Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Alley 20240712

Im also watching pinterest which has also moved higher, starting around 10 30. Im not sure what its about either, but i cant help and look at facebook and note theres no such bump in that stock. Facebooks barely higher so it makes me wonder if perhaps the news around some civil rights related groups being disappointed in facebooks progress in some areas lack thereof in addressing some issues that they would like to see addressed. Talks again of potential facebook ban those things dont always materialize. I guess facebook lets see, were showing a longer chart there in facebook. Today in the intraday action it has not moved higher maybe theres some hope. Theres the facebook daily chart. Its actually moving lower starting at that 1030 mark maybe theres hope among investors that some of those advertising dollars, some of that engagement moves off facebook to those smaller rivals, carl yeah. We talked to levis chip berg and he was unekwifable looking for concrete action in terms of changes out of facebook. Paul holland, general partner at Foundation Capital and amitdaryanani good morning thanks for the time. Good morning. Good morning. You bet amit, lets just start with apple, i guess or just megacap tech where do you think Investor Sentiment is at this point given the seven record closes, apple, for example, has had since the beginning of june and to what degree do you think investors are trying to hedge some of those bets with, you name it, gold or treasuries or some of the other things that have been on the move this week . Yeah. You know, the move with apple has been fairly impressive my sense, it reflects two things one, Services Business accelerate rather dramatically over the last few months we have seen the App Store Revenue growth maybe 2x what we have seen the rest of the year so services doing really well. You have the cusp of this major product cycle of iphone 5g what we see from investors a lot is a little bit fear missing out at this point. You are seeing folks pile on to the name largely as you get ahead of the cycle given the momentum you have seen on the names. Give you better Downside Protection versus the rest of the market. Yeah. Paul, i mean, next few weeks are going to bring potentially a couple of bits of news one is the testimony of those big cap ceos in front of house judiciary. Thats going to get interesting. I think on the 27th. Then if we keep hearing commentary visavis china from the likes of secretary of state pompeo we just got this morning, how is the market going to look through all that yeah. I think i would say maybe two dynamics here. Theres a whole bunch of stuff around the political economy aspect of things thats very messy and very choppy and quite frankly has been for, you know, quite some time. But i think theres a more fundamental thing thats happening that is purely related to stocks. And i would narrow it down to two words. Its digital and virtual you can just simply run a dividing line and covid has really helped create that dividing line or take the line that was there and make it much, much deeper and broader and take companies that are primarily in the world of physical businesses with not much digital, not much virtual presence and the world of people who have really pushed their businesses toward the digital and the virtual. And you can just simply look at that dividing line and the nasdaq has really helped define that and look at all those companies that are kind of running away to the upside because people are already looking beyond where we are now and realizing that those are the businesses that have the high Growth Potential Going Forward and thats where the money is going. Amit, i want to go back to apple because theres Something Interesting that i know youve looked into regarding the stock. And that is apple offering less for iphone tradeins than they were does this reflect perhaps an increased supply of tradeins or inventory of tradeins, maybe apple has a lot of unused inventory since its stored have been closed and they dont want to pay as much or does it reflect reduced demand for older phones maybe they cant move them in emerging markets at the rate that theyre used to so they dont want to pay as much for the tradeins you know, its a great question we spent some time looking at this recently. Our gut is especially with the advent of the launch of the iphone se 2 has been a fairly successful phone for them, our sense is demand is somewhat perhaps lower in the emerging markets for refurbished used phones and that is perhaps why theres saturation why apple can be selective and not be as aggressive rebate. So i think its a con influence of iphone se doing really well in the emerging markets and saturation thats happening over there. Interesting interesting. Paul, to sort of extrapolate some of that out, i understand a bunch of whats changed shortterm i mean, wework blew up and even if it hadnt, demand for office space certainly isnt what it was a couple months ago. Airbnb similar, but what do you think has lost value in tech long term . A lot of people talk about in the long view this and that stock there just as valuable or more so. Whats less valuable yeah. I think thats a very inciteful question, carl. Its jon. Sorry, jon. I cant see anybody. We sound a like its just guessing. But i think thats a Pretty Simple answer. Its the companies that are stuck behind the fire wall right . Its companies that have to go and actually physically deliver their product. They have to install their product. They have a Service Element that has to be on site associated with that. And theres sort of the old iron Tech Companies that are stuck with that dynamic. Then if you look at whats happening with the newer sass related companies, look at whats happening with kind of the Digital Consumer related companies, the netflix and sun runs of the world, those are the companies that are prospering and the companies that are in a situation where theyve got to go and actually get inside a building and have a direct relationship kind of what we call belly to belly with the customer, those are its very difficult times for those guys and its going to take quite some time, if not sort of forever for that to come back. All of those companies are now rapidly accelerating their cloud initiatives. But they should have been doing that five years ago. Amit, remind me, you do cover twitter, right no, i dont oh, you dont let me ask you then amit, if you want to take it but, paul, people are obviously looking at the price action this morning and pointing to a post on their career website, twitters that is looking for a new full Stack Software engineer saying its for a new team code named griffin. Were building a subscription platform it reads, one that can be reused by other teams in the future this is a first for twitter. Im not attributing the price action to this particular job posting, but i wonder theoretically what that might mean for a platform like twitter . Subscription platforms have been talked about as a possibility for years. Yeah. Ill take a shot at that i think, you know, if you look at the twitter community, youve got folks like you that are stars on twitter with tons of followers, including me. Then you have folks like me that are a little more pedestrian and i think were beginning to see a new emerging class of companies that are happening now. I think twitter is seeing that and i think theyre looking at some of these companies trying to figure out if they should acquire them because theyre building some of these platforms. You know, i throw out a few examples of those. Jeannies is a really Interesting Company down in venice beach so theyre building the First Digital talent agency. So justin bieber, cardi b, drake, post malone, all their digital personas on a platform where they can monetize that in virtual settings as opposed to physical settings. They came up with this two years ago. Theyre very much ahead of their time look at Companies Like community, you may have a Community Number its an opportunity for celebrities and people who are very heavy users on twitter platform to offer a cell phone number out to fans and its a real cell phone number where you can text the celebrity, you can do all these other things its a way to basically take twitter, which many people think of as realtime and very, very direct and make that essentially little slower interaction point and theres a chance for people to put something between the power users of twitter and twitter itself i think jack and the people there are very, very smart theyre following this stuff they probably want to be in a position where they can disaggregate the dising a regators before it starts to affect their business. But thats a guess yeah. Thats a good thats a very good analysis given what Little Information we have, paul. We appreciate that were going to watch it closely, obviously, with your help. Its good seeing you guys again. Amit and paul. Thanks be safe take care. Thank you. When we return, significant setbacks for civil rights. A new facebook audit criticizing the tech giant following the companys meeting with civil Rights Groups yesterday. Well discuss next stay with us marco. polo marco. polo si . Marco. polo scusa . Marco. polo ma io sono marco polo, ma playing marco polo with marco polo . Surprising. Ragazzini, io sono marco polo. Si, sono qui whats not surprising . Geico helping you save even more on car and motorcycle insurance. Ahhh. Polo. Marco. polo now get an extra 15 credit when you switch before october 7th. As you probably know by now that meeting between facebook and civil rights advocates didnt go so well. Julia bore steen has the latest. Good morning. Good morning to you, Carl Facebook is under attack from the experts who conducted a twoyear civil rights audit of the platform and nearly 100page report finding that facebook has been too reactive and slow on issues of hate speech writing that auditors, quote, watched the company make painful decisions, saying that the company made decisions that are, quote, serious setbacks for civil rights it has not devoted enough resources and that facebooks, quote, algorithms fuel extreme and polarizing content, warning that facebook could be weaponized to suppress voting. Sheryl sandberg responding to these findings, as hard as it has been to have our short comes exposed. We would urge companies in our industry and beyond to do the same now, the criticism from the audit echos the criticism of the civil Rights Groups that organized the stop hate for profit boycott of facebook meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg last night and calling that meeting disappointing. Saying that facebooks management is not ready to address the hate on their platform its unresponse toif the demands of dozens of their largest advertisers. Now, they also say that zuckerberg offered no automatic recourse for advertisers whose content runs alongside hateful posts and asking why facebook recommendations hateful groups and zuckerberg didnt offer any plans how facebook will address what they call rampant disinformation and violent conspiracies now, while facebook has said repeatedly that it would not fold to pressure from advertisers, the fact that facebook commissioned the civil rights audit and opened the doors to its auditors for two years indicates that it could be compelled to make some of the changes that the auditors are recommending guys, back over to you. Julia, thank you. Joining us now for more on this is ceo at the Douglas Alexandra agency, founder of the the National Organization for diversity in sales and marketing. Shelly, thanks for being with us thank you for having me so facebook is in my eye in a tough spot this is an audit that they participated in. It lasted for more than a year a couple of years. And it finds fault with many of facebooks practices and processes. So, what from this audit itself would you like to see facebook address and change and what did you hear from facebook on these issues just recently i think the largest issue is that these issues are so systemic and they are so engrained in a lot of larger organizations that to say theyre diverse and focussed on inclusion but we still wouldnt be having this conversation in 2020 if that were the case so, what was interesting about the meeting yesterday was that their leadership from the marketing side was not even at the table. When i look at the Leadership Team of facebook, theres no one that looks like me and so how can you have conversations about different communities if everyone at the same table is having the same experience and so one of the things we know that facebook is being sued right now by some of their employees from their black employees because of discrimination and lack of opportunities to move up and advance in the company. Unless conversations are really being held within the organization and commitment is being seen from the top, not just lip service, not just the nice statement you put on your website, not having a meeting or pr to boost your pr efforts with civil rights organizations but to really do what needs to happen, none of these things are going to change. Now, at the end of the day, unless profits are affected from facebook, theres not going to be a change. And facebook Mark Zuckerberg is saying that they dont respond to demands that have to do with revenue and boycotts essentially im para phrasing there. But im curious, there are 10 demands, as i understand it that the group brought. I dont expect you to read through all ten, but give me a sense of the specifics of what youre asking facebook for. Well, one of the things that they want definitely is to have someone at the table in leadership, in senior leadership, that has a voice around civil rights. Again, the people sitting around the table making the decisions all look the same and theres no input from the communities that this issue is affecting. If you look at even the content areas, theres really lack of diversity in those areas as well so, making sure that theres a seat at the table at leadership. Making sure that, you know, the ads that are being run and that the hate content and the speech content, all those things are being tagged, being taken down although facebook has said they have done that it really isnt enough i applaud the advertisers who have taken the step, the first step, because it will be a long process to stop advertising for the month of july. Again, unless this is theres a commitment also from those advertisers to stay strong with this, unless its hurting facebook, and thats why zuckerberg is saying, you know, were not going to respond to a boyco boycott, theyre not hurt. A month of advertising from those corporations is not going to hurt facebook so, what has to happen longterm is really going to be up to them and the corporate communities that are really focussed on their brand being representative of diversity, inclusive community. So im hoepg, again, this is a first step, and that will continue to see a push to make facebook change and really take a look at whats happening within well, i guess that raises the question, one, whether or not you see the list of Companies Growing at all two, whether or not you think this gets extended into say november or the end of the year or even beyond that. Or three, if some of these companies not dont just stop advertising but actually actively remove their page, which some have argued would be the real sign of commitment against the policy stance the company has. Thats a great point. Again, these are all first steps. So, even though these advertisers and these brands have removed their advertising, which is a great first step, lets take a look at whats happening within their organizations. So as an advertiser, you can put out a black lives matter statement, do all these things that look really good, but internally whats happening within your organization because if theyre facing some of those same problems of diversity and inclusion, then what theyre doing is just not really being effective at all. Again, its a first step well see. I hope that there are more brands that join this cause because, again, thats whats going to get the attention of facebook its going to be having a Significant Impact on the advertising revenue. So well have to see im hopeful. Im hopeful these organizations that are stepping up to do this, these brands stepping out and saying we are taking a stand against this will also take a look internally and make a longterm plan to not only change their advertising practices and where they spend their money but also how they are promoting Leaders Within their organization and making sure that down to the person that is, you know, customer facing in front of customers on a regular basis, that person is maybe 100 levels down from the ceo. Get your idea. Has a commitment to diversity. I get your meaning. But i cant help but wonder what if boycotts just dont work for a dominant Digital Social Network . One could argue that the way facebook is structured for Network Effects make it really really difficult to affect by this kind of a boycott are there other tactics or ideas that the group is exploring to get its message across well, you know, i think at the end of the day what we have to look at, too, is youre exactly right. Facebook is a power house. And so one of the things that i think a lot of companies and organizations can do is also look at investing in minority startups, especially in the tech arena. And giving opportunities to have to give facebook some competition. This is not going to be an overnight process at all it will be longterm but the problem is, and this is where i think diversity and inclusion processes have fallen flat is that if people did it because it was the right thing to do, we wouldnt be having this conversation right now. Right. The only time we really see change affected is when theres a bottom line that is affected to your point, facebook, you know, when are they going to see that when are they going to see that happen with their organization are they going to see it at all . They may or may not. The process will be long yes. We have to stay committed again, these organizations need to actually look within and make changes. Really understand that a lot there have been a lot of companies and a lot of rivals for Different Reasons trying to take eyeballs and dollars away from facebook and it has proven very difficult so, well see if in the social arena the outcome is different shelly, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. In the meantime, dow has gone negative. Down about 44 points on a wednesday where were obviously seeing some light volume when we come back, well check in with slack ceo Stewart Butterfield on a new deal they have when squawk on the street continues in a moment. European markets are set to close in a couple minutes. See ma moe di has the breakdown. Jon, foming a strong session in asia where chinese stocks extended their gain by more than 8 , action in europe relatively subdued down fractionally with france the worst performer down 1 the focus remains on the spending pledges made by the uk chancellor this morning who announced hes cutting the vat tax for the Hospitality Industry by 20 to 5 , paying companies to bring back furloughed workers in a package that amounts to around 30 billion pounds and perhaps most interesting a new initiative to discount meals at restaurants in the uk by as much as 50 in a plan he calls eat out to help out in the month of august its seen by economists as a rather unprecedented move. The stock of the day, though, in europe is nokia. The worst performer on growing concerns that the Telecom Giant may lose verizon to samsung following a downgrade by jp morgan of the stock from neutral to overweight. In the finals were looking at hsbc following on the report of bloomberg the Trump Administration is considering undermining the hong kong currency to the u. S. Dollar a move that would be disruptive to banks like hsbc that have high exposure to hong kong. Jon and carl back to you. Thank you. After the break, slack cofounder and ceo Stewart Butterfield joins us first on cnbc were back in two. So many people. D19 is stillg if youve survived it, then youre the heroes we need. The plasma thats in your blood can literally save lives. But we have to act fast. So please donate. You fought for your life. Now, lets Work Together to take down covid19 to donate plasma go to thefightisinus. Org find a stock basedtech. On your interests or whats trending. Get realtime insights in your customized view of the market. Its smarter Trading Technology for smarter trading decisions. Fidelity. Welcome back, everyone im sue herrera. Here is your cnbc news update at this hour. Florida just reported almost 10,000 new covid19 cases. 2,600 more than tuesdays daily count. Confirmed cases in the entire u. S. Are now above 3 million the Supreme Court expanding protections for religious institutions from discrimination lawsuits brought by their employees. In a 72 ruling the court blocked two teachers from Catholic Schools in california from pursuing discrimination lawsuits based on age and disability the Supreme Court also allowing more employers to site religious or moral objections to be exempt from the Affordable Care acts requirement that they provide nocost birth control. President trump threatening to cut funding for schools that dont reopen in the fall meanwhile, new york city mayor bill de blasio saying most students will only be in school two or three days a week so that social distancing can be maintained you can go to cnbc. Com for more on the various School Reopenings across the country youre up to date, carl. Ill send it back to you. Sue, thank you very much. Getting news about United Airlines and warning employees about pending fur lloughfurloug. Massive job cuts coming to united now the company is detailing exactly how many employees may be laid off. Theyre going to be sending out warn notices these are required by law that you send these out 60 days before a potential layoff. 36,000 front line employees could be laid off. These jobs will be going away likely come october 1st. Here is how it breaks down they still need to do some negotiations on early outpackages. Voluntary leaves of absences flight attendants, 15,000 jobs being eliminated 11,000 Customer Service and gate agents 5,500 in maintenance and then 2250 pilots could also potentially be laid off. Here is the time line, guys. By mid to late august they notify those employees and they say, okay, here is how many jobs are actually going be to be eliminated through furloughs theres also part of the equation, how many will take a voluntary separation that impacts how many will have to be ultimately involuntarily let go bottom line, come october 1st, united will be dramatically smaller. 36,000 front line employees, carl, just to give you some point of reference, thats about 45 of the jobs that interact with customers in some fashion 45 will be likely eliminated come october 1st again, this is all because of the drop in demand that weve been seeing. Wow phil lebeau, those are some rough numbers. We hope, of course, that that can turn around for the sake of those employees and the broader economy. Thank you, phil lebeau. And it has been meanwhile one of the big winners among the stay at home stocks, slack shares are higher again today as it announces the acquisition of enterprise Directory Software maker. Joining us is slack cofounder and ceo Stewart Butterfield. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Great to have you i want to get right into the strategy behind this and whats happening in the collaboration space. It seems to me the battle space for collaboration platforms has moved over the past couple years from internal Company Communications increasingly to collaboration outside company. You were working on slack connect. How does this fit into that and the experience that you think is going to make your platform better thats a great question and i think its obviously especially important right now, i dont think well be back in the office for a while, but even to the extent that people do end up going back to offices lets say later this year or early next year, its still going to cause a generational shock and much bigger reliance on software couple weeks ago we announced slack connect. The idea there is to both increase the efficacy of collaboration across organizational boundaries while also increasing the security so, its two slack organizations can set up a shared channel between them and have more than one and in fact when we did our convertible Debt Offering a month and a half ago we did that in a shared channel with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and jay wood and put the whole thing together in that way its a great way to collaborate. And then this morning were announcing the acquisition of fore meadow, their tag line is reimagined. Thats obviously going to be especially important now 12 of our employees started after the pandemic they werent flown to headquarters for a week, didnt do the on boarding, they havent met casual aquint tanss. The weak cultural ties and value built up will be to be realized in another way. Thats 1 in 8 thats a lot of employees. Yeah. Tell me how much of this deal came together during the pandemic your communication with the founders there, your decision to do it and how much did the pandemic and this environment accelerate the deal itself yeah. Its funny i think we probably started talking just before the pandemic hit. So, ive actually never met any of the team face to face no one on our side has met anyone on their side face to face the whole thing was conducted using all of these technologies. We of course had a shared channel in slack with them but we also just set up its them its us. Its the lawyers its kind of the accountants the whole suite of entities that are required to pull off a deal like this. And i think youre going to see more and more of that happening. Companies are not going to stop doing offerings or acquiring or see road shows conducted in that and way and ipos when youre crossing organizational boundaries, the profile information, the identity of the person, is also important. You know, inside the company, were offering much richer search, much more detailed information about groups and things like skills and background not just the phone number and desk location. But we also want the ability to have some of that cross organizational boundaries. So partners, collaborators, professional services firms, customers, venders can have access to that as well stewart, its a fascinating picture that youre painting about the way our lives will be virtually run. I guess from here on out and thats not with standing any kind of medical breakthrough i wonder when we think about i guess you call them risk factors that would unwind the digital narrative. If we had some massive breakthrough on a vaccine, whether its this year or next, how much of this would truly get undone is it just sheer inertia at this point . Its a great question and, you know, im obviously hopeful for some medical breakthroughs because this is not a great cause for this but i do think weve dislodged a bunch of equill lee librium. When i talked to my peers and other ceos and customers, no one is unhappy about stopping business travel. Obviously that will come back to a certain extent, but i dont think it will ever come back the way that it did. As managers adapt to this environment and learn how to manage their teams using a greater reliance on software, i think a lot of those will persist. We have 122,000 customers. Behad almost all of them before the pandemic started growth has increased but theres a big value to using slack before this and values to using a bunch of other tool. Now customers are leaning in, finding more and better use cases and improving their processes and theres no reason to expect they wont continue. While i do imagine many people will be back in the office, i think it will be much more casual and flexible schedule were kind of anticipating that most people, 60, 70 will probably want to be in the office one or two days a week. We reimagine the way offices are configured so i think were again hopeful for a medical breakthrough but i dont think that will impact this change in trajectory. Yeah. I wanted to ask you more about that, stewart. I remember talking to you years ago. Youre kind of the ultimate decentralized office person. Based in canada for multiple efforts but you got a lot of work force in california and other places i would think if theres anybody who would have been working entirely remotely already, it would have been you. So, to what degree are some of these voices that are saying its going to be all remote pretty much from here on out, the office will just be a gathering location, to what extent might they be overshooting based on what youve seen the needs of culture are, the needs of management, the needs for people to feel connected in a more intimate way . Yeah. Thats a great question. I think again one of the reasons that were excited about rimeto, those what we call weak ties which maybe dont sound important but i think theyre critically important, you have strong ties with your manager and peers and people on your Immediate Team but were a couple thousand employees and organizations much larger than ours part of the fabric of those organizations and the way that collaboration happens relice on casual aquinn tanss. I think were going to continue to need offices and continue to get people together even if 20 of employees are fully remote. The majority of the remainder are people who are flexible. You kind of get people together to brainstorm, to plan, to kind of prioritize, to get the cumulative bunch of work to do but when youre sitting at your computer doing that work, you might as well be at home and be more comfortable and skip the commute and more comfortable could be in the Office Someone referred to unbundling the office which i really like think about all the Different Things we do there the one that takes up the most Square Footage and least important is housing all of these people who are sitting by themselves at their computer not talking to anyone doing their work they can do that anywhere. Well, stew, we got this far in the conversation without mentioning microsoft but well do it now. Because its on a lot of investors minds as kind of the elephant in the room or in the market how do you view the way that your competition with them is shaping up under these conditions, your ability to get deals done versus that Larger Company, your ability to recruit and retain talent versus that Larger Company and develop product. I think in all those respects were doing great. I think were a little misunderstood and the competition is little bit misunderstood. I think the Companies Compete and theres a longterm strategic collision between email as the fundamental way that people get work done and slack or other channelbased messaging is the fundamental way that work gets done, but we have been competing with microsoft for three and a half years, almost our whole existence and entire enterprise existence has grown up in a world where teams is available to people for free and its bundled in there. Nevertheless, we keep on wing in intersurprise. This last quarter we announced site license for amazon going wall to wall before that, its Companies Like nationwide and the airlines and its Veterans Affairs is a big win, the quarter previously i know a lot in the federal government were doing great in enterprise. Were also doing great with tens of thousands of Small Businesses around the world and increasingly we see them wanting to connect in the first 24 hours after we launched the new multiorg shared channels which is a mouthful, within 24 hours we had almost 1,000 businesses using it. By the end of the first week more than 2,000 and now coming up to two weeks and were about 5,000. So 5,000 businesses have now started relying on this. Those interactions between the Large Enterprises who are vendors obviously a lot of Smaller Companies and the smaller businesses and all of their connections are something that i think were going to have a driver for the business for the long run. Finally stewart, we heard from awss head of Public Sector just a few days ago. And she was saying that this crisis has accelerated a lot of Public Sector move to cloud, to sass because of the demand from their con stitch wentsies that really need to connect to them digitally. So my question to you is, in what areas are you seeing that acceleration, and how do you expect the reduction in revenue to some of those organizations that are taking big tax revenue hits to affect their ability to pay you . Yeah. Its all connected and were seeing some of the macro impact the way its showing up is because we have such a large number of customers theyre relatively predictable were seeing a lack of expected expansion. Obviously some companies go bankrupt and some undergo lay jaufs. What you see in the largest case is Companies Hiring much more slowly, hiring freezes were not especially worried about that other than citizens and participants in the economy. But were not worried about that for slack because eventually that turns around. Eventually well see a recovery and those businesses will start growing again. Try not to focus on the turbulence that well see in an environment like this and focus a little bit more on the longterm Customer Value as you said, theres just a massive acceleration and were working really closely with partners, dozens of companies in the case of this rimeto acquisition, deepening our partnership with identity. It has two parts authentication security and also the profile what the human beings. And we want to make that available at the Software Layer so that people can create more powerful applications. And thats Third Party Software vendors and system sbe gratders and Software Developers inside our companies. Interesting announcement today stewart building out what slack is thank you for joining us first on cnbc. Thank you so much. We continue to turn around these levels here, obviously going back and forth between the green and the red. The united news took a little enthusiasm out of the market and were watching the vix back to 30 highest in about a week. Were back in a moment introducing stocks by the slice from fidelity. Now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. All with no commissions. Stocks by the slice from fidelity. Get your slice today. Stocks by the slice from fidelity. You may be learning about, medicare and supplemental insurance. Medicare is great, but it doesnt cover everything. Only about 80 of your part b medicare costs. A Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan may help cover some of the rest. Learn how an aarp Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan, insured by Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company might be the right choice for you. A free decision guide is a great place to start. Call today to request yours. So what makes an aarp Medicare Supplement plan unique . These are the only Medicare Supplement plans endorsed by aarp because they meet aarps high standards of quality and service. Youre also getting the great features that any Medicare Supplement plan provides. You may choose any doctor that accepts medicare patients. You can even visit a specialist. With this type of plan there are no networks or referrals needed. Also, a Medicare Supplement plan. Goes with you when you travel anywhere in the u. S. Call today for a free guide. Come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. Grmpblts you missed it earlier this morning, harvard and m. I. T. Suing the department of Homeland Security over those new i. C. E. Restrictions robert frank has an update hey, robert. Carl, this is getting to be such a big deal because International Students are the financial lifeline for so many top colleges and universities which is why this backlash has been so swift. Harvard and m. I. T. Filing a lawsuit seeking temporary restraining order against the Trump Administration revoke visas and deport International Students whose classes are all online the suit says this decision leaves hundreds of thousands of International Students with no Educational Options within the u. S. Harvard president saying i would affect about 5,000 of their students and that we will not stand by to see our International Students dreams extinguished by a deeply misguided order. We owe it to them to stand up and fight and fight we will. Theres a lot of revenue at stake here as well with more than 1 million International Students in the u. S. , about a third of them from china. They spend 45 billion a year on school costs, not to mention all the economic spending to local restaurants, services, real estate, supporting over 450,000 jobs now, some universities had already seen revenues drop by over 25 due to the decline in International Students before the virus. Now with states cutting education budgets this will put another financial strain on all these colleges and universities. Guys, back to you. Yeah. Robert frank, this is a big deal in the education space thank you for that and coming up, coronavirus cases in the country now topping 3 million. With infections continuing to rise in florida. Well speak with one bar owner in that state on the path forward. Stay with us turn on my tv and boom, its got all my favorite shows right there. I wish my Trading Platform worked like that. Well have you tried thinkorswim . This is totally customizable, so you focus only on what you want. Okay, its got screeners and watchlists. And you can even see how your predictions might affect the value of the stocks youre interested in. Now this is what im talking about. Yeah, itll free up more time for your. Uh, true crime shows . British baking competitions. Hm. Didnt peg you for a crumpet guy. Focus on what matters to you with thinkorswim. Iredefined the wordng thschool this year. Its why, at xfinity, were committed to helping kids keep learning through the summer. And help College Students studying at home stay connected through our university program. Were providing affordable Internet Access to low income families through our internet essentials program. And this summer, xfinity is creating a Virtual Summer camp for kids at home all on xfinity x1. Were committed to helping all families stay connected. Learn more at xfinity. Com education. Look at the Home Builders this morning when rdr and poulten group, as those low Interest Rates have sent home buyers rushing back into the market. The nations fifth largest builder saw record sales last month. Well be right back. Dy for it. A Digital Foundation from vmware helps you redefine whats possible. Now. From the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours. To the university moving hundreds of apps quickly to the cloud. Or the City Government Going Digital to keep Critical Services running. You are creating the future on the fly. And we are helping you do it. Vmware. Realize whats possible. I am totally blind. And non24 can make me show up too early. Or too late. Or make me feel like im not really there. Talk to your doctor, and call 8442342424. Now is the time to support the places you love. Spend 10 dollars or more at a participating Small Business and get 5 dollars back, up to 10 times with american express. Enroll now at shopsmall. Com. 60,000 covid cases in the past 24 hours, 7,000 new cases from the state of florida alone, with positivity rates now over 20 . Joining us this morning to join us is paul cippirone, who has over 26 restaurants across florida. Good to talk with you this morning. Thanks to talk with you today, carl. Weve been trying to get the lay out of the land from miamidade i wonder what the picture look like in central florida, where you are more it concentrated. The bulk of my restaurants are up in jacksonville, st. Augustine area the president Vice President is saying some of the mitigation measures are starting to work. Is that the view you are seeing . Covid has been a very interesting endeavor we started opening up the restaurants. It got us up to 50 and it flared up. Weve been pretty lucky in jacksonville, citi augustine, even orlando they left us at 50 . Miamidade, somewhat south of us, they have closed up again and its very difficult. One day closed, not sure whats happening on the other day whats been the bigger challenge so star . Getting people in the door demand or getting employees in the door getting labor to come back to work well, we had them coming back it was good, employees were showing up, restaurants, people were feeling good when it first came back at 50 there was a lot of excitement. Up until then, it was good, and then they started with day after day the news that covid, the covid, the covid, how bad it is. It got people scared then they brought the masks into place, now people are really scared, and theyre starting to argue with each other, why dont you have a mask on why are you wearing a mask and all of this. Theres no clearcut rules, and some counties, put a mask on some counties you dont need a mask cdc or the w. H. O. , one day masks are good, the next day masks are not to be worn very confusing nobody knows what to do. As for the employees, they did all start to come back to work, then the scare came again, and in our restaurant industry, what we do, theyre all the 20 to 25 age group. Theyre listening to all these news reports, and they dont know theyre scared, and i cant blame them they hear its bad, so they dont want to come to work, and its very, very difficult right now. My two Biggest Challenges right now are getting employees to come back to work and getting the food product on a constant stream yeah, paul, that really does sound challenging. I understand that one of your restaurants in Waterford Lakes village did have an employee test positive. Im sure, you know, employees wonder, what to do in that situation. I wondering what youre seeing and maybe hearing from other owners how the Contact Tracing works. Ive heard from other places, when that works well, people end up feeling better about the process. Is Contact Tracing working well when there is a positive test, to be able to contain that and make people feel like the authorities have a handle on it . It has worked weve been very lucky and unlucky. Our employees weve had two or three restaurants that had employees, but it just so happened they hadnt been to work in ten days, so they all got together and they did talk the fact that they know about Contact Tracing is very good, because theyre tariking, okay, i was with them, i better not go out. So it is helpful in that way we still close down the restaurants, have them sprayed down, all the work done to make sure theyre sanitized against, so youre always closed down two, three days, another day or two to get the staff back in and going against. Paul, if you and your restaurant buddies had half an hour with the governor, with cdc officials, with white house officials, i mean, are there ready ideas that you would pitch to them as things that could be done pretty easily to get the situation more under control i think continuity is the biggest thing. Put it in order and have it the same for everybody it just changes day by day you have inspectors coming in and he wants certain things done, and then inspectors in another area, they want it done their way. Were scrambling every day now, instead of taking care of the customer, trying to take care of the rules and the laws, so continuity is good, and open stores, close the restaurants, open the restaurants, 50 , 25 , it changes daily, so make it so that we can always move in order instead of changing, changing, changing one last point, we pay close attention to disney and the phased reopening on saturday there at lake buena vista. Is that a focal point for folks in orlando is there a feeling if disney can do it, Everything Else will follow in time Universal Studios has been open about a month know. Theres a lot of people say yay, a lot of people are saying thats horrible, which in this scenario, you always will get half the people saying great, half the people saying bad disney opening up will give people the feeling that things are safer now and they can start moving again i personally think its great, theyre out there, and theyre going to do things properly, as disney always does hopefully you wont get a big backlog on this, and people feel like they can do things, do it carefully, do it smart, be responsible for yourself by wearing a face mask. If youre sick, dont go out, dont bring someone else. Our best to you. Thanks very much thank you very much. Welcome to halftime report. Front and center this hour, the future of facebook, a highly anticipated a duty of the social media companys practices is raising concerns about tackles hate speech and misinformation our Investment Committee joe terranova, jim leben