Key insights:
- A history of offshoring has left the U.S. ill-prepared to produce its own supplies.
- Even in this national emergency, there's broad disagreement over the government's role and that of brands.
Bayard Winthrop remembers the phone call he got around the end of March that would change the direction of his company and, to a small degree, the nation itself. Winthrop is the founder of American Giant, maker of a thick-woven, domestically produced, $108 sweatshirt that’s colloquially known as “the greatest hoodie ever made.” But as Covid-19 rampaged across the country, Winthrop knew that what Americans really needed wasn’t hoodies, but medical supplies.
