Transcripts For KNTV Press Here 20240712

And companies its due to the should be and i think as a result the world is missing out high cost of living. On a lot of innovation, a lot of great products for a lot of with all of the talk about leaving the bay area i thought it might be refreshing, just nice to hear from someone who is great market opportunities. And now is the time to wake up bringing her company into the and move that arc of history bay area. Min chen is a double immigrant, toward justice again. Lets leave it there with immigrating from panama to china that optimistic thought. Charlie moore, ceo of rocket and now living in San Francisco lawyer, thanks for being with us running a data company as a ceo. This morning. Coming up next on press thanks for being with us. Here, if your company is saving so Many Companies are talking money keeping you home, maybe about leaving the bay area. Youre coming in. You should get a portion of that tell me why. Cash. When press here continues. What in the bay area has the appeal to you . The bay area is like the start of the art facility for world class founders. If youre an olympic athlete you want to be surrounded by other world class athletes, be training at the state of the art facilities and have a support network. Thats what Silicon Valley is to us. There is competition obviously in Silicon Valley, but theres also the spirit of working together. Oftentimes you will hear people say about the problem youre having. We know the person to help, well have her connect with you, et cetera. People are willing to jump in and help in a way that i dont think theyll do in any other industries or cities. Yeah. Thats right. There is this incredible culture of work and also this companionship that we know that being a founder is so difficult. And that is one of our were battling over our own site that we dont feel that we are competing against the other, but we are all in this together. Indeed, we are. Tell me about starting a business in panama. Panama uses a u. S. Currency. English is commonly spoken in businesses in panama as well. But what are the key difference . Well, panama is a very diverse country. We have access to Global Talent at a third of the cost compared to Silicon Valley. The challenges are that it is a very small market. Panama is a very small country. Even though its international and we have the headquarters that there are there, but starting a business its very hard. We have to pay taxes from day one, even if we havent generated any income. Hiring people is also very hard because the culture there is i want to work for a large company, i want to have stability. So even though that we do have welcome back to press here. We have talked a lot about working from home. Maybe its top of my mind talent, convincing talent to because i am after all standing work for the startup is not in my own living room. And we have looked at how the that common. Work from Home Movement is going to change where we live and all and also, corporations dont have the mentality of working with startups to coinnovate. The advantages it brings to employees. But my next guest says dont they want to work with forget your company is benefiting too and your company should be sharing some of that established companies so its quite a challenge and theres no Venture Capital there and we are themillion. With you, the worker. Elizabeth elting has been a and how much did 1. 6 millio philanthropist and shes looking so far. Which just goes to show, because thats such a small at how workers can benefit in the times of change. Number here in Silicon Valley, good morning. But you are boot strapping from not every company has money to the very beginning, right . Spare, its a strange time, but you argue if theres a savings yes. We boot strap because as i said, from say not paying rent on a there is no Venture Capital big office complex, some of that there. There are no angels there. Money should flow back to workers. Not necessarily in pay, but in so for founders, from other benefits, right . Possibly. Countries where there is no money, we have to be very pragmatic from day one and we have to think what problem were and the reason i say possibly, i solving. Who is going to pay for that. Still believe the rewards should how much can which charge for that. So we were boot strapping for go to the people who produce first three years and it wasnt results. Until i made the decision to you know, companies should be move to Silicon Valley that we started to think about racing around and going through all of the paperwork for me to get meritocracies. Just because theyre saving an investor visa to move here. Money because theyre paying how easy was that . Less rent doesnt mean that i mean, things have changed with visas coming into the country. Employees should automatically get some of the benefits and it were you still able to get through that process fairly simply . Ive ld relate to the results of yes. Fortunately, there is a treaty ways. Maybe were working at home, between panama and the united maybe a company should pay for a states and there is a visa house cleaner to come in because called a visa for investors so i at one point the company was could apply for the visa. Paying for a janitor to cocome the process wasnt the biggest in and this is the workplace and challenge. It was first how am i going to taking that off my plate would make me a better employee. Pay the rent in San Francisco . That could be one way to give Everybody Knows that rent here a perk. And youre right, it was the janitor for the office and now are outrageous. How long is it going to take us it could be the maid or house to get the financial numbers to cleaner for the employee. But if you look at that directly, i think that is not necessarily the most Cost Effective way to do it. Move here and then what is going i mean, each person getting to be the status for me to move their own house cleaner, that back to the united states. Like this is the third time im moving back. Could get quite expensive. But, by the same token, thats a so the whole process of how to make it work, how to adapt over creative perk and thats the way to do it. Other thoughts are offices companies that were borne in an international but foreign usually provide Office Supplies or reliable internet, coffee, ecosystem, how to adapt it to snacks, so providing office so that we can run even faster supplies or internet computer equipment and maybe Office Furniture could be ways around when we move to Silicon Valley. That was the whole process that it. Took us a year and a half and it i like your house cleaner idea, took us literally the impossible thats a creative idea but to be here, which was racing Companies Need to be careful because companies have their own around in panama. Challenges and need to make sure theyre profitable, number one. Now, you mentioned that panama is quite diverse as you but number two, they need to well know america is going make sure its based on the through some growing pains with diversity right now. Your company is quite diverse as meritocracy and come up with clever ideas for perks. Well. What are your thoughts on that . You write the erosion between the boundary of work and home yes. We are very diverse because people in panama are diverse. Life means that it affects work we are diverse even at an individual level. Like never before. I talked to another ceo and she like i i speak three worried about the increase in languages, i have lived in many productivity she was seeing. She was worried about because Companies Just like myity is people are working too much. We cant go to the movies. We cant go on a trip. So when we run out of things to something we take for granted. We dont talk about why its so do at home, we sit back down and important because we are so natural to us. Answer more email and we may be more productive but at a bad cost. Yes. I was very surprised when i i mean, but productivity is one moved here that i was listening thing. But then results are another. To a lot of speakers talking about diversity and inclusion i think, you know, the way when and i didnt understand why they we were all working in offices peoples values should be were talking about that, because measured not by the hours they it is so important and it was so work, not by how productive they obvious. So i do wish that by having are as far as answering emails or even making phone calls. Founders that represent diversity and inclusion like us if theyre sell really, what that thanks to that, we have been able to do the impossible are the results . If they can produce the same or better results in fewer hours all the power to them. And break a lot of stereotypes thats what it is all about. I think people need to be careful with working 24 7 and that will often inspire because yes, it can happen more other founders and companies to when theyre at home and that doesnt work. Do so. We welcome you to Silicon Valley and we hope that america thats not sustainable. Its very de motivational. Can go down that path quicker rather than slower. Min chen, thank you for joining for a certain number of hours us. Press here will be right back. Youre intense and you keep to a schedule and then at the end of the day you shut down and you have your personal time. Your family time. I think that shouldnt change just because people are at home. We have about a minute left. I want to point out the company you founded. It has 4,000 employees. It started in a home, technically it started in your dorm room, and Silicon Valley has a history of starting things at home in garages. Right. I did found the company well, in 1992, so 28 years ago, out of an nyu Business School dorm room and the goal is to be the largest Translation Company or Largest Language Services company and before i sold in 2018 we did become the Worlds Largest Language Solutions company with actually, you know, over i think now over 5,000 employees and offices in 100 cities around the world. So it was a very exciting time. Good work from home indeed. Liz elting is with the elting foundation and i appreciate you joining us this morning. One side note on the work from home issue is if you are buying your own Office Supplies and you work for a major corporation, that is not tax deductible. If you work for yourself, it is. Says the irs. If youre buying your own Office Supplies encourage your company to send them to you in the mail. Press here will be right back. Welcome back to press here. I continue to work from home and there is no target date as to when were all going to return to the studio. Nbc is very conservative about the health of its employees, and the numbers frankly lately have been discouraging. A little less than half of u. S. States have seen an increase in cases and thats not just all testing. Places like texas have seen a fourfold increase in the number of hospitalizations. Now, mike pence disagrees. In an oped to the wall street journal titled there is no second wave, the Vice President points out the Glass Half Full version of what i just said about the states saying that more than half have seen declines or steady numbers. The media he says has tried to scare the American People every step of the way and these grim predictions of the second wave are no different. The truth is whatever the media says our whole of america approach has been a success. Thats our show for our now, i am not an epidemiologist, week. We have a podcast that looks at nor is the Vice President , Venture Capital. Though he has an epidemiologist telling him hes generally wrong about this. Im pretty conservative when it comes to protecting my home and this week we talk about the Venture Capitalists. My thanks to our guests and thank you for making us part of my coworkers. So too is charlie moore, ceo of your sun Rocket Lawyer in San Francisco. Charlie, good morning. You have no plans to open your offices until october and even then you say its a tentative october, right . Well, thats right, scott. I mean, i think as employers our First Priority is the health and safety of the customers and our employees and the Community Around us. And so we took a variety of factors into account when we made the decision that all of the Rocket Lawyer offices we have about six offices in different cities around the world, would remain closed until october 1st at the earliest. Now, were fortunate that we are a Digital Services company. We provide Digital Legal Services so were able to work from home and maintain Business Continuity and i understand that a lot of folks arent in the same position but factors like child care are super important and will schools be open or not. Transportation to city centres and Public Transit especially there are a number of important factors that employers like us have to take into consideration and that helped us to settle on october 1, as well as you said the epidemiology and the fact that we dont have this virus under control. So those are the things we have been thinking about, scott. What about a hair salon, because of your expertise is giving legal advice to Small Business owners. They have some potential liability here, right . If i get sick at their facility, the senate was not able to suspend that liability. Well, right. So every business always cant act in a negligent way and the standard is ordinary care and are you living up to the thingse what are other businesses like yours doing . Whats sort of the reasonable thing to do, and so thats Lauren Manning well hello, and welcome to living always a standard of care that courageously, and thanks so much for joining with us on every business has to operate fathers day. You know, its our prayer this week that you will know and under. You also have to think about your employees and their health. You have to think about if employees are in a special category under the americans with disabilities act. So the first and foremost thing we recommend is Understanding Community standards, their industry standards, understands their workforce and then comes up with a game plan with all of those factors in mind. But i wouldnt recommend that a business just jumps the gun without putting some thought into how theyre going to reopen. And we have to be very careful about what we say about employees, right . We cant say, hey, everybody, jim has covid19 and you have been exposed because that exposes his medical records. Well, thats right. Employers have to maintain medical confidentiality. Having said that, scott, employers do have rights and responsibilities as well. Employers can, for example, require employees to get tested for covid19. Employers can require employees to quarantine themselves. Theres not any case law yet on any of this, but its probably going to be reasonable for employees to do some form of Contact Tracing if someone does get diagnosed with covid19. Again, to quarantine, to do temperature checks. All of those types of activities and requirements on the part of employees probably are going to make sense. So that also goes to the overcommunicate with your employees and put health and thinking and what i know a lot safety first. One of the things that of attorneys are advising their happened that will affect employers in other states, this was already illegal in clients to just act with care, california, is the Supreme Court come up with a policy, put the policy in your decision saying you cannot discriminate based on sexual behavior. Im hoping that really will not have much effect on the corporate world. That we were already ahead of that even if the Supreme Court finalized it and made it the law for the united states. Yes, scott. So the bostic decision is a water shed moment in civil rights and equal justice and i think it couldnt have come at better time, quite frankly, when the country is still reeling from the martyrdom of mr. Floyd, from so much attention, rightly so, being paid to diversity and inclusion and issues of equal justice. So this decision made it illegal everywhere in the country for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Now, listen, employers in Silicon Valley, the tech industry, sure, they have been out front and outspoken. Marc benioff, for example, i sales force has taken. But thats not the case everywhere in america. There are companies that certainly have discriminated. Certainly the companies in this case. So that discrimination, that still exists in Corporate America and in america and its time for Corporate America to get its act together. The Supreme Court has been clear that type of bias and discrimination is illegal. So with health care, Companies Need to comply with the law. They should get capable counsel. They should look at their policies, their employee hand book and should communicate to their employees and operate as such. Let me simply that for you, charlie. Companies shouldnt discriminate. Lets put it there. Thats right. The developments that we have had socially, just in the last six weeks, the world has changed so much. And i know youre optimistic that the world will continue to change, but that overton window is just wide own. We are talking about issues and solving problems in ways that we had not in the past. Well, its about time. As dr. King said, the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice. This is one of those go