised $50 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation. Investors include Banesse Holdings.
- HealthJoy, a Chicago-based online healthcare decision platform, raised $30 million in Series C funding. Health Velocity Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including U.S. Venture Partners, Chicago Ventures, Epic Ventures, Brandon Cruz and Clint Jones.
- Sokowatch, a Kenya-based B2B e-commerce startup, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Quona Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Amplo, Breyer Capital, Vertex Ventures, Timon Capital and 4DX Ventures.
- Chattermill, a London-based customer understanding platform, raised $8 million in Series A funding. DN Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Ventech, btov Partners, and Silicon Valley Bank.
- techspert.io, a Cambridge-based online platform that connects specialists in healthcare and other sectors, raised £3.76 million ($4.8 million) in Series A funding. Nauta Capital led the round.
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES DEALS
- Karius, a Redwood City, Calif.-based life sciences company, raised $165 million in funding. Investors include SoftBank Vision Fund, General Catalyst HBM Healthcare Investments, Khosla Ventures and LightSpeed Venture Partners.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
- The Polaris Growth Fund made an investment in TransACT Communications, a Lynwood, Wash-based SaaS provider of engagement, compliance and payment solutions for the education market. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOs
- Megvii Technology, a Chinese AI company on the U.S. blacklist, plans to refile for a Hong Kong initial public offering, Reuters reports citing sources. Read more.
- Uniasselvi, a Brazilian distance learning firm, has hired investment banks to manage an initial public offering in the United States, Reuters reports citing sources. The company is seeking a valuation above $1 billion. Read more.
- SelectQuote, an Overland Park, Kan.-based which provides an online DTC insurance platform, filed on Friday with the SEC to up to $100 million in an initial public offering. It posted $337.5 million in revenue for the year ending June, and income of $72.3 million. Brookside Equity Partners backs the firm. It plans to list on the NYSE as SLQT. Read more.
- Inari Medical, a Irvine, Calif.-based medical device company focused on venous diseases, filed on to raised $100 million through an IPO. It posted $51 million in revenue for the year ending December, and income of $801,000. USVP (20% pre-offering), Coöperatieve Gilde Healthcare (19.6%), and Versant Ventures (14.9%) back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “NARI.” Read more.
- Cognitive Pilot, a Russian maker of components for driverless vehicles, is considering an initial public offering after 2023, per Reuters. Read more.
EXITS
- Target Global, a Germany-based venture capital firm, raised €120 million ($130 million) for its early-stage fund.
PEOPLE
- Harvest Partners promoted Michael Greenman and James Mitchel to partner; Josh Carter, Chris Peyser and Chris Schaller to principal; Fabia DeCrescenzo to director of finance; and Lucas Rogers to vice president.


fortune--2020-02-24--In the future, there will be no more fintech

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.
Last year, when Fortune decided to start an annual conference focused on fintech companies, cryptocurrency investing, and blockchain-related innovation, I suggested that we call the event “Brainstorm Finance.” My argument was that some number of years down the road there would be no more fintech, only financial companies that use the best technology, including alternative currencies and new record-keeping techniques.
A spate of blockbuster finance-industry deals suggests a swallowing-up process is helping things along. Visa is buying Plaid, a newfangled payment-processing tech company, for example. Morgan Stanley last week disclosed plans to acquire Web 1.0 stalwart E*Trade, a way to give the Wall Street firm an electronic trading platform and oodles of retail customers. Similar-wise, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Intuit, maker of the tax software Michael Bloomberg won’t be using to generate his returns, is purchasing Credit Karma, whose services include free tax-preparation software.
Not every deal involves old finance gulping down new fintech. Upstart Lending Club is buying online bank Radius, a combination of not-so-big financial players Breakingviews.com cleverly describes as “tech tots.”
The point here isn’t that fintech is over, even if the distinction may not matter much longer. With every wave of innovation some newbies dominate. Payments companies PayPal and Stripe look like keepers, for example. But in finance, the strongest, biggest banks, with their massive balance sheets and legions of complacent customers, can buy the tech they don’t build.
Speaking of Brainstorm Finance, later this week I’m co-hosting, with the event’s co-chairs, a private dinner that will feature many of the hottest companies in this combining industry. Spots remain available for the big event this summer in Montauk, N.Y., June 17-18.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Bigger frogs, smaller pond. Speaking of fintech and what not, financial technology startups overall raised almost $34 billion last year, down 17% from 2018, according to a new report from CB Insights. And while most of the news about Facebook's Libra digital currency effort has been about folks quitting it, on Friday came word that e-commerce service Shopify was joining.
Can't say they didn't warn us. With cases of coronavirus spreading across the world, Samsung Electronics temporarily shut down a factory in Gumi City after an employee contracted the illness. Even in the U.S., companies are pulling out of tech conferences. IBM, AT&T, and most recently Verizon will not be sending employees to the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco this week.
Can't say they didn't warn us, part II. The 2020 election is off to a great start, with news emerging that the Russians may be trying to bolster Bernie Sanders with their online trickery, while Twitter said it was suspending 70 pro-Mike Bloomberg accounts for artificially amplifying or disrupting conversations.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Since digital music first became a thing with compact discs in the 1980s, people have been complaining, often rightly so, about the ways tech threatens and degrades musical quality. In the age of streaming music on smart speakers, those threats are ever more real, as columnist Virginia Heffernan explores in an essay for Wired.
In classical music, overcompression all but deletes pianissimo and distorts high volumes to smithereens. But compression can also crush subtleties like timbre, the auditory minutiae that let listeners tell the sound of a trumpet from that of a trombone, and tempo rubato (“stolen time”), which is the slight speed-up or slow-down of notes used by soloists or conductors taking liberties with a composition. When you erase tone color and edit out irregularities in a classical recording, you're on your way to losing the music entirely.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Empty pavilions, taxis without passengers: A quieter Barcelona reveals the damaging reach of coronavirus By Jennifer Baljko
Smart speakers can mistakenly record audio nearly 20 times per day on average, study finds By Danielle Abril
How technology is changing how we volunteer By Jeff John Roberts
5G will transform smartphones—but it won’t stop there By Cristiano Amon
You don’t have to become a manager to grow your career By Sarah Fielding
BEFORE YOU GO
World-class tinkerer and builder Adam Savage got his hands on one of those dog-like Boston Dynamics robots. In a lengthy video, Savage says he wanted to come up with a task for the robot, which he's calling Spot, that was "fun and evocative and strange and hilarious." He most definitely succeeded.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-02-24--The women who challenged the establishment this weekend

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Ty Haney is out as CEO of Outdoor Voices, the jury gets closer to a Weinstein verdict, and women had an eventful weekend in politics. Have a productive Monday.
– Weekend report. From Nevada to Washington, D.C., women faced political verdicts and pushed back against them this weekend.
First, the Nevada caucus. Despite the momentum created by her debate performance last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned just 10% of the vote, coming in fourth place as results were finalized. Sen. Amy Klobuchar came in sixth place, and the decisive victory went to Sen. Bernie Sanders—who also got a surprise endorsement from Marianne Williamson on Sunday.
Warren’s debate performance did, however, lead to one resounding victory: Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Friday finally agreed to release at least three women from their non-disclosure agreements. Bloomberg chose those three, specifically, as the claims all included comments the women say he made personally, rather than only harassment or gender discrimination allegations about his company. (Something must have been in the water on Friday—Condé Nast also announced it would limit the use of NDAs across the company.)
While the women in the Democratic primary race ended up losing out this weekend, another group of women in politics got a boost. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday endorsed a slate of seven female progressive primary candidates, all challengers to either sitting Democratic congressmen or Democratic Party-approved candidates for Republican seats. The group includes Christina Tzintzun Ramirez who’s vying for Sen. John Cornyn’s Texas Senate seat, along with House candidates Jessica Cisneros, Kara Eastman, Teresa Fernandez, Georgette Gómez, Samelys López, and Marie Newman. Ocasio-Cortez’s PAC Courage for Change is backing candidates who support Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, racial justice, and other issues.
Another notable challenge this weekend came from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. After a 5-4 majority decided to allow the Trump administration’s wealth test for immigrants to take effect in Illinois, the last remaining state where it was in limbo, Sotomayor in a dissent strongly criticized her colleagues, accusing the conservative justices of bias in favor of the Trump administration. “The Court’s recent behavior [has benefited] one litigant over all others,” the justice wrote, adding that granting the administration’s emergency requests to rule on its policies “put[s] a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won.”
It was a busy weekend, including here at Fortune; we published an op-ed by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, in which she argues that Democrats’ impeachment campaign helped President Trump. (She earned 0% of the vote in Nevada.)
And somehow, there’s still more news below.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Out-door Voices. Tyler Haney is out as CEO of athleisure brand Outdoor Voices as the direct-to-consumer company faces mounting losses (reportedly $2 million a month with $40 million in annual sales). Haney will stay on as a member of the board and with the new title of "founder." The brand recently raised new capital at a lower valuation than it had in past rounds. TechCrunch
- Jury says? The jury is still debating Harvey Weinstein's fate in New York, and it asked a question on Friday that indicated that the group is split on two charges of predatory sexual assault—the most serious charges Weinstein faces and the ones that come with a potential life sentence. The jury asked the judge if they could be divided on those charges, but unanimous on charges of first- and third-degree rape and criminal sexual act in the first degree. BuzzFeed
- Playing to win. The U.S. Women's National Team has set a price for the unequal pay and gender discrimination it claims players experienced: $66 million. The trial for the lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation is scheduled to start May 5; the size of the damages the team is seeking was revealed in papers filed last week. Fortune
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Wunderman Thompson global chairman Tamara Ingram is stepping down. Mining group Rio Tinto appointed Oxford professor Ngaire Woods, JPMorgan Chase global chair Jennifer Nason, and Schlumberger EVP Hinda Gharbi to its board of directors.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Workplace politics. Last week, writer E. Jean Carroll claimed Elle magazine fired her from her three-decade gig as an advice columnist after President Trump allegedly defamed her character following her accusation that he raped her in the mid-1990s (he denies it). Now, sources at Elle push back on that claim, saying it was a different kind of politics that ended Carroll's contract: she gave the news-making excerpt of her book to New York magazine instead of to Elle. New York Times
- LuLaOhNo. LuLaRoe, the multi-level marketing brand known for its leggings, has been in trouble for a while, facing lawsuits from suppliers, customers, and consultants. This story examines how those consultants—mostly millennial women who sunk thousands into inventory to later sell—were left in debt, as LuLaRoe fractured the Mormon family who founded the brand. BuzzFeed
- States step up. States have started stepping in to pay for family planning services at Planned Parenthood clinics since the organization quit a $260 million federal funding program over a Trump administration rule prohibiting clinics from referring women for abortions. New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Hawaii are among the states providing new funding to replace the federal money. Fortune
- Community-building gone wrong. In a corner of the Internet, women who believe in and practice "free birth"—not a home birth with a midwife or doula, but a birth deliberately without any medical professional or expert present at all—congregate. One woman shares her story of how she "brainwashed" herself through those communities, avoiding induction until she finally went into labor a month after her due date, and ended up losing her baby. NBC News
ON MY RADAR
Why high-achieving women pretend their lives are in shambles Medium
The long history of the hand-washing gender gap Slate
Harry and Meghan are dropping the word 'Royal' from their brand CNN
What Curb Your Enthusiasm is getting right about #MeToo MEL Magazine
PARTING WORDS
"How many of us in this room have colleagues and partners and friends from other races, sexes, religions? ... They like you? Well then, this is their problem too."
-Rihanna, accepting the President's Award at the NAACP Image Awards, on how everyone needs to fight racism, violence, and discrimination


fortune--2020-02-24--Coronavirus in Italy: Europe’s first big Covid-19 outbreak roils global markets

Europe is suffering its first significant outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus, and markets are reeling.
The outbreak is in Italy, where the number of confirmed cases has shot up past the 200 mark—on Friday morning, there were only three. At the time of writing, five people have died from the coronavirus in the north of the country—the economic engine of Italy—all of them elderly.
In all, eleven Italian towns are in in lockdown. Austria briefly suspended rail travel to the region, and officials on the local and state level are scrambling to stop the coronavirus hitting major cities. Here’s what you need to know.
How did the coronavirus get there?
The first Covid-19 cases to be confirmed in Italy, almost four weeks ago, involved a couple of Chinese tourists who travelled to Rome via Milan. Italians are on edge. Although only a few cases manifested before last Friday, recent weeks have seen a spate of violence and verbal abuse against people of Chinese and Asian origin.
Now the spread of the virus has taken a turn for the worse, with the hardest-hit region being Lombardy, the capital of which is Milan. Cases have also been reported in neighboring Veneto, plus Turin and south into Emilia Romagna.
According to reports, the authorities think the virus may have been spread by a 38-year-old Unilever researcher who visited the emergency room of an Italian hospital in Codogno. It’s believed the researcher then ran some races, infecting another runner, plus the Unilever employee’s wife. It is not, however, clear how he got the infection in the first place; he had contact with a man who had returned from China, but that man did not test positive.
What have the immediate effects been?
Codogno, the town where the first patient in the northern-Italian cluster was hospitalized, is on lockdown—as are more than 10 other towns. The authorities have moved on from looking for links to China. Now, the race is on to just stop Covid-19 spreading into Milan, the business capital of Italy.
Milan Fashion Week is going ahead—”We are tranquil and prudent,” said National Fashion Chamber president Carlo Capasa— but without Armani. The fashion house opted to livestream its Sunday show instead. “The decision was taken to safeguard the well-being of all his invited guests by not having them attend crowded spaces,” the company said.
Mido, the world’s largest eyewear show, was due to take place in Milan starting this weekend, but has now been postponed to late May at the earliest. Milan’s famed La Scala opera house has suspended performances. Schools are closed throughout Lombardy for a week, as are universities, museums and cinemas. High-profile soccer matches have been cancelled (sending club Juventus’s stock down by 9.6%) and churches have even cancelled Mass.
Over in Veneto, organizers of the Venice carnival cut the festivities short on Sunday—the carnival was only due to end Tuesday.
The timing is particularly difficult as Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy, remains on the brink of a downturn and the government in Rome is beset by in-fighting. Italian fourth quarter GDP clocked in at zero growth, and there’s been little consensus how to revive growth.
What has the reaction been outside Italy?
Italy’s neighbors are considering instituting border controls—a huge deal, given that those neighbors are all part of Europe’s Schengen Area, through which people can travel freely. In any event, keeping Europeans confined to one spot will prove far more difficult than was the case in China.
Austria briefly suspended train travel into Italy, after some passengers heading in the other direction presented with fever symptoms. After the passengers tested negative for coronavirus, Austria reopened the Alpine Brenner Pass. But the Austrian authorities are assembling a taskforce to examine the question of border controls. Slovenia and Croatia, which lie to the east of Veneto, are also holding crisis meetings.
So far, France is officially holding off from closing its transport borders with Italy, on the basis that doing so would not stem the virus’s spread. However, bus passengers who arrived in Lyon from Milan were reportedly kept on board Monday, due to the hospitalization of the driver. A security cordon was set up around the bus at Lyon’s Perrache station.
Mauritian authorities, meanwhile, are also “holding” an Alitalia plane that arrived from Rome on Monday, preventing dozens of passengers from disembarking.
And the markets?
The markets are looking ugly on Monday. Italy’s primary stock market, FTSE MIB, was down 4.6% at the time of writing, and the pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 3.4%. Germany’s DAX is down 3.6%; the U.K.’s FTSE 100 off 3%.
Italy is of course not the only problem here. The South Korean outbreak is looking increasingly scary, as is the coronavirus’s spread in the Middle East. Iran has seen at least a dozen Covid-19 deaths, and the first case has been confirmed in Iraq.
The coronavirus’s effect on the tourist and travel sector is particularly pronounced.
In afternoon trade in Europe, EasyJet was down 13.6%, Ryanair 11.2%, Air France-KLM 9.4%, Lufthansa 6.7% and International Airlines Group (the parent of British Airways and others) 8.6%. The German event-ticketing giant CTS Eventim is down 10.6%.
The latest outbreak is hitting global markets, too. Futures indicate the Dow Jones Industrial Average will open down a whopping 744 points. The Nasdaq could fall by an ever greater percentage.
More must-read stories from Fortune :
—Billionaires are donating to fight China’s coronavirus. Where is the money going?
—China’s high smoking rate may be exacerbating the coronavirus outbreak
—In China, oil won’t be the only energy sector battered by the coronavirus
—Coronavirus misinformation is fueled by government mistrust in China
—Coronavirus may be the straw that breaks the back of oil fracking
Subscribe to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health for daily updates on biopharma and health care.


fortune--2020-02-24--U.S. and India to sign $3 billion in defense deals, Trump says

The U.S. will sign military deals worth more than $3 billion with India on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said at the start of a two-day state visit to the South Asian nation.
“We make the greatest weapons ever made. Airplanes. Missiles. Rockets. Ships. We make the best and we’re dealing now with India. But this includes advanced air-defense systems and armed and unarmed aerial vehicles,” Trump told a cheering crowd at the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Monday as he shared the stage with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Last week, India’s cabinet cleared $2.6 billion purchase from Lockheed Martin Corp. of 24 multi-role MH-60R Seahawk maritime helicopters to Indian navy.
The State Department has also approved a potential sale to India of $1.8 billion in arms, including air-defense radars and missiles, rifles and other equipment, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced.
Trump also reiterated his pledge that the U.S. would make a significant trade deal with India.
“We are in the early stages of discussion for an incredible trade agreement to reduce barriers of investment between the United States and India,” he said. “And I am optimistic that, working together, the prime minister and I can reach a fantastic deal that’s good and even great for both of our countries.”
Trump gave no time line for a deal and speaking to reporters later he said he was in “no rush.”
Officials have tried to hammer out a modest trade deal opening up India to U.S. agricultural products and medical devices in return for the restoration of preferential export status that Trump stripped from India in 2019.
“There has been comparatively less activity during President Trump’s first term so it’s important for the two sides to get a win in the arms sales arena, particularly since the trade deal that’s been under negotiations for over a year appears to be off the table for now,” Jeff M. Smith, research fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.


fortune--2020-02-24--Why the coronavirus is pushing gold up—and oil and other commodities down

Renewed fears that the coronavirus will harm global growth rocked commodity markets again on Monday, with oil and metals prices tumbling while gold soared toward $1,700 an ounce amid a flight to haven assets.
As the deadly virus spreads more widely outside China, raising the threat of a global pandemic, finance chiefs and central bankers from the world’s largest economies said they see downside risks persisting.
That’s spurring fresh alarm in commodity markets that had started to recover from lows hit earlier in the month when China’s virtual shutdown threw supply chains into chaos. With the International Monetary Fund cutting its global growth forecast and warning that it’s also looking at more “dire” scenarios, investors are concerned that risks to raw-material demand are worsening.
“Commodities are witnessing another risk-off day as coronavirus concerns boil up,” said Norbert Ruecker, head of economics at Julius Baer Group Ltd. in Zurich. “The oil market remains concerned about demand” while “the flight to safety pushes gold to new highs.”
Oil led the losses on Monday, tumbling more than 3% in London and New York. Until Friday, Brent crude had been in the longest run of gains in more than a year thanks to Chinese fiscal stimulus and new threats to supplies from Africa and Latin America.
Industrial commodities were also hit hard, with copper sliding about 1% on the London Metal Exchange and rubber sinking more than 2% in Singapore. Agricultural commodities weren’t spared, with U.S. wheat among the biggest losers.
May corn futures in Chicago sank to a five-month low, with soybeans also dropping. U.S. agricultural officials acknowledged last week that the coronavirus outbreak is delaying China’s purchases of American farm goods pledged under the phase-one trade deal, and President Donald Trump raised the possibility of more farmer aid.
The declines reflect a broader market sell-off as the spread of the virus outside China spooks investors. Asian and European equities slumped along with U.S. futures, while the Australian dollar retreated along with the offshore yuan.
South Korea, the hardest-hit country after China, had earlier raised its infectious-disease alert to the highest level after a 20-fold increase in cases. The situation in Europe was also escalating, with Austria halting a train from Italy on concern there were two infected passengers on board. Italy — now the virus’s epicenter on the continent — canceled the Venice Carnival and other events amid a rising case load.
As they flee riskier assets, investors are searching for safety, sending gold prices to fresh seven-year highs, with bonds also advancing. Bullion prices have taken off this year, rising about 10% as concerns over the virus deepen and speculation mounts that the U.S. Federal Reserve will ease monetary policy if the global impact worsens.
“The spread of the Covid-19 to Italy and South Korea is threatening the rebounds in asset prices and that fear is driving gold prices higher,” said Howie Lee, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. “Upward momentum is strong and interest in gold is set to remain high until the situation abates.”
Shares of some of the largest commodity companies were also affected by the sharp moves in prices. A gauge of South African gold producers climbed as much as 8.4% to the highest since 2002, led by Harmony Gold Mining Co. Yet BHP Group, the world’s biggest miner, slumped 5.4% in London, while BP Plc lost 3.5%.
The havoc wreaked by the virus in China is a stark warning for investors as it spreads outside Asia. Oil demand in the world’s biggest importer collapsed as Beijing restricted travel and shut down factories, prompting refineries to close, stockpiles to swell and shippers to seek to divert cargoes elsewhere.
Chemical and oil tanker Tina Theresa, right, sits docked near shipping cranes at the port of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, on Feb. 12, 2020. Krisztian Bocsi—Bloomberg via Getty Images
The world’s biggest oil producers have foundered. The OPEC+ alliance led by Saudi Arabia has struggled to agree on a collective response, dropping the idea of an early emergency gathering amid opposition from Russia.
Buyers of liquefied natural gas have been trying to get out of their contracts, with demand so bad that empty ships have been lining up in Qatar, the world’s biggest seller. Copper smelters have been forced to cut production, while containers full of frozen meat have piled up at Chinese ports because of a lack of truck drivers.
Still, commodities could rebound after bearing the brunt of the current sell-off as plants come back into operation, with activity signals in China in particular starting to improve, according to UBS Group AG’s wealth management unit.
“Given the fact that relative to other assets, commodities still remain very low and particularly taking the burden of this reaction, then you would expect the recovery to be quite sharp as we go into the third quarter,” Wayne Gordon, executive director for commodities and foreign exchange, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
Beijing is now pushing for people to get back to work, loosening the criteria for factories to resume operations, as it tries to find a balance between containing the virus and preventing a slump in the world’s second-largest economy. But it’s contagion outside China that’s worrying markets.
“The uncertainty around how cases outside of China evolve is likely to keep market participants nervous, and therefore markets are likely to remain volatile,” ING Bank commodity strategist Warren Patterson said.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—20 maps charting the rise of the modern megacity around the globe
—Coronavirus misinformation is fueled by government mistrust in China
—In China, oil won’t be the only energy sector battered by the coronavirus
—Europe wants business to share its data and open up A.I. systems for scrutiny
—Fortune Explains: Tariffs and trade wars
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-02-24--Pepsi is buying major Chinese online snacks company Be & Cheery for $705 million

PepsiCo Inc. plans to buy online snacks company Hangzhou Haomusi Food Co. — known as Be & Cheery — for $705 million from Haoxiangni Health Food Co. as the maker of Doritos and Lay’s potato chips expands in China.
Be & Cheery’s products includes nuts, dried fruits, meat snacks, baked goods and confectionery items that are sold mainly online through China’s major e-commerce platforms. The deal is subject to a Haoxiangni shareholder vote, certain regulatory approvals and other customary conditions, the companies said in a statement.
Pepsi is trying to expand in the Asian nation, where it saw “double-digit” revenue growth last year, as it contends with a general decline in the consumption of sugary soft drinks worldwide. Pepsi on Feb. 13 reported a 2020 earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ estimates.
The snack and soft-drinks maker had been working on the Be & Cheery acquisition since before the coronavirus outbreak that began in China, and reaching the deal shows a willingness to make a long-term play even against uncertain near term. Pepsi closed one of its six manufacturing facilities in the country earlier this year to help deal with the outbreak. Earlier this month, Pepsi Chief Financial Officer Hugh F. Johnston said in an interview that the plant in Wuhan was expected to start up again shortly.
Pepsi’s last major acquisition came last year when it agreed to buy South Africa’s Pioneer Foods Group Ltd. for about 24.4 billion rand ($1.6 billion), adding local brands such as Weet-Bix breakfast cereal and Ceres fruit juice to expand across the continent. Before that, Pepsi agreed to purchase fizzy-drinks dispenser SodaStream International Ltd. for $3.2 billion in 2018.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—20 maps charting the rise of the modern megacity around the globe
—Coronavirus misinformation is fueled by government mistrust in China
—In China, oil won’t be the only energy sector battered by the coronavirus
—Europe wants business to share its data and open up A.I. systems for scrutiny
—Fortune Explains: Tariffs and trade wars
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-02-24--Krispy Kreme rolls out national deliveries

If it’s too much trouble to get to your local Krispy Kreme, the doughnut shop is now willing to come to you.
Krispy Kreme will begin delivering doughnuts nationwide, starting on Feb. 29, a large-scale expansion of a trial that was started in select locations in 2018.
Orders can be made at the company’s Website or via the Krispy Kreme app. Delivery range will vary by store.
To mark the occasion, Krispy Kreme said it will deliver free doughnuts to dozens of hospitals on Leap Day to celebrate children born on that day. (Social media posts noting when the baby was delivered, the hospital, tagging Krispy Kreme and using the hashtag #KrispyKremeSpecialDelivery will receive five dozen doughnuts if they’re within 10 miles of a Krispy Kreme location.)
The delivery service is the latest promotion by the doughnut chain, which has been amping up its marketing arm of late. Last week, it unveiled a pair of new doughnuts that incorporated the Butterfinger candy bar.
The delivery service comes as McDonald’s explores the doughnut space and Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts) turns heads with its coffee brands and the introduction of a beyond meat faux sausage breakfast sandwich.


fortune--2020-02-24--Atelier Ace expands into the luxury market with Maison de la Luz

Atelier Ace has been instrumental in revitalizing the Warehouse District in downtown New Orleans. When the brand opened Ace Hotel New Orleans in 2016, it brought with it equally hip local tenants—from DNO, a streetwear-inspired clothing brand, to dessert shop Drip Affogato Bar. All of a sudden, there are things to do and see in this little corner of the city, all of which complement the restaurants, bars, and events the hotel itself would be putting together.
In 2019, Atelier Ace doubled down on its commitment to the neighborhood when it introduced Maison de la Luz, a design-forward guesthouse with a more luxurious edge.
“We had been thinking about opening a luxury guesthouse on a more intimate scale and had our eye on a century-old building across the street from Ace Hotel New Orleans,” says Kelly Sawdon, partner and chief brand officer at Atelier Ace. “When it became available, everything fell into place. The building was formerly the City Hall Annex, and with only 67 rooms, it was the perfect opportunity to explore new definitions of luxury in a city we were already in love with.”
The facade of the Maison de la Luz on Carondelet Street in New Orleans. Courtesy of Maison de la Luz
Despite its location seconds away from the Ace property, Maison de la Luz is meant to offer an altogether different hospitality experience. For one, while Ace is known for tighter quarters, Maison de la Luz’s rooms are wildly spacious, from the 340-square-foot king rooms (starting at $399 per night) all the way up to the Grand Studio suite, which measures 620 square feet and fetches a $1,399 nightly rate. Many of these rooms feature soaring 17-foot ceilings, too.
And while Ace hotels are usually outfitted with social lobbies, hard-to-get-into restaurants, and cutting-edge bars, Maison de la Luz leans much more toward privacy. In fact, its breakfast and living rooms are strictly reserved for overnight guests, helping give the property an air of intimacy—a traveler’s sanctuary in the big city.
The concierge desk at Maison de la Luz. Courtesy of Maison de la Luz
And for aesthetes, there’s plenty to discover within these four walls. Interiors were overseen by Pamela Shamshiri, the principal at California-based design agency Studio Shamshiri, who adopted a maximalist approach to every corner of the guesthouse.
There is so much to see, and for the social media–obsessed, plenty to upload on Instagram. There’s an Art Deco aspect to the building that is beautifully brought to life at the concierge desk, for example. After viewing its teal walls, marble countertop, gilded lamps, and tasseled room keys jutting out of tiny cubicles, guests could be forgiven for being momentarily convinced they were checking into a Wes Anderson fantasy instead.
The private salon at Maison de la Luz. Courtesy of Maison de la Luz
Elsewhere, exceptional attention is paid to texture. The living room is a whimsical medley of global references—from Egyptian paintings to tribal masks to couches in a color block of sherbet hues to a custom-designed tiger rug. Next door at the breakfast room, the walls are covered with blue flowers, and there’s a mix-and-match collection of chairs to sit on. This somewhat over-the-top style makes perfect sense for a fabled city like New Orleans, where considered excess is a much better fit than the minimalism many other hotels go for today.
Sawdon says that this vision, which toes the line between grace and rebellion, doesn’t follow trends or convention. “We imagined a space where someone as brilliant, singular, and eccentric as Iris Apfel might live, using the house as a representation of her attentive and discerning eye,” she explains. “We worked with Studio Shamshiri to create a visual narrative that layered elements onto classic, traditional bones.”
The Grand Studio suite. Courtesy of Maison de la Luz
The guest rooms are pared down by comparison, but there are still a lot of eye-catching pieces (most of which were exclusively designed or sourced for the project) to discover and to covet, whether that’s the black-and-gold Art Deco bedside bar, the fringed pendant lamps, or the sexy serpent shower-door handles—if there’s enough voodoo in the air, maybe it’ll come alive.
Bar Marilou at Maison de la Luz. Courtesy of Maison de la Luz
There is one part of Maison de la Luz that is open to the public: Bar Marilou. Much like how the guesthouse elevates the hotel scene in the city, so does this drinking den. It’s a collaboration with Quixotic Projects, the famed hospitality group behind some of the coolest hangouts in Paris, including Le Mary Celeste and Candelaria. Tucked into the former law library of the City Hall Annex, Bar Marilou is Quixotic’s first foray outside the City of Light.
Thus, the inspiration here is tethered to both Paris and New Orleans. Quixotic and Ace wanted an atmospheric boîte—one that evoked “1970s Parisian drinking culture—long serendipitous nights spent among friends, or with a good book—and New Orleans’s rich history of cocktail bars,” Sawdon explains.
Champagne and burgers at Bar Marilou. Courtesy of Maison de la Luz
And visually, this bar is just as opulent as the rest of the property. Brothel-red walls, Chinese porcelain, and animal-print barstools set the scene for an indulgent evening of sharp cocktails and decadent shared plates. The “Pommes Marilou”—crispy potato cubes topped with crème fraîche and bowfin caviar—has been the kitchen’s bestseller. The dish is an apt culinary mascot for the Maison de la Luz experience: It’s a little fancy but still approachable.
“There’s a playful, exuberant quality to Maison de la Luz [after all],” Sawdon adds. “It doesn’t take itself too seriously but stays distinctly elegant, effusive, and warm.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—The Philly bakery that makes Beyoncé’s birthday cakes
—Why Petit St. Vincent is the ultimate winter getaway this year
—The 2019 food trends we hope carry over to 2020
—This unique wine is the newest collector’s item in Asia
—The best travel destinations for every season of 2020
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-02-28--Biden needs strong South Carolina win Saturday to keep candidacy alive

The top issues in fintech , according to the industry ’ s biggest players

Joe Biden is hoping for a win in South Carolina on Saturday to propel him to a strong showing three days later on Super Tuesday that would give fresh momentum to his flagging campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
But Democrats say a massive win in South Carolina can only do so much to jump start his Super Tuesday operation. And even though he is 12 points ahead in the RealClearPolitics polling average of South Carolina, a huge blowout in the state might prove difficult with the rise of Bernie Sanders and the persistent strength of billionaire Tom Steyer.
Patti Solis Doyle, who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign and who isn’t backing a candidate this year, said she thinks Biden would need at least a 15 or 20 percentage point win in South Carolina to achieve “some sort of momentum that makes a difference in the three days before Super Tuesday.”
Even if he pulls that off, he has no real organization, staffing or advertising in most of the Super Tuesday states, where he’ll also face opposition from Michael Bloomberg in addition to Sanders.
(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)
Biden’s team says it will rely on the strategy it used in Iowa, counting on his name recognition as the former vice president to make up for deficiencies in money, field organizing and candidate time in the 14 Super Tuesday states.
Yet Biden’s fourth-place finish in Iowa gives reason for skepticism that the same game plan will be successful this time.
Still, the campaign is counting on scoring enough delegates on Super Tuesday, when 34% of the delegates to Democratic convention will be up for grabs, to stay in the race. It hopes that voters who don’t want Sanders to become the nominee will rally around Biden.
In addition, many of the Super Tuesday states are more racially diverse and have more moderate Democratic primary electorates than Iowa and New Hampshire, which could also help him perform well in many places.
“South Carolina truly is a launching pad for the Biden campaign. I know that Joe intends to win South Carolina and we hope it will be in double digits,” said Representative Terri Sewell, a Biden supporter whose Alabama district includes Birmingham and Selma. “I truly believe it will give us a win and be a win that will catapult us into Super Tuesday.”
The campaign’s approach with voters is built around “the vice president having been there and them knowing him from the Obama administration and his relationships in these places throughout the years,” said Molly Ritner, his Super Tuesday director. She said the focus is on heavily non-white areas such as Birmingham and Selma as well as Norfolk, Virginia, “where we can run up the score and get the most delegates we can with the fewest number of resources.”
Yet Biden’s operations in Super Tuesday states have been described even by his own aides as “scrappy,” with staffing and ad spending well below the rest of the top candidates.
His money deficit is evident on the airwaves and on the ground across the states with upcoming contests. The campaign didn’t make its first buys for Super Tuesday until Wednesday of this week, and after early voting periods had been open for weeks in a few states. The purchase had been in the six-figures but, after days of strong online fundraising, was upped to $2.2 million on Thursday, his campaign said.
The broadcast and digital advertisements focus on programs and stations that have African-American audiences in the southern Super Tuesday states, as well as California, Texas and Oklahoma.
Unite the Country, the pro-Biden super-PAC, said Thursday that it had made a six-figure ad buy across Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
“That tells you pretty much all you need to know,” Solis Doyle said. Even if Biden has an influx of campaign contributions after a big South Carolina win, it may be short notice for him to spend much of it in Super Tuesday states.
“Joe Biden’s got a lot of obstacles,” she added. “I’m not saying it’s not doable but it’s threading a really small needle.”
By contrast, Sanders has broadcast or reserved about $13.5 million in Super Tuesday ads and Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have both already made seven-figure buys.
Bloomberg, at the same time, has spent nearly $200 million on advertising in Super Tuesday states, while also building up sizable field operations.
Two of the biggest challenges for Biden are early voting and the impact of still having a handful of moderates in the race – especially Bloomberg, whose team has made a concerted push to peel off black voters from Biden and has polled better with African Americans than any candidate other than Biden and Sanders.
Early voting in California began on Feb. 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses. In Texas, it began on Feb. 18.
Much of Biden’s hope lies in southern states where black voters make up a large share of Democratic voters and that don’t have early-voting periods, including Alabama, Arkansas and Virginia, and in black congressional districts in other states.
He’s also looking to North Carolina’s First Congressional District, which is heavily African American, as one place where he can bank a delegate advantage over opponents. His travel itinerary beginning Saturday reflects these priorities, with stops in Selma, Raleigh, Norfolk, Dallas, Houston and California through Tuesday.
Biden isn’t expected to perform particularly well in three states where primary voters are mostly white – Maine, Utah and Vermont, Sanders’s home state.
But one Democrat close to Biden’s campaign pointed to Oklahoma and Massachusetts as two states where hitting the 15% threshold to earn delegates could indicate he’s experiencing a post-South Carolina bump.
The Biden campaign points to an uptick in fundraising as a sign that the tide is turning. It raised more than $1.2 million online on Wednesday, its biggest one-day grassroots haul since the day Biden got into the race last April.
Sanders has built up an especially robust operation in California, where he’s led Biden by roughly 10 points in recent polls, and according to experts could end up netting hundreds more delegates than his nearest opponent.
By late February, Sanders had close to two dozen offices in California and Biden had one, though his campaign began scaling up its operation after the Iowa caucuses. Buttigieg and Klobuchar have paid staff in the 12 states that vote on Super Tuesday. Biden’s campaign would say only that it is on the ground in every state voting on March 3 and did not respond to questions about how many of those states had paid staff.
Addisu Demissie, Cory Booker’s 2020 presidential campaign manager, played down the importance of field operations at this stage of the race. “I think it’s overrated once you get to Super Tuesday,” he said, arguing that even the biggest operations in the large states voting on Tuesday – like Sanders’s in California — are far smaller than they’d need to be to have a dramatic impact on the outcome of the race.
North Carolina Representative G.K. Butterfield, who represents the First District, which includes Durham and Greenville, said this week that he hoped he and his two House colleagues in the state who have endorsed Biden, Alma Adams and David Price, will “push him to the top” to win North Carolina “decisively” after what he expected would be a strong showing in South Carolina.
‘Fight to the End’
Still, he added that plenty of effort lies ahead if the Biden campaign can endure past Tuesday.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, we are not arrogant, we understand that this is going to be a fight to the end,” Butterfield said. “But hopefully we can avoid a deadlocked convention and build a consensus candidate before July.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Are we undergoing an industrial revolution or a phase change?
—Twitter’s testing new ways to fight misinformation. Is open-source the answer?
—Meet Trump’s Giuliani-approved power broker—and Melania’s new senior adviser
—Angela Merkel is on her way out. Meet her potential replacements
—How the 2020 election could influence your personal finances
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-02-28--How 5G promises to revolutionize farming

Over the next several years, superfast 5G mobile networks promise to shake up a variety of industries, particularly those on the cutting edge, including technology and automotive. But 5G, the wireless successor to today’s 4G, may also revolutionize the farming industry, which has long been slow to adopt new innovations.
Wireless sensors connected through 5G could monitor field conditions and detect when crops need watering, pesticides, or fertilizer, experts say. It could also help with tracking livestock and guiding agricultural drones and self-driving tractors.
“5G has the potential to have a transformative effect on the global economy through a number of different verticals, and farming certainly is one of the most prominent ones to consider,” says ABI Research analyst Leo Gergs.
The end result for agriculture, in theory, would be improved crop yields and higher-quality produce. But actually making the promise a reality is unlikely to be quick or easy.
While major wireless carriers Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are racing to install 5G, they’ve so far focused only on metropolitan areas because of their high concentration of potential customers. It will take years before their 5G networks are widely available in rural areas, meaning most farmers will have to wait.
“5G will probably not have a tangible impact on farming for three to five years,” says Bill Morelli, an analyst with IHS Markit.
Many farmers have already installed sensors in their fields that are connected using 4G, which operates at up to 100Mbps. In comparison, 5G speeds of up to 10Gbps are expected. The difference allows for faster connectivity between devices along with enabling more devices to connect to a single cell tower.
“Sensors are already used in farming to measure and report upon environmental conditions such as rainfall, water content, nutrients in the soil, and ground temperature,” says Simon Forrest, an analyst at Futuresource.
Upgrading to 5G could increase the impact of the technology by improving connection speeds and allowing for devices to more effectively communicate. For example, it would allow farmers to install more sensors to track more data points and help them run their operations more effectively.
One of the big questions is over the impact 5G will have on agricultural jobs. Unskilled labor could see the biggest impact, according to analysts.
Currently, there are 2.1 million agricultural workers in the U.S., according to ABI Research, with the average farm employing about 45 people. Those numbers will fall over time as farmers add more technology, according to Gergs.
“5G will change the nature of jobs in farming and agriculture substantially,” Gergs says.
By 2035, the number of agriculture jobs is expected to shrink to 1.78 million, Gergs says. At the same time, farms will employ an average of only 27 people.
But Morelli is unsure that more technology, including 5G, will actually impact the number of farm jobs overall. He acknowledged that different roles will be in higher demand, likely data analytics and farm management, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a lower headcount.
“Smart agriculture in general is about allowing farmers to be more informed and efficient; it’s not specifically about eliminating jobs,” Morelli says. “There will likely be some transition, as with any technology transition.”
Whatever the case, the stakes are high. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the planet will need 70% more food in 2050 than it did in 2009 because of a rising global population. Advancements in farming will be a big contributor.
“Technology must be applied to the problem,” says Forrest. “Connectivity is essential, and therefore 5G in agriculture is inevitable.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—New tech-centric Mastercard CEO has his eyes on the fintech prize
—Did the ‘techlash’ kill Alphabet’s city of the future?
—How technology is changing how we volunteer
—Credit Karma was acquired rather than pursuing an IPO. Will more companies follow suit in 2020?
—Half of U.S. local government offices haven’t upgraded their ransomware defenses since 2019’s online crime spree
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-02-28--The top issues in fintech, according to the industry’s biggest players

Taylor Swift takes on toxic masculinity—and takes control of her own image

This article first appeared in Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. Sign up here.
With humility and a tad of dark humor about how the world was falling apart around us, several Fortune writers and I hosted a dinner Thursday night in an unseasonably warm San Francisco to talk about fintech. We gathered a who’s who of the technologically savvy companies that are trying to reinvent financial services: Andreessen Horowitz, Ant Financial, Brex, Calibra, Coinbase, Honey, Plaid, Ripple, Ribbit Capital, Robinhood, SoFi, Square, Stripe, and more.
Our mission was to gather ideas from industry luminaries about what we should discuss at our Fortune Brainstorm Finance conference in Montauk, N.Y., this summer. A few of the ideas:
Central banks have talked a lot and done little around digital currencies. We want to hear from central bankers about their plans.
What would the ramifications of negative interest rates be in the U.S.?
M&A is heating up in fintech. Discuss.
What are ways fintech companies can contribute to financial literacy? (My two cents: The bar is low given how poorly, for all the talk, the current crop of financial-services leaders have done on this count.)
Micropayments: Has their time come?
Is there any reason to assume data privacy will improve with all the new non-banking players entering the field?
If you have ideas, feel free to write in. One thing is clear: We’ll have plenty to talk about in June—provided there is still an economy.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Grim prognosis. As the stock market recorded its fastest correction ever, thanks to the Covid-19 outbreak, tech stocks led the way down. Chip stocks were particularly hard hit. Intel has lost 17% in the past week, Nvidia is down 20%, and AMD is off 25%. Other big losers include Dell, down 18%, Microsoft, down 16%, and Apple, with a 15% loss. Among the very hardest hit: Tesla, which had been counting on China to charge up electric car sales. Its shares dropped 13% on Thursday alone and are down 26% on the week. For comparison, the S&P 500 Index has dropped almost 12% over the past week.
Stay-at-home attendees. In other virus-related news, Facebook decided to cancel its annual F8 developer conference, which was scheduled to take place May 5 and 6 in San Jose. Longtime tech columnist Walt Mossberg noted that the move puts pressure on Apple and Google to cancel their usual developer meetings, as well. "Seems to me it’d be hard for them to just carry on as usual," he wrote.
Closing the barn door. Federal regulators want the four major wireless carriers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for improperly selling location data about their customers, the Wall Street Journal reports. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint have not agreed to the terms being sought by the Federal Communications Commission and could seek to challenge the assessments.
Bring it to me. Despite this week's stock market gyrations, some companies still want to join the fray. Food delivery service DoorDash said it filed a confidential statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. It was valued at $13 billion in a private fundraising round last year.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The federal government is finding all sorts of uses for artificial intelligence, according to a new study from Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. They range from speeding up the processing of Social Security disability applications to helping the Securities and Exchange Commission uncover insider trading. Dan Ho, associate director of the institute, says the study also picked up some flaws in those uses.
First and foremost, government agencies often lack the human capital to take advantage of rapid advances in technology. One agency couldn’t explain its errors because it didn’t have access to proprietary source code. Makeshift solutions and insecure AI can put people at risk.
Second, there are unique legal constraints when the government makes decisions. Government agencies have to explain decisions, but such explanations become increasingly difficult as algorithmic decision making systems displace human judgment. As AI tools proliferate in federal agencies, they must ensure accountability and fidelity to legal norms of transparency, explanation, and non-discrimination, and building out such systems that function effectively within the complex human and institutional environment becomes increasingly important.
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads that I came across this week:
Inside the Seething Boardroom Drama That Poisoned HQ Trivia (Bloomberg Businessweek)
The app was America’s favorite gameshow until a toxic culture and co-founder feuding drove it off the air. Now, the CEO wants to bring it back.
Millennial Women Made LuLaRoe Billions. Then They Paid The Price. (BuzzFeed)
Lawsuits, mountains of unsold leggings, and families drowning in debt: the tumultuous story behind a multilevel marketing brand that promised millennial women a pathway to financial freedom.
The Weirdest Subway Restaurant in America (Wall Street Journal)
The franchise is based inside an FBI training center called Hogan’s Alley where the bank gets robbed at least twice a week
Why You Should Buy Your First Mechanical Keyboard In 2020 (The Startup)
So, you’ve heard about all the hype and you want a reason to get into mechanical keyboards, but have no clue where to start? Look no further!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Four takeaways from the annual RSA security conference By Jonathan Vanian
The most essential travel apps you need to know about By Naomi Tomky
Amidst coronavirus panic, the stock of this hazmat suit-maker is up 88% By Lucinda Shen
Here’s what’s next for a self-driving car startup that’s poised to make history By Eric C. Evarts
College backlash against facial-recognition technology grows By David Z. Morris
Investors are betting on the growth of gaming startups By Polina Marinova
Mansplaining in meetings: How can we get him to stop? By Jennifer Mizgata
BEFORE YOU GO
While most stock prices have fallen over the past week, some have risen as investors find companies that could prosper despite, or perhaps because of, the outbreak. One obvious play is Zoom Video Communications, maker of the popular video conferencing app. Its shares, which trade under the symbol ZM, are up 9% over the past week. Then there is defunct tech company Zoom Technologies, which for some reason still trades with the more recognizable symbol ZOOM. In a sign of apparent investor confusion, its shares also rose 80%. So much for the efficient market theory! Have a great weekend.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-02-28--Taylor Swift takes on toxic masculinity—and takes control of her own image

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The former mayor of Baltimore is sentenced to three years in prison, we hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, and pair of pop stars make news. Have a wonderful weekend.
– The Man and the Ex. It’s been a tough news week! So let’s celebrate the fact that we made it to Friday with something a little lighter—a pair of fun stories about two of the pop world’s MPWs, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.
Yesterday, Swift dropped a new video for “The Man,” the latest single from her most recent album, Lover. The song, for those who haven’t heard it, might be her most explicitly feminist, laying out all the ways Swift believes she’s faced a sexist double standard as a famous—and occasionally infamous—woman. The video takes that concept a step further, putting Swift in full drag (including beard!) and letting her live her most toxic masculinity-drenched life, consequence free.
Watch it here.
There’s a lot of enjoyable writing out there about the video—including Vulture’s deep dive into its many easter eggs (quite a few of which jab at Scooter Braun) and Jezebel’s theory that the whole thing is one big Leonardo DiCaprio subtweet. But perhaps most striking is that it’s Swift’s directorial debut—and that she so proudly claims that authorship, trumpeting in the closing credits that she directed, wrote, starred in, and, yes, “owns” the video.
Lady Gaga, meanwhile, plays a very different kind of role in this essay by New York Times editor Lindsay Crouse titled, simply and brilliantly: “My Ex-Boyfriend’s New Girlfriend is Lady Gaga.” I don’t want to spoil much about Crouse’s delightful piece—after all, the summary is right there in the headline!—so I’ll just say that, while comparing yourself to someone like Gaga could shake even the most confident among us, Crouse manages to see the superstar as inspiration rather than competition. I encourage you to read the full story—I promise it will start your weekend off right.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Children's book consequences. Catherine Pugh, the former mayor of Baltimore, was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday. Pugh was forced to resign last year after earning $800,000 in income and funding her political campaigns by selling her self-published Healthy Holly children's books and then failing to deliver them to public schools. She pled guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy. Washington Post
- LPJ in NYT. Laurene Powell Jobs sits for a NYT Corner Office interview—rare for the usually private philanthropist and businesswoman. (Before agreeing to do the interview, Powell Jobs insisted on interviewing the writer.) She discusses her work with the Emerson Collective, the influence Steve Jobs had on her worldview ("to pull out any one way ... is impossible, because I have integrated so much of him"), and the wealth gap. "It’s not right for individuals to accumulate a massive amount of wealth that’s equivalent to millions and millions of other people combined," she says. New York Times
- Coronavirus report. The White House named Debbie Birx, U.S. global AIDS coordinator, as coronavirus response coordinator; she'll report to Vice President Mike Pence's office. In Iran, vice president for women and family affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar has been infected with the virus. And Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation proposing a way to pay for the U.S. response to the outbreak: use the funding allocated for President Trump's border wall.
- Explaining how to handle a mansplainer. Fortune's advice columnist Jennifer Mizgata answers an important question: how do you deal with mansplaining at work? If there's an egregious offender in your office, "to mitigate the impacts of this mansplainer on you and your career, you need to address his behavior and how it’s impacting your work." Fortune
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Levi Strauss & Co. hired Tracy Layney of Shutterfly as SVP and chief human resources officer.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Spreadsheet success. Remember the #GrabYourWallet campaign, which tracked retailers that carried Trump and Ivanka Trump products? The activist behind that movement, Shannon Coulter, is now tallying which companies employ forced arbitration for sexual harassment claims. The campaign again encourages readers to make purchasing decisions based on the information or contact companies that take part in the practice. Washington Post
-Senator, Secretary, podcaster. Hillary Clinton is reportedly launching her own podcast this spring—just in time to make her voice heard during the 2020 presidential election. Politico
- Another kind of small business owner. Is an abortion clinic the hardest small business to run in America? Amy Hagstrom Miller, owner of Whole Woman’s Health in Austin, calls the surcharges clinic owners face the "abortion tax." An anti-abortion campaigner offered Hagstrom Miller's landlord five years of rent to prevent her from holding onto the space. Then she had to spend about $100,000 on a search for a new landlord willing to rent to her, security for staff and patients, airfare for doctors flying in, legal fees, and higher rates charged by contractors nervous about protesters or boycotts. Bloomberg
- Miss Black America for Buttigieg. With the South Carolina primary coming up this weekend, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has one endorsement on his side: Miss Black America 2018, Ryann Richardson. Buttigieg is polling around 4% with black voters in the state, but Richardson decided she was in his camp after he "accept[ed] accountability" when she asked him about the police shooting of Eric Logan in South Bend. Before being crowned a pageant queen, Richardson ran startups and founded Uber’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. Washington Post
ON MY RADAR
The making of Six: How Tudor queens turned into pop stars New York Times
It doesn't take much to be seen as an unruly woman Vulture
Canada reveals it’s been providing security to Harry and Meghan—but will cut them off in the ‘coming weeks' Washington Post
I testified against Harvey Weinstein. He was found guilty, so why don’t I feel relieved? Elle
PARTING WORDS
"If you were to take this story and put it anywhere else, you wouldn’t have to change that much to make it relatable."
-Autumn de Wilde, the rock-and-roll photographer making her feature directorial debut with her adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma.


fortune--2020-02-28--In A.I., what would Jesus do?

In A.I., what would Jesus do?

An influential Vatican institute and top officials from the European Union, United Nations, IBM and Microsoft have joined forces to push for ethical development of artificial intelligence.
The officials have signed a document, called the “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” that was presented to Pope Francis on Friday.
“A.I.-based technology must never be used to exploit people in any way, especially those who are most vulnerable,” the document says. “Instead, it must be used to help people develop their abilities and to support the planet.”
The document lays out six broad principles for the ethical development of A.I. It was created under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Vatican institute tasked with reconciling the Catholic Church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life with emerging issues in science and law.
In the past, the academy’s views have shaped the Church’s sometimes controversial positions on such emerging fields as stem cell research, gene editing, and cloning.
Vincenzo Paglia, the academy’s president, said that the ethical principles contained in the letter “must become the patrimony of everyone and not only the experts on artificial intelligence.”
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, and John Kelly III, executive vice president of IBM, both said their companies were proud to support the Rome Call. “We’re grateful for the Vatican’s leadership in pushing for the A.I. era to be underpinned by ethics,” Kelly said in speech at the academy in Rome.
In addition to Kelly, Smith, and Paglia, David Sassoli, president of the European Parliament, and Dongyu Qu, director general of the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization, also signed the Rome Call.
Last year, Pope Francis, speaking before a group that included representatives of a number of Silicon Valley companies, warned that technologies such as A.I. could, if not guided by “both theoretical and practical moral principles,” lead to “a new form of barbarism.” He also said he was worried about A.I.’s ability to feed disinformation campaigns that “poison public debates and even manipulate the opinions of millions of people, to the point of endangering the very institutions that guarantee peaceful civil coexistence.”
The new ethics document puts the Catholic Church at the forefront of major world religions in working toward a possible doctrine on artificial intelligence. But the Vatican is joining a long list of governments, companies, and nongovernmental groups that have articulated A.I. ethics principles in the past three years. In just the past month, for instance, the European Union laid out its strategy for A.I. development and regulation in a white paper, and the U.S. Department of Defense issued ethical guidelines for the use of A.I.
Some data ethicists and human and civil rights campaigners have criticized these earlier efforts for being too vague, sidestepping explicit prohibitions on uses of A.I. such as facial recognition in government surveillance systems, the use of algorithms in criminal justice or the creation of autonomous weapons. Some computer scientists, meanwhile, have faulted them for being either impractical or potentially too restrictive, limiting beneficial uses of A.I.
Microsoft and IBM are both part of an organization called the Partnership on AI, that has also articulated a set of ethical principles to guide A.I. developers, but been accused by some critics of using its influence to water down government regulation of the technology. That organization also includes, among others, Facebook, Google and Amazon, three large technology companies that have put A.I. at the core of their business plans and which are notably absent from the Rome Call, although they may be allowed to sign the document at a later date.
The Rome Call’s six principles are transparency, inclusion, responsibility, impartiality, reliability, and security and privacy. And, as with other ethical A.I. charters, it too may come in for criticism for vague, impractical and generally lacking enforcement mechanisms.
For instance, under transparency, the Rome Call says “in principle, A.I. systems must be explainable.” But some of the most effective machine-learning algorithms are also extremely difficult for humans to interpret. Some prominent A.I. researchers worry that a requirement that such algorithms be explainable will limit or delay many potentially beneficial uses of the technology in areas such as medicine.
The document also doesn’t specify whether an algorithm needs to be explainable to all stakeholders—its creators, its users, and those impacted by its output—or just some of them.
Reliability is also an ill-defined term, with A.I. researchers disagreeing about what standard should be used for measuring how robust an algorithm is.
IBM, along with Microsoft, sees the sale of A.I.-enabled services and access to cloud-based data centers for A.I. applications a key revenue driver. Kelly said in his speech at the institute, however, that IBM put A.I. ethics before profits. “We don’t simply hand over our technology to anyone who will pay for it,” he said. “We ensure clients we work with are using technology in ways that better our human experience.”
Microsoft, for its part, has expressed reservations about the use of facial recognition technology and said it will never sell the technology for government surveillance.
Neither company, however, has said whether they will take steps to police the applications customers run on their cloud services. In some cases, customers use these clouds to run A.I. software they’ve developed internally or bought through third-party providers. Microsoft, for instance, recently won the Pentagon’s controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project and will run many of the U.S. military’s workflows, including A.I. applications involved in war fighting. Some of that work—such as using drones for targeted killings—might not sit easily with the Vatican’s ethical principles. More must-read stories from Fortune: —New tech-centric Mastercard CEO has his eyes on the fintech prize
—Did the ‘techlash’ kill Alphabet’s city of the future?
—How technology is changing how we volunteer
—Credit Karma was acquired rather than pursuing an IPO. Will more companies follow suit in 2020?
—Half of U.S. local government offices haven’t upgraded their ransomware defenses since 2019’s online crime spree
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.