Episode 543: Neal and Toby recap the latest Fed meeting where Chair Jerome Powell is playing it safe and keeping rates steady. Then, Elon Musk’s X has made a dramatic turnaround bringing the platform back to its original valuation, which may coax advertisers back. Plus, Ben & Jerry’s is alleging its CEO was fired due to the brand’s political posts which was a violation of its merger agreement. Meanwhile, Neal shares his numbers on Volkswagen’s sausages, French bulldogs, and the first student manager NIL deal. Lastly, will there be a day AI helps someone pick a Perfect Bracket for March Madness? Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Learn more at sophos.com Get your MBD mug here: https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/morning-brew-daily-mug Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the latest updates from the Fed meeting?
Chapter 2: How is March Madness affecting bracket strategies?
What are some things to keep in mind when filling out a bracket?
Ooh, I hope I live up to that lofty billing. Okay, a few tips for you guys. Avoid high-altitude teams in the tournament. Usually those schools enter with a bit of an inflated record since their home court advantage during the regular season is so outside. So that means fading teams like BYU, Utah State, Colorado State, and New Mexico.
The other metric I'm looking at this year is the so-called kill shot metric created by Evan Miyakawa. A kill shot is when a team goes on a 10-0 or better point run. Teams that have this ability to get really hot tend to perform better in March. Finally, be mindful of your pool size. The more people in your pool, the riskier you should be.
Same goes, the smaller your pool is, the less risky you should be. You don't need to send McNeese to the Final Four if there's only 20 people in your office pool, so... Those are my three tips. Take them or leave them. Do with what you will, but good luck on March Madness. Now a word from our sponsor, Sophos.
Neil, what's the worst trade you've ever made? One time at the middle school lunch table, I was convinced to give up half of my fruit by the foot in exchange for some goldfish. The goldfish were stale and I was swindled. Rookie mistake.
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Chapter 3: Is Elon Musk's X platform regaining its value?
These two have mixed like oil and water or maybe bacon and strawberry ice cream. You have Unilever, which is a UK consumer goods giant. It owns things like Dove, Axe, Hellmann's and Vaseline. And then you have Ben and Jerry's, which is this company.
You know, upstart, very progressive minded ice cream brand out of Vermont that was bought by Unilever in 2000 to improve its stable of ice cream brands. And these two just can't stop fighting. I'm sure there's a lot of buyers remorse. And it looks like Unilever. could get Ben & Jerry's off of its hands if it wants to because it is aiming to spin off its ice cream business, which is huge.
It includes five of the top-selling 10 ice cream brands in the entire world and an Amsterdam stock listing sometime this year. So it probably is accelerating those efforts after this latest legal complaint by Ben & Jerry's.
I mean, you said buyer's remorse, but it's not necessarily on Unilever's side because Ben & Jerry's has performed incredibly well within their portfolio because in 2024, according to Unilever's own presentation on its financial performance, Ben & Jerry's grew faster than most of its ice cream brands, including its Magnum brand, which is another one of its high-end ice cream products.
So financially, this deal has gone very well, but socially and politically, they're clashing a little bit.
A lot of it.
A lot of it, yeah. And I will say, too, it's not like Unilever is in a great spot either. They just fired its own CEO last month and replaced him to speed up this turnaround process that they've been doing. I do think this move to spin off its ice cream business, I don't know.
I don't know if it's going to save the company, but at least it's going to provide some clarity on the direction of what this giant CPG is actually doing. So potentially this unhappy marriage could be, you know, annulled by the end of the year if Ben and Jerry's is spun off in that Amsterdam listing, as you mentioned. Up next, oh boy, we made it. It is time for Neil's Numbers.
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Chapter 4: Why is Ben & Jerry's clashing with Unilever?
Chapter 5: What economic factors are influencing interest rates?
So I do think there's a lot of signs of positivity, even if maybe that $44 billion figure is more symbolic because it is dead on exactly what Elon paid.
And yeah, you're right. X is also progressing in Elon's vision. to create a everything app. Elon Musk for decades has wanted to create an everything app similar to a WeChat in China where you can do everything from post on social media to send payments. And that payments part is a part of what X is going to roll out. It is teaming up with Visa for a feature called X Money where you can have
an in-app wallet, and you can send peer-to-peer payments. Linda Yaccarina announced that last week and said that was going to be rolling out later this year. So the everything app vision is slowly progressing as well.
Yeah, and I do think one ace in the hole is that they have XAI, which obviously has a chatbot in Grok, but also they think that they can use that technology to boost its ads offering. So I think even though there is this vision for this everything app, they want to spend a lot of time pushing their...
subscription product, I do think maybe ads on X will become a thing again if you can kind of use your A to build a better platform than it existed in the past. Ben and Jerry's and Unilever are looking like they're on a rocky road after the ice cream brand accused its parent company of firing its CEO for refusing to, quote, oversee the dismantling of its progressive values.
Unilever told Ben & Jerry's board earlier in March that it was planning to remove David Stever, who led the company for nearly two years. And it's Ben & Jerry's contention that it was because Stever allowed the ice cream maker to speak out on certain political issues.
To Ben & Jerry's, that seemed like a half-baked plan since it went against an agreement signed when the companies merged all the way back in 2000 to set up an independent board meant to protect the ice cream brand's mission.
The whole thing stinks like fish food, too, because according to the chair of its independent board, Ben & Jerry's has, quote, delivered strong financial results, far outpacing the rest of Unilever's ice cream business. Zoom out, and this has been a far from happy pairing since their 2000 merger.
In 2021, tensions rose after Ben & Jerry's announced it would stop selling its product in the West Bank. And in November, Ben and Jerry sued Unilever, accusing it of silencing its statements in support of Palestinians. So this latest escalation of the suit is the Cherry Garcia on top of a tumultuous relationship between the two companies.
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Chapter 6: How is X integrating AI for future growth?
It's so emblematic of, or the same oil for that matter. It's so emblematic of everything that's going on in VW right now that their sausages are outperforming their cars. First, I have two things to say about this. One, I encourage you to go look it up because they look very delicious, especially a nice little sear on the outside. So that is delicious.
But then two, they're promising more innovation down the pipeline. They also have been rolling out their VW branded spice ketchup. They sold a few bottles. in the U.S. last year, but I think they're going to expand the reach of that. So pairing some VW currywurst with some VW spiced ketchup, I think that's going to hit hard at a summer barbecue.
For my next number, the French Bulldog has done what Patrick Mahomes couldn't by going back to back to back. For the third year in a row, the Frenchie is the U.S. 's most popular purebred dog, according to an annual ranking from the American Kennel Club.
After the French Bulldog, the most popular breeds are Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, and Poodles, rounding out the top five. But there's one dog that's come out of nowhere to make a claim as an alpha, the Cane Corso.
This strong and athletic breed, which served as a Roman war dog and later a boar hunter, has surged in popularity, rising from nearly 50th on the list last year to 14th this year. The AP notes that the American Kennel Club rankings have been accused by animal welfare activists of
Pumping up the visibility of certain breeds and supercharging puppy mills, the AKC responds that it just documents and doesn't promote dog ownership trends. Toby, can anyone take down the Frenchie? This is crazy.
I had no idea Frenchies were so popular. That being said, their popularity is actually...
waning there's been less sold year over year over year for the past three years i do think the kennel club said like hey this is a voluntary registration process so the amount of frenchies out there still might be doing just fine but i can't believe how far ahead of the lab it was if you had asked me before seeing this list like what is the most popular dog i definitely would have gone with a golden retriever or a lab like that but they logged just 58 000 new registrations last year there were nearly 74 000 frenchies logged so it's just leaps and bounds ahead of its next closest competitor
The Lab was the most popular breed for a very long time until the Frenchie has overtaken it in the past few years due to popularity in social media. They just, you know, look good on an Instagram reel.
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