Morning Brew Daily - The Non-Alcoholic Beer Brand Worth $800M & Texas Power Grid vs Hurricane Beryl

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Episode 362: Neal and Toby recap the havoc of Hurricane Beryl after it made landfall in Houston this past Monday and how Texas is often the target of climate disasters. Then, Athletic Brewing Company ...is leading the charge in America’s growing desire to drink without the drink–of alcohol, that is. Meanwhile, Jerome Powell goes to the front of the class of Congress to share that the US economy might have another foe besides inflation. Next, Etsy is trying to get out of its slump by reinventing itself as the “anti-robot” commerce company. Also, empty offices hit an all-time high, especially in San Francisco. Lastly, Ivy League social clubs are becoming a thing of the past as memberships are dwindling. Can speed dating save it? Expand your world with Meta AI. Now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger. 00:00 - Big sequels coming up 2:40 - Hurricane Beryl hits Houston 7:00 - Athletic Brewing is taking over 11:00 - Jerome Powell reports to Congress 14:30 - Etsy comeback story? 18:20 - Vacant offices continue to rise 22:00 - Ivy League clubs are fading away Get your Morning Brew Daily Mug HERE: https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/morning-brew-daily-mug?utm_medium=youtube&utm_source=mbd&utm_campaign=mug Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:01 Consider this comparison. PWC data found the percentage of CEOs who report revenue gains or cost reductions from AI is almost equal to the percentage who say they're still stuck. What separates these two groups? PWC points to a clarity issue. Even for CEOs, it's hard to tell what's AI hype, what's reality, and where this tech can make a tangible difference. Learn where AI can actually make an impact and what successful adoption looks like at
Starting point is 00:00:26 pwc.com slash US slash brew AI. That's pwc.com slash us slash brew AI. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Etsy is overhauling its site to get rid of all the AI-generated junk. But can it regain its status as the anti-Amazon? Then America's busiest up-and-coming beer brand won't even get you buzzed.
Starting point is 00:00:52 It's Wednesday, July 10th. Let's ride. Yesterday was huge for movie announcements with two of, the most rewatchable films from the 2000s, getting a second chapter. A long-awaited sequel to The Devil Wears Prada is reportedly in the works, with Merrill Streep and Emily Blunt reprising their roles in the cutthroat world of fashion. Plus, the official trailer for Gladiator 2, starring Paul Mest Call and a massive rhino, dropped yesterday ahead of its November release in theaters. Toby, the battle sequences are going to be epic, and Gladiator looks good, too.
Starting point is 00:01:30 All right. You forgot the most important. sequel announcement yesterday, though. DreamWorks said Shrek 5 is in the works as well with Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz all coming back. Of those three movies, I think I'm out on Shrek. That's too many Shreks. I'm most excited for Gladiator because in the trailer, other than the giant rhino that you mentioned, you can see that they're going to stage a mock naval battle, which was historically accurate. They used to do that in the Coliseum. Who can't get pumped for that? I can absolutely get pumped for that. I know Emily, our producer, is the most hype about the devil wears product. She was just quoting it.
Starting point is 00:02:03 for the last hour and a half while we were trying to Prev. But I'm excited for all these movies, I'm except for Shrek. But I do know what I'm going to have for breakfast this morning. Obviously, waffles. You're having waffles. Now a word from our sponsor, Meta AI. So back in the pandemic, when there wasn't a whole lot to do outside, I took up calligraphy for a brief moment.
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Starting point is 00:04:07 sparking flooding and causing widespread damage to buildings and power infrastructure. At least seven people were killed in the storm, which brought more than a foot of rain to parts of Houston and even damaged part of the Houston Texans football stadium. The most immediate concern now is getting the power back on. As of this morning, 1.7 million customers from Galveston through Houston remained without electricity, meaning no air conditioning in dangerously hot temperatures. The utility that bore the brunt of the damage, Centerpoint, said it expected to restore power to one million customers by tonight.
Starting point is 00:04:40 But that's not everyone. And residents who've seen their power grid fail time and time again in severe weather are growing frustrated with the response. People in Texas must be thinking, we really are on the front lines of extreme weather events fueled by climate change. Yeah, no other state has suffered more climate-related damage over the past several decades then Texas, it's not Florida, it's not California, not Louisiana, it is Texas. This is a perfect encapsulation of America, though.
Starting point is 00:05:05 People in Houston were trying to get more info on how power restoration was going. So they turned to the Whataburger app. The chain has tons of locations around Houston, and you could use the app to see which ones were closed, which ones were open, and people are using it as this good approximation of where the power had returned. If that's not the most Houston thing I've ever heard, very resourceful too, I might, might add. Yeah, it reminds me of the Waffle House index, which is used to track, you know, power outages across the southeast. Their Waffle House is known as a very hearty business that stays open 24-7 in all extreme weather events. So I guess we got to add the Waterburger Index to the list.
Starting point is 00:05:44 Yeah, it was a interesting day in general for Houston. This is the third iteration two of Barrel. That's what makes it so such an interesting storm to track because it kept getting refueled by different waters across. It hit several Caribbean islands, Jamaica, it hit Mexico. But then the brief time it crossed through the Gulf of Mexico, just supercharged it once again, got it back up to a category one hurricane. So this has been not only just a powerful hurricane, but it's also the earliest Atlantic hurricane to ever reach a category five. This is why Barrel has been, you've been seeing in the news so much. And it's just the start of the hurricane season, which lasts through. November, which is expected to be one of the worst on records. But just going back to Texas,
Starting point is 00:06:27 I mean, their power grid has failed so many times over the past few years, and you can't help but just think they are ground zero of these extreme events fueled by climate change. Meanwhile, more people are moving to Texas than any other state. Nearly half a million people became Texans in 2023 alone. In that same year, they suffered 11 separate billion-dollar disasters, and that is affecting everything from property taxes to hold. Home insurance, home insurance premiums grew 23% there in 2023, which was the biggest gain in the country and third biggest in percentage terms. So it's just remarkable what's happening in Texas.
Starting point is 00:07:04 They are on the front lines. Yeah. Part of it is just where Texas is situated because the warm waters gives those tropical storms, gives those hurricanes some fuel. There's the hot, dry air, which also makes wildfires a lot more likely we spoke about the wildfires affecting Texas earlier this year. And then also just warmer air in general holds more moisture. sure because a lot of these disasters aren't necessarily named storms. There are just very powerful
Starting point is 00:07:27 thunderstorms or hail storms that are causing all these destructive and all you're seeing these gaudy numbers around their billion dollar disasters. Some of them are not even from hurricanes or just from normal thunder and hailstorms. But yeah, Texas, front lines, it's getting hit a lot. Yeah. And meanwhile, barrel is is much weaker. It's moving into the Mississippi Valley in Ohio, which they say could lead to more flash flooding and potentially hurricanes or potentially torn tornadoes going into the week. Meanwhile, 160 million people are under heat advisories. Right now, Death Valley could hit 130.
Starting point is 00:08:00 So it's just bad weather everywhere across the country right now. We hope everyone in Houston stays safe and hopefully they'll restore power as fast as possible. Speaking of heat, the hottest beer company out there right now, hardly has any alcohol in it. Athletic brewing, the non-alcoholic beer brand that has taken the beverage world by storm, just announced a raise of $50 million, roughly doubling its valuation to $800. million. Founded just seven years ago, athletic brewing has ridden savvy positioning to pass incumbents like Budweiser and Heineken to become the biggest non-alcoholic beer brand in the U.S. Even if you zoom out to the entire beer market, the 258,000 barrels athletic
Starting point is 00:08:37 brewing sold last year would make it a top 20 brewery in the U.S. Non-alcoholic options have been popping off recently as younger Americans lay off the booze. It's now the fastest growing segment of the entire beer market. Athletic has been the poster child for this movement and plans to use the funds to expand at retailers and increase production. This category hardly existed 10 years ago. Now we almost have a billion dollar company
Starting point is 00:09:01 directly serving it. Non-alcoholic is hot right now, Neil. This company is an absolute rocket ship. I mean, they're riding all of the trends and they are so well positioned. The CEO started this company seven years ago and just was such a visionary that he basically created this category
Starting point is 00:09:19 that was dominated by just horrible tasting non-alcoholic beers like Odules. It wasn't even a thing. You would just not drink it. But all of the trends are pointing in Athletic Brewings direction. 62% of adults under 35 drink, which is down from 72% to decades ago. More than 40% of Americans say they're actively trying to drink less alcohol. And when you look at younger cohorts like millennials and Gen Z, that reaches 60% of people who want to drink less.
Starting point is 00:09:45 So athletic is just in this prime position where they're capitalizing on a lot of trends of people just not wanting to drink less. It's not just dry January, which was the biggest one ever. January was their biggest month of sales in history. It's just people generally, there's a secular shift to drinking less alcohol, but they still want to be in social events, and
Starting point is 00:10:02 athletic provides them the ability to do that. It does feel like it has staying power, because if you look at the beer in beverage market, it is very cyclical. I mean, if you look back over the past decade, remember, craft beer had this huge boom, and then the hard seltzer, ain't no laws when you're drinking claws, summer, and then
Starting point is 00:10:19 Now there's alcoholic, there's alcohol-free beer, there's canned cocktails as well. But you're right. It does feel like there has been, especially in younger generations, just much more focus on their wellness. I mean, the company is named Athletic Brewing because that was originally the cohort that they want to serve. But now it's just people in general who do want to continue to have that drink in their hand at a social function, but just don't want the negative effects of alcohol. Two stats, I think, are really interesting. So at Whole Foods, Athletic is the biggest beer brand.
Starting point is 00:10:47 It sells more than any other beer. alcoholic or non-alcoholic. That is remarkable. And at the same time, athletic is not necessarily meant to be a substitute for your beer consumption. It's a compliment. It was striking to me that 80% of all people who drink athletic brewing also drink alcohol. So there's a time of the day they maybe want to have a beer every single day. And maybe two days of the week, they have an alcoholic beer.
Starting point is 00:11:11 And then the other five days, they have athletic brewing. I think that probably bodes well for its business. But the question is, how big can this company get? Like, what is the ceiling in the beer market for non-alcoholic options? And I think that will determine how big it eventually gets. I'm glad you ask because I think there is still plenty of room to run. Non-alcoholic beer accounted for just 0.3% of the entire beer category when athletic launched in 2018. Now that's up to 1.5%.
Starting point is 00:11:38 So it's still very, very small. The athletic CEO does think that eventually non-alcoholic beer can account for 20% of the beer market. And remember, the beer market is gigantic. It's a hundred billion dollar category. So if you get 20 percent of that, that's 20 billion dollars. So he does think that there's a ton more room to run in this category. Yesterday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell took the seat. Mark Zuckerberg had warmed up for him many times before and testified before the Senate on the state of the economy. And he said something we haven't heard in a long, long time. Inflation, according to Powell, has dropped down a notch on the list of things that keep him up at night. Tied right there with inflation is a labor market
Starting point is 00:12:21 that could begin to crack if interest rates stay at the historically high level they are right now, and that could send the economy into a recession. So if you read between the lines of what Powell's saying there, is that he sees a rate cut in the near future to protect jobs. Employment growth has slowed down significantly these past few months under high interest rates. While the economy added more than 200,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate can take. its upward march to 4.1%. And other job statistics all point to the same thing that hiring is getting weaker and people are spending longer looking for work.
Starting point is 00:12:56 So my main takeaway from this hearing, Powell is very close to declaring victory on inflation and is now eyeing a rate cut to keep the economy humming and avoid a potential recession. The man is teeing up a rate cut. We've watched him rummage around his pockets, find a tee, find his ball, and now he's bending down to put it in the ground.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Now he could still step back. Maybe the winds change. Maybe that inflation number starts creeping back up again. He doesn't actually have to hit the ball until he's good and ready. There's a lesson there, too, about golf and life there. Just do it when everything feels right. But yeah, I do think now that the T is in the ground for sure and that he, inflation is no longer, it's probably still 1A, but now there's 1B as well in making sure
Starting point is 00:13:37 that unemployment rate doesn't creep up too high. With all this talk about inflation over the past few years, we might have lost sight that the Fed actually has a dual mandate. one is to maintain a 2% rate of inflation. The other is to maximize employment. And right now, Powell is looking at all of the jobs numbers and seeing that employment is slowing down, that unemployment rate has ticked up from 3.7% in December to 4.1%. Now, the number of people looking for work who spend more than 15 weeks on the job hunt is at its highest level since 2022. So all signs are indicating that this job growth is slowing down. And he doesn't want to be behind the ball.
Starting point is 00:14:19 That's the thing because this thing could crumble really quickly. And he's not sounding the alarm. He's saying labor market is very strong right now. It's back to normal levels. We're back to where we were in 2019 before the pandemic, created this huge labor crunch that drove up wages that drove up inflation. But he just doesn't want to be too late. And at the same time, he doesn't want to cut too early to spike inflation back up.
Starting point is 00:14:39 So it's really a balancing act that he's trying to draw. I don't envy him. it does look like investors think that in September there might be the first rate cut. They're giving it like a 70% chance. There was definitely a little political jockeying around him. Anytime you go up to Capitol Hill, there is political jockeying. But some Democratic committee members were urging him to lower rates soon because they were concerned. I mean, what they are, their constituents are top of mind from them.
Starting point is 00:15:06 They don't want to see unemployment spike. But then some Republican members were like, you can't cut rates right before an election. that feels like too politically charged there as well. So any time that you step foot in front of a committee, a senatorial committee, there is going to be some political jockeying. And I think we saw that at this hearing. Up next, Etsy is returning to its roots, finally. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot.
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Starting point is 00:16:09 Thank you. One size, absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business. Think back to the Etsy of old. At its core, it was a place for artists and craftmakers to finally get an audience for their niche products. But the Etsy of today, way different. It's been overrun by resellers who figured out how to game the site through clever SEO and mass produce items. In short, it kind of resembles Amazon, Tamu, and Shien, aka the same companies that forced them down that pass in the first place.
Starting point is 00:16:43 But a new dawn is breaking. Etsy CEO Josh Silverman says he wants a company to return to his roots and follow its stated mission to keep commerce human. That means new labels to show how each seller actually created a particular good. So Etsy's products will now be required to fall into one of four categories made by like handmade necklace, designed by like a digital illustration, handpicked by, think vintage clothes, or sourced by like craft supplies. Neil, it feels like Etsy has been caught in an e-com meat grinder since its heyday during 2020, but this feels like they are back heading in the right direction. Yeah, I think they're looking at these other e-commerce firms like Tamu, Sheen, and Amazon and saying, look, we probably can't compete with your game. We need to go back to what we do best, which is these handmade vintage goods.
Starting point is 00:17:32 And we realize that AI might be a factor. So that's why they included, I think, that category called Design Buy. and they say that you can generate artwork with AI. That's not a problem, but you can't just offer a bunch of chat GPT prompts and have people download them. So they are carving out space for AI. But I think this is just in response to the competition saying, look, we should not play the game you're playing.
Starting point is 00:17:54 We're going to play our own game. That seems like a smart strategy. But it does need to do something and take drastic action because stock price has fallen more than 80% since its peak in 2021. When everyone was buying masks on the site, it's down 32% this year. alone while the NASDAQ has gained 23%. So its finances are not looking good. And so this is the drastic action it's taking.
Starting point is 00:18:16 Yeah, think about the landscape of e-commerce right now. Oh, you're selling this product. Well, we're selling it for two cents cheaper. Oh, you're selling it for cheaper. Well, we'll get it to you two hours faster. Etsy just cannot play that same game. It's an arms race and they just don't have the arms to compete. So everyone is playing that race.
Starting point is 00:18:32 So then maybe you take a step back and say, let's just go back to what people like. Because Etsy used to be this delightful place where you could see, it felt like you're in a market and you were seeing people's wares, their homemade goods, but now it just has a completely different feel to the site now. So I think this is smart. They're pairing a marketing campaign to go along with it. They're positioning themselves. It might be slower growth over time, but it is definitely more sustainable, and they're carving out the niche that they originally occupied. Let's talk about that marketing campaign for a second because it's very interesting.
Starting point is 00:19:00 It's going to be a massive marketing campaign. So if you turn on the TV, if you're in Times Square or in London, they're putting out billboards. But this TV ad is showing craftspeople. molding clay, they're chopping wood, they're sewing fabric, like all these homemade sort of classic things. And then at the end, they're showing a robotic hand that's smashed. And in a way, I don't know if they were producing this before the Apple ad that came out, the iPad ad, but it's sort of the inverse of that iPad ad, which drew a lot of criticism, which showed a hydraulic press, crushing all of those things that made human artistic expression amazing and instead replaced it with an iPad. and this Etsy ad seems to be the complete 180 inverse of that.
Starting point is 00:19:41 Right. Handmade doesn't scale, and that's the entire point of it. So I'm glad that they're leaning into this thing. Human beings like that stuff because human beings make it. So I'm back on the Etsy band. The problem is you need a robust marketplace for people to shop, and handmade doesn't scale. So if you want to have a large marketplace where people are shopping and find things that they want, then it's kind of a double-edged sword
Starting point is 00:20:02 because you do need a library to compete with the Amazon's of the world. Lean into it, though. People love that. stuff. So maybe it's going to be smaller in the short term, but in the long term, I think it's a wise play. Offices in the U.S. are emptier than they've ever been before. According to a new Moody's report, vacancies in the office sector set a new record high of 20.1% in the second quarter the first time that number has ever leapt above 20%. For all the talk of the return to office crackdown,
Starting point is 00:20:29 it simply isn't happening. Tons of people are still working from home at least some days of the week. In fact, more than 8 and 10 North American organizations say they've implemented hybrid work. What makes this 20% vacancy rate so notable and ominous for the commercial real estate industry is that it hasn't coincided with an economic downturn. Vacancies have been very high before in 1986 and in 1991, but those were a result of recessionary environments and eventually they snap back to normal. But this time around is different. The economy is growing, but it seems that COVID has led to a long-term behavioral shift in how people use the office. Specifically, they just use it a lot less. And that represents an existential crisis for office developers
Starting point is 00:21:12 who could see a quarter of a trillion dollars wiped off property values in the next several years. Toby, did this surprise you that vacancy rates are still climbing four years into the pandemic? I thought the worst was over. I think commercial real estate owners have a pit in their stomach right now because, yes, commercial real estate is very sensitive to interest rates. We're coming off a decade of cheap money, free money, essentially, so higher rates were definitely going to be painful. But then when you look down the existential threat of declining demand and changing worker habits, it's very hard to ignore these numbers.
Starting point is 00:21:44 You cannot just pin them on interest rates anymore. So permanent shifts in working behavior definitely lasted a lot longer than most people expected coming out of the pandemic. And I do think that this very slow bleed, this death by 1,000, cuts is hurting the commercial office space. It has been a very slow train wreck. And I think it's just due to these long-term leases. There's not a lot of transactions that happen very frequently in the commercial office space. You sign a five-term, five-year lease, signed a 10-year lease. So it really is just taking a long time to unfold. And in this Moody's report, they say it's
Starting point is 00:22:18 going to get worse before it gets better. They expect that vacancy rate to get up to nearly one quarters at 20 percent now. So they're expecting it to get up to nearly 20. 25% by 2026 as working from home persists. And then you're going to see the market respond. There's going to be right sizing. They'll demolish offices and convert them. So the market will respond to just people needing less office space. They're expecting that the average worker will need 14% less office space in general.
Starting point is 00:22:44 So that will happen in the real estate market because they're not going to keep building if there's nobody to occupy. It's just going to take a lot of years and a lot, a lot of pain for that to happen. Speaking of pain, San Francisco is getting especially. hammered. The vacancy rate for San Francisco office space is now at 34.5% according to real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield. That's up from 33% in the first quarter, 28% a year ago, and then 5% before the pandemic. I don't think we understand how insane those numbers are, because San Francisco used to be entirely full. 5% vacancy rate is essentially full. Now it's
Starting point is 00:23:21 pushing 35%. Just crazy. And lack of demand too does translate to. falling rents as well. If there's nobody there to rent the offices, you can't charge as much. So San Francisco average asking rent dropped to $68 per square foot. That's down from a peak of $84. So San Francisco, we've talked about it as nauseam. The doom loop isn't coming, is it not? Those vacancy rates still paint a pretty dire picture. Ivy League alumni clubs used to be the creme de la creme of private social clubs, a place for backroom business meetings and coat and tied dinners. But now the storied clubs from Harvard, Gale, Princeton, some of which date back to the 19th century, are struggling to remain relevant in the modern era. Turns out that young people
Starting point is 00:24:05 aren't down with dated interiors, pretty average food and stuffy dress codes, leading to existential headwinds for the clubs. Of the Manhattan-based hangouts, the Penn Club has had a decade of annual net losses. The Cornell Club has lost between 280,000 to 2.1 million every single fiscal year since 2016, but it's the Princeton club that's been hit the hardest. It lost about a third of its membership during the pandemic, and it had a default on a $40 million loan for its Midtown location in 2021. Neil, I don't think many people out there are really boohooing the fact that Ivy alumni are losing their clubs, but still, it's a stark look at the changing taste of young professionals today. Yeah, I hear a lot of tiny violins being plated, but yes,
Starting point is 00:24:48 being played, but I do think that it speaks to broader trends. People are looking for more experiences and populations. And when you think of these clubs, you think of very homogenous populations and a lot of old people dressed in, you know, suits and ties when you just need to go enter a place. I mean, these places didn't even allow women until the 60s and the 70s. So they're very backward looking. And they're a bunch of competing social clubs out there that have burst on the scene since the pandemic, the Soho House of the World, zero bonds of the world, where you're going to
Starting point is 00:25:21 pay a lot of money, but you also get access. to a more modern experience. There's omacase bars, there's pools. It's just a more casual environment where you're being exposed to different people. I've never been to any of those places, but it does seem like that. It's a marketplace and when you're choosing between the Princeton Club and a Soho House where you have like some more interesting and modern experience. I think the Princeton Club is going to lose out in that choice. A rooftop pool definitely does some heavy lifting in that choice. I do think dress codes do have a major line of demarcation as well because for decades,
Starting point is 00:25:57 dress codes has been kind of this line in the sand between older and younger alumni. In 1999, the Yale Club became the first of the Manhattan Ivy Clubs to allow casual dress on Fridays. It was a huge deal back in 1999. Now the thought of dressing up in a suit and tie or a dress to go have dinner in a club on a weekday just sounds absolutely ridiculous. So I do think you're right. It does feel like we're entering this age of clubs.
Starting point is 00:26:23 though, people are looking for those hangouts. They're looking for modern versions of these alumni clubs. So I think that you're right, it is a market price. And right now, if you have the choice between a sushi bar and a rooftop pool versus dressing up in a suit and tie, you're going to go with the sushi bar and pool. Let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a great rest of your day. We are going on an email replying a binge later this morning.
Starting point is 00:26:48 So if you want to sneak in any messages before we hit inbox zero, send an email to Morning Brew daily at morning brew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lou is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Euchenowa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup is not entertained. 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. 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
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