
Nvidia comes to save the day & Amex perks come at a price
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.
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And I'm Toby Howell.
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Today, intel and Nvidia make like Aang and Zuko, going from enemies to friends.
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Then Amex just raised the annual fee on its platinum card. Again, nothing like spending money so you can spend more Money. It's Friday, September 19th. Let's ride.
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Good morning and Happy Friday. You know, I'd like to think I had a productive week, hosted five podcasts, onboarding a new colleague, did my laundry. But then I look at someone like Killian Jornet and think, you know, some guys just have that extra gear. Jornet has begun one of the most extraordinary athletic feats we've seen in years, attempting to summit the more than 60 mountains in the United States above 14,000ft, known as the 14ers. But to make things more difficult for himself, because of course he is, he's going to reach all these peaks which span Colorado, California and Washington by foot or by bicycle. Toby, who wakes up one day and thinks, yep, going to climb all the 14ers and just walk or bike them.
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Killian Jordan does, because this dude is insane. He once reached the summit of Mount Everest twice in a single week without using any extra oxygen. He's a four time winner of the biggest trail run trail race in this community. It's the super bowl of trail running, 106 mile ultramarathon. But I also think that it's funny that he is so nervous about the biking aspect of this because he's a runner, he's a mountain mountaineer. He doesn't really like spending time on a bike. So his greatest fear is potentially, you know, getting hit by a car while doing these bikes in between the various mountain peaks. He also said that he attempted a similar challenge in a different mountain range and figured out that his nutrition wasn't really up to par. This time around, he's consuming 8,600 calories a day, which somehow doesn't feel like enough given all the activity that he's doing.
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If someone were writing a book about the chip industry in 2025, it'd be called From Bitter Rivals to Business Partners, the Nvidia and Intel Story. And the first chapter would begin yesterday when Nvidia agreed to invest $5 billion in Intel, a roughly 4% stake in the company to co develop chips for PCs and data centers. It's another surprise victory for fallen icon intel, which is on the comeback leg of its Kenny Powers journey. Nvidia and intel teaming up is like if the Yankees and the Mets drop bad blood in the subway series if California had functional subways. The two chip makers are separated by a two mile stretch of freeway in Santa Clara, but for decades the rivalry was dominated by Intel. Intel gave Silicon Valley its name, and as recently as 2022, intel did twice as much annual revenue as Nvidia. Then came ChatGPT and the AI data center revolution. And how the tables have turned. Suddenly, Nvidia's GPUs that had previously been used for video games were were hotter than the boo boos, and intel had no response. Next year, Nvidia will do more sales per quarter than intel sees in a year, and Nvidia is worth over $4 trillion compared to Intel's $143 billion. But that's a lot higher than the day before for intel, whose stock popped 22% after Nvidia's vote of confidence.
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This has actually been a long time coming. Apparently the White House approached Nvidia nine months ago and said, hey, we want you to get involved with Intel a little bit. Right now, the US sees Intel as still a very strategic asset in this chip war that it's waging against China. They need someone to be able to fabricate chips here. And so they think by getting Nvidia, who is the kingmaker now in this industry, involved, it's going to increase Intel's chances. It also is a great deal for intel or for Nvidia, because they are not locking themselves into having their chips made by intel, which would not necessarily be good because, again, TSMC is still kind of the best in the world out there. Intel is still lagging behind, but what they do get is access to PC chips, which is just another way for Nvidia to kind of expand its kind of share in this market. Right now they focus on GPUs, which are really good at crunching the numbers for training these large language models, but they're not so good at PC chips. So not only are they not locking themselves into an exclusive deal with intel by any means, they are getting access to a new market as well.
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And it's curious that the US Government would be kind of brokering this deal, going to Nvidia and saying, we want you to invest in Intel. You know, that doesn't seem. That is not typical for the US Government to play that particular role. But it has gone far beyond that in terms of its involvement with Intel. Just a few months ago, it took a 10% stake in intel worth about $9 billion. It's Intel's largest shareholder right now. And intel stock has risen. So it's been a pretty good investment for the US government. That stake is now worth $14 billion, up from up from $5 billion on paper. So the government is up 50% on its investment in Intel. Obviously, they are also putting the thumb on their scale by talking to Nvidia and saying, hey, let's invest. There is also a big investment from SoftBank from Japan, which invested $2 billion into Intel. And what intel needs right now is capital. They're bleeding cash. They lost $3 billion last quarter. They need to build up their manufacturing operations to compete with amd, which is a domestic chip maker in the United States, and to compete with tsmc, which is an Taiwan. So they've got a lot of, you know, building to do and they need a lot of fresh capital. Seems like, you know, they are getting that. And it's a big win for CEO Lip Bhutan.
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It is just crazy, though. Let's go back to 2022. Intel's revenue was two times that of Nvidia. It just feels like a lifetime ago at this point. Now Nvidia is on pace to make more money per quarter than intel does annually. So it's just been a complete reversal in the fortunes of these two companies that are just so poetically separated by just a small stretch of road. Moving on, American Express has released an upgraded version of its credit card designed for people who use summer as a verb, raising the annual fee on its platinum card from $695 to $895 a year. The card also now comes with $3500 in annual perks, up from about 1500 before. Outside of having a nice metallic clang when you drop it for dinners, Those perks include $400 in dining credits through Resi, $600 in hotel credits, $300 towards Lululemon gear and 200 in Uber rides. Amex thinks its laundry list of incentives justify its chunky annual fee. Then again, the high fee may be a feature, not a bug. All four major credit card issuers, Amex, Chase, Citi and Capital One have refreshed their premium cards this year. The Chase Sapphire Reserve raised its fee to $795 this summer and leapfrogged Amex in the process to steal the title of priciest card. With yesterday's announcements, Amex once more returns to the top of the heap, where it can give off that luxury vibe it is after. However, consumers may be reaching their breaking point soon, despite the advertised 30$500 in sugar being passed their way. Online forums are full of complaints calling the Platinum a coupon book because so many perks are difficult to access or take full advantage of. The value is real, but only if you're organized enough to use it. Neil like many status symbols, maybe it's more the status of actually having the card than the math of breaking even.
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Amex absolutely can't stand it when another card is more expensive than it. Back it go back to 1958. There were all these credit cards out there, and when Amex introduced its first card that year, it set the annual fee at $6, which was $1 more than the competition. You're absolutely right. They were also the first company to introduce airport lounges in 2013. So they want to be seen as the pioneer in this field. They want to be seen as the most exclusive card of all of these EXCL cards, and they're doing that by jacking up the cost of this card to $895 a year.
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And they're also actively trying to court younger spenders. Gen Z And Millennials, they are their fastest growing customer base. 75% of new platinum Gold cards accounts were opened by Millennials or Gen Z. Millennials now account for 30% of spending across Amex's total credit card portfolio. So it is definitely leaning into this idea of it being a status symbol. One aspect of the card that does separate from the rest of the there's some limited edition drops where you can add, you know, designs on top of it. So it's almost becoming an accessory, even more so than actual something that you swipe to, you know, spend money with. So it's just fascinating that their approach is, let's go premium, let's be top of the heap always. Let's court these younger people because they're clearly, you know, the spending base that we want to attract.
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It's true that all of these rewards and cash back and credits and things like that can be, you know, extremely confusing. You mentioned a bunch of these benefits, but just when you break it down, it makes your head spin a little bit because that 600 doll dollar hotel credit is available in two $300 installments over six months period. The $400 dining credit through Resi is also parceled out quarterly. The $200 Uber credit is limited to $15 a month except for December when it comes with an additional $20. Like you need a, you need a notebook, you need an AI to track this all for you. So they are actually, they kind of understand this and they're rolling out a specific app and dashboard on their website to help you track all of these things. I don't know whether people will use it, but they are kind of acknowled how confusing it can get to claim these 30 $500 in rewards. Because when they say something like that, I think, well, there's no way I'm actually getting all of those because that is a full time job.
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I do wonder too if the rationale behind jacking the price up to almost $900 is the fact that so many people have been complaining about their Centurion lounge being overrun. It used to be this very premium place. Now you go in there and it feels like all the exclusive exclusivity is gone. I've never actually been in one, so this is just hearsay of what I'm saying right now. But maybe if they're saying, all right, it doesn't feel as exclusive anymore, let's jack it up and see what that does to these crowded airport lounges. So maybe that's something they've been hearing and are Trying to address with this price hike as well.
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Got to get the riffraff out.
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I know. Moving on. Yesterday, the FTC sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation in a blockbuster lawsuit, accusing the company of engaging in illegal ticket resale tactics. Every part of the ticketing process is under scrutiny, from the exorbitant fees at checkout to the bots that steal your chance to see Lady Gaga at msg. With the agency even accusing companies of tacitly working with scalpers, allowing them to jack up prices in the secondary market. The FTC claims Ticketmaster is triple dipping, which, outside of being a delicious Chili's appetizer combo, means charging fees to brokers on the primary market, fees to brokers on the secondary market, and of course, applying fees to the consumers who ultimately purchase the tickets on the secondary market. The FTC says that this behavior violates both the Better Online Ticket Sales act, aka the Bots act of 2016, which bans bots from bulk buying tickets, and the FTC act, which prohibits deceptive conduct. The complaint says in an internal review by the company showed that just five brokers own 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts that held 246,000 tickets. Each violation of the Bots act can carry a $53,000 fine. And with literally millions of bought resold tickets under the microscope, Ticketmaster theoretically faces hundreds of billion dollars in penalties. Neil, it's hard to think of a more unpleasant process than trying to buy tickets to go see your favorite artists. The Heiress tour and the legions of pissed off swifties it created was a tipping point. But these alleged practices are something I know a lot of you all listening have come into contact with. Now the FTC is taking the company behind the unpleasantness to court over it.
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If there's one thing that red and Blue America can agree on, and it's not much these days, it's that Ticketmaster wields too much power in the live ticketing and should be brought to heel. Last year, the Biden administration's Justice Department sued Live Nation and antitrust action, accusing it of operating a legal monopoly, wants to break up its control of Ticketmaster. Member Live Nation bought Ticketmaster. Then together the two combine up to 78% to 80% of the live ticketing market. And, you know, doesn't matter whether you're the Trump administration or the Biden administration, they're saying that that is too much and it is abusing its power by collecting all of these fees. What they're saying is that the incentives are aligned such that Live, Live Nation or Ticketmaster is going to look the other way when all of these bots come and scalp all these tickets, because when they charge higher prices, then that means higher fees for Live Nation and Ticketmaster. And so that's. They're saying this whole incentive system is out of whack.
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Yeah. And the damning information here is that if just five brokers actually owned 6,000 ticker master accounts, clearly they're running a bot operation there. There's no way that you can possibly manage that many tickets, that many accounts. So that is something that this Bots act is raising penalties for. And it is just like, obviously the penalties are really, really astronomically large if every single one of those accounts came out to over $50,000 in fines and penalties. But it also is one of those things that has a political dimension to it. Of course, Biden went after it because it is just deeply unpopular. Trump is going after it as well. Yet Kid Rock come inside the Oval Office and start railing against ticket resale prices that are up 500%. So this is definitely a consumer protection win that both administrations looked at and said this is something we can go after because absolutely no one loves this process. All right, let's take a quick break and come back with our stock and dog of the week.
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Oh, you mean like that reoccurring nightmare where I show up for the podcast in my underwear?
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It's actually nothing like that at all because I'm talking about exposure to the NASDAQ 100 index using micro index options.
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To Stock of the Week Dog of the Week, the Friday segment where Toby and I pick one stock that read a book before bed and another olds mindlessly on their phone. I won the pre show birdwatching contest, spotted that elusive scarlet tanager, so I get to go first. My stock of the week is cocaine, whose use and production has reached record levels and minted a new drug kingpin in Mexico. Cocaine consumption in the western United states has surged 154% since 2019 and has risen 19% in the east, according to the Wall Street Journal. It's not just the Americans regaining their glow for blow. The most recent World Drug Report from the UN found that cocain is the fastest growing illegal drug market, with the estimated number of users globally growing to 25 million people in 2023, up from 17 million ten years earlier. This trend has been lining the pockets of one particular guy, Nemesio Mencho Oseguera, who runs the Jalisco cartel in Mexico and has been called the most powerful drug trafficker operating in the world after spending decades building his cartel from the ground up. Oseguera's business prospects took an Nvidia level turn when the Trump administration began cracking down on the fentanyl trade, which was dominated by the Sinaloa cartel. Fentanyl use in the US has dropped since mid 2023, denting the fortunes of the Sinaloans and limiting their influence. Meanwhile, Oseguera's Jalisco cartel has seen its star rise thanks to its stranglehold on cocaine distribution in America, which has regained its appetite for the drug as the memory of the crack epidemic of the 80s fades from memory. This guy has a $15 million bounty on his head.
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Yeah, he clearly takes security very seriously as well. He has all his top lieutenants go through their call logs every week and then after that he has them replace all of their phones. So when you're running an operation of this scale, of course security is of the utmost importance. But with this kind of re embracing of cocaine in America and across the world, we have seen prices collapsing as well. They've fallen about 50% in five years. And then purity has been on the rise as well. So you're getting falling prices and higher purity. Of course it's going to regain a foothold in America and around the, around the world, especially as fentanyl kind of is on the downturn given the Trump administration extreme focus on that one particular drug.
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Now there is a lot of cocaine coming from Colombia, through Ecuador, through Mexico into the United States. But we Americans are the highest consumers per capita of cocaine in the world. According to that World drug report in 2025, the two countries that consume the most cocaine per capita are Australia and New Zealand. 3% of people aged 15 to 64 in Australia and New Zealand use cocaine back in 2023, which is double the proportion in the Americas and triple the percentage in Europe.
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It's also hard to just crack down on one single person. It is kind of this super cycle at this point when you just have, have so many different markets and so many different operations pumping this out into the world, it's very hard to just find, you know, El Chapo. Back in the day you could really meaningful dent the cartel kind of ecosystem. Now it's run like a conglomerate across multiple different states and multiple different producers. So definitely a tough battle. If you are, you know, maybe this UN drug report saying like, hey, how do we maybe stop this from happening? It's very hard to do so these days.
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Well, well, getting Oseguara would be helpful. The problem is this dude is held up up in a mountain compound in Mexico. And getting him is not going to be easy. He is guarded by what is known as the special force of the high command. They have rpg, heat seeking shoulder fired rocket launchers capable of piercing a tank. And if you want to go visit him, you get hooded and then you go on a six hour car trip through terrain that is completely blasted with landmines that only are not the locations of which are only known by his inner circle. And then they rotate these phones and every week so you know, this guy is, has got a quite a security operation.
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My dog of the week is Dave and Busters because I fear its business model appears to be busted. It reported falling sales, net income, earnings per share and revenue in the second quarter, pushing its stock down 11% over the last week. At the core of its business issues is one of its core offerings, games. While food and beverage sales at the giant arcade were up, entertainment revenue from its games, sports and merchandise fell 3%, a dangerous sign for an entertainment first destination. New CEO Tarun Lal laid a lot of the blame at the feet of previous management. He says the company had been running too many promotions, confusing customers and hurting profitability. His predecessor also eliminated TV ads, leading to a sharp decline in brand awareness. Lal also called out an overemphasis on appetizers, which cannibalized sales of higher margin entrees. Finally, the last misstep was cutting new arcade games introductions by nearly 80%, which is a vibe killer for customers. Lyle says he's working to right those wrongs, reframing the headwinds not as a business model problem, because who doesn't want decent food while playing a whack a mole, but an operational discipline problem, which is easier to fix. Neil, he's working to create a Dance Dance revolution at a company that has gone through a rough couple of quarters.
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Yeah, it's down. Same store sales are down for 10 straight quarters now. And same store sales declined 3%. And you're like, that's really not good in the last quarter. But then when you look at the previous two quarters before that, it was 9.4% and 8.3%. So a decline of 3%, you're like, that's kind of okay. And it is pretty hilarious how this new CEO has come in and just kind of blasted the previous one for making the dumbest mistakes that a corporate CEO can make. That he said they removed high revenue menu items like, you know, entrees and pushed appetizers, sort of the opposite of what you would expect. So he's talking about this big game and saying, this guy was so bad, I'm going to be so much better. And the thing, I guess the one thing he has going for him is the expectations couldn't be lower. And the fact that you only decline your sales only declined 3% in the quarter is seen as good. Well, you know, there's only up to go from here.
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I love Dave and Buster's, though, so I think it's just a great time. I mean, who doesn't want a little burger and just go sit and play a game? They're trying to invest in a new game, so. Because I can understand how that would make customers kind of meh on the whole experience. If you walk in and you see the same games that you saw, I don't know, 10 years ago. It's not new and it's not exciting. So they're trying to invest in this thing called the human crane experience, which is when you basically say, no more. I know they like hang you from the ceiling and you go down and you grab stuff like you are a human claw. So it's that kind of stuff, though, that you need to get people out because it's just such a competitive entertainment landscape right now.
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All right, before we move on, I do want to give a bonus stock of the week because this is pretty cool. And it's actually about the stock market. Stock market is doing extremely well. So well, in fact, that the S&P 500, the NASDAQ 100, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Russell 2000 index of small cap stocks all closed at record highs in unison yesterday for the first time since 2021.
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That's not fair. Now, you can't pick every single stock as your stock of the week.
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Fine.
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I'll allow it this week.
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All right, let's sprint to the finish this Friday with some final headlines. Yesterday's headlines in public discourse were once again dominated by the shock news that ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel had been suspended by Disney over comments he made about the murder of Charlie Kirk. And top Trump administration officials made one thing clear, they weren't done yet. While in the UK President Trump defended Kimmel's suspension and said that US Broadcasters should maybe get their licenses taken away by the FCC if they were too critical of him, a suggestion that would violate free speech protections under the First Amendment. Meanwhile, FCC chair Brendan Carr, who's played a central role in this saga, told cnbc, quote, we're not done yet, saying Kimmel was appearing to directly mislead the American public about one of the most significant political events we've had in a long time. On Wednesday morning, Carr threatened regulatory action against ABC affiliates who didn't take action on Kimmel. And hours later, Nexstar, which owns about 10% of all ABC affiliates in the country, said it would preempt a show, prompting Disney to pull the plug. For now, Nextar is trying to buy a rival company for $6.2 billion, a deal that needs FCC approval to go ahead. Toby, in addition to these officials, seems like everyone with a social media account weighed in on Kimmel.
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Yeah, you're seeing a lot of other late night hosts as well rallying around Kimmel. Stephen Colbert said, if ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime. They are woefully naive and clearly they've never read the children's book if you give a mouse a Kimmel Jon Stewart introduced his show as the all new government approved Daily show with its patriotically obedient host. Jimmy Fallon Fake laughed overly hard at something his guest said. We're also seeing Hollywood rally around Kimmel. As expected. Damon Lindelof, who is the co creator of Loss and showrunner for other shows like Watchmen, said that he won't work with Disney anymore unless they reinstate Kimmel. Matthew Baloney from Puck News said that other talent is weighing similar options. That is where this can spiral into something much, much larger for Disney. If actors and directors and people from the industry turn their backs on them, that can certainly hurt your standing.
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Disney CEO Bob Iger has a very interesting week ahead of him and a lot of big decisions to make.
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Finally, let's head to the World Stone Skimming Championships in Easdale Island, Scotland for an update on a cheating scandal that has rocked the stone skimming world this year. Several contestants were caught using altered stones instead of naturally formed local ones as required by the rules. Organizers discovered the violation after competitors and spectators noticed unusually perfect stones, leading to some retroactive disqualifications. Kyle Matthews, the event's tossmaster, said the culprits admitted wrongdoing immediately and accepted the decision, while competitors emphasized that the integrity of the competition remained intact and praised how quickly the issue was handled. American Jonathan Jennings powered through the noise to become the first ever US winner after skimming a record 580ft in total. But Neil, I am upset. If we can't entrust throwers to use stones naturally formed within the shale quarries of Easdale island, then why host the WSSC at all? Name and shame those spineless skimmers and their unnatural round stones.
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It's true, there aren't a lot of rules at all. They need to get this stone from this particular island and it cannot measure wider than 3 inches at their widest point. These stones and the way that they measure whether these stones fit into the 3 inches dimension is they take this thing called a metal, a piece of metal called the Ring of Truth and they put it over the stone and I guess they found that some were a little too perfect. There had been doctoring going on. Apparently it was a very polite controversy as far as sports controversies goes, and everyone put their hand up and they all had a great time and an American one. But this thing has become kind of big. There were more than 2200 people at the Stone Skimming Championships, there's not even a car on this allowed on this island. They came from 27 countries and American ones. So this guy flew from somewhere in the United States, somewhere to Scotland, then took a boat over to this particular island so he could skip some rocks or, sorry, I should say skim some rocks. One thing that surprised me about the stone skimming competition, my, my conception of it was that you have to. It was a measure of how many skims you get on the water. But no, it's actually how long your stone skims before it, before it sinks. And the one rule is that just has to skim twice on the water. So I'm going to go practice.
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I know I got to get the shoulder joints warmed up, but I just want to know what spectator was looking at a stone in mid air and goes, you know what, that looks a little round. And then where, where do you find the stone? I guess you have some in your back pocket because once you skim it, it's down at the bottom of the lake. So interesting controversy, but I'm glad it all kind of ended up okay.
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I will say at the Stone Skimming Championships, there's not much to look at besides the stones skimming through the air. So. So, you know, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday. If you have any feedback on today's show, send a note to Morning Brew daily at Morning Bukom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup is climbing 1 14er and that's plenty. Devin Emery is our president and our shows are production of Morning Brew.
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Great show today, Neil. I wish you all all well.
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Episode: Nvidia Throws $5B Lifeline to Intel & Amex Ups Annual Fee to $895
Hosts: Neal Freyman & Toby Howell
Release Date: September 19, 2025
This episode of Morning Brew Daily dives into headline-making business news, focusing on Nvidia’s surprise $5 billion investment in Intel, the implications for the U.S. chip war and global tech, and the escalating annual fees and perks in the premium credit card space, led by the latest moves from American Express. The hosts also unpack the FTC’s lawsuit against Ticketmaster, shifts in global drug markets, business woes at Dave & Busters, a media controversy involving Jimmy Kimmel, and a quirky cheating scandal at the World Stone Skimming Championship. Throughout, Neal and Toby deliver sharp analysis, timely stats, and a dose of their signature witty banter.
[03:21] Nvidia takes a roughly 4% stake in Intel, investing $5 billion for joint chip development in PCs and data centers.
The partnership is framed as a “from enemies to friends” alliance, flipping decades-old Silicon Valley rivalries on their head.
Intel’s dramatic comeback: Once dominating Nvidia (2x the revenue in 2022), it fell behind in the AI boom; now its stock pops 22% thanks to Nvidia’s confidence.
The US government’s hands-on involvement: The Biden administration reportedly brokered the deal, viewing Intel as a “strategic asset” in the tech race with China.
Multiple investments buoy Intel: recent $9B government stake (now up 50%), plus $2B from SoftBank.
Significance: Shows how industrial policy and strategic alliances are shaping the global semiconductor balance, not just pure market competition.
“Nvidia and intel teaming up is like if the Yankees and the Mets dropped bad blood in the subway series, if California had functional subways.” — Neal [03:24]
[06:52] Amex ups its Platinum card annual fee from $695 to a whopping $895—but claims the card now comes with $3,500 in perks, up from $1,500.
Perks include: $400 in dining credits, $600 in hotel credits, $300 Lululemon gear, $200 Uber, and more—though many are tricky to use and “parcelled out” over time.
The arms race in premium cards: Chase Sapphire Reserve had raised its annual fee to $795 earlier in 2025, temporarily becoming the most expensive.
High annual fees are as much about exclusivity and status as real value; forums deride the Platinum as a “coupon book.”
Amex targets Gen Z & Millennials: 75% of new premium accounts in these cohorts, with 30% of card spending among Millennials.
“Amex absolutely can't stand it when another card is more expensive than it… They want to be seen as the most exclusive card of all these EXCL cards, and they're doing that by jacking up the cost…” — Neal [08:42]
“It's almost becoming an accessory, even more so than actually something that you swipe to spend money with.” — Toby [09:16]
[11:27] The FTC hits Ticketmaster/Live Nation with a major lawsuit, accusing the conglomerate of illegal ticket resale practices—like triple-dipping on fees.
Bots dominate: Just 5 brokers controlled 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts holding 246,000 tickets; potential fines could be in the hundreds of billions.
The case has rare bipartisan political support, with both Biden and Trump administrations slamming Ticketmaster for anti-consumer behavior.
“If there's one thing that red and Blue America can agree on … it's that Ticketmaster wields too much power in live ticketing and should be brought to heel.” — Neal [13:06]
[16:58] Cocaine trade is booming: use and production reach record levels in the Americas and globally, with purity up and prices down.
The Jalisco cartel, led by Nemesio ‘Mencho’ Oseguera, capitalizes on the U.S. fentanyl crackdown that dented Sinaloa cartel’s power.
U.S. is now the world’s highest per-capita user, but Australia and New Zealand lead globally at 3% (ages 15-64).
“Cocaine consumption in the Western United States has surged 154% since 2019… the fastest growing illegal drug market.” — Neal [16:58]
[20:57] The arcade chain’s Q2 results slump: sales, net income, EPS, and revenue all fall, with 10 straight quarters of declining same-store sales.
New CEO Tarun Lal blames prior management for excessive promotions, axing new games, and undercutting brand awareness.
Efforts are underway to reinvigorate the appeal, e.g., wacky new “Human Crane” game experiences.
“His predecessor also eliminated TV ads, leading to a sharp decline in brand awareness… They’re trying to invest in a new game, the Human Crane experience.” — Toby [23:04]
[24:06] Disney suspends late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following controversial comments about the murder of Charlie Kirk; Trump administration piles on.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr and Hollywood figures (Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart) respond; threat of regulatory action looms, industry talent signals potential boycotts.
“If ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive…” — (quoting Stephen Colbert) [25:19]
[26:12] At the World Stone Skimming Championship in Scotland, competitors were busted for using “altered” stones—leading to polite but firm disqualifications.
Historic win: American Jonathan Jennings sets new distance record and becomes first US winner.
“If we can't entrust throwers to use stones naturally formed within the shale quarries… then why host the WSSC at all?” — Toby [26:12]
Conversational, witty, fast-paced, and informed. Neal and Toby blend pop culture references with sharp financial insight, making complex industry moves easy and entertaining to grasp.
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