
Zuck wants the best in AI & end of blue links?
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Neal Freyman
Visit servicenow.com Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.
Toby Howell
And I'm Toby Howell.
Neal Freyman
Today the smartless guys are launching a company showing that podcaster hubris has no bounds.
Toby Howell
That Zuck is assembling an ultra expensive super intelligence team as Meta desperately tries to avoid falling behind in the AI race. It's Wednesday, June 11th. Let's ride.
Neal Freyman
School is out for the summer, which means it's in internship season. The annual rite of passage for students to learn important skills like email etiquette and how to chit chat your way around an office. But not all internships are created equal. ZipRecruiter crunched the numbers to find the highest paid internships being offered this summer. And at number one on the list is software engineering, where interns can expect to earn between $20 and $29 an hour. That's followed by internships in architecture, financial advising, process engineering, actuarial roles, and data analysis. Which is news to me because instead of having summer internships, I was a camp counselor.
Toby Howell
Hey, at least they are all getting paid. I also think it's interesting that software engineering is still at the top even though those jobs are getting cut from the job market by advances in AI. Maybe this is a lagging indicator in that number will go down, or maybe cheap interns will always be valuable. But yes, Neil, I don't see summer camp counselor on the list. Nor do I see play for summer soccer team to stay in shape for the season. Not a very lucrative summer internship. So pretty clear we were not rolling in the cash during our intern days. And now a word from our sponsor, Domain Money. Neil, heard you did a deep clean of your apartment yesterday.
Neal Freyman
Oh yeah, it was very satisfying Spring cleaning sesh yesterday. Did an edit of the closet, cleaned under the bed, even found some old Brew memorabilia in the process.
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Neal Freyman
Are current clients of Domain Money Advisors llc. Through domain sponsorship of Morning Brew Daily, we receive compensation that included a free plan and thus have an incentive to promote Domain Money Mark Zuckerberg is not.
Toby Howell
Happy he is losing the air race, so he is going full founder mode to try and make up some ground. So according to multiple reports, he is assembling his own personal AI Avengers, recruiting a brain trust of researchers that he is calling his superintelligence group. The vision is to reach artificial General Intelligence, the holy grail of AI development before competitors like Google or OpenAI, then weave it into Meta's vast array of social media and physical products. But in order to beat the competitors, you got to outspend them. And boy, is the AI race expensive. The the Ironman 2 Zuck's Avengers is Alexander Wang, the CEO and founder of Scale AI, who is close to joining the Super Intelligence Group after Metta reportedly acquired a 49% stake in the company that values it at $28 billion. So in some sense that has a cool $15 billion for a single AI leader. But it is also reportedly offering seven to nine figure compensation packages to try and lure top talent. The reason behind the frantic recruitment is Meta is coming off a disappointing model release with their Llama 4 model underwhelming. It also delayed plans to release its most powerful model yet, Behemoth, after it did not sufficiently advance on previous additions. Hence the founder mode invocation for Zuck, who has been very involved in building out the new team, even rearranging Meta's offices so new hires can sit near him. Neil Zuck is getting back in the trenches here.
Neal Freyman
A lot to unpack here. Let's first start with the AI talent wars because maybe we should have done internships in AI development because these people are getting paid so much money. I just want to stress the figure nine figure pay packages. That's at least $100 million. It's almost unfathomable. But Metta feels like it needs to spend that amount of money because it's losing talent to competitors. You hear reports on in the tech world of Metta offering AI talent $2 million per year in offers, but they're still losing them to competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. This is happening across the industry where Metta is losing out on the top AI talent to the companies that it's competing with. So it feels like it needs to pay up. And Zuck is personally undergoing this recruiting mission to offer, you know, ridiculous pay packages to these people to scale AI as Scale AI employees as well to come on board, because this is how important Zuck thinks AI is, or superintelligence is to the company's future.
Toby Howell
And it does seem like Meta has a pretty compelling offer to the people beyond just the money, because he is saying, unlike rivals like OpenAI, who has to rely on fundraising, these massive fundraising rounds to continue to finance their investments in AI, Metta has a cash cow in its advertising business, is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. So they have that cash flow to continue applying resources into their own AI development. Zuck was kind of tangling this idea of a multi gigawatt data center, which only they could afford because they have such a robust business supporting it. So internally, Met is saying, like, why wouldn't you want to come join us? Because we have this leg up on the competition. But then the reason why you might not want to join Metta is that it is behind the AI race. Llama 4 has lagged behind other frontier models, and they had to kind of walk back some of their claims about Behemoth, which was supposed to be, you know, the most powerful model in the world, hasn't even hit the market yet. So that is some of the considerations you have to make. Yes, they have a ton of resources, but right now they are lagging behind the competition.
Neal Freyman
And another piece of intrigue here is this deal with Scale AI. Now, Scale AI is a growing startup that essentially has cut its teeth on cleaning up data so that other tech companies can come in and use that to train their models. This is the currency that AI models require in order to produce results like chat, GPT and cloud for Anthropic. So Metta is making reportedly a 49% stake in Scal AI for $14.8 billion. That is a lot of money. That would be the largest private funding event perhaps ever in the world. So why aren't they just acquiring it? Because they're also bringing in the CEO of Scaly, Alexander Wang. Well perhaps you could look to antitrust regulators because what is the FTC doing right now is trying to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp that Facebook then Facebook purchased many like a decade ago. So Zuckerberg is looking at all of this stuff happen in the court system saying they want us to break off all those acquisitions. Well they're probably not going to let us buy another company because they don't want us to have these other companies, these other subsidiaries to begin with. So doing some creative corporate engineering here by taking a 49% stake saying hey we're not buying it, we're just investing it and taking all of the talent as well. It's something that we've seen other big tech companies do like Google with another startup character. I just kind of aqua hiring all of the talent to come over because they see antitrust regulators bearing down and they just want to avoid all of that. Moving on. Coming into the 2000 and twenties, economists were hopeful this decade would usher in a new roaring 20s a century after the first one five years in it's looking more like the 60s, just with fewer Jesus sandals. In a major report yesterday, the World bank warned that the 2020s were shaping up to be the weakest decade of global economic growth since the 1960s. And this year 2025 would mark the slowest pace of growth in 17 years out of recessions in 2009 and 2020. That's because the World bank slashed its growth projections from January blaming the trade war launched by the United States for diminishing living standards for people across the globe. Global output is forecast to slow 2.3% this year from 2.8% last year.4 percentage points below its earlier projections. World bank chief economist in Dermot Gill said quote. International discord about trade in particular has upended many of the policy certaint that help shrink extreme poverty and expand prosperity after the end of World War II. The country that will be hurt the most by this, the United States. US output is projected to slow to 1.4% this year from 2.8% last year and received the biggest downgrade of any country in the World Bank's report. Toby. So far this year the US has raised tariffs on other countries to their highest level in a century, often through chaotic on again off again announcements. And the World bank is expanding, is expecting it to take a steep toll.
Toby Howell
Yeah, it looks like the theme here is just A loss of confidence. And when it's you don't have confidence in what policies are coming down the pipeline, it's very hard for just an economy to function. And when you have the biggest superpower in the world in the United States, projecting that sort of loss of confidence, that is when you start to see these cracks form in the world economy, hence the downgrade of the World bank here. But you also have to remember that who's going to be hurt the most, obviously United States. But also Gil said that the poorest countries will suffer the most. He said by 2027, the per capita GDP of high income economies will be roughly where it had been expected to be before the COVID 19 pandemic. But developing economies would be worse off with per capita GDP levels 6% lower. So again, the rich are going to stay right around where they were on in the trajectory. That kind of ignores the COVID 19 pandemic. But the lower income countries are going to be in a much worse off place because of all the uncertainty surrounding it.
Neal Freyman
And it's something that the World bank slipped into this report, which is kind of interesting. They effectively supported President Trump's complaint about other countries having higher tariffs on the United States than the tariffs that the United States has on other countries. You have to remember the World bank is this development lender. They have long promoted free trade. They want barriers to trade reduced around the world. They think an economic cooperate cooperation and everyone kind of trading with each other and is the unlock to global prosperity. So they said, you know what, Trump is right, that other countries have a lot of tariffs on the United States in a way that the United States doesn't have on the other countries. So, hey, you guys should bring your tariffs down. It didn't endorse the trade war specifically, but it said everyone should be lowering their tariffs here. President Trump has an actual grievance that the United States is getting tariffs up the wazoo. So everyone needs to lower their barriers and we'll all grow together. Right now, that isn't happening. And that's why it downgraded its economic growth schedule.
Toby Howell
And then maybe the scariest part of this whole report, though, is that this forecast assumes that the reciprocal tariffs that Trump announced on Liberation Day will not go into effect. And so if that is the case, then obviously that report is outdated and that probably you'd have to revise growth numbers even lower. So they're making a rather hopeful assumption here that, you know, the pause will be extended and these tariff rates will come down. If that isn't the case, then who knows what will happen? The situation could deteriorate even further, impacting growth even more.
Neal Freyman
Right. We were, we're right now on day 63 of the tariff pause. Remember that pause is lasting 90 days. We were promised 90 deals in 90 days. We have essentially one framework established with the UK, so that's 89 more deals left. And we have let me do some at 27 days left. So the trade team better get on it.
Toby Howell
As industries grapple with the disruptive effects of AI, perhaps no one is shaken in their boots quite as much as news publishers. That's because more and more people are heading to chat cbt to figure out which new cutting board to buy instead of going to New York Times Wirecutter or skimming Google's AI overviews to find out who won the Tonys, cutting out link clicks to news orgs in the process. As a result, outlets from the HuffPost to Business Insider have seen their organic search traffic fall by over 50% in the past three years. It's caused the whole news industry to rethink their business models, with the CEO of the Atlantic telling staff recently that the publication should assume traffic from Google would slowly drop to zero, a major shakeup of what used to be a clicks based business. It's also led to a rash of layoffs at media companies. Business Insider cut 21% of its workforce last month, citing massive traffic drops. It's also forced news orgs to pivot once more, this time towards pursuing direct relationships with readers through subscriptions, events and newsletters as companies figure out how to survive in a post search era. Neal this is beyond just a algorithmic tweak. It's an entirely new ballgame.
Neal Freyman
The warnings are stark. Nicholas Thompson of the Atlantic said Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine. The Washington Post CEO said, we are moving quickly and urgently to a post search era. So the news business that did rely on organic search traffic from Google, people searching and clicking those blue link are under the assumption now that at least in the next few years Google will be taking those sort of all of that traffic will be drying up because Google is wants to promote its AI overviews. It's even launching an even more comprehensive AI search feature which is called AI Mode, which is essentially a chat bot and there is no room for links there. So once again, news the news business is going to have to pivot. It's having to do that for the past few decades. So nothing new for the news business, which has been, you know, sort of struggling under the weight of constant platform shifts and looking for a new distribution model.
Toby Howell
Yeah, I mean, first the Internet totally decimated print publications. Then social media took over and started to funnel traffic towards sites. But then news organism or social media sites pivoted away from giving priority to news. Search seemed to be like this last bastion of traffic over the past decade, despite some algorithmic tweaks here and there. But now AI is rewiring again how the Internet is used altogether. So yeah, the news orgs can just not catch a break right now. Google does think that they are still going to give a life to news organizations. They're trying to say that they are committed to sending traffic to these web pages and that people who do click on links after opening AI overviews end up spending more time on those pages. So Google's trying to have its cake and eat it too, in some sense still cater to, you know, businesses that rely on link clicking, but also trying to say that, hey, we are an AI forward company. So building the plane, whatever metaphor you want to use, they're building the plane while landing it. They're eating, having their cake and eating it too, basically trying to do two things at the same time. Who knows how successful will be or what carnage will be left in their.
Neal Freyman
Wake, but they have no incentive to. I mean, their whole game plan is to keep people on Google properties as long as possible. And the data shows that it's working. According to Bright Edge, impressions on Google were up nearly 50% since AI overviews launched. Because if you Google how long do I need to bake salmon in the oven? And you don't have to click on a link to get there. And Google just tells you that's 14 minutes and 375. Yeah, I just did this last night. You're not going to go anywhere. You don't need to go to any of those lifestyle blogs. You don't need to go to Wirecutter or Washington Post lifestyle section or wherever you would go typically for that. Google wants to keep you there. So it can say that it wants to send traffic to other publishers that really were the lifeblood of Google search for so long. It really has no reason to want to do that.
Toby Howell
Still you need people to click links though, because in order for them to attract those ad dollars and for people to spend on Google Ads, you need to incentivize people to click. So again, it still needs to support that business and it still needs to incentivize some clicking. It's just how the user behavior is going to change now. That that AI overview is popping up above most search results. Up next, we're going to talk about another podcast. If you're working on building out your portfolio, check out public.com public is the investing platform for folks ready to take investing seriously.
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Account in minutes or less and earn up to $10,000 when you transfer your old investment portfolio. Get started at public.com/morning brew that's public.com Morning Brew paid for by Public Investing Full disclosures in Podcast Description this message is a paid partnership with Apple Card I'm a person who really appreciates simplicity, and when it comes to credit card rewards, the simpler the better. That's one of the many reasons I have an Apple Card. The rewards are super straightforward. I earn up to 3% daily cash back on my everyday purchases. There are no points to calculate, no limits or deadlines. Plus it's super easy to access my card and make payments from the Wallet app of my iPhone. If that sounds like the kind of simplicity you want in a credit card, apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Brands terms and more at apple card.com Will Arnett, Jason.
Neal Freyman
Bateman and Sean Hayes are comedic actors who host the popular Smart List podcast, an interview show that aims to humanize other celebrities and make you laugh along the way. So naturally, they're starting a phone company. Yesterday, the Smartless guys announced Smartless Mobile, a wireless provider that aims to offer cheaper plans than leading players Verizon, AT&T and T Mobile who convince you to buy pricey unlimited data plans even though you don't really need all that data. Smartlist Mobile said its plans will range from between 15 to $30 and offer 30 gigabytes of high speed data. Will Arnett said his company could cut your phone bill in half. Wait a sec, what is going on here? What am I even saying? Will Arnett, job from Arrested Development, is pledging to lower your wireless bill by 50%. Look, celebrities using their massive audience reach to launch products is nothing new. George Clooney made a billion on Casamigos Tequila. Hailey Bieber also just sold her beauty brand for 10 figures. You can list dozens of other examples, but for a comedy podcast, you start a wireless phone company. Seems like we've entered a new era of celebrity entrepreneurship. One that ventures out of the cozy confines of booze and skin care and into the rough and tumble world of telecommunications. Toby, help me make sense of this. Does this make sense?
Toby Howell
It is a little funky, I'm not going to lie. I mean, their train of thought is that, hey, a lot of people listen to smartness on phones. This is a real idea put forth by Jason Bateman saying that, hey, a lot of people listen to smart lists using their iPhones. Let's give them a data provider plan that works for them. Which is very tenuous at best because, I mean, people use phones for all sorts of things. Sports betting, food delivery. You don't see doordash launching a telecom company. You don't see giraffe kings doing the same thing. So that seems like a bit of a stretch, but follow the money here. What did Ryan Reynolds just do? He just sold his stake in mint mobile for $1.3 billion. That was a telecom celebrity tie up. So maybe that's where they got some of their inspiration from. But I think you're right. Just like the weirdness of these comedic guys launching a very mundane product doesn't seem to jive with other sort of celebrity endorsed brands that are more frivolous, like alcohol and beauty products. These are things you buy after you pay all your phone bills, after you buy your grocery bills. They have kind of that era of celebrity attached to them. And this does not have that because it's such a more meat and potatoes sort of product, which is why it feels a little weird for some people.
Neal Freyman
Well, here's how it came about. This. According to Will Arnett, he went with his kid to buy a new phone plan and he got sold an unlimited data plan. He has his friend Paul McAleese, who's the former president of Shot Communications, which is a Canadian telecom giant. So Will Arnett said, hey, did, did I do this right? And then the guy from Shaw Macalis was like, no, you got totally ripped off. And then they started talking and decided to start this cheaper phone plan saying that, you know, 90% of people don't use as much data as they need. So that is the thesis here. And, you know, if you think they're actually going to be running this company? Well, absolutely not. The Shah guy is going to be running the telecom company and they are going to be the spokespeople, the marketing people behind this. But you're right. We'll see whether people have any inclination to follow their favorite podcasters into something that's so interwoven to their daily life, like a phone, rather than something more indulgent like a tequila brand or beauty like Hailey Bieber just showed with her $1 billion sale. And I say good luck to them. But you know, I think more people are a little skeptical for sure. Okay, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Maybe some of those trade restrictions the World bank was worried about are simmering down just a bit. Last night, officials from the US And China who had been meeting in London announced a framework for preserving their trade de escalation truce worked out last month and will now take it to the two countries leaders, Trump and Xi, for their final sign off. Remember, the US And China had agreed to lower tariffs on each other in May. But then tensions ratcheted back up after each side accused each other of reneging on the pact. The US Slammed China for curbing access to those crucial rare earth minerals, while China complained about the US Withholding chips for its tech companies. So now, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the two largest economies in the world have reached a handshake for a framework which sounds a little Monty Python esque, but I'm sure markets will be a little pleased this morning.
Toby Howell
Yeah. Is this a long term deal? A very stable deal? Maybe not, because it's more something that's been kind of forced together by, motivated by the leverage both sides have over each other. For China, that's rare earth. For the US it's advanced chips. So this wasn't necessarily born of just a sudden seeing of eye to eye, a sudden shared interest and thawing global trade tensions. So it also means that potentially more stops, more starts are coming down the pipeline since the foundation it was built on is a little bit shaky. And you see that because US Stock users are relatively flat in early morning hours. So you would think there'd be a little bit more celebration for a hand handshake to a framework which, you know, yeah, it does sound a little bit made up. But I do think that there is still some ways to go before the market really believes that the tensions have fully simmered down. President Trump's immigration agenda reached new levels as Khabi lame the world's most followed TikTok star was briefly detained by ICE in Las Vegas for overstaying his visa before voluntarily leaving the country without a deportation order. Lame is a Senegalese born Italian citizen who is known for his silent comedic reaction videos, racking up 162 million followers on TikTok in the process. Since his rise, Lame has made cameos in movies and even starred in a TV show called Khabi Is Coming to America. He also attended the Met Gala earlier this year. But Neil, this incident, paired with the continued protests in L A, will bring even more attention to the larger immigration crackdown being carried out by the current administration.
Neal Freyman
Absolutely. And we'll see what happens to his business empire because he really has created one by just not talking at all. His his properties are just through endorsement deals. He grows $16.5 million in 2023. That's from partnerships with Google, State Farm and Pepsi. Has a partnership with the clothing brand Hugo Boss. He was at the Met Gala, so he is a big influential player. And he told Business Insider a few years ago that literally all of his deals happen in the United States. He doesn't have any sort of business going on in Italy, but now it looks like he won't be able to come to the United States through these immigration crackdowns. So we'll see what happens to this. Apparently still posting he's in Brazil and so you can't keep him off off social media. You can keep them off the United States, but you can't keep them off Tik Tok. Whole Foods is looking more like partial foods after a cyber attack on its main supplier has left shelves empty in some stores. Last week, United Natural Foods, a Providence based distributor to Whole Foods, said it shut down its IT systems and pulled back on shipping after finding that hackers had infiltrated its network. That shipment halt has led to customers finding shelves empty of white bread, yogurt and ice cream, at least at one Whole Foods in Manhattan Uni said it plans to bring its systems back online by June 15th, four days from now. But it's another concerning sign of how a cyber attack can majorly disrupt carefully calibrated supply chains.
Toby Howell
Yeah, it really is. You have customers and employees posting these pictures of literally barren freezers, which has also led to we started the show talking about spring cleaning. It's led to a lot of spring cleaning at Whole Foods because they say usually our freezers are completely filled with food. They never get a chance to actually clean them. So they've been using this opportunity to deep clean their freezers. Again. That is a Very small cherry on top of what is a very bad situation. You do not want empty freezers when you are Whole Foods. And yeah, a lot of analysts are semi doubting the timing of this disclosure because if you go back to UNFI stock chart, you start to see some kind of unexplained drops, maybe letting people say that someone knew about this cyber attack before it actually happened. So some analysts were questioning executives about that. So maybe an investigation is coming. But right now, Whole Foods just wants to have their food back right now because it's not good to have these empty freezers and shelves. Starbucks wants you to drop the s' mores Frappuccino to get more swole. The coffee chain is rolling out a protein cold foam test as it tries to boost falling foot traffic to its stores. Protein is the macronutrient of the moment right now with social media awash in content promoting its beneficial effects. But CEO Brian Nichols said the protein idea didn't come from scrolling TikTok. I was watching people coming to our stores and in some cases they pull their own protein powder out of their bag or in other cases they have a protein drink like fairlife and they pour that into their drink. Neal this particular trial features a sugar free vanilla latte topped with banana cold foam. But we'll also let customers add it to any cold foam flavor to get 15 grams of protein in your morning drink. Is this the right trend to be hitching their wagon to as it tries to remake its menu?
Neal Freyman
It's been working for Dutch Bros. Which is the fast growing rival of Starbucks. They have protein drinks that are very popular. So Starbucks is trying to take a page out of their book and maybe repositioning itself as more of a health and wellness brand. You know, I have no idea whether it's going to work. One thing I do think will work is another initiative launched by Nickels that Starbucks is maybe going to start baking its pastries in store. Honestly, nothing looks more sad than the pastry selection at Starbucks. I mean, it looks fake. It looks, you know, in real life, generated stuff. So if they can start making those in house, I think that would work well for them. We'll see whether this protein push is, you know, also smart for Starbucks, which is, you know, maybe branded itself more as more of an indulgent drink rather than something that you go into and, you know, you feel good about yourself afterwards. But maybe that's the key to a turnaround. Okay, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday. I appreciate all your guesses about the two states I haven't visited yet. No one got them both together, but they are. Drumroll please. Toby. Kansas and Alaska. Yeah, hard to knock them both out in one trip, so I'm probably not going to do that. I think the same Kansas for the end because that is kind of ironically funny. Anyway, if you have thoughts on today's episode, send an email with questions, comments or feedback to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. Or you can also give me a reason to go to Kansas. That would be very helpful. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair Makeup is looking for a summer intern. Applications are now open. David Emery is our president and our show a production of Boarding Brew.
Toby Howell
Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.
Morning Brew Daily: Detailed Summary
Episode Title: Meta Recruits AI Superteam & Google’s AI is Killing News Sites
Release Date: June 11, 2025
Hosts: Neal Freyman & Toby Howell
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, is intensifying efforts to keep up in the competitive AI landscape by forming an elite team of AI researchers, dubbed the "superintelligence group." This strategic move aims to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) ahead of rivals like Google and OpenAI, integrating these advancements into Meta's extensive suite of social and physical products.
High Compensation Packages: Meta is reportedly offering seven to nine-figure compensation packages to attract top AI talent. Neal Freyman emphasizes, “These figures are at least $100 million… Meta feels like it needs to spend that amount of money because it's losing talent to competitors” (04:43).
Strategic Acquisitions: Meta has acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI, valuing the company at $28 billion. This deal includes bringing in Alexander Wang, CEO and founder of Scale AI, to strengthen Meta's AI capabilities. Neal notes, “Scale AI is a growing startup that… is the currency that AI models require” (06:50).
Internal Reorganization: Zuckerberg is personally involved in the recruitment drive, even rearranging Meta's offices to accommodate new hires. Toby Howell remarks, “Neil Zuck is getting back in the trenches here” (04:43).
Google's transition from a traditional search engine to an "answer engine" powered by AI is significantly impacting news publishers. The introduction of AI overviews is reducing organic search traffic to news outlets, compelling them to rethink their business models.
Decline in Organic Traffic: News organizations like HuffPost and Business Insider have experienced over a 50% drop in organic search traffic over the past three years. Neal highlights, “The news business that did rely on organic search traffic from Google… is under the assumption now that… traffic will be drying up” (13:38).
Shift to Subscription Models: In response, news outlets are pivoting towards subscriptions, events, and newsletters to maintain revenue streams. Toby Howell explains, “It's forcing news orgs to pivot once more… figuring out how to survive in a post-search era” (12:28).
Google's Dual Strategy: While Google claims to support news publishers by still directing some traffic to their sites, Neal points out the conflicting incentives, “Google can say that they are an AI-forward company… but really has no reason to want to do that” (15:40).
The World Bank has issued a sobering report forecasting the 2020s as the weakest decade for global economic growth since the 1960s. Key factors include escalating trade wars and diminishing living standards globally.
Reduced Growth Projections: Global output is expected to slow to 2.3% in 2025 from 2.8% the previous year, a significant downward revision (07:07).
Impact of US-China Trade Tensions: The report cites the US's imposition of high tariffs and China's restrictive trade practices as major contributors. Neal observes, “The World Bank effectively supported President Trump's complaint… everyone should be lowering their tariffs here” (10:41).
Disproportionate Effects on Developing Economies: Developing nations are projected to experience more severe impacts, with per capita GDP levels 6% lower by 2027, compared to high-income economies which remain relatively stable (09:42).
Comedic actors Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, hosts of the "Smartless" podcast, have ventured into the telecommunications sector by launching Smartless Mobile. Aimed at offering more affordable plans compared to major carriers like Verizon and AT&T, their service ranges from $15 to $30 for 30GB of high-speed data.
Market Positioning: Will Arnett claims, “Our company could cut your phone bill in half” (18:27). However, Toby Howell expresses skepticism, noting the challenge of entering a market dominated by established players and differing from typical celebrity-endorsed brands.
Industry Inspiration: The initiative draws parallels to Ryan Reynolds' success with Mint Mobile, suggesting potential pathways for celebrity-backed telecom ventures (20:57).
Officials from the US and China have announced a framework to de-escalate trade tensions. However, Toby Howell cautions about the stability of this agreement, citing it as a temporary measure built on mutual leverage rather than a long-term solution (22:54).
Khabi Lame, a Senegalese-Italian TikTok star with 162 million followers, was detained by ICE for overstaying his visa before voluntarily leaving the US. This incident highlights the ongoing immigration crackdown and its impact on influential figures (24:26).
A cyber attack on United Natural Foods, Whole Foods’ main supplier, has led to empty shelves in several stores. The disruption emphasizes the vulnerability of supply chains to cyber threats, with Neal noting the irony of “empty freezers” impacting customer experience (25:45).
In an effort to boost declining foot traffic, Starbucks is testing a protein-infused cold foam option. CEO Brian Nichols states that the initiative was inspired by customer behavior rather than social media trends. Neal connects this move to similar strategies by rivals like Dutch Bros. (27:31).
Neal Freyman:
Toby Howell:
In this episode of Morning Brew Daily, Neal Freyman and Toby Howell delve into the high-stakes AI race between Meta and its competitors, the transformative impact of Google's AI on the news industry, and the broader economic challenges forecasted for the decade. Additionally, the hosts explore the unconventional foray of podcast hosts into the mobile industry and cover significant global and business headlines, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of current events shaping the business and technology landscapes.
For more insights and updates, tune into Morning Brew Daily available on all podcast platforms and YouTube.