Morning Brew Daily - The Cybertruck Is Finally Here & The Marketing Genius of Spotify Wrapped

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Episode 203: Neal and Toby preview Thursday's launch of Tesla's Cybertruck and why it comes at an interesting time for electric vehicles. Plus, why Wall Street is getting behind Nikki Haley and the ma...rketing genius of Spotify Wrapped. Neal shares his favorite numbers and Google is ready to delete the account you haven't touched in years. And, London's Black Cabs are finally available on the Uber app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement for Autonomix’s Regulation A+ Offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.autonomix.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, AFLAC plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbruedaily. That's aflack.com slash morning bruedaily. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman.
Starting point is 00:00:30 And I'm Toby Howell. On today's pod, Wall Street bigwigs are lining up behind a presidential candidate, not named Biden or Trump. Then the Tesla cyber truck finally begins deliveries today, but do people even want it anymore? It's Thursday, November 30th. Let's ride. For the second straight day, a major American figure has died at an extremely old age. Highly controversial, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who defined U.S. foreign policy
Starting point is 00:01:01 in the 70s and the Cold War. critics say for the worse, passed away at a hundred years old one day after Charlie Munger died at 99. So this is admittedly a little morbid, but there is a website I check periodically called the Death List, which is an annual list of 50 celebrities that are getting up there in age. From the top 10 in this year's list, we have lost four people, Kissinger, who was number two, Bob Barker, Tony Bennett, and Harry Belafonte. Still kicking at number one, Dick Van Dyke. But from my research, it seems that the one,
Starting point is 00:01:33 death-defying Kissinger holds the record for most appearances on this list. He has been on it for 11 years. There's a list for everything they say. There's a website for everything. 11 years on the deathlet. That is a long, long time. So wait, Dick Van Dyke is next. It's number one. Interesting. He's not next up. Yeah, right. Necessarily. He is number one. He's number one. Okay, before we jump into the news, we have one last shout out to the sponsor of today's episode, Brex. I say one last because today is the last day of the month, so we'll have a new sponsor starting next month. I am going to miss Brex. It's been fun teaching people about the best spend management platform out there. It made me want to start a business just so I could issue
Starting point is 00:02:11 corporate cards or manage bill pay with Brex. Neil, it's never too late. You should totally start that plane watching Bar and Grill outside of LAX. You've always wanted to. I think it's called in and out. You know what? With Brex on my side, I might just do that. Start a competitor. So we'll miss you, Brex, but it's been a fun ride. One last time, head to brex.com today to find the spend management solution you've been looking for. 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 Webber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that
Starting point is 00:02:55 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, the off-delayed, irregularly shaped, and much maligned Tesla Cyber Truck is finally starting deliveries today. And despite the fact that no one really asked for a stainless steel reimagining of the pickup truck, 10 lucky people are reportedly set to receive theirs today.
Starting point is 00:03:20 Remember, this thing has been in the work since 2019. But today is a very different. world from 2019. Tesla's profit margins are smaller, interest rates are much higher, and Morning Brew has a podcast now. Back in 2019, there were no electric trucks on the market. Now there are three. Back in 2019, the EV market was growing like a weed. Now it's cooling and all sorts of design defects, mostly stemming from the fact that stainless steel is an incredibly difficult material to build cars with, has led the cyber truck debut to be more tiresome than triumphant. Still, Neil, Elon has pulled off his fair share of magic tricks in the past.
Starting point is 00:03:57 Do you see a future where the cyber truck becomes a viable widely used? I don't know. I don't know. This is definitely a cursed product. It has been since the beginning. There was a launch event where they threw something at the window to prove that the window would hold up and it shattered. And I think that's kind of a metaphor for the entire production process here.
Starting point is 00:04:15 This is a car that is a statement car from a design perspective and a build perspective. And I thought this was a really interesting insight brought up by one review. It is a car that you want to have a take a selfie with, but is it a car that you actually want to own, especially at premium prices? We don't know the price of the cyber truck because they pulled the prices from the website a couple years ago because they just couldn't give an estimate. It seems like it's going to be upwards of $50,000 up to $90,000. So I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't buy it. It doesn't seem like, you know, it doesn't seem like this is what the market wants right now.
Starting point is 00:04:50 They want an EV that is affordable and practical, especially with cooling demand. for one. So I don't know if they're going to be driving around with like a blade runner type vehicle. Yeah, the consistent messaging I'm seeing out of Elon and out of Tesla is that Tesla's future won't hinge on the cyber truck because it is one of those vehicles that is not going to be practical for maybe a wide swath of people. So must keep saying he wants to temper expectations and that the next stage of growth will be kind of propelled by a next-gen vehicle, not the cyber truck itself. So you never want to see a car release in them say, everyone, tempered expectations, this is not going to make or break our company. It is more of a novelty item at this point in time.
Starting point is 00:05:32 It seems like they went away from what was working with the Model 3 and the Model Y. That was all about streamlined manufacturing, make it easy, pump out a lot. And they are kind of reverting back to what happened with the Model X, which was kind of they threw all the cool technology that they could and did all this complicated stuff. And Model X sales have been basically nothing relative to Model 3 and Model Y. And so they kind of reverted back to the worst practices rather than the best practices of what was working for them. Yeah, let's get into the production issues because they are plentiful. Stainless steel is brutal to work with. It's heavier than other materials. It doesn't like laying flat. It always tries to kind of curve back up into its
Starting point is 00:06:13 more natural shape. In short, it's too tough, too expensive, too heavy compared to what else is out there. Also, must demand that the exterior be bulletproof, which, which made Tesla make the exterior thicker steel. And also, this takes very precise manufacturing. And there's a lot of straight edges in this car. So any variations in the material end up, you see them. You see them with a visible to the naked eye. So that's why you keep seeing this infamous quote.
Starting point is 00:06:41 We dug our own grave with the cyber truck that Elon keeps saying, because they really did. Let's talk about the competition. You said there were three electric pickup trucks on the market. They are the Ford F-150 Lightning. There's one from Rivian, which is an EV truck startup, and there's also a GMC Hummered EV. And you can see why Tesla wants to get into this market because pickup truck sales, trucks in general are one of the fastest growing segments of the vehicle market. In 2022, they accounted for 20.5% of new vehicles sales up from around 16% in 2016.
Starting point is 00:07:13 So this is a very lucrative market. You also have very high profit margins within the pickup truck space. So there's only three on the market. So Tesla's not exactly going. into a super crowded field, but there will be, I think, 12 relatively soon. So a bunch of automakers from startups to legacy companies are piling into this space because everyone just wants a pickup truck. Yeah, here's how I'd sum it up.
Starting point is 00:07:35 It's a big day for people who care about the cyber truck, but I'm just not sure how many of those people are left out there. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting from that. That's a good sum up. Okay, we are less than a year from the presidential election and one candidate has emerged as the preferred choice for the top cats on Wall Street. Haley, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador. At the Deal Book Summit yesterday, J.P. Morgan's CEO, Jamie Diamond, who leans Democratic,
Starting point is 00:08:01 said that even liberals should throw their weight behind Haley as a Republican alternative to Trump. Diamond has reportedly had multiple calls with Haley and thinks she understands the business world and can get things done. He usually doesn't voice support for specific candidates this early in the process, so his mention of her is a big deal. And Diamond isn't alone, Citadel's billionaire CEO, Ken Griff, Finn is considering throwing some of his fortune behind Haley.
Starting point is 00:08:26 Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn held a fundraiser for her, and Haley scored a major win earlier this week when she secured the support of Americans for Prosperity Action, the Political Action Committee led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch. They have raised more than $70 million this year. Bottom line, Wall Street is lining up behind Nikki Haley, and there seems to be a wind at her back. Yeah, it comes down to choosing a candidate that for Wall Street provides a little more stability. therefore being a little better for business. So basically they're saying when you compare Haley to Trump,
Starting point is 00:08:58 we want the more stable, the more, I don't know, rational option, if you will. And so that's why we're seeing kind of this flood of these Wall Street mega donors stepping into her camp, whereas before they had kind of, no one had really chosen aside as of now. Yeah, so she has laid out her economic policy. It has a lot to do with she wants to do tax cuts, and she studied accounting in South Carolina. I think at Clemson, and she's been touting that as sort of a crackdown on this runaway spending
Starting point is 00:09:27 that has happened under Biden and Trump. She wants to eliminate the $500 billion in green energy subsidies that has been one of the signature policies of Biden and Bidenomics. So she's all about rating in spending. I don't know exactly how you balance a budget when you want to cut taxes at the same time because you need revenue from somewhere, but that remains to be seen, obviously. But Wall Street likes what she's what she's. saying she has moderate positions relative to her Republican peers on abortion. So she's just more
Starting point is 00:09:58 predictable, I think, than Trump. And you also have a bunch of other Wall Street people like Bill Ackman, who also leans Democratic, saying, you know, I don't even want Biden. And I think that just reflects the broader American public view, which is anybody but they used to. Yeah, this surprised me if she can manage to win the GOP bid over Trump, which is a big if recent polling shows Haley beating Joe Biden, Biden, buy a margin twice as large as Ron DeSantis. But let's dig into that if a little bit. While DeSantis is losing ground,
Starting point is 00:10:26 Haley's polling as second most boffered. But in most head-ed matchups, she's 44 points on average behind Trump. So again, even though you see these Wall Street people throwing their hat in the ring and their money, there's still a massive chasm to kind of cross before you can start challenging Trump.
Starting point is 00:10:41 This might be lighting money on fire. There's seven weeks till Iowa. Seven weeks of Iowa. Okay, I want to talk about what it was like scrolling Instagram yesterday. everyone listening at home, let me know if this is what your IG stories looked like. Spotify, Spotify, Rap, Spotify, Rap, Spotify, Rap, Someone's Cat, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, Spotify Rap dropped yesterday, and it was everywhere, as always.
Starting point is 00:11:06 People shared their most listen to artists, songs, and podcasts, whoop, whoop. But the big surprise for this year's edition of Spotify Rap was it assigned you a city based on your listening habits. I got Scottsdale, Arizona, of all places. but the big ones I saw in social media were Burlington, Vermont, Bozeman, Montana, and Berkeley, California. The seemingly random methodology behind assigning these pretty rogue cities just fed into the viral hype cycle as people posted and gossip about why the heck their musical taste was giving San Luis Bisbo for one reason or another. But I think this is exactly why Spotify rap continues to dominate the recap game. Technically Apple and YouTube have rewinds of their own, but nothing goes viral quite like Spotify. Spotify each year, and I think it's because they always add that bit of a wrinkle.
Starting point is 00:11:53 Neil, this was also an especially fun Spotify rap season for us, because we got to be on the other side of the equation for the first time. Toby, you took the words out of my mouth. I was going to say that each year, this hype builds every year, and you're like, how do they outdo themselves from last year when I thought everyone was talking about it? And each year it builds, and I think it's because they don't rest on their laurels, and they don't get satisfied, and they keep adding these new wrinkles and new features. You talk about the Soundtown thing.
Starting point is 00:12:19 No one knows what that means at all. I figured that out that it was like a college town situation where everyone got either Boulder or Berkeley, like Fort Collins, all the Burlington. I got Burlington. Everyone I know got Burlington. And they didn't even listen to Noah Connor, famous Vermonter.
Starting point is 00:12:34 So I don't know where that came from. But the thing is it doesn't matter because it got us talking. And for at least an hour or two yesterday, everyone here at the office and online was all talking about Spotify Rapp. And they continued to up their game. year after year. It was so funny for me too because the way they reveal it to you, they have this song crescendoing one of your songs, and then it shows where my listening habits came from,
Starting point is 00:12:56 and then like the beat dropped and it showed Scottsdale, Arizona, and I literally lost it. So you can just multiply that feeling that I had across everyone doing this, and you can see why it went viral. I also just want to dig into some of our stats because, again, I said it was our first time that we got to be on the other side of a Spotify rap. So just pretty crazy. We were the top 10 podcasts for 100. 38,000 people, the number one podcast for 21,000 people. And my favorite part of yesterday was just getting tagged in all the tweets and all the Instagram stories yesterday. Also seeing what other people listened to around our podcast was fun. So thank you to everyone who listens. It's pretty cool.
Starting point is 00:13:34 Yeah, it's mostly just a big thank you because it, you, when we're sitting in here, it's just Neil and I, but when we see stuff like these, the outpouring of support from Spotify Rapp week, it's been very fun. So thank you to everyone who posted and listened. Okay, but people want to know what your top song was. Oh my gosh. Wait, my top song was Natu Natu from the RRR movie, which was this Bollywood movie that kind of took over Netflix. And I just really liked the vibe of it. And I listened to it 23 times, I think, over the span of two weeks.
Starting point is 00:14:04 So that was my top song. I don't even remember seeing your stats. I didn't share it, you know? I'm not like a big poster. I keep it close to your best. But my top song, I looked at it this morning, was Alone Again Naturally. It's a Gilbert O'Sullivan tune from the 70s, and I saw it on TikTok because this guy played it on guitar,
Starting point is 00:14:21 and he was doing a series on the most interesting chord progressions of songs in the 70s and 80s, and I was just mesmerized by this song because it had an amazingly complex and interesting chord progression. So I was just super mesmerized by it, and I played it forever, and I guess nothing else came close. Had some 1975 also on there, and I had a Beach Boys phase this summer,
Starting point is 00:14:43 so that was my number three. We all have the Beach Boys phase. All right, now, before we dig into your musical taste too deep, let's take a quick break. We all have that dream trip. We've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life or usually price gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure.
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Starting point is 00:15:49 It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Welcome to Neal's numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will cause your neurons to light up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. First number is two stock prices. One is less than $15 a share, and the other is $157 a share. The first number is progressive insurance stock price in 2008, and the second is its stock price now.
Starting point is 00:16:16 What was behind the surge? No one can say for sure, but execs say it has a lot to do with Flow. The brand's incredibly popular character who premiered in ads in 2008 and is still going strong. The New York Times profiled the actor behind Flo, Stephanie Courtney, and it is chock full of even more crazy stats I'd love to share. One, Progressive spends more on ads in the U.S. than McDonald's, Toyota, or Coca-Cola. And the total media ad spend for the insurance industry is $11 billion, more than what all the top beer brands spend combined. So why does the insurance industry spend so much on marketing? Well, nearly half of the active property and casualty insurance premiums in the U.S. and
Starting point is 00:16:56 Canada were sold by just 11 companies. So you've got to find a way to stand out of the pack. And the way insurance companies have been doing this, writes the incredible Katie Weaver, is not by building trust between their customers and local agents, but by successfully ascribing positive characteristics to the fictional characters who anthropomorphize the companies and products in ads. I'm so interested in the animal versus human-ness spokesperson debate because on the animal side of things, they're digital representations, they never age, they never have scandals, and they never do anything outside of exactly what you need them to do. But then you have the Jake from State Farms, you have the flow from progressives who more than hold their end against, hold their own against Lemu, the Emu or the Gecko from Geico.
Starting point is 00:17:40 The Affleck Duck. So it is interesting to see the bifurcation between people who decide to kind of try to. trust their brand to a singular person or singular entity like Flo versus someone who just decides, let's just make a digital animal. Yeah, maybe it, I don't think they plan on this. They kind of test the waters because I think the Aflac, no, the Gecko was just supposed to be a one run thing and it just caught on with consumers, so they just kept pushing it out. So maybe it doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:18:06 It's just kind of what resonates. And Flo has resonated. She is, I encourage everyone to read this about Stephanie, a very interesting person. She is a comedic actress in Los Angeles who was just doing this, you know, doing commercials on the side. She's friends with Kristen Wigg in the same improv troupe. And this just caught on like wildfire. And now she's probably richer than her wildest dreams. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:28 The article said that people speculate that she's probably being paid at least a million bucks a year to start in these commercials, which feels low to me. Because she's one of the most recognizable figures in advertising in kind of the business landscape right now. And a cool fact is that she kind of talked to Jake from State. farm when he was starting out about what to expect. You love the mentorship. Okay, my second number is the glow up of Mordadella, a meat product from Bologna, Italy, that has transformed from modest deli meat to prize centerpiece on charcutory boards. Exports of Mordadella from Italy to the U.S. have jumped from 786 tons in 2019 to 1,200
Starting point is 00:19:04 tons last year, a 52% increase. So what even is Mordadella? Traditionally, it is an emulsion of fresh pork combined with fat from the back and throat of the pig. Sometimes you'll see olives, pistachios, or truffled, sprinkled in for some extra pizzazz. And unlike salami, prosciutto, or other Italian meats, it is cooked instead of cured, so it's much less salty than those are. In the Renaissance, Mordadella reached its peak popularity and was a favorite of families like the Borgias and the Medici's. But as industrializations swept through the food industry, Mordadella's status plunged as it was squeezed into a can and shipped
Starting point is 00:19:38 around the world like spam. Now, though, chefs are finding creative ways to leverage Mordadella, and probably with a little help from TikTok, Americans have developed a taste for it. I always associate Mordella with baloney or spam, which honestly isn't bad in my opinion. Like, I love baloney, but I think that's where it kind of, yeah, I lost some of its status. But I'm all the way back in on the fancy ham game. I'm buying stock in ham next year. I think Iberico ham's going to pop off. Costco sells this $100 plus Serrano ham from Spain that goes viral every couple of years.
Starting point is 00:20:08 I do think ham is built for like the TikTok culture because, because charcutory boards are built for TikTok culture. So sign me up for whatever more to Delah is not making by. What is your favorite cured meat? I love prosciutto, first of all. That's just the goat to me. But I was over in Spain last year and just ate homone queso every single day. And you just can't beat it.
Starting point is 00:20:28 Okay, for my final number, a music record has fallen. Andre 3000's song, I swear I really wanted to make a rap album, but this was literally the way the wind blew me this time. Yep, that's the name of the track. Has appropriately broken the record for the longest. running song ever to hit the Billboard Hot 100. It rings in at 12 minutes and 20 seconds, topping tools, fear inoculum for the title.
Starting point is 00:20:49 Any idea what number three is? Runaway? Nope. Taylor Swift's all too well, Taylor's version, which is 10 minutes and 13 seconds. A 12 minute song that achieves this level of popularity is unusual. The average runtime for the top 10 songs on the Hot 100 chart is three minutes in 15 seconds.
Starting point is 00:21:06 But the renaissance of the really long song might be upon us because the three longest hot 100 hits by runtime were all released since 2019. I listened to it this morning. I had to do my research, and I genuinely enjoyed it. It's calming, yet beneath this kind of soft flute veneer, it's clearly like searching for something.
Starting point is 00:21:23 It's not just elevator music. There's a lot more going on to that. And it almost ventures into sonic dissonance at sometime. There's a lot of background sounds that don't seem to add up, but it always comes to kind of this satisfying conclusion. And that is only something that you can explore over a long song. so I really did enjoy what Andre 3000 was trying to do.
Starting point is 00:21:43 I don't know if that's what he was trying to do, but that's what I took away from it. You know who brought back the long song? Who? Justin Timberlake in 2013 with a 2020 experience. Go look at that album, which is an excellent album. Most of the songs are over seven minutes long. And mirrors, which a lot of people know, is eight minutes and four seconds.
Starting point is 00:21:59 Justin Tiberland. And suit and tie is over seven minutes too, I believe. No, it's five minutes and 26 seconds. But all of those songs on 2020 experience, which are epic and scale, are really long, and I think he kind of brought back the concept of the long song, along with maybe like Sufion Stevens or some others, and making long songs palatable to people again. That's crazy because he also brought sexy back. File this next story under News You Can Use.
Starting point is 00:22:22 Google is set to start purging old Gmail, YouTube, and photo data belonging to inactive Google accounts beginning tomorrow, December 1st. If your account has been inactive for at least two years, your data could be on the chopping block. But here's how to save it if you really want your middle school email address. to live on. Just log on to it or watch a YouTube video, use Google search, do pretty much anything in Google's suite of services while logged in, and you're good to go for at least another two years. The big reason behind this big purge is security. Inactive accounts are
Starting point is 00:22:53 way more likely to lack two-factor authentication and thus become compromise. So Google is trying to tidy up its user base to leave it less open to malicious attacks. But there's been a lot of pushback. Emmett Shear of all people who was the ill-fated CEO of open eye for all of 72 hours, said that deleting old YouTube or blogger content was like, quote, burning the commons. I see it both ways, Neil, got to clear out the digital trash to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, but some accounts are tied to old photos, old blog content. This stuff is history. Yeah, it made me think about what my sort of digital organization is like, and it is chaos. You know, I'm sure I have so many email addresses from just signing up for one
Starting point is 00:23:34 newsletter, getting that one particular promotion. So I need to do that. It's all. It's all also a good reminder to probably have a local backup of a lot of the stuff that's on the cloud because you never know what a particular platform like Google could do with it. So if you have a bunch of photos on Google, which I think I do, tied to an account that I definitely use now, but who knows what will happen in the future, probably a good idea. There's something called Google Takeout, which allows you to export your photos and other data or download them to a local place. So maybe that's a good idea. It's kind of like a wake-up call where maybe if you don't have a lapsed Google account, you can still kind of take stock and do some winter cleaning of your digital
Starting point is 00:24:10 life. But also inactive accounts are only going to be a more and more pressing issue on social media. A 2019 study by the University of Oxford found that debt accounts could outnumber the living on Facebook by 2070. Again, 2070 is a little ways down the line, but you start to think when all these inactive profiles start building up, the opportunities for impersonation or sending out mass spam emails, you start to figure out why these inactive accounts are such an issue. So I totally see why Google is doing this, so they don't let bad actors take advantage of it. All right. So just make sure you do this if you have a laps Google account by Friday and you want to keep it. Okay, for our final story, I'd like to introduce a new segment called T-I-L, or Today I Learned,
Starting point is 00:24:55 it's Reddit speak for when you learn something truly surprising that you need to share with someone. And today, well, yesterday, I learned that taxi drivers in London who drive these famous black cabs must pass a test called knowledge. And this test is a beast. First introduced in 1865, knowledge requires drivers to learn London's thousands of streets and landmarks within a six-mile radius of sharing cross, even better than Google Maps. It takes three to four years to master, and to pass, you need to go through three different rounds of oral tests, where an interviewer will quiz you on the shortest route between any two points in London.
Starting point is 00:25:30 And only then can you drive that iconic black cab. So why did knowledge come up? Because yesterday, Uber announced that it will open up its platform to London's black cabs next year, a group it's had a very testy relationship with since it broke into the city's market more than a decade ago. There's been both support and pushback to Uber's move, given this historic frostiness. So we'll see whether a taxi service that began in 1621 is ready to embrace a 21st century taxi disruptor. Yeah, the knowledge makes no logical sense in the modern era because every single driver has an eye. these days, equipped with GPS. You don't need to know every single street in London, but I do think there's a great psychological aspect to it, because when you're traveling in London, you know black
Starting point is 00:26:12 cabs are extremely knowledgeable about the streets, which helps build trust, which is a very, very important part of kind of crafting a successful city. You need to be able to get around and trust the people that you're entrusting your life with, essentially, to take you around. So even though I don't think it makes practical sense anymore, it plays a big psychological role in the London taxi cab system. good to know your way around. Imagine there's like, you know, this happens in New York City a lot of times where you're on a street. Google Maps is telling you to go a particular place, but it's either closed or there's a garbage truck blocking the way and you need to know your way around. In New York City, it's pretty easy because it's a grid and it's pretty clear where you should
Starting point is 00:26:48 go. But in London, it is very complicated. There's a lot of winding streets and narrow passageways. So I think it's pretty freaking cool. I've absolutely noticed a difference because you can call a taxi in New York using the Uber Apple as well, and I have done that. And the big, biggest difference between a taxi and an Uber driver to me is an Uber driver looks specifically at the dot and will just pull you to wherever the dot is on their screen. They don't look at the actual numbers of the buildings, whereas the taxi cab driver has their head up. They are going to drop you. If you say 373, blah, blah, blah, blah. They will take you to 373 versus any dot.
Starting point is 00:27:22 So I'm actually totally on side of the knowledge on preserving the lost art of knowing your way around the city. I love that. I love knowing my way around. So we'll see what happens with Uber. I mean, there's been a lot of pushback from the licensed taxi drivers association. They kind of have this reputation they want to uphold, and they see Uber as disrupting that. There was a hilarious quote from the general secretary of this taxi drivers association, saying that we have no interest in sullying the name of London's iconic world-renowned black cab
Starting point is 00:27:52 by aligning it with Uber, which has a poor safety track record. So there's a lot of pushback, but kind of like we were talking about earlier this year with dominoes going on the third-party delivery apps, it might just lead to more business. So maybe some of these cabbies will be like, you know, maybe I'll just drive for Uber too and, you know, more money in my pocket better than whatever reputation these black cabbies have.
Starting point is 00:28:15 I think more money always will end up winning at the end. It's just more convenient too. You got a steady stream of Uber drivers versus drive around looking for someone. I just don't know, we don't know, like, what it's like over there. I mean, I haven't been to London in a while, but it seems like they take their taxi driving scene. Seriously.
Starting point is 00:28:30 As they should. Okay, we've got to wrap it up there. Hope everyone has a great Thursday. I know we don't do fast week, slow week anymore, but I'm just going to put it out there. Very fast week. If you want to reach us, send an email with thoughts, questions, concerns, admiration to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits.
Starting point is 00:28:47 Emily Milliron is our editor and producer. Samantha Velas and Raymond Lou are associate producers. Eucheno Wa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup is studying for knowledge. Devin Emery is our chief content officer. and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil.
Starting point is 00:29:03 Let's run it back tomorrow. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th.
Starting point is 00:29:28 Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. anniversary. UN must be 21 to enter.

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