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First Move with Julia Chatterley
China Warns On Global Market Valuations; Carbon Crisis, Global Emissions Rise About Pre-Pandemic Levels; Novavax Is Saying Their Vaccine Is 96 Percent Effective; More Than 214 Million Vaccinations Have Been Administered Around The Globe; The Video Conferencing Company Is Confident It Will Keep Growing Beyond The Pandemic. Aired 9-10a ET.
Aired March 02, 2021 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Live from New York, I'm Julia Chatterley. This is "First Move," and here is your need to know.
Bubble beware, China warns on global market valuations. Zoom boom, ongoing lockdowns mean continued video calls and strong earnings. And carbon
crisis, global emissions rise above pre-pandemic levels. It's Tuesday, let's make a move.
Welcome once again to "First Move," and we have a jam packed show for you this Tuesday filled with positive vaccine news propelling us to that post
pandemic future. Novavax says its vaccine has a 96% efficacy rate against the original COVID strain in late stage U.K. trials, good protection
against the U.K. variant too.
The Biotech firm hopes to win emergency use approval in Europe and the United States over the next few months. Its vaccine appears well suited for
use in developing nations as well. Novavax CEO Stanley Erck joins this hour with a full update.
For now more than 214 million vaccinations have been administered so far around the globe, more than half of Israel's population has had at least
one dose. Some 30% of people in the U.K. have rolled up their sleeves at least once as well.
The vaccine vroom (ph) and softening bond yields helping trigger a global stock market rally on Monday, the S&P 500 actually had its best day since
June of last year, and now comes the warnings. Data from the world health organization show COVID cases rose for the first time in two months last
week. Now is not the time to let up those measures.
We also had a blunt warning overnight from China's top banking regulator identifying bubbles in U.S. and E.U. assets. He said he's "really afraid
they will burst some day." He also warned too "let's be clear about the Chinese property market and the risks surrounding that as well."
I think the key here is that we all see the warning signs. The problem is that economies today are so intertwined with financial markets that you
can't tackle the latter without hurting the former.
Let's get to the drivers, Christine Romans joins me now, and Christine, that's what we've been talking about for a while now, central bankers I
think recognized the risk. It's tough to address, overheating perhaps in financial markets without hurting those that need protection most in
underlying economies, and that's key for the United States.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's so true, Julia, and recent history is a guide to being too concerned about
overheating and then not supporting your economy enough and then having a decade of slow recovery from a financial crisis.
That's something you don't want to repeat here. But by going gangbusters, at one point 9 trillion, on the backdrop of trillions already deployed into
the economy and a Fed that has had a monetary fire hose on the COVID crisis, I mean, do you risk overheating?
I mean Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase yesterday in an interview said you do risk overheating, overdoing it on stimulus, but the bigger risk
is COVID and not getting that right and nuclear war. He threw that one in there.
He's just trying to say that, you know, we know that the risk is there of overheating, but there are a lot of other risks too and maybe it isn't at
the forefront. And in terms of bubble, I mean bubbles bubbles everywhere. I mean, where are they? I mean, are they SPACs, are they Bitcoin, are they
tech stocks?
I mean, maybe yes. There are always bubbles forming. You never know where they are until they're popped.
What we know is here, right now immediately, 11 million people who might not be able to pay their mortgages, who are severely behind in paying their
rent or their mortgage bills, we know that there are people who are hungry, we know there are millions of people who need the government to replace
their income so they can survive.
So that's the reality what's happening right now. What is the maybe is that overheating concern.
CHATTERLEY: Yeah, North Korea clearly on the mind of Jamie Dimon as well as everything else going on the in the world, perhaps.
ROMANS: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: Christine, important to point out, the question is are central bankers forced to react here? Because what we've heard from, even the
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, she has experience, of course, of heading up the Federal Reserve.
Was it, to that exact point, the risks of doing nothing or doing too little here outweigh the risks of doing too much. But even Jamie Dimon was raising
the question, perhaps, that this stimulus bill has got things in it that don't need to be there.
ROMANS: Yes, and we've heard this complaint from Republicans and a few moderate Democrats as well.
CHATTERLEY: Right.
ROMANS: I mean, there are some concerns there's money for school here but you don't require the schools to open. They talk about -- the Republicans
talk about no strings attached money for states, and yet on the front page of "The New York Times" today you see this analysis that some state's
revenue actually rose.
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I would say revenue rose because of all of those provisions already in previous COVID relief, like $600 a week extra in unemployment benefits.
People spent that money, there were taxes on that money that went to state coffers.
So you could argue that is has been the fire hose -- the fiscal fire hose that has helped states so far and that they might need more help here going
forward.
You know, the big concern here in my mind has always been undershooting -- undershooting like we did last time. And maybe that's because I still have,
you know, twitches from the last financial crisis like many of us -- many of us do. And there have been these warnings about inflation and overdoing
it for years now and that simply hasn't happened, right? Those inflation fears have been subdued.
I do think -- I do think that the bond market is going to be boss here going out. You're going to see these concerns about overheating. That will
-- that will show up in the bond market and that will be a risk for stocks as we go forward here.
But, a lot of these growth projections for later this year are five, six, I've even heard 7 percent growth if you get this $1.9 trillion into the
economy. You will have a rip-roaring economy later this year. The hope is it brings up everybody, right? It just doesn't bring up investors,
financial markets and people who already have jobs and wealth.
CHATTERLEY: Christine very quickly, how many jobs are we down in the U.S. economy?
ROMANS: We're down 10 million jobs.
CHATTERLEY: Right.
ROMANS: We had 18 million people who --
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
ROMANS: -- are getting some sort of benefit.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. Just reminding everyone how --
ROMANS: Ten million.
CHATTERLEY: -- (inaudible) are down. Yes. Christine Romans, thank you so much for that. Remote control. Pandemic success story Zoom says it's here
to stay. The video conferencing company is confident it will keep growing beyond the pandemic. It sees revenue rising over 40 percent this year, even
as users return to school and offices.
Paul La Monica joins us now. Zoom zooming past revenue and profit expectations. People were starting to get a little bit worried, not about
what we're seeing currently perhaps and what we saw in these fourth quarter earnings, but what happens when life gets back to normal. And Zoom is
saying, don't worry, we've got it covered.
PAUL LA MONICA, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Julia. It looks like Zoom is still expecting very solid growth. Of course, not as strong as it got
during the pandemic as everyone really was working from home and schooling from home and what have you. But, the outlook is still very solid and I
think better than what Wall Street was expecting.
And I think what's notable here, Julia, is it's not just that people are going back to work and people are going back to school, you also have a lot
of competition. There's Cisco with Webex, there's Microsoft with Skype and Teams. You have Verizon, you know, owning something called BlueJeans now.
There's a lot of competition out there.
Oh, and Google, by the way, also has Google Meet and Hangouts. So, these are all very large Fortune 500 companies that Zoom is going up against and
it has been able to hang in there and beat them at their own game in many respects.
CHATTERLEY: I mean, customers with more than 10 employees surged 470 percent to 467,100. These numbers to your exact point, despite competition
out there, quite phenomenal, and clearly beating what the analysts were expecting at this stage.
But, it's not just about those Zoom calls as well, they're trying to expand and diversify what they offer. Talk to me about the Zoom phone cloud-based
phone platform, because this is another thing that they were talking about on the call.
LA MONICA: Yes, definitely. I think one of the areas you're going to see potentially for growth is this cloud-based Zoom phone product, which gives
people access to things like voicemail and other kind of old-school phone features that we all use in day-to-day one-on-one conversations.
So, I think that it's going to be going beyond just having a Zoom chat and having a fun, goofy little background image while you're talking either to
your friends or, you know, coworkers or what have you. I think they realize that Zoom needs to be able to do all the things that companies like Verizon
and Comcast and our parent company AT&T offer to businesses and consumers.
CHATTERLEY: Paul, very quickly as well, and I agree with all your points. Different feel for you in the home office today, because I believe your
children have gone back to school for the first time since November. How you doing?
LA MONICA: Yes, it's a -- it's eerily quite. So, you know, we'll see if I'm more productive today or if I wind up having (ph) fewer distractions to
keep me focused, if you will, as ironic as that sounds.
CHATTERLEY: No, I can well understand it. Yes. Paul La Monica, it's (ph) good to have you with us.
LA MONICA: It's a lot easier to just kind of put (inaudible) goggles on when kids were yelling at each other.
CHATTERLEY: But that's rare of course. Thank you very much, Paul La Monica, there.
[09:10:00]
All right, good news for the global recovery unfortunately spells bad news for the environment. While 2020 saw the biggest drop in carbon dioxide
emissions since World War II, they've now recovered and were higher in December than the year before, that according to the International Energy
Agency.
John Defterios joins me now. John, who's contributing more in December of last year than we were seeing in December of last year? It's incredibly bad
news, as great as it is that parts of the word are getting back to life.
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, yes, it has to be, within my space Julia, the emerging markets led by China and India --
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
DEFTERIOS: -- But this is one of those rare cases, of course, where you can see climate progress during the lockdown, right, because the skies are
cleaner in the major cities of the world. The planes, trains, automobiles, trucks all parked, and that's a result of this extraordinary number. Let's
put it up on the screen here.
We saw a drop of nearly 6%, 5.9%, we talked about that benchmark to World War II. It was like removing the European Union as an economy out of global
growth and emissions for the entire year. That's how big the drop is. The oil demand plummeted by 8.6%. And then that V shaped recovery you're
talking, we went up, 2% in December.
It's the beginning of that V shaped recovery by China, which was up 7% in emissions. They had emissions actually going up between April and December,
that's when China started to grow again. And in India's case, it was in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Now, COP-26 is a big benchmark for the end of this year in Glasgow, where the U.S., China, India, the European Union, Japan, need to set their new
targets up to 2050 and the progress they have made so far or the slippage. We've had half the countries hit the targets and the other half have not
hit the targets they laid out over the last ten years.
So it is a crucial window with the U.S. involved, by the way Julia, Joe Biden committing here. We lost four years under Donald Trump. We should see
some fairly ambitious targets by the end of this year.
CHATTERLEY: Although plenty of companies said look irrespective of whether we're in the Paris Accord or not, U.S. companies will continue to try and
bring their emissions down and then raise their standards here. It's all going to come down to --
DEFTERIOS: Sure.
CHATTERLEY: -- fossil fuel, oil and gas demand going forward, not just over the next several years but over the next several decades. John, I know it's
CERAWeek where the oil and gas industry big players come together, virtually admittedly. What are they saying not only about the next few
years but about the next several decades because this is going to be critical?
DEFTERIOS: Well, I'm glad you put it in that context because the CEO so far who has spoken, for example Baker Hughes and Hess Corporation, would only
talk about the next decade, saying that demand will be on the mend. And this is a tricky bit here, Julia.
We had crossed that century mark, 100 million barrels, in 2019 and then fell down to 92. It's on the mend but how much on the mend? There are some
analysis's out there that suggests that we could hit peak demand at 100 million barrels or 105 million barrels, right, by 2030. That space in
between, between 2030 and the targets for net zero emissions by 2050, is going to be crucial.
Will it be a fade where you go down 20, 30, 40% in terms of oil demand in the future, maybe even more if you look at the disruption that's under way.
Then you have to think of the Blackrock's of the world, the pension funds, the university funds not wanting to invest in hydro carbons right now.
That's why you see the IOCs not investing in oil exploration. So the next 10 years, pretty safe bet, does peak oil demand hit in the early 2030s and
then you see that steep climb down could happen.
By the way, last year in the IEA report, they were suggesting that we had renewable energy supplying a 1/5th of global demand for the first time,
20%. And electric vehicles, they went up 40 percent last year, the low number was 3 million units, but global sales in auto has dropped 15%. So I
would say the energy transition is under way in earnest.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, we just need it to accelerate for the good of the planet. All right, John Defterios, thank you so much for all that information
there. Fascinating to watch.
DEFTERIOS: You bet.
CHATTERLEY: All right, and let me bring you up to speed now with some of the other stories making headlines around the world.
A court hearing for 47 activists charged under Hong Kong's National Security Law resumed on Tuesday, but it was adjourned after four of the
defendants were hospitalized. It's not clear what their conditions are. Protestors gathered outside the courtroom on Monday to show their support
for the detained opposition leaders.
Authorities in Nigeria saying nearly 300 school girls kidnapped from their boarding school on Friday have been returned safely. An official says all
279 abducted girls have been accounted for and were all in "good condition." The government had denied paying a ransom for their release.
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Multiple reports say police in Myanmar fired live ammunition today at protestors in the northwestern town of Kalay. They also used water cannon
and tear gas to disperse anti-coup demonstrators.
One witness told Reuters at least four protesters were injured.
All right, still to come here on First Move, Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine could be approved in the U.S. by May. We've got the CEO with all the
details. And Twitter after Trump. The CFO of the social media's site on the companies plans to double revenues.
That's all next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to First Move live from New York. From a March forward to a March in place, here's Futures looking pretty flat after a
truly spectacular start to March trading yesterday. Talk about March madness.
Tech and small caps were Monday's biggest gainers, rising more than 3 percent as bond yields eased. The Russell 2000 hitting all-time highs and
up more than 15 percent so far this year. A sign that investors see strong domestic growth ahead.
Stronger vaccine rollouts will, of course, help economies recover faster. President Biden expected to announce later today that Merck will partner
with competitor Johnson and Johnson to manufacturer J&J's single-shot vaccine is what is being called a historic deal.
Merck will reportedly turn two of its production facilities into vaccine production centers.
Now the balance sheet, the U.S. vaccine maker Novavax points to a loss in the fourth quarter, but these numbers tell just a fraction of the whole
story and it's a comeback after decades of challenges. A year before the pandemic it faced delisting from the Nasdaq and was yet to provide a single
approved vaccine.
Fast-forward to today and it's COVID-19 shot is heading towards approval and the stock is up 1,400 percent in a year.
Stanley Erck is President and CEO of Novavax and he joins us now.
[09:20:00]
Stanley, I have much to discuss with you on vaccines and approvals and manufacturing, but I just want to take a step back, it has been decades of
challenges for the company and now you're on the cusp of getting approval for a vaccine. How does it feel for you and for the team?
STANLEY ERCK, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF NOVAVAX: Well, as you can imagine, it feels great. We've been working on something that we believed in for a long
time. We believe in our platform. It takes -- it's a great indication that it's -- this is a very hard business. It's hard to make new vaccines. And
so the team has held together, we've grown and we're on the cusp of having an approved vaccine.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's about timing, it's also about money. Talk to me about the trials that you've got under way in the U.K., in South Africa and in
the United States. To -- if we hone in on what you're seeing in the U.K., first of all, the efficacy rates of this vaccine, whether it's tackling the
U.K. variant or the original COVID-19 disease is pretty phenomenal.
ERCK: It is. We're very happy -- actually, we're very happy with all the results. We're in the process of finalizing three phase three trials at the
same time, and as you mentioned, U.S., U.K. and South Africa.
And in the U.K., in particular, where we have data, we don't have data in the U.S. other than the fact that we announced last week that we had
enrolled all 30,000 people in the trial over a period of six weeks, which is a record time.
But in the U.K., we have data, and as you point out, we had very successful data. In the half of the trial where the people were exposed to the
original Wuhan, as they refer to it, virus, we had 96% efficacy, a great number.
And even with the variant, the U.K. variant, we had 86% protection. And it shows that there is an effect on variant forms of the virus, but it also
shows that our vaccine is broadly effective.
CHATTERLEY: And how quickly and easily can you adapt this vaccine and adjust for those variants? Like the South Africa one, we were just showing
the numbers there.
ERCK: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: It's still efficacious, but obviously it's a lot lower than what we've seen against the U.K. variant, for example.
ERCK: It is.
CHATTERLEY: How quickly can you adjust?
ERCK: So it is, well we showed in the U.K. -- sorry in South Africa, showed a couple of things. One is that in that variant, it is even more diverse
than the rest of the original -- than the original Wuhan strain. And even with that, at least in the population of those HIV negative, which was most
of the trial, we showed that it was 60%.
So 60%, not as good as 90%, but it's certainly better than no effect at all. And so what we can do is we can adjust our vaccine, just like what you
do every year with the flu vaccine where you change the strains every year, we can change the strain, and we've already done that.
We've entered into animal studies to show that the strain works as well as the original strain. In fact, what we're doing is we're making it bivalent,
using both strains, both the original strain and the South African strain, and we'll try that -- and actually, we plan to do -- test both in human
trials starting by the end of the second quarter. And so my guess is, is that we'll be distributing a bivalent vaccine by the fall of this coming
year -- of this year.
CHATTERLEY: How confident are you that you can take the U.K. data, give it to the United States and say look at our results here, this is good enough
for approval.
It's something that we spoke with a partner of yours, the Serum Institute of India's CEO, and he said we need to be more able to approve a vaccine --
or authorize a vaccine based on other nation's data. Are you confident that the U.S. regulators will sign off on that based on what you've done in the
U.K.?
ERCK: So it's part of their mandate, part of their guidance is that they will accept data from outside of the United States for licensure. And so
what we have to do, it's -- the burden's on us, is we have to accumulate all the data for the U.K. trial, we have to convince the FDA that -- that
those data that we generated for the vaccine that was used in the U.K. is comparable to what we would get with our data in the U.S.
And so that -- if they agree with us, that could save us a couple months of getting into the U.S., well -- because our U.S. data is going to be a
couple months later. And so it would be helpful, but, you know, the burden's on us to show the -- to prove to the FDA that we have a comparable
vaccine. So we think we can, that's what we're going to try.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, ball in your court on that one. Talk to me about price, Stan --
ERCK: Balls in our court.
CHATTERLEY: -- talk to me about price, Stanley, if you can. I should mention, this doesn't require the deep storage, the deep cold storage that
the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines require, so there's obviously high hopes that this vaccine could be used in developing nations as well.
[09:25:00]
CHATTERLEY: Can you just give us a sense relative even just to what AstraZeneca is saying and Pfizer and Moderna? Could it be less expensive
than the any of those?
ERCK: Well, early on, and so going back to summer of last year, we had -- we had had a relationship with the people with whom you spoke at Serum
Institute and said, you know, we -- we cannot -- we think it's terribly important that the vaccine gets distributed globally and that you have
equitable access.
CHATTERLEY: Right.
ERCK: And how we interpret that is to have tiered pricing, so that we have pricing in the lowest income countries at one level and a different price
in the U.S. and Europe for instance. So, we partnered with Serum Institute.
Serum Institute is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, two- thirds of the world's children get a vaccine made by Serum Institute at prices, you know, as low as $1, or $2 or $3.
And so -- so we have partnered with them because we don't have the capability as a biotech company to distribute and register products in low
and middle income countries. They do.
And so, they took on that half of the world and they have already reached an agreement with Gavi, the Global Alliance for Vaccines, to sell them
hundreds of millions of doses at $3 a dose. And we -- Novavax can't do that, but they could. So, that's how we get our product distributed
globally is through them.
CHATTERLEY: What was the game changer, Stanley? I mentioned at the beginning, financials and time, and obviously brilliance of science. But,
would you have been in position if the U.S. government hadn't said, OK, here's some money, get going. We think you can do this.
ERCK: Well, it's hard -- they helped a lot. And -- but as did organizations outside of the U.S. Government, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation has contributed, SEPI, this organization that's headquartered in London or in Europe, and they contributed as well. So, could we have done
it without? Who knows. But, we had the U.S. support and it's been very helpful.
CHATTERLEY: Stanley, brilliant to have you on. Keep us posted with your results as they come through please. And congratulations to you and the
team. A lot of hard work and brilliant science. And we keep our fingers crossed. Stanley Erck --
ERCK: Thanks for (inaudible) --
CHATTERLEY: -- the president and CEO of Novavax. Great to have you with us.
The market opens next. Stay with us.
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[09:30:30]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to First Move. U.S. stocks are up and running this Tuesday. Little change to overall though. The major averages are holding on
to the lion's share of Monday's bump (ph) at (ph) gains. Yes, stocks really did come in like a lion on the first day of March as we predicted.
Investors are seemingly undeterred by a warning from a top Chinese regulator that Western financial markets are in bubble (ph) territory.
Positive vaccine news could land support today to Merck and Johnson & Johnson is set to announce what is being called a historic partnership to
manufactured J&J COVID vaccines, a welcome sign that vaccine rollouts continue to gain steam.
In the meantime, U.S. retailing giant Target tie (ph) an early trade too after posting an 21 percent rise in Q4 sales, stimulus checks helping
provide the extra oomph here. And even though new $1,400 check appear on the way in the United States, Target says the economic outlook is too
uncertain to give forward guidance.
All right, let's turn to Twitter which plans to double its revenues by 2023. The social media network wants to ramp up its number of monetizable
daily active users from 152 million to 315 million.
To do this it's teasing a range of new features including super follows, subscriptions, tipping for content creators and more features to boost
group engagement.
Joining us now is Ned Segal, Twitter's Chief Financial Officer. Ned, great to have you on the show as always. These are eye-popping targets. Talk to
me about boosting daily active users first, because this has been a challenge over a number of quarters.
What specifically is going to draw people to Twitter that perhaps haven't been using it or have been using other social media platforms instead up to
now?
NED SEGAL, CFO OF TWITTER: Well, thanks for having me Julia. I'm thrilled to be here to share a little bit more about that analyst day last week,
where we shared these new goals looking out to 2023. Remember last year we ended 40 million more monetizable daily active users.
We had more contribution from our product improvements than we've every had before. And so, it's with that behind us that we've got this great momentum
in front of us with product innovation. You mentioned some of the things that we're working on.
It all ladders up to making it easier and easier for people to find what they're looking for, to feel safe being a part of the conversation. So, we
think we can continue to grow our MDAU at 20 percent or more a year since - - from last year up through 2023.
CHATTERLEY: Talk to me specifically about the super users, because this does interest me. This is about users for Twitter accessing the people that
they listen to or read tweets of on a daily basis and perhaps doing deep dives and paying the content provider for it. Is this a way for you to
monetize the platform? Or perhaps is the emphasis more on the super users monetizing themselves and the content that they currently provide free?
SEGAL: Well we hope to have something out later this year called super follows. This would allow people to show premium content to the people who
follow them on Twitter, to set their own price for it, to build their audience through their tweets and to charge a price for their premium
features.
Whether they're interviews with CFOs of technology companies or long newsletters that they may want to share. Or even dropping a song from a new
album. The ways that people could use this are endless.
The prices can be whatever they want. And this really more about us putting money in the hands of content creators and connecting people with the
content they're looking for as opposed to trying to make money for Twitter. Because we're certain that if we get more people to use the service, if we
have great content on Twitter it will all work out great for Twitter.
CHATTERLEY: But you would perhaps take a cut of the money, even if it's just a small percentage?
SEGAL: That's typically how it works. I'll give you an example of a company we bought recently called Review, which is a subscription newsletter
service to help people who write newsletters find their customers.
The way that -- the economics work there is actually 95 cents go to the person who created the content and 5 cents goes to us a way to cover costs
and facilitate the transaction. That doesn't mean that's exactly how it will work, but it shows you how there's a real bias to put money in the
hands of the content creator.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, we're going to come back to that, because I want to talk to you about paying for news in general. But, I get this question a lot and
when I tell people that I'll be speaking to you they all said this.
[09:35:00]
Are they every going to have to -- are we as people who use Twitter, and obviously journalists use it a lot I think, going to have to pay for access
to Twitter? Just as a subscription in general?
SEGAL: Well that's no in the plans right now. The way we think about Twitter is we want everybody to have the same great experience when they
come to the service. We want it to be easy for you to find what you're looking for. We want to help you find the accounts you should follow,
through helping you find topics that you want to follow.
Today, you can follow one of 6,000 topics. There are over 100 million accounts that now follow a topic, meaning that we're doing the hard work
for you to find the information you're looking for.
We also want everybody to see compelling ads and we may add premium services on top of this that we would charge for, but the plans aren't for
that to change the underlying service that everybody experiences today.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's quite fascinating. One of the differences I think between -- and it was quite marked for me in what Twitter does in terms of
advertising versus what we see from perhaps some of the other social media platforms, particularly when there was backlash over content.
And one of the things that I think that made advertising so sticky for some of the other platforms was a huge majority of their advertising comes from
small and medium sized businesses. Where does it come from in terms of Twitter's advertising business? Is it big business or small?
SEGAL: That's a great question, Julia. So today 85 percent of the advertising on Twitter comes from large advertisers.
CHATTERLEY: Wow.
SEGAL: Only 15 percent from small and medium businesses. There's a massive opportunity for us to help small businesses who are already using Twitter
connect with their customers on the service, show their hours of operation and have their menu, find a new customer, reengage with existing customers.
Today we just don't make it easy enough for them to find their customers. We don't make it easy enough for them to amplify their message. Lots of
opportunity there. We've staffed that work and we hope that you'll see some improvement from us in that 85/15 ratio over time.
CHATTERLEY: So you see that has a huge growth opportunity in terms of monetizing the platform?
SEGAL: We do. But, we also see lots of opportunity to continue to help large advertisers as well. Remember when Sony launched the PlayStation 5,
they took over Twitter and the conversation around game consoles and gaming broadly.
It's a great way for a brand when they're launching a global product to connect with their customers because they know that opinions get formed on
our service and they want to be a part of that conversation.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I remember all the memes and the photographs. We had a good talk about it on this show, I do remember. I want to get back to what
you were saying about news.
Another thing that struck me just in the last couple of weeks or so was what we saw in Australia with the debate between social media platforms
paying for news or at least a fair pay for the news that appeared on their site. And I did notice that Twitter wasn't involved in that.
Ned, again, what's different about your business model and the way that you interact with news versus the challenges that we saw in Australia and
perhaps could spread around the world?
SEGAL: Well, Twitter's all about serving the public conversation and helping people find news, whether it's connecting with somebody who's
really knowledgeable about a topic that they care about on the other side of the planet or connecting with a journalist who is well known person on a
particular topic.
And you notice we're often a partner to news organizations, where they have their content available on Twitter. Sometimes we share ad dollars with them
when they put their content on our service. Other times they are just tweeting just like any other account would in order to connect with their
costumers and be a part of the conversation around the news on Twitter.
It's one thing, as you know, to report the news. It's a whole other one to have a conversation around it and when it's CNN or another news
organization coming to Twitter, they're often there not just to report the news but to be a part of the conversation around it.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, for that reason and the point that were discussing earlier about the big advertisers, it makes you perhaps more vulnerable if you
allow misinformation to spread. And it sort of ties to the decision to suspend and the formally ban President Trump or former President Trump's
Twitter handle. It also ties to what just came out in the last 24 hours about direct tackling of vaccine misinformation.
Ned, talk to me about Twitter's approach to all of these things and how you see it, not only today but going forward.
SEGAL: Well we want to be really principle and transparent and consistent in how we lay out and enforce our policies. And that means whether they're
around vaccines and making sure that people are trusted information around vaccines, whether it's around COVID-19 or something else.
Or making sure that violence is not incited, whether it's by a public official or by somebody else. We want to enforce these policies in a way
that builds trust with the people who use our service, so that when they come to Twitter they can trust the information, whether it's about rugby in
Japan or cricket in India or politics in the United States.
[09:40:00]
CHATTERLEY: You know, and you and I discussed this off-air, half of the tweets that you now take some form of action on is done by machine-
learning, so you're utilizing new technologies as well.
Ned, I want to ask you about the decision to switch the president off, irrespective of the content that he was creating and the concerns
surrounding it at the time. Do you think Twitter, as a social media platform, perhaps displayed too much power there as far as future
regulations are concerned?
SEGAL: I think we've covered that one well, but in general when we think about our responsibility, we take so seriously our role in being
principled, consistent and transparent about how we enforce our policies, how we lay them out for people. Our policies are now all less than 280
characters, that means they fit in a tweet.
They should be easy for people to understand so that whether you are watching a conversation and want to know what to expect from us or you're
creating the conversation, you know and understand how we'll enforce our policies and recognize that it's not about politics, it's not about which
team we're rooting for, it's not about any particular side of the conversation, it's about being consistent and transparent.
CHATTERLEY: Ned, going for growth. Keep us in touch, please, with your progress. Some bold ambitions. Ned Segal there, the CFO of Twitter, great
to chat to you today on the show.
SEGAL: Thank you, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you. OK, breaking news now, and the U.S. is imposing sanctions on seven Russian officials in response to the poisoning and
imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The sanctions blocks access to financial or other assets in the United States for the individuals. The European Union also unveiled sanctions
today targeting four Russian men in connection with the poisoning. We're back after this, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:45:00]
CHATTERLEY: In case life gives you lemons, Lemonade is a digital insurance company that hopes to offer competitive rates with the help of big data and
A.I. technology. The firm only went public in July last year, but is in a huge growth phase.
As you can see from the stock right now, trading lower in the session despite the company reporting an estimate beating fourth quarter results.
Lemonade offers renters, home, and pet insurance in the United States, contents and liability insurance in Germany and in the Netherlands.
And I'm pleased to say we're joined by Lemonade CEO and Co-Founder Daniel Schreiber. Daniel, great to have you with us. Big expectations, I think,
coming into these numbers. Sometimes it's tough to meet them. Talk to me about growth because this is what you guys seem to be all about.
I remember looking at you when you first IPO'd and you covered 27 states, I believe, in the United States and now you've got the whole country plus
you've expanded into Europe. You have a lot going on.
DANIEL SCHREIBER, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF LEMONADE: Absolutely, and it's been a really exciting year for our business. It's been a pretty dramatic year
on a global basis as well, but for us it's been phenomenal. So we just wrapped 2020, just reported our results today.
You're talking about 87% year on year growth and doubling of marks in efficiencies, even as we're pretty much doubling our business. So a lot of
the fundamentals of the business are really beginning to kick in, in incredibly powerful ways.
And during that time have really changed some of the fundamentals. So, as you said, we're now offering not only homeowner's insurance, which we did
the first four years of our existence, but we added pet insurance and we've just added the life insurance.
And in addition to Germany and the Netherlands, We've recently just launched in France and done all that during lockdown. So we're really
beginning to see tremendous symbiosis between different geographies, different products, and that feedback loop is kicking in, in powerful ways,
which have been driving up business in a way that we're very grateful for.
CHATTERLEY: Just go back to basics here because it is the fundamentals that matter, and this is why you're trying to be such a disrupter to the
insurance industry because you're simply trying to use unique data driven ways to price risk and estimate how you can provide insurance to people for
various different products, do it more competitively, but also, in the end hopefully, make profits and make money. Just describe how you are different
as a company?
SCHREIBER: I think our differences are two-fold. We -- so we established Lemonade five years ago and we created everything from scratch, every line
of code but also all the licenses, so Lemonade is a fully vertically integrated company where we are not dependent on incumbent carriers, and
that allowed us to reimagine everything about Lemonade.
So it starts off with a business model. Insurance companies are usually distrusted at times, despised by consumers even though they are basically
in the business of helping you out in the hour of need. And that deep distrust is rooted in a business model that is perceived by consumers as
being conflicted.
If I make a claim and if you pay me, well if you pay me I'm happy but you're unhappy and vice versa, so we're fighting over the same coin.
Lemonade went back to basics and we said we want to use all the signs of behavioral economics and game theory to reimagine the business model and
create a structure whereby we never make money by denying claims and we are aligned with consumers.
And then having created that aligned business model, which is highly differentiated from how the rest of the industry works, we then digitized
everything. Insurance companies tend to be 100 years old, 150 years old, some in the U.K. are 300 years old. We really built everything from
scratch, so you buy insurance with Lemonade on your app. The median time to buy a policy is about 90 seconds.
CHATTERLEY: Wow.
SCHREIBER: We pay claims instantaneously on the app. About a third of our claims are paid in three seconds using A.I. and machine-learning. So it is
not only in the backend that we're using datasets to price and bring amazing products to market, and indeed customers can often time save about
50% by switching to Lemonade, but it's also delivering an experience that is fundamentally reimagined and reconstructed using the very best of
technology.
So you can buy insurance in your pajamas in a few seconds and get paid with the same speed and simplicity, no paperwork, no faxes, instant everything.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and I think the hope here is if you have that degree of customer satisfaction, then you keep fraud down as well which is another
key aspect of this as well. One of the things that leapt out to me, and you've touched on it in the fourth quarter, the sequential growth rate of
customers with multiple policies outpacing the growth single policies by five times.
So you're literally managing to cross-sell to products -- to people. I think one of the things that also really annoys customers about insurance
is you're not paid for loyalty, you tend to have to shop around at the end of the year when your policies run out and you can generally find a better
deal somewhere else. How do you treat not only cross-selling but when people renew their policies?
SCHREIBER: Yes, so it's true. A lot of insurance companies have a loyalty penalty--
[09:50:00]
CHATTERLEY: Right.
SCHREIBER: -- where they'll actually raise your prices on the assumption that you're a customer for life. We really try never to take our customers
for granted. So we have none of that. And indeed we're seeing levels of customer loyalty and customer satisfaction that are not familiar in the
insurance space.
One of the universal measures of that is something known as NPS, Net Promoter Score. And Lemonade is in the 70s to 80s range, which is where
Tesla is and where Apple is. But insurance companies tend to be in the single digit.
So you're seeing levels of customer delight and customer satisfaction that are, I think, without parallel in the industry. And indeed if you go in the
U.S., our largest market, to any of destinations where consumers rank their insurance companies, Lemonade will routinely, in the eyes of consumers,
outrank all of the other insurance companies.
We came in number one for renter's insurance, number one for home owner's insurance separately and we've since launched two new products. And that
has really led to a level of loyalty and customer adoption that is about an order of magnitude faster than what you see elsewhere.
We ended 2020 with a million customers after four years in market. The most loved brand in the United States other than Lemonade is USAA, which is a
phenomenal company. It took them 47 years to get to that kind of a landmark of 1 million customers.
So you're seeing something like a 5 to 10x acceleration relative to what the incumbents have been able to do until now. So I do think that
reimagining everything being customer centric, given them an incredible experience, not taking customers for granted and simplifying the entire
process with an aligned business model is proving itself and we're seeing that in the growth numbers that you alluded to earlier as well.
CHATTERLEY: Come back soon and we'll talk about profitability as well. Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade. Fantastic to chat to you,
as always there's never enough time. Great to have you on. We're back after this.
SCHREIBER: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you.
(COMMERICAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: The European Commission is hoping to boost travel in time for the summer. Later this month it will propose an E-wide COVID-19 digital
passport. The goal is to provide one, proof of vaccination; two, test results if you've not yet been vaccinated; three, recovery information if
you've had COVID.
So all critical issues and "Quest Means Business" the CEO of Virgin Atlantic agreed to vaccine passports in principle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAI WEISS, CEO, VIRGIN ATLANTIC: Overall, we support it if the governments support it and if it indeed opens up travel at scale safely in the summer.
RICHARD QUEST, CNNI ANCHOR: Have you seen the surge in bookings that we've seen? I mean in the United Kingdom, for example, when the prime minister
basically said to hoping (ph) a date in May to open up for international travel data dependent. But did you see a mass increase in bookings?
[09:55:00]
WEISS: Yes, we did. And of course our prime minister did something, I think, very thoughtful in the sense that on February the 22nd he announced
basically the flight path out of lockdown with a road -- road path for -- really for the rest of the economy.
And he set a date, which is May the 17th, which should be the resumption of international travel and gave, I mean, greater assurance that travel at
scale can resume safely in the summer.
And indeed we have seen a surge in booking since February the 22nd. We've seen certain locations up over 100 percent, vis-a-vis the same week the
fall previously. Destinations such as the Caribbean, New York, and other locations have seen a surge in bookings based on the increased confidence
that there is a way for travel to resume.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLY: All right. And that's it for the show. If you've missed any of our interviews today, they will be on Twitter and Instagram pages. Search
for @jchatterlycnn. And in the meantime we will back tomorrow. For now, stay safe. And "Connect the World" with Becky Anderson is up next. Have a
great day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:00]
END
