Kraft Heinz Ditches Artificial Dyes & The Rise of the ‘Infinite Workday’

Summary

Morning Brew Daily: Detailed Summary of "Kraft Heinz Ditches Artificial Dyes & The Rise of the ‘Infinite Workday’"

Release Date: June 18, 2025

Hosted by Neal Freyman and Toby Howell, the "Morning Brew Daily" podcast episode titled "Kraft Heinz Ditches Artificial Dyes & The Rise of the ‘Infinite Workday’" delves into significant developments in both the business landscape and workplace dynamics. This summary captures all essential discussions, insights, and conclusions presented during the episode, excluding advertisements and non-content segments.

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1. Sports Update: Florida Panthers Clinch the Stanley Cup

• Neal Freyman opens the episode by congratulating the Florida Panthers on winning the Stanley Cup by defeating the Edmonton Oilers in six games ([01:11]).
• Discussion Points:
  • Dynasty Potential: With this being the second consecutive championship for the Panthers and their third straight appearance in the finals, questions arise about the possibility of a sports dynasty.
  • Canadian Teams' Dry Spell: The loss by the Oilers marks 32 years without a Canadian NHL team winning the Stanley Cup, despite Canada hosting seven teams in the league. Neal remarks, “Southern Florida is the epicenter of the hockey universe” ([01:45]).
  • Sun Belt Dominance: Ten of the past 21 champions have emerged from the Sun Belt, highlighting the region's growing influence in hockey.

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2. The Rise of the 'Infinite Workday'

• Neal introduces a groundbreaking workplace report highlighting a surge in late-night meetings, notably an increase in 8 PM meetings ([03:02]).

• Key Findings from Microsoft’s Work Trend Index Report:

  • Surge in Late Meetings: Meetings post 8 PM have surged by 16% over the past year, driven by globally distributed teams ([03:02]).
  • Continuous Work Flow: By 10 PM, a third of active workers are still monitoring their inboxes, indicating a blurred boundary between work and personal time ([03:02]).
  • Ad Hoc Meetings: 57% of meetings are spontaneous, with 10% being last-minute bookings. Additionally, PowerPoint edits spike by 122% in the final 10 minutes before meetings ([05:26]).
  • Frequent Interruptions: Knowledge workers experience interruptions every 1.75 minutes, totaling approximately 275 disruptions per workday ([06:07]).

• Toby Howell elaborates on the consequences of these findings:

  • Productivity Loss: Half of all meetings occur during peak productivity hours (9-11 AM and 1-3 PM), disrupting deep work ([04:39]).
  • Work-Life Balance: The lack of clear workday boundaries leads to increased stress and a perpetual work cycle ([04:39]).

• Neal highlights broader implications:

  • Global Workforce Challenges: Nearly a third of meetings now span multiple time zones, a 35% increase since 2021, exacerbating the infinite workday phenomenon ([07:01]).

• Potential Solutions and Concerns:

  • AI Integration: Microsoft suggests that artificial intelligence can mitigate some workload by handling low-value tasks. However, Toby cautions about the anxiety surrounding potential job displacement due to AI ([07:50]).
  • Future Outlook: The hosts discuss the precarious balance between increased flexibility and heightened job demands, painting a somewhat bleak future for traditional work-life structures ([07:48]).

Notable Quote:

• Neal Freyman ([05:26]): “This infinite workday starts early, mostly in email, and quickly swells to a focus-sapping flood of messages, meetings, and interruptions.”

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3. Kraft Heinz Phases Out Artificial Dyes

• Toby Howell announces that Kraft Heinz plans to eliminate artificial dyes from all its products by the end of 2027, responding to FDA pressures and consumer demand for healthier options ([07:35]).

• Company Background:

  • Progress So Far: Nearly 90% of Kraft Heinz's U.S. products are already free of artificial dyes. The remaining 10%, including brands like Crystal Light, Kool Aid, Jell-O, and Jet-Puff, pose significant challenges ([08:08]).

• Industry and Market Response:

  • Cost Implications: Natural dyes are approximately ten times more expensive than artificial ones, complicating the reformulation process. Experts caution that substituting vibrant hues, especially greens and blues, with natural alternatives is complex and costly ([09:36]).
  • Consumer Experience: Altering colors can impact the sensory relationship consumers have with products, potentially affecting sales despite no change in taste ([09:36]).

• Strategic Challenges:

  • Legacy Brands Under Pressure: Kraft Heinz has faced a 6.4% sales drop in the last quarter as consumer preferences shift towards healthier options. Removing dyes is part of a broader strategy to revitalize legacy brands like Lunchables ([10:48]).
  • Past Successes and Future Prospects: In 2016, the company successfully removed artificial dyes from Kraft Mac and Cheese, maintaining its yellow color using alternatives like turmeric. However, scaling this across all products remains a formidable task ([10:48]).

• Market Impact:

  • Potential Product Discontinuations: Kraft Heinz may need to discontinue certain products if reformulation proves too challenging or costly, further straining their portfolio during a tumultuous merger phase with Heinz ([11:00]).

Notable Quote:

• Neal Freyman ([09:36]): “Kraft is a massive company, it's the biggest company yet that signaled it would move away from artificial food dyes…”

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4. Changing of the Guard: Evolving News Consumption and Media Platforms

• Neal introduces the "Changing of the Guard" segment, highlighting two major shifts in media consumption ([07:47]).

a. Social Media and Video Platforms Become Top News Sources

• Report Highlights:

  • Primary News Source: For the first time, 54% of Americans receive news from social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Echo, surpassing traditional TV (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) ([11:59]).
  • Creator Economy Influence: The rise of individual creators and influencers has democratized news dissemination, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers.
  • TikTok’s Growth: TikTok is the fastest-growing platform for news consumption, used by 17% globally to stay updated on current events ([13:05]).
  • Trust Issues: Despite their popularity, influencers are often perceived as untrustworthy, with half of misinformation sources attributed to online influencers ([13:05]).

• Toby comments on the implications:

  • Political Impact: Populist politicians leverage these platforms to reach audiences directly, often avoiding rigorous journalism standards, thereby spreading misleading information ([13:05]).
  • Influencer Credibility: High-profile personalities like Joe Rogan significantly influence public opinion, underscoring the shift towards personality-based news ([13:05]).

Notable Quote:

• Toby Howell ([13:05]): “Populist politicians around the world are increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favor of friendly partisan media personalities and influencers who rarely ask difficult questions.”

b. Streaming Services Overtake Cable and Broadcast TV

• Neal discusses the first-ever month where Americans watched more TV via streaming than through cable and broadcast, according to Nielsen data for May ([14:09]).

• Driving Factors:

  • Boomers' Shift: Individuals over 65 have significantly increased their streaming habits, with YouTube viewing times spiking by 106%, matching the viewing times of children under 11 ([14:09]).
  • Ad-Supported Familiarity: Older generations, accustomed to ad-supported television, are gravitating towards free streaming services like Tubi, Roku, and Pluto, as opposed to subscription-based platforms like Netflix ([15:06]).

• Cultural Impact:

  • Nostalgic Content: Classic shows like "Gunsmoke" resurge in popularity on streaming platforms as boomers revisit familiar content, contributing to the shift away from traditional TV ([15:06]).

• Implications for Media Industry:

  • Nielsen's Metrics Adjustment: Streaming's rise is reshaping how viewership metrics are calculated and interpreted, reflecting changing consumer behaviors driven by demographic shifts ([15:06]).

Notable Quote:

• Neal Freyman ([14:09]): “Gunsmoke, which is this western that came out in 1955, went off the air in 1975. It's been making appearances in Nielsen's list of most-watched streaming series, because boomers are just saying, hey, I remember Gunsmoke.”

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5. Roblox’s "Grow a Garden" Sparks an Underground Economy

• Toby Howell reports on the explosive success of "Grow a Garden," a garden simulation game on Roblox, leading to unprecedented platform engagement ([17:11]).

• Key Highlights:

  • Concurrent Players Record: "Grow a Garden" set a new record with 16.5 million concurrent players, surpassing Fortnite’s previous high ([18:32]).
  • Developer Success: The game, allegedly developed in just three days by a 16-year-old, has attracted significant attention and investment from major studios ([19:08]).

• Economic Implications:

  • Real-World Transactions: Players are engaging in real-world financial transactions on platforms like Discord and eBay to expedite in-game progress, fostering an underground economy ([19:55]).

• Platform Impact:

  • Roblox’s Growth: Shares in Roblox surged by 72% following the game's popularity, underscoring the financial potential of viral user-generated content ([18:32]).

• User Experience Enhancements:

  • Gameplay Mechanics: Features like time elapse while offline encourage continuous engagement and reward players upon return, enhancing retention ([19:08]).

Notable Quote:

• Toby Howell ([19:55]): “Because for every person that is willing to wait for their plants to grow, there's another person that wants to pay to speed up the process.”

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6. Amazon’s Strategic Shift Toward AI and Workforce Reduction

• Neal discusses Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s announcement regarding reducing the corporate workforce in favor of AI integration ([20:52]).

• Company Strategy:

  • AI Utilization: Amazon plans to employ generative AI and AI agents to enhance efficiency within its operations, particularly in the fulfillment network ([20:52]).
  • Workforce Reduction Approach: The company intends to achieve workforce reduction through attrition rather than mass layoffs, though the implication of job displacement remains significant ([20:52]).

• Industry Context:

  • Trend Among Tech Giants: Other companies like Shopify and Klarna are also adopting AI to streamline operations, pressuring employees to adapt or face redundancy ([21:39]).

• Market Reaction:

  • Employee Concerns: The announcement has caused apprehension among Amazon’s vast workforce of 1.56 million employees, particularly those in fulfillment roles ([21:39]).
  • Broader Labor Shifts: Amazon’s stance is seen as indicative of a larger trend where AI could replace numerous human jobs across industries ([21:39]).

Notable Quote:

• Neal Freyman ([20:52]): “Amazon is the canary in the coal mine for broader labor shifts.”

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7. TikTok’s Ownership Uncertainty and Regulatory Delays

• Toby Howell updates listeners on TikTok’s precarious status amid ongoing U.S.-China tensions and governmental pressures ([22:32]).

• Regulatory Hurdles:

  • Legislative Mandate: Last year, Congress passed a bipartisan law requiring TikTok to be sold to an American owner or face a ban ([23:17]).
  • Delays and Extensions: President Trump has delayed the ban three times, with the latest extension setting a new deadline of September 16th for the deal to transfer ownership ([22:32]).

• Industry Response:

  • TikTok’s Resilience: Despite regulatory uncertainties, TikTok continues to thrive, engaging in significant marketing efforts and partnerships, indicating operational defiance against the looming ban ([23:17]).

• Future Outlook:

  • Uncertain Resolution: With no clear enforcement in sight and ongoing geopolitical tensions, TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, leaving users and advertisers in limbo ([22:32]).

Notable Quote:

• Neal Freyman ([23:17]): “Everyone is behaving as if this law doesn't exist at this point.”

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8. Economic Indicators: Decline in Retail and Consumer Spending

• Toby Howell reports a significant drop in consumer spending, particularly in restaurants, retail, and automotive sectors ([24:38]).

• Key Data Points:

  • Restaurant and Bar Spending: A 0.9% decline in May marks the steepest drop in over two years, signaling cautious consumer behavior amid economic uncertainties ([24:38]).
  • Overall Retail Sales: May experienced the most substantial retail sales decline since the beginning of the year, with notable decreases in car sales (3.5%) and sales at home and garden centers ([24:38]).

• Economic Analysis:

  • Temporary Factors: Some economists attribute the decline to post-tariff seasonal adjustments and unseasonably wet weather in the eastern U.S., which negatively impacted retail activities ([24:38]).
  • Federal Reserve Implications: These mixed economic signals present a complex landscape for Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who is set to address the central bank's strategy in the forthcoming meeting ([24:38]).

Notable Quote:

• Toby Howell ([24:38]): “It's just rained so much is a drag on retail spending.”

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9. Credit Card Industry Shakeup: Chase's Sapphire Reserve Fee Increase

• Neal and Toby examine the escalating competition between American Express and JPMorgan Chase in the premium credit card market ([25:00]).

• Chase’s Sapphire Reserve Update:

  • Annual Fee Increase: The Sapphire Reserve card now carries a $795 annual fee, a 45% hike from its previous $550 fee ([25:00]).
  • Enhanced Benefits: Despite the hefty fee, the card offers substantial perks, including $2,700 in annual benefits such as:
    • $300 travel credit
    • $500 luxury hotel credit
    • $300 dining credit
    • $300 towards StubHub tickets
    • $120 Lyft ride credit ([25:00]).

• Market Reception:

  • Value Proposition: While the fee jump is significant, the array of benefits may justify the cost for high-spending cardholders committed to maximizing rewards ([26:07]).
  • Industry Trends: This move signals a tightening race in the premium credit card sector, with American Express’s Platinum card potentially facing similar fee hikes ([25:00]).

• Discussion Points:

  • Complexity of Benefits Utilization: Neal highlights the challenge consumers face in navigating and fully leveraging the extensive benefits offered, often requiring professional assistance to maximize value ([26:07]).

Notable Quote:

• Toby Howell ([26:07]): “Those benefits are extremely complex to work through, and there are many people employed professionally to help you through it.”

---

Conclusion

The "Morning Brew Daily" episode effectively navigates through diverse and impactful topics, from significant shifts in workplace dynamics and consumer behavior to strategic corporate decisions and evolving media consumption patterns. Neal Freyman and Toby Howell provide insightful analyses, enriched with pertinent data and nuanced discussions, ensuring listeners are well-informed about the latest business and economic trends shaping the landscape in 2025.

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 a new workplace report found that 8pm meetings are becoming more common. Microsoft Teams and chill anyone?

[Toby Howell]

Then get ready for gray jello because Kraft Heinz is ditching artificial dyes from its food. It's Wednesday, June 18th. Let's ride.

[Neal Freyman]

Good morning and congratulations to the Florida Panthers who hoisted the Stanley cup trophy last night after beating the Edmonton Oilers in six games. Is it time to start bringing up the D word dynasty? This is the Panthers second consecutive championship and the third straight time they played in the final series. Meanwhile. Oh, Canada. The Oilers loss means that no Canadian NHL squad has won the Stanley cup for 32 years running now, despite the country having seven teams in the league. Toby, it doesn't feel right at all, but Southern Florida is the epicenter of the hockey universe.

[Toby Howell]

Petition to rename it the Ice Belt because the Sun Belt is an absolute hockey juggernaut. Ten of the past 21 champs have come from the Sun Belt, proving that a tan and the financial benefits of playing for a team with no state income tax are two of the most essential parts of winning a Stanley Cup. And I am so sorry Canadian fans, to rub it in even more. Teams in Florida have now won four Cups in the last five years. That is as many as the entire country of Canada has produced in the last 37 years. So to all our long suffering Canadian listeners, maybe it's time to trade. Calgary for Clearwater, Montreal for Miami, Ottawa for Orlando to come, enjoy some sun and some winning hockey. And now a word from our sponsor, Amazon Ads. Neil, you ever go on a road trip and see billboards on a highway and think, are these reaching relevant audiences?

[Neal Freyman]

A lot of the times the only thing those are good for is completing certain letters when playing the Alphabet game. I imagine there is a new way to advertise for small and medium businesses that aspire to have every dollar count.

[Toby Howell]

With Amazon streaming TV ads. It's not guesswork. They help you get in front of relevant customers while they're actually watching their.

[Neal Freyman]

Favorite TV shows and not just random audiences. Amazon Ads uses trillions of browsing, shopping and streaming signals so your message shows up where it matters and you don't even have to sell on Amazon to advertise.

[Toby Howell]

You plan, launch and measure your campaigns all in one solution. It's made for marketers who need every dollar to pull its weight.

[Neal Freyman]

Gain the edge with Amazon Ads by going to advertising.Amazon.com/start now that's advertising.Amazon.com/start now picture this. It's 8:00pm on a weeknight. You're logging into Microsoft Teams, coffee in hand, for the first of back to back meetings with your coworkers in Australia, and you're thinking to yourself, am I the only one doing this right now? The answer is no. No, you're not. A massive new report on workplace trends from Microsoft found that people's jobs have blurred into one quote infinite workday where meetings, emails and pings start early in the morning and run continuously late into the night. That 8pm meeting is the perfect example. Microsoft's researchers found that the number of meetings occurring after 8pm surged 16% from the year before in the 12 months ending in February, fueled by geographically distributed workplaces and and by 10pm the meetings may have ended, but almost a third of active workers were monitoring their inboxes for emails. The modern workday for many has no clear start or finish, write the authors of the Work Trend Index special report, which teased out trends from millions of Global Users of Microsoft 365 apps like Teams and Outlook. This infinite workday quote starts early, mostly in email, and quickly swells to a focus sapping flood of messages, meetings and interruptions, they added. Toby this seems to be a downstream consequence of the rise in remote work. On the one hand, it's lent professionals unprepared unprecedented flexibility in how they schedule their time. On the other, it's resulted in job demands that are a constant presence clouding their daily lives. Either way, the 9 to 5 is done and dusted.

[Toby Howell]

I mean, someone call up Dolly parton because the 9 to 5 just isn't a thing anymore. The modern workday no clear start, no clear finish. And part of the reason why work just stretch on infinitely is because you can't really get anything done in the middle of the day because you're constantly being interrupted. Half of all meetings take place between 9 and 11am or 1 in 3pm and that is when research shows we are at our most productive. We have natural productivity spikes because of our body circadian rhythm. So imagine you're sitting down, trying to do some deep work and then, you know, Stacy comes over and says, hey, you want to do a little meeting? Ad Hoc meeting, it just totally messes up your whole flow, which pushes more work later into the evening, pushes more work early into the mornings, because you just need to focus at some point and usually that's on the tail end of the actual workday.

[Neal Freyman]

And funny that you mentioned ad hoc meetings because this is a new feature of the workplace. According to Microsoft, 57% of meetings are spontaneous ad hoc. One in 10 scheduled meetings are booked at the last minute. They also found that PowerPoint edits spiked by 122% in the final 10 minutes before meetings that show that people are scrambling to get their decks ready to present. So many meetings are not planned in advance, more than half are not. And that is another reason why you just constantly get interrupted. You can't get any deep work done. And I'm sure so many people listening to this are about to get interrupted today, later today with someone saying, hey, let's go to a meeting. And then you can point to this report and saying, actually, this is probably not the best idea for us.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, this lack of focus is a huge issue. This is probably the craziest stat from this entire report. But they looked at every time a knowledge worker was interrupted by a ping from an app. So think about an email, a calendar invite, someone messaging you. That happens once every 1.75 minutes. Basically once every 2 minutes, 275 times during the workday. So if you ever feel like your brain, brain is just scrambled and you're like, what did I actually get done today? It's probably because you're being constantly interrupted and we were speaking about this before the show is that when you have a meeting on the calendar, even if someone's not messaging you, it feels like your 30 minutes leading up to that meeting are sacrificed because you're like, I got this meeting coming up, I can't focus, I don't want to start anything. And that just leads to this never ending cycle. If you have multiple meetings and you have maybe a creative job or a job that creates, requires deep work. So man, it is just, it feels like you're navigating chaos because you actually are.

[Neal Freyman]

And I thought this Forbes headline actually summed it up the best flexible work was the promise. The infinite workday is the reality. So many of us who worked remotely during the pandemic thought that it was an unlocked to working, you know, working by our own hours and taking charge of our workday a little bit more. But what we're seeing now is the actual consequence is that your workday just doesn't really stop. And especially we can't stress enough how much a global workforce workforce comes into this because when you're having meetings at 8pm Often it is with colleagues overseas. And because of remote work, companies feel like they can have a distributed workforce with not, you know, not having people come into the office. And nearly a third of meetings now span multiple time zones, which is up 35% since 2021. So that is a major contributor.

[Toby Howell]

And what's the solution to this?

[Neal Freyman]

What do you think Microsoft is saying?

[Toby Howell]

What do you think? What do you think Microsoft is going to say? Obviously they're saying artificial intelligence can help offset some of this work. Step in and take over some of those low value, quote low value admitt administrative tasks and free people up to do work that actually matters. But also you have to remember that has fueled a bunch of anxiety of, you know, taking your job. So on the one hand it's supposed to save you time, but on the other hand it might be coming for your job. So tough you're stuck between a rock and a hard place here. An infinite workday and no job whatsoever. So a little bit of a bleak future there. But you know, such is the timeline that we're living in right now. As the Fourth of July draws near, enjoy the bright yellow mustard and firetruck red ketchup you're putting on your hot dogs. Because come 2027, some of your favorite foods might be rocking a different hue. The snack conglomerate Kraft Heinz announced yesterday that it will phase out artificial dyes from all its products by the end of 2027, following pressure from the FDA. For Kraft Heinz, that's actually not too lofty a target. According to the company, nearly 90% of its U.S. products in terms of sales already don't use artificial dyes. But the remaining 10% are iconic and will take some fiddling. Kraft Heinz brands that sell products that use dyes include Crystal Light, Kool Aid, Jell O and Jet Puff. So as long as you don't go to summer camp, you probably won't see much of a difference. The decision follows calls from HHS Secretary RFK Jr. For the food industry to cut out the potentially harmful dyes from their products. A rallying cry already heeded at the state level by California, Virginia and West Virginia. Kraft Heinz was already considering a major business shakeup after sales dropped 6.4% last quarter as legacy brands like Lunchables increase on fall out of favor with health conscious consumers. So now they have to add find new ways to make Kool Aid red to their to do list.

[Neal Freyman]

Neal, this is a landmark moment in the move away from artificial dyes. Kraft is a massive company, it's the biggest company yet that signaled it would moving away from artificial food dyes be facing pressure from the U.S. government and states that are loading up on these laws. We'll have to see whether other companies follow in their footsteps. My question is, is this going to be easy? Like, can they do this? Well, back in 2016, they did remove artificial dyes from Kraft Mac and Cheese and that still looks as yellow as ever. Maybe they're using turmeric or something. But they did manage that successfully. However, people in the food industry say, like, if it was easy to remove artificial dyes, they already would have done it easy and cheap because natural dyes cost manufacturers about 10 times more than their artificial equivalents and they're not as abundant. You can make these things in a lab super easily. And food experts told Bloomberg they're like, it's not like there are £150 million of beet juice sitting around. So this is going to spark a scramble among companies to figure out a way to do this and still keep their sales at the pace that they've been going. Because it, you know, while it doesn't affect taste at all, it does affect a person's interaction or sensory relationship with their food. And that's a big deal.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah. Tricky. To match these very vibrant hues with natural ingredients, experts point to specifically hues like greens or blues that are difficult to recreate. So. But a lot of those products you mentioned are.

[Neal Freyman]

But you mean blue raspberry is not.

[Toby Howell]

A real naturally occurring substance. It's crazy. So I think that craft too is going to maybe look at that last 10% and say, where can we reformulate? Where does it actually make sense? And then what products should we just ditch because it's not worth it? So you might see some products fall to the wayside and just remove them entirely. But it does come at a rocky time for Kraft Heinz in general. Remember, Kraft and Heinz came together under this Berkshire Hathaway orchestrated merger back in 2015 and just hasn't really gone well since the stock's down more than 60% over the last 10 years. Because the synergies that they hoped would come from joining two big snack brands have not come to fruition. A lot of their legacy brands are under a ton of pressure. Lunchables and Capri sun are just not popular with the kids anymore, especially under this new kind of healthy era in America right now. So it does look like this is one of their issues. And they're making headlines by announcing that they're removing dyes. But they have a lot of, you know, core business issues to figure out.

[Neal Freyman]

And now they have to make Kool Aid with beet juice. I mean, the hits keep going. Okay, now for a new segment we're calling Changing of the Guard, where I'll bring you two milestones that reflect the world we live in today. The first Changing of the Guard for the first time ever, social media and video platforms have become the number one source of news in the United States, taking over traditional TV and news websites for the first time. That's according to a report by the Reuters Institute which found that 54% of Americans currently get news from social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Echo, compared to 50% from TV and 48% from news sites and apps. This mirrors the broader shift toward the creator economy where individuals empowered by social media can be heard and seen by people everywhere without going through those traditional gatekeepers of media distribution such as TV websites and newspapers. A couple of other interesting tidbits TikTok is the fastest growing social and video network for News, used by 17% of people around the world to keep up to date with current events. And X Elon Musk social network has also been a winner with its usage for news stable or increasing across an many markets, especially in the United States. The report said yeah, the rise of.

[Toby Howell]

Social media is nothing new. This has been coming for a long time, but this shift to personality based news might be a little bit newer. We talked a lot about how the last election was the podcast election and you look at this report and you see which personalities were most widely known. Joe Rogan comes up nearly a quarter of the population and this survey talked to 100,000 people had come across some sort of news from Joe Rogan in the previous week. So he is clearly influencing a lot of people and the connection it drew to politics was the report said. It said populist politicians around the world are increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favor of friendly partizan media personalities and influencers who rarely ask difficult questions. So that's the downstream effect, because then you look at what people said were the most, the biggest sources of false or misleading information. They half of them said people, influencers online. So they're saying that we're getting our news from these people, but we also know that they're not trustworthy sources. So just fascinating ripple effects from people shifting away from legacy institutions and more towards these creators and influencers.

[Neal Freyman]

Okay, let's go to the next changing of the guard. This has been a long time coming, but it's finally arrived. Americans watched more TV via streaming than through cable and broadcast in May, the first time that's ever happened over a full month. According to Nielsen. As recently as 2021, almost 2/3 of total TV time directed to cable and broadcast, dwarfing the 26% for streaming. So what caused the gap to close so dramatically in the past four years? It's a population you might not expect. Boomers. According to the New York times, people over 65 have been the fastest growing age group for watching YouTube off a TV set since 2023, with their time spent spiking 106%. And another wild stat, the amount of time boomers are spending watching YouTube on TV is the same as children under 11. And since baby boomers watch much TV more than any other age range, their shift in habits has propelled streaming to finally overtake cable and network.

[Toby Howell]

And it's not like they're watching Netflix or watching Sex in the City. They're actually going to free streaming services like Tubi, Roku, and Pluto. And part of the reason why industry watchers say this is happening is because boomers grew up on ad supported television. Like, that's what, you know, cable used to be. These platforms do the same thing. So they're in very much used to ads, whereas maybe a younger person likes Netflix, where they can just put on their TV show in a binge. And it's caused some really interesting wrinkles in Nielsen's TV viewing habits. Gunsmoke, which is his western that came out in 1955, went off the air in 1975. It's been making appearances in Nielsen's list of most watched streaming series, because boomers are just saying, hey, I remember Gunsmoke. Let's put it on Pluto, let's put it on Tubi, let's put it on Roku. So just a fascinating shift in consumer habits. Really published, really pushed by an audience that you wouldn't expect. Up next, let's talk about the underground economy happening on Roblox. If you're taking your Business Abroad make sure your finances are ready to go global with Wise Business. Wise Business is the account for doing business in other currencies.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

To learn more about how you can use Wise Business to save time, money and stress, visit wise.combusiness that's wise.com/business. You wouldn't put your cash register in one store and your products in another, would you? Toby?

[Toby Howell]

What a diabolical question. No, Neil, those two always belong in the same place.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

This makes it easier than ever to manage your money all in one place. You can conveniently sign up for checking and payments in one seamless process and keep your money moving from sale to spend.

[Neal Freyman]

Make a sale and spend it instantly. It's that simple. Plus, there are no monthly fees or minimums and you can get up to five square debit Mastercards for you and your team.

[Toby Howell]

Head to www.squareup.com debit card to get started. That's www.squareup.com debit Card Block Inc. Is a financial services platform and not an FDIC insured bank. Square Debit card is issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license for MasterCard. Roadblocks shares just hit their highest level since 2021, thanks not to gamers thumbing their controllers, but to green thumbs tending virtual soil. A garden simulation game called Grow a Garden is booming on the platform right now, driving insane amounts of traffic, according to Sherwood News. Grow a Garden set the concurrent player record with 16.5 million people Gardening at once last Friday, surpassing the old mark set by Fortnite. Grow a Garden is one of the many mini games that developers build on roadblocks. The gameplay is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Players plant seeds, sell crops for in game currency called shekels, and reinvest to buy more seeds and raise more animals might not sound all that exciting, but users are paying real world cash to speed up their agricultural ambitions on platforms like Discord and ebay. The game was allegedly developed in just three days by a 16 year old, but has since caught the eyes of bigger developers, with a few studios investing money to expand and market it. Whoever the anonymous teen originally behind the game is, Roblox owes him a lot of Robux. Shares of the company are up 72% since the game first appeared on the platform. Now this is probably not a game that would be on your radar if you're not a 13 year old, but it shows the power of getting your game on the radar of a bunch of 13 year olds.

[Neal Freyman]

This is one of the few if only things that kids are doing these days where I'm like, I get it. Oh, Farm Sim is a classic. But this is Gen Alpha's FarmVille and simulation games that are just running in the background are super popular. I was a big flight simulator guy and I know many other people did these various sims in various industries or sectors I guess you want to call it. So I'm not at all surprised that this particular guarding simulator is so popular. It looks like the game developers did some interesting tricks to kind of supercharge that growth. Things like letting the time elapse on screen continue while you're not playing the game. So I mean, gardening does take, you know, a bit of time. So even digitally. So if you, you know, step away from the screen, it still grows and you can come back and get reward a little bit.

[Toby Howell]

And that's part of the reason why this in game economy has sprouted up as well. Because for every person that is willing to wait for, you know, their plants to grow, there's another person that wants to pay to speed up the process. So there's kind of this underground black market off the platform where people saying like, hey, I got this dragonfly that I raised here. Dragonflies take a lot. They're very rare in the game. You can go and buy them on a discord or on ebay or something like that and receive them via trade in the game itself.

[Neal Freyman]

So, okay, maybe I don't get it.

[Toby Howell]

I know. Well, of course there's always going to be people who are like cheat to speed things up or like pay in game currency to speed things up. So the game is making a lot of money. And yeah, it is just this insane sort of rise. At one point, Grow Garden was accounting for 30% of Roblox's total activity across all games. And Roblox executives were like, we have never seen this. We've seen 20% hit maybe a few times, but 30% is unheard of.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's sprint to the finish for some final headlines. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent shivers up every American worker's spine after he told staff yesterday that his company would reduce its corporate workforce in the coming years because of AI. Amazon, the second largest employer in the United States, said that generative AI and AI agents represented a once in a lifetime technological change that's already transforming its business in ways that can make adding more humans to payroll unnecessary. Amazon said that it doesn't think mass layoffs are in the cards, rather it'll reduce headcount through attrition. But Jassy's announcement is the most significant CEO acknowledgment yet that I will replace human jobs. Given that the sprawling Amazon is seen as a canary in the coal mine for broader labor shifts, Toby I think it may be time to revive your soccer career.

[Toby Howell]

I know Amazon is the canary in the coal mine because 1.56 million full time and part time employees, obviously a lot of those work in the fulfillment network. But Amazon did point to AI being used right now in its internal operations, including its fulfillment network. So. So that's not necessarily a safe arena for employees right now. They want to use AI to speed up the process to make things more efficient, which will eventually lead to workers kind of getting pared away. This is obviously not the first company to talk about using AI to replace workers. I mean, Shopify CEO Toby Luke said that employees will be expected to prove why they cannot get what they want done using AI before you are added headcount. Obviously Klarna has been trying to parrots entire workforce down to using AI. So there looks to be a lot of groundswell of support for this. But Amazon employs so many people, so that's why a lot of people are freaking out a little bit about this. While tensions between the US and China are higher than ever, your daily brain rot delivery vehicle hasn't been caught in the crossfire so far. TikTok is set to get another 90 day lifeline from President Trump. Trump, who plans to delay enforcement of the sale or ban law as a long promised deal to transfer control of the app to American ownership, remains in limbo since Trump signed an order back in January to delay the ban's enforcement by 75 days. A deal almost came to fruition but fell apart at the last minute after Trump announced additional tariffs on China. That prompted another pause set to expire tomorrow. Now it looks like the president will sign another deal to keep Tick Tock alive until at least September 16th. So your scrolls are safe until that.

[Neal Freyman]

Neil, and this is close to a comedy sketch at this point. Congress passed this law in bipartisan fashion last year saying TikTok needs to be sold to an American owner or it's going to be banned. And no one really seems intent on enforcing it. Trump has delayed it now three times, and lawmakers are not exactly pressing him to get a deal done or stop this delay. Everyone just kind of like, well, I guess we're just going to keep delaying this until maybe a deal forms. Maybe it's not. Not. And TikTok is over there kind of just behaving as if this ban doesn't exist. They did a huge event with her marketers in New York last week. They had Hasan Minaj come in. They're in Cannes, you know, pitching to advertisers as well. So everyone is behaving as if this law doesn't exist at this point. Okay, y' all must be coming. Killer home chefs, because no one is eating at restaurants this spring. Yesterday, the Commerce Department reported that spending at restaurants and bars fell in May by the most in more than two years, 0.9% and a sign Americans are keeping a closer watch on their bank account during these uncertain times. Across the economy, retail sales fell by the most since the start of the year. Car sales tanked 3.5% while sales at home and garden centers, not digital ones, and electronics stores also slumped. What does this say about the economy? Fed Chair Jerome Powell should have a lot to say about that later today when the central bank wraps up its closely watched meeting.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, this was not the greatest retail sales report, but some economists did find some bright spots. They were saying that the May numbers were mostly due to temporary drags that came after a lot of people loaded up on tariff front running. And then also, they said, unseasonably wet weather east of the country, which we know so well. It's just rained so much is a drag on retail spending. So sometime there are confounding variables here, outside of tariffs, outside of inflation that affect spending. And one of those is the rain, which just seems like it won't go away. Finally, the credit card wars between American Express and JPMorgan Chase are heating up this summer, with Chase firing the first salvo yesterday pretty much immediately after we talked about it on the show. Yesterday, the bank announced the details behind its sapphire reserve refresh, with the main News being a 45% jump in its annual fee. Dropping a newly designed premium card, now with heavier metal down on a dinner date will soon cost you $795 a year, a big increase from the $550 fee that's been in place since 2020. That's a tough fee to swallow, but Shea said point savvy swipers will get back $2,700 in annual benefits, including a $300 travel credit right off the bat. Other perks that come with the card include a $500 luxury hotel credit, a $300 dining credit, $300 towards tickets purchase on StubHub, and 120 bucks towards Lyft rides. So lots of value, but also one chunky fee.

[Neal Freyman]

Neil, if you're someone who can actually get two worth of benefits from this card, please call me because that is remarkable. There's just a smorgasbord of different benefits that you can claim that that reserve and these other credit card companies push to you. But it is extremely complex to work through it, and there's many people employed professionally to help you through it. This price hike is quite substantial. We were foreshadowing it yesterday. Now all eyes are on Amex right now. The platinum costs $695. Where you think it's going to end up? I mean, it's got to be somewhere between 900 and $1,000 as predicted, because that reserve got a big boost from 500 to 795. These are really expensive cards, and you really need to kind of go through the details to make sure that you're getting your money's worth. Okay, let's wrap it up there. That's all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday. If you have thoughts on today's episode, send an email with questions, comments or or feedback to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milligan is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup is growing a garden. Please do not disturb. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

[Toby Howell]

Great show, Danielle. Let's run it back tomorrow.

[Neal Freyman]

There's something percolating at Morning Brew that we are very excited to share with you all.

[Toby Howell]

Cappuccino machine?

[Neal Freyman]

What? No. The launch of revenue brew on June 17th. We talked about this.

[Toby Howell]

We also talked about the cappuccino machine, but no one ever listens to me.

[Neal Freyman]

And continuing with that proud tradition, we're excited to partner with Outreach for the launch of this new vertical.

[Toby Howell]

Outreach is a single platform supercharging the entire revenue team. Their integrated AI agents have help sales leaders increase productivity make more precise decisions and guide sellers towards activities that generate more pipe.

[Neal Freyman]

And with their help, Revenue Brew will serve up sales, strategy, operations, tech and everything in between. From the CRO's corner office to the SDR trenches. Revenue Brew serves up cross industry insights including everything from CPG secrets to cutting edge SaaS strategies.

[Toby Howell]

And while I'm still waiting for that, a cappuccino machine.

[Neal Freyman]

So not happening.

[Toby Howell]

A man can dream, Neal. But no dreaming necessary here. Go ahead and subscribe at the very real revenue brew.com for a biweekly dose of revenue review. That's revenuebrew. Com.