Reddit’s AI Deals Pay Off & Starbucks Firing Employees Over RTO Policy?
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Fradman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, are you eating too much red meat? Proposed dietary guidelines are sparking a showdown between scientists and cattle ranchers. Then alphabet, Reddit, Chipotle, oh my. We break down a packed slate of earnings for you all. It's Wednesday, October 30th. Let's ride.

Well, yesterday was one of the worst days of Neil and I's short podcasting careers because a pair of podcasters were crowned the sexiest podcast hosts alive by People Magazine fans. And it wasn't us. Unfortunately, we were just edged out by brothers Travis and Jason Kemp.

Kelsey. Neil, I think it was the facial hair. We just can't compete with a Kelsey beard. I don't get it, Toby. They're only six foot three professional athletes, Super Bowl champion, international pop star dating men with the biggest sports podcast in the world, New Heights. How in the world did we lose? Jason and Travis, I know you guys listen to us. Taylor, I know you're probably listening there too. We are now officially beefing as of today, but seriously, congratulations.

Now, a word from our sponsor, Bonobos. Neil, how you feeling after last night? I'm buzzing. We partnered up with Bonobos to host an in-person trivia night with MBD listeners yesterday. It was a blast. I got to rock my Bonobos tuxedo to play trivia host for the night, while Neil, you were rocking a nice long-sleeved shirt to go along with perfectly tailored Bonobos pants. It was the epitome of look good, feel good, feel good.

Host trivia good. Bonobos set up a whole storefront in the venue as well, so it was cool to see listeners browsing Bonobos products in person after hearing so many of these ads. The general consensus is that we were underselling how stylish everything was. Hey, we're doing our best over here, but you're right. The only way you can really get a feel for Bonobos' quality and fit is to visit a Bonobos store near you. Or head to bonobos.com and enter code BRU20 for 20% off at checkout.

With the election less than a week away, a triple whammy of reports will offer a final snapshot of the U.S. economy before Americans head to the polls next Tuesday. Considering that the economy is among the top election issues for undecided voters, these back-to-back-to-back reports will take an outsized role in the perception of the U.S. economy right before Election Day.

The data party gets started this morning when the government releases gross domestic product numbers for Q3, which is the broadest measure of economic growth in the United States. It's expected to show the economy expanded at a very solid 3% annualized pace last quarter.

The next day, inflation takes the stage with the monthly consumer price index. Analysts expect more good news on that front, with the inflation measure likely to show the lowest rate of price increases since early 2021. And then for the grand finale, the jobs report will arrive on Friday. We know it's going to be wonky because of Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton and the Boeing strike. So you can't read too much into the numbers.

But if the unemployment rate holds steady at 4.1%, then it'll be the lowest pre-election unemployment rate in 24 years. Neil, this happened totally by chance, but three hugely consequential economic reports in the days before the election. Highly unusual. Maximum drama. Maximum drama ever.

is right, and every headliner needs an opener. Yesterday, we got a couple of data reports showing a mixed bag, really. So when we're talking about the labor market, the U.S. government dropped job openings, which is a proxy for hiring demand by employers. That fell unexpectedly last month to their lowest level since January 2021. The number of job openings in the United States economy right now is 7.4 million, which is down from 7.9 million in August.

August. And remember, that number spiked during the pandemic. People, employers could not find workers to fill their job openings. They had 12.1 million job openings in the peak of the pandemic. Now that's down to 7.4 million. It shows a cooler labor market. And then on the other hand, I said it was a mixed bag. So that was kind of the deflating one. The more optimistic one is consumer confidence in the United States. People are

more jazzed about the economy than they have been since March 2021. That might have to do with the stock market rising or falling interest rates, things like that. So definitely a mixed bag as we start to get into this incredibly busy gauntlet of economic reports. Yeah, the number of consumers who expect a recession within the next year dropped to its lowest level we've seen since the survey started asking that question back in July of 2022. So there is just an air of optimism right now looking forward. You topped

about job openings. That is only half of the JOLTS report that dropped yesterday. So JOLTS stands for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. That last part, the labor turnover part, is reflected in this rate called the quits rate. And the quits rate fell to 1.9%.

That gives a general proxy of how people are feeling about testing out the waters of the labor market. If you are feeling good, you feel like there's a lot of job openings out there for you, people will voluntarily quit at a higher rate than usual. But right now, it is simmering at its lowest rate since 2015, which shows that

There is some trepidation. People aren't feeling confident that there will be another role for them if they quit their role right there. It's been steadily decreasing the quits rate over the last few years or so. So there's kind of an interesting dichotomy there because on the one hand, people are feeling pretty optimistic about things. But on the other hand, they're staying put. They're not really testing out the labor market as much

as they may have been in the past few years. And especially in that white-collar professional work. We talked last week about how more people were going to MBA programs, and that might have a direct correlation there. Let's talk about how these storms might affect the economic reports coming up on Thursday and Friday, the inflation report and then the jobs report. It could get very wonky as far as the jobs report is concerned.

Banks estimate that we could see 100,000 fewer jobs added than normal because of Helene and Milton. The unemployment rate is not going to be affected. That is a separate report, so it should stay somewhere around 4.1%, which would be the lowest pre-election reading since 2020.

2000. So nothing will happen with the employment unemployment rate. But you could see a much lower jobs number than expected because of these storms wreaking havoc and causing billions of dollars in damage. And then inflation could get a little chaotic as well because these storms destroyed a ton of cars. So people might be there might be a little more demand for used cars or car repairs and things like that. So you might see a warmer, a

hotter reading when it comes to inflation that might distort the data a little bit. But I'm sure you're going to see both parties take apart this data and promote and use it to promote their final message going into the finish line. I mean, the last time I got this much muddled data to sift through, I was dealing with like a high school breakup. So I feel for people right now, feel for undecided voters who have to kind of sift through things and see which way they think the economy is actually heading.

There has been a lot of economic data to pour over, as we just mentioned, but it's also the thick of earnings seasons where company financials can give us another window into how the business world and the market is faring. So let's dive in. Up first, Alphabet shook off any wariness about its AI ambitions to kick off a big week for big tech with a nice earnings beat. Revenue grew 15% year over year, accelerating from last quarter as its cloud unit was once again a standout.

Despite its strong quarter, headwinds do loom. The company is facing several antitrust lawsuits related to its money-making search and ads business, though a long legal process filled with appeals lies ahead. And it's not exactly crushing it on the AI front either, as its Gemini products haven't wowed customers so far. But Neil, its stock was up about 5% because Google Search and Google Cloud still make money.

a ton of money. Yeah, on the cloud pecking order right now, you have Amazon, AWS, Microsoft, Azure, and then kind of in a distant third, Google Cloud, but it is making a ton of progress and it is making up a lot of ground to Microsoft and Amazon, really thanks to AI, which is crazy because a lot of Google products

employees left Google to start their own AI startups and then they're turning to Google Cloud to host their AI services. So Google is seeing a huge headwind from those smaller AI companies that are signing contracts with it to host their AI services. And so why the stock shot up so much

post-earnings call yesterday was because these AI bets that Google has outlaid tens of billions of dollars for seem to be finally paying off in that cloud business, which is going to be their big moneymaker now that Search and their other products are kind of stagnating a little bit. They're growing, but not as fast as they used to as they are just a mature product. And then the final nugget I do want to call out is Sundar Pichai, the CEO, said that

the company reached this key milestone in the third quarter of 2024, and that was over 25% of new code written out of the company was actually generated by AI, which is a pretty staggering amount. And he's citing that stat to show that using AI to employ these much greater efficiency gains, 25% of code generated by AI is a lot. So maybe their consumer-facing AI isn't really wowing people, but internally they are finding great use for it.

Up next, let's head to Little Tech, where Reddit has had a great start to life as a public company. Shares jumped more than 16% yesterday after the social media site beat sales expectations for a third straight quarter. It also forecasted a strong holiday season as its bet on revamping its

advertising tech seems to be paying off. One downside of recording a podcast every day is now I'm on record as being pretty bearish on Reddit as a public company, but it was just profitable on a gap basis for the first time since going public. It brought in $348 million in revenue, and honestly, it is crushing it. It is absolutely crushing it, and it also seems to be benefiting from changes that Google made in its search engine. If you have made some Google searches recently and you're randomly seeing Reddit at the

top. That is not a coincidence. Google made some changes last year that boost authentic content from online forums. And then in terms of visibility, it's been so helpful for Reddit. Last year, it was ranked 68th among sites in terms of visibility in Google's organic search results. Now that's up to five. It ranks five. So it's benefiting from a ton of traffic from Google search. And now the challenge is to convert these people coming from Google search

into paying logged-in users. Up next, let's move to the food industry. The golden arches are flickering, but they're not going dark yet. McDonald's staged a bit of a comeback in the U.S. this quarter, arresting last quarter's same-sort sales declines

to post a sales increase in Q3. However, there is an E. coli-sized storm looming. Its CFO said yesterday that sales and traffic did nosedive after the chain was linked to an E. coli outbreak that hospitalized dozens, including one death. Still, the company said that they don't expect a huge impact on its bottom line, especially once they got quarter pounders back on the menu, sans onions.

and most of the impacted locations. Yeah, what struck out to me from these numbers was how much this E. coli outbreak did affect traffic at its U.S. stores and especially in Colorado where the outbreak had the epicenter in the three days after

the E. coli outbreak happened and there were headlines all over the world, we talked about it. Traffic to its U.S. stores overall was down 10% and traffic to its Colorado stores specifically was down 34%. So that just shows how scared consumers are whenever you have an outbreak. I think McDonald's did generally a good job of containing this and getting those quarter pounders back on the menu and starting to win trust back with customers. Finally, sticking to the food industry, Chipotle's

Chipotle is already feeling the weight of expectations, the size of a double meat burrito in the post-Brian Nickel era. It missed on revenue expectations as same-store sales growth came in a little slower than investors have grown accustomed to. The burrito chain's same-store sales rose 6%, which is solid, but just below the 6.3% Wall Street had been expecting.

It's not time to hit the panic button yet on Chipotle, but it may be time to recalibrate expectations for the fast casual chain after its star CEO departed for Starbucks. One bright spot, though, smoked brisket. Sales in the third quarter started off slow but accelerated as soon as the chain brought back its smoked brisket protein option as a limit time menu item.

Chipotle has done a great job of defying the broader headwinds facing the restaurant industry. It is just sitting in the sweet spot of what people want, which is fast, casual. And it has all these cool tech innovations that are coming through the pipeline. We've talked about the AutoCado, which processes avocados at a much faster rate than human employees can. And it's got this

Thank you.

Next up, the battle over red meat.

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Well, we all have that one friend who eats steak three times a week, but should they really be doing that? It's the thorny question at the center of a brewing beef about beef. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government is preparing a new round of dietary guidelines, and a panel of scientists advising it has drafted recommendations that would tell Americans to limit their intake of red meat and replace it with more plant-based foods.

Studies dating back decades have shown that the fat and cholesterol in red meat can raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and other health issues. But once the meat industry reviewed these proposed dietary guidelines, they said it was a bunch of bull. The vice president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association called the preview meeting one of the most

Out of touch, impractical, and elitist conversations in the history of this process, leaders in the $85 billion industry pointed out that while red meat consumption has been decreasing in the United States, obesity and chronic disease rates are on the rise. So they're asking the government, how do you square that circle? Toby, these dietary guidelines are still in their draft phase and won't be finalized until next year, but there are major ramifications for American beef producers

and they know it. There's major ramifications for just everyday people as well, because these dietary guidelines are updated every five years, and they do things like shape school lunch programs. They mold kind of public health efforts. They also influence what food companies invest in and what they make. So these guidelines are tied up in all sorts of cultural and social factors, not just nutritional, even though that is

particularly what they're focusing on. Because think about it, America still loves meat. 80% of people eat meat in America. Meat-heavy diets, the carnivore diet, paleo diet, still very popular. Processed meats, ham, bacon, very popular, especially with men in general. So this is definitely a cultural shift that they are doing by putting lentils, beans, these other proteins, these plant-based proteins,

above meat in the hierarchy, in the pecking order of what proteins you should eat. So big ramifications. And of course, we're going to see pushback from this major meat industry. And they are probably looking at what happened a few decades ago as a sign of what could come if these dietary guidelines do push

Plant-based foods over red meat. George McGovern, who was the presidential candidate in the 70s and a U.S. senator from South Dakota, wrote a first-of-its-kind nutrition report for the United States in 1977 called the McGovern Report. That recommended eating less red meat in favor of poultry and fish to reduce the risk of heart disease. And the years after that was published in 1977, beef consumption had plummeted

20 percent. And then about 15 years after that, that's when chicken beat beef in terms of American consumption. So this has happened before where red meat has been on the defensive. They know where this is going. So they are planning an all out lobbying attack to make sure that these dietary guidelines don't put limits on red meat for the first time.

If this same thing happens again, then we could just be rocking dense bean salads and lentil soup. That could be in your future. This being said, the government doesn't always follow these recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Committee. Four years ago in 2020, or five years ago in 2020, guidelines...

Yeah, absolutely.

Just a proposal right now, but you see kind of which way the winds are blowing in the nutritional community when it comes to red meat. They knew we needed those added sugars and alcohol because the pandemic was coming. That is true. There are three words that make every remote 9-to-5 grinder quiver at their dual monitor standing desk home setup. Return to office now.

And they are hearing them a lot recently. Yesterday, Starbucks threatened to let go of corporate staff who wouldn't come back to the office for the required three days a week. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy made waves when he dropped a five days a week RTO hammer on employees last month, while Dallas also brought back its global sales team to work full time in the office.

In all, about a third of companies are requiring workers to be in the office five days a week in Q3. That is up from 31% in the second quarter, according to Flex Index. A couple of percentage points doesn't seem like much, but that jump ended a streak of five consecutive quarters where the rate had been falling. So, Neil, the increasing momentum behind RTO is bad news for your midday gym breaks and mouse jigglers.

But it is good news for the office sector. It is really good news for the office sector. And the problem here is not putting return-to-office policies in place. Starbucks had a three-day-a-week policy where you had to come in three days a week. But now it's actually enforcing it and putting some teeth behind it and saying, we're actually going to make a standardized plan here. If you don't come in, you might face termination. There was a report by CBRE that said about 80% of organizations have put in place return-to-office policies. So they're on the books.

The problem is that only 17% of those organizations actively enforce their policies. So that's what Starbucks did with this memo to employees back on Monday and saying, okay, yeah, we know we have this, but it's time to actually enforce that. Starbucks specifically has had a target on its back when it comes to return to office.

because it hired Brian Nicol from Chipotle, who we talked about before on this show. He lives in Newport Beach, California. Their headquarters is in Seattle. So workers there are saying, hey, what's with this double standard? Starbucks has responded by saying he is going to be in the office at least the three day a week minimum, if not more. So you don't have to worry about it, but he still gets to fly.

the private jet. But yes, this has been really good for office space as well. It seems like that long decline, that big gain in vacancy is starting to reverse itself in New York City. Vacancy rates are falling because new companies have taken out bigger leases and they're starting to expand as they enforce more employees to come back to the office. Some of the trends we're seeing too, that if you want to get workers to come back to the office, you do need those offices to be cool. HSBC Bank was

at least 270,000 square feet in 2022 in this U.S. Manhattan location. They added an additional 35,000 square feet this year, partly because they said employee attendance jumped a lot. It was 40% on its old space, but then they kind of revamped the office, made it a little bit cooler, brought back some of those amenities.

and it soared to 80%. So we're kind of speed running like the WeWork era again, is that if you want your employees to come in, you have to have those gyms, those outdoor desks, those restaurants on property, these amenities that actually do make the office a good place to be. So it seems like that is maybe the trend that is going to happen again, is that offices need to become cooler in order to attract and entice these employees to return to office.

The news cycle was popping off this week, so let's sprint to the finish with some of the headlines you may have missed. Up first, remember the so-called infinite money hack that went viral on social media a few months ago? People were taking advantage of a momentary glitch in Chase ATMs that allowed you to withdraw funds before a check actually landed.

But since there's no such thing as an infinite money glitch outside of Vin Diesel starring in Fast and Furious movies, the bill came due. This week, JPMorgan Chase started suing customers who allegedly stole thousands of dollars from ATMs amidst the social media craze. Not just thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, they really took this infinite money glitch, the infinite word to heart. One defendant in Texas owes JPMorgan more than $200,000.

and ninety thousand dollars this person wrote allegedly wrote a check for three hundred thirty five thousand dollars and spotted it deposited into an ATM that's what we like to call it but spa a defendant in California owes about ninety K one in Florida is about a hundred forty one K and then the final one in Florida owes about a hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars so looks like JP Morgan is going after these big fish in these early lawsuits but expect more to come

Don't look now, but Trump media stock is a rocket ship. The company that owns Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, climbed 8.8% yesterday, bringing its five-week gain to about 330%. Despite having virtually no revenue, at a valuation of $10.8 billion, Trump media is now worth more than Elon Musk's ex.

It's further confirmation that the company is essentially a meme stock tied to Trump's chances of regaining the White House. Investors are piling into the stock in a bet that Trump, who owns a 57 percent stake, will win next Tuesday's election and will help turn this company into a viable business. Toby, truly one of the most bizarre stats I've heard this year. Trump media is worth more than Twitter.

It is insane. I mean, you can find a Trump trade everywhere you look right now. Bitcoin has been surging recently. It recently crossed $70,000 to reach an all-time high because of Trump's recent turn as a pro-crypto force. PolyMarket has continued to march higher with it now showing Trump with around 66% chance to win the election. So a lot of money is resting on the fact that

One party will win this election, but none so more than the elevated or the biggest but less supported stock that is the stock price of Truth Social. First Red Lobster, then TGI Fridays. America's favorite purveyor of potato skins abruptly closed almost 50 locations within the past week as it reportedly prepares to file for bankruptcy next month.

CNN found that while 213 TGI Fridays were open for business last week, as of yesterday, just 164 remained. If TGI Fridays were to file for bankruptcy, it'd be another victim of the great casual restaurant purge of 2024.

Highlighted by Red Lobster's epic collapse, America's iconic chains are experiencing declining traffic due to more competition from restaurants that will give you food faster. Plus, they're being weighed down by huge debt loads tied to pricey leases they signed during periods of expansion. TGIF, Toby, this grills in free fall. I mean, Red Lobster's TGI Fridays. There will be nowhere less to grab a casual dine-in meal of dubious quality after this.

I mean, the chain started with 270 U.S. locations at the beginning of the year. Now it's down to 164. Same issues as Red Lobster, stuck in that messy middle between fast food, fast casual. Chapter 11 seems to be the only exit strategy for these right now. And I'm kind of sad because...

I like those potato skins. I have a lot of good memories from especially soccer tournaments. TGI Fries was just always there for you. You knew what you were going to get. I haven't been back to one since the soccer tournament days, but maybe that's the problem. That is definitely the problem right there.

Fans of drinks with a velvety rich mouthfeel look away. Starbucks is discontinuing its lineup of olive oil infused beverages. Technically the move to drop Oleato was already on the books before new CEO Brian Nickel took over, but it does align with his promise to simplify Starbucks is overly complex menu and speed up service ahead of the holiday season. Neil, you got to miss Oleato. I mean, you are probably listening to this and thinking Starbucks has a drink with olive

Olive oil? What? I didn't know that. And that seems to be the case. Baristas said that this was not a very popular drink. It was a pet project of Howard Schultz, who was the early CEO of Starbucks, who has tried to bring a lot of Italian-infused traditions to Starbucks that works well in some cases, that does not work well in others.

this case. So Brian Nickel, the new CEO, came in and goes, what the heck are we doing? We're selling olive oil and coffee. I'm not sure people want that. So he squashed Howard Schultz's pet project. We'll see if Schultz makes some waves on LinkedIn like he did previously with the previous CEO. So I did try Oleato because we covered this when it came out. It's very fun to say

The problem with Oleato is coffee makes you have to go to the bathroom. Olive oil has to make you go to the bathroom. So combine the two. It was just too powerful and potent of a mix. So I don't know. Maybe if any people are running the marathon and need to get things moving, get an Oleato while you can because it certainly does. Let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us.

and have a wonderful Wednesday. For any questions, comments, or feedback on the show, send an email to [email protected]. And if I learned anything from the new radicals, it's you get what you give. So when you give Morning Brew Daily to people in your life, you get the satisfaction of creating a more informed society. So share the pod with your network. And when you can't think of anyone to share it with, that's why we have a daily recommendation from Toby.

I want you to share the podcast with your biggest group chat. I was talking to some listeners last night who have very active group chats breaking down each episode each week, and it seemed like a nice way to stay in touch with your friends. So grab that Spotify or that Apple link, drop it in the group chat, and get a little discourse going today. We love discourse. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Euchenowa Ogu is our technical director.

Billy Menino is on audio hair and makeup. It's time to get back to the office. And we mean it this time. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.