B (2:25)

No. You got a wedding coming up. We both know that's not happening. They're more focused on how the right technology and infrastructure can be a game changer for growth.

C (2:33)

Speaking of growth, I am rocking a bit of a mullet these days. A soft mullet that is so speaking of business in the front and party in the back, today's small businesses don't work from just one place. Strong connectivity helps teams stay productive wherever work happens. Explore connectivity solutions that keep your business moving. At att.com/small business Coinbase just showed us

B (2:55)

what a workforce of the future might look like in the age of AI yesterday, CEO Brian Armstrong announced the company would was laying off 14% of its staff, then proceeded to stomp on his org chart like a finished beer at a tailgate. We are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, he wrote on X. We're fundamentally changing how we operate. Rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence with humans around the edge, aligning IT people, managers you're out. Player coaches you're in. Armstrong said that pure manager roles were a thing of the past and that Coinbase would be pivoting to smaller teams in some cases just one person directing a fleet of AI agents like an orchestra conductor. And about flattening, Armstrong said that Coinbase's new structure would lead to no more than five layers below the CEO. Layers slow things down and create a coordination tax, he said the future is small, high context, teams that can move quickly. According to Armstrong, the layoffs were a consequence of two major forces. One AI disrupting the way we work and two, which should not be overlooked, the current down market for cryptocurrencies. The country's largest crypto exchange, Coinbase has been playing defense as Bitcoin dropped 1/3 from its peak last year, leading some skeptics to suggest that it was Coinbase's struggle tackling business performance rather than AI that was behind these job cuts. Either way, Toby, Coinbase joins a long list of once hot tech companies that have been slashing their headcount this year.

C (4:15)

You are right that a lot of analysts are saying it probably is the down market that is the biggest reason for these layoffs. One analyst covering the stock, Dan Dolev, said the crypto winter is probably the real reason for most of the cuts. AI for the most part is likely an easy excuse. And Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, kind of previewed this saying that AI washing is going to become a thing where companies are going to blame unrelated layoffs on AI. So maybe it really is a fundamental rethinking of Coinbase's entire org structure or they're just using AI as a cop out.

B (4:47)

It could be, you know, 5050 or 60, 40. What does flattening actually mean? Because I want to dive into this because middle managers have been under attack by tech CEOs for a couple of years now, ever since Zuck's year of efficiency a few years ago. So getting rid of middle managers, you lead to that inevitably leads to a mega manager. And we're seeing this mega manager trend across tech companies and across corporate America. According to Gallup, one manager oversaw an average of 10.9 employees in 2024. Now a single manager on average oversees 12.1 employees. And then we're talking about matter because they did pioneer this trend. They, their engineering team now has a 50 to one employer to manager ratio. So as you go to work today and you're thinking, okay, my, my boss has maybe four or five direct reports at tech companies. They're completely demolishing that model and saying, yeah, we don't need, you don't need these one on ones with your manager every other week. We just need these flatter teams where a ton of people just roll up into one person who's usually on the executive leadership team.

C (5:48)

I mean, I love the player coach mentality. That is kind of how we operate here at Morning Brew. It does actually lend credence to a manager if they're in the trenches alongside you, if they've done the job alongside you. So there's defin some, you know, merit to this approach for sure. But again, you go through the list of tech companies that are citing AI as reasons for their cuts. Snap has reduced their workforce 16% of its full time staff. They said that's due to the potential of AI to reduce repetitive work. Block was, you know, a big shot too, in the arm of laying off almost half of its workers. Metta has cut 10% of its workforce. Amazon has laid off 16,000 corporate workers back in January. So you can go through corporate America and basically find some version of this memo, some version of attributing AI as the reason for these cuts. Again, who knows if it's market conditions or if it's actually AI, but certainly a trend that we've been seeing developing over the past few months. Beer is so back, baby. AB InBev, the parent company of Budweiser, Stella, Michelob and more, just reported earnings that show people are drinking again. Organic volume grew for the first time since 2023, eking out a nearly 1% gain in the quarter where analysts expected it to decline. CEO Michael Duques said Cheers to beer. A wry attempt at putting a positive spin on what has been a very dark time in the beer market lately. It's widely been documented that people are drinking less. Just 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcohol, the lowest rate in Gallup's nearly 90 year history tracking it. Couple that with non alcoholic beer sales taking off and brand controversies tied to Bud Light and you can see why any gain is being celebrated by AB InBev. It wasn't actually the US that bounced back strongly. Markets like Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Peru picked up the slack of a sluggish North America. It was also AB InBev's non beer division, which include recently acquired can cocktail brand Cutwater, that jumped 37%, showing that maybe diversification is actually the real winner here. Still, there is reason to be optimistic for good old fashioned beer going forward because of a little thing called the World cup this summer. A lot of people have written beer off, Neil, but football plus a brew is a combo that can defeat even the stiffest of headwinds.

B (8:09)

So why is beer back? Well, According to AB InBev CEO Duke Harris, he said on CNBC, we see moderation and healthier habits. In this case, beer is fantastic because beer is low in alcohol, lower in calories. Beer naturally has protein. He's trying to get on the protein trend and beer has, you know, small traces of protein.

C (8:30)

But that is a wild, pretty much

B (8:31)

an all time quote because, you know, we all drink beer because of the protein content, right?

C (8:35)

He's going to come on air next and go, you know, beer has AI in it too. It's definitely part of that trend as well.

B (8:41)

It definitely adds to a little momentum for beer. Obviously 1% growth is, you know, 1% growth, but you know, these volumes had been declining since 2023. But we also had some really positive earnings reports from other brewers. Carlsberg, which Danish brewer that makes Carlsberg and other beers, said they saw a lot more demand for their higher end beers. I was last week and then Heineken said it had its own volumes, bounced back to growth after a bunch of declines. So it looks like at least in these big European brewers are doing fine. And we should emphasize that North American market and China is still down, but at least in other parts of the world looks like they're getting thirsty again.

C (9:18)

And you can't overlook the World cup that is coming in. They analysts forecast that the World cup is worth 1 billion extra pints because again, people are going to be watching these games during the day and they're especially Bullish, because this World cup is bigger than previous editions. There are 104 matches versus 64 back in 2022. There it is 39 days long. That's 10 more than are in Qatar. There's 48 teams, which is a lot more teams. So the unfortunate part is most of that upside is going to be concentrated in bars because that's where you go to watch these games. They're not expecting a lot of of people to be buying more beer and, you know, drinking it in their own homes. But historically, host countries do get a big bump. If you go back to Germany in 2006, they saw beer consumption jump 3.6%. In Qatar jumped 26%. That's a little atypical because there's usually a very alcohol restricted region there. But America is definitely looking in. North America in particular is saying maybe this is the time where beer volumes start to spike again because there's just so many people who want to drink beer and watch in soccer.

B (10:24)

Yeah, that's probably the biggest link of anything that we've seen is that if there are more soccer games, there are more people going to bars and drinking beer. So after a bunch of down years, looks like the beer market is perking up a little bit. Moving on. You've heard of Brexit, but what do you know about Wexit? The western province of Alberta just took a big step to break off from Canada. The separatist movement in Alberta said they collected enough signatures to force a vote on independence and gaining 301,000 signatures when they needed 178,000. So it's not, not unlikely that come October, people in Alberta could vote on a referendum that would read, do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state? You may know Alberta best as the home of hockey greats Wayne Gretzky and Connor McDavid, who hit the ice for the Edmonton Oilers past and present, but zero in on that nickname to learn what really makes Alberta tickets Oil. The province is home to one of the world's largest reserves of crude and lots of natural gas. Canada is the world's fourth largest oil producing nation and 85% of that comes from Alberta. It's that drill, baby, drill, small government mentality that has many Albertans feeling like they've been shortchanged by the federal government to the east. According to the BBC, the Alberta separatist movement owes its roots to the doctrine of Western alienation, the belief that their rural and oil focused interests are not being respected. By Ottawa. Toby, the first thing I thought of is, so Alberta is Texas.

C (11:49)

I think you're dead on there because not only does their economy resemble it, not only do their politics resemble it, but there's also a little bit of cultural overlap. We were talking about the famous Calgary stampede, which kind of mirrors Texas ranching and rodeo scene. So there's absolutely similarities between Alberta and Texas. It does look like fiscal imbalance is the core grievance here, though, because Alberta has been a very large contributor to Canada's federal equalization program, which sends money to all the other provinces. And they feel like they get the short end of the stick because they are generating so much money. They are saying that we would be one of the richest per capita countries in the world if we broke off from Canada, but instead that money is going out to supporting the rest of Canada's interests. So that's probably the biggest grievance here, is that they're just feel like they're getting the short end of this.

B (12:36)

Yeah. And they feel like, you know, the government in Ottawa is not exactly friendly to oil and gas and they've been blocking pipelines. So they feel like there's a cultural and economic disconnect. But then there's pushback to that. They say, actually, Alberta, you are. You're benefiting lots from Canada, from all the infrastructure that they support, from currency, stability for trade, access to all the other provinces. And so there's. And that has been a, actually a winning argument because when you actually look at the poll numbers, they got, yes, they got 301,000 signatures, but that's 6% of Alberta's total population of 5 million. In a recent poll of 1200, residents said that the support for the separatist cause was just 27%. 67% said they would vote against. So broadly, separatism is unpopular, but it will perhaps be on the ballot in October.

C (13:25)

I also think you can just look at the markets here because if this is a real chance of succession, markets would start downgrading Canadian oil and gas stocks a little bit because they're worried about that. That hasn't really happened as of now. So the market doesn't usually lie when it comes to these sort of things. So maybe it's more of a pipe dream, you know, pun intended at this point because, you know, the oil pipeline is a big issue issue for Alberta separatists. But it doesn't look like it's going to come to pass time soon.

B (13:54)

Bottom line, though, a lot of people in Alberta want to break off from.

C (13:58)

I know, I did not know this until, but it's been a long simmering movement for a while. But you know, the fact that it's coming back to the news, 300,000 signatures. Clearly there's still some juice left to it. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with a story about a tiny little robot right after this. Neil, let me tell you something about bond markets.

B (14:19)

I'm all ears. They are confusing, insightful as ever. But yes, capturing value in fixed income is not easy. Thankfully, Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. That means top grade products across the board.

C (14:30)

Vanguard is able to invest across all kinds of sectors, maturities and geographies, which means they can spot and act on opportunities that others might miss.

B (14:39)

So check out vanguard.com/audio. That's vanguard.com/audio all investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor Neil let's make a deal. Last time you said that I ended up painting your fence and you did

C (14:53)

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C (15:13)

You can move faster on deals and win with data sites AI when you visit datacyte.com/brew that's data site.com/brew Neil I've got something pretty big on the Verizon.

B (15:27)

You mean horizon?

C (15:28)

Nope, pretty sure that's a not a real word. But the Verizon Visa card helps eligible Verizon customers get more from everyday spending. You can earn 4% rewards on gas,

B (15:39)

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C (15:46)

For a limited time, new cardholders can get up to $150 cash back. Just head to verizon.com Morning Brew to learn more. That's verizon.com Morning Brew the inventor of Roomba is back with a robot that doesn't clean your floors. Colin Engel, the co founder of the now bankrupt IROBAT has returned with his second act, a four legged dog like robotic pet called a familiar. A term that refers to a witch's supernatural animal companion. I call it dog like because this thing is not a dog. It walks on four legs and has a dog like demeanor, but it is deliberately unidentifiable. Across the chain, a bear, a barn owl and a golden retriever. Angle says, so people don't have preconceived notions of how it should act. The robot, codenamed Amy, is cute, cuddly, and comforting and uses AI to learn about its owner and respond to social cues in real time, which speaks to Angle's vision of where familiar might fit into people's lives. The loneliness epidemic is a growing problem that a robot companion can help address to people who say, well, real pets exist. Angle points out that pet ownership declines to just 9% after age 68 because it becomes difficult to take care of an animal. On the other end of the age spectrum, parents might love a device that their child can interact with that doesn't come with a screen. Neal this is a far cry from a robot vacuum cleaner and with an undefined price tag as of now that will mirror that of a real pet ownership. It comes with some skeptics, too. It's a big bet that the best use case of AI is actually a robot that you can snuggle with.

B (17:21)

It honestly looks like a Pokemon a little bit. So you can actually collect Pokemon for real, Ash Ketchum style. Let's start with talking about why this might succeed. First of all, they have collected a murderous row of roboticists working on this. It's not an amateur squad. These are people from Disney, mit. The founder of Boston Dynamics is an advisor. Boston Dynamics is makes that spot robot that you've seen go viral. Like, they are the top of the top. Amazon, Bose and Sonos, and not to mention this guy who invented the Roomba and iRobot, which is a very, very successful company over decades. So basically, all the smartest people in Boston, mit, that ecosystem, is working on this. Another possible reason why it might be popular is that people want a pet that they don't necessarily have to take care of in that way. Cleaning up their poop or taking them for walks, or when you go away for a week or a weekend, finding somewhere to put your dog or cat. So this might. Or watch your cat. So those are just a few of the reasons why maybe this is a little different than some of the other home robots that we've seen come and fall.

C (18:21)

Especially because it's not humanoid. It's not humanoid on purpose. It does not talk. That is a big selling point, actually. It kind of purrs and makes some meowing sounds. Again, this is a very undefined animal that we're talking about, but that is a feature, not a bug by design. Engel says it will avoid giving factual advice, which is, you know, obviously a thing that a Lot of lms have run into is some of their hallucination. So it doesn't want to talk, it doesn't want to give you any benefit in that way. It's not designed to be a utility. It's designed to be something that you can hug and touch their coat. Its coat has a luxurious, touch sensitive feel to it. And it does think that with the advances in AI technology, it can be the type of thing that can greet you at the door. It knows what your preferences are. It learns from the people within the the house. It is very private as well. It doesn't store any of the data on the cloud, it doesn't stream audio or visual. So it alleviates those concerns as well. So those are some of the deliberate decisions that went into making this hard to define robotic animal, but maybe one that's going to fit into people's lives.

B (19:27)

It does seem a little more thoughtfully crafted than others that we've seen. But I, I guess the bear case is that no one has really cracked the code. Many have tried creating home robots, whether it's in humanoid form or it's an animal form. And humans have just not shown an interest in bonding with these figures that are not real things. And you know exactly what's kind of wrong with a cat or dog, especially at the price point if they saying it's as expensive as that, well, can I get a real thing that is real and living or should I do this robot, furry Pokemon like thing? Then maybe humans will always opt for the actual living being.

C (20:04)

I think you're right too that the, the success of the Roomba was because it was a $200 little floor vacuum that cleaned your house. It's so easy to wrap your head around that. It was, people were very comfortable inviting that into their homes because it was you're just going to come home to clean floors. What do you get when you invite a familiar in your house? It's just a little bit difficult to define, especially with an elevated price tag. So maybe that lack of a clear purpose is going to be the thing that causes this not to succeed.

B (20:32)

Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Delta is catching heat for ending free snack and beverage service for some passengers on flights starting May 19. The airline won't give you your ginger ale or pretzels if you're sending an economy on flights shorter than 350 miles, or about 9% of its daily flights. Previously, Delta didn't offer free snacks in Bev on flights of less than 250 miles. But this move expands the radius to a much wider swath of flights, like between Los Angeles and San Francisco. So what's their rationale? A Delta spokesperson said the move will, quote, create a more consistent experience across our network. Even on the small number of flights without beverage service, our crew will continue to be visible, available, and focused on caring for our customers like they do on every flight. So, yeah, it just seems to be a cost saving move and nothing else. Tell me people did not like this.

C (21:20)

Yeah. A travel analyst, Henry Hartfeld, said Delta likes to claim that it's a premium airline, but cutting out cabin service doesn't support that. That is why this is a rough headline for Delta, because they're charging higher elevated prices, but now they're stripping away. So you're taking more and more and more from your customers and you're giving less, less, less to them. I kind of like it, Neil. I feel bad for flight attendants when it's such a short flight and they rush through drink service, you know, because I've done, you know, various short flights from, like, Detroit to Traverse City. Like, these are not long flights and they try to jump up and, you know, pass out sun chips really quickly. No one wants that. No one needs them working that hard. So from the flight attendants perspective, I say take a load off. No need to give me drink service.

B (22:03)

I know a month ago I told people, as an April Fool's prank, to leave. Toby, you just said the worst crazy take of all time, and then he just went and did it.

C (22:14)

I'm looking out for the flight attendants, all right? I don't need, you know, a ginger ale on a 250 mile flight. So I'm. I stand with you, Delta. Okay, maybe this is not the hill to die on, but I'm just trying to look out for the flight attendants. Deal. All right, I think I'm leaving the podcast. By the way, another opportunity has come across my desk that is too good to pass up. Chief World Cup Watcher. A real gig that pays $50,000 that Fox Sports is actually hiring for $1,000 a day to watch all 104 matches of the World Cup. The catch is that you won't be able to do it from the comfort of your own couch. Fox will give you a custom built dream viewing space, though, which unfortunately will be inside a glass cube in the middle of Times Square. Neil, this is obviously a marketing stunt because indeed will be involved in the job hunt. And the official title of the role is Fox One Chief World Cup Watcher Hired through Indeed. Which reads like an ad but still, I do wonder if Morning Brew would let me podcast from a glass pod.

B (23:14)

You can have it, Toby. I know. I actually don't think this would be that fun because you don't realize.

C (23:20)

All right, here we go with another take.

B (23:22)

Do you know how many games are going to be in this World cup?

C (23:24)

Yeah, it's 104. I know exactly how many.

B (23:26)

And you would just watch every single one of them. Do you know how many slogs are going to be of like there's a group K match, Uzbekistan versus the drc. Like you do not want to watch that game. I promise you, you do not want to watch that game. So I think this is a little, you know, too good to be true. It sounds fun for Spain versus France or the usa. Couple of USA games, but you do not want to be locked in a glass box having to watch every single game of this World Cup.

C (23:50)

I am going to check in on Eldor Shama Rod off on Uzbekistan. He's an up and coming. He plays for Roma. He played for Istanbul for a little bit. So absolutely, absolutely I'd be locked in on every single one of those games. And I definitely didn't just google that right now.

B (24:05)

All right, finally, we close out every Wednesday show with Suggestion Box, the segment where Toby and I each share a recommendation that will help enrich your daily life. And today I want to recommend a few books that don't feel like endless slogs. Well, I do love diving into a 600 page saga, especially with summer coming up. There's something nice about a tidy shorter story. So here are a few of my favorite books that won't eat up so much of your time. First, Small Things like these by Claire Keegan. Just gutting in the best way. But I actually might suggest waiting until the winter to read it because it's about Christmas. Either way, pick it up asap. Small Things like these by Claire Keegan. Then Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. You might know this one because Anthony Hopkins plays the protagonist Butler in the movie version. It's incredible. And then Ted Chang. I actually haven't read his stuff, but everyone I know is obsessed with his sci fi short stories. That's C H I A N G. And Finally Seek Immediate Shelter by Vincent Yu. Now, full disclaimer. Vincent is one of my good high school friends and this book, his debut novel, was released yesterday. He gave me an advanced copy to read and I really, really enjoyed it legitimately. It's set in our hometown of Western Massachusetts and explores how the local community reacts when a false ballistic missile alert is sent to all their phones. How would you react if you thought you only had a few minutes to live?

C (25:18)

I thought you were going to say like Captain Underpants or something like that. When you said not slogs to get through diary, Wimpy kid was coming to mind. So maybe your definition books, but like those are real books. Maybe your definition of not a slog is different from other definitions. But I was taking notes right there. I am excited to dive into all of those because you're right, it's summer beach reading season and those are some good beach reads right there. My recommendation is to listen to the Odyssey. So a new trailer for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey dropped yesterday. It looks amazing. Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Charlize Theron as Calypso. And my recommendation is not to read the Odyssey before you go see the movie, but to listen to it. Get it on Audible or Libby. And the reason I'm advocating for listening is because that's how the Odyssey was originally passed down. It has a long oral tradition and you start to see the significance of all the repeated passages, like Rosy Fingered Don, because it's a mnemonic aid for the poet to stay on track. So I do think that you are gaining from the experience. I'm usually not a fan of. I don't advocate for audiobooks that much. But listen to the Odyssey because that's how it was meant to be delivered.

B (26:27)

Now, the big thing about the trailer is that people notice that the actors spoke in American accents. So obviously Matt Damon is American, but then you had some British actors like Robert Pattinson speaking in an American accent. And that is kind of a 180 from most historical sagas. Think about Gladiator 300, Game of Thrones. They all speak in British accent. So Christopher Nolan Stone, a little bit of a curveball here with having them speak in American accents. And at least, you know, when I watched the trailer, I was thinking something is not quite right here. And I think that's what I pointed think that's what. What I was responding to was the lack of British accents. Obviously they're in Greece and they didn't speak in British accents at all. But it's sort of the movie convention that you have people speak in a modern British accent.

C (27:14)

That's why I listened to Ian McKellen narrate the Odyssey. You can choose your, you know, British accented audiobook reader, which is again another check in the column of why you should listen to the Odyssey. Instead of read it.

B (27:26)

That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday. If you'd like to read, reach us, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom or DM us on Instagram @MB Daily show let's roll the credits. Emily Millian is our supervising producer, Raymond Lu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Ed Lewis is our technical director. Hair and makeup is taking a water break after four pull ups. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

C (27:53)

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