
Say hello to the moon & squishy toys are all the rage
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There's more to investing than stocks and bonds. With Ibid, you can broaden your investment mix and get bitcoin exposure. Learn more about ibid with iShares by BlackRock. The market is yours.
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.
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And I'm Toby Howell.
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Today we check in on the astronauts of Artemis 2 who are about to u turn around the moon.
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Then one person $1 billion in revenue is Medvi, the first solo unicorn startup? It's Monday, April 6th. Let's ride.
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Good Monday morning. You know about the age gap in a relationship, or maybe the swag gap. But there's a new kind of disparity causing strife among romantic partners. The Restaurant Gap the New York Times reported this weekend that some people in relationships are finding it difficult to reconcile their elevated culinary tastes with a more food is fuel approach by their partners. One person might be willing to wait an hour long line for a buzzing restaurant while the other is happy to eat chicken fingers and fries for every meal. One checks razzie notifications religiously. The other doesn't even know what resi is. Toby is the restaurant gap real?
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The restaurant gap is definitely real. But I also want to run some other gaps by you. These are from Mads Campbell. On the museum gap. Do you wander or sprint through a museum? The travel gap. Do you need to travel a lot? Are you fine with a couple of trips a year? There's the money gap. The living gap. Do you want to live in a city or a suburb? The texting gap is a big one. Do you? Are you a heavy communicator or are you more sporadic with your texting? There's the friend gap. Big social group versus one to two friends max. I would argue most of the gaps that I cited above aren't that big a deal because you want a partner that introduces you to new things. It would be very boring if you saw the world in the same light that your partner does, the exact same way as them. So dial in on the big things, like where you want to live, how much money you want to make, what your ambition is in life. But for the small things like restaurants, I think it's okay to have a bit of a gap. And now a word from our sponsor, Tax Act. Neil My dog ate my taxes.
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That excuse doesn't even make sense.
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Or does it make all the sense in the world?
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Just head to taxact.com business-returns to get started. That's taxact.com/business-returns Today is one for the record books as humans travel farther from Earth than they've ever gone before. Those humans, of course, are the four NASA astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission who blasted off on Wednesday and later today will be over 252,000 miles from Earth on the backside of the moon. That'll top the distance record of 248,655 miles set by Apollo 13. For a six hour window today, the Sun, Moon and their Orion spacecraft will be perfectly aligned so that the astronauts can glimpse about 20% of the far side of the moon, which no human has seen directly before. After they take a U turn around the moon, the astronauts will beeline back to Earth before an expected splashdown on Friday, completing a 10 day mission that will set the stage for an upcoming lunar landing for NASA. Things have been going about as well for Artemis 2 as they possibly could given the scope of the mission. The astronauts have been interviewed on TV several times, inspiring everyone with their messages of unity and wonder. They've also taken some jaw dropping photos that have gone mega viral, including one of Earth that shows two auroras. In fact, the mission has been so smooth as of yet that the only drama involves the toilet that is malfunctioned a few times. Toby there's this famous saying that space is hard but these guys and gal are making it look easy.
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I want to give a shout out to iPhones in space because this is the first time that an iPhone has gone up on a NASA mission and boy have we been all the richer for it because the pictures coming out of this mission are just so cool. That Aurora one that you did mention that was taken on a DSLR camera, Nikon camera, but there are snapping photos out of the window and we're just seeing more of Earth than we probably ever have seen on any other mission. It's so cool. And Apple is getting a ton of great press because this is the greatest shot on iPhone campaign ever. They had no influence at all with getting the iPhone approved with NASA. It just so happened that they wanted to use the iPhone 17 but very very cool to see. You know a modern Technology that we all have in our pockets. Going up to space and then showing the world through, you know, a lens that we all can relate to.
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It is very difficult to add a new piece of hardware to a space mission because think about it, if something breaks, if something shatter, then that glass or those particles are not going anywhere. They're just going to be suspended floating around the spacecraft. So I bet you they have an Otterbox case. They're not going caseless like you, because if those things doesn't shatter, if it doesn't, but if it does in space, and it's an absolute disaster, it could pierce things. So it's very interesting. There's a long review process, and Jared Isaacman, the administrator of NASA, said he was proud of their expedited process by which they got these iPhones up in space, and probably is the precursor to more consumer tech being put up there.
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A lot of people have been getting into the nitty gritty details of what life is like on the ship. Specifically the food menu, that was going pretty viral. Astronauts have a pretty wide menu to choose from. Vegetable, quiche, barbecue, brisket. Obviously, these aren't necessarily what we eat on Earth. They are rehydrated, all they're thermostable.
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There's a space gap.
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Yeah, there's a. Definitely a space gap in the menu that they're eating versus what we're eating. But a big thing. This kind of goes back to your point of, like, you can't have anything shatter. They have to focus on ensuring minimal crumbs because if they escape in a weightless environment, they are suspended in animation. And you have a lot of sensitive instruments up there. You can't be opening a Nature Valley bar while you're up in space.
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And another thing is that they actually have five different varieties of hot sauce because your taste buds go numb. So just to make you able to taste things, they brought a little Cholula on board.
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Should we dive into the toilet? Troubles, though? Because the lunar loo, as it's been referred to, has had all sorts of issues. And engineers think it's maybe because ice is blocking the line, which is making some smells happen within the capsule. So I actually did see that they rotated the capsule towards the sun to try to thaw out these vents that were blocking, you know, the lunar loo from happening. So I guess if the worst thing that happens in space is that your toilet gets a little clogged up again, something that happens right here on Earth, that's not a bad space mission. Although, knock on wood, hopefully like that smell doesn't get any worse for them.
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And another thing that's been astounding to me is how well we on Earth can communicate with people up in space that are almost at the moon, 250,000 miles away. And that's because of this deep space network. NASA has three giant radio antennas at various places in California, Spain and Australia. And these are just massive structures that allow humans on Earth to communicate with people in deep space. So you can see things like CBS and ABC just saying, hey, let's interview, let's interview these astronauts that are nearing the moon just like they would somebody next door. So it's pretty cool. And if you want to watch live coverage of the lunar flyby, it starts at 1pm and you can watch on basically any streaming service while at work. That's probably something you should have up on your second monitor. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, Max, Roku. Also, NASA is having coverage on its YouTube channel. I just mentioned that we can communicate with the astronauts, they can communicate with us, but when they're on the far side of the moon, there's going to actually be a 40 minute period. This must be a little spooky where they can't communicate with anyone. It'll be a total blackout between communications between Earth and them.
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It's a detox, you know, it's a, it's a no phones for 40 minutes. It's going to be really nice for them. All right, moving on. Ever since the rise of AI, there's been a white whale amongst entrepreneurs. Who is going to build the first one person, $1 billion startup. Sam Altman predicted it would happen back in 2024. And it looks like the legendary solo unicorn has been achieved. And it's not an AI company per se, but an online prescription platform for weight loss drugs called medv. The New York Times profiled medv and its founder Matthew Gallagher, who built the whole thing from his house in L. A. It took him two months and around $20,000 of upfront investment to get things up and running. And things took off from there. Medv brought in $401 million in sales in its first full year. According to Gallagher, it's on pace for $1.8 billion in sales in 2026. Despite not being an AI company, the technology does play a role in this story to telehealth in a box companies, as the Times describe them, handle a lot of the back end of connecting patients with GLP1 drugs. Gallagher, meanwhile, handles all the branding and marketing with AI it's not an AI company, gallagher said. But I did it with AI. Now, of course, there are critics of medv, with the loudest pointing out it's uncanny at best and illegal at worst to click through MEDV's website and see images of a deep faked before and after weight loss photos. According to the publication Futurism, medvee took images already floating around on the Internet for years and used AI powered deepfake technology to alter their faces, leaving the bodies mostly untouched. There are also testimonies from real doctors that the company claims to have partnered with, but when contacted, insist they have no relation to medv. Neil this piece went very viral with the AI native crowd praising it for making a lot of money with not a lot of people. While skeptics say of course the first solo AI enabled unicorn is a little shady and a little scammy, let's start
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with the AI of it all, because there is no doubt that these technologies have lowered the cost of starting up a company. And it's happened in history. Back in the late 2000s and 2006, Amazon Web Services allowed startups to do this pay as you go cloud infrastructure to put their data on the cloud instead of making these huge upfront data center investments. And what that did was led to a surge in startups. Airbnb 2008, Pinterest 2009, Dropbox 2007, Instagram 2010, Reddit 2009, Uber 2009. You can directly draw a line between that, those crop of startups and us lowering lowering their cost of data storage. And we might be seeing it again with AI just lowering the barriers to entry for anyone who wants to start a job.
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So how did he do this? What is the AI toolkit that he used? He used 11 Labs, which is an AI voice tool platform for communicating with customers, literally cloned his own voice to be their customer service agent. He used the Mid Journey as a image and video generator. He also used, you know, legal zoom initially, then he graduated eventually to a law firm. He also used accounting tools initially, then graduated to an accounting firm. So it was very funny that some tools he used as like a placeholder when the company was still growing. But then as soon as he had enough money to actually pay humans, he did graduate to, you know, using a real human law firm. A real human accounting firm. So there's only so far that I can take you at least in the current moment until you have to get humans involved in the loop.
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Yeah, it's very interesting to see what this is going to do to the traditional Silicon Valley model of venture capital, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into startups so they can hire hundreds or thousands of employees to scale up their vision, keep raising rounds. But there are an increasing number of startups like, like this one and other ones that are saying, you know, we're not just going to hire that many people because we think we can have AI tools that will do the work of 10, 20, 30 people. So 11 labs, which is the startup that you just talked about, it reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue with just about 50 workers. Another startup that makes the coding software cursor called Any Sphere, also hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in less than two years with just 20 employees. So we're seeing a lot of, I mean, back in 2017, there was this concept of the lean startup where you try to hire as few, many a few number of people as possible. Now, with AI, it looks like this is only, this trend is only being supercharged.
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Now of course, a people had took issue with, you know, the New York Times even profiling this company to begin with because of what I mentioned with the deep faked images. Also a lot of people say that, wow, this is a billion dollar company. But it's also much easier now to spin up the sort of websites that used to be more difficult to create that funnel, you know, using ads to just funnel people into a. Basically a scammy website that, you know, connects people to GLP1 drug. So the optimistic outlook on this is that, yes, startups are easier than ever to create. The pessimistic outlook is that it's a lot easier to create sophisticated levels of trickery than ever before on the Internet. Whatever side of the divide that you fall on, that's kind of like the two camps that formed around this med v story. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with our winners of the weekend right after this. Neil. It feels like everyone's trying to get more protein these days.
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Yeah, I've seen protein popcorn, protein cookies, and even a protein martini recently.
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I think I'll stick to flav cities all in one. Protein smoothies. They've got delicious flavors like mint chocolate, banana bread, brownie batter, and more that are as good as any dessert. No martini flavor yet.
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They're made with real whole food ingredients. 25 grams of protein, 10 grams of collagen, and functional mushrooms.
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Head to shop flav city.com to get your protein fix. That's shoplavecity.com this episode is brought to you by Apple Neil, there's nothing like your first Mac. I remember my first Mac like it was yesterday. I got mine right as my sister started to get recruited to play soccer in college, I was given the very important task of making her a highlight tape and Imovie was my best friend. She ended up playing at Georgetown, so I'd say it was all worth it.
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When I got my first Mac, I was heading into freshman year at the University of Maryland. A lot was uncertain that fall, but I knew I had a dependable sidekick for homework, connecting with other students and and devouring blogs about our basketball recruiting class.
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That's how we felt with our first Macs. How will you check out the all new MacBook Neo, an amazing Mac at a surprising price.
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Learn more at apple.com/Mac that's apple.com/Mac Neil, you like slashing? I don't understand the question and I won't respond to it.
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And you'll love Vanguard because they're slashing fees again, this time for more than 50 of its funds. That's on top of big fee cuts they gave last year to investors.
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This is for the financial advisors out there whose job is to help their clients keep more of what they earn.
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Go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com/impact that's vanguard.com/impact all investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor it's time for our Winners of the Weekend, the segment where Neil and I picked two stories that had a better weekend than Gino Auriyama's UConn team, but a slightly worse weekend than Dan Hurley's you Con Team. I won the pre show game of who can cook a better blt. So I'm up first. And my winner of the weekend is the jobs market because he has risen. US hiring jumped unexpectedly in March to add a surprising 178,000 jobs, well ahead of expectations. While the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%, economists had predicted the economy would add just 65,000 rolls. Now, before you begin celebrating the thaw, remember we're coming off of February in which employers appeared to have shed 133,000 jobs. Plus, the numbers were collected before the war in the Middle east broke out, sending energy prices soaring and acting as a boa constrictor for economic growth. Still, a gain is a gain, thanks in large part to the health care industry and better weather. If you know a doctor or a nurse, buy them a drink because they put the job market on their back again with health care adding 76,000 positions with an assist from a Kaiser Permanente strike ending. Meanwhile, as winter recedes, the leisure and hospitality and construction sectors bounced back. Neil, this report is a lagging indicator and maybe not indicative of the current economic moment, but a pleasant surprise to see starts a strong month of growth.
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I can't be the only one getting whiplash from these job numbers. I mean, one month it's down 160,000 jobs, the next month it's up 178,000 jobs. Economists say maybe it's not the best idea to look on month over month job changes because of this high like so how much these fluctuate because of weather and strikes and things like that. So let's look at a longer term trend of how the labor market is performing over a couple of months. In the last six months, the economy has added created an average of 15,000 jobs every single month. That's lower than a year previously when the economy was adding 78,000 jobs on average each month over a six year period. But at the same time, it's not negative. It's 15,000 job growth. And that seems to be where in this steady but slow state of hiring.
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But maybe the economy doesn't need as many jobs because as you know, the Trump administration cracks down on immigration. That has reduced the number of available workers. So the total workforce has shrunk a little bit. So maybe the economy doesn't need the same amount of jobs to keep the same share of workers employed. The Federal Reserve estimated that labor supply might only grow by 10,000 jobs per month this year. But that might be plenty to satisfy the current jobs market that we in the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas actually estimated this week that the break even job growth rate might even be negative because again of that shrinking workforce. So something to keep in mind whenever you see these jobs numbers, that the workforce is not the same as it was even a few years ago.
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The shrinking workforce is probably the biggest headline from this particular jobs report and maybe the biggest trend overall over the past year in the U.S. labor market. Because you're looking at the job picture. We've done stories on this on the podcast. We're saying nobody's hiring, nobody's firing anybody like people. This is a very, very tough job market, maybe the worst one in a few years. And at the same time, you see the unemployment rate go from 4.4% down to 4.3%, which is historically low. Like how does this happen? And the reason is that the labor force, which is the people looking for work who are currently working, shrank by nearly 400,000 people over the last month. And that's because of an aging workforce, immigration crackdown, people are getting a little dispirited. So, so if you look at the unemployment equation, that is the number of people who are unemployed divided by the total labor force. So if the denominator is shrinking, which it is, and that's going to create that a lower number. So, so spooky things, weird things are going on with the unemployment rate to keep it really down low at 4.3%.
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I'm just going to give one final caveat too, is that you should expect some revisions to come to these numbers, as has been the case in the past, because the survey response rate, the household survey response rate in March was 63.9%, which is an all time low. So you're getting less data coming in. So that means you have to make, you know, more assumptions when you put out these monthly jobs reports, which probably means once more data is collected, you will see a little bit of a revision.
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Okay, let's go to my winner, which is Neato. The toy craze making America's youth forget they ever cared about 6, 7. Neato is indeed a craze with all the hallmarks of a toy fad. Viral TikToks, retailers running out of stock, knockoffs selling for hundreds of dollars online, and parents pleading in Facebook groups for tips on where to find the few that remain on shelves. What is neato? They're colorful, rubbery blobs in various shapes that give you that fidget toy sensory hit when you squish them. They're made by Schilling, a 52 year old company based out of North Andover, Massachusetts that's historically focused on more classic toys like lava lamps and big wheels. Schilling originally released NEATO in 2017 to steadily increasing sales, but everything changed last holiday season when an Advent calendar style multi pack went viral on social media. And in the months since, it seems like every kid has forced their parents to buy them one. Paul Weingart, the CEO of Shilling, told Insider that they've already sold through the entire year's worth of inventory in the first nine weeks of 2026, adding that sales are running six times higher than last year. Now the challenge is making enough of the squishy blobs to keep up with demand. Toby, you never know what toy is going to pop off. Yesterday it was Labubu. Today Neato.
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I'm a Neato fan. I'm just going to come out and say it. There's two cubes floating around the office right now and I constantly try to steal it and bring it back to my desk. I think I missed, you know, the fidget spinner. That wasn't, you know, my sensory tick of choice. It's definitely these cubes of what they call liquid ice, which just is so satisfying. It's got enough give, it's got enough pushback that it just feels nice to squish. And I think it's interesting too because it Neto is driving results at retailers as well. Five below which sells, you know, budget toys. They had a recent earnings beat of and 24% revenue growth. And a lot of it is coming from the fact that people are flooding into their stores to look for neato. Aldi is leaning into the trend. Aldi is a budget grocery store as well. And they said that, hey, anywhere we can offer value to our customers, we're going to do it, even if it's in the toy aisle.
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Meanwhile, of course, if we know that this is a tick tock trend, then people are going to do some weird stuff with the needles. And of course they are. They're microwaving them, they are freezing them, they are ripping them open and taking the gel. And that has led to, you know, kids getting burned in other instances of people getting hurt from doing weird things to their neato. So there are two sides to this coin. But the viral trend is obviously supercharged sales because people are seeing thing other people do ASMR style stuff with their Nidos online, but at the same time they're doing weird stuff as well. That's giving them a little burns.
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I mean the other tick tock trend though is going on neato hunts where you just go into a grocery store. Are you going to a retailer and say can I find these anywhere? Which right now you can't. Which also means that resale prices have been going nuts. Some resellers are selling on Amazon and eBay for 10x the usual price. So it's not quite Labu levels where it's we're selling for thousands of dollars. It's not necessarily that same sort of collectible. This really is just a sensory toy that people want to squish and is driving, you know, massive resale prices as well. For a toy that is not very expensive.
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No, it's just like $3 to $15. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons why this is going crazy is because as a kid you can maybe buy one or two with your allowance. It's Monday. So here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the week ahead. President Trump has set a deadline of Tuesday evening for a deal with Iran or else, quote, I am blowing up everything over there, he told Axios in a true social post. On Easter morning, Trump threatened to dramatically escalate the military campaign, writing, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped in one. In Iran, there'll be nothing like it. Open the F in straight you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. According to Axios, mediators are working to reach at least a partial agreement to postpone Trump's ultimatum of attacking Iran's civilian infrastructure, which would constitute a war crime under international law.
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Yeah, just piggybacking on that Axios report. Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey are all among that group working to secure a cease fire. They want about a 45 day pause to stave off the strikes that the US has threatened. And it also looks like that last ditch effort to create this cease fire is making some investors cautiously optimistic. The Asia Pacific Index as of this morning is up just a little bit in the green, which in oil has pared some of its gains on the hopes that this can come to pass.
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And US Stock futures are also up a little bit as well. On Wall street, the word of the week is inflation. The consumer price index for March will drop on Friday, revealing the war and Iran's initial impacts on the prices Americans pay for everyday things. It's already a given that gas prices have gone way up, but analysts will be looking for any ripple effects from the energy shock on other goods and services. More clues could also come from Delta's earnings on Wednesday. Airlines have been on the economic front lines of the war.
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Yeah, economists are expecting a 1% increase in the consumer price index for March. That would be the sharpest one month rise since 2022. Of course, powered by the rise in oil prices in the sports world.
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Michigan and UConn face off in men's college national championship tonight. Michigan obliterated Arizona, who is considered an elite team, while UConn is approaching dynasty mode, appearing in their third title game in four years. In the women's tournament, UCLA dominated South Carolina last night to take home the program's first ever title.
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By the way, someone needs to roll the tape of me predicting Michigan before the tournament starts. That is, of course, if Michigan wins. If UConn wins, delete the tape, never mention it again. Also, for our men's bracket, only two brackets can win now. This is the MBD group that we started Ted's his name is just Ted's who has UConn or Neil's numbers who have Michigan. So Neil, even though the real Neil
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Freyman was on top for the entire week, right? For the entire tournament. And now Neil's numbers is. Is in line for the win. I love it.
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You are spiritually representing it. And then for our women's we have a winner. Shout out Amy, who is astutely picked. UCLA dominated me. Who picked Texas. My bracket fell to the wayside. We don't need to talk about that.
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Meanwhile, it's Masters week, so if you need Toby and me, we will be unreachable starting Thursday. Golf's first major of the year, a tradition unlike any other. Tees off among the azaleas of Augusta with Rory McElroy trying to defend his sensational win from last year.
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I think Rory either wins by 10 or misses the cut. No in between, the dude already did the career grand slam.
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And finally, the first music festival of the summer arrives on Friday with the first weekend of Coachella in the Southern California desert. Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Carol G are the headliners. Toby, you got your fit all right.
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Bear with me. Speedo, blazer, tube socks, Balenciaga, three XL sneakers, fedora, and then maybe a cape for. For the boys.
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Sounds like. Sounds like you'd fit in there. From what I can see, I've never been there.
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Unfortunately, that fit wouldn't even make people bat an eye. But yeah, let's. I have. I'm going to say swag, Gap, relationship.
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Let's just say that I see that. Okay. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful start to the week. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to Morning Brew daily at morning broadcom or DM us on Instagram @me. Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our supervising producer. Raymond Lu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Hair makeup is volunteering to take Toby shopping for Coachella after hearing that Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.
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Great show, Daniel. Let's run it back tomorrow.
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And now, a word from our sponsor. Company retreat. Attention, fans of Jury Duty. From the creators of Jury Duty comes the next installment of this documentary style comedy series that captivated audiences. This season takes place on an annual company retreat where all the employees at Rock and Grandma's Hot Sauce are actors, except one.
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Jury Duty presents Company Retreat is streaming now on Prime Video. Catch the feel good comedy that'll knock your sauce off.
Episode: ‘Artemis II’ Nears Spaceflight Record & NeeDoh Craze Causes Shortage
Date: April 6, 2026
Hosts: Neal Freyman (B) & Toby Howell (C)
This episode of Morning Brew Daily is packed with timely updates on the cutting edge Artemis II space mission (poised to set a new human spaceflight distance record), a deep-dive into the one-person unicorn startup Medv and the impact of AI on entrepreneurship, an exploration of the NeeDoh toy craze, and a rapid-fire look at the latest jobs numbers and global economic updates. With their trademark wit and energetic banter, Neal and Toby keep things fast-paced, informative, and engaging for listeners interested in business, tech, culture, and economics.
[00:38 - 02:01]
[02:37 - 07:55]
[07:55 - 12:12]
[14:48 - 18:44]
[19:11 - 22:14]
[22:14 - 25:29]
As always, the hosts keep things punchy, relatable, and conversational—mixing deep dives with clever asides and personal anecdotes. If you want news, analysis, and the cultural pulse to start your week, this episode delivers with breadth, substance, and smiles.