Buy Now, Pay Later Impacts Credit Score? & Novo Nordisk Breaks Up w/ Hims & Hers

Summary

Morning Brew Daily: Episode Summary Title: Buy Now, Pay Later Impacts Credit Score? & Novo Nordisk Breaks Up w/ Hims & Hers
Hosts: Neal Freyman & Toby Howell
Release Date: June 24, 2025

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1. Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Breakthrough in Astronomy

[01:10] Neal Freyman:
Neal opens the episode by highlighting the groundbreaking achievements of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Described as a "cutting edge telescope," it recently released its first deep-space images, boasting a digital camera with 67 times more megapixels than the iPhone 16 Pro. The exceptional resolution, capable of capturing a golf ball on the moon, necessitated the use of 400 Ultra HD TV screens to display a single image.

Toby Howell adds that the observatory is already proving its prowess by discovering 2,100 new asteroids within just 10 hours of operation, dramatically surpassing the usual annual rate of 20,000. The location in the Andes Mountains, Chile, is strategically chosen for its altitude, dryness, and darkness, critical factors for optimal telescope functionality. Toby humorously remarks, "If a dark bus ride is what it takes to find some aliens, then that's a pretty worthy trade."

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2. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and Its Influence on Credit Scores

[05:03] Neal Freyman:
Neal delves into the integration of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) loans into credit scoring models by Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO). This marks the first inclusion of BNPL in credit scores, aiming to address the previously hidden "phantom debt" arising from BNPL services. FICO's new model seeks to provide better insights into consumer creditworthiness by incorporating these short-term loans.

[06:10] Toby Howell:
Toby emphasizes the exponential growth of BNPL transactions, projected to reach $108 billion in the US for 2025, up from $94 billion the previous year. He underscores the murkiness surrounding BNPL, noting that almost half of BNPL users encounter money issues, primarily due to overspending. He cites Klara's rising default rates, currently at 0.5%, highlighting the necessity for transparency in consumer spending patterns.

[06:55] Neal Freyman:
Neal poses a critical question: "Will this be a credit builder or a credit buster?" He explains that responsible use of BNPL could boost credit scores for users without traditional credit cards, potentially bringing more individuals into the credit system. FICO's simulations indicate that the majority of consumers with multiple BNPL loans could see their scores improve or remain stable, contrary to initial fears that BNPL might harm credit health.

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3. Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers Partnership Collapse

[07:54] Toby Howell:
Toby reports on the tumultuous relationship between Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers, a telehealth company. Novo Nordisk, renowned for producing Wegovy, ended its partnership with Hims & Hers after only two months. The split stems from accusations that Hims & Hers engaged in deceptive marketing by promoting compounded weight loss drugs, diverging from their agreement to cease mass compounding.

[10:08] Neal Freyman:
Neal provides context, explaining that Novo Nordisk aimed to leverage partnerships with telehealth platforms to promote their branded product, Wegovy, over cheaper compounded alternatives. However, Hims & Hers continued offering compounded shots for personalized dosages, leading to Novo Nordisk's decision to terminate the partnership. This fallout caused Hims & Hers' shares to plunge 34%, reflecting investor disappointment.

[11:05] Toby Howell:
Toby discusses Novo Nordisk's broader strategy amidst competitive pressures from Eli Lilly's Manjaro and Zypade. With Novo Nordisk experiencing internal challenges, including a recent CEO transition and a 20% stock decline, the dissolution with Hims & Hers signals a precarious period for the company's market position.

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4. AI's Disruptive Role in Job Applications and Recruiting

[11:56] Neal Freyman:
Neal shifts focus to the burgeoning issue of AI's impact on job applications. The New York Times reports a 45% spike in LinkedIn applications, reaching 11,000 submissions per minute. This surge is fueled by generative AI tools that streamline the application process, with candidates using AI to craft optimized resumes and even employing autonomous AI agents to apply for jobs on their behalf.

[13:27] Toby Howell:
Toby elaborates on the challenges this presents for both job seekers and recruiters. He cites a tech company's remote role that received up to 1,200 applications, making it difficult for hiring managers to discern genuine candidates. The prevalence of AI-generated applications leads to a "sea of sameness," complicating the recruitment process.

[14:18] Neal Freyman:
Neal discusses the paradox of using more AI to solve the AI-induced problem. Companies like Chipotle and HireVue are implementing AI-driven tools for screening and scheduling, while LinkedIn introduces its own AI agent to assist in recruitment. However, Neal expresses skepticism, suggesting that this approach may lead to an "AI vs. AI" scenario with diminishing returns.

[15:08] Toby Howell:
Toby highlights potential legal ramifications, such as discrimination claims against AI-driven applicant tracking systems. He references a North Carolina IT professional's lawsuit against these systems for alleged age and race discrimination, posing significant risks for recruiting software providers.

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5. Trends: The Resurgence of SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies)

[17:14] Toby Howell:
Toby introduces Toby's Trends, focusing on the comeback of SPACs. SPACs, which experienced a boom during the pandemic, are seeing renewed interest with IPO proceeds this year at $11.2 billion, a substantial rise from $1.8 billion the previous year. Despite not reaching the heights of 2021, the uptick suggests potential stabilization and renewed investor confidence.

[18:57] Neal Freyman:
Neal analyzes the factors driving the SPAC resurgence, including a more favorable regulatory environment under President Trump's administration and a laissez-faire approach from the SEC. He notes that traditional financial firms like Goldman Sachs are re-entering the SPAC market after a three-year hiatus, potentially triggering a broader revival across the industry.

[19:59] Toby Howell:
Toby reflects on the historical context, recalling the SPAC bubble burst in mid-2022. He observes that current SPAC activities are being propelled by ventures like Anthony Pompliano's Bitcoin treasury company, indicating a speculative yet vibrant interest. However, he cautions that the industry might be on the brink of another boom and bust cycle.

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6. Additional Headlines

a. New York's Historic Partnership with Nuclear Power

[21:42] Neal Freyman:
Neal reports that New York Governor Kathy Hochul has directed the construction of a large nuclear power facility upstate, aiming to produce 1 gigawatt of new nuclear energy—enough to power approximately 1 million homes. This initiative marks the first new US nuclear plant in over 15 years and is part of New York's strategy to ensure reliable and affordable utility costs, especially after the closure of the India Point nuclear plant.

Toby Howell adds that Hochul's commitment stems from the significant energy gap left by closing the India Point plant. She is prioritizing nuclear energy to replace fossil fuels and meet the rising electricity demands from data centers, emphasizing the importance of energy reliability for both residents and businesses.

b. Zillow vs. Compass: A Battle for Online Real Estate Dominance

[22:31] Toby Howell:
Toby discusses the legal battle between Zillow and Compass. Compass has filed a lawsuit alleging that Zillow is attempting to maintain an illegal monopoly over online home listings by imposing a 24-hour ban on homes not listed on Zillow. In response, Compass launched Private Exclusives, offering listings exclusive to its platform.

[24:08] Neal Freyman:
Neal explains the contention surrounding online real estate listings, noting that nearly 100% of homebuyers use the internet in their search process. He highlights the strategic moves by Compass to carve out a niche, while Zillow insists on having comprehensive listings, posing a dilemma for consumer choice and market competition.

c. Financial Security and Inflation Impact

[24:49] Toby Howell:
Toby cites Bankrate's Financial Freedom Survey, revealing that nearly 50% of adults feel they need to earn over $100,000 annually to achieve financial security. For some, this figure exceeds $200,000, starkly contrasting with the median household income of $80,000 in 2023. He attributes this disparity to persistent inflation eroding purchasing power.

[25:31] Neal Freyman:
Neal underscores the impact of inflation, illustrating how a stagnant salary from January 2020 to April 2025 effectively reduces purchasing power by $24,000. He notes that 77% of Americans now report feeling financially insecure, up from 72% in 2023, even as inflation rates have moderated to 2%. Neal suggests that this financial anxiety may encourage more individuals to seek salary increases.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Neal Freyman and Toby Howell navigate through a spectrum of pressing topics—from astronomical breakthroughs and financial product impacts to corporate partnerships and the evolving landscape of job recruitment. They provide insightful analysis on how technological advancements and economic shifts are shaping both individual financial health and broader market dynamics.

Notable Quotes:

• "If a dark bus ride is what it takes to find some aliens, then that's a pretty worthy trade." — Toby Howell [02:05]
• "Will this be a credit builder or a credit buster?" — Neal Freyman [06:55]
• "We are creating more choice by providing an alternative to Zillow." — Compass Representative [24:49]

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For more insights and daily news on business and the economy, tune into Morning Brew Daily available on all podcast platforms and YouTube.

Transcript

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[Neal Freyman]

Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

[Toby Howell]

And I'm Toby Howell.

[Neal Freyman]

Today buy now, pay later loans are coming to credit scores, so cherish that 800 while it lasts.

[Toby Howell]

Then a tsunami of job applications has hit LinkedIn, a tsunami that AI created but might also be able to Fix. It's Tuesday, June 24th. Let's ride.

[Neal Freyman]

Look, we all know your iPhone takes a pretty good picture, but I'm gonna have to raise you the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This cutting edge telescope, years in the making, released its first images of deep space yesterday. And they were pretty dang epic considering the observatory contains the world's most powerful digital camera with 67 times more megapixels than your iPhone 16 Pro and a resolution so high that it could capture a golf ball on the moon and requires 400 Ultra HD TV screens to show a single image. Astronomers have been waiting a long time for this camera to come online because it's going to provide a transformational snapshot of space as humanity has never seen it before. That could include discovering a potential ninth planet in our solar solar system, or more urgently, detecting asteroids that could smash into Earth and wipe us out. In all, Vera Rubin could increase the number of known objects in the solar system by a factor of 10.

[Toby Howell]

The Wall Street Journal described it as a celestial flipbook that would capture 38 billion objects. It is so cool. It's already gotten to work, too. Within 10 hours of turning it on, found 2100 new asteroids. Usually we ID about 20,000 a year. So off to a flying start. But I also want to call out why it's located high in the Andes Mountains in Chile. The BBC put it well, it's very high, it's very dry, and it's very dark. Darkness is so important for a telescope to work properly that you're not even allowed to use full beam headlights on the bus ride up to the mountain. So Neil, if a casas but bus ride is what it takes to find some aliens, then I think that's a pretty worthy trade. Now a word from our sponsor, Domain Money. One of the reasons we've loved working with Domain over the past few weeks is that they know a one size all approach doesn't make sense.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

Okay, let's quickly get you caught up with the latest events in the Middle east and the market reaction. A cease fire between Israel and Iran announced by President Trump last night appears precarious after Israel accused Iran of launching two missiles at it three hours after the agreement went into effect. Israel has vowed to strike back against Tehran while Iran denied that it fired missiles toward Israel. The flare up came after a whirlwind day in which Iran retaliated against the US weakened attacks against its nuclear sites, sending missiles toward an American air base in Qatar. This was seen as an attempt to de escalate the situation as the attack was telegraphed well beforehand to the US and Qatar and no casualties were reported. And Toby investors clearly breathed a sigh of relief.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, they were certainly happy to see a de escalation. Stocks had a muted day overall yesterday, but finished in the green while futures are slightly up this morning or Oil prices have also fallen about 5% since the proposed cease fire was announced. Oil is now trading at its lowest point in two weeks, so it's pared back all the gains that it has since the conflict broke out. So if this cease fire holds, which is still an if at this point, it will be met positively by markets.

[Neal Freyman]

Okay, moving on. Burrito loans are coming to your credit score. Fair Isaac Corp. Or FICO, which creates the most popular credit score in the U.S. said yesterday that it would incorporate Buy Now Pay later loans into its new model. The first time it's ever introduced a score to account for a type of loan. The goal is to solve one of the biggest challenges that's emerged from the explosion of Buy Now Pay later services. A lack of visibility. Analysts have warned that billions of dollars of so called phantom debt are putting financial stress on consumers who chop up purchases into four easy installments. But there's no real understanding of the scale of the problem since those don't appear on credit reports. Now. FICO hopes to shine a flashlight into the murky debt forest with two new credit scoring mod coming later this year that banks and credit card companies can use to evaluate consumers credit worthiness. Toby, I guess you could call being factored into credit reports. Buy Now Pay later is bar mitzvah. It's all grown up and ready to be taken seriously and the numbers back it up. The value of Buy Now Pay later transactions in the US is expected to reach $108 billion this year, up from 94 billion a year ago.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, and thank goodness because the visibility into these loans have just been so, so murky. A bank rate survey in May found that nearly half of all BNP L users experience at least one money issue. Overspending top the list. So we're not really sure how much people are spending on these platforms. I mean the platforms themselves do give us some data. Last month Klara reported that its losses from defaulted loans were on the rise. They've climbed to about 0.5% as a share of their total lending. Which doesn't sound like much, but again the pie is growing here. So you do need insight into how people are, you know, expensing their burritos if they're keeping up with their payments and if this really is a black hole that needs to have a flashlight shined on it. Because you do need to know how people are spending their money.

[Neal Freyman]

Now the question is will this be a credit builder or a credit buster? Because it's not all necessarily bad. If people are taking out these really, they're really short term loans, it's very different than a credit card. But if you're just taking out a short term loan paying it back quickly. Will that increase your credit score? And potentially it could welcome a bunch of new people into the credit system and help them build credit. Because often people who use Buy Now Pay later services don't necessarily have a credit card in their using these services. Instead, FICO actually ran a study on this. They simulated the credit score impact of Buy Now Pay later loans and the results may surprise you. They showed that the majority of consumers with five or more BNPL loans from a firm would experience higher scores or no score changes at all. Now, one of the reasons, one of the main reasons that Buy Now Pay later services had withheld all this data from credit reporting agencies is that they feared that it would ding credit scores. But you know, here's FICO saying actually it helps boost them.

[Toby Howell]

And what is interesting about just the whole, you know, credit industry in general is that it kind of works like iPhone releases. So FICO is obviously a very widely used by lenders. It's kind of like the gold standard. They say that 90% of people use its scores when making lending decisions. That being said though, a lot of them are using older models because they've set everything up to, you know, support FICO 6. But now FICO is actually on to FICO score 10. FICO score 10 T. Those are the most updated ones. But a lot of people are still on FICO Score 8, which was released back in 2009. So they think this is like adding a cool new camera to an iPhone. Bringing in that Buy Now Pay later data is something that will make lenders upgrade their systems and, you know, buy the new iPhone in this case. So it is just fascinating that they've been trying to get people up to date, but they've been slow to adopt new models. This might actually put its push a lot of lenders over the finish line. Hims and hers has been a Wall street favorite for most of this year. But the telehealth company came tumbling down yesterday after news that its partnership with Novo Nordisk was hitting the fritz. In a press release, the maker of Wegovy said it was cutting ties with hinds and hers after less than two months, accusing the company of using deceptive marketing to promote its own compounded weight loss drugs. The split marks the end of a rocky relationship. As demand surged for weight loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. Supply shortage opened up the door for companies like him to prescribe cheaper compounded alternatives, leading to a major stock rally. But that rally faded when the shortage ended and compounding restrictions kicked in. Shares jumped Once again, though, when Novo Nordisk announced that it would begin offering WeGovy through hims and hers to expand access. A rally which has faded once more. Not that the relationship has crumbled. The big issue with Hims is that we had an agreement that the mass compounding would stop, and unfortunately it didn't stop. A vice president at Novo Nordisk told Bloomberg. But there's two sides to every story. And Hims and hers fired back, saying that there are cases when custom compounded versions are needed for medical reasons. Regardless of who's right. The market reaction was brutal. Hims and her shares plunged 34% yesterday, Neal, as investors digested the fallout.

[Neal Freyman]

What a roller coaster here. They started this partnership in late April. Novo Nordisk is looking for more people to get on WeGovy. That is their main objective here because they are locked in a very intense race with Eli Lilly, who has Manjaro and Zap bound. And they see these telehealth companies like Hims and Hers, and there's a bunch of these out there that are, have a direct relationship with consumers. And so they looked at these companies and said, wow, if we get our products on their sites, on their marketplaces, perhaps we could convert these people from using compounded versions and maybe we'll brand those, those versions as maybe unsafe because they are not FDA regulated. And maybe we can convert them to WeGovy to our brand name. That was the idea here. But it's falling apart as they accuse Hims and Hers of sort of still selling mass compounded versions even though the law states that they cancel. We'll see whether this, you know, maybe balloons into more significant legal action.

[Toby Howell]

And the way that Hims and hers is kind of getting around the terms of that partnership is that they are offering compounded shots to a very limited group of patients because they need so called personalized dosage of the medication. And that is technically allowed under FDA rules. So that is why they didn't change their business model as much as Novo Nordisk was. They were trying to have their cake and eat it too, because they were like, we want to still have this revenue stream from selling actual WeGovy, but we also like having our little compounded business on the side. That just didn't sit well with Novo Nordisk, who, by the way, has been going through it since it became the most valuable company in Europe last year. It's fallen about 20%. It just cycled through a CEO. It still hasn't named a successor there. So its stock fell about 5% yesterday. As well too. So this wasn't great news, because you're right, it did want that access, that extra distribution channel.

[Neal Freyman]

Right? They lost a sales channel, so analysts expect them to go on the hunt for others like him's and hers. But overall, just a pretty disastrous partnership. That shows the precariousness of the compounded weight loss industry right now. Applying to jobs has always been frustrating and competitive, but in the age of AI, you could be going up against someone who doesn't even exist. A sludge has taken over the job search, declared the New York Times, and it brought some wild receipts from LinkedIn to back it up. In the past year, the number of applications submitted on LinkedIn has spiked more than 45% to 11,000 applications sent in every single minute, fueled by generative AI tools making it less work than ever to apply. Some candidates are using Chat CBT to create a resume containing all the keywords from a job description and all that takes is a one sentence prompt. Other, more adventurous types are employing more freewheeling AI agents who will scour the platform for relevant jobs and apply automatically for you. And even others, like North Korean IT criminal networks are inventing fake avatar people to apply for remote jobs. And this is a problem that's only getting worse. By 2028, one in four job applicants could be completely made up, according to analysis from Gartner. Toby this is a migraine inducing development for job seekers who are asking, how can I possibly stand out in this sea of applicants? And it's also a huge concern for the people doing the hiring who are asking how can I possibly sift through the sea of applications to find the right person? The system seems broken.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, the New York Times article focused on one fully remote role at a tech company that only required three years of experience. And it got an insane amount of applications after 12 hours. 400 applications had been submitted by 24 hours or 600, and then just a few days later, the number was sitting at 1200 applications. And the hiring manager was like, I'm three months into this and I'm still sorting through all these applications and. And they all start to look a little bit the same. Because if they are AI powered, which a lot of them are, it becomes this sea of sameness because they're all using the same keywords, are all using the same prompt. So you know what hiring managers do, they go to AI to help them kind of sort through the deluge of applications they just received, see who is really qualified by probably doing some keyword matching. So right now it's kind of AI talking to AI in a lot of cases, which is just not a good outcome for anyone involved.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, the solution here seems to be somehow more technology. Chipotle has introduced an AI chatbot screening and schedule tool named of course Avocado with a space in between them. I don't see how that's relevant to recruiting at all, but they say it's reduced hiring time by 75%. HireVue is a another booming platform that conducts AI video interviews. And LinkedIn also is addressing the problem, or at least trying to address the problem by introducing its own AI agent that can help candidates and recruiters do things like write, follow follow up messages, conduct screening chats, suggest top applicants, and search for potential hires. So it seems like the only solution here, at least, maybe they're not thinking creatively enough, is layer even more AI onto the system. But you just think that it will hit a breaking point and all this tech will go away and we get back to where we were.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, but maybe the law has something to say about this too, because there's this IT professional in North Carolina who said he applied for more than 100 jobs from 2017 and 2019. He got rejected by every single one of them. And now he's going after those application tracking systems saying that they potentially discriminate against him, either for his age or his race. So that puts these sellers of recruiting software on the back foot by saying that, hey, if our algorithms are screening people out unfairly, that might cause them to use them less. So that is potential another angle to this AI hiring rush. What if these systems, you know, are being discriminatory? It can lead certain people to be shut out from opportunities. Let's take a quick break because we have Toby's trends coming right up.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

Partnership with Apple Card I'm a person who really appreciates simplicity and when it comes to credit card rewards, the simpler the better. That's one of the many reasons I have an Apple Card. The rewards are super straightforward. I earn up to 3% daily cash back on my everyday purchases. There are no points to calculate, no limits or deadlines. Plus it's super easy to access my card and make payments from the Wallet app of my iPhone. If that sounds like a the kind of simplicity you want in a credit card, apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City brands terms and more at apple card.com scrolling on X the other day I came across a post from Chamath Palihapatiya, a venture capitalist and 1/4 of the popular all in podcast. He asked his 1.8 million followers a simple question, should I launch a spacious 50,000 responses later, the answer was a resounding no. And yet Chamath, the self proclaimed king of SPACs, is ignoring that finding and once again going down the SPAC path. Which is what I want to talk about on today's edition of Toby's Trends. A SPAC stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Company, which is a type of vehicle for bringing businesses to the public markets. A SPAC lists on a stock exchange as a shell company that investors can pump money into, and then the idea is to take that capital and find a real business to merge with or acquire. They've existed on US Stock markets for over three decades now, but had a heyday during the pandemic with everyone from Virgin Galactic to Coinbase using them to make their public debuts. Soon those SPACs were overrun by speculators pushing shell companies to astronomical valuations that often collapse if or when they eventually merge with a business. But amidst a historically slow IPO market, there is a hint of SPAC mania creeping back into markets along with Chamath cheesing a return. Bitcoin evangelist Anthony Pompliano recently raised more than $750 million with plans to create a publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company. And the industry's annual conference was also decidedly more active than in years past as banks and private investors are beginning to reconsider the much maligned asset class. So Neil, all these headlines have me wondering one thing on today's Toby's trends. Are SPACs back?

[Neal Freyman]

They are somewhat back. IPOs of SPACs have raised $11.2 billion. So this year that is up from $1.8 billion in the same period a year ago. So there's certainly a tick up. We are still far from the heights, the excesses one might say of 2021 when $172 billion was raised via SPAC IPOs and everyone from a rod to Jay Z was getting in on it. So I think what you're seeing is that there's a been a sea change in attitude toward SPACs and probably that become, that comes straight from the top. It comes from President Trump and this overall deregulation agenda where the SEC is just taking a lot more laissez, laissez faire approach. Thank you. AP Euro to to the markets, to regulating financial markets. Seems like some of the banks that have pulled back three years ago over reputational risk and regulatory scrutiny are coming back in or at least tiptoeing back in.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, and probably the best way to see this rev is you go back to mid 2022 when the SPAC bubble totally burst. And that was when the industry's annual conference I talked about had Stormy Daniels as like a headline speaker where everyone was just kind of like, I don't know if we want to be here anymore. Like the SPAC industry just got a really negative connotation because a lot of companies did soar up to these drastically high valuations and then collapse as soon as like a real business came in and inhabited the shell company. But now it looks like a lot of bankers and private investors are going like, hey, actually I do see this as an easier path towards the public markets, especially with the IPO markets just being so clogged up right now. That being said though, there are a lot of crypto companies that are flooding into the space. The Financial Times talked to one person at the conference that said a lot of people are trying to become a bitcoin treasury company like Anthony Papillion, like Michael Saylor's strategy has done. So that seems to be one of the chief things propelling this SPAC boom, which I don't know if, if that is necessarily something that reflects well on the industry. Again because these are speculative companies. So it's in a good place right now. But maybe long term we're just going through another boom and bust cycle perhaps.

[Neal Freyman]

So maybe the biggest symbol that SPACs are back is that Goldman Sachs is enter is re entering the SPAC business. They're going to start underwriting deals again after three years away. They step back in 2022 and they're stepping back in. And as the financial firms are, they have such a. They're sheeple. They have such a herd mentality. If Goldman Sachs does something, then Morgan Stanley and Citi are going to cut back in. So maybe the floodgates are open.

[Toby Howell]

Say that five times fast. Goldman Sachs is bringing sparks back. There we go.

[Neal Freyman]

Okay, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Two things that are extremely hot right now. New York and nuclear power are teaming up in what could be a potentially historic partnership. Yesterday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul told the Wall Street Journal that she directed the public utility to build a large nuclear power facility upstate, which would be the first new US nuclear plant in more than 15 years. It's intended to produce at least 1 gigawatt of new nuclear power generation, which is enough to power about 1 million homes. She said, I'm going to lean into making sure that every company that wants to come to New York and everyone who wants to live here will have to never worry about reliability and affordability when it comes to their utility costs. Nuclear power is having a renaissance after decades of disinvestment in plant retirements, mainly thanks to the surge in electricity demands from data centers. New York wants to be the Florence.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, Kathy Hochul has made this a priority since she became governor. She had a conversation with Trump that led to him lifting a stopwork order on this big offshore wind project. So that was a big win for her. And this all actually traces back to the closure of another nuclear power plant that was 40 miles upriver from Manhattan, the India Point nuclear plant. When that was closed, that was 25% of all the electricity needs for New York City. Poof. Gone, just like that. So in its absence, you know, fossil fuels have stepped in to make up the difference. So Kathy Hochul has obviously made this a priority. She wants to bring nuclear back to New York City because of what was lost, you know, just a few years ago. Zillow has a database of 160 million properties, but it wants more, much to the annoyance of industry competitors. In a suit filed in New York federal court yesterday, the real estate brokerage Compass claimed that Zillow was trying to maintain an illegal monopoly over online home listings in the effort to pull some views away from Zillow, which gets about 227 million unique visitors a month. Compass launched a program called Private Exclusives, which features about 7,000 listings available only to Compass agents and buyers. But Zillow didn't like that, and in April announced that any home that was put up for sale but not available on Zillow within 24 hours would be permanently banned from the site. Now Compass is pushing back on what it sees as anti competitive practices, AKA the Zillow ban. Neal this is contentious because Compass thinks that no one company should have so much power over the real estate market. But Zillow doesn't think that any company should hoard listings either.

[Neal Freyman]

It's contentious also because the online real estate listing space is pretty much all that exists now in helping people find a home. Basically, nearly 100% of buyers report now they use the Internet in their home searches. So any company that controls that marketplace will be the destination that people go to. Right now, it's Zillow. Compass wants to carve out a niche for itself, and Zillow says you can't do that. That's not good for consumers. We want every listing available to be on our platform. Specifically, Compass says no, actually, we are creating more choice by providing an alternative to Zillow. So this turf war is heating up. It's not going away.

[Toby Howell]

How much money do you need to live comfortably? The answer is increasingly six figures and above. According to Bankrate's Financial Freedom Survey, nearly half of all adults polled said that they would need to make over $100,000 to feel financially secure, and 26% said that $150,000 was their magic number. And some people who probably have kids or an extensive laboboo collection put the bar at over $200,000. How far away is perception from reality? The median household income in 2023 was just over $80,000. Now, a recent period of inflation and economic uncertainty have chipped away at a lot of people's buying power. So it is no surprise that these answers are reaching well into the six figures.

[Neal Freyman]

Inflation has been brutal. Imagine you're in January 2020 and you had a $100,000 salary that has power in April 2025 as a salary of $124,000. So if you haven't gotten a raise since 2020 because of inflation, you've essentially lost $24,000 of your salary. So it's not a surprise that people want a raise and they don't feel financially comfortable. Actually, the share of Americans who say they do not feel financially comfortable was up to 77% in 2025, which is an increase from 75% in 2024 and 72% in 2023. Meanwhile, inflation has decreased from 9% back then to 2% now. So there's still lingering memories of inflation. It's not like prices have gone down, they're still going up at just a smaller rate. So you can understand that people are feeling a little, a little antsy about their finances. And maybe this is a maybe there's a little license to go out and ask for that raise today. Okay? That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us, and have a wonderful Tuesday. If you have any thoughts on today's episode, send an email with questions, comments or feedback to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair Makeup said it wasn't worth touching us up today because we just sweated off. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

[Toby Howell]

Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.

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