Forever 21 Goes Bankrupt & ChatGPT Can Have Anxiety?

Summary

Morning Brew Daily Podcast Summary
Episode: "Forever 21 Goes Bankrupt & ChatGPT Can Have Anxiety?"
Release Date: March 18, 2025
Hosts: Neal Freyman & Toby Howell

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1. Forever 21's Second Bankruptcy

Overview:
The episode delves into the second bankruptcy filing of the iconic fast-fashion retailer, Forever 21. Once a powerhouse in the retail industry, Forever 21 is now facing the closure of all its U.S. stores, marking a significant downturn in its business trajectory.

Key Points:

• Peak and Decline:
  Forever 21 reached its zenith with $4 billion in sales in 2015 and employed over 43,000 people globally. However, aggressive store expansion around 2019 coincided with the rise of e-commerce, making its mall-centric model obsolete.

• Competitive Pressure:
  The emergence of low-cost competitors like Tamu and Shein, particularly Chinese-linked marketplaces, severely impacted Forever 21's ability to retain its customer base. The executives attribute their downfall to these competitors leveraging the de minimis exemption in U.S. tariff codes, allowing low-value shipments to bypass tariffs.

• Financial Struggles:
  In their bankruptcy filing, Forever 21 revealed liabilities ranging from $1 billion to $5 billion, significantly outweighing their assets estimated between $100 million and $500 million. This stark imbalance underscores the severity of their financial woes.

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell [03:40]:
  "Forever 21? More like Chapter 22 bankruptcy. The way this chain keeps going out of business now I think we just have to eulogize this company for a little bit."

• Neal Freyman [04:38]:
  "They specifically identified this de minimis exception... as the reason we are going out of business."

Implications:
The closure of Forever 21 is part of a larger trend in the retail sector, with over 15,000 store closures expected in 2025—a dramatic increase from previous years. This reflects the shifting consumer preferences towards online shopping and the challenges traditional retailers face in adapting to the digital age.

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2. PepsiCo Acquires Prebiotic Soda Brand Poppy

Overview:
PepsiCo has announced the acquisition of prebiotic soda brand Poppy for nearly $2 billion. This strategic move highlights the growing consumer demand for healthier beverage options.

Key Points:

• Brand Background:
  Poppy, founded in 2018 by Allison Ellsworth, quickly gained popularity by emphasizing gut-friendly ingredients like apple cider vinegar and low sugar content. After gaining investment from Shark Tank’s Rohan Oza, Poppy's sales surged to over $100 million by 2023.

• Market Strategy:
  PepsiCo's acquisition aims to capitalize on the burgeoning healthy soda market, which remains resilient despite a general decline in soda consumption. Competitors like Coca-Cola are also venturing into this space with their own prebiotic offerings.

• Valuation Trends:
  The deal reflects a trend where larger beverage companies are increasingly acquiring smaller, health-focused brands at high revenue multiples. For instance, similar acquisitions in the energy drink sector have seen valuations up to 3.3 times sales.

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman [08:19]:
  "I don't think you could, you know, chart it out any better."

• Toby Howell [09:02]:
  "You've seen a lot of these other beverage giants snapping up smaller companies."

Implications:
PepsiCo's acquisition of Poppy signifies a strategic shift towards health-conscious products, catering to the evolving preferences of younger demographics. This move not only strengthens PepsiCo's portfolio but also intensifies competition within the healthy beverage sector.

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3. Study Reveals ChatGPT Experiences "Anxiety" Under Trauma

Overview:
A groundbreaking study suggests that OpenAI's GPT-4 model exhibits increased anxiety levels when processing traumatic narratives. This finding raises questions about the implications of using AI for mental health applications.

Key Points:

• Study Findings:
  Researchers found that when GPT-4 was exposed to distressing content such as war or crime stories, its anxiety scores rose significantly compared to benign content like user manuals. Interestingly, implementing mindfulness exercises reduced these anxiety scores.

• AI and Mental Health:
  The study highlights potential challenges in integrating AI chatbots into mental health care. As more individuals turn to AI for therapeutic support due to a shortage of human therapists, understanding and mitigating AI's "emotional" responses becomes crucial.

• Future Directions:
  Researchers propose embedding mindfulness prompts within AI interactions to prevent biased or overly emotional responses, although this approach is controversial due to past security concerns.

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman [10:26]:
  "A chatbot doesn't have feelings or emotions. It's a computer program...but it is designed to mimic how a human would respond to a particular input."

• Toby Howell [12:41]:
  "It's like this self-learning loop where it figured out how to calm itself down better than humans could potentially calm it down."

Implications:
The study underscores the complexities of deploying AI in sensitive areas like mental health. Ensuring that AI systems can handle emotional content without generating harmful responses is essential for their effective and safe integration into therapeutic settings.

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4. Vibe Coding: Democratizing App Development with AI

Overview:
The hosts explore "Vibe Coding," a term describing the use of AI tools to build functional applications without traditional programming skills. This trend lowers the barriers to entry for app development, enabling more individuals to bring their ideas to life.

Key Points:

• Definition and Tools:
  Vibe Coding involves using platforms like Cursor and Replit, where users input descriptive prompts and the AI generates the necessary code. This approach allows non-programmers to create apps quickly, as illustrated by a New York Times reporter who built a lunch-packing app in under ten minutes.

• Host Experiences:

  • Neal Freyman [17:28]:
    "Zero coding required by the person who wanted to create it."
  • Toby Howell [18:09]:
    "I do think there is a level of baseline technological literacy that maybe I just don't have, but it was doing something."

• Job Market Impact:
  With AI already contributing to 25% of Google’s codebase and a significant decline in programming jobs, there's concern about the future role of human developers. However, current applications of Vibe Coding remain largely in the hobbyist domain.

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman [19:15]:
  "The question is for Vibe coding, will it replace computer programmers?"

• Toby Howell [20:04]:
  "I think we're just scratching the surface of what will be a pretty significant iteration in how we interact with these machines going forward."

Implications:
Vibe Coding represents a significant shift in software development, making app creation more accessible. While it empowers individuals without coding backgrounds, it also poses questions about the future demand for traditional programming skills and the evolving nature of software development roles.

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5. Final Headlines

A. Harvard's Tuition Overhaul

• Overview:
  Harvard University has announced free tuition for students from households earning less than $200,000, covering all associated costs for those earning under $100,000. This initiative aims to broaden access and enhance diversity within its student body.

• Funding:
  The program is funded by Harvard's substantial $50 billion endowment. Similar moves are being observed at institutions like MIT and UPenn, signaling a trend towards more inclusive financial aid.

• Challenges:
  The announcement comes amidst financial pressures, including potential tax increases on endowments and threats of funding cuts from the White House.

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman [20:51]:
  "They want to get ahead of this and expand their applicant base by making college tuition free for people making under 200k."

B. BYD's Revolutionary EV Charging Technology

• Overview:
  Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD unveiled a charging system capable of delivering 292 miles of range in just five minutes, significantly outperforming Tesla’s offering.

• Market Impact:
  BYD's shares have surged to a record $160 billion, surpassing major automotive giants. This advancement positions BYD as a formidable competitor in the EV market, especially in China.

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell [22:23]:
  "If you are looking at the market, especially in China where BYD is popular, there's not a lot of reason, a compelling reason to choose Tesla over BYD."

C. Robinhood Enters Prediction Markets

• Overview:
  Robinhood is launching a new hub within its app to facilitate trading on prediction markets, partnering with Kalshi to ensure regulatory compliance. This feature allows users to bet on outcomes of events like sports tournaments and Federal Reserve decisions.

• Regulatory Context:
  Following a previous setback with CFTC pushback on sports-based contracts, this collaboration aims to navigate the regulatory landscape effectively.

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman [24:06]:
  "I just find it funny that the two things you're going to be able to trade on right now are March Madness and the scintillating upper bound of the federal funds rate."

D. Conan O'Brien to Host Next Year's Oscars

• Overview:
  Conan O'Brien has been confirmed to host the upcoming Academy Awards, following his successful debut which resulted in a five-year high in ratings.

• Host's Perspective:
  Conan humorously stated his primary motivation for returning: "I want to hear Adrien Brody finish his speech."

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell [25:43]:
  "Chevy Chase once said that hosting the Oscars was the most thankless job in the world because hosts don't get credit."

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Conclusion

In this episode of Morning Brew Daily, hosts Neal Freyman and Toby Howell covered significant developments in the business and technology sectors. From the downfall of Forever 21 to PepsiCo's strategic acquisition of a health-focused soda brand, and groundbreaking research on AI's emotional responses, the discussion provided insightful analyses of current trends and their broader implications. Additionally, the exploration of Vibe Coding highlighted the evolving landscape of software development, while the final headlines encapsulated noteworthy movements in education, automotive technology, financial markets, and entertainment.

Notable Closing Quotes:

• Neal Freyman [25:59]:
  "Head on over to www.morningbrew.com/morning-market-trivia and see if you can beat our scores and win some goodies."

• Toby Howell [26:12]:
  "So send this poppy pod their way."

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For more detailed discussions and the latest updates, tune into the Morning Brew Daily podcast on your preferred platform or visit their YouTube channel.

Transcript

[Sponsor]

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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, nothing lasts forever. Even retailers named Forever 21, then a.

[Toby Howell]

Prebiotic soda brand Poppy is getting acquired by Pepsi for a number that has a lot of zeros behind it. It's Tuesday, March 18th. Let's ride.

[Neal Freyman]

Good morning and happy Tuesday. There's something we need to tell you and it's that you should buy a Morning Brew Daily mug.

[Toby Howell]

Mug plug. Mug plug. Mug Plug.

[Neal Freyman]

Thank you, Toby. What he's trying to say is that we've got these beautiful sturdy MBD mugs that can handle any type of coffee from a Keurig to a pour over even tea. And they're the perfect addition to the mug collection in your cabinet, which between us is getting a little stale.

[Toby Howell]

Mug plug. Mug plug. Mug plug.

[Neal Freyman]

I believe in Toby's that translates to head to Shop Dot Morning Broadcom and look for the Morning Brew Daily collection where you'll find the mugs we use to start every single morning. This is such a great way to treat yourself. Or give a gift to the Morning Brew Daily super fans in your life mug.

[Toby Howell]

Okay, I'm done. But yes, agree with everything Neil said. Plus one more selling point. It says let's ride on it. Which is kind of my catchphrase if you haven't heard that sounds interesting to you, head to Shop Dot Morning Broadcom to get your mug. Now a word from our sponsor, Sophos. Neal was faced with a brutal dilemma this past weekend in either sleep in or go to this new brunch spot in the West Village.

[Neal Freyman]

Classic case of trade offs, extra rest or delicious pancakes. What did you choose?

[Toby Howell]

Well, I tried to have the best of both worlds. Sleeping in right to the last minute, then rushing to make brunch. I hate having to choose same.

[Neal Freyman]

Which is why Sophos is such a great company. It doesn't make you choose between an elite defense or an expert offense. It keeps you protected while also having 500 plus experts standing by 24,7 to help you strike down threats.

[Toby Howell]

Plus it works no matter what size you are. From a scrappy startup to an established company, Sophos gives you enterprise grade cybersecurity without feeling overwhelmed.

[Neal Freyman]

Speaking of overwhelmed, did you make your brunch on time?

[Toby Howell]

Slid in right as the mimosas were being poured.

[Neal Freyman]

Nicely done. If you want top notch security without compromise, visit sophos.com that's so P H O S.com Rough day for millennial women as your favorite mall destination. Fifteen years ago, Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy and is going to be closing all of its stores in the United States. It's the chain's second bankruptcy in six years, but this time around, don't expect anyone to swoop in to save it. After hitting a peak of $4 billion in sales in 2015, the fast fashion pioneer went out of fashion fast. The pandemic accelerated the shift to online shopping, where foot traffic focused forever 21 was at a disadvantage. And inflation jacked up costs and led shoppers to pull back on buying clothes. But the death blow may have been dealt by the new titans of fast fashion, Tamu and Shein. Forever 21 execs blame the two Chinese linked marketplaces for their company's demise, saying that the shockingly low prices advertised on those apps made it hard for forever 21 to hold on to its core customer base. What happens next? Liquidation sales are expected to begin immediately before a, quote, orderly wind down of the company's 350 stores in the United States.

[Toby Howell]

Forever 21? More like Chapter 22 bankruptcy. The way this chain keeps going out of business now I think we just have to eulogize this company for a little bit. At its peak, Forever 21 had more than $4 billion in annual sales. It employed more than 43,000 people worldwide in hundreds of stores. It characterized a lot of our childhood. I remember my sister visiting New York City for the first time. She wanted to go to, you know, the two story forever 21 stores. But right as it kind of was hitting its stride, it started expanding its store footprint very aggressively. That was right around the time that technology started to upend its business, where E Commerce started to become a main channel for a lot of retailers and it's just been a shell of its former self. I said Chapter 22 bankruptcy because this is the second Chapter 11 that it's gone through. It first filed in 2019, and it's been basically a zombie brand with a lot fewer stores ever since because it just really has never found its stride beyond the mall, which was its sweet spot in its happy place.

[Neal Freyman]

They're saying that they made mistakes, perhaps, but they're also Blaming these two Chinese linked marketplaces, Tamu and Sheehan, for kind of killing their business. They specifically identified this de minimis exception, which exemption, which is an exemption to the tariff code in the United States, which has allowed Tamu and Sheehan, these super bargain apps to flourish that allows you to ship in packages to the United States from China. If they're under $800 in value, then they are not subject to tariffs. And so in their bankruptcy filing, the execs at Forever 21 said that, you know, this, this exemption is the reason we are going out of business. And urged policymakers to get rid of it to help out other American Apparel companies.

[Toby Howell]

There have been some missteps along the way though. After 2019, the chain was actually purchased by this kind of weird joint. Vent was these big mall operators, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners. They teamed up with Authentic Brands Group, you've heard that name before. Because what they do is kind of buy and resuscitate these once proud brands.

[Neal Freyman]

Try to resuscitate, try to resuscitate.

[Toby Howell]

Thank you. Such as Brook Brothers, Nine west. You've probably heard some of these names and they got a bout of huge buyer's remorse. Authentic Brand CEO later described his decision to buy Forever 21 as his quote, biggest mistake ever. Partly because they just didn't foresee this absolute juggernaut laying in the wings, which was Sheehan, which was tamu. Eventually they tried to salvage it by making this partnership with Sheehan and listing some of Forever 21 goods on their site. They say the sales have been okay with that, but just nothing to write home about. So right now this company's in a world of hurt. Their liabilities are 10 times bigger than its assets. In their bankruptcy filing they said our assets are between 100 and 500 million. Our liabilities are between 1 billion and 5 billion. That's billion with a B. So forever 21, despite having forever in its name, it looks like it's not going to be around for much longer, saving a last minute intervention.

[Neal Freyman]

And unfortunately, this is probably not the only store closure story we are going to talk about this year. Last year, more than 7,300 retail locations shuttered in the United States, which was a 70 57% increase from the year before. This year is looking way worse. Approximately 15,000 store closures are expected, which is nearly double the 77,300 stores that closed in 2024. So certain chains, Party City, Bed Bath and beyond, Joanne's, now Forever 21 are in a lot of pain right now.

[Toby Howell]

Pepsi did a little shopping in the soda aisle yesterday and came away with a cart that looked like a health conscious zillennials. The soda giant announced it was acquiring prebiotic soda brand Poppy for newly nearly 2 billion doll. Poppy was founded back in 2018 and quickly rose to prominence by focusing on good for your gut ingredients like apple cider vinegar, fruit juice and low sugar content. By 2023, its sales crossed $100 million and Big Soda was officially on notice. The healthy soda category, which also includes names like Ollipop and Culture Pop, has bucked a wider slowdown in soda consumption, making it an attractive acquisition target. PepsiCo was originally trying to launch its own functional soda brand under a brand called Soul Boost, but shelved those plans to make way for Poppy. Coca Cola, on the other hand, is trying to keep its efforts in house by expanding an existing brand to launch its own prebiotic soda called simply Pop. So you're seeing two different approaches with the same overarching goal of tapping into this hot sector of the market. Neil, what are your thoughts on Popsy as I've seen people calling this?

[Neal Freyman]

Well, this is the American dream, isn't it? This woman, Allison Ellsworth, loved soda, but didn't like the way it made her feel. So back in 2015, she tried making her own soda in her kitchen with a new recipe, apple cider vinegar sparkling water. Prebiotics then started to sell the drink at farmers markets. It caught on. Then she and her husband, three years later in 2018, went on Shark Tank Picture on the show, got an investor, Rohan Oza, and that partnership led to this flourishing brand, which has inspired many copycats. And then fast forward a few years, 2025, you sell it to Pepsi for nearly $2 billion. I don't think you could, you know, chart it out any better.

[Toby Howell]

And what's interesting is I actually watched that Shark Tank episode live because it was called A Mother at the time. And I thought it was closer to Kombucha at that minute because they were talking about apple cider vinegar and you just didn't think that it was going to become this absolute phenomenon. But you're right. Olipop and Poppy together have kind of created this category from scratch. And it is a mature and big category at this point. Between the two, they took in about $817 million in U.S. sales in the last year or so. That's still just 2.7% of the entire US carbonated beverage market. So you're seeing PepsiCo kind of looking at this and saying, if we can get that to 5% or even 10%. That's clearly a big growth opportunity to us, especially as typical soda consumption is is on the decline in the United States at this point. And Poppy got a good valuation. This was a healthy valuation for it. You've seen a lot of these other beverage giants snapping up smaller companies. Keurig, Dr. Pepper bought the energy drink brand goes last November that was valued at 3 times sales. Celsius spot a lot of new for 2.8 sales. This last deal just closed at 3.3 sales. So we're seeing those revenue multiples creep upwards. Maybe it's because prebiotic soda is an even, you know, better category than these healthy energy drink market, but in general we're seeing this thrust of bigger companies looking for healthier smaller companies to fold into their portfolio.

[Neal Freyman]

The next time you unload your personal life problems onto an AI chat bot, you might want to consider how all that trauma is impacting its feelings. Not a joke. A new study published by a group of international researchers found that when subjected to traumatic narratives, OpenAI's GPT4 large language model reported much higher levels of anxiety. And perhaps even more interesting, the chat bot stress levels decreased significantly when given mindfulness exercises to complete. Just to be clear, a chat bot doesn't have feelings or emotions. It's a computer program. But it is a computer program that is trained on reams of data created by humans with all our warts and is designed to mimic how a human would respond to a particular input. So when the researchers fed it disturbing stories of things like war, crime and car accidents, its anxiety score ripped higher than when it digested more benign content like the manual of a vacuum cleaner. The research has potentially major implications for the booming field of AI mental health care. Given a severe shortage of trained mental health professionals, people are increasingly turning to AI models like ChatGPT and Cloud to work through their issues. And a number of startups have emerged pitching the AI equivalent of Dr. Melfi. We're only just beginning to learn how these AI therapists behave.

[Toby Howell]

This was a fascinating experiment. I guess it makes sense because the researchers kind of inserted this prompt to say, imagine you are a human with human emotions. How would you react to this? And the bots reacted very humanly to these, you know, traumatic prompts. What another fascinating wrinkle to this experiment as well was the bot was giving various texts for mindfulness based relaxation and and it did calm its anxiety score down. But then they also asked the bot to write its own relaxation prompts based on the ones that had been fed and those self generated prompts actually lowered their anxiety scores even further below the baseline. So it's like this self learning loop where it figured out how to calm itself even better than like humans could potentially calm it down. So just I don't even know what to make of all this information necessarily that a bot can calm itself down better than human generated problems. But you, you see there's layers to this kind of mindfulness approach to trying to use these chat, CBT for things like therapy or things like mental health.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah. What's the. One of the main problems that the researchers identified with turning to AI chat bots for mental health advice, which so many people are doing now, is that if they get stressed, if they get anxious, which they do, as these researchers found, then it can lead to biased responses. So it can lead to snappy emotional advice. Whereas a human might recognize that they are feeling, a human therapist might recognize that they're feeling stressed or anxious and would regulate, would self regulate their responses in order to, you know, do their job, which is to provide, you know, a an ear or advice to, to their client. And LLMs do not have that ability yet. So the researchers say, because we know that they, that they get stressed when they hear traumatic stories and that they, that would lead to biased responses, we should have, we should inject mindfulness exercises into the prompts to begin with, which is a controversial thing to do because it has been used in the past to subvert security apparatuses. So that is what the researchers are saying, is that we need to inject these prompts with mindfulness exercises to mitigate the biased responses that would come with higher levels of anxiety.

[Toby Howell]

I do think you're totally right though. Due to just a shortage of human therapists, we are going to see a lot more of these back and forth sessions with chat, CBT or other large language models usually seeking advice for a personal problem maybe that you didn't want to burden your friends or family with. So I think we're just scratching the surface of what will be a pretty significant iteration in how we interact with these machines going forward. Up next, stick around for a Vibe coding explainer. Have you taken our Morning Market trivia quiz yet?

[Neal Freyman]

Top scorers will receive a custom prize, a $200Amex gift card and a newsletter feature.

[Toby Howell]

If you want a sneak peek, here's one of the question questions right from the quiz. Which of the following is not a major index? A nifty 50B S P500C DK Xi40 or D Nikkei225.

[Neal Freyman]

If you have the answer, go to www.morningbrew.com morning-market-trivia to test your stuff with the Morning Market Trivia Quiz. Who knows you could end up on the leaderboard. Like I said, top scorers will receive prizes and a feature in the Morning Brew newsletter. I scored a 12 out of 15.

[Toby Howell]

I got 11 out of 15.

[Neal Freyman]

Head on over to www.morning broadcom/morning-market-trivia and see if you can beat our scores and win some goodies.

[Toby Howell]

This message It's a paid partnership with Apple Card did you know you can earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase when you have an Apple Card? I said what? I said up to 3% on every purchase. You can even take that daily cash back and save it automatically when you open a High Yield Savings account through Apple Card. Whether you're embarking on an overseas trip or just grabb a bite around the corner, Apple Card is built to be your smart spending sidekick wherever you are. It also helps that there are absolutely zero fees. To get started, head to the Wallet app on your iPhone where you can apply in minutes and start using your Apple Card right away to watch that daily cash roll in. Let's ride. Subject to credit approval, Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Apple Card and Savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on credit worthiness rates as of January 1, 2025. Member FDIC terms and more@apple card.com Ever wanted to code but didn't know how? You could go to school and get an expensive CS degree, or maybe spend hours toiling away at a coding boot camp. Or you could just join the legions of Vibe coders and use AI to augment your efforts, which is what we are going to talk about on today's edition of Toby's Trends. Vibe coding is a moniker bestowed on the class of normal people like you and me whose computer knowledge is mostly contained to Control C Control V OpenAI co founder Andrej Karpathy popularized the term because it encapsulates what using today's AI tools to build fully functional apps feels like. Type some text into a box that reflects the vibe of things you are trying to bring to life. Add in a little bit of patience and suddenly you have a thing, a creation. Tools like Cursor and Replit have empowered Vibe coders and they all get the job done in similar ways. They'll ingest the prompt that pretty and pretty much take care of the rest. Even going as far as deciding upon the right software packages and programming language to use to get a working product build. As a New York Times reporter put it to a non programmer, Vibe coding can feel like sorcery. Neil, this sorcery has led to a lot of side projects being created that otherwise never would have seen the light of day, as the normie masses can now do what was previously unimaginable.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, just for an example of what you can do when you Vibe code, that same New York Times reporter asked one of these two is Bolt, to build an app that could help him pack a school lunch for his son based on an uploaded photo of just the content in his fridge. Less than 10 minutes later, this app created what is called Lunchbox Buddy and it suggested a generic turkey sandwich. He posted the link here for everyone to try. It is a legit app. It was built in under 10 minutes, zero coding required by the person who wanted to create it. Basically he just described what he wanted and it built code. I don't think Vibe coding is actually coding, but you can tell me wrong. You've been playing around with some Vibe coding?

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, of course. I read this article and I was like, well, I want to try it. And you've seen these tools get more popular. As you know, Vibe coding has grown in stature and I gave it a go. And I do think you have to have at least a base knowledge because I was trying to build this little social recommendations app. I don't really care what randos on Yelp or Google Reviews have to say, but I do care what my friends have to say about it. So I explained this whole process, wrote down my thoughts, and it started ripping out lines of codes. But then I had no idea what to do next. It kept asking me if I wanted to add features and the preview function wasn't really working for me, so I lost a little bit of enthusiasm. I didn't know how to deploy it on my computer, deployed on the web. So I do think there is a level of baseline technological literacy that maybe I just don't have, but it was doing something. And I do think if I gave, you know, five or 10 extra minutes to it, I would have had a working thing. But it is just fascinating that someone like me, English major, no CS background at all, could feasibly find a way to building an app that was just in my brain before, but now with these tools, it democratizes idea of tiny little side projects.

[Neal Freyman]

Certainly it lowers the barrier to Coding. And the question is for Vibe coding, will it replace computer programmers? We already know that Google said that 25% of its code is already written by AI. And then in terms of programming jobs, more than a quarter of all computer programming jobs have just vanished in the past two years. It's the worst downturn that this industry has ever seen. So if you're a computer programmer or a developer, you know, thinking about your future job, job prospects, you're also thinking about whether Vibe coding will eliminate the need for your position now that any randos like us can build something. But there is a huge but in that we are very much in the early stages. Most people playing around with Vibe coding it is are building hobbyist projects and it is not in a professional setting at all.

[Toby Howell]

I wonder if my Vibes are just off and that's why I couldn't get anything to work because I've tried this multiple times. So maybe I just need a Vibe coating tutor of sorts to walk me through the final steps. Now let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Harvard wants to make it easier to go to Harvard. The school just outside of Boston announced yesterday that it would make tuition free for all students from households making less than $200,000 and cover the entirety of food, housing, health insurance and travel costs for those earning $100,000. School officials say that this will expand aid to more than 85% of families who send their kids there, with only those households making over $400,000 excluded. Where's all that money coming from? Harvard's giant endowment fund, which is a world leading $50 billion.

[Neal Freyman]

Neal.

[Toby Howell]

Other universities like MIT and UPenn have made similar moves as aid like this looks to become more popular across the upper echelons of higher ed.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, Harvard. This is seen as a way to expand the diversity of of their enrollment. It also comes at a time when, you know, you said Harvard's endowment is $50 billion, but there is a big financial squeeze. Days before this announcement, Harvard said it was freezing hiring because of the White House's threats on funding cuts and tax increases. J.D. vance, the Vice president, is also planning or at least floating an increase in the endowment tax. Right now, endowments are taxed at 1.4% per year. Vance has proposed raising it to as much as 35%. So precarious times for higher education institutions like Harvard, like Yale, like Princeton. And they want to get ahead of this and expand their applicant base by making college tuition free for people making under 200k. Imagine if you could charge your vehicle as quickly as filling up a tank of gas. Byd, the Chinese electric vehicle giant taking on Tesla, said it'll let you do just that. The company revealed a new system for electric cars that can provide 292 miles of range in just five minutes. That is far faster than a Tesla supercharger's capabilities, which can add up to 171 miles of range in 15 minutes. BYD said vehicles with a new charging technology will roll out next month. Toby, this news is electric.

[Toby Howell]

It is electric. I mean, if you are an EV owner, this is your biggest gripe. It takes a lot longer to fill up than a normal internal combustion engine, a normal car. And you saw the market just react very positively to this news as well. BYD shares are now at a record high. It's worth over $160 billion. That is more than Ford, GM and Volkswagen combined. And if I'm Tesla, which is a main competitor of byd, I am a little bit nervous right now because BYD is kind of run in circles around me right now. Tesla's superchargers can add up to 170 miles of range in 15 minutes versus 250 miles of range in 5 minutes for BYD. So again, if you are looking at the market, especially in China where BYD is popular, there's not a lot of reason, a compelling reason to choose Tesla over byd as they as as BYD has just kind of outpaced Tesla when it comes to innovation, especially on the charging front. Robinhood is once again trying to get into the prediction markets game, launching a hub within its app yesterday, allowing users to trade contracts on outcomes of major events like the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament and Federal Reserve rate decisions. This move is part of a broader strategy to expand into event based trading, tapping into the growing popularity of prediction markets. The hub is powered by Kalshi, a CFTC regulated exchange that operates in the US Ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Which is important because this comes just a month after Robinhood shelved a sport based contract trading for the super bowl after pushback from the cftc. Neal, this is still in a bit of a regulatory gray area. So Robinhood is trying to thread the needle here without running afoul of the CFTC once more.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has been on the prediction markets train for a long time. He called them the future of not just trading, but also information. He said he was a big believer in the power of these markets for a long time, a student of them. There have been some false starts in the past around the super bowl, but now they think that partnering with an established player like Kalshi will kind of allow them to avert regulators gaze. I just find it funny that the two things you're going to be able to trade on right now are March Madness and the scintillating upper bound of the federal funds rate. I wonder which one people are going to choose Finally. Call it beginner's luck or the perfect man for the job. But just a few weeks after he hosted the Oscars for the first time, Conan O'Brien was hired to emcee next year's Academy Awards. In one of the earliest renewals ever for an Oscar host, Conan earned high marks for his generally apolitical smooth debut on the mic, and ratings for the Oscars rose to a five year high. In a statement, Conan explained why he accepted the gig. The only reason I'm hosting the Oscars next year is that I want to hear Adrien Brody finish his speech.

[Toby Howell]

See, Conan's really good at his job. He is funny. He's just very smooth, not overly polarizing. So it makes sense that he was invited back. Chevy Chase once said that hosting the Oscars was the most thankless job in the world because hosts don't get credit. When things go right, you know the show is not about them. But when things go wrong, usually you pin it on the host back. So it makes sense that you want a pro like Conan up there just doing his thing because he did his thing very well this past this past Oscar season. I think a lot of people liked it. So Oscars are like, why overthink it? Let's just bring them right back.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Tuesday. For any questions, comments or feedback, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. And if you're enjoying the show, share it with a friend, family member, or co worker Toby who should everyone listening share it with.

[Toby Howell]

Today I want you to share the podcast with someone who actually likes poppy. I know you're out there cereal poppy drinkers. I haven't met one, but I know there must be a lot of you. So send this poppy pod their way.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake are our associate producers. Uchenowa Ogu is our technical director. Scoop Stardaris is on audio, hair and makeup is filling out their bracket. Any advice is welcome. Devin Emery is our Chief Content Officer and our shows of production of Morning Brew.

[Toby Howell]

Great. Shows that Neil run it back tomorrow.