Morning Brew Daily - iPhone Charging Gets a Makeover & Why Cold Medicines are Useless

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Episode 146: Neal and Toby list off all the exciting tidbits from Apple's big product event, including the iPhone 15 reveal. Next, how a covid-era government program is affecting poverty rates in America. Plus, quick relief from a cold may be gone as FDA declares a key ingredient in cold medicines ineffective. Then, the UFC & WWE merger debuts at the NYSE and promotions are doing the opposite of what employers want. Lastly, surge pricing is coming for your booze. Listen Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Excited about entrepreneurship? Check out our other podcast, Founder’s Journal: https://link.chtbl.com/founders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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pwc.c.com slash U.S. slash brew AI. That's pwc.com slash us slash brewaI. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. On today's pod, your suspicions were correct. A bunch of cold medicine is doing absolutely nothing to help your stuff he knows. Then we had our first look at the new iPhone 15 yesterday. And I'll say it, it looks like Apple still has its fastball. It's Wednesday, September 13th. Let's ride.

Toby, I read this heartwarming story about light. imitating art to an eerie degree. So in 1994, this baseball movie came out called Little Big League, and in it the actress Ashley Crowe plays the mother of a 12-year-old boy who happens to become the owner and manager of the Minnesota Twins. Fast forward to 2023, and Crow is the real-life mother of a major leaguer. Her son, Pete Crow Armstrong, was just called up from AAA to play outfield for the Chicago Cubs. And he could actually be nasty. He's the number one prospect for the Cubs Farm System. Two famous examples immediately came to mind when I heard this story. One was Brad Pitt injured his Achilles tendon while playing the Greek Warrior Achilles in the movie Troy, which is just

peak life imitating art. And then two, which is a little more controversial, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie struck up a romance while playing the romantically involved couple Mr. and Mrs. Smith. So something about Brad Pitt, man, he loves imitating art in his life. All right, Neil, before we jump into our top story of the day, we actually have a quick one. word from our sponsor. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three-burner gas grill, or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard.

Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. All right, Neil, we're back and I want to start today's show by talking about the Apple event that happened yesterday. September is usually the time of year that the biggest company in the world unveils their new iPhones, and we got the goods this year. The big news, you're going to need a different charger. The iPhone 15 and all future iPhones will now use the USBC charging port.

That sound you hear in the background is probably Neil laughing to himself because virtually every other smartphone, including his Google Pixel, has already been. been on this charging standard. The change comes in advance of the EU mandating that most consumer electronics be USBC compatible by 2024, so it wasn't exactly a surprise that Apple made the switch. Other features that got people talking were a snazzy new camera that uses machine learning that can determine when a person is in the frame and automatically switch to portrait mode. But the best part is it also recognizes pets, which is going to be really bad for the quality of our IG feeds, but great for pet lovers. I'm going to have to look at it. at so many pictures of people's pets, aren't I? Exactly. Overall, Neil, there weren't too,

too many iPhone 15 surprises, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at Apple's current position in the global smartphone market. It's also I want to point out the price did not increase. So there's the iPhone 15 base model, which starts at 799, and then the iPhone 15 pro goes for $999.99, and that's the kind of a same pricing model as last year. So you had the Apple Bulls all over Twitter yesterday being like they added all of these cool features and the fact that in this very inflationary environment they didn't hike prices consumers should be pretty happy with them it's a big win other features to note they released a titanium ipone which just has a really cool looking finish on the edge i genuinely thought that was cool looking just like

softer edges a kind of polished titanium also the the 15 ditch the mute button on the side of the phone for a more all-purpose button called the action button that you can code to do different things. There's also the 15 Pro comes with 3D video capabilities that will be available at the end of the year. And then yes, the price point was obviously a big win as well. So again, whenever we get an iPhone event, they're not going to change. The joke is always all they do is change the camera and release the same phone. But at this point, it is just incremental upgrades to an already great phone. So I think overall people were generally happy with what they saw out of Apple. Yeah, 94% of iPhone users say they will buy another iPhone. It's just an incredible.

Like over 15 different versions, they've maintained a very high quality of product. But let's go talk about this charger thing because Apple has been using the USBC in the laptops we're using. We're using MacBooks and in iPads for years now. And they were kind of strong-armed into doing it for their iPhones. I think the last big charging cable change they made was in 2012 with when they switched this massive 30-pin. I think it was called something doc. It was the dock connector. And they changed it to this lightning cable.

And that caused all sorts of criticisms and hand-wringing. And, you know, I think it's because it wasn't expected. And the fact that we know this is expected, and USBCs are more prevalent around the world. This isn't such a big change. I mean, do you have any, I mean, now you're going to be able to use the same charger with your computer with your phone. It's super simple. Which is going to be really nice. Yeah, it is totally different this time.

around because, again, 90% of the smartphone market other than Apple is using USBC. That is not an exact statistic. I'm just saying that the majority of the smartphone market actually does use this charging standard already. And the EU mandate came to help consumers avoid the annoyance of buying a new charger every time you buy a new device. So they're trying to cut down on e-waste. So there was some logic behind this charger switch.

But, yeah, people kind of celebrated when it came on screen because, again, you might have Well, just, it's just so much more. Are you okay? Are you happy about it? I'm happy. As iPhone here. Like, I don't have that crazy Apple loyalty that I'm like, no, we need our own larger type deal. Even though I am an app guy, you're a Google Pixel guy.

And just to zoom out on iPhone, how is it doing? Well, Apple is not doing so hot. It posted three straight quarterly declines in sales. But somehow the iPhone is continuing to snap up market share in the U.S. Now it accounts for more than 50% of smartphones sold up from 41%. in 2018, and teens love it. 90% of U.S. teens have an iPhone as opposed to an Android because it's this status signaling thing. You got to have the blue. Gotta have the blue bubble. Or else you're just kind of less cool in this day and age.

But if you have a green text like me, you just got to own it. Okay, moving on to our next story. The Census Bureau dropped its annual report on American poverty yesterday, and it is going in the wrong direction by a lot. The U.S. poverty rate rose to 12.4% in 2022 from 7.8% the year before, which is the largest annual increase on record. And the numbers were even more stark for child poverty, which more than doubled from a record low of 5.2% in 2021 up to 12.4% last year. That equates to 5 million more American kids pushed into poverty. And there's no mystery why this happened. It's about the expiration of the expanded child tax credit. just some backstory in response to COVID, the federal government widened its tax credit to send

monthly checks to nearly every family with children. It's considered one of the most successful anti-poverty measures ever, cutting child poverty in half. But Congress didn't renew the program after 2021, which reversed that historic drop. And a bunch of other COVID stimulus measures have also wound down in the past year or two. So this report is significant in that it presents the first statistical evidence of how the winding down of COVID safety net programs like the child tax credit, is sending poverty level sore. Yeah, it is crazy to see the ripple effects from, I mean, these were great during the pandemic. They were great in the years following the pandemic.

And now all of a sudden, when that rug is pulled out from underneath you, a lot of economic ripple effects are happening. Another supposed bright note in the report was actually not that pride at all, which was income inequality actually fell for the first time since 2007. Again, that sounds like a good thing on paper. but it was actually because the middle and top income parts of the ladder fell while the lowest point on the ladder actually didn't rise at all. So even though the gap strength, it was because the top was losing income rather than the bottom growing in income. So again, this is another one of those things that you see a report, you see these numbers, and then when you dig into it, sometimes they're not exactly as rosy as they may appear. And overall, of inflation-adjusted

median household income drop for the second straight year, it fell to. to 74,580 in 2022. That was a 2.3% drop from 2021. So maybe this is, this data is kind of painting the portrait of why a lot of American consumers or Americans feel that the economy isn't necessarily going in the right direction, even though unemployment is near record lows and the job market is booming. But inflation really ate away at much of those gains. And a lot of the COVID stimulus measures that, that have been provided to families, including the student loan freeze have expired in the past two years and they're going to. So a lot of, but a lot of anti-poverty experts looked at these child numbers and were like, this is, this is really crazy.

Like, it is so stark how actual policy can affect millions of kids' lives and either decide whether they're in poverty, not it is a complete policy choice. So they have been, they have been advocating for continuing the expanded child tax credit, even though Congress sunseted it. There might be options for states to do it at the local, at the state level, if the federal government decides not to pursue it. For sure. All right, Neil, let's move on to our next story. What if I told you that every time you got a stuffy nose and went to the drugstore for relief, it may not have been helping at all? Neil's face is utterly shocked right now for anyone listening, but that could be what's happening as an FDA advisory panel has called into question the efficacy of phenylophrine,

a popular decongestant. Phenilephrine is currently in more than 260 oral nose and sinus medicines and has been used in over-the-counter products dating all the way back to the 1950s. But an FDA advisory panel declared yesterday that it probably doesn't work even at high dosages. Three large recent studies found that people who took medicines containing phenolephrine fared no better than those who received a placebo, which is really bad news for the over-the-counter cough, sinus and flu market, which generated about $5 billion in sales in 2021 off products that include the ingredient. Neil, the FDA doesn't have to take the panel's recommendation, but if it does,

which is usually the case, it's a big deal for a lot of pharma companies. I was always skeptical of cold medicines. I got to say, my only cold medicine is a nice bowl of hot chicken soup. But I don't know. It just seemed like they never worked, and now I'm confirming it. They're confirming it. This thing has been on the market for so long. Decades, I think it was first approved in 1938. The first thing I thought about when I heard this story was, what else does not work? I know. Because there was this FDA review in the 1970s and they grandfathered in so many different drugs. And now we're starting to do some peer review studies. And this one showed that this, this particular medication just has absolutely no efficacy at all. It does not work. It does not

work any better than if you did not do anything at all. Right. And I want to put my science hat on for a second. The reason it doesn't work is because oral phenolephrine is metabolized by the gut and liver, meaning it can't reach the bloodstream in time to actually narrow the blood vessels, which is what provides relief from stuffy noses. So basically your body is, it works too well

and it processes it through the liver and the gut too quickly for it to have any effect at all. So I just thought that was an interesting scientific. And the nasal spray still works. Well, it's an oral phenolethrin. Yeah, I'm saying if you spray it in your nose, that's

it's fine. So what happens next is that all these drug companies are going to, if this ruling does get finalized, then all of these drug companies are going to have to take these products off the shelf and reformulate them. So things like pseudofed sinus congestion, Tylenol, and flu, severe, NyQuil, severe, cold, and flu. These are very popular products that are just going to disappear if the FDA decides to say, like, we can't sell this anymore because it doesn't do anything. I think there's going to be kind of an Ozempic type arms race for the cost. and flu medicine because this is a massive massive market and people are going to have to develop new formulas to kind of address it. So I wondered if like next year and into the following years

we're going to be talking about the next like Ozeptic like race. All right, Neil, before we hop into the next story, we're going to take a quick break. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer.

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Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. UFC and WWE officially completed their merger, and I promise not to use the term tag team in this story once. Besides that time, that's it. I won't. The merged entity called TKO Group Holdings began trading as a public company yesterday, and it promises to be a dominant force in the entertainment industry.

For anyone who forgot about this deal, back in April, Vince McMahon's wrestling giant WWE agreed to link up with mixed martial arts promotion UFC, which is owned by Endeavor, to create a 21.4 billion combat sports behemoth. UFC has more than 700 million fans worldwide, and WWE has 1.2 billion. Together, they reach viewers in 180 countries and produced more than 350 annual live events. I'm already exhausted. As we talked about on this podcast many times, live events and live sports specifically are booming right now, and both UFC and WWE have media rights deals that expire in the next year or two.

When they sit down to the table with TV and streaming companies, they'll likely be able to command billions for the opportunity to show their matches to rabid fan bases. Toby, I know we constantly say we are not financial advisors, but, Just as a regular dude who's reading about this, this seems extremely bullish. Yeah, I mean, this is just all in on the live event and all in on the live TV streaming deal. Because, I mean, Ari Emanuel, who is the CEO of this new group, he said that TKO's ideally position to capitalize on the growing demand for premium sports. You can't underestimate the value of live sports in the TV ecosystem. So, I mean, we've all this talk about football, all this talk about college football, professional.

football, but maybe the future of live sports is in these combat sports. It is the fastest growing fan base sense other than Formula One. A lot of people are coming around to the idea that combat sports is this Tier 1 A plus live sporting event experience. Right. And what we like about it so much is the fact that there's no season. It is all year round. And 180 countries, this is such a global fan base, which a lot of advertisers are trying

to get to with a bunch of countries kind of boosting their income levels and becoming more, more consumers. So, I mean, there's just a lot to like about what they're doing. Plus, this boardroom, I would love to be inside it. I mean, you have Ari Emanuel, who is Ari Gold for anyone on who watches entourage, this big media mogul personality. He's the CEO of the parent company Endeavor, and he's also the CEO of TKO. Then you have Dana White, who's the CEO of UFC, another larger than life personality. And then finally, Vince McMahon, uh, the, you know, the former CEO of WWE is the executive chairman here. So much testosterone.

It's actually ridiculous. I would not want to be in that boardroom, but to each their own. I do love Ari Emanuel, though. He's just such a big live experience guy. His portfolio ranges from the freeze art fair to the professional Bull Riders League. So basically anything that brings people out to an event in person he wants a piece of. But I also, one quick note to finish this segment, is that the TKO stock ticker is just

chef's kiss, like immediately entered into the pantheon of great stock tickers. So I love that little wrinkle of it. All right, Neil, let's move on to our next story. It's not time for the jobs report quite yet, but that didn't stop payroll service provider ADP from dropping some fire employment data this week. After analyzing the job histories of more than 1.2 million U.S. workers over the past three years, ADP found a surprising stat. 29% of people quit their jobs within a month after their first promotion. This is a statistically viable trend, too. If you compare recently promoted people

to people who didn't get that title bump or their corner office, the quit rate is only 18%. So why are more people quitting after they get promoted? Well, there's lots of reason, but economists think that sometimes people feel overwhelmed and unsupported in new roles, which could lead them to seek greener pastures. On the flip side, a promotion can give someone

the confidence to go streak greener pastures. So it's put employers in a bit of a tough spot where they're not sure how the heck to deal with forward-looking employees. Neil, what do you make of this trend? Well, support people who got promoted. I think it's pretty simple. Biggest thing. I think there is, I mean, at least from my own experience, when you get promoted, often it's not just you don't do often the same job. You are being a contributor, you're writing a newsletter or something just in my experience.

Then when you get promoted, you're not just still writing a newsletter. You're editing. You're managing people. that is a completely different job. So, yeah, it's overwhelming. You're like, I wasn't trained to do this. So if employers don't support the people they promote, then after, you know, they're going to look for a new job and they do get that boost of confidence.

You're like, well, I got promoted. Like maybe I'll take my talents elsewhere and get paid a little bit more. Another really interesting and funny part of this trend, too, is you know how LinkedIn automatically update your feed whenever you get a new job or a new promotion? And so recruiters have literally gone on record and say, when we see that, We reach out to that person. So it's almost like LinkedIn's built-in kind of viral social feature is leading to and contributing to this problem.

So I don't know. Be careful or maybe post that if you're on LinkedIn. You might get a couple of job offers. One nugget in this I think is really important to call out is that lower skill workers were almost six times more likely to leave their job in their first month after a promotion than if they hadn't gotten the title booth. So it was so pronounced among low-skill low-wage workers. And that is because there's kind of an absence.

of other data to go off of for employers, like a degree or certification or anything like that. So that promotion is a true signal. Kind of like what you were talking about on LinkedIn, maybe that is in a higher income spectrum. But this is happening at the lower, lower wage level, even way more than it is happening at the higher one. Yeah. And just to zoom out real quick, too, this was definitely a unique time period to be analyzing as well because, I mean, this is a period marked by a absolutely red hot job market. And there was a wave of workers quitting to find.

newer jobs. So maybe the quit rate is edging lower, too. So this could be, again, like a post-pandemic red-hot labor market trend as well. So you always have to see how long this trend continues. And if you got promoted, this is rare. So according to ADP's data, only 4.5% of workers were promoted within two years of being hired. So maybe employers. Yeah, give yourself a pat on the back if you got that promotion then. All right. Our final story, right now, the Brits are super pissed off. And when the Brits are pissed off. It can only be about one thing. Someone is messing with their beer. And the thing that's messing with their beer is Stonegate, Britain's biggest pub chain. Stonegate decided to pull an Uber and charge surge pricing for beer that makes a pint 20 pence more expensive during the busy weekends.

The company said it was adding the surchargers to cover the cost of things like extra bouncers at the door, washing glasses, and supplying plastic cups. So Brits are livid with StoneGay over the surge pricing at its pubs. The one-star Yelp reviews are just popping off. And this is my favorite thing about this story. There's a consumer advocate group for pub goers in Britain. It's called Campaign for Real Ale. And this group blasted the move and said it could undermine pricing transparency. Toby, I feel like this surge pricing at bars just feels misguided. I'm on board with it. And here's my take. So first of all, it is truly the law of supply and demand playing out in real time. But also, this is just a fixture in so many other industries. I mean, Uber is obviously very famous for it,

but dynamic pricing also happens in the airline industry around holiday periods, ticketing companies use it. It's so common. So I don't know why people are so, because people hate it. I know people hate it, but it is just a fixture of like how economics work basically. Like this is supply and demand playing out. And so I truly do think that even though people are very mad at it, obviously, anytime you have to pay more for your pint, you're going to be mad. But it's not exactly. of left field that this is happening. And if you have rising costs, sometimes you have to raise prices in order to cover that. So that's not a popular take, but I'm on board with a idea of surge pricing. Why don't you just raise, I think it would be better if they just ticked up prices

across the board. The biggest thing here is transparency. Right. People don't want to walk in and not know how much they're going to pay at any given point. And so that is, that's the big thing. Like, you walk in, you're like, okay, a beer is $5. I know I'm going to pay that at any point in the day. It's a double transparency is a double-sided sword, though, because one exec at another big pub chain told the Guardian under the cover of anonymity that this practice has actually been going on for decades and lots of other pubs and chains. So he was actually padding Stonegate Group on the back for telling people, but by telling people, they kind of raised this ruckus. So he said that it's been happening without people knowing. So it definitely is like this two-sided sword. It does not seem like a way to win over customers,

but the tide does seem to be turning against surge pricing. AMC tried to do this dynamic pricing in its theaters where it charged more for better seats. That test completely flopped. They went back on that. And then Lyft is also killing surge pricing as well. The CEO is just like, people hate it with a fiery passion. That's his quote.

I mean, I am not going to be on the popular side of this debate for sure, but I did not expect myself to embrace surge pricing on this morning, but here we are. All right, we have to wrap it up there. Hope you all have a wacky Wednesday. Please send all thoughts about the show to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. I don't think we mispronounced anything today, so that should cut down 99% of the emails. Let's roll the credits.

Samantha Velas is our editor and producer. Evan Frolov and Raymond Lou are associate producers. Isabel Winn is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup just got promoted, so we'll see if they stick around. 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. Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes.

Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice. Hi, Mom. Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost, exclusively at the UPS Store UPS Store U.S. retail locations. Visit the UPS Store.com slash air shipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store. and we'll get your gratitude there on time.