Fortune October 2020

the forces covid can’t stop

THE DAY BEFORE this issue of Fortune went to press, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released its 2020 Goalkeepers Report: the philanthropy’s latest scorecard on the global war on poverty and disease. In a sea of disappointing numbers—and line charts bending the wrong way—one data point stands out as particularly alarming: The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust an additional 37 million people around the world into extreme poverty. In case you’re wondering, the World Bank defines that threshold as living on less than $1.90 a day. Those looking for a culprit here can blame a spiky virus around 100 nanometers in diameter. Until the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen spread around the world, we had been steadily making progress in the bulk of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. But the pandemic—and the economic…

bill gates

“People’s attitudes towards masks and the vaccine will help determine how quickly we bring this pandemic to an end.” PANDEMIC VS. PROGRESS Since 2017, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has issued an annual scorecard, called the Goalkeepers Report, on how we’re doing in the fight against global poverty and disease. In the latest assessment, you began with words I’m guessing you’ve never uttered before: “This progress has now stopped.” GATES: Yes, the United Nations developed these goals for humanity, which are about basic needs: getting rid of extreme poverty, providing access to education and health care. And so that creates a framework for us to do a report card every year and try to highlight the countries that are doing things well—we call them exemplars—so that we can get others to adopt…

the activist employee hasn’t gone away

As the election approaches, the building trend of employee activism against employers seems to be taking a benign turn—but don’t imagine that America’s employers and workers are now united in peace and love. While high-profile employee walkouts and protests have faded in the pandemic era, a new kind of friction, with higher stakes, is on the way. The election’s outcome will strongly influence how it plays out. The largest employee protests have shocked many. Last year some 3,000 Amazon employees walked out in opposition to the company’s climate policy, and hundreds of Wayfair workers walked out to protest the company’s sale of furniture to U.S. immigrant detention centers. In 2018 an estimated 20,000 Google employees marched to protest the company’s generous severance payment to an executive accused of sexual misconduct. Such…

a hedge (fund) in the forest

OUT AMONG the pine trees across from Bridgewater Associates’ headquarters in Westport, Conn., sit as many as 50 employees who help manage the $140 billion in assets of the world’s largest hedge fund. Tracking the coronavirus, Bridgewater had shut its offices to all but essential staff at the end of February. But a couple of months later, missing in-person teamwork, it sought to reopen them. Staffers soon realized they could not collaborate inside. “I was like, we got to take the masks off,” says Nir Bar Dea, cohead of Bridgewater’s investment engine. The multitude of safety protocols were “more stressful than calming,” he adds. “The move outside just flipped that completely.” While everyone on campus takes COVID-19 tests twice a week, masks are not required out in the woods, where furniture is…

ford, just admit it: you’re a truckmaker now

FORD MOTOR CO. prides itself on thinking big. The 117-year-old icon’s long-running strategy centers on preserving its status as a universal nameplate serving all the world’s major geographies and offering a wide array of vehicles from subcompacts to luxury SUVs, in a variety of flavors soon to widely encompass electric. But it’s a company that’s sliding: After posting $7.4 billion in profit in 2015, Ford’s earnings barely broke even last year, and that was before COVID-19 and its subsequent lockdowns took a sledgehammer to its North American profitability. In the second quarter of this year the company lost nearly $1 billion in the region. Jim Hackett was ousted as CEO shortly after, and a new round of buyouts was announced. New CEO James Farley, who was promoted from chief of operations, has…

blue ribbons for blue-and white-collar work

FORTUNE PARTNERS with research and analytics firm Great Place to Work to analyze feedback from more than 4.7 million workers, creating annual lists of workplaces that many employees never want to leave. GPTW surveys measure factors like the level of trust between colleagues and the opportunity to reach full potential—identifying companies that excel, across industries. At the top of this year’s list of best workplaces in manufacturing sits a familiar name: Stryker. The medical device company tops the large-company segment for the fifth time in seven years. Stryker shows a commitment to diversity in both hiring practices and partnerships. In 2018 alone, it spent over $228 million with businesses owned by people of color, women, and veterans. Among the best large companies for women, financial services powerhouses like Pinnacle Financial Partners and…