McDonald's and New Tech
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2011
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The view from the top of business. Presented by Evan Davis, The Bottom Line cuts through confusion, statistics and spin to present a clearer view of the business world, through discussion with people running leading and emerging companies.
Evan and his guests discuss McDonald's. After a rocky period in the middle of the last decade, how well has the global burger chain managed to revive its famous fast-food formula? They also debate whether the progress of radical new technology has slowed down.
Evan is joined in the studio by Greg Lucier, chief executive of US biotechnology company Life Technologies; Rita Clifton, chairman of branding consultancy Interbrand; Jill McDonald, chief executive of McDonald's UK.
Producer: Ben Crighton.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading the Bottom Line podcast. In this week's program, Evan Davis and his panel discuss branding, burgers and biotech. |
| 0:11.2 | Hello and welcome to the bottom line. We've burgers and fries on the menu today. The woman who runs McDonald's in the UK is with us and we'll ask how well McDonald's is managing to revive its famous fast food formula. |
| 0:24.0 | We'll also talk technology. Underneath the dazzling new gadgets and product launches that are so prevalent these days, are we in fact running out of things to invent. |
| 0:34.2 | All that and a little bit of economic gloom as well. But first, let's meet the guests. |
| 0:39.6 | And first of all, is Greg Lucia, Chief Executive of Life Technologies, which is a global biotechnology |
| 0:44.2 | company, headquartered in San Diego on the American West Coast. Greg, just briefly tell us what you do. |
| 0:51.3 | Life Technologies produces instruments, consumables software for researchers that are probing human disease. |
| 1:01.9 | They're developing kits to do forensics at crime scenes. |
| 1:06.6 | Or we're also doing things that will test water for pathogens. |
| 1:10.7 | So it's a whole variety of technology, all centered on biology. or we're also doing things that will test water for pathogens. |
| 1:16.1 | So it's a whole variety of technology, all centered on biology and understanding biology. |
| 1:21.1 | Now, we're going to talk a lot more about the technology when we talk about technology later, |
| 1:27.4 | but I do just want to ask you to tell us your experience, because you genetically profiled yourself? |
| 1:33.9 | About two years ago, there had only been probably eight or ten people who had been completely genetically sequenced. All of their DNA read from beginning to end. |
| 1:39.3 | And we make the technology that does that. |
| 1:41.4 | And I decided that I should probably, proverbially, eat your |
| 1:44.9 | own dog food. And so I had it done. And one afternoon, I sat down with a genetic counselor, |
| 1:51.2 | and they told me what they saw. And surprisingly for me, it was a connection between my mother |
| 1:57.6 | and actually my daughter. It turned out I had a mutation for Parkinson's |
| 2:01.8 | disease. Now, it's not absolute that I'll get Parkinson's, but it is probable. And it turns out |
| 2:08.4 | that my mother also has the same genetic mutation because we subsequently genetically sequenced her as |
| 2:13.5 | well. The other connection to the next generation is my daughter. It turned out I also had the |
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