The Best One Yet - Google’s checking account, Nike’s breakup with Amazon, and Convoy is our “Unicorn of the Day”

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

Google plans to launch a checking account, another sign that Big Tech wants to understand your daily spending. Nike decided it no longer wants to sell on Amazon, probably thanks to its new CEO (who is an eBay guy). And the Uber for freight, Convoy, just raised $400M to take on… Uber Freight.Learn 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, this Thursday, November 14. Nick, that means we're two weeks from Turkey. Cross up. We do a week countdown. We do a two week countdown.

We're waiting on this thing. Happy belated birthday to my buddy Mike, who used to raise his own turkeys for thanks to. Jack, as my first favorite history professor used to say, he's shot his own turkey last year, everyone at the grocery store was pretty freaked out. All right, we got three great stars. Wonderful mix here. First story. Well, a wise man once told me, it's faster to UPS cash across the country than it is

wire it, that wise man is a colleague named Renno. And that's why Google plans to launch its very own checking account. Second story, Nike is de-amazoning itself, taking its products off Amazon. The new CEO was the early hint. This kind of king could happen. And by the way, this kind of thing doesn't happen that off-knackers. Somebody broke up with Amazon. We need to create a whole new verb for this thing.

Third and final story is the unicorn of the day named Convoy. Nice name. Just raised $400 billion so that I can get my Vermont farm table on time. of a week late. And the investors on this thing, they are A-List caliber, we're talking. Now, Snackers, before we jump into all that, Friday, tomorrow is the opening of a really big thing, like, physically. The largest Starbucks in the world opens up in Chaitown, the Windy City, Chicago. Now, we know what you're thinking here. Just giving my coffee, get over it, and please pronounce my name correctly when you do. No, actually, you're going to check out, like, an entire Willy

Wankham Museum, five stories of Starbucks. We also know what you're thinking. This reminds you of that club in Prague that everyone's studying abroad used to go to. It's got a different genre, different decade for every floor. It's pop over here. It's disco over here. It's all these over here. No one knows what's going on, but it's five floors. And that sells the thing basically. So the first floor is a coffee bean cooling floor, which actually has a really nice aroma. The second floor has got a curved elevator, the only curved elevator in the Midwest, and a conveyor belt of pastries. The only curved elevator in the Midwest. The third floor is like a science experiment. You got beakers, beans, a whole situation. All you want is that latte.

It doesn't matter. They got a Willie Waka thing going on in the background. The fourth floor is cocktails with caffeine concoctions like maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, whatever. And then the fifth floor? The rooftop terrace. But it's never really open because it's freezing there. You got to wear a can of a goose. Good luck.

Two canada geese. It's actually ridiculous. They should have stopped at two floors. Quick question for our snackers based in Chicago. Is this close to the epic Lulu Lemon store? And is it true that everything bigger is not in Texas, but apparently in Chicago? You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something illegal out the way.

The snacks about the hair ain't 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. Robohood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, Jack, you didn't hear from me. I kind of got it through the grape line. Apparently Nike is breaking up with Amazon. Amazon got dumped? Amazon is like, do you know who I am? I am Amazon.

Instead, Nike is only going to sell on Nike.com. Now, this relationship, it kind of goes back to 2017. Everyone was in good spirits. They were single. They were looking to get together. Nike was a late holdout and finally joined Amazon.com in 2017. They basically moved in together. Yeah, they got together.

They did the couch thing. You know, the same aesthetic arguments. So then you could buy Nike. at Nike stores, at Nike other stores like Dick's sporting goods on Nike.com, and then finally, Amazon as well. In exchange, Amazon said it would protect Nike from the counterfeits out there. Not like we will you all protect this house. Well, yesterday, it turns out that Nike announced it's ending the Amazon relationship. It's over. It's not you. Actually, it is you Amazon. We repeat. Someone said no to Amazon's online marketplace. This is a rare thing. It doesn't happen

often, so Jack and I jumped on it. When the Nike CEO stepped down earlier. this month, the new guy was a hint about what it was planning. That's because the new guy, we checked out as LinkedIn, turns out he used to be CEO of, you know, eBay. And clearly he wants to own Nike's e-commerce because eBay is e-commerce. Now, eBay people hate Amazon people. We think that's our guess. We think it could be a thing.

It's my hunch. If you work at eBay and that's true, let us know. We'd love to confirm that. Also, there are benefits to controlling the online shopping. Snackers. This is great. This is a key reason why you don't want an SLOY sell something on Amazon. even though it exposes you to such a wide audience.

If a customer buys something on your website like Nike.com, you get their email address. That's key. That's fantastic. You get access to one of the greatest pieces of real estate in the digital world, their inbox. You're going to fill up that third tab on Gmail with promotional like 20% off. Snarky thing about it, 14% off today. Snarky thing about 20% off today. Second benefit, you don't lose a cut to the middleman. Amazon was probably taken like a percent.

And then the third benefit here is you get to control the customer experience. because let's face it, Nike.com, it's pretty sleek looking. It looks really good. I want to be calm. Jack, you look like Nike.com today. Did I tell you that? I want to be associated with Nike.com. Amazon.com, on the other hand,

looks like a blast from the 90s. Not exactly. Pretty ugly. Not in the same level of Nike.com which should, like, grace, a GQ cover. Now, what Nike is losing here is access to primers who might have, like, a religious, I only buy prime free two-day shipping.

Right. They could lose accident, but they think the benefits are worth the cost. So, Jack, what's the takeaway? for our buddies over at Nike. The real winner in the story is Shopify. Shopify. If you buy something online, it's probably through Amazon.com

or a website that's powered by Shopify. You know Shopify like analysts. We're texting each other this news this morning. See what just happened? Just like exclamation points. Can you believe what just happened? This is big news for Shopify. If you're a company and are using Shopify,

they do all the back end of your e-commerce site. But you get to show the website and customer experience that you want. So Shopify just does the back end. Not the same with Amazon, where if you're selling on Amazon, you're stuck with Amazon's site. And Amazon's really ugly, out-of-date look. Now, the interesting thing for Shopify here is if this is the start of a trend, that trend would be big brands leaving Amazon, which could be great for Shopify.

Right. That's why Shopify stock rose 2.8% on hopes it's not just Nike, maybe it's other companies. And that's why Amazon stock dipped 1.4%. For our second story, Google plans to launch a checking account. They confirmed it with the Wall Street Journal. And they're not the first big tech to want a little bit of time. taste of Wall Street over here. There's the Apple card. There's, that just came out. There's Facebook's pay, which just

got announced yesterday. This week, and then two Venmo for Facebook. Two weeks ago, Facebook was trying to get in on cryptocurrencies with Libra. It still is. Everyone is. And now Google. Now Google is getting it. Now, the codename for this project. And Snackers, you should know that every tech company pretty much has a code name before this thing goes live.

Right. So for the year that people are working on it, and it's still a secret. You can't even, you can't even tell your wife about the project. You can't even talk about it. Husband, wife, no more. No one can know. It's just a code name. And the code name for this project, Google's debit card, get this. Cash. Not just any cash. No, no. This is clever. Cash with a CH, like clear your cash on your web browser. It's a double entendre, I think, if I use that term correctly, because it's money and tech. It's kind of creative. It's good. So they're going to launch this thing next year. Not

sure if they'll charge fees, but you would use your Google pay account to even use this thing. Right. Checking accounts are both boring and fascinating. All right, the boring side of checking accounts is that pretty much everyone offers them these days. There a dime a dozen. Everyone's got them. Your grandma's got one. Everyone's giving them out. But they're fascinating because if you have someone's checking account, you know everything about them. And you might be saying, oh, maybe I don't use a debit account. Maybe I don't use a checking account. Guess what? Half of Americans are using debit cards every day. I use credit card for most of my purchases, but a lot of Americans are using the debit. Debit is a valuable treasure trope of fascinating information. Now, Google says it won't

sell the data, but we can think of some other ways that it could make use from that. Right. So it doesn't have to sell the day to benefit from this. For example, let's say you're in the ski mood. It's that time of year. You see the snow coming down. You want to buy yourself that like icon premium ski pass. We're talking premium. That's like the $1,000 ski pass. It gets you access to like 17 miles. Google notices this. They're like, oh, someone's going to go skiing in a couple months. Would you mind some arctic thousand dollar jackets? Because you bought the premium one. That's not just a pretty penny. Or it might notice that you got the icon base pass. Which is kind of the discount one. Full disclosure, the one I

have. Do you want some Columbia jacket? It's only $300. It's not going to be pushing to the Arteric stuff. They have to mortgage your house to wear. Now, Google hasn't said it will do that, but it could use data from spending to target you with that. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Google? Silicon Valley wants your bank account, but it doesn't want to be your bank. Turns out this whole situation is involving Citibank. They're going to be actually holding your money. But there's going to be Google branding on top. This is just like the Apple situation with Goldman. We got a sexy, sleek, like metallic apple card, but the whole operational thing, that's being done by Goldman.

Yeah, Goldman Sachs. These are like the bath fitter situations we used to see on infomercial. Picture that 2 AM classic infomercial where they're shaming you for your bathtub. Do you have a disgusting mildo infested bathtub? I do, I do. Just slap on this ceramic like topper and you're in good shape. It's the sexy debit card you're going to have, and underneath it's just a regular bank. Google has no interest in the responsibility that comes with being a bank,

like being regulated by the Fed, handling anti-money laundering. But what Google does want is your daily spending habits. For our third and final story, we've got the unicorn of the day. It's Convoy, and it just raised $400 million to build the Uber for shipping all your stuff. Founded by two X Amazonian. Shocker, how many are there out there? You've heard that a lot of times. It's like when you go to those weddings.

They're like, oh, they all went to the same college. It's adorable. We get it. All these founders. They went to Amazon. One of Convoy's competitive advantages is the all-stableness. cast of investors. Can we talk about these names? I don't know. I feel like we need a red carpet behind us doing this, Jay. What do we got? What do we got? Okay, here we go. First, Mr. Jeff Bezos?

I guess those Amazonian co-founders still had his business card. Another investor. Mr. Mark Benio? Founder of Salesforce. You got Bill Gates involved, founder of Microsoft. Barry Diller involved? Big media. He's married to Diane Von Furstenberg. She's more impressive. And then you got Bono. You too is involved in this company. Are you going to win a Golden Globe Award? The company has raised 700 million from these wicked rich people. We're talking about a lineup that should be at the Met Gala right now. And now its valuation is $2.75 billion. Nick, what do you do with $700 million of funding from rich people? You give a lot of, they better be getting free lunches over there.

No, I think they're giving like, sign up for convoy and get $100 free. They're doing a lot of marketing spent. And the benefit of those investors, a lot of crucial guidance. Now, this is a freight brokerage company. It's a 100% digital app that matches people with tractor-trailer trucks with people who need to ship products. And not just any tractor-trailer trucks. We're talking about the kind that are handed out Budweiser, Procter & Gamble, Wayfair. They're all clients of this company. They're all users on the app. The way things currently work in shipping and trucking. All right, if you're trucking. Trucking hard. I've never worked as a trucker, but this is what we've read out. I don't really know what the axles are. I'll be fully honest there.

18 wheels. I just see they got the way stations, and I've never really seen someone in them. And they pay more at the tolls. Now, a truck driver currently calls up a broker and says, like, I need a job, waits on the phone for a couple hours, and then waits like two and a half hours for his truck to actually be loaded. Today, instead, that truck driver, he or she can just download an app instead,

and that app would be convoy. So imagine you're a truck driver. You're sitting at one of those travel centers with the enormously tall TC signs. that you can see four exits away. It's like the Empire State Building situation. You just finished dropping off a load. You're exhausted. You're drinking an enormous fountain soda, probably a mountain dew.

You're in New Jersey. You're at the gas station. You're wondering, why can't I just do self-serve? Why are all the gas stations getting serviced? Now, here's the thing. Your truck is empty, but home is in Cleveland, Ohio. Great city. You're thinking to yourself, do I have to really drive all the way home with an empty tractor trailer?

Then you're like, wait a second. Let me whip up my phone, open convoy. Oh, turns out the Cleveland Clinic in. my hometown of Cleveland, they need 4,000 blanks of blank. I can get some blanks. My truck fits plenty of blanks. So you click except on the convoy app, you go over to Hoboken or whatever, you pick up the blanks and you drive to Cleveland making money. And guess what? That's the environmental element here that convoy is actually solving for too. Convoy brags kind of sadly that 15 to 25% of the time tractor trailers have nothing in the back. They're just spending fuel.

And guess what? That's why Mr. Al Gore, who has a venture fund focused on environmental companies also invested in this kind of. It's not just Bono and all those other reasons. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over a convoy? Convoy is the lift to Uber Freight's Uber. Or is it the freight to Uber's lift freight? The mongoose to my snake? We get really confused by this. You guys know what we're talking about. It's basically the counterpart to Uber's freight, which is the exact same kind of product. And Uber is investing $200 million right now in Uber freight, which is the exact same problem. And guess what? This Uber freight app, its sales jumped 81% last quarter.

It's Uber's biggest growth driver. Now, the benefit here is that there are rivals in a disruptive industry, and that's critical. You need to have more than one disruptor in an industry, or else you get like a Facebook situation. That's never good. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways force over there? Nike is breaking up with Amazon.com. This is all about Nike.com. Now Nike gets your email address, stops paying a middleman, and shows you a very pretty website.

Google plans to launch a debit card and it's partnering with Citibank. Because Google wants to be your bank, but it doesn't want to be a bank. True. Third and final story, Convoy is battling Uber to control the future of freight. And a second big disruptor is needed here, or else you got a monopoly situation. Like Facebook. Nobody wants a monopoly situation. Now, Snackers, time for a very special snack fact. This one from not just Nada Harara, but also her fellow teammates over at Zendesk, including Tyler and Daniel,

all of whom hardcore snack together. Okay. This is a very unique snack fact to the day. Jack and I heard this, we needed to go and get some water and lie down. We paused. It's not even a snack fact. It's just like a, well, let's just let it happen. The brain named itself.

Whoa. Think about it. The brain named itself. Huge shout out to Madison, Wisconsin, and Dublin, Ireland. Guys, if you're ever in the Bay Area. We'll get you some cheese, curds, and Guinness so we can celebrate this for real. Yeah, and then mess with our heads again with some more riddles. Snackers, send us your snack facts at Robin Hood Snacks.

And let's do this again tomorrow. See you then. Same sweater. By the way, Snackers, this is Nick and both Jack and I own shares of Lulu Lemon and Jack owned shares of Amazon. Kind of a buy one, get one free situation. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the hosts who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views

of Robin Hood Markets, Inc. of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only, is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and is not an offer or sale of a security. The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA SIPC.