C (4:12)

I was looking at the satellite view of this storm and Monster is putting it lightly. It is covering 40 states. The only state that looked like it was totally spared looked to be Florida, which of course Florida is spared. But even Florida and Georgia in the panhandle region, we're getting temperature and tornado warning. So even Southern states weren't fully spared. I want to dive into where the power industry is kind of how it's facing in this massive storm because obviously when cold temperatures hit, power demands on the power grid go up dramatically. And who is stepping up to the plate right now? It's mostly, you know, traditional fossil fuels like oil and natural gas. The largest grid operators were relying on natural gas for about 30% of their power yesterday and that has caused this crazy spike in natural gas prices as well. Futures prices for Natural gas jumped 70% in the US over the last week of trading. And it's only going to get worse. As you know, gas producing parts of the United States are facing these really low temperatures and demand is only going to keep spiking.

B (5:17)

Yeah, everyone was looking at Texas specifically. Five years ago, there was this massive winter storm Yuri that knocked out the power grid down in Texas, which is not connected to the grids elsewhere in the United States. So they had a lot of, they did a lot of weatherization efforts in the past five years to beef up their infrastructure. And it seems like for the most part that held steady this time around.

C (5:38)

I was looking into some natural gas traders were also saying, how can we stay online during this crazy event? They were holing up in hotels to ensure that they still had connection to the intercontinental exchange so they could trade their natural gas future prices. So it was interesting that there was like a weatherization of the actual natural gas grid and the actual electric grid and also the people that were trading on those exact things that were powering the grid as well. So Texas was definitely, people were looking, would they be able to handle this a little bit better? And it does seem like they are handling it a little better.

B (6:11)

And what was unique about this particular storm is that it did hit the south and it hit certain states and cities that don't typically see a lot of cold weather, nasty weather, ice, snow, the like. So if you were in Nashville, the talk of the town was this new snowplow called Dolly Plowton. And she was part of a new fleet of snowplows that the city invested in. They have five new trucks. They cost about $350,000 apiece. Nashville has been growing like a weed over the past couple decades. There's a lot of northerners coming down there to move and they feel to live. And you know, Nashville and others and other southern cities are not necessarily prepared. They don't have all the infrastructure that northern cities do to carry away the snow. And so just like, you know, an inch or two can kind of parallel paralyze the city. So Nashville is investing, you know, over millions of dollars here to improve their snow infrastructure. And meanwhile in northern cities there beefing up their tech to give people more accessibility and transparency into how this snow removal operation is going. I was absolutely glued to this website called Plough nyc. And did you see this, Toby?

C (7:23)

No. See, this is the difference between you and me. Continue your story and then I have a little anecdote here.

B (7:28)

Okay. So I was looking at Plow nyc, which is this very intricate map of New York City and it shows you exactly how many streets have been plowed in the last hour, in the last two hours. And maybe they took New York City, took inspiration from Toronto, Toronto, which has their own snowplow tracker called Plow to, which has a live map. They also have this vintage design around it that just makes it very pleasant to look at. So these are how cities are sort of beefing up their capabilities, whether it's in the actual physical snowplows or the tech to give people more insight into travel and how their lives are going.

C (8:00)

Here's why I was laughing at you is instead of being glued to Plow nyc, I went for a run. Neil. I just saw the city streets myself and I could report there was a lot of snow. To, to no one's surprise, but it was fascinating to see how New York was handling the situation. They equipped garbage trucks with snowplows and these things were just cooking down the road, just blowing snow everywhere, clearing the roads for everyone. And one last anecdote on this too, about New York City. If you thought you were a kid and you got to sleep in, you had a big snow day coming up. Not necessarily the case. The rise of remote learning has made it so that snow days don't really exist as they once did. You don't get the day off. You don't get to stay at home and sip hop cocoa and watch cartoons. You still gotta log on because now the infrastructure is there to support remote learning. So Monday, you're not, you're not getting a day off from homework, kids, you actually are gonna have to still go to school, even though it's probably gonna be on your couch. Moving on. The rise of vibe coding is bringing back a golden era for apps not seen since the Fruit Ninja and Doodle jump days. After three years of essentially zero growth, DEC saw 60% year over year rise in new iOS app releases, according to data from the VC firm a16z. Vibe coded apps are sort of a catch all term for apps created using the assistance of AI agents like Claude Coding. It's how I, despite never coding before, could coax an AI agent using normal language instructions to create the Uber for Dogs app of my dreams. The avalanche of apps has created a trickle down effect that is being felt on Wall street too. Software giants like Salesforce, Adobe and ServiceNow have all dropped more than 30% over the past year and an S and P index of small and mid sized software stocks is also down more than 20% over that period. According to the Wall Street Journal, who points out that the release of Anthropic's Claude code, the preferred tool of a lot of vive coders, was a key inflection point marking the downturn. Neil, your technical friends have probably been blabbering nonstop about the transformational power of these coding assistants. Now we're seeing the impact of this technology. From the amount of apps flooding app stores to the software companies, these micro.

B (10:14)

Solutions are disrupting in the most bullish scenarios. People say we're looking at the early signs of a new economy, an entrepreneurial boom we haven't seen the likes of since maybe the PC revolution a few decades ago. Alexander Wang, who leads Meta's superintelligence efforts, he is one of the youngest self made billionaires ever. He said, actually the Bill Gates is in the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world are right now, they're teenagers, you know, who are, instead of doing their homework on a remote day are actually Vibe coding new apps. So the potential here among people who are proponents of Vibe coding is just absolutely revolutionary. You're giving coding tools to people who, who did not know how to code earlier and you are basically teaching them a new language or allowing them to not learn a new language. Because that's really what's happening here. Because me or you or I, like, we don't know the language of coding, so it was very inaccessible to us. But now because of Vibe coding, we can just essentially type in natural language prompts to all of these apps that are flooding the app store and elsewhere to say like, build me a website, I want X, Y and Z. Build me an app that has this feature and we can just use English to code instead of using coding languages to code. And you know, among those who say Vibe coding is bringing about revolution, you know, that is what the potential is here.

C (11:33)

I mean, you mentioned language. Not only do you not have to know the language of computers or the technical language of coding, you don't even need to use grammatically correct English to do it or grammatically correct normal language to do it. So not only is there not a language barrier in a technical sense, it actually has reduced the, the, the normal language barrier as well, which is, which is fascinating to watch and hypothetically democratizes this tech for a lot of people around the world. New company formation in the US has been declining for decades and so a lot of the bullish figures in the tech space are saying this could totally reverse that trend and allow a flood of new ideas to hit the marketplace as we are Actually seeing in the.

B (12:15)

App Store right now there are plenty of people who are pushing back on the potential for vibe coding too, saying hey, this is cool. But it's not actually as revolutionary as its proponents think. They talk about the security flaws of a vibe coding app, like you're not going to push out a vibe coded app to mass amount of users because they're just huge critical vulnerabilities that come with it. You haven't, you know, there aren't traditional software engineers working on this, building in protections around cybersecurity. They're saying this is less economic revolution and more just shifting where the hard work begins. They don't necessarily view the vibe coding as wiping out a class of software engineers because those will still be needed. They say that you're not going to vibe code Slack or you're not going to vibe code Salesforce. You're not going to vibe code these huge software companies that are feeling the pain on Wall street right now under competition from Vibe coding and ChatGPT and other AI tools more broadly. But that's the main argument here, that vibe coding can get you started. But the things that really make software flow and, and work well will still be left to two software engineers that are human.

C (13:24)

Still, it's undeniable that AI is adding a layer of risk when you are investing in softW these days because one, it just does lead to more new competitors hypothetically entering the software markets. And then two, this maybe is an even bigger risk. Companies are building software in house these days rather than buying it. And again, that's probably not going to, you're not going to in house build Salesforce unless you are a really, you know, high functioning engineering company, which we actually have seen Klarna do. They did build Salesforce in house, but where it leads to revenue pressure is customers test alternatives and then they refuse to pay for upgrades or add ons like you know, the smaller features that Salesforce says, hey, you need this. So like let's, let's increase your package here. Companies will go, we can actually just build that add on ourselves which hypothetically is going to compress margins over time. For these giant software companies that have until this point ate the world, they've done very well. They seem to be a bulletproof investment. Now it looks like they're not so bulletproof. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with my winner of the weekend new CBS Sunday, the Grammys, baby. History will be made live, unfiltered, unexpected, bigger than ever, bigger stars, bigger performances. Music's biggest night is getting bigger.

B (14:52)

Now you see what all the hype is about. Trevor Noah hosts the Grammy Awards live. Anything Is Possible CBS Sunday and streaming on Paramount.

C (15:01)

Plus, imagine you wake up one day and a huge solar flare adds an extra hour to each day. Or maybe your team will double in size overnight. Or there'll be a global paperclip shortage. The truth is, no one knows what's around the corner.

B (15:15)

Anything can change the world of work, and those changes can be due to factors that are internal and external or global.

C (15:22)

From HR to payroll and benefits, ADP designs forward thinking solutions to take on the next anything. That means businesses can prepare to tackle whatever transforms the world of work next.

B (15:33)

Because no matter how determined you are to thrive in a constantly changing landscape, it's impossible to prepare for everything on your own. ADPs HR solutions help businesses of all size manage recruiting, onboarding, payroll and more so you can stay focused on the future.

C (15:48)

Learn more@adp.com that's adp.com Neil do you like paying rent?

B (15:56)

Is this a serious question? That's like asking if I like having teeth removed, which you do not like.

C (16:03)

Toby I don't know your life, but I do know paying rent can feel a little better with Bilt. Bilt is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you monthly with points in exclusive benefits in your neighborhood.

B (16:14)

With Built, Every rent payment earns you points that can be used toward flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases and so much more. Plus, starting in February, Built members can earn points on mortgage payments.

C (16:26)

You can redeem built points on Amazon.com fitness classes, Lyft and more.

B (16:31)

Join the loyalty program for renters@joinbuilt.com mbd that's J O I N B I L T.com mbd all right, let's move on to winners of the weekend, the segment where we pick two things that stayed extra cozy through the storm. I won the pre show sledding race so I get to go first. And my winner is ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok. Late last week, a deal was finalized to create a US version of TikTok, resolving the long running squabble. But if you look under the hood, it's a lot more favorable to Bite Dance than initially thought. Let's start with the deal itself, which formally establishes a US Tik Tok majority owned by a consortium of major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and Emirati firm MGX. It caps off a nearly seven year saga in which the US forced by Tans to divest its American TikTok operations over concerns that the Chinese government would use the video app to Spy on its 200 million American users and influence public opinion. To assuage those concerns, TikTok says American tech giant Oracle will protect user data in a secure cloud data environment regularly audited by third party cybersecurity experts. But here's where critics say ByteDance got one over the White House. TikTok's algorithm, considered the crown jewel of its entire business, will still belong to ByteDance, which is going to license it to the US TikTok. And not only will ByteDance continue to own the algorithm, it will, quote, manage global product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e commerce, advertising and marketing. Or in other words, they still control the app's core operations. Toby, this isn't as clean of a break that was initially expected.

C (18:11)

Yeah, the algorithm has always been the crown jewel of TikTok right now and actually a lot of creators are very nervous about the usification of the TikTok algorithm. Anecdotally, so far some creators have already seen an algorithmic shift. Trump has joked in the past about wanting to make TikTok quote 100% MAGA. And some creators have started posting that they have seen increased censorship immediately upon this transfer into US. It's just one off anecdotes right now, but the algorithmic integrity of the US app is going to be paramount to keeping US users intact because that's what got them hooked in the first place. And then also if you are TikTok USA, you kind of just got an annoying amount of security risk offloaded onto your plate. Now Oracle takes responsibility for U.S. data storage, Oracle takes responsibility for compliance and regulatory assurances. It's whenever something might go amiss in on a security front, we can't just blame Beijing and can't blame bytedance anymore. Now the buck stops with Oracle, which maybe is more annoying than just having, you know, TikTok be this Chinese owned entity that you could always kind of say, oh, they have security issues now. Now the buck stops with Oracle.

B (19:29)

Now you're Morning Brew Daily's social media whisperer. Like where do you see TikTok going from here? What's its prospects? I mean actually from a financial perspective it's absolutely Crushing it as 200 million users just in the US alone, ByteDance more broadly is going to post a $50 billion profit for 2025 that rivals Meta. So this company is doing really well from a financial perspective. But after this seven year long drama, are people still going to be using TikTok. It had this remarkable growth trajectory and you know, some in the industry are saying, I think Instagram once again may have may have kill app. Josh Kaplan, who's our friend who used to work at Morning Brew and is now very, very involved in the creator space, he gave an interview saying, saying he thinks Instagram has a more robust ecosystem ecosystem. YouTube has their shorts program where you can bring people in and then use it use for long form as well. And he says that TikTok is just not as conducive to building that community. Says he doesn't hear people saying that they're TikTokers anymore. Like that term is maybe a relic of 2021 and 2022. So I think TikTok, even though it's been saved through this years, needs to figure out where it stands in the ecosystem, whether it held this commanding lead that it did.

C (20:45)

I really do think it comes down to does feed behavior change? Do creator incentives change? Do monomization mechanics change under US ownership? Those things have proven pretty sticky. Despite maybe some cultural headwinds shifting more towards the Instagram and YouTube of the world. TikTok is a very sticky app. Like everyone has gone down these doom scrolling rabbit holes. Like its algorithm is something that is extremely powerful for attention. If something messes with that then I, I turn into a TikTok bear for sure. But if they continue to have this incredible attention like vacuuming algorithm, it's not going to go away anytime soon again though if algorithm shifts do happen, then it could be a pretty perceptuous decline. Honestly, it could go down very quickly if people aren't getting the same sort of, you know, dopamine fix that they were getting in the past. My winner of the weekend is Alex Honnold because, well, he's still alive and that's sort of the ultimate win when scaling a 1,667foot skyscraper with no ropes or harnesses. Honnold's urban free solo attempt of the Taipei 101 skyscraper went down Saturday night and was broadcasted semi live on Netflix with a slight 10 second delay. He made the climb look easy. Even the middle 64 floors, which featured bamboo boxes that required eight floors of overhanging climbing before bouncing balconies provided a reprieve. Viewing, however, was not so easy. Seeing Honnold up there with the wind buffeting him around led to instantly sweaty palms. At one point he tried to high five some kids through the glass, but they were too focused on their phones, prompting him to say kids these days Live before continuing his ascent. He took a break to wave to his wife too, who is watching indoors on the 60th floor. What makes the whole climb even more baffling was how little he was paid in context to how impressive the feat was. Hanold collected mid six figures for putting his life on the line for Netflix, according to reports. Which is a lot of money until you compare it to the over $90 million Jake Paul collected for getting his face rocked in his Netflix bout with Anthony Joshua. Neil, I'm never complaining about my fifth floor walk up ever again.

B (23:01)

So I watched this live, I did, and it was one of the more remarkable things I've ever seen. The most impressive thing like it was, was astonishing to watch. Your heart was in your mouth for the first half hour, but then when he got up to the middle rungs and he was doing the same move over and over again, I honestly just like, was kind of looking at my phone. I, you know, I, I just had these things. I just had complete confidence in him. And sometimes when the broadcast went completely silent, they had this, this setup where there were a few commentators and they just went completely silent. And it was just him. You heard a little of the wind and he was just climbing. And in the zone was just one of the most amazing things I've seen and perhaps a vindication of Netflix's live strategy where you really didn't know what was going to happen. This guy is on the face of a skyscraper, thousand feet up. And I don't know, I just, I thought it was pretty incredible television. A few other details that I thought were pretty interesting. He does listen to music while he climbs. And the music he listened to was tool. He loves, really. He loves, he loves like pretty heavy rocks music.

C (24:05)

Yeah, right.

B (24:05)

Music like he, he knows how long each of the songs is and it helps him keep pace. I mean, he rocketed up this thing 91 minutes is, is very fast. So he just used that to pace himself. Another really interesting detail was that this skyscraper, Taipei 101, was the home to a lot of surrounding. It was a lot of New York New Year's Eve fireworks. So every single balcony would clean off his. He would clean off his shoes. And that's because there was soot from the fireworks left over from New Year's, you know, a few weeks ago, which I thought that was super interesting. And then the final detail that he was talking about after, well, during and after the climb was that it's very unusual for him to have a crowd watching him where he climbs. He climbs El Capitan and other rock formations in the middle of nowhere with no one watching him here, there were thousands of people watching him from down below cheering him on. There were people also in the windows, which was like the craziest scene you've ever seen. People were in the windows while he was climbing. He was waving to them. And so he said that it was actually, it was weird for him but also somewhat energizing and motivating to kind of play up to the crowd.

C (25:12)

The best take I saw that this was a low risk but high consequence activity. High consequence because if you mess up, you fall and die. But low risk because of his skill in preparation. So the odds of me falling when climbing that 100%, the odds of Alex falling is closer to 1%. And that was the take that every climber had. This wasn't even close to El Capitan. Normies were like, holy moly, this is the most impressive thing I've ever seen in my life. And then people were kind of posting some clips from Free Solo once again and going, you guys don't even understand. Like, this was a 1 in the difficulty scale compared to a 10 for El Capitan. So it really was kind of a walk in the park, as crazy as that says that might be to say. But for Alex Honnold, like, he's just built different.

B (26:04)

All right, it's Monday, so here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the week ahead. Wall street may be buried under a foot of snow, but the action is only heating up with a hugely consequential week for financial markets. On Wednesday, the Fed will meet for the first time since chair Jerome Powell revealed he was under criminal investigation. With pretty much everyone expecting the central bank to hold interest rates steady for the foreseeable future. And that'll be bookended by a heavy slate. I mean, slate of earnings, including tech titans like Apple, Meta, Tesla and Microsoft, as well as corporate giants like Boeing, GM and Starbucks.

C (26:36)

Yeah, let's start with the Fed. The Fed definitely is pausing their interest rate cutting cycle because the main uncertainty right now is not actually policy, but how Jerome Powell is going to defend Fed independence amongst all this pressure on the Fed right now. So that's probably the biggest drama from this latest Fed meeting. As for earnings, I'm very curious about a lot of companies. Is Meta going to talk about the flood of new apps that are coming to app stores and how that might boost their advertising business? Is Apple going to tell us more about Gemini powered Siri? Is Microsoft going to talk about the fact that Anthropic is kind of eating their lunch in the productivity side of things. Anthropic actually we didn't mention this earlier, just launched a Claude code for Excel, which is something that everyone's like Microsoft off. How the heck did you not do this before that? So it's going to be a very spicy slate of earnings for sure.

B (27:30)

Attention overachievers. If you want to file your taxes as early as possible, you can do that starting today as the IRS begins to accept tax returns for 2025 tax season, which runs through April 15, may not be as painful this year since refunds are expected to come in on average $1,000 higher than usual due to the GOP's tax bill passed in 2025. As for CPAs, we are sending our thoughts and prayers over the next few months.

C (27:56)

This is news you can use because I certainly did not know you can start to file now until you just told me. But you Will I Will I be doing anything about it? Absolutely not. April 14th or the morning of April 15th here we come in sports, super.

B (28:12)

Bowl festivities kick off now that the big game is set. Yesterday, the Patriots and Seahawks booked their ticket to Super Bowl 6, an unexpected rematch from perhaps the best super bowl of all time. In 2015, the game, featuring two young quarterbacks, will be held at the 49ers Stadium in the Bay Area two Sundays from now.

C (28:30)

Here's my favorite super bowl fact the last three times a new Pope was elected, the Seahawks have not only made the super bowl, they made the super bowl as the number one seed. So there is some sort of divine intervention going on right now. 2005, Pope Benedict was elected. Seattle made it to Super Bowl 40. 200313 Pope Francis was elected, made it to Super Bowl 48. And in 2025, 2026, Pope Leo Seattle somehow made it to the Super Bowl. Once again, what is going on with the papal kind of influence on the Seahawks?

B (29:04)

There's something. There is something going on. I have a few other super bowl facts. One of them is that this super bowl, Super Bowl 60 is going to be the third time that both head coaches share the same first name. And of course that name name is Mike. All three cases, both coaches were named Mike. We had Mike Shanahan versus Mike Holmgren, Mike Tomlin versus Mike McCarthy and then this year it's Mike McDonald versus Mike Vrabel. And then the other fact, this is super cool. This comes from Kendall Baker at Yahoo Sports newsletter. Five schools have produced a U.S. president and a Super bowl winning quarterback. I won't go through them all, but some include University of Michigan, which is Gerald Ford, and Tom Brady, Delaware, which is Joe Biden and Joe Flacco. Now if Drake May wins this year, he's the quarterback for the Patriots. UNC will become the sixth school to produce a U.S. president and a Super bowl winning QB because they'll have Drake May. And then of course, everyone knows this. The UNC alum that was a president was James K. Polk.

C (30:03)

Is it embarrassing that obviously I knew the sports side of all those, the president's side. I was like, if Neil asked me, I'm drawing a blank here. I feel better because I would never get in Polk anyways.

B (30:13)

All right, that is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful start to the week. If you want to get in touch, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom or DM us on Instagram at me Daily show let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair Makeup is resting up after a bruising snowball fight. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

C (30:38)

Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.