Motley Fool Money - Disney’s Streaming Surprise, Telemedicine Mergers, and Operation HOPE

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

Disney’s streaming service gets the job done. Wayfair crushes expectations. Arista Networks sells off despite beating expectations. Square gets a boost from the Cash App. Teladoc and Livongo Health enter into a telemedicine merger. Wix.com posts strong revenue growth but swings to a loss. Etsy generates triple digit revenue growth. Twilio reports record results, but the stock takes a breather. Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross and Jason Moser discuss those stories and share two stocks on their radar: LivePerson and Health Catalyst. Plus, entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist John Hope Bryant talks financial dignity and economic empowerment.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a small business owner, you already know what it takes to keep everything moving. You're juggling customers, invoices, and about 100 decisions every day. Thankfully, taxes don't have to be one more thing on that list. With Intuit TurboTax, you can get your business taxes done for you with a full service expert. TurboTax matches you with your dedicated tax expert. Who knows your industry understands your business write-offs and gives you the personalized advice your business deserves. upload your documents right in the app, hand everything off, and still feel like you're in the loop

the whole way through. You can even get real-time updates on your expert's progress right in the app, which makes it so much easier to stay on track. And you can get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com to get matched with an expert today, only available with TurboTax full service experts. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Ron Gross, sitting in for Chris Hill. Joining me today are senior analysts, Andy Cross and Jason Moser. How you doing, gentlemen? Hey Ron?

How you're doing on that side of my car? Earning season rolls on, my friends. Today we're going to talk furniture. payment processing, the cloud, and telemedicine, but we begin with the House of Mouse. Disney reported better than expected third quarter results as weakness in the parks and resort segment were offset by strength in streaming services. Andy, Disney Plus getting it done and the stock reacting nicely. Yeah, sure, Ron. It really was all about the direct-to-consumer. When you think about what Disney is doing on their streaming platform, they now have more than a 101 million streaming paid subscribers. That's Disney Plus at 57.5 million. Actually, now more than

the 60 million as of this week. Up from 33 and a half million the previous quarter or growth of seven, more than 70%. It's about not quite the third the size of Netflix. Interesting, 15% of those are in India, Ron, with the Disney and the Hot Star partnership. ESPN Plus was up up to 8.5 million. Hulu at more than 35 million up 27% from a year ago. That group is still losing money as they continue to invest into that business, lost 700 million this quarter, up from a loss of 560 million last quarter. We saw the direct release of Moulon, so that was kind of exciting for a $30 fee. I don't think we can expect, at least they said we can't expect to see that every time. But it was interesting to see that obviously all of this is offsetting

the parks business that really struggled. It was down 85%. They did more than 980 million revenue down from 6.6 billion last quarter. So it really goes to show you the extent that the COVID-19 quarantine and lockdown has affected on the parks business. The media business with the MBA and the MLB shutting down on live sports pretty much in general, although we're starting to now see that come back. So that's exciting and has hurt the media business. And studio entertainment business was down because they just really haven't had any new releases and production schedule shut down. So overall, operating profit fell 72%. But most of that was from the parks business. Overall, a really nice quarter when you look at the streaming business and the continued investment

that they are making into that streaming platform and to be able to grow that way. You mentioned STAR, their international streaming service. How big a part of this thesis, this investment thesis for Disney, do you think, is in STAR? Yeah, I think it's important. I think the I think so many of the headlines obviously are in the streaming side because so much of the other business is so weak, right? Now, again, we saw continued excitement, not just in streaming, but a little bit of some of the other businesses maybe starting to shape up. The Asian parks businesses started to come back, although I think Hong Kong had to shut down in July. So I think anything tied to streaming is going to be really excitement in the direction for Disney. Interesting, their advertising side had really affected some of the Hulu business and some of the,

the average revenue per user on the streaming side because the advertising markets have been so weak recently. But you saw the debut of Hamilton, big success. So a lot of headline excitement around Disney. I think investors expected that, but maybe not to this extent. And hopefully the parks business comes back if you're a Disney subscriber or a Disney shareholder over the next few years. Wayfair's second quarter results crushed expectations. And Jason, the stock continues to hit new highs. Can this continue? You know, Ron, I thought there was no way that way fairer can bring results this quarter that would give the market a chance to justify the run-up on the stock this year. But man, they did it. You know, I mean, this thing is, this

quarter I think gave us a window really into the potential profitability of this business in showing that there actually is a light at the end of the tunnel, assuming they continue to grow the top line like they did this quarter. Granted, this was a bit of an unusual quarter from that perspective. But it's not unusual that the numbers they've been reporting all along the way tell us this business is growing and succeeding. Let's look at some of those numbers. I mean, 84% top line growth. They brought in $4.3 billion in sales this quarter. This was kind of a George Costanza thing. Ron, I mean, we're used to no profits and no cash flow. They did the opposite. You've got positive gap net income, positive gap earnings per share. I mean, cash flow positive.

At 26 million active customers now up 46% from a year ago, repeat customers continue to get it. done. You know, I will say in the call, they did note that the magnitude, they referred to the magnitude of efficiencies in marginal leverage they experienced. It's not likely to fully repeat in quarter three, the current quarter, given that they see the top line growth subsiding at least a little bit. But to that point, they did note that quarter to date gross revenue growth is trending at approximately 70%. So still very impressive. Understandable, right? I mean, we are in a bit of a new paradigm when it comes to retail, and Wayfair is one of the companies leading the way.

So it's been a phenomenal year for the stock, a phenomenal year for the business. It seems like that's going to continue. We can argue that it's overvalued all day long, I'm sure, but clearly the market is very forward-looking in this case and likes what it sees. Arista Network stock got smacked on Wednesday, even though the company beat top and bottom-line expectations. Andy, what am I missing here? Yeah, it's a pretty decent quarter for Rista that provides software and hardware for switching networks at big data centers mostly.

But maybe looking at the growth for the third quarter, I think investors may be not quite so excited by that. They are seeing some supply chain challenges with the COVID impacts and some longer sales cycle. So overall, revenue was a little bit better than what they expected down 11% from a year ago, but up more than 3% from the first quarter. so that was good. Gross margins down a little bit, but above guidance. And the adjusted EPS was down to $2.11 from $2.44 last year. They didn't see a record number of million dollar clients. So that was good. Like I mentioned, they're seeing some of those supply chain challenges from the hardware side that kind of affects their business. They are really getting a handle on some of the cost structures and making sure their cost structure for their sales cycle and for their business. are manageable, and that's, that's, that's, that's helping some of their, some of the margin on the

side. But, um, we did see a little bit of improvements from some of the cloud titans. That's like the Microsoft and the Facebook that spends so much money with Arista. Um, that's the largest vertical they have. That started to see some rebound, I think, over some slowness, um, over the past year or so. And the guidance, like I said, was still down. It's still looking for revenues to fall 11% this, um, quarter and gross margins about the same. Still, it's very profitable. It is playing in a very large space, seeing some challenges, I think, with some of the spending from some of their big clients affect their overall business and some of the guidance. So some concerns there, but I think the long-term story for ERISA is still pretty strong. Yeah, that's spending. And CAPX, I would assume,

is temporary COVID-related? I would imagine there's nothing else going on to be concerned about. No, I think, well, I think that was the big question on the call, is, is this really a temporary thing or are they starting to see some struggles? We're seeing some expansion into the excitement around the 400 gig from the 100 gig solutions. That's still really early. And by the way, their campus business, that requires people to be around, to be able to sell to. So implementation is better when no one's at your campus business, but from the sales side, a little bit longer than I think they had experience maybe over the past year or so. Square's stock had a good week as the digital payment processor beat expectations. Jason,

And solid results from the cash app, but some weakness and its volume from merchants. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, I think the big picture, you know, the reasons why we all invested in this company or many of us invested in this company to begin with are all still very much there. And this was a respectable quarter from a number of angles. If you look at numbers like net revenue up 64 percent to 1.92 billion, that sounds great. Now, you have to back out that Bitcoin revenue, and then you recognize that it was essentially flat with last year, so you don't want to be misled there.

But let's not hold the fact that Jack Dorsey is a believer of Bitcoin against him or the company, right? I mean, maybe there is something there. It certainly seems like it's something that is creating a lot of engagement within their networks. The number we always look at with companies like this gross payment volume, which to me, this was a little bit, this was kind of an attention. attention-getter. Gross payment volume was down 15% from here ago to $22.8 billion.

Now, $22, $23 billion, that's a lot of money, of course. Let's put it in a context. PayPal just sent $222 billion through their networks, and that represented 30% growth. So do with that what you will, but clearly, you know, I mean, this isn't like everybody in the same boat. Square is not growing that payment volume like other companies are. But, again, they have a a pretty heavy exposure to small and medium-sized businesses, which are clearly feeling the pinch from this pandemic and the economic ramifications of it. Very notable, I thought, just that the gross payment volume from online channels for Square was up more than 50 percent from a year ago, so that's encouraging.

The cash app ecosystem continues to drive a lot of engagement, profits up in that segment 167 percent. I like seeing that they're actually going to break out the two segments in the cash app ecosystem and seller ecosystem. They're both very, very strong parts of the business, and so it's nice to see how to how each one is performing on its own. And then finally, the square capital side of the business continues to serve as a point of assistance during this time. They put through around $875 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, really helping a lot of individuals and businesses

kind of keep their heads above water during this difficult time. So a good quarter, not a great quarter. I understand why the market's receiving it well. But yeah, we'd like to see them get that gross payment volume number back up and accelerating. Coming up, online demand continues, and we've got a telemedicine merger. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Ron Gross sitting in for Chris Hill. On Wednesday, Teledoc announced that it would acquire chronic care provider,

Livango Health, for $18.5 billion. And Jason, you've been a fan of Teledoc for a long time. What do you think? Yeah, well, if you're asking why this is happening and a lot of LaVongo shareholders are, You know, the goal for tele-a-go-all along has really been to build this virtual care organization, this big healthcare company, deliver and enable full spectrum of whole-person care, primary care, chronic condition management, critical care, expert opinion, all of this, all of this. I mean, it's not just a see-the-doctor on your phone anymore, company.

Livongo is in the business of helping people manage chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, among others. And if you look at some of those numbers, I mean, in the U.S., nearly the 147-9, you know, million people live with a chronic condition. 40% have two or more. 90% of health care spending is attributable to people with chronic conditions, and it costs the U.S. economy over $3.7 trillion per year. Internationally, one in three adults is living with one or more chronic conditions. So you can see this is a very big market. I understand why Teledoc is interested in Livongo because it expands their offering. It's a very complementary acquisition, and there's only about

only about a 25% overlap in actual customers there. So it is very much a complementary deal. And Teledoc has a track record in the acquisition space, too. So I think you could be cautiously optimistic at least. It is a very big deal. This is essentially a merger. I mean, it is a big deal for sure. It's going to take a lot of hard work, but they seem to feel that the cultures are very symbiotic. They feel like the cultures really work together well. And so maybe that's the case. We'll have to wait and see. But, you know, I do understand folks who were bullish on Livongo a little bit curious as to the lack of a perceived premium on that stock price. But you got to remember, the market was paying that premium a lot on this way up. Okay.

I mean, this is a business that doesn't make any money. It was trading it 40 times sales. So let's not forget that. I'd say cautiously optimistic, but certainly it has a chance to make Teledoc a much, much bigger company in a few years. Wix.com reported strong revenue growth in its second quarter, but Andy, results swung to a net loss, and the stock ended the day down a bit. What do you think? Yeah, they added just continued growth of what we've seen from the interest in online connections, communications, connectivity. Wix added 9.3 million registered users during the quarter up 64%. Revenues up 27%. They cross over the 5 million total paid subscriptions. And for all of this year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year. first two quarters, the ad, the new ad of subscriptions excelled what they did all of last year, Ron. So really much, a lot of excitement around what is happening in online commerce. They launched a bunch of new tools, including their editor X for much more sophisticated

web designs. The guidance, I think, you know, 26 to 27 percent revenue growth, their collections, which is what they cash they get from their subscription business, up 31 to 34 percent. Free cash flow was the knock a little bit. It's expected to fall 40 to 50 percent next quarter as they continued to invest more and more into that platform business. But overall, I think a really nice quarter for Wix and shareholders, I think, should be excited about what's happening for the future of this company. COVID clearly accelerated the business in a sense, pulled some business forward, I would imagine. But do you think that growth continues or will it stagnate because we got that pull forward?

Well, growth in July so far, and that does not, it was not part of this quarter, really excelled. They continue to see their subscription business, their net ads more than doubles. And they're seeing more conversion rates from their free to fee is accelerating from where it was historically, too. So I think we are seeing that. I think they are being a little bit cautious about how much is pulled forward and what the growth may look like, especially from the profit side because they are investing a lot more in marketing and sales efforts. Etsy reported strong second quarter results on triple-digit revenue growth, has the company benefited from more people shopping online and the strong demand for masks?

But Jason, as CFO Rachel Glazer pointed out, it wasn't just about selling more masks. No, it was not. And much like Wayfair, I mean, just wow. You know, I mean, you said last week, I said last week, that it really still feels like it's Amazon's world after they recorded that 40% topline growth. But then you see what companies like Wayfair and Etsy are doing. And you realize that this is just another glimpse into the... the retail landscape of the future, and certainly Etsy is going to be one of those companies that helps define it. To your point about masks, yeah, I mean, they sold $346 million worth of masks. Over 110,000 sellers sold at least one mask. But to your point, non-mask sales

actually grew 93% in the second quarter from a year ago, which is an acceleration from the 79% that they witnessed in the month of April. And so the business itself, continues to just really perform well. They added more sellers in the quarter, somewhere in their neighborhood of 36 percent growth on the seller side. And yet, with that addition, gross merchandise sales per active seller actually grew 15 percent. Really impressive stuff. So sellers are becoming more successful. Buyers are happy because they're buying it and management continues to invest in that sort of that craft niche nature of the platform, which is really starting to resonate with a lot of folks. Ron, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind people that Etsy is part of my

stay-at-home basket. I presented a couple months back at Fool Fest. To date, Ron, it's the best performer in the basket. Up 67% versus the market 7.5. I'm a happy shareholder. I'm not letting these shares go anywhere. Can't argue with the results. Twilio reported record second quarter results beating expectations, but shares sold off a bit on the news. Andy, are investors just taking a break from what it's been really a tremendous ride here? Or was there something that kind of to cause some concern? No, I think a little bit of a break, maybe a little concern what they issued five million shares at $247. The stock's at like $255. Now, revenues up 46%. Dollar base expansion rate still at 132%, down a little bit from last quarter and down from last year. They added 24% more

customers cross of the $200,000 mark. 200,000 subscriber mark. So overall, really nice quarter. The growth towards more online digital communication is really benefiting Twilio and will benefit shareholders, I think, going forward of which I am one. You know, we've seen some companies actually issue third quarter guidance where a lot of companies had suspended guidance completely. And some of these cloud businesses fall into that category, management guided for revenue growth of 36 to 38%. What about these businesses gives them that visibility? Yeah, well, I think they have that consistency and some of the excitement about these businesses that are specially benefiting or at least seeing some trends.

Twilio put out a survey interested in to more than 2,500 of enterprises, and they saw 97% have seen an acceleration in the digital transformation and their digital communication strategy basically accelerated by six years, Ron, by six years. So I think Twilio is seeing that, and with all that they've been doing on their platform, I think some excitement about the prospects going forward. Coming up, a conversation on economic empowerment with entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist, John Hope Bryant. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Ron Gross sitting in for Chris Hill this week. Operation Hope is the largest nonprofit financial inclusion organization in the country,

providing financial literacy in schools, financial coaching through banks, and investing billions in small businesses and homeowners. John Hope Bryant is the founder, chairman and CEO. of Operation Hope, Bryant Group Ventures, and the Promise Holmes Company. And he's the author of how the poor can save capitalism, love leadership, and the memo. Last week, Motley Fool contributor Dan Klein interviewed Bryant on Motley Fool live video. They talked entrepreneurs, economic empowerment, and financial dignity. But Dan kicked things off by getting an overview. For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know about Operation Hope, can you give us a quick overview?

We were founded under the Rodney King rise in 1992 in South Central Los Angeles by me. It was founded as America's first nonprofit, social investment banking organization with a mission to eradicate poverty into chains the world through financial literacy, education, mentorship, financial and capital access education, low cost of capital, high quality education, and opportunity. And we now have invested through our partners of about $3.5 billion. 28 years later in thousands of small businesses and homeowners that we created with prime market rate capital. Four main clients, raising credit scores 120 points in 24 months. Nothing changed your

life more than God or love. Moving your credit score 120 points is my opinion. And we're in 25 states as of this week. We just opened a few more offices. And so we're the Starbucks of financial inclusion. I want to go into your background, your origins, but let me ask a little bit more. about Project Hope. Give me an example of some of the programs you run in a community and the types of communities you're serving. Okay, sure. Well, we are in or have been in 4,000 intercity underserved schools for financial literacy education. That's sort of easy stuff that we do, 30,000 volunteers. That needs to be, we have a new Marshall Plan I wrote. Your viewers can pull it up, John O'Brien, the new Marshall Plan to review it. But I think that actually,

that needs to be taken over from us and adopted by Congress and signed the law so that every child, it gets financial literacy K through college, not K through high school. We also need education K through college because you cannot have the leading superpower in the world with half the people have a high school education. That's where discrimination, bias, backwards thinking, and hopelessness dwell. We need to bring the light, and that comes through education and exposure. So I think financial literacy education needs to go from our model. I got it. President Bush assigned it as a federal mandate, but needs now be, in my opinion, federally funded and embedded in the school systems as a national norm. So we're sort of cultivating ideas, then that we expect others to

adopt and to carry on. So we went into banking, and we became the first nonprofit, allowed to operate inside of a bank branch in the history of the U.S. and now we're in 30 or 40 banks where we're getting the bank out of the no business and back into the yes business by getting the credit score up because half of black folks, as an example, have a credit score below 620, which means it's a lot of folks like me who have credit score in the 700s, but that match where average is being drugged down by a lot of other folks who are in the 300, 400, and 500 credit range. So that means that half of black America, Dan, can't get a decent mortgage, can't get a decent small business loan. I'm sorry, you can't get any small business loan because you can't get risky

credit below 700 credit. It's unsecured risky credit. You can't get a decent auto loan. An 18% auto loan is like a mobile bomb. You know, you get a Mercedes with 18% loan. It's not a Mercedes is mercy these payments. So we are in the banking sector, sort of in the bank branch, helping that person who would be declined, get trained up so they can be approved. And so the bank can say, yes. Now we're also in the employer. We're now in Hope Inside the Workplace. We've gone to a lot of major companies because financial well-being is the next big thing that's impacting their efficiency, effectiveness and overall performance. So we're going where the kids are, schools, we're going where the adults are, a workplace to have an outsized impact on our cultural life. I can tell you

much more, but that's some of the big ideas. And we've got some big things we're working on right now that anyone of which happened will, I believe, change parts of the nation. It's amazing work. So let's go back to how you got started. I've been spending the past two days reading all about you. I cannot wait to read your book. But at the age of nine, you met with a banker and asked how you can become rich legally. John, that's not typical nine-year-old behavior. My brother, who's a very successful executive at nine, wanted to be a skate guard at our local roller rink. So you were a pretty advanced nine-year-old. Sort of what? What led you to that path?

Well, I wasn't advanced. I was lucky. My mother told me she loved me every day in my life. You know, nothing more powerful, as you know, Dan, than a mom and dad, particularly a mother, telling her child that they are loved. So as a result of that, I was broke often, but I was never poor because poor is a state of mind. I knew I was somebody because my mother told me so. And so I had a sense of, yes, I am.

And then my dad owned his own business. so I had a sense of yes, I can. And that's why I knew I could be and do something and be somebody. I just didn't know what. So when this banker came in my classroom to teach financial literacy in home economics class, white banker, red tie, white shirt, blue suit, a six, two, a giant to a kid who's nine.

And I only saw Dan a white guy who was a detective's, news officer, or maybe a teacher. I never saw a guy like this before. And he was there because of the Community Reinvestment Act, the law that requires banks to go into unserved areas and teach. So I listened to this guy for a couple of sessions, to your point earlier, I said, sir, what do you do for a living? And how did you get rich legally?

And he said, young man, I'm a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. Dan, I said, I don't know what an entrepreneur is. I never heard that word before, which is pretty sad, by the way. that I've never heard that word before. But whatever an entrepreneur is, if it's legal and you're financing them, I'm going to be one. And, you know, all these years later,

that's who I am. But it started that day. I went home and opened the dictionary to the word entrepreneur and researched it. Now, it is sad that I think that that story can be recounted, timeless times over that in most underserved areas in America, black and poor white,

most kids 19 years old, ever heard the word entrepreneur. And if they heard it, it's been like on TV and they don't even know what it means. Like, what do you, like back in my day, there was no internet and all that kind of stuff. We literally never heard it. Teacher didn't say it wasn't an addiction there. But today, even though kids are hearing it because of the media, they don't really know what it means. And it's everything. I mean, you wouldn't be sitting here if not for a couple of entrepreneurs. I wouldn't be sitting here if not for a lifetime of entrepreneurs. You know, you mentioned parents who love you, my family has a business, and I didn't realize until I was about 20,

that everybody's dad didn't get up at 630 in the morning on Saturday to go to work. So you learn from example, you mentioned in your bio that that banker, that he didn't want to be there. Was that something you were aware of at nine years old? It's a good question. Yes, I was aware of it, but not because he was mean. He wasn't mean. He was indifferent. He didn't hate me. He didn't love. He didn't love. of me, he was there to do a job and check a box. And it was clear when he first got there that he was basically told to go. But after two or three sessions then, after he felt our humanity, he began to relate to his

own children. Like, you kids remind me of my kids. And then a smile came to his face and the warmth came over his body. And all of a sudden, we were just God's children. We were brought, you know, and we were having a huge, you know, and we were having a human conversation. But yeah, so it was, I think that issue today and today is not love or hate. Dr. King dealt with love, those who supported him, and hate, by the way, black and white, and hate those who repelled him, who tried to repel him and who tried to hurt him. Today we're

dealing with really radical indifference. People who don't care enough about you to hate you. Private before COVID-19, we're separated by increasingly private streets, private security, private homes, private guided communities, private schools, private university. Education was becoming a private asset, not a public good, private islands, private lives, really a fabrication of these two worlds, the investor economy and workforce economy, which, and COVID has illustrated and amplified those two differences. This one here is recovering, is going to recover with a soft view, and this one here is in a recession that feels like a depression, and our society can't survive that way. We're all in this thing together. 70% of the economy is consumer spending,

70 plus percent. I tell my rich friends, my rich friends need my poor friends to do better, if only to stay rich. So I would say to Dave that that banker didn't necessarily love me, but now he would know that he needs me. What's the biggest barrier to building wealth in the communities that are traditionally underserved. We never got the memo on money, my last book, on the National Literacy, Free Enterprise, Capitalism. What your viewers probably don't know, and I know your viewers are really smart, but most people don't know this, is that after the Civil War, and right where I'm sitting in Atlanta was burned down in the march to the sea by the Union Army as they broke the spirit of the

Confederate Army and convinced them they couldn't win. That's a very important point, broke the spirit. Same thing that happened with black slaves, their spirits were broken. so that they could be manipulated to work on these plantations, not put up a fight. And that depression persists today, by the way. But this place was burned down. After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln created a bank, March 3, 1865, called the Freedmen's Bank, chartered to teach free slaves about money in the free enterprise system,

and to finance their new farms and their crops. And unfortunately, Lincoln was killed the next month. So black America never got the memo on free enterprise, capitalism, economics, ownership, entrepreneurship, you know, entrepreneurship. The difference between making money and building wealth, those things are different. Getting rich, making money is different from building wealth, wealth's mindset. Anybody can get rich. I mean, a drug dealer can get rich, a gangster can get rich. That isn't meaning it is sustainable.

So we just never got the memo. So we've been doing so much with so little for so long, you know, almost do anything with nothing, but we have not built wealth and had not been able to pass down generational wealth because it's almost been like a black swan moment that lasted for 400 years. And now in this new environment, I think there's a social justice reckoning that recognizes that we've got to make peace with our past

and that all people, including black people, need to be part of this resurgence and the rebirth and the regrowth of, of the American economy. COVID-19 has exposed some structural flaws. It's hitting minority communities much worse than it's hitting affluent communities. Are we going to learn some lessons?

I mean, at times I feel hopeful and at times I don't. Well, we've got to first acknowledge that we're at war. We're at war with the virus. And you do things at war that you don't do in peace time. You break down barriers. You stop with the Republican and Democrat crap. You cut the mess.

You cut the crap. You stop arguing about little things. You stop having small skirmishes and start talking about what's the war battle plan? What's the strategy? Again, what's the new Marshall plan? You start looking at you can't cut yourself out of this crisis. By the way, we're sort of hemmed in a little bit, Dan, the trillions of dollars. You know, let's look at the, you know, you might remember the GM bailout under Obama.

I do. The whole nation got into a flurry over $3 billion, dollar bailout. Remember that? For the national debate, right? Look at the global economic crisis of 2009. That whole thing was less than $200 billion. Damn, we're at $6 trillion now. We're nowhere near the end. They're debating $1 to $3 trillion right now, and that just gets us to January, right? There's no way you cut your way out of $8 trillion, $10 trillion. of debt. You can, you only, the only way you can get out of it is to grow your way out of that. And that's what happened after World War II, is that we were slogging along after the

Great Depression. And we didn't really catch, catch lift until after World War II, when the government put all the stimulus in the system, private sector benefited from that, we, we reimagined everything and you had another education. I'm sorry, the rule was, again, as much education shoved down your throat, the GI Bill, a mortgage for every, returning vet and apprenticeship for a new job. Well, my friend, the governor, Gina Romando of Rhode Island, just started a program similar to that, Rhode Island back to work. And we're a partner with her in that. She's adopting a lot of what I'm talking about. We have, I think you're going to start to see a lot of folks, Republicans starting to look like Democrats,

Democrats start to sound a little bit like Republicans. I think you're going to have a radical movement of common sense because we are forced now to, you know, reinvent ourselves. And yes, I am optimistic. How much of it is about just having hope? And I think we've all learned this in the last five months, that it's been bleak. And then a little something happens like, you know, the NBA came back last night. And just that little spark of hope, you know, that, hey, my life isn't what I want it to be right now, but here is three hours in normal. If you're someone who's stuck in this economic trap of just working just to eat, just to keep a roof over your head, but someone like you comes in and just gives a little

It'll spark of hope that it can get better. That has to light a fire, right? Oh, it's everything. You know, at Operation Hope, we do financial coaching and counseling for people. And, you know, it's not that we give them the magic prescription to their life. It's like Oprah on money. We're listening. We see you. We're paying attention. We care. You know, you think about the average family that's watching your show. Not the wealthy, just the average family. They got too much a month at the end of their money. They're struggling. Both parents are working.

The streets are raising their, the TV's raising their kids. They're feeling distressed about the future. They don't believe their kids are going to do better than they are. And there's no private banker for them. You know, I have a private banker, but I don't need it. I've got my mobile phone. But the person who needs a private banker, it gets no attention. So just having us talk to them about their credit, talk to them with their creditors,

help them get some stuff off their credit report. I mean, help them raise your credit score 40. When you raise your credit score 40 points, Dan, imagine what that does with a single mother, raise her self-esteem, her confidence, her belief in herself, her trust in the system, her trust in banking,

her confidence in government, just from raising credit score, her optimism. So, you know, Dr. King had 70 employees, Dan. 70 employees in a total budget of a half million dollars a year. And the man changed, the world and did it without firing a shot. That's the power of hope. So yes, it's incredibly

important and it's not just in my name. John Hope Bryant is the founder and CEO of Operation Hope. His next book, Up From Nothing, comes out in October. Coming up, stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. As always, people on this program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So, Don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money, about two and a half minutes left for stocks on our radar. And I'll bring in our man, Dan Boyd, for a quick question. Jason Moser, you're up first.

What do you got? The Live Person, ticker LPSN. A live person is a business using artificial intelligence to power what they have. It's called the conversational cloud, essentially helping brands communicate with their consumers. Gone are the days, or hopefully at least soon, gone or gone or. of the days of the call center where you call and sit on the phone for one hour on hold. We live in an on-demand world now. Customer service should be no exception there. And certainly the COVID-19 tailwinds for a business like this are playing into it, just reported it a very

strong quarter. I really do think they are onto something in regard to the future of customer service and how brands interact with customers. So going to be digging further into this one for a couple of the services. Dan, you got a question about live person. Certainly, Ron. I was looking at their stock price today, Jason, and it seemed like this week they got a huge bump. Any reason as to why? They did. Yeah, it was that they reported earnings. It was a tremendous quarter. I think 29% revenue growth. And again, going back to the pandemic there, it's really changed the paradigm there for call centers. A lot of call centers closing down and folks are using more mobile technology to communicate with the brands and consumers.

Andy, less than a minute left. What are you looking at? Yeah, I like Health Catalyst, H-C-A-T, and provides data analytics software to big health care organizations, reports earnings coming up in the next week or so, has a massive data warehouse that they use and run analytics against. Had suspended guidance with all of the struggles that health care centers are facing right now, but I want to see what they are talking about from their clients, and if they are starting to see more and more interest from some of those big health care centers that are going to rely much more on data analytics going forward. Dan?

Yeah, Andy, is health catalysts under any pressure under COVID-19 or are they seeing some smooth Yeah, no, some pressure definitely because surgical procedures have dropped off so dramatically and so many of their centers rely on that. But they also rely on data analytics going forward, Dan. Dan, you got a favorite? Yeah, I'm going to go with health catalyst here. I think it's a good stock. Jason Moser, Andy Khras, guys, thanks for being here. Thanks, Ron.

I'm Ron Gross. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next week.