A (2:35)

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B (2:39)

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B (3:15)

Banning cell phones in schools has been hailed as a magic bullet to improve academic achievement, reduce bullying, and make students feel better about themselves. Turns out the bans are not living up to all of their promises. A new study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research yesterday, the largest of its kind, found that while cell phone bans did dramatically reduce cell phone use in schools as intended, they had close to zero impact on test scores, nor did they increase student attendance or perceptions of online bullying. And in the short term, they were even linked to higher suspension rates. To learn impact of cell phone bans, researchers at Stanford, Duke, Penn in Michigan investigated over 40,000American schools between 2019 and 2026. They then compared demographically similar schools with strict cell phone bans with those that had lighter restrictions. What they found probably gave ammo to both sides of this heated debate. On the anti phone ban side, they'll point to student suspensions increasing by an average of 16% in the first year after strict bans went into place, though that moderated over time. On the pro phone ban side, they'll say that distractions went down and that in the long term, men being went up. Toby, lots of people are curious about the effects of the phone bans. Even in the corporate world, which has begun to test the waters in offices across the world. Early results are not encouraging.

A (4:29)

Yeah, this is a little confusing for people who are proponents or not proponents of phone bans. I think back to the business world though, and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who kind of railed in a shareholder last year about people in meetings who all the time are getting notifications and personal attacks, who are reading emails. He's saying, this has to stop. We need people locked in at work. So companies have been bringing out these phone pouches where you stick your phone in. Hopefully you lock in for the day and then you're a lot more productive. But there's been some research, even in the business world that shows that it may be good for increasing productivity on routine tasks where you can kind of switch your brain off and just go. But it may backfire when it comes to creative work, mainly because people need to feel comfortable to engage in creative work. If they don't have their phone, they're a little bit on edge. It's just something that has become part of their daily rotation. So it's fascinating to how some companies, though, are banning phones just for very practical reasons like user privacy and data privacy. ID Me is a digital identity verification company, and they've had pouches for their support staff for more than three years. And it just comes down to protecting client data. So there are some very practical use cases for phone bans in the workplace.

B (5:41)

The school study was. Was very shocking. I mean, why did suspensions go up 16% in the first year? And the authors don't exactly know why. They just didn't have the data. But they posited that maybe some students were getting into trouble for just violating the bans. They got suspended for bringing phones into class when they should have. And the other hypothesis was that they were getting suspended because they use their phones just for comfort and to diffuse conflict when it arose. So a very shocking data point there, that suspensions went up 16%. And then also, yeah, just to hammer the point home, there was close to zero impact on test scores. Student attendance did not go up. Bullying did not go down. Perceptions of bullying did not go down. So a lot of educators and proponents of phone bans should look at this data and maybe need to reflect on what went wrong here or the path forward. Because also, I just want to stress this is just three years of data. Two thirds of the US States have now passed some sort of phone bans in classrooms. So there's a lot of states doing this now, but the data is. It's still a small sample size because we're just in it for a few

A (6:44)

years now, although I don't think we're going to see this be the last attempt at phone bans. Like you mentioned, states have a lot of laws on the books, but also Teachers anecdotally were thrilled with the change. They're saying over time, it did seem like students were more engaged. We'd go into the lunchroom and people would be talking. It was loud and the good kind of loud. So teachers were obviously a fan of it because they have more engaged students. And then also, you know who is a fan of it is students themselves. 41% of US teens age 13 to 17 supported a ban on cell phones during class. They're very self aware, saying, hey, I probably am not focusing in the way that I should. So that's almost half of teens. Now, obviously there's the other side of the coin, which is half of teens don't support a ban inside schools. But with all of that support and with all of these, you know, teachers being on board, I do think this is not going to be the last time we hear it's.

B (7:34)

It's also great. This company called Yonder. Now Yonder makes these magnetic pouches that you put your phone in and it locks it up for the day and also blocks a signal. They were a company that started back in 2015 selling, selling pouches to mostly comedy clubs. Like when you go to the comedy seller or which I'm a fan of, by the way. Yeah.

A (7:53)

So when you go, nice to put your phone away in a comedy show.

B (7:56)

Right. So it's this whole industry started with comedy shows like Dave Chappelle Comedy Sets in L. A in New York. So they sold $25,000, 25,000 units in their first year, mostly to comedy clubs. And then all of a sudden you talked about companies doing pouches. Schools are doing pouches now. So they sold 10 million pouches in 2024. So this is a business that's absolutely skyrocketed as more companies and more schools and more maybe music festivals as well embrace the phone free life.

A (8:24)

The Met Gala was last night and it was one of the most controversial since Jason Derulo may or may not have fallen down the stairs in 2015. The controversy was largely tied to the presence of Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, who underwrote the glitzy fashion event with a sizable donation totaling around $10 million. With ticket prices running upwards of $100,000 ahead, the Met Gala is no stranger to high net worth individuals. But the presence of the centi billionaires in New York City brought out protesters, including an activist group called Everyone Hates elon who placed 300 bottles of fake urine inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as derisive nicknames on social Media like Amazon Prime Gala, this year's event was a celebration of costume art. With the record $42 million raise going towards funding the Mets Costume Institute, celebs were instructed to adhere to the dress code. Fashion is art, which celebrates the, quote, countless depictions of the dress body throughout history. Some highlights included Olympian Eileen goose look featuring 15,000 glass bubbles that took over 2500 man hours to make. Sarah Paulson wore a dollar bill mask. Not so subtly calling attention blinded by money. And my fiance told me that Kylie Jenner's Schiaparelli couture gown was her personal favorite. Though Kylie's boyfriend Timothee Chalamet skipped the red carpet to attend the Knicks game instead. Now, the Met Gala is always a showcase of weird outfits, but in recent years it's become a place to make political statements to the fact that Bezos and Sanchez were present as co chairs juxtaposed against a backdrop of a New York City increasingly focused on affordability, means this event drew more ire than usual.

B (10:02)

Yeah, we can maybe leave the rating of outfits to other podcasts.

A (10:05)

I have a full list of outfits

B (10:07)

we can maybe get there because I do want to hear your takes. I did like the, I did like bad Bunny dressed as the old guy, but he looks pretty good with that. But no, this really showed you the guts of how nonprofits work, right? Because there's this costume Institute at the Met and they do amazing work being this curators of what what garments look like over history and public exhibitions and how clothing reflects culture and you know, that's a such a public good. But Anna Wintour, who is the former editor in chief chief of Vogue Us and you know, is basically the architect of what the Met Gala is today, has to raise all this money to fund that particular thing. And it looks like most of that comes from very rich people, including Jeff Bezos. And I think for a lot of time maybe we don't realize how nonprofit how they actually sausage gets made. And when Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos walked the red carpet and underwrite this whole thing, it obviously raises a lot of hackles because Bezos, it's not necessarily the most popular person in the United States.

A (11:03)

Yeah, and this is not the first or the last time there's going to be a donor controversy when it comes to the Met Gala. The Koch family has long backed the Met Gala, but they've also been a controversial, you know, family in cultural institution in America. Honestly, the Sacklers who made their money from Purdue Pharma, which produced the painkiller OxyContin. They've donated to the Met Gala. So these are all people that have been protested over time for their monetary donations to this fashion institute. And I mentioned that right now, New York is obviously focused more on affordability than ever. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani did not attend at the Met Gala, which is something a lot of New York City mayors have in the past. One in four New York City residences are struggling with poverty right now. So that juxtaposition was a big theme throughout the entire night.

B (11:51)

And at the end of the day, though, if you went on social media last night, you wouldn't know everyone was just talking about the outfits because this happens every mc. Maybe it was heightened this year because of the Bezos relationship. But yeah, at the end of the day, everyone's just like, oh, what did Heidi Klum wear? What did Bad Bunny wear? What did Beyonce wear? And that's what you're going to see on front pages this morning.

A (12:09)

I liked Emma Chamberlain's look by the way she wore Mo Glar. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but it literally looked like she was a painting. I wasn't a fan of the glam itself, but the actual dress was very, very cool. It looked like the dress was hand painted, so that's one to keep an eye on. I don't know why I'm giving my fashion takes right now, but this is just literally as I was watching the Met gal, what stood out and then when Beyonce came out, everyone stopped in their tracks. Obviously, she's a showstopper. So those are your hot takes from from Toby Howell. When it comes to Met Gala looks, Beyonce look great. Emma Chamberlain looked great.

B (12:41)

Moving on, there's trouble on the Front Range. The growing chorus of Colorado tech entrepreneurs and company leaders are blasting state officials for creating an uncompetitive environment for business. And many of them are leaving. Last month, Colorado's Chamber of Commerce released a widely discussed report describing a mass business exodus from the Mountain State. Between 2019 and 2025, about 98 public companies relocated or moved their operations to other states, causing over 13,600 job losses. They cited the state's growing number of regulations and a high cost of living for driving companies out of town. Essentially, they're worried about Colorado becoming the next California. The corporate outflow marks a dramatic turnaround from just a decade ago, when Colorado was being minted the next Silicon Valley. As the Wall Street Journal reports, During the 2010s, Colorado was creating a new startup every 72 hours. And the stretch spanning Denver to Boulder was dubbed Sil and Mountain. A number of high profile companies set up shop there, including Palantir, which ditched California for Denver in 2020. It looked like Colorado would soon see an avalanche of new tech startups where employees could write software during the week and hit a basin on the weekends. That promise never materialized. Now Palantir is gone, having left for Miami in February, and dozens of others have followed. A sense of desperation is in the air. In response to the Chamber of Commerce report, a group of hundreds of company leaders signed a letter imploring state officials to cut the red tape and make Colorado great for business again. Toby, things in Colorado have gotten a bit rocky.

A (14:07)

Where are they all going? Where are these Colorado companies absconding to? And it looks like Texas has been the big winner. 21 companies have relocated over the past six months, including seven in 2025 alone. California also received 10 companies. North Carolina, six companies. Arizona, six companies as well. A lot of the tech companies complaints specifically were tied to this AI bill that is making its way through. Colorado legislation right now is basically a consumer protection bill for artificial intelligence. The idea was to require developers of high risk AI systems to use reasonable care to protect consumers from any foreseeable risk of algorithmic discrimination. So that was the general thrust of it. But when it comes to a company like Palantir, it would have required them to make available public statements about the specifics of how their systems work. And if you're a company like Palantir, you do not want to show people how you know the juice is squeezed. You do not want to reveal anything about your algorithm. So it had already left the state by then. But that's an example of a company that probably would have left because of this onerous AI bill. And a lot of companies are saying, this is not what we need for rapid technological development in the state. This is just constraining us.

B (15:21)

And actually, it seems like lawmakers are listening because there was a pretty strict version of this bill that had been released previously, but now a new one that is going through the state legislature right now is actually a pared down version. So it seems like they're listening to business leaders now. Many Colorado leaders have pushed back in, saying this is not as dire as the Chamber of Commerce made it out to be. Governor Jared Polis told the Journal that, quote, far more firms are moving to the state than leaving. Colorado is now home to 21 unicorns, which is startups that are valued at more than $1 billion. Moreover, they say that Some of these companies threat to leave very similar to what we see in New York play out where there's maybe a wealth tax floated and they're saying, oh, everyone, all the billionaires are going to move to Florida. Well, something similar is playing out here. Proponents say that, like these companies are threatening to move, but they're not actually moving. Last year, Uber, Uber threatened to leave the state when there was a rideshare safety bill. But they came to an agreement and Uber is still in Colorado. But there still seems to be, you know, a sense that Colorado is becoming very anti business. Chamber of Commerce said that Colorado is the sixth most regulated state in the country. That's not to mention all these cost of living issues. Housing prices have soared over the past few years. Everyone I know moved to Colorado during COVID pushing housing prices higher. So that is something that they have to contend with.

A (16:35)

And they had a really bad ski season. So you can't.

B (16:39)

That.

A (16:39)

That is the biggest thing afflicting to Colorado right now. Although it does look like a snowstorm is incoming. So a little too much, a little too late in terms of snow. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Toby's trends right after this.

B (16:54)

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A (16:57)

Boy, have I ever.

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A (16:59)

Nope.

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What? How am I supposed to pay this on short notice or at all?

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A (18:31)

June 30 terms@ aka mscollegepc there's been a lot of talk about how the frothiness of the current AI moment resembles that of the dot com bubble. Insane valuations with little business substance is how you end up with the modern version of something like Cisco, once the most valuable company in the world but now worthless. But wait a minute. Just looked at its stock chart. Cisco is up 56% in the past year and is now valued higher than its.com peak. What is going on? Let's talk about the resurgence of Cisco and the rest of its 90s era peers on today's edition of Toby's Trends. The market's sudden love for throwback names extends beyond the server racks at Cisco. Surrenews points out that Intel, Dell, Western Digital, SanDisk and Micron are other old timers having standout years. Intel more than doubled its stock price in April. SanDisk is up 300% already in 2026 after being the top performer in the S&P 500 last year, and Micron just had its best month since February 2000. Their LeBron like excellence in middle age is powered by the AI spending boom. Sherwood calls it the rising tide of IT spending, while Jim Cramer went on CNBC and said, you can't build out new tech like AI without old tech like Cisco. Neil there's two ways of looking at this. The optimists might say, wow, what a comeback for these companies left for dead. The pessimists might say we're speedrunning the exact same mistakes of the dot com bubble, but with AI as the macro driver in history is doomed to repeat itself. What say you?

B (20:04)

I say let's talk about BlackBerry and maybe in doing so we can figure out an answer to your question. So BlackBerry is a company you probably haven't thought about in a minute. Remember when everyone was saying bbm? Okay, so we would all go around college, maybe my freshman year being like bbm, bbm. And then we had to try to figure out that keyboard. Anyway, it's very emblematic of a 90s 2000 company that's having a major glow up and somewhat pivoting from or very much pivoting from what it was used to be known for. So BlackBerry stock is up 50% over the past 12 months as nothing to do with phones. It doesn't make phones anymore. No one has a BlackBerry phone, but it has this division, this unit that it bought in 2010 called QNX. And QNX is the software for safety that goes into 275 million cars. According to the Wall Street Journal, Q and X now accounts for about half of BlackBerry's total revenues. When you're thinking about things like adaptive cruise control, blind spot notification, collision warnings, all those beeps that you get in your car when you're driving when something may be dangerous is about to happen, that is all because of Q and X. And Q and X just absolutely kills it. This operating system is so good, one user told Fortune magazine a few years ago that the only way to make this software malfunction is to fire a bullet into the computer running it. So I don't know if it's serendipity, if it's luck, or if it's strategic business calculations that make these older companies so relevant and so valuable in this new age in 2026, but BlackBerry is very good example of that.

A (21:28)

It's definitely all of the three. But I do want to provide one counter narrative that old tech is propping up the market right now. New tech is actually propping up a lot of the current tech. So Big tech reported its earnings. The numbers look great. But Ben Snyder, Goldman Sachs chief US Equity strategist, warned that earnings growth among the group of big tech was given a serious boost by stakes each company holds in private startups. Alphabet and Amazon generated other income totaling $53 billion in Q1. 2026, that accounted for 60% of its income in Q1. But all of that was attributable to other income, which is their stakes in companies like Anthropic and stakes in companies like Open Air. So a lot of like the great earnings cycle that we've been in when it comes to tech was underpinned by the fact that these private companies valuations are just swelling to astronomical proportions. So got a little bit of symmetry going on right here of yes, you need old tech to do the plumbing of all the AI build out right now, but also all that frothiness is concentrated in one or two big private names as well. So maybe it's very old tech, maybe it's very new tech, but someone's underpinning the market right now because valuations are going crazy.

B (22:39)

I think it's IT spending. Yeah. The companies are spending so much on AI infrastructure, and that's benefiting names like intel, which we haven't thought about in many years until recently. But they became a chip fabric plant company, essentially where they're just making chips for companies. And that has been a huge investment that's paid off. Dell used to make PCs, right. But now they are actually a huge server company after buying the tech infrastructure company emc. So basically all of these companies that were in the dot com era bubble collapsed and then they kind of pivoted towards data centers. And data centers are the hottest thing right now. Tech investment as a share of GDP is basically hit record levels. It's up from 4.5% of GDP, which was set in 2000. It's even higher than that now. So all of these companies that were getting a lot of investment in 2000 are getting the same thing in 2026. And yes, you just hope it's not a bubble this time around.

A (23:30)

Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Tensions have flared up again in the Strait of Hormuz. A drone strike started a fire at a critical UAE oil plant. A oil tanker was struck by an Iranian drone. The US Reportedly sank six military speedboats and cruise missiles were fired at US Warships, putting the fragile cease fire between the US And Iran under immense stress, with Trump refusing to confirm or deny if the truce remains in place or not. Meanwhile, the flow of oil remains constricted by an American blockade of Iranian ports and Iran's control of the strait, meaning oil prices remain painfully high. Brent crude rose 6% to end yesterday at $114 a barrel. The highest prices have been since June 2022, though as of this morning, they've moderated a little bit. Neil, this is the first meaningful flare up in the war in weeks and it made investors jittery.

B (24:21)

Yeah, it seems to stem from Project Freedom, which is a Trump administration plan that he announced on Sunday, which is a plan to guide stranded ships out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz via some sort of operation that US Military ships will create a safety bubble for commercial ships that have been stranded so they can get to their markets and deliver natural gas and oil. It looks like Iran is not having any of that. And they fired on these ships that were being, that were transiting the strait. A couple did get through. There were two yesterday and looks like there was one this morning from Maersk. But that is not enough to move oil markets or fill the huge gap in supply that the markets need. So that's why you're seeing oil prices rise to about $115 a barrel. On it looks like ships, shipping owners are not going to make these, this transit. Unless Iran says you can do that. I don't think they're going to say, okay, well, Trump, you launched Project Freedom and you're creating the safety bubble for us. That is not enough for shipping owners. They say there's still a lot of uncertainty. So I guess the bottom line right now is the status quo hasn't changed that much, except there's a little more danger of escalation and military conflict opening back up. But yes, oil prices, gas prices, the supply, the supply chain nightmare that's been traveling across the world will continue until Iran says yes, the strait is open. Health officials are investigating a suspected outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship that killed three people and is believed to have sickened three others. On Sunday, the WHO said that the outbreak was linked to the cruise ship MV Hondius, which was carrying 150 passengers and traveling from Argentina to Cape Verde in the Atlantic, making stops on remote islands and Antarctica. Hands of viruses are carried by rodents and when transmitted to people, they can have often serious health effects. Many people first learned about them when Gene Hackman's wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in New Mexico last year. Which is why these cruise ship cases are perplexing. Hantavirus is usually found in more rural and outdoor environments like the Western U.S. where rodents and humans come into contact, not on the open seas.

A (26:22)

Yeah, not typically associated with cruise ships, but some of the possible explanations are there were rodent droppings on the ship itself or somewhere where the ship has docked. A lot of health officials are confused as to whether human to human contact happened because this is not a virus that does transmit easily between humans. So either everyone kind of came into contact with the same, you know, rodent droppings, or we have a very inexplicable health emergency on our hands. Finally, where are all the entry level jobs for college grads? They're in Birmingham, Alabama, obviously. According to a report published this week by payroll firm adp, Birmingham has the most favorable employment conditions for young people with a college diploma among large metro areas. ADP looked at 53 cities, judging them based on wages, affordability and hiring momentum for young college grads. Birmingham excelled thanks to a big annual wage jump of 16% from last year. Tampa St. Pete came in second because hiring growth was strong, while the San Jose area rose to third because tech salaries pay a lot of money. Biggest followers were Raleigh, who fell from 1st to 4th and 4th Phoenix, who went from 8th to 22nd, Neal. Can't say I considered Birmingham, Alabama post college, but maybe I should have.

B (27:37)

It's not surprising to me, actually. So I was in Birmingham a few years ago. You go to downtown. The place is dominated by uab. So UAB has the massive hospital there. It's the biggest hospital in the country. This is, sorry, University of Alabama, Birmingham. It's the largest employer in Birmingham by far. So if you go there, you're like, this place is a juggernaut for biosciences, health, all of that. So Birmingham, yeah, absolutely crushing it. If you want a job, I would say definitely go to Birmingham. There's lots of other fun stuff to do there. If you do find yourself near Birmingham, go to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, which is this insane museum for motorcycles and race cars. It's one of the coolest places you have been to. And there's a racetrack right there. So a lot to do in Birmingham when you have a job, which you likely will. Weird to see that Raleigh fell off just a little bit. But yeah, the south is just rising and Birmingham is just becoming a powerhouse in the medical sector.

A (28:27)

I'm glad you had the museum in your back pocket because you said lots of fun things in Birmingham. I was going to put you on the spot, but you came through with flying colors. I've never been. So maybe let's have a little field trip down to Birmingham.

B (28:39)

That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Tuesday. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom or DM us on Instagram at me Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our supervising producer. Raymond Liu 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 took the morning off after a busy MET gala last night. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

A (29:06)

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