Grubhub Acquired to be a Part of New Super App & Advertisers Back in on 'X'?
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Kyle Heggie. Today, the biggest restaurant company you've never heard of just bought Grubhub is Wonder, the next Chipotle. And New Yorkers, rejoice. Your days of paying broker fees are over. It's Thursday, November 14th. Let's ride. Let's ride.

We are lucky to be joined by the great Kyle Hagee, co-host of Morning Brew's other podcast, per my last email. Yes. Kyle, we've got to talk about the trend that is sweeping the globe, celebrity lookalike contests. So this started a few weeks ago when a Timothee Chalamet lookalike competition was held in New York City and went viral after the man himself showed up. Then these started popping up

All over the place. A Paul, Miss Kyle lookalike competition in Dublin, Harry Styles in London, Dev Patel in San Francisco. This upcoming weekend will feature more, including a Jeremy Allen White lookalike competition in Chicago. Of course, Kyle, help us explain what's going on here. Well, I think Timothy ruined it for everyone because he actually showed up. So now I think everyone's like, how do I get to know my favorite celebrity? Joe, just do a lookalike contest and hope they show up. So Jeremy Allen White, you better get your butt to Chicago. Uh,

Neil, I have a question for you. Yeah. The best celebrity lookalike competition that you would win, who is that for? I don't think I look like any celebrity, but I've been told that I look like a little bit like Mike from Suits. That's the only thing that has ever been mentioned to me in the realm of celebrity lookalikes. I don't even know what this guy looks like. I'm sure he's extremely handsome. Oh, super handsome. You might actually be a celebrity now. It probably counts. We should do a Neil Freiman lookalike competition like Washington Square Park. Yeah.

I would show up to that, but I would probably be the only person there. Now let's hear a word from our sponsor, Sage. Not the herb, but a tool that saves finance professionals a lot of time and money. Neil, I've heard from Toby that you're quite the cook. I've been known to break out the La Crusade every now and then. Oh, fancy, but also a perfect example of how Sage helps CFOs. Why do you use a La Crusade? Reliable. Reliable.

Well made. Let's me throw a lot of stuff in it. Same reasons why CFOs love Sage. You slice and dice your data as you see fit, then throw it all into one pot and get a delicious meal of actionable insights. Let's take this metaphor one step further with the new AI and automation tools that Sage has added. You're slicing with cutting edge razor sharp knives as well. So fancy pot,

but also fancy knives. I knew you were a phenomenal chef, Neil. And Sage is a phenomenal platform. Head to sage.com slash morningbrew. That's sage.com slash morningbrew. For our first story, Wonder Group has agreed to acquire food delivery startup Grubhub for $650 million. While that sounds like a lot of money, it's a steep decline from Grubhub's

$7.3 billion valuation in 2020. Now, it's called Wonder Group because you're probably wondering what it even is. Well, it's a, quote, new kind of food hall that operates 25 fast casual restaurants around New York City and New Jersey. This is the brainchild of entrepreneur Mark Lurie. Lurie previously sold diapers.com. Yes, you heard that right. Diapers.com to Amazon for over $500 million. Now,

and Jet.com to Walmart for over $1 billion. The deal marks another expansion of Lohr's vision for Wonder Group, which he plans to have IPO ready by 2027 with a target valuation of $30 billion. And his quote was, quote, bringing Wonder and Grubhub together is the next step in our vision to create the super app for mealtime, re-envisioning the future of food delivery. Neil, before we get to Wonder, final thoughts on Grubhub? I feel like

This is a fallen angel. It is a little bit. I mean, this was a terrible acquisition by Just Eat Takeaway. They paid $7.3 billion for Grubhub at the height of the COVID delivery boom. Now they sold it for 91% less than that valuation last

They really just kind of bought it at the top. Just looking at the market share of delivery apps in the United States right now, Grubhub has a market share of 8% compared to 67% with DoorDash. And Uber Eats now has a 23% market share. So Just Eat bought Grubhub to get into the U.S. market, expand their European empire, and they are the biggest food delivery service in the world.

in Europe. It did not work out well. People started going back to restaurants and the overall delivery market just hasn't grown as much as was expected.

Now that we tied the bow on Grubhub, let's talk about Wonder, which bought Grubhub. What is your take on Wonder and what they're doing? I mean, it is a sensibly a startup that few people have heard of outside of maybe New York City of seeing these storefronts, but they have insane plans. I mean, $30 billion valuation is insane.

insane that if they do achieve that, that would be within 10 years. Chipotle had a $30 billion market cap after 30 years in business. Shake Shack is worth $5.5 billion right now. This company in its last wonder, in its last funding round,

was valued at $5 billion. So clearly investors are betting on Mark Lurie. And you mentioned he had these incredible exits, $3.3 billion to Walmart by Jet.com. So it's very interesting what he's doing here and playing around in the restaurant space. Yeah. I mean, I think this is definitely a bet on the entrepreneur as much as it is the idea. And someone who's had this much success as Mark Lurie, it's probably a good check to give him more money and see what he does with it. Wonder, I'm actually one of the few people who maybe have gone to a Wonder. It's

pretty differentiated. So it's not like a courier network like Uber Eats or Grubhub. It actually is this like casual dining experience where they cook most of their food offsite and then they bring it onsite to a wonder food hall and it can be prepared with very little tooling in about three to five minutes, but it actually tastes like it's made

fresh. That's their differentiated piece. And they're trying to allow you as a family to come in and order from like four or five different restaurants all in one spot. Dozens of different restaurants. Yeah. They have 35, I believe, of fast, casual restaurants they operate. So it allows you to kind of pick and choose what you want instead of being reliant on one restaurant or one, um,

I think it's a pretty interesting idea and it is different than what other players are doing in the space. Yeah, one other differentiating factor is they've partnered with celebrity chefs. So they have menus inspired by Bobby Flay and Marcus Samuelson, Jose Andres, and people like these. They've actually paid them to use their signature dishes to sell to people and Mark Lurie wants to give people

customers a more elevated dining experience. But what he does really is the goal here is super app for mealtime, which I think super app is just a buzzy word. I don't know exactly what it means. But when now that he bought Grubhub, he wants to go from recipe development through the food preparation, through

bought Grubhub's delivery drivers through actually fulfillment to create this holistic experience for when you want food, they control everything. And he spent $60 million on IP alone to own particular brands that they're selling out of these spaces. So right now they have a few dozen brands

uh... locations in around the northeast but he said he wants to expand to a hundred locations by twenty twenty six and eventually i_p_o_ at a thirty billion dollar valuation in twenty twenty seven other interesting uh... part of this super app is meal kits it's

You might have not heard this name in a while, Blue Apron. Oh, yeah. But Wonder bought Blue Apron, again, for pennies on the dollar, just like they did Grubhub last year for $100 million. So now they do meal kits. They do these more elevated dining concepts with celebrity chefs. So it's an interesting proposition. It's hard to pin down what exactly Wonder does, but

they've raised $1.7 billion. Investors clearly think that Mark Lurie is onto something again. And he's poured in hundreds of millions of dollars of his own capital as well. He also had this quote where he said he's in fifth gear right now and he hopes he doesn't have to go to sixth gear, but he will if he has to. This guy is pretty hardcore. This guy is pretty hardcore, so don't bet against Mark Lurie. Okay, it's been a wild post-election week for Elon Musk's ex. In bad news for its business, many users appear to be leaving the platform, but in better news, more experts

advertisers might return. Let's start with the users who appear to be leaving at rates not seen since Musk took over the company two years ago. On Wednesday, the day after the election, 115,000 U.S. users deleted their X accounts, which was the single biggest day of web account exits since SimilarWeb began tracking the figure. Many of them appear headed to

Blue Sky, the ex-rival that began as a project by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019. Blue Sky said it has scored 1.25 million new signups in the past week alone, bringing its total user base to above 15 million, which is still very small compared to other platforms.

But even as users flee, marketers could be coming back, which would be a huge help to X's sagging finances. The Financial Times reported that some brands that had left X once Musk took over and stripped its content moderation policies are considering making a return. The move would be a strategic, politically motivated one, marketing consultants said.

Musk owns the platform. He figures to be an influential figure in the next administration. So if you want to get in his good graces and the good graces of the president, it helps to be an advertiser. Kyle, it's quite a contrast. Users going, advertisers maybe coming back. Yeah, not normally what you see. Normally those things go in the same direction. I mean, I think if I'm an advertiser, as you mentioned, Musk has the ear of this administration. It's probably not a bad bet to like

Keep him happy, throw some money at X. Unfortunately, they're still going to have to deliver results for their advertisers. I don't think a lot of advertisers are going to get bullied to spend money on the platform. They might just not make a big deal of leaving the platform. On the blue sky side, it's important to understand that these numbers aren't quite small. I think Threads has about four or five X. $275 million. That's Meta's Threads. Exactly.

That number may be inflated because everyone knows who scrolls Instagram. You might see threads pop up every now and again while you're scrolling. And then as soon as you click on that, you become, in effect, a thread user. So it is 275 million compared to Blue Sky's 15 million. And what I think is we're seeing is like this more fragmented media where people are finding their niche. And it might be a different platform like Blue Sky or others where they are surrounded by the type of people they want to interact with. And as opposed to this like public town hall X everyone else.

on it, I think media is getting more and more fragmented and more and more niche. So I don't think blue sky will get to a large number of users, but the users that has might actually really enjoy the platform. And let's talk about X's finances. Cause I mentioned they were not in a great place. So it really needs advertisers coming to come back.

According to eMarketer, the company is going to bring in $1.9 billion in advertising revenue this year, which is down from $2 billion last year. And in 2021, before the takeover, it was doing $4.5 billion in revenue. So a pretty dramatic decline. Meanwhile, X's valuation has plummeted from $44 billion, which Musk paid, to below $10 billion. So it is a very important business imperative to get markets

coming back to the platform. And it's a bet that paid off for Musk when he aligned with President-elect Trump that it would be really good for a lot of his businesses, as we've talked about on the show. But we didn't talk about what it could mean for X, and it does seem like

It might provide a tailwind for that business as well. Yeah, I think X is in a better spot than it was a year ago, almost undoubtedly. The one thing I will say is if you leave X for blue sky, please don't make a post about it. I can't see this big announcement. I'm leaving X. I'm going to blue sky. Just go to blue sky. Better yet, delete X and just go see some actual blue sky. Go outside, walk in a park. We don't need more social media.

Let's move on to our next story. Brokers in New York are in shambles after the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses, or FAIR Act, recently passed in New York City with a vote of 42 to 8. The bill requires landlords who hire real estate agents to, breaking news, pay the agents' fees.

themselves instead of passing them on to tenants. This might not sound like a big deal. Fees can add up to about 15% of annual rent on top of a security deposit. That's according to research from Street Easy, which said that upfront costs on average are $12,951 in New York City. So it's prohibitive for some people to even pay that upfront cost. The

powerful real estate board of New York and the industry's main lobbying arm has argued that if landlords are forced to absorb this cost, that ultimately they will increase rents and affect renters that way. I think the real winner of this is Chi Ase, the New York City council member who reintroduced this bill and has been sharing progress on social media. He called the broker fees, quote, a killer upfront cost that has hampered mobility for many renters, causing families seeking to forego having kids and

and forcing children aging out of their parents home to leave the city. Dude has been very electric on social media this past. It's a really big deal in New York City. And you know, I think this means we can finally move in together. Pretty excited. - I'd love that. Yeah, this dude is 26 years old. He's already making waves in the New York City Council. This was, you said brokers were in shambles, but they're still gonna get paid. - Yeah. - It just depends on by who. And right now in New York City,

is a very unique, you know, we have a lot of listeners from outside of New York city and they're probably thinking right now, wait, the tenant has to pay the broker fee. That is not how we do it. New York city was certainly an outlier in this regard. It goes back decades to when brokers were the gatekeepers of the rental market. And now that has been disrupted by online, uh,

online platforms like Street Easy, which was a big proponent of this bill. They threw a lot of their weight behind it. But yeah, this was very much an anachronism of New York City. What they just passed brings it in line with more of the national standard, which is that the person, the landlord who hires the broker to show their apartment pays them and the tenant is relieved of

some of these thousands of dollars of costs that were prohibited, you know, many people have to save a bunch of paychecks just for the upfront cost for the opportunity to live in the apartment, not let alone rent that is among the highest in the world.

with the median rent for an apartment in New York City is $3,500 a month. So this is a big win for renters and tenants who had pushed for this for a long time. And I think this is an example of technology almost becoming the new middleman and pushing out brokers who traditionally probably had a really important role of showing people around New York, knowing the ins and outs. StreetEasy now does that. And so I think people are relying more on technologies than actual brokers.

And because of that, there's been less support for them. And now we'll see what happens with this lobbying pass. But I think it's going to be a bad day to be a broker. Brokers are fine. But I think the landlords are now going to say, OK, I'm

paying. So I need to make sure that the brokers are actually providing a lot of value. And right now, I don't think they are necessarily like the incentives are misaligned because the broker doesn't need to do anything. The tenants are still going to pay. So I think brokers are going to have to probably provide a lot more value to landlords than they are currently. And we should say that tenants and renters can hire their own broker and pay as well. It's just if you don't hire one, you don't need to pay under this new law. Yep. And up next, Toby's who's not here. Favorite segment of the week. Neal's.

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Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will make your brain neurons light up like a neon sign in Vegas. My first number is $20, which is the most you'll pay for an item on Amazon's new storefront. Yesterday, Amazon launched its highly anticipated competitor to Taimu, Shein, and TikTok Shop, the China-linked marketplaces that have surged in popularity by offering ultra-cheap clothing and accessories.

Thank you.

But those prices require a very un-Amazon-like compromise. The company says it'll take one to two weeks for your purchases to get delivered, and you'll be charged a shipping fee for orders under $25. Kyle, Amazon is clearly feeling the heat from these ultra-discounted online stores. Do you think this gives it a little breathing room? I mean, first, four-piece Christmas sock, add to cart immediately. I think this is a really strong...

smart move by Amazon to get into a new kind of area or market that they haven't necessarily been competing in. You mentioned like shipping costs, long deliveries, like that isn't the Amazon way, but they're pivoting to compete with these new players. And I just think you don't bet against Amazon. They already have a large base. They're going to be able to port users over to this. So I think it's a really smart idea from them. And one way they're trying to differentiate from Taimou and Sheehan is by hyping up the quality of their products. Uh,

these other these china-linked marketplaces have been accused of shady practices for sourcing materials to to build these goods or ripping off uh you know third-party sellers and amazon in their press release on for for amazon hall sort of touted the fact that they screen the products that sellers offer in this particular marketplace so customers can be confident they're going to receive safe authentic and

products that are compliant with applicable regulations so that's how they're standing out from from the ultra discounters that exist but clearly they're feeling the heat they don't want to be disrupted and so this is their this is their launch to stay ahead of the pack for my second number I need you to call your friend who you tease for being a terrible sports better you

You owe them an apology. At least in this NFL season, amateur gamblers have been gaining the upper hand on sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel, forcing these companies to pay out more to customers and lower their sales forecasts as a result. Get this. Last week, DraftKings slashed its 2024 revenue guidance by $250 million, which is a lot of money.

And on Tuesday, FanDuel parent Flutter cut its annual U.S. revenue forecast by $50 million. So what's going on? Isn't the number one rule of the casino, the house always wins? Well, not always. This NFL season, fan favorite picks like the Chiefs and the Lions have been winning a lot. And generally, there have been fewer upsets, which would be better for the sportsbooks.

For example, FanDuel's worst day of the NFL season was on the second Sunday of October when 11 of the 13 favorites beat their opponents. To sum it up, the DraftKings CEO said, this was the most customer-friendly stretch of NFL sports outcomes we have ever seen.

I love they build these these apps and these markets to like for the very intense gamblers going to like calculate all the odds and like over the long term, the house will win. And there's just like a 58 year old dude in Kansas City who's like, I just bet the Chiefs and then the Chiefs win. And they're like DraftKings, like there goes our whole business plan. I think over the long run, they're going to be the

But it is funny that these like basic kind of amateur gamblers are taking the house for its money. My final number is for anyone out there who thinks they would win the amazing race. Scandinavian Airlines or SAS is handing out one million frequent flyer points to anyone who flies and at least 15 airlines in the Sky Team Alliance by the end of the year. The promotion is worth more than ten thousand dollars and is SAS's way of celebrating its entrance into the alliance.

which includes carriers like Delta, Air France, and KLM. So here's what you'll need. Excellent itinerary planning skills, a boss who lets you work remotely, and a passion for lower back pain. One guy who took up the challenge told the Wall Street Journal he plans to spend about 90 hours on airplanes across 20 different flights in the next two weeks to complete the challenge.

Kyle, 1 million points, $10,000. Do you think you could pull this off? I definitely could pull it off. I love this story. I feel like they should be, like, filming all of these people, like, and turning it into an actual Amazing Race segment. And good luck to everyone that's participating. This is an absolutely electric story. Apparently, employees at the airlines are placing bets on how many people will complete this, ranging from 5 to 500. I would say probably more people than...

not like if there was an over under if DraftKings gave me the over under, I would probably take the over on this. I think people are very wily. They're very clever. Apparently travel forums are bursting with information about itineraries. They're lighting up with people trying to complete this, but it's, what is it? November 14th. Yeah. Until December 31st. So,

If you want to get a million frequent flyer points on Scandinavian Airlines, then you might as well start now. This is the same group that, like, hacks credit card points, and you never bet against those people. No, I mean, you don't, and I love these people. I am one of them.

OK, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Lots of drama at Polymarket, the prediction betting platform that rose to prominence during the recent election. Yesterday, the FBI raided the Manhattan home of the founder and CEO of the site, 26-year-old Shane Coplin, and seized his phone. We don't know yet what the agents were looking for or why they raided the home of the man.

But Polymarket was quick to call it politically motivated after its users accurately predicted the outcome of the election in favor of Donald Trump. A spokesman for the company said, quote, This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election. Yeah. And when he got his phone taken away, he got a new phone and immediately tweeted new phone who dis on Twitter. Iconic.

Tweet. Don't know if you put it on blue sky. We'll have to find out. Next story, Spirit Airlines, the airline you ride once and then never again, had its stock price crater roughly 60% in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The reason, the airline said it won't announce quarterly financial results on time as it's likely heading towards bankruptcy. The low-cost airline has struggled to recover post-pandemic after a federal judge blocked an attempted merger with JetBlue as well.

Neil, Spirit Airlines, cry because it's over or smile because it happened? Well, Spirit, if you remember, was an incredible disruptor in this industry. It pioneered this ultra low cost model, kind of like the story we were just talking about with Taimou and Sheehan, forcing the other carriers to offer discounts.

Very cheap seats and then charge you for literally anything else you want on the flight. Spirit was a big player in forcing the big four Delta American, all of those to offer more discounted seats and charge more for bags, which I guess is not a great thing for customers, but it does appear headed for bankruptcy and critics have

of the Biden administration's antitrust initiative, that crackdown, have been pointing out that they blocked a merger between Spirit and JetBlue to compete with the big four airlines. And in doing so, they basically condemned Spirit to bankruptcy. So we'll be looking in the next few weeks. Wall Street Journal reported that Spirit does appear to be filing for bankruptcy in the next few weeks, and its stock price just fell 60% yesterday.

Spotify is going all in on video podcasts to dethrone YouTube. Yesterday, the company announced that it will start paying creators who hit certain engagement levels on their videos and will remove automated ad breaks in videos for premium subscribers.

It's a bet that more podcasters who film themselves podcasting, like we do, will put more content on the platform if they had a financial incentive to do so. Right now, Spotify offers no payout to creators, while YouTube pays most creators a 55% share of the revenue of the ads it sells against the video. Kyle, video podcasts are growing faster.

than audio podcasts. Can Spotify compete with YouTube in this format? I mean, I think Spotify's idea to pay video podcasters is absolutely brilliant. I highly encourage them to follow through with that. I think Spotify is a great platform. They obviously have a ton of users. I really like this pivot and there'll be more competition in the video podcast space, which is a really fun space.

Now let's move to Red Lobster. Out the 1999 endless shrimp deal that helped maybe push the company into bankruptcy earlier in 2024. And in the famous Hush Puppies that were taken off the menu a few years ago. That's right. Hush Puppies are back, but also nine new items, a new tartar sauce, and even better lighting in the restaurants. This is all part of the plan of Damolo Ademalukun, the 35-year-old CEO. He's an electric guy.

No comment from Beyonce if she's still taking her man to Red Lobster, but I hope so. Neil, is it time to wrap up the show and go get some hush puppies? Are you excited about this? I am a little excited about this. The CEO went on a Today Show on Monday and hyped up this new menu, and he said there was a riot in the streets when they removed hush puppies. And so now he expects, he said this cheekily, but he expects a flood of customers to come back because of hush puppies. Are you, you're like a,

Midwest guy like hush puppies could not be farther in terms of regional cuisine of what you are accustomed to. Yeah, they're Southern. I think we got to go get some hush puppies and do some investigative journalism on this because I don't know what they are. It's like a deep fried corn ball. Okay. Well, sign me up. That sounds amazing. Yeah, it does. So, all right, let's go get some hush puppies. That is all the time we have.

Thanks for starting your day with us and have a wonderful Thursday. I'm going to be out tomorrow as well as Toby. So you will be in the incredibly good hands of Kyle and Ann, our newest guest host. Kyle, if you guys throw a party, I just ask, make sure to clean up and leave some beers in the fridge. We're not giving the show back. I'm sorry, Neil. All right. For any questions, comments or feedback, send an email to morningbrewdailyatmorningbrew.com.

Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Uchenna Waogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio. Hair and Makeup is accepting the Scandinavian Air Challenge. Ette Devin Emery is our chief content officer, and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Thanks for listening, and I wish you all well.