The Best One Yet - 👻 “All the IPOs disappeared?” — Adidas’ perspiration aspiration. Buzzfeed’s Top 10 spirals. Year of the IP-No.

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Um, where did the IPOs go? Disappeared. It’s the Year of the “IP-No” — and we have 5 reasons why. Adidas just whipped up the 1st ever network to pay regular college athletes for strutting to class in Adidas sandals. And Buzzfeed’s latest listicle is the Top 10 reasons why it’s spiraling.$BZFD $ADDYYGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewformID: 2093958Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Thursday. The new Friday, March 24th. Oil prices rose yesterday. So stocks went down yesterday. Actually, NASDAQ had a nice 12% of Windstreet going, but it's over.

It's over. Yeah. Like Kentucky basketball. Like the Wildcats. Jack, today's pods are like the best one yet. Oh, TBLI. For our first story, did you notice something's been missing from our pods lately? IPOs.

News about IPOs. Like, there's no news on IPOs. It's the year of the IP No. The IP no. No. Second story, Jack. For our second story, if you're a squash player, a collegiate squash player, we've got great news. Even better for you, like an Ivy squash player. Snackers, Adidas just announced the largest ever college athlete sponsorship program in the world. All 23 college sports are welcome.

You're getting 50 bucks. Third story, what do we got, Jack? BuzzFeed stock fell 5% yesterday. BuzzFeed News has more bad news. Snackers, before we hit that wonderful mix. A fantastic Thursday mix. I love this mix. Facebook.

Man, this company is great at barring your startup's idea, not compensating you for it, and doing too little too late. Oh, yeah, that is great points, Jack. Facebook also really good at perks. Maybe your office has a food court snackers. Oh, yeah. Well, Facebook's office, they've got a food cornucopia. I could say with reasonable confidence that if I worked at Facebook,

I'd be sneaking almond croissants in my purse for later. Sir, what's in your pocket? Oh, rock them's in my pocket. But last week, Snackers, Facebook made a major. Get this, Facebook is deperking. It's perks. They are ending one of their most obscure, but most talked about perks in Silicon Valley. Facebook's free dry cleaning. A free laundry service, Facebook has offered to all employees for years to cleanse the headquarters. Yeah, because they want engineers focusing on coding, not folding. But now you're going to need to

starch that hoodie yourself. Yeah, snackers, they're still going to get the free truffle-infused arugula steak-free meze for lunch. Don't worry. almond croissants are here to stay. But we have to warn you, Facebookers, that dress, it won't be ready for pickup on Tuesday at 5 p.m. as usual. Now, on the bright side, Facebook can now finally take down those passive-aggressive, dry cleaning, and laundry signs. Suck says items not collected in two weeks will be discarded.

That feels out of place at a company like Facebook. If only they can do that with the misinformation. Snackers, you got a meta, meta-mates wrinkle-free. Yeah, let's iron our three stories. Facebook's new slogan is move fast and full picks. and we got to get something legal out the way. It snacks about the hearing food. It's air candy.

They don't reflect the views of the Robberhood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC.

For our first story is a story about news that hasn't actually happened. No, there's no IPOs. Just about no IPOs have happened this year. It's the year of the IPNo. Where's Waldo of finance going on? Snackers, so many companies went public last year that Don Perignon ran out of corks. 2021 was IPO Paloosa. A record number of companies listed their stock on public stock market. I mean, Jack, check out the whiteboard here. We got Otley, Bumbo, Warby, Allberts, Roblox, Rivian, like the whole alphabet. That's like the very tip of the stockberg. Oh, absolutely.

And a thousand company Snackers. A thousand companies IPO just on the NASDAQ exchange last year. That's more than twice as many as the previous record year. And a whole big reason for this was just SPACs, like a whole bunch of SPACs out there. The onset of SPACs. We'll talk about that more than the takeaway. But this year, Snackers, it's just different. There was not a single traditional IPO in the United States from February 17th to March 14th.

Almost a full month. No IPO. You and I haven't jumped in Snacks file to an S1 document since, like, hands across America? I forgot how to control F. Where is the risk section? I don't know. Snackers, case and point. Last month, Acorns, the FinTech company, was supposed to IPO. Jack and I were excited.

We were going to cover it right here on this year pod. Canceled. Yeah. Didn't happen. Acorns pulled out. And it's not just company founders and employees who want to ring the bell for the stock. Oh, totally true, Jack. The banks.

Like, the banks are missing out from all these missing IPOs, too. U.S. investment banks have made nearly $5 billion less in IPO fees this year compared to the same point last year. All right, Jack, what percentage drop is that from last year's IPO loser? Five billion less in IPO fees is an 88% drop from last year. Snackers, banks are the wedding planners of IPOs. Goldman Sachs is helping you prep your vows to go public. That's right. And we just got all this news last year, Nick, about I bank or burnout.

Oh, totally. They were like working 90 hours a week in 2021. This year, different situation if you're an investment banker. They got no work. Yeah. They're rebinging the crown like me. Yeah. You would think they'd be like out getting 9 p.m.

dinners whining and dining clients over truffle caviar. No. There's no IPO work to be done this year. So Jack and I are wondering, where are the IPOs? Feels like a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all of our buddies who are not doing IPOs? We got five reasons for the year of the IP no. The IP no.

Snackers, the first reason why the no IPOs, there were just too many IPOs last year. So many companies went public in 2021. There were fewer IPO ready companies to do it this year. The second reason, all of those IPOs from last year, they just performed too poorly. The 2021 IPO class has had a brutal run on the stock market. Jack, if you're a plant-based meat company wanting to IPO, not a great look that plant-based Otley is down 75%. No.

Private companies are looking at the public stock markets and they're like, Right now, no thanks. Yeah. Third reason why no IPOs, it's worse for SPACs. Many companies use the SPAC to go public faster last year. And stock performance of companies that SPACD happens to be like even worse than Oatley. It's like down 50% on average. Fourth reason for the IPO, there's just too much uncertainty out there.

Big uncertainty. Yeah. We have a war, a new COVID variant. The Fed's hiking interest rates for the first time in years. Yeah. You got $6 a gallon regular. on lead it. Plus, there are alternatives to the IPO. This is the final reason for the year of the IP now. Please, Jack. Why raised money in an IPO that might not go well when venture capital is still

dishing out record checks in private fundraisers. Andresen's happy to hand you 200 mil. Snackers, this is the year so far of the IP now. And those are the five reasons why. For our second story, Jack, ice bath or icy hot? Ben gay. Ooh, throw up. Not the third pair. Usually do the icy hunt and then you do the ice bath. But Snackers, second story, Adidas, it just launched an affiliate network to get college athletes paid in a way we've never seen before. Ben Gaye says they have a cent-free version. It's not set-free. It doesn't exist. Now, you might only get paid 50 bucks a week, but hey, college is expensive. The newest product from Germany's Adidas. It's not a shoe. It's not a sock. It's not a non-cotton yoga shirt.

It's not your uncle Polly's track pants either. No, it's a wide, sweeping, equitable, and inclusive name, image, and likeness network for student athletes. Okay, that makes absolutely zero sense, even though that is literally what Adidas said. But, yeah, can we whip up a translation? That's Adidas press release. Here's our translation. Adidas will pay student athletes on your campus to wear Adidas and post about it. Totally unprecedented.

Snackers picture, volleyball, Victoria. She's got an Adidas plugin in her Instagram account. She's going to wear those breakaway Adidas. pants. You know the ones you rip it off? The buttons on it. When coach calls her off the bench to get on the court, she just rips her head. Or maybe Victoria struts into Polyside 201 class in those black Adidas sandals that we've seen so many times. Well, if Victoria posts pictures wearing those Adidas garbs and tags Adidas, then if someone buys those things using her link, she'll get paid a percentage of the sale. That's what Adidas has whipped up with this new product. 50,000 college athletes can actually join this network.

They've maxed this out at 50,000. They have. And it's for any Division I athlete. of any gender in any of the 23 NCAA sports. Which is completely unfair to D3 NASCAR and maybe the biggest thing in D1 Ivy League history. Ivy League has always been D1 asterisk except in like lacrosse. Yeah. Snackers, I guess what you're getting to, Jack, is like, name a college athlete. Like Snackers, can you name a college athlete right now?

I used to be able to name more, but right now I can only name like the backup quarterback for Michigan football. Honestly, I can name more of our teammates from college. is why this is actually a thrilling opportunity for lacrosse players. There are certainly not 50,000 household names playing college sports today, though. Yeah. And this is coming from a former D3 football backup quarterback and a third string long stick midi on a lacrosse team. But Ediths thinks there are 50,000 local household names. Yeah. In college sports. That is key. This program is the opposite of a Kim Kardashian Instagram deal. It's about fewer followers, but having more handles. Instead of one post from Kim reaching 50 million people, Adidas hopes that 50,000 posts

from like not well-known athletes reaches the same number of followers. Yeah, it's not about the influencers, it's about the mini-fluencers who are the athletes. So if you're the left wing for the SCLSU mud dogs varsity team, you can join this Adidas affiliate network. Now, we should sprinkle on a little context here. You're probably only going to make like 50 bucks a week on this Adidas deal. SCLSU doesn't have that many things. But if you, If we adjust this for the cost of college life, 50 bucks a week. I mean, Jack, I would take that. That's royalty.

This guy's paying for late night falafel, I'll tell you. 2 a.m. McDee's on me. 50 bucks a month. College is expensive. Yeah. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies? We're college athletes. Nike focused its brand on aspiration.

So Adidas is pivoting to perspiration. Snackers, look, Adidas, they never really found their identity in the U.S. Sales actually fell in North America for the last couple of years. In Europe, Adidas dominated. soccer culture and soccer dominates everything in Europe. But in the U.S., Nike dominates because it owns the stars. That's right. Nike from the start made their brand aspirational by focusing on pro-athlet endorsers. So Adidas is kind of making a pivot here. They're finally focusing, but they're focusing on varsity athletes. College athletes. Yeah. Not aspiration, but perspiration.

And so Adidas is now the first to launch a network like this, which could be the beginning of a whole U.S. rebrand for the company. Nike wants the pros, then Adidas will take the tens of millions of people trying out for the varsity team. The perspiration, not the aspiration. All day, I dream about starting on the team. For our third and final story, BuzzFeed's first earnings as a public company look bright. The word is bright, honestly. Surprisingly bright. But it's facing a morale death spiral. Yeah. That looks dark. Okay. BuzzFeed went public as a Cinderella SPAC listing in December. And if you answer all eight of the following questions, they will tell you which Disney princess you are.

BuzzFeed stock was definitely a 16 seed, Nick. It was. And it's playing like a 16 seed. Yeah. Snackers, this stock, it just like never started trending. It's down over 50% from their first day in the markets. Yes. But BuzzFeed just announced 24% revenue growth last year. Honestly, was pretty shocked seeing that. And it's profitable. Also was pretty shocked seeing that, Jack. But there's one profit problem that has persisted at BuzzFeed. One profit problem, the news division. It's a lost lumb. BuzzFeed. They do pop culture memes, entertainment gossip, shopping racks, food videos. Lists of 27 Channing Tatum. And hard-hitting political news. What's that last? What is going on there? BuzzFeed.com curates like the top 24 tweets about

Pete Davidson's latest Instagram post. But then BuzzFeed News is like doing deep reporting on the secret DOJ dossier that they got through like the Freedom of Information Act. It's a total outlier within the rest of the company. But Jonah Peretti loves news. So BuzzFeed News, it's his passion project. If the founder and CEO loves something, he or she's probably going to do that thing. But Jonah Peretti just had to announce some tough new policies in the news division. First, BuzzFeed's news team has to depend less on Facebook for traffic to BuzzFeed.com. Second, they need to focus more on buzzy reporting of news of the day. And third, BuzzFeed News is downsizing. The news staff continues its year long.

shrinkage. Sadly. That's the dark list. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at BuzzFeed? Once a morale, death spiral begins, it's hard to stop. Yeah, Snackers. You've heard Jack and I talk about the discounting death spiral before. Different thing, but similar spiral. That's when Jay Crew discounts a dress once. Yeah. And then you expect the dress to be discounted again. Then you wait for more discounted dresses, which hurts Jay Cruz's biz and then Jay Crew has to discount even more. Well, BuzzFeed News has itself a different kind of death spiral, a morale death spiral. Yeah, and it begins with Wall Street analysts telling BuzzFeed to sell their news team or shut it down. That hurts morale if you work on the news team, which leads to resignations on the news team.

Like we just saw with the BuzzFeed head of news and two of their top deputies resigning just this week. Those resignations hurt morale even more for the rest of the staff and around and around the spiral goes. So to fix BuzzFeed News, they got to break the morale. morale death spiral. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? IPOs haven't happened this year. Yeah. For five reasons, we got the IP no. For our second story, Adidas is catering to college athletes in a way that Nike isn't.

Adidas is focusing on perspiration, not aspiration. Our third and final story is BuzzFeed. Profitable year. Shocker. But not a profitable year for BuzzFeed news. BuzzFeed, they're facing the dreaded morale death spiral. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by Sally Crouch from lovely Chandler, Arizona. Have you noticed there's a lot of Thai restaurants in the United States?

Just proportionally. Great restaurants. Great Thai restaurants. A whole bunch of them. Five thousand of them. The proportion of Thai restaurants to Thai immigrants is actually way higher than any other immigrant group. Yeah. And it's thanks to an initiative by the Thai government that goes back to 2001. Thailand's government sponsored a push to get more Thai restaurants in the United States. Yeah. They like funded recipe research. research and development. They gave out loans. They even wrote a playbook on how to perfect the pad Thai. Every restaurant got that playbook. They did. Because I love pad Thai at every restaurant I've ever ordered it from. Remember Sumterdeer over in the East Village? Yes, I do. The Thai curry. Incredible.

Well, Snackers, it's all part of this strategy called gastro diplomacy. And it's used by governments to boost tourism to their respective countries. You had a great pad Thai. Maybe you'll visit Bangkok to get the real thing. Maybe you just go to Bangkok right now. Live snacks, Bangkok. This could also boost exports, though, because if the recipe requires specific ingredients, maybe you can only get them from Thailand. Snackers, you'll look fantastic today, even if you had to do your own dry cleaning. Actually, I have to import that stuff from Thailand. Or if you had to fold your own clothes.

Move fast and fall. Thanks. Jack and I will see you tomorrow. And before we go, happy 60th birthday to Taco Bell over in Downey, California. Happy birthday to Ali King and Iwa Beach, Hawaii. And Kevin Wong over in Los Angeles. Jordan Hanson, happy 31st and happy last day of your current gig down in North Carolina. And Ronan Wang, happy birthday over in Boston, just outside Boston. Happy birthday to Jessica in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.

And Jim, enjoy the birthday in Austin. Happy birthday to Jay Puntez in Atlanta, Georgia. And Mary Posnikova, enjoy that promotion over at Deloitte Dallas. Happy birthday to Gloria. And thanks for being just a great mom in Carson City, Nevada. It's actually not her birthday, but she's just a great mom, apparently. And to anyone else celebrating something today, including moms, make it a teaboy. Celebrate the wins.

Call your mother. This is Jack. I own stock of Roblox and Bumble. Robin Hood Snacks, newsletters, and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and do not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only and are not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, cryptocurrency, or investment strategy in any account.

This is not an offer or sale of a security, not a research report. and is not intended to serve on the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc., Robin Hood Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. 2 a.m. McDiz on me!