B (2:32)

And it runs as quiet as a dream. The coolest part is Windmill Preassembles the install kit so it's super fast to get set up. Only takes a few minutes.

C (2:39)

Windmill is offering NBD listeners a special 10% discount on their first order at windmill air.com/mbd that's windmillair.com mbd for 10% off.

B (2:53)

The UAE is pulling a Harry Styles and leaving the ban to go solo. Yesterday, the Emirates announced it was leaving OPEC on May 1, dealing a major blow, perhaps a fatal one, to the group of large oil exporters. In a statement, the UAE said, during our time in the organization, we made significant contributions and even greater sacrifices for the benefit of all. However, the time has come to focus our efforts on what our national interest dictates. And increasingly the UAE's national interest has come at odds with the aims of the wider OPEC membership. Led by Saudi Arabia. The UAE wants to pump more oil and invest more in oil infrastructure. OPEC, on the other hand, wants to keep a lid on oil production to boost prices. To use a sports metaphor, it's very rare for me the UAE feels like it's a freewheeling high potential quarterback stuck in a conservative offensive coordinator scheme for opec. This is really bad news, like existentially bad. For decades the organization has wielded power and influence by orchestrating global oil flows and prices through throughout the world. But the UAE was a key part of that. It is the third biggest oil producer in OPEC, accounting for about 12% of its overall supply. Toby, this wasn't a massive surprise. It was widely known that the UAE was disgruntled in opec. But you can't overlook the timing of this coming when the war in Iran has caused an unprecedented shock in energy supplies.

C (4:11)

I'm going to piggyback on your sports metaphor and say that the conservative offensive coordinator in this metaphor is is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia in the UAE have been beefing over the direction OPEC should go in for nearly a decade. At this point, UAE and Saudi Arabia are two of the only countries that have spare production capacity that they can bring into the market that can affect, you know, global energy flows. The UAE's position is, hey, we have this extra production, we want to bring that onto the market. The Saudi position is that they want to keep oil prices right around $100 a barrel. They align more with Russia in this regard. So they don't want to bring that excess spare capacity online. And that has been, you know, simmering over time. It looks like under the COVID of the Iranian war, now is the time that UAE is going forth and Saying we do want to spread our wings. We want to run that, you know, five out offense and start producing more oil.

B (5:07)

Right. So right now, OPEC quotas recently limited the UAE to 3.2 million barrels of production a day. Well, they have the capacity to produce closer to million barrels a day. So they're part of this, you know, group project where they feel like where they're putting the team on their back and they're being constrained by the rest of the membership. But let's talk about OPEC's influence over time. It was, it threw a lot of weight around in the 70s and 80s back when the United States was maybe a more smaller producer in oil and oil markets. But recently, because of the shale revolution, the United States has become a net oil exporter. It's now one of the largest oil producers and exporters in the world, which has diminished the power and influence of, of opec. So a bunch of countries have actually left OPEC in recent years. Angola quit, Ecuador quit, Qatar quit. But those are just very small minnows, very small players compared to the UAE, 12% of overall supply. Which is why, you know, a lot of energy experts have declared OPEC dead over the past few years and decades. But this could be a fatal blow just because of how much muscle the UAE has.

C (6:12)

Right? And a lot of people have been riding OPEC's obituary for many years now because there has been almost a continual exodus over time. But, but it looks like uae, you know, third biggest could start another flow of countries leaving. Venezuela might be next in line even though the current government under Delsey Rodriguez says, hey, we're committed to the cartel. If the opposition government takes power, it looks like Venezuela would be hot on UAE's heels. Kazakhstan too already has a foot outside the door. So this could be the moment where OPEC does lose some of its sway because the US has brought so much excess capacity online. And we won't even be talking about OPEC as a major player in a decade from now.

B (6:51)

And you can't help but talk about the timing too. This is happening as the war in Iran has completely shaken up global energy markets. And it looks like the UAE decided now was the time to leave OPEC because it wouldn't shake up prices too much because, you know, there's a thing called the Strait of Hormuz that's closed and that's the overriding factor in what oil prices are doing. So the UAE can kind of bow out at this point when everyone else is concerned with what's going on with the Strait of Hormuz and just an update on that. I mean, there is no update. The Strait of Hormuzzi is still closed. Trump has vowed to continue the US Blockade. Meanwhile, oil prices are now continuing to rise up to $115 a barrel, and US gas prices are rising as well. And they just hit their Highest level in four years at 418A gallon.

C (7:33)

Moving on. It's not often that a reporter can press publish on a story and know that it's going to upend trillions of dollars in the global markets. One of those moments happened yesterday when the Wall Street Journal's Berber Gin hit send on his report about Open Air missing key revenue and user targets. Stocks were deep yesterday as fear spread that the company at the center of the AI infrastructure buildout could be doing worse than people thought. Oracle, which has committed $300 billion to help fund OpenAI's data center ambitions, dropped more than 4%. Chip makers like Nvidia, Broadcom and AMD fell a similar amount before paring some losses. The report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that OpenAI missed an internal goal of reaching 1 billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of last year. It also apparently missed its yearly revenue target after Google's Gemini rose in popularity, a trend that's only continued into this year, with Anthropic emerging as the main challenger taking bites out of OpenAI's coding and enterprise business. Again, all of these are internal figures and OpenAI never officially announced them. And the company has pushed back on any rumored shortcomings, saying in a statement that the report is prime clickbait and the company is firing on all cylinders. The but storm clouds are gathering, Neal. This is where the tangled web of circular deals and computing contracts that make up the AI industry really reveal itself.

B (8:54)

I love this quote from Coreweave. So Coreweave is a company that for whom OpenAI is a major customer. It's just one of those in the constellation of circular deals that's going on. So Coreweave did not exactly support OpenAI. They said OpenAI is a terrific partner, but not our only one. Our business is supported by diverse and expanding set of customers like Meta, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Perplexity, Jane street and many others. So if they were looking for support from some of these customers, they did not find it in Corby, which looks like it's hedging its bets. But you can't say that about other companies like Oracle, which is why you saw Oracle stock decline more so than

C (9:34)

the others, I mean, OpenAI strategy has been we are going to buy all the compute possible. We think that compute is the main constraint of the AI revolution. This is the path that we're going down. So they have committed roughly $600 billion going forward. And people were happy to, you know, fund the company. They were happy to, you know, give them debt. Because Chat CBD seemed like this invincible success. It was this unstoppable force that was going to, you know, be on its way to being the most used consumer product of all time. And yet, if that narrative is not true, if it is petering out, that growth is not coming down the pipeline, all of those promises, all that $600 billion and spend can't come to pass. So obviously it's bad news for OpenAI because they're not making as much money as expected, but it's really bad news for everyone else who is in line to fund those big AI buildouts. So that is why you saw one single report kind of ripple out into the global market.

B (10:28)

And there are plenty of folks who came to OpenAI's defense and said this report was making a mountain out of a molehill and was backward looking to 2025. Because OpenAI has done a number of things early in 2026 to maybe supercharge growth. One of those is Codex. Putting to this Codex coding tool. We're seeing Anthropic make so much money from its coding tools. Well, OpenAI is investing a lot more into Codex and it's gotten some pretty good results. And then recently it launched GPT5, which is a new model that has topped a number of industry benchmarks at the same time. Anthropic, yes, it's been on a great run, but it's running into a compute crunch the likes of which OpenAI probably wouldn't run into because it's spending so much money on it. So if you've been on Cloud recently or some of the Claude's various tools, then you probably notice that there have been a couple outages because Anthropic is dealing with a supply shortage. So as much as this report was worrying about OpenAI, the same amount of defenders came to OpenAI's support and said, Look, OpenAI is doing just fine. We're talking about 2025. Things are completely different in 2026. Moving on. Disney once again finds itself under legal assault by the Trump administration. Yesterday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr took the extraordinary step of launching an early review of the company's broadcast TV licenses. One day after President Trump called on Disney owned ABC to fire late night host Jimmy Kimmel. I say extraordinary because this sort of early review almost never happens, the last one coming decades ago against a tiny station. Carr said the action against Disney was an expansion of a probe begun last year into the company's DEI practices. Critics called bs, saying the review is clearly retaliation for what's going on with Jimmy Kimmel. And here's what's going on with Jimmy Kimmel. Last week, the comedy host held a mock White House Correspondent's Dinner speech where he made this joke.

D (12:10)

And of course, our first lady Melania is here. Look at more. So beautiful Mrs. Trump. You have a glow like an expectant widow.

B (12:19)

At the real White House Correspondent center several nights later, a gunman allegedly tried to assassinate Trump. That led to both the first lady and the president on Monday calling on ABC to fire Kimmel with Trump saying his comments went beyond the pale. Later that night on his show, Kimmel defended his joke.

D (12:36)

Obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they're together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence.

B (12:59)

In particular, the FCC is framing its review into Disney as coincidental timing with the Kimmel controversy. Skeptics call it a direct attack on the First Amendment and new CEO Josh

C (13:08)

d' Amaro for Disney calls it a massive headache early on into his tenure. It's a big test of his leadership ship because there has been a previous dust up. What are you supposed to do when Disney also got into a spat with kind of the conservative over a joke that Jimmy Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk's killing that actually put Kimmel on the bench for a little bit. Disney suspended him. Is Josh Diamaro going to do something similar this time around? So far he's done not much of anything. No suspension, no public statement supporting Kimmel. So it's been very interesting how he's going to navigate this tenuous situation. One factor that is different this time around, even though the FCC is kind of wielding its power, the local broadcasters are much quieter this time around because in the previous sets up in September 2025, Nextstar and Sinclair, which are two TV station owners that carry a lot of ABC programming, were pressuring Disney into saying, hey, we're going to take you off the air if you do not retract your statement. That was because they were looking to get a merger across the finish line and they wanted to appear, you know, friendly to the fcc. This time around, the merger is approved. So they're not exerting that pressure, which could be one of the reasons why it's not ratcheted up to quite the same level as September 2025.

B (14:23)

So what does this mean? Early review I was looking into it. So you mentioned that a lot of broadcasters carry ABC programming like Sinclair, but ABC actually owns just a handful of stations itself. These owned and operated stations, there are eight of them in cities like New York and Chicago. And these network ABC need to apply for license renewals every eight years for ABC station licenses. They come up for renewal in between 2028 and 2031. So the fact is that FCC is right now calling on ABC to apply for a new license in early fashion because it's not 2028 yet, which is something that is completely unprecedented. So the FCC says is basically what's going to happen is just a huge legal headache and a distraction for abc. Critics say there's no way that FC would go ahead and revoke these licenses because this would just cause a massive legal first First Amendment dust up. But what it is meant to do is put a lot of pressure on Josh tomorrow, the new CEO, to see how he's going to respond.

C (15:24)

Yeah, Disney would most likely win a court battle, but it would find itself locked into a very long and expensive legal fight. And that's exactly what the federal government wants to threaten here. Even though Disney would win, it would just take a lot of time and money. Let's take a quick break and come back with a story about electric air taxis right after this. Neal, are you obsessed with helping people keep more of what they invest?

B (15:49)

No, but I'm really into sculptures made of little cheeses right now.

C (15:53)

Then you're not cut out to be a financial advisor because that's their job. And Vanguard will help with that.

B (15:58)

Vanguard is slashing fees again, this time for more than 50 of its funds. Low fees give Vanguard skilled bond managers more freedom to maneuver as they pursue outperformance.

C (16:07)

Go see the record for yourself@vanguard.vanguard.com impact that's vanguard.com impact all investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor Neil, are you a square?

B (16:19)

Well, people have called me one since I was a child, so.

C (16:22)

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B (16:33)

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C (16:38)

And right now, listeners can get up to $200 off square hardware when you sign up at square.com go/morning brew that's sq u a r e.com go/morning brew

B (16:53)

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C (17:22)

Learn more and get started at pulley.com brew that's poly.com brew joby aviation is almost ready to offer flights to get you to your flight on time. The electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Company, AKA evtol, completed its first demonstration flight in New York City this week as it looks to bring its unique take on urban air mobility to the masses. A Joby pilot flew between some midtown helipads in JFK Airport, which can take upwards of two hours in a car depending on traffic, but took just 10 minutes in the skies. Now if you're thinking, don't we already have vertical takeoff vehicles that can ferry you from point to point? And the answer is yes, helicopters do exist, but Joby's value prop is one. Their smaller rotors mean a ride is a lot quieter than the thwomp swamp of a helicopter. Plus it's electric, which means zero emissions. The New York flight was a key proof of concept moment for the company as it gears up to launch passenger flights in the second half of this year. Air taxi proponents are hoping that this will be a turning point for the industry, but there will be no traffic skipping rides that will help you make your flight just yet. Joby is still awaiting final FAA approval for commercial passenger service. Neil Eventually Joby wants to bring these flights to people for around the price of an Uber Black. Would you fly in one?

B (18:43)

Well, when I'm sitting in standstill traffic on the Van Wick, then yes, it's probably something I'd consider. Joby is bringing a very compelling pitch to New Yorkers in that it would make a lot of these helicopters go away or be a lot quieter. Noise complaints have absolutely surged in New York City in the past few years. There were just 3,300 calls, noise complaint calls to 3,1 1 in 2019. That grew to 59,000 in 2023. And there are also a lot of safety concerns around helicopters. There's been a few fatal crashes over the past four to five years, including that Siemens executive last year. So I think not a lot of New Yorkers perhaps aren't so satisfied with the status quo, whether it's ways to get to New York city or the 2 hour uber$200 uber it takes to get there or all the noise from all the helicopters. So you know, this is a very small pilot program, no pun intended, for Joby to see whether these electric air taxis can bring a safer, quieter option for people heading to jfk.

C (19:41)

And we cannot emphasize enough how much quieter a Joby air taxi is than a helicopter. The acoustic profile according to a Joby company rep is 100 times lower than a helicopter. While Joby CEO was kind of debuting this new product to the New York City assembled reporters, a helicopter came and hovered over him while he was speaking. No one knew if it was on purpose or not, but obviously you couldn't hear anything he was saying. So it really just drove point, drove home the point that hey, these air taxis are silent as a whisper when you compare it to these giant birds making a lot of noise.

B (20:15)

Yeah, except I mean Joby has a long way to go to bring this air taxi to the masses. It also wants to introduce service not just in New York City, but in Florida and Texas later this year. First of all, these aircraft are small. They can fit four passengers plus a pilot. This is not going to revolutionize transportation compared to just making a new subway subway line or investing in more buses. This is going to be a bespoke service probably for rich people because who's going to pay for an Uber Uber black price level to get from Manhattan to JFK when you can just take the subway?

C (20:48)

I mean, by the way, that Uber black price level is aspirational. It's not going to debut at that price. It's going to come in much higher than that. So $150 dollars is their absolute value prop price point, not necessarily what it's going to cost right out of the gate. So yes, it's going to be costly. It sounds great on the, on the surface. They also have some other ways to make money though. They have tested these Joby air taxis around military bases to get around, around airports itself. So it's not only going to be a passenger faring service, but it was kind of interesting to see it just make its mark on a urban footprint, although it only flew over water because, again, it doesn't have the FAA license as of now. But still kind of cool to see what could be the way that you get to the airport in the future going forward. All right, let's spin to the finish with some final headlines. When you flip open your passport at customs, you might be greeted by a familiar face, and it won't be Francis Scott Key. The State Department announced yesterday that a limited number of new U.S. passports will feature an image of President Trump on the inside front cover. The special edition is set to commemorate America 250 and will be available for anyone who applies for one at the Washington Passport Agency until supplies run out. There seems to be a theme here recently. Neal Trump's face is also coming to the new America the Beautiful National Parks pass. He'll appear on a commemorative 250th anniversary coin. And he's trying to bring his name to the Kennedy center, though that's caught up in litigation. For now, Trump appears to be literally appearing everywhere.

B (22:21)

Yeah, and I just want to emphasize if you don't want Trump's face on your passport, all you have to do is just renew online or go to a passport. Any passport agency outside of Washington, D.C. this is only going to be available about 30,000 of them at the Washington Passport Agency. Many people were quick to point out that there are almost no examples of pictures of sitting leaders appearing on passports, not even in North Korea. Kim Jong Un is not on the North Korean passport. There actually are some presidents featured on US Passports, and those are the four on Mount Rushmore, which is George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

C (23:00)

I thought, what a trivia. Quiz me there for a second.

B (23:02)

Well, honestly, I was thinking about that was like, could I name the four presidents on Mount Rushmore?

C (23:05)

You probably could probably. And you just did.

B (23:07)

All right, moving on, the good vibes are back at Pike's Place. Starbucks showed its turnaround is picking up steam, reporting a More than expected 6.2% increase in same store sales last quarter, the second straight gain after 7/4 of flat or declining sales. The stock popped nearly 6% after hours, adding to a 16% jump already this year. It's a stamp of approval for CEO Brian Niccol, the retail turnaround artist who came into the position in 2024 at a time when the coffee chain was flailing. Nickel implemented a Back to Starbucks strategy that pushed for better, faster service as well as more appealing store interiors where customers would want to hang out for a while. Toby, they don't call them the retail messy for nothing thing.

C (23:44)

And it looks like the retail Messi's biggest contribution was not necessarily, you know, the Back to Starbucks program, but it was the fact that they just made a lot of great add ons that people love putting on their coffee. Cold foam, you know, like Boba things. There's ube cold foam. There's more cold foams than I've ever could possibly want to try over my lifetime. But it does look like menu innovation has been the big through line here that has brought people back inside to Starbucks. And I can attest, I walk by a lot of Starbucks here in New York City and they are advertising something different in every single time I walk by. So it does look like the pace has picked up and it's making young people want to stop by and try whatever. You know, that weird cold foam is staring back at the window, promotion at them.

B (24:26)

And finally, we close out every Wednesday show with suggestion box. The segment where Toby and I share helpful life recommendations we found rewarding. Toby, what have you got in your suggestion box today?

C (24:35)

All right, my suggestion is you start writing a personal newsletter to your friends in family. So every month or every three months, send an email out to your relatives and friends where you detail career updates, personal updates, and just catch them up to speed on your life. You can also restrict it to just your local friends and family and include powerful invite links to hang out so you can make it an IRL thing as well. It kills so many birds with one stone though, because it helps make you a better writer. You have this nice little peer into your life if you want to look back over what you did in the last year and. And on the flip side, it helps everyone in your life feel closer to you as well.

B (25:13)

My friend actually did this. He moved to Tanzania a few years ago and he started writing us. If newsletter sounds intimidating, you could just call it an email.

C (25:21)

Yeah, it is.

B (25:22)

It's basically just an email. And he kept us updated with all that was happening in his life. And I read every single word. It was amazing.

C (25:28)

It is nice because you fill your inbox too with your friends newsletters coming in. You're like, of course you want to read about what they've been up to. And the idea too is you don't sugarcoat things. Like it's not just the highlights of your life. You can get into the lowlights as well. It just makes everyone feel feel closer to you. It's a good idea. I haven't even actually done it myself. I've always wanted to. So that's why I'm putting it out on the air for everyone. What do you have for us?

B (25:50)

All right, my racks are some small lifestyle changes you can make to your daily routine to live a healthier life. Courtesy of New York Times readers who responded to a survey. One person who lives in New York City gets off one subway stop early from their commute home and walks the rest of the way. Really love that. Another said she's terrible at drinking enough water, so her act is to fill a large Stanley bottle with a bunch of frozen strawberries, a few ice cubes, and and water, then waits an hour until it mellows out into a delicious fruity concoction. And finally, for a bit of exercise in the kitchen, one person says every time they hit the 30 second button on their microwave, they stand on one foot and alternate throughout the day. Little stability work while your Trader Joe's frozen dinner heats up. Toby, Any of these resonate?

C (26:31)

I do these, and I didn't even know that this was a thing other people were doing. But every time I brush my teeth, I sit in kind of this lunge position on both my toes because I've always had Achilles and calf issues when I run. And so now I do stability work. Half of the time I do my right leg, half I do my left leg. It makes me brush my teeth for two minutes. And I have done it literally every single day since the new year. Now it's almost Pavlovian. As soon as I put toothpaste on my toothbrush, I just hit that lunge position. And it is great because you don't even think about it anymore. I definitely have gotten better at it. Used to be a struggle to last two minutes. Now it's no problem. So, yes, I endorse list wholeheartedly. Find out whatever your weird thing that you do during whatever mundane parts of your life is, and it can lead to, you know, big gains over time.

B (27:19)

Okay. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Wednesday. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morning Broadcom or DM us on Instagram @me Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our supervising producer. Raymond Lu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham, and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup gets off the subway two stops early. Devin Emery is our president, and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

C (27:44)

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