Kyle Heggie
Appearances
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
It's Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time, where we have one stock who is like Neil, sitting on a beautiful, warm, tropical island, and one stock that's stuck in freezing cold Minnesota. Toby, I won the James Bond Skill Challenge backstage, so I will go first.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
My Stock of the Week is hims and hers health, which is on an absolute heater lately, starting with their Super Bowl ad, which led to a 650% surge in website visits, new customer registrations hitting all-time highs, and shooting their app up to the number two slot in the health and wellness category on the App Store.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And to follow that up, Hymnstock has had a massive gain on the news that the company has now acquired Tri-B Labs. The deal will allow the telehealth company to offer at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pre-treatment testing to its users.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Its chief medical officer, Dr. Carroll, said, quote, at-home lab testing is one of the most exciting steps towards elevating the personal, comprehensive care customers in this country should experience. So what does this mean for the stock? Well, so far, Wall Street loves the stock. Shares have soared 141 percent in 2025, entering trading as of Tuesday's close this week.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And the stock spiked more than 20 percent in news after this deal was announced. Toby, the health and wellness space is so hot right now.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, personalized medicine, telehealth is all kind of emerging, and some of these companies are going to be big winners in the space.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
My pleasure, Toby. It was fun getting back into MBD prep last night. Felt like I was back in school again.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
I know, and Palantir is a really interesting company because it's like half real company, half meme stock. And they rely so much on retail investors. In fact, Nvidia, Tesla, and SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, they're the only stocks that have more net inflows from retail investors than Palantir.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
So people on the street really love this company, although it's more of a real company than maybe the AMC meme stock craze. The other thing is, Every meme stock company has to have like an iconic cult like figure. And Carp is no exception to that. This is someone who loves reveling in kind of the spotlight. He loves retail investors. And he says, I actually revere everyone that reveres me.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And so he has this kind of like cult like personality that people really rally around.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
As much as I trust my improv skills, that sounds awful. I would much rather know what the heck is going on.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
It's interesting, though. I actually think Palantir is much more well-positioned to withstand those cuts than maybe some of the old legacy companies. And you mentioned the Doge-ification of the government. Proximity to Elon Musk is maybe important. Peter Thiel was a co-founder and is on the board of Palantir, who's great friends with Elon Musk.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And so it feels like this is actually a company that would benefit from reduction from the Department of Defense because they are a little more forward-leaning. They're a little more focused on efficiency. They're a little more innovative than some of these old players. So this could actually be good news for Palantir going forward.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, I mean, the IRS is in a tough spot also just with general attrition and 63% of the current IRS is eligible to retire within six years. So more cuts, morale is low, people might start retiring. It might not be good news for our refunds getting here on time.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
That's where LinkedIn can help. It lets you target your audience by industry, company, and role, so you can feel prepared knowing your ads will reach the right people.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, the termination memo read, quote, your continued employment at the agency is not in the public interest, end quote, which that's a savage way to go out. Moving on to the great U.S.-Canada War of 2025, a.k.a. the Four Nations Hockey Tournament.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Now, if you haven't heard of the Four Nations Hockey Tournament, an NHL best-on-best tournament featuring players from Sweden, Finland, Canada, and the U.S., you probably saw some of the clips on social media. National anthems getting booed, fights breaking out on the ice before fans were even in their seats, and tweets about Canada becoming the 51st state or the U.S. becoming the 11th province.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Well, Canada was declared victorious last night after a 3-2 victory against the U.S., but the bigger story was just how electric this tournament was and the demand for tickets. whose prices rivaled those of the Super Bowl. The cheapest ticket was, at one point, hovering around $1,200, according to reseller TickPick.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
That's roughly 450% more expensive than the initial price for the ticket when this in-season NHL tournament was announced. Some of the games also drew 10 million-plus viewers across North America. Toby, since the U.S. lost, I think Morning Brew should have to tweet in English and French all of next week. I agree with you.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
I really wish we won. The tension made the on-ice game a little more electric. And also, these in-season tournaments now are really catching on. The NBA did it. Now the NHL is. So maybe more sports will get into that tournament mode, too.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
If you're interested in testing out LinkedIn ads, LinkedIn will give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash MBD. That's LinkedIn.com slash MBD. Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, and one, I wish I knew that Egyptologist was a job when I was growing up, because sign me up for that. Two, I think we've got to stop digging around tombs. I've seen The Mummy too many times. Great movie. I'm a little worried that some spirits are going to get out here. That is a hot take.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
It is cool that we think we've discovered everything on Earth, but there's still so much more mystery out there. So I'll give you that. It's pretty fun.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, Toby, you mentioned this at the beginning of the show. This is like a bellwether for retailers. I mean, Walmart is just so massive that how Walmart goes kind of the whole industry goes. I thought the tariffs were very interesting there. CFO John David Rainey said, look, we're not immune from tariffs.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
I think it's about two thirds of what Walmart sells is made is grown or assembled in the U.S., But they still have products coming in from Mexico, from Canada. The tariff situation seems pretty unclear, so they didn't actually talk about that in their guidance. But that is kind of the big cloud over all of this is are things going to get even harder if tariffs come into play?
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, I think this point about the diversification of Walmart's revenue stream is actually really interesting. Global membership from Walmart, their income grew 16% year over year. That's programs like Walmart Plus, Sam's Club. Their advertising business, as you mentioned, was near about 30%. 24% increase in Walmart Connect. They have these third-party marketplaces now. They're doing pharmacy.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
They're doing same-day delivery. So they've really diversified, and they're kind of becoming a little bit like Amazon, and that's never a bad thing.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And how Amazon has finally got James Bond over to their side. It's Friday, February 21st. Let's ride.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, you mentioned the Walmart-Amazon distinction. Walmart, since 2012, has made the most annual revenue of any company in the U.S. I looked at when they first started tracking this in the S&P 500. Do you know, in 1955, what the top company was for revenue?
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
It's actually General Motors, and they made $9.8 billion in revenue. We have accelerated. We have accelerated. So let's move on to the big screen. James Bond has dodged over 4,000 bullets, gone up against 20-plus supervillains, and even once had to skydive into an airplane.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
However, he might have pulled off his greatest feat yet, wriggling out of the stalemate between the Broccoli family, who has had creative control of the franchise for decades, and Amazon, who after their purchase of MGM controlled the distribution rights of the Bond franchise. That's right.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
In a new deal announced yesterday, Amazon and the Broccoli family have formed a new joint venture to house Bond IP with Amazon MGM Studios, gaining creative control. Now, why is this news? Well,
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
The relationship between Amazon and the Broccoli family has been contentious since 2022, with the Broccoli family viewing Bond as a family heirloom to be handled delicately and skeptical that the algorithm-focused Amazon would do Bond justice. Amazon definitely didn't help themselves.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
They kept referring to Bond as, quote, content, which, according to a friend of Barbara Broccoli, felt like a curse word. So what does the new deal open up for Amazon? Well, the Bond franchise, it's one of the highest-grossing IPs series in history with over $7.6 billion in box office sales, with the latest Bond film, No Time to Die, raking in $775 million.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Now Bond can be the crown jewel in the fast-growing media empire Amazon is rapidly building. Toby, the real question is, are you throwing your hat into the ring to be the new Bond?
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And this is a massive win for Amazon, I think, because they spent about $8.5 billion buying MGM, but then they couldn't unlock the power of James Bond. And there was an article that came on the Wall Street Journal at the end of last year that was about the relationship between Amazon and the broccoli family. I read that and literally was like, there's no way they're getting this.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Two months later, they have it. But it was very, very contentious. Barbara Broccoli literally said these people are effing idiots in reference to Amazon. And she said, quote, don't have temporary people make permanent decisions. So it seems like their idea was to keep ironclad control. I'm not sure how Amazon pulled it off, but now Amazon's in the driver's seat.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
I think it's funny, like, the Broccoli family being like, you have to take this serious. And Amazon's like, yeah, no, we will. And then instantly Jeff Bezos on Instagram, like, who's up? Who wants to play Bond? It's the question everyone wants answered.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
I mean, the branding is something else. I will say, personally, I'm a Tactical Casual type guy. That's how I put it. pull up to the function. Look, I think they're saying their market is for people that need high end security. The real market is people that want to cosplay as billionaires. I mean, we've seen this go viral on TikTok, actually.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
It's like a bunch of 20 somethings who just like want to roll up with bodyguards. And it's kind of a fun thing. There was one where the bodyguards were actually going to get them matcha and coming back. So I think the market, what they say the market is, is not actually the market who's going to take advantage of this. It feels a little gimmicky to me. We'll see if it has staying power, I suppose.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Yeah, the the the CEO, like having the app and saving us, that felt like in bad taste a little bit to me, like saying this app would have saved this person's life. Like, yeah, that that was a little odd to me. But the CEO of this, Nick Sarath, he has another app called Patrol.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
And so there clearly seems to be this market demand for like additional security services and patrol lets neighborhoods basically crowdfund extra security, including like if you raise enough money, you can have drones protecting your neighborhood. So this idea that we need enhanced security seems to be going from individual to even neighborhood level. And they're trying to capitalize on that.
Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Well, first, I just want to say I'm honored to be the MBD Minnesota correspondent. First, that is an honor. No, that's just another day in Minnesota. Parents still have shorts on. They'll walk outside. They go, oh, it's a bit chilly. Let's get on our way. And you go on with your day.
Something You Should Know
Why We’re Wired to Imitate Others & How to Have a Great Conversation
I'm Kayla Lopez. And I'm Kyle Heggie. And together, we've helped thousands of Morning Brew subscribers grow in their careers.
Something You Should Know
Why We’re Wired to Imitate Others & How to Have a Great Conversation
So join us each week on Per My Last Email on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
But good news, we're here for you. I'm Kayla Lopez. And I'm Kyle Hagee. And together, we've helped thousands of Morning Brew subscribers grow in their careers.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
So join us each week on Per My Last Email on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
I'm Kayla Lopez. And I'm Kyle Heggie. And together, we've helped thousands of Morning Brew subscribers grow in their careers.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So join us each week on Per My Last Email on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Something You Should Know
The Startling Impact of Peer Pressure & Why Shyness Can Be a Plus
And together, we've helped thousands of Morning Brew subscribers grow in their careers.
Something You Should Know
The Startling Impact of Peer Pressure & Why Shyness Can Be a Plus
So join us each week on Per My Last Email on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Something You Should Know
How to Create Real Wealth & The Ways Technology Ruins Relationships
I'm Kayla Lopez. And I'm Kyle Hagee. And together, we've helped thousands of Morning Brew subscribers grow in their careers.
Something You Should Know
How to Create Real Wealth & The Ways Technology Ruins Relationships
So join us each week on Per My Last Email on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.