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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Ab Roller with Wi Fi edition of Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. We are back on our timely Slate Moneying this week. No more Q and A episodes or anything like that. We, we are going to give you all of the analysis you want of everything in the news except for Brexit or Argentina. Well, I mean there are certain things which are just constant drumbeats of chaos like Brexit and Argentina and we will talk about them occasionally. Let's just stipulate that Brexit and Argentina are fuster clucks and then move on. We are going to talk about Bill Dudley, who is this very grand person who apparently doesn't like Trump very much and certainly doesn't like trade wars. We are going to talk about Peloton going public and also wework which is going public and their whole business model. But most excitingly, Emily, we are going.
- [01:08]
B
To talk about the Popeyes Chicken sandwich. Everyone.
- [01:11]
A
We are going to talk about the Popeyes Chicken sandwich. So stay tuned. You want to know what Emily, what Emily thinks about the Popeyes Chicken sandwich? All of that and a long conversation about General Electric in Sleeplus coming up on Slate Money. Okay, so let's talk about Bill Dudley. Anna, Bill Dudley is about as grand as grandees come. Am I right? He's like chairman of the New York Fed. He was something something at Goldman Sachs. He was vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, was he not? I think he suddenly sat on the FOMC for many, many years. This rate setting. Yeah.
- [01:53]
C
Long and illustrious history.
- [01:55]
A
He is one of those classic people who move back and forth between the public sector and the private sector and quietly run the planet. He is the epitome of the Goldman Sachs elite and he has gone rogue. And he went rogue and like he wound up writing this piece for Bloomberg Opinion, which was so, let's just say heterodox, that Larry Summers said it was the craziest thing he'd read in like a decade. And you know, anyway.
- [02:28]
C
But I feel like Stephanie Kelton was probably like what?
- [02:32]
A
It was kind of awesome. I kind of loved it. It was this piece where he basically just came out and said, look, it's the Fed's job to do what's in the best interest of the country. And if Donald Trump is going to take us into a trade war that's not in the best interest of the country and we shouldn't facilitate that by cutting rates, we shouldn't sort of give him air support by like trying to Prop up the economy in the face of all of the destruction caused by a trade war. Because that's only going to encourage him.
- [03:06]
B
Right. And it's something we touched on in a previous episode, which is basically Trump, he does his trade war stuff, he messes up the economy. So then the Fed has to step in and has to lower interest rates, which is what Trump kind of wants, and enables the economy not to go totally batshit and enables Trump to continue doing his trade war games.
- [03:25]
A
So. So the question is basically, does the Fed have to enable Trump by the laws of its mandate or something? Or if Trump is doing something bad and dangerous, can the Fed kind of say, like, we are not going to be helping you here?
- [03:40]
B
No, they can't do. I mean, the consensus. I've actually not seen something quite like this in a long time where the consensus about one single piece is just everyone hates it so much. Like on all the sides. Jordan Weissman wrote a piece that was. That was like, absolutely not. Can we do this? Because the Fed needs to remain, you know, independent. Independent thing.
- [04:03]
A
What's that word again?
- [04:05]
B
Independent. And can't get political because that would taint it, you know, forever. And they just there obligated essentially to enable Trump. So I sense.
- [04:14]
C
So I have kind of slightly mixed thoughts on this. I mean, I think obviously this is not the kind of thing you say in public because it actually makes it harder for the Fed to do anything against Trump. It actually is limiting the degrees of freedom of the Fed. Also, the idea of saying that the Fed should consider the upcoming election is just clearly beyond the pale, obviously. However, I find some of the reaction to it a little questionable because the idea that central banks, which have become so important in economic. But let's also be honest, like politics, the idea that for them in any way to step their toe into politics is just something we've never seen before. I don't think that's correct.
- [05:08]
A
And I'm reminded of the conversation we had about Christine Lagarde at the ecb. And I for one was saying, it is awesome that Christine Lagarde is at the ECB precisely because she is a politician and precisely because she has political influence in Europe and she can get the people in charge of fiscal policy to make the kind of fiscal decisions that need to be made in order for the continent's economy to thrive. And this is basically, it's not what Bill Dudley was saying at all, but I think it's what Anna's saying, which is that it's ridiculous to pretend that central bankers are completely apolitical. There's no such thing as completely apolitical. When Alan Greenspan sat down in front of Congress and said that the government should cut taxes because otherwise it would have a surplus. And surpluses would be dangerous because if you had surpluses for too long, then would increase spending. No, it wasn't that it would increase spending, but it was that, like, you might have to invest it in the stock market and then you couldn't. The government shouldn't be investing. It was this bizarre argument in favor of tax cuts, which made no real sense, but it was highly political. And then everyone kind of went, you know, oh, well, yeah, everyone knows that Alan Greenspan is a Republican. Like, central bankers are Republican and. Oh, sorry, central bankers are political. Most of them are Republican. Many of them are Republican, but most of them are political. Everyone knows that. You know, Janet Yellen is a Democrat. Like, there's no secret.
- [06:42]
B
I think Dudley is kind of wrong. And my analogy is, I guess, to parenting, right? Like, you kind of try to make the same argument that Dudley does with your kids. Like, they make a big mess in the kitchen and. But if you clean up after them or if you clean up their rooms for them or their bathroom stuff, like you're just enabling your children to be messy, which is, I guess, at some level, true. And you can try to get them to clean up. But at the end of the day, if you want your house to be like relatively sanitary and safe, you have to clean up the mess. And Donald Trump is a big child and he is making everything filthy with the economy and like, the Fed just has to do its job and like, try and clean up the mess.
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A
I love that metaphor, Emily. That's.
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C
Yeah. And I think it.
- [07:29]
A
Did you just come up with that or did you, like, think of that?
- [07:31]
B
Well, I was inspired because I think Jared Bernstein or some economist said this is like parenting 101. You can't, you can't just do it like that or something.
- [07:39]
A
Do you think Bill Dudley was like, not a very hands on dad?
- [07:44]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, obviously he's, you know, doing the revolving door all his life. He probably was too busy.
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A
He didn't spend a lot of time with toddlers. He doesn't entirely know what the best way to deal with toddlers is.
- [07:54]
C
No.
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B
When he got home, the whole house was spread spotless and someone handed him a cocktail. Probably.
- [07:58]
C
And I would say that that metaphor is also relevant if you're thinking of during the Eurozone crisis, how you had members of the ECB specifically talking about trying to punish governments in Southern Europe. So I think that this goes to the idea one of, Emily, what you said, that doing what Dudley said and saying, you know what, we're not going to help you is a bad idea. But it also shows that central bankers are political.
- [08:30]
A
So now the toothpaste is out of the tube. Right? I mean, it's like if Dudley is saying this in public now, he was surely thinking it in private when he was on the fomc. And and so now, like this fiction of high minded public servant sitting on the FOMC and making technocratic decisions is now from here on in going to be much harder to look at the minutes of the FOMC or listen to Jay Powell's press conferences and think that they're not hiding, like the real reason that they're doing something.
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C
My only thought about that though is that this is so similar to how you talk about the Supreme Court, right, that there's this fiction that they're apolitical and their decisions.
- [09:13]
A
Right, but that's, but that's kind of the whole point about the Fed, is that the Fed has successfully resisted politicization in the way that the Supreme Court has not. The Supreme Court has become political, has become incredibly political for many years and the Fed hasn't.
- [09:27]
B
That's what Jordan argued in his piece basically that you go down Dudley's road, then you turn the Fed into the Supreme Court. And nobody wants that except for Trump.
- [09:36]
A
Trump. Trump would actually love to appoint a whole bunch of like ultra doves to the Fed. So who would do exactly what he wants and be completely political and cut rates under Republican administrations and raise them under Democratic administrations. That's Trump's dream. And that would be like the Supreme Courtization of the Fed. And I think even Bill Dudley would say, yeah, no, we don't want that.
- [09:58]
B
Oh, and I wanted to add, because Anna got me thinking earlier, this, this world in which the technocrats like punish the misbehaving governments or whatever to do the right thing or teach them a lesson. Isn't that what got us Lehman? Basically? Because everyone there was maybe someone was going to step in and they were like, no, just let it fail and teach everybody a lesson. It'll be fine. And then it just wrecked the whole economy.
- [10:22]
A
Well, yeah, or the Herbert Hoover liquidationism for the Depression.
- [10:27]
C
It does suggest that we do not, like, people have this idea that the Fed is this long august body that always has a clear purpose and is always, you know, doing the right thing. And if you look at Fed history, that is Simply untrue because it is such an incredible. The US Economy and the global economy obviously is such an incredibly complex system that the idea that you can be like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to let this go for a, you know, let a little bit of chaos happen for a while and I'm sure everything will be fine. That's probably an unwise choice.
- [10:57]
B
Have to be a grown up.
- [10:58]
A
Okay, let's talk about S ones. I feel like, I don't know, in my mind people didn't used to talk about S1s when, when companies failed to go public. And now everyone's like, oh, did you see the S1?
- [11:09]
C
The investment bankers always did.
- [11:11]
A
Yeah. So this is a piece of investment banking jargon, or SEC jargon, which has now made it into the public lexicon. The S1 is what we always used to call an IPO prospectus. And it shows you everything there is to know about a company. So you can decide whether or not you want to buy stock in it and if so, how much you're willing to pay for that stock. And we recently received these prospectuses not only for WeWork, but also for Peloton. And it strikes me that even though these companies are incredibly different on a bunch of different levels, they fundamentally are telling a similar story, which is that they have a core product with relatively high profit margins. In WeWork's case, what they do is they rent out large spaces on long term leases for a relatively low amount of money and then they divvy them up into tiny places and lease them out on a short term basis for much higher amounts of money. And they make money that way. And in order to grow, they have been losing lots of money and investing in this and that and the other and buying a surfing company or whatever. But like ultimately what they're saying is our core economics are great, we can make lots of money. And so you should ignore the losses because that's just investing in growth and buy our stock. And you can totally, you know, analyze WeWork on that level and say like, you know, on one hand your core economics look quite good. On the other hand, what happens if, you know, you can't sell out your short term rentals, that kind of thing. And you can say that WeWork looks great, good or looks bad on that basis. Peloton is similar in that way. It has massive profit margins. It sells these bikes and these treadmills at like 45% profit margins. And it also has media subscriptions, it's a media company and it Sells, basically, that's what it's like a cable TV company. You pay $25 a month to get, like, exercise videos on your screen, whether it's an iPad or a treadmill or.
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C
With the world's best trainers.
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A
With the world's best trainers. And. And, you know, and it's the same kind of thing. We have to invest in content, we have to. In marketing. And there are these investments, but, like, the core product that we sell has massive profit margins. And once again, you can make that decision as to, like, you know, will they be able to turn this into a profitable company? And I think what we're seeing in and even Uber is kind of similar on some level. They're like, you know, we take a cut of every ride. And so, you know, our costs are largely fixed in. A cut comes on everything. And if we grow large enough, then eventually we'll make money. And I feel like on some level this is the crunch point, right? It's about now when all of these companies are going public with massive losses. At what point do you kind of look at them and go, there's something wrong here. If this is such a great business, how come you're losing so much money? That's the thing which puzzles me. Like, Peloton's losses are going up, not down, as it's growing. You would think that in this kind of a model, as you grow, your losses would go down, down.
- [14:12]
C
No. And that's actually literally what they project and what they promise in their S1, but they don't really provide any evidence of why things are going to change from how they have been going.
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A
So, Anna, do you have a feeling for, like, what is causing the losses at Peloton to grow?
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C
I think part of the reason that the losses are growing in is. Well, one, obviously the revenues are growing significantly as well, and obviously that's related. But I think part of the reason that the losses are growing faster than the revenue is growing is because you have a core group of people that you've core customers, right? But then once you start to go beyond that and you have to get additional, you have to really grow those kind of marginal customers you're trying to get.
- [15:04]
B
That's more expensive marketing.
- [15:06]
A
So, yeah, so this. This comes down to this thing called CAC customer acquisition cost, which for Peloton is like $1300. It's expensive to acquire a customer. And so, like, if you're selling a bike for $2,000 and you have a 40% profit margin on that bike, that's great. But if it costs you $1,300 to acquire that customer, then you're never going to make money just selling bikes. And so then you need to persuade yourself that you will be able to recoup that $1,300, not just on the profit margin of the bike, but also on. On all of your media revenues. And that's where the math starts becoming a bit dodgy, because no one really knows how long people stay subscribers to Peloton for.
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B
Yeah, I mean, fitness is historically very fattish kind of thing. And, like, people go crazy for, you know, SoulCycle, and now they're going a little less crazy for SoulCycle. Or there was step aerobics once upon a time, or Jane Fonda or. I mean, I was thinking Peloton is basically like, it's like an ab roller with WI fi, basically. And like, I don't know, it'll be popular for a while, but once the economy goes south a little bit, people don't want to spend. What is it? I think it's like 20, $500 for the bike, and then it's $40 a month for the streaming. Like, that's like four times the cost of Netflix. Like, I'd much rather have Netflix, I think, than a $2,000 exercise.
- [16:26]
A
It's less painful and it takes up less space.
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B
So I feel like the, like, Peloton is just kind of. Yeah, it's just a fad. I don't. I don't see it, like, sticking around for the next couple of decades.
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A
I mean, what they're trying to do clearly is, is be. And they're investing quite a lot of money into, you know, their yoga programs and their treadmills and anything which isn't bikes. But it's not clear how much of their total business is non bike.
- [16:54]
C
And the issue is that I think one of the problems here is also, like, their. Their numbers really only make sense once you're starting to get to, you know, millions and millions and millions of consumers. Right. And part of the problem is if you're in, like, the exercise fitness community, you kind of know that there are so many products, free things on, like, available in terms of if you want to exercise at home. And the reason most people do not want to exercise at home is because if you say that you will not exercise. Right. So you're trying to target someone who is so into exercise that they will spend all of this money. However, they're also not like everyone else who exercises, who goes to classes, because that's the way you actually get yourself.
- [17:34]
A
To exercise or you just put on your running shoes and get out the door. And then once you're out the door, you're like, okay, now I'm going to exercise. But yeah, you're right. I think, I think this is one of the key things, is that people have wanted to be able to exercise at home for decades. And every so often there's a, you know, as Emily said, there's a Jane Fonda fitness craze or something. And people buy the VHS tapes and they do their aerobics in front of the television and then they stop and it's really hard to see. You know, in a world where, like, no one has ever consistently exercised at home, like, in the history of the planet, like, why do we think it's gonna happen now? Just because Internet.
- [18:13]
B
Well, to be fair, I mean, the Journal actually had a decent piece on there are more people exercising at home now because there are really good options. Like, Peloton is a fairly good. Like there used to be, you just get on that exercise bike and you, like, strap on your Walkman. I'm just gonn go with the old thing for a while, but now, you know, you can have like a live class in your room and you can be connected to the people in the class on Facebook if you want to. I use like, a fitness app that has different, like, workouts and like, there are so many good options now at home that it is actually viable, I think, to work at a home if you have the space, which is not an upside for Peloton. Again, because there's a lot of competition. As Anna was just saying, in this space, they're not as unique as the other ones.
- [18:54]
A
Erin Griffith had a really good piece in the New York Times, basically listing the eight gajillion Peloton competitors who are as good, if not better, and also much cheaper.
- [19:04]
B
Yeah, an $800 bike instead of a.
- [19:05]
A
$2,000 and a bike which adjusts itself rather than one you need to adjust. I feel like that would be good.
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C
And if you just look at study after study, Americans do not exercise. Right. And so the idea that your business model only works if Americans all of a sudden really start to exercise, I think that that makes little sense.
- [19:25]
A
And yeah, I mean, if you look at the big multibillion dollar companies in the fitness, you know, space gyms make money when you don't exactly. Companies like Nike make money because you want to feel fit by buying, like, expensive sneakers, but you don't actually exercise in them. I feel like they all make money from people not exercising. And. And somehow the idea that you only make money when people do exercise is going to be a little bit. It's going to be. Am I allowed to say a heavy lift? Yes.
- [19:54]
C
Can I. Can I just add, like, one last thing? My trick of how I got myself to exercise every day was that I kept everything I needed to get ready in the morning at a locker at the gym. So if I didn't go to the gym in the morning, I literally couldn't get ready.
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B
That is so intense after doing that.
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C
For a period of time that I got so used to it that I didn't need that. So it's my.
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B
That's your one weird trick story. Pitch that to Business Insider.
- [20:16]
A
We should. Yeah, we should get Charles Duhigg back on. He can write a whole book about it. Okay. So, Emily.
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B
Yeah, what's up? Hi.
- [20:24]
A
I recently just got back from Germany. I had a lovely break, and I ate lots of, like, Maltaschen and Bretzels and Kse Spitzer and things like that. And I was utterly oblivious to, apparently an amazingly enormous food fad rose and fell in the time I was away. What on earth. Earth is going on?
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B
It was pretty incredible. I mean, it was a very August event. Because in August, like a slow news month, historically weird big news stories tend to be very strange or unusual.
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A
So in the uk, we used to call it silly season.
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B
Nice. So about two or so weeks ago, Popeyes rolled out a chicken sandwich, a fried chicken sandwich on a brioche style bun with pickles and a spicy version and not spicy version. And it kind of just, it was unveiled and it wasn't a huge deal. And then Chick Fil A, you know, the famously homophobic but popular chicken sandwich fast food restaurant, tweeted something about their chicken sandwich. It was like chicken plus bun equals love or some kind of tweet like that. And then Popeyes tweeted back, you know, embedded the tweet and said something like, chick Fil A, you okay? And I might not be getting.
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A
Are we all 12?
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B
Whatever, Felix. Yes, obviously we're all 12. But we remember Jane Fonda, which means we're 1,000 years old. So everyone's following this. So as soon as Popeyes does this tweet, Twitter goes bonkers. And everyone, it seems like in my Twitter feed, which is filled with, like, really snobbish elitist liberals, for the most part, I would say, and media types who never tweet about fast food except to mock it, were all tweeting about the Popeyes chicken sandwich. But they were tweeting about it with absolute love and adoration. And just.
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A
Did they all eat it or did they love it? Even before they ate it, they were.
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B
Talking about how they had to go eat it. And some would come back and talk about how they did eat it. Of course.
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A
Would they live tweet their eating with the sandwich? Oh, yeah.
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B
Slate published a piece, of course, saying it wasn't that good, But Helen Rosner at the New Yorker published a piece saying, it's, like, just what we needed in these partisan times. You know, it was just like.
- [22:37]
C
So this. I actually think what you just said is really interesting because it weirdly does seem like we're getting the, like, Democratic chicken sandwich and the Republican chicken sandwich.
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B
Absolutely, yes.
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C
And this made me think about the business roundtable, the change in saying, like, oh, I told you I was gonna connect this.
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A
I thought we were gonna talk about, like, the early days of Airbnb, when they were selling, like, breakfast cereals, like, with Obama and McCain, and they would try and work out which one was more popular. Oh, I was really getting into this chicken conversation.
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C
I'm just saying, like, you're. We're talking. This is why the idea of companies having politics is. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying it's clearly good for Popeyes. It's good for them. It helps.
- [23:27]
B
They had a nemesis in Chick Fil? A, which I think the thing with Chick Fil A is. And I don't know, because I'm just. I'm sorry, Slate money listeners. I don't eat chicken sandwiches at fast food restaurants because I think chicken is boring.
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A
But it's spicy and it has a pickle.
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B
Yeah, pickles I like. Anyway, wait. Oh, I forgot. I forgot what I was saying.
- [23:49]
A
Oh.
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B
Because Chick Fil A is, like, kind of like this. It's supposed to be like kind of this evil, homophobic corporation, right? They famously. They fund all this homophobic stuff. So. But people still like their sandwiches, so they eat the sandwiches but feel guilty. So I feel like Popeyes having this great sandwich now gives people a reason to abandon Chick Fil A, which they felt bad about, and sets up a partisan chicken divide.
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C
But it's a less partisan chicken divide because the idea that Popeyes is somehow this, like, progressive company. They use factory farmed chicken.
- [24:23]
B
That's the irony. At the end of the day, they're all using factory farmed chicken. And that Popeyes is owned, as we were talking about earlier, by restaurant brands, which is 51% owned by 3G Capital, which is like kind of this like.
- [24:35]
A
Basically when not even your ultimate parent company, but your like mid parent company has a name like restaurant brands, you know that you're not going to be like a major liberal icon restaurant. I mean, could you come up with a bland name for a company than restaurant brands? Right.
- [24:52]
B
Sibling to Burger King, I think. And maybe Tim Hortons. Yeah, I think Tim Hortons, yeah.
- [24:58]
A
So can I ask.
- [24:59]
B
It's all kind of bullshit.
- [25:01]
A
This is where I wish that Jordan were here, because I need to ask a basic question. Does KFC do a chicken sandwich?
- [25:09]
C
Oh, I think they. Everyone looks at the vegetarian.
- [25:14]
B
Well, this week KFC unveiled, I believe, a vegan chicken sandwich. This is true. Just select those.
- [25:20]
A
So if they have a vegan chicken sandwich, they must have a non vegan chicken sandwich, I imagine.
- [25:24]
C
Right?
- [25:24]
B
It's not in my research, but apparently the chicken sandwich is kind of like the holy grail of fast food. Like McDonald's has been in and out of chicken sandwiches for years. And apparently right now, restaurant brands and Popeyes chicken sandwich has set the fast food world like in an intense race to get more and better chicken sandwiches.
- [25:40]
A
The one thing I know is that I came back and everyone was talking about this Popeyes chicken sandwich. And so I was like, maybe I should get a Popeyes chicken sandwich. And everyone said, no, Felix, you can't. And I said, why can't I get a Popeyes chicken sandwich? And they said, because it is sold out nationwide and no one can get one.
- [25:57]
B
Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's really. All the marketers are studying this and they're, you know, there was the inevitable piece and I think Reuters, about putting a dollar amount on the free advertising. $23.25 million in free advertising doesn't seem like that much. No, but it worked because now the sandwich, two and a half weeks later is sold out until fall, which I don't understand. Can't they just quickly make more? I could make a chicken sandwich before the fall comes. Did it work though?
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C
Because. Because on the one hand, yes, they created all of this interest in this chicken sandwich. But you know what pisses consumers off? When you go to a place and you can't get something and they're like, it's backordered for three months.
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A
No, no, no, no. Like, this is. This is the opposite. You have to understand the 21st century artificial scarcity culture. Why do you think supreme is such a big brand? It's precisely because you can't buy it.
- [26:48]
B
Yeah, I guess.
- [26:50]
A
Okay.
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B
Oh, thank you.
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A
All right. So. So according to Jasmine Marley, who is the only person around these butts who knows about fast food and who also. And who also has Google, KFC does have a chicken sandwich. I do not understand how they managed to sit out this amazing opportunity to plug their chicken sandwich.
- [27:09]
B
I've heard it's not as good. I mean, it's fun to think about the $3.99 chicken sandwich in the context of the $2,000 exercise bicycle and think about which brand and which company is doing better. And of course, it's the $3.99 sandwich. I mean, you don't have to do any exercise. You can eat it. It's cheap and tasty. I mean, which is the better business? It's pretty obvious.
- [27:32]
A
Numbers round.
- [27:33]
C
I like my number.
- [27:34]
A
Okay. What's your number?
- [27:36]
C
My number is 30,318. That is the undergraduate enrollment at one University of Michigan. And one of those 30,318 is one Sasha Obama. I was very excited by this.
- [27:53]
A
Sasha Obama is going to University of Michigan. She is. Her sister went to Harvard.
- [27:58]
C
Yes.
- [27:58]
A
Okay.
- [27:59]
B
I know someone whose son turned down Harvard to go to University of Michigan. It's better. Hot take.
- [28:05]
A
I totally believe that.
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B
I believe it, too.
- [28:07]
A
Okay, I'm going to do this one just because my co host asked me to. In case you hadn't noticed, the last couple of weeks were a little bit less timely than normal, which may have been something to do with me being in Germany eating Meltaschen and Kaserspetzle.
- [28:23]
B
What's Kaser?
- [28:25]
A
Kaserspec is basically the German equivalent of the. It's. Yeah. Of the chicken sandwich. It's amazingly good food. And laugen pretzel and. Oh, my God, I was eating well, but I was not podcasting. And one of the things I do when I podcast is I have little Stopwatch app, which I set to record the length. So I can see when we're going a bit long on the segment. And so at the end of the last podcast, I kind of went away and came back and I opened up the Stopwatch app to record this one. And it said, you have been timing this for 502 hours, 44 minutes, 32.1 seconds. That is how long we weren't podcasting for.
- [29:05]
B
And we missed you.
- [29:06]
C
We did.
- [29:06]
A
So now we're back and I'm very happy to be back. And I feel like now we can. We can go back to a regular weekly cadence, talk about all manner of. Because we missed so much news. We missed this business roundtable news.
- [29:19]
B
The economy fell Apart.
- [29:20]
A
While we were gone, the economy fell apart. There was. There was Greenland. There was so many.
- [29:26]
B
So much.
- [29:27]
A
So much. Emily, what's your number?
- [29:29]
B
I went deep on WeWork for some reason because I couldn't help myself. So I have some WeWork numbers. Here we go.
- [29:34]
A
Wait, can I have my. I'm gonna come in with my WeWork number first. Unless it's yours. What's yours?
- [29:39]
B
Unless it's mine. Mine is 169.
- [29:41]
A
Okay.
- [29:42]
B
That is the number of times Adam Newman's name is mentioned in the we work s. 1. And compared to an. Usually, a founder's name is mentioned an average of 25 times.
- [29:53]
A
My favorite one is 5.9 million, which is number of dollars that Adam Newman was paid to transfer the we name to We Work.
- [30:03]
B
And I just really. I come away from my We Work reading feeling like this Adam Newman fellow might be a bit egotistical and this We Work might be a bit brotastic. Perhaps not a single woman on the board, right?
- [30:18]
A
Correct.
- [30:19]
B
Outrageous. His wife is famous for saying that a big part of being a woman is to help men manifest their calling in life, which is.
- [30:28]
A
Oh, my God.
- [30:29]
B
She's an executive at the company but did not get a board seat.
- [30:33]
C
And isn't she, like, a fake teacher?
- [30:35]
B
Yeah, and she's a fake teacher. So that is all I have to say. I'm done. I'm out, Emily. Out.
- [30:41]
A
All right, we'll do more. We Work. Moaning Can I just mention the private jet bit?
- [30:46]
C
Yeah.
- [30:46]
A
Like, it's like all we want to do is we work, but we had a whole conversation here on Slate Money about the whole vegetarian thing and how Adam Newman was saving the planet by forcing WeWork to go vegetarian. And then it turns out he's got the biggest, like, private jet habit of anyone on the planet. And he has his own Gulfstream. 650.
- [31:07]
B
Well, he balances it out with the meat thing, doesn't it? It's like offsetting. Is that what it's offsetting is?
- [31:12]
A
Please email us on slatemoneylate.com if you want to talk about my favorite policy prescription, which is courtesy of Isabella Kaminska at FD Alphaville. She had this really interesting idea, which is if you want to be popular and save the planet and do, like, lots of good things at the same time, ban all private jets and just. It would be a wonderful sort of leveler. I kind of want to know, why shouldn't we do this? We are going to have a Slate plus discussion on.
- [31:42]
B
It's a bigger fraud than enron General.
- [31:45]
A
Electric and Harry Markopolis. Stay tuned for that if you're a Slate plus subscriber. Otherwise, thanks for sticking with us. Thanks to just me and Molly for producing, and we will talk to you next week on Slate Money.