The Best One Yet - 🚗 “Autopilot+” — Tesla’s roomba. Zillow’s conspiracy. Aurora Cannabis’ brand.

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Tesla launched full self-driving mode for its cars, but the problem is the speed limit (there isn’t one). Aurora Cannabis’s stock has fallen 95% from its all-time high because it’s one vice different from the others. And Zillow’s been buying up 1,000 American homes every month… and then a viral TikTok video happened.$Z $ACB $TSLGot 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/viewformLearn 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 Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, September 28th. Nick, today's pod. Please, Jack, what is it? The best one, yeah. There we go.

T-B-O-I, Jack, what's our first story today? It's official. Every Tesla can now be fully self-driving. Yeah. You just got to update the software in the car. One condition we found, do you drive like safety, Sally? We're wild-willy.

For our second story, Aurora Cannabis was supposed to be the spring break marijuana stock of 2021. But funny thing, Jack and I noticed. Now it's become the spring broken stock. For our third and final story, Zillow didn't just buy their first home. They're not getting a shout out at the end of this pod. They just bought their millionth home.

Weird twist here, Jack. Zillow is now the victim of a viral TikTok conspiracy theory. Is this where we're planning to go with this story? I can't believe that is a true headline. It feels so wrong. It must be right. Snackers, before we hit those three wonderful stories. Did not see this mix coming today.

I'll be totally honest, Jack. We've told you several times about Donglegate. Yeah, Donglegate. Apple comes out with a new charger. We got to buy some new micro-USBC lightning cord for $30. Actually, for $150 because you have to place all five of the chargers you have sitting around your house in strategic locations. The worst. So that's Dongle Gate. But we got to talk about dongle drawers, Jack. Dongle drawers. We all have a dongle drawer in the upper left of our closet somewhere. You know where this is Snackers? It is the sad cousin of Donglegate. It's a box. like random charger cords. We all have that.

If you lay out all the charger cords you've hung on to over the years, it's far. You can reach Narnia and back. You have to believe in how far it's going to go. It looks like a pile of plastic snakes playing a game of twister. I'm sorry I'm late to dinner. I was just untangling the chargers in my dongle drawer for the last three hours. Positive news across the pond. The European Union wants to end dongle drawers and dongle gates by standardizing all of our phone, laptop, and tablet chargers into just one that works for them all.

Snackers, this could destroy your dongle drawer. All tech chargers would need a hole for a USBC cord. Amazing. Wherever you are, someone will have a charger for your phone. Amazing. You can freely switch around like a bird. Jack, who's the winner if we kill the dongle drawers? We're rooting for this legislation because we, phone owners would be winners. The planet would be a winner. All of society would benefit. Jack, who is the loser if we kill the dongle drawer? I think there's just one. It's Apple, which wouldn't get to sell so many $30 dongles. Okay, Jack, I have the dongle drawer right here. I have it right here, okay? One sec. All right, here's what I got.

I've got five phone cords, three laptop cords, and it looks like four mystery cords, some Samsung thing I've never owned, all in the dongle drawer. Mine is actually an enormous Tupperware that I've always slid under my bed. And I actually have my European phone charger from Study Abroad in Berlin, 2000. If you don't have a 20-year-old device charge in your drawer, it's not a dongle drawer. Snackers for T-Boy Tuesday, we want to see a picture of your dongle drawer. Send it us on Twitter, Instagram, at Robin Hood Snack. Send us a pick and then throw away the entire dongle drawer.

It's cathartic. Let's hit our three stories. You don't need them. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something illegal out the way. The snacks are about to hear rain food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the robberhood.

family. It's all informational just so you know. We're not recommending any securities. Nope. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Right. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial LLC. Member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, Tesla just launched a full self-driving mode. Boom. It's out there. It's a thing now. The list of controversies, though, is as big as the list of features. Okay, we should say this again, Jack. Snackers, if you're on a date, you need something to do, go to a Tesla shop and take out a car for a test drive, the self-drive test drive day date. And make sure your date's less than an hour, because otherwise they'll call the police on you. Kind of the perfect date. We like highly endorse

this. This makes so much sense. We've also told you with regards to Tesla about Roundup marketing. Roundup marketing. In August, we mentioned how Tesla's autopilot was Exhibit A in Roundup marketing. Autopilot is only level two out of five in terms of the self-driving car. car spectrum. But we noticed that Tesla kind of rounded up here and they made autopilot like seem like it's a five out of five. Yeah, the marketing suggests it's automatic and it can be your pilot. Classic roundup marketing. But our regulators and safety advocates, they're not fans of the roundup marketing. Well, they're not going to be fans of this either. Early Saturday morning, Tesla beamed new software into all of the Tesla cars that are out there today. Click here for fully self-driving

mode beta now in your Tesla vehicle. It's right there. on the little iPad sitting between the front seat and the passenger seat. Basically, Jack and I jumped in snack style. This is Tesla going like full Roomba on their cars. Yeah, the cars already had the hardware necessary for this full self-driving mode. That's true. But if you update the software, it will be able to drive itself on certain highways, drive itself on certain city streets.

Very nice. Park itself in certain parallel park situations. Wick, FYI, we should mention, this will cost $10,000 up front or $199 a month. That's right. That's an expensive app store update right there. It is. It is. Oh, also one other FYI, Jack and I should mention, you got to keep both hands on the wheel, be attentive, and be prepared to take over. Tesla's words. Wait, hold on a second. Fully self-driving, but you need to keep both hands on the wheel? One more FYI, Jack. We should mention this too. This whole new self-driving, it comes with a whole bunch of controversies. Yeah, mainly that last part, Nick, that you need to keep both hands on the wheel, even though this product is described as full self-driving mode.

anything we noticed. Regulators, they haven't actually approved this as safe yet. Only Tesla has. So the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board. She's already concerned that full self-driving mode for Tesla is untested and it's misleading because people are going to take their hands off the wheel, you know? And in response, Elon tweeted out her Wikipedia page, which is kind of like a weird, lame online intimidation move. Here's the wildest part, though. This is wild. Tesla is treating their drivers like they're 16 again. Yeah. And needs to be. to ask for mom's permission to drive the family minivan.

Oh, I'm sorry. You want to use this new full self-driving mode? It's only available to drivers with a good safety score. That's a real thing now. That's right. When you click to update the software and get access to this, first, you must agree to have your driving tracked for seven days so that Tesla can decide if you are worthy, if you are a safe enough driver for this feature.

Yeah, you got a stop sign on the corner of Boulevard and Main Street. What happens, Jack? Well, if you rolled through that stop sign, you're going to get docked three points. Jack, how about if you did some aggressive turning, took that hook like a little too hard to the left? Not good. And even worse is if you're tailgating the car in front of you. Give them some room if you want to have a good Tesla safety school. You got to be driving good for seven days and then you can access full self-driving on Tesla. Only those who are well-behaved behind the wheel for those seven days get the privilege of full self-driving mode, which costs $10,000.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our? Our buddies over at Tesla. Tesla is speeding and an industry that hasn't figured out the speed limit. Yeah, Snackers, just about everything Tesla does is groundbreaking. It is new terrain in the entire car industry. Where Tesla ventures to, governments haven't written the rules for yet. Yeah, so like Tesla, it was one of the first to market with self-driving features. Governments want to regulate self-driving features, but they're like three miles behind Tesla. They're still playing catch-up. If this latest full self-driving experiment goes well, though, this could move the entire car. industry forward thanks to Tesla. But if full self-driving leads to chaos on the streets and accidents,

which could, then Tesla's bold experiment could actually be a huge setback for the self-driving movement. Because the way we see it, Tesla is speeding in an industry that hasn't figured out the speed limit yet. For our second story, Aurora Cannabis, they're kicking off the cannabis earnings, but with a little bit of a problem. Cannabis is borderline legal in this country, but cannabis prices, a borderline criminal. Vice stocks, by the way. Can we talk about the vice stocks? They're living their best lives, people. Hey, the original vice is alcohol.

And sales jumped for alcohol during the worst of the pandemic last year and during the pandemic's recovery this year. In 2020, you're doing wine for one. In 2021, you're getting a Scorpion Bowl for six. Let's turn to betting. We're betting app surged last year during the pandemic. Betting in casinos surge during the recovery. In 2020, you're betting.

on Latvian ping pong. In 2021, grandma's getting vaxed and hitting the slot machines. All right. Cannabis, the third vice, also had a record 2020. More couch time meant more cush time for some people. But it's been different for cannabis this year during the economic reopening. Yeah, this is what Jack and I found fascinating about the cannabis earnings. Cannabis is not a spring break stock anymore. It's kind of a spring broken stock. As America got vaccinated, Nick, people saw a cathartic release this spring. Yeah, maybe you went out for a drink with friends.

Maybe did some gambling. Maybe did some gambling. Maybe did some gambling. What you didn't do is hang out inside while everyone else was celebrating for some hemp at home. You're not going to do the hemping from home. You're drambling. Drinking and gambling, Nick, they were doable while you were stuck at home last year. But they're also doable now when you're out of home.

But cannabis products, they're still mostly an at-home thing. Not great for when everyone is outside celebrating. Which brings us to Aurora Cannabis. They reported earnings yesterday. Revenues fell 26% back in the spring, Jack, and they just said they fell 20% over the summer. 2021 cannabis revenues are not comparing well to 2020 cannabis revenues. Here's the problem, Jack, and I noticed this isn't like with like one single cannabis product. This is across all marijuana products across the industry. From medical marijuana to mango flavored THC gummies.

Yeah, which are CBD infused with the THC CBD. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our. buddies over at Aurora Cannabis. Cannabis doesn't have a brand, which means the lowest price wins. Okay, wild thing Snackers, Aurora Cannabis is stock. It's down a whopping 95% from its all-time high two years ago. And it's a similar story for the other Canadian cannabis stocks. And look, a whole bunch of that is because the U.S. federal legalization, it hasn't happened. Notwithstanding Congress's in action, a core challenge of cannabis is that it's a commodity. It's literally a plant without a nationwide brand.

Yeah. So we're looking at this. Alcohol is a commodity, but Jack Daniels brand brings awareness to all whiskeys out there. Brands like Jack Daniels can demand higher prices, which is bad for consumers.

Yeah, we all end up paying more. But it's great for companies. Who end up receiving a lot more of our money. Aurora Cannabis's earnings report, they actually report the average price per gram of cannabis they sell. Yeah, and it's still 21% below. It's 2019 high.

Because it does it. have a brand. The cannabis industry, it can't control whether Congress legalizes cannabis. It can try to establish brands in the meantime, which would help establish higher prices. Establish the brand, establish the price. For our third and final story, this one is wild. Zillow just went viral on TikTok, but for all the wrong reasons. There's the reality. Then there's what gets seen by two million people on TikTok. Oh, I'm sorry, Jack, one second. We've got to cut the pod. Three-bedroom Colonial with the Oceanside Bista. This thing, is available, 200,000 under market. Oh my God. Are you kidding me? That's peanuts. How about a converted

mid-century schoolhouse loft with open floor concept and talk to me? The original chalkboard and chalk still intact. You know what you've got in your eyes right now? You've got that his and her sink look in your eyes right now, Jack. Is that so? Shiplap is the new subway tile. Zillow stock, which by the way is just ticker symbol Z. It's one of those one letter tickers. Yeah, it's also an online platform for like buying and selling all these home gems. Zillow stock tripled in 2020 because people were stuck at home late night Zillow scrolling. But since March, Zillow stock is now down 50%. And the latest drama for Zillow is a viral TikTok video you might have stumbled into in your feed.

So some real estate agent in Las Vegas alleged that big real estate tech companies are manipulating the housing market right now. This influencer we're calling, he didn't name names, but he suggested a scheme where, a single big company could buy up 30 homes in your neighborhood for $300,000 each. But then buy the 31st home for $40,000 for $40,000. So the tech company would buy 30 homes at the lower price and then one home at a slightly higher price. And then that company could sell all 31 homes, but at that higher $340,000 price they set with the last one.

Because the argument would be this final home went for a higher price. therefore all the previous homes are now worth that new price. And the big company could turn a $1.2 million profit. That was the TikTok video. Yeah. And that profit would be at the expense of regular want-to-be homeowners who had to pay $40,000 more. Now, here's why this is wild. This wasn't like just a TikTok video.

Jack, how many views did this thing get? It got two million views. It did. It did. And one of those views was actually me last week. And so I called Jack and was like, this is strange. What's going on with this virus? TikTok video about the housing market, specifically tech companies in it.

This is how the snacks gets made. Now, the video was actually an attack on Ibuying. Yes. Eye buying is when an online real estate platform buys up a bunch of homes across the nations looking to sell those homes for a profit, kind of like house flipping. Yeah, home flippers, you know, flip one home. This is not home flipping. This is like home freaking because they're buying a whole bunch of homes at one time.

Now, Redfin and Open Door are two publicly traded companies that do this. But Zillow is the way. one best known for flipping homes at scale. And Zillow just raised a whopping half a billion dollars to buy more of these homes in the same kind of house flipping house freaking way. They said, Wall Street, give me $500 million. I'm going to buy over a thousand homes a day and sell them for a profit and you'll benefit. Yeah, that three-story tutor you like, it's gone. Zillow just bought it. Okay, so Zillow seemed to be silently called out by this guy in the TikTok video. And it caused them to issue a public response to the TikTok video.

Yeah, they said the video is full of misinformation and falsehoods. And then Jack and I said, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Zillow? The real story here isn't Zillow messing with the real estate market? It's TikTok messing with Zillow. Yeah, Snackers. Of course, Jack and I dove in snack style to this video. The video is honestly more conspiracy theory than citizen journalists. Right.

Zillow, Redfin, and Open Door. They home flip, you know, less than 1% of the real estate market. That is tiny. So like unless Zillow starts doing all the house buying in one neighborhood, its eye buying strategy is probably not going to move the overall U.S. housing market. And yet one influencer's 30 second video. Kyle's like the biggest PR drama of the year for Zillow. Yeah.

I thought you made the best point about this when the other company started responding, Jack. Yeah, the Redfin CEO. He like went on to Twitter and did a long Twitter thread defending himself because he probably doesn't know where to use TikTok. So we're thinking any big corporation, it needs a strategy to explain. its business model in a way that translates to social media today. Because people watch 60 second TikTok videos.

Yeah. They probably won't read your press release, though. Make your press release a TikTok video. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? Tesla's fully self-driving mode is real. Yeah. Regulators don't think it's fantastic. Tesla is speeding, even though there isn't even a speed limit yet.

Aurora cannabis stock is still very depressed. Yeah, US legalization hasn't happened, but neither has a nationwide. brand. Zillow just got into some heavy TikTok drama. Yeah, the real story here from Ziegate. Modern corporate PR, make your press release a TikTok. Jack looks very satisfied about that. Or you can, look, you can have a normal press release and a TikTok rest. You can do both. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by Savannah Westwood from lovely Orlando, Florida. Okay, in Disney's classic animated film, 101 Dalmatians. The hardest thing for those animators to draw was not, believe it or not,

Curella Deville's hair. Although Curella's hair was really challenging. It was complicated. It was the spots on all those Dalmatians. Get this, Snackers, in total for all the dogs, illustrators drew 6,469,9,952 spots by hand for the entire film. That's because each adult Dalmatian has 72 spots, but I really want to know who counted all those spots for this snackback. And how do you tell if each spot's a little different on the spot?

Like a thumbprint situation? No animators were harmed in the making of this movie. Carpal tunnel just thinking about this. Snackers, you looked fantastic today. Remember, you got to tweet us and Instagram us your dongle drawers. We want to see your dongle drawers. Show us that cacophony of cords. We want to see those plastic snakes playing twister, please.

And then throw them black. Please. If you know, you know. Nick and I'll see you tomorrow. Can we. And before we go, happy birthday to Gordon Sue from Hong Kong. And Macal Houston from San Francisco. And Hao Guo from Nanjing, China.

And Catherine Stanford from Boston, Max. Which is just next to just outside of Boston. Anybody else celebrating Suther today, make it a tea boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick on stock of Apple and Zillow. 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 as the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc., Robinood Financial LLC, or any of their own. subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principle and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.