The Best One Yet - LinkedIn verifies skills, GM’s $100M/day strike, and Shopify’s CBD moves

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

LinkedIn just revealed a new “skills” feature that we consider its most strategic move since Microsoft acquired it. General Motors is experiencing its biggest strike in a decade and that’ll cost it up to $100M a day. And Shopify just became Earth’s #2 biggest ecommerce platform, but we’re looking into its cannabis-supporting moves into CBD.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. It is Wednesday. September 18th. Snackers, it's a good day. It's so good in fact. This may be, what do you think about this? The best one yet. The best snacks daily we've ever done. Markets rose yesterday and we have three terrific stories. Wonderful mix. What do we got? Shopify is the most important e-commerce company that you never ever talk about. And it's letting American CBD companies use its e-platform. If you run a T-shirt company, you might talk about Shopify. Let's talk about the number second story. General Motors is having its first labor strike in a decade. And this is going to cost up to, you know, $100 million a day. We're talking about 50,000 jam workers and a union. And then third and final story, Jack, can you endorse me for this one? Linkedin. LinkedIn unveiled the most important product since it got acquired by Microsoft. So we're asking the critical question three years later. Was this a good acquisition for Microsoft?

Snackers, before we jump into all that, stick your bibs on and get the plates ready. Big food is courting millennial and Gen Z taste buds hard. No joke. Jack and I got at the office this morning. We saw one headline. Then we saw a second. We saw a third. We almost went home.

A lot of food evasions going. So the first comes from our buddies at Chipotle. Who set the bar kind of low on this one? Underwhelming announcement that they're adding carne Asada next to barbaco and chicken. Been there. I actually thought this was already a product. It's their first new like meat option since chorizo. What does Asada mean in Spanish?

And they're coming out apparently with queso blancos in its white cheese. But carne Asada, that means something meat. So then Pizza Hut came along. Hey, Chipotle, we see your dairy, we raise you insane partnership. Anybody who's ever watch TV knows that cheeseits are 100% real cheese. Well, guess what? They're going to have questionable stretchy cheese from Pizza Hut stuffed inside them. Pizza Hut and Kellogg have teamed up to create a Cheez-It that is a pizza inside of the Cheez-It.

And with a side of marinara sauce. This is only sold at Pizza Hutts as like an appetizer. You're not using the mariner sauce. What are you doing with your life? And then this last one, Kellogg double dips. Again, Jack and I almost went home when we saw this. This almost made our day. We all love beef jerky for road trips. You've heard of it. Try some leaf jerky.

It's exactly what you think it is. And it's just in time for foliage season. Let's enter three stories. You're snacks about to hear ain't 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. 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

We've got General Motors Vers the United Auto Workers The strike of 50,000 General Motors workers Is now on its third day We're talking one of the biggest companies In America With its biggest strike in 10 years

This is class warfare You got 50,000 workers On one side of the table Yep And executives who get paid way more On the other side of the table And we don't cover strikes off and over at snacks.

No. We don't. No, we don't. There's still some unions in Europe, but they've weakened in America for years and years. Union membership has weakened so much. Get these statistics. 30% of American workers in the 50s were unionized. And then it dipped down to 20% in the 80s.

And it's continued to decline to just 10% today. A bunch of reasons for that. We got a bunch of stuff. You got laws that have limited, like, the powers of unions. You got politics. I mean, Reagan was pretty anti-union. You got globalization. Which has weakened unions leverage.

because companies can threaten to go to China and go to Mexico. And you got more workers in like service-related or tech jobs that typically don't have any unions. Fun fact, New York has the highest percentage of unionized labor in the country. Also, fun fact, we're about to drop a lot of really fun facts on this. Now, a stronghold among unions in America is the auto industry. Right. They've got 50,000 GM workers who are on strike right now. Yes, and 50 General Motors plants are not producing cars right now.

So on day number two, which just finished, 15,000 cars did not roll. off lots. And that's because of the United Auto workers who have great t-shirts. Incredible T-shirts. Great tattoos. We're talking like steel labor union number 128. Unions have the most incredible logos. This is like something out like they're like crests from the Game of Thrones. Another fun fact about unions, the GM workers who are on strike, they're actually getting $250 a week as a stipend from the union to help them weather this strike. Now that's still not enough to like pay for your life. No, it's only like 40 bucks a day. But, It's interesting that unions have like a rainy day strike fund.

Okay, so when you're looking at this situation where you've got a major strike, you want to know where it's sourced from. This goes back to the financial crisis of 2008 and the GM bankruptcy of 2009. Right. So GM wanted to get out of bankruptcy and to get workers back into work, workers ended up giving up some of the benefits that they'd previously fought for. Yeah, so workers basically threw GM abone and said, we need to help the company. Then eight years later, November 26, 2018 happened.

And GM announced this, that they were going to be, quote, on quote unallocating five of their factory plants. We called BS on that unallocating word. Look it up in the dictionary. Look it up anywhere. I don't even think you find it up in this. Share it with anyone. It doesn't make any sense. What GM was doing was shutting down three American plants and two Canadian plants. But they were using specific wording so like it didn't really seem like they were shutting out. Legally, that was a beneficial word for them to say. But basically 14,000 employees got cut. Now workers want more pay and they want more guarantees. And they're using their strength and numbers to demand it. So Jack, what is the takeaway for this critical union story

with our friends over? Collective bargaining is a powerful thing. One-on-one pay negotiations. That is a wildcard. Anything can happen in that room. And GM employees have tried one-on-one negotiations and knockout fire. It's a lot easier when you got 50,000 on like six. Yes. And the United Auto Workers is speaking for 50,000 GM workers. Now GM is under pressure because get these facts. They're losing up to $100 million a day because of this. They got the president. They got the President tweeting at them, they got the state of Michigan freaking out. And this is why companies get frustrated with unions because it can be disruptive, but that's exactly what unions are trying to do, disrupt to get what they want to happen. Yes, they are demanding more pay, and apparently they won't work until they get it. And you can demand a lot more when you've got collective bargaining. For our second story, U.S. CBD retailers can now do their business with Shopify, and that's a really big deal. CBD is cannobioid. Don't even pronounce it. CBD is a big deal.

What isn't it? It makes you relaxed, right? It's in like dog food. It's in mascara. It's derived from hemp, which is legal. We're good to that in a second. Yeah, it's rubble a little on his forearm right now. Yeah, CBD is a big deal.

So Shopify, it's stock is one of the best performers the last few years. Now, if I were to ask you what the biggest company in e-commerce was in the world, what would you say? I think I'd get this right. Amazon. Yeah, you'd probably say it. And you're a shareholder. Yes, I'm a shareholder. Now, if I were to ask you what the second biggest e-commerce company is, I'm

companies in the world was, I would guess Walmart. You'd be like, why are you asking me all these questions? The answer that would actually be Shopify. Shopify just passed eBay as the second biggest e-commerce company in the world by sales of online stuff. They now have 10% of all global e-coms. That's a shocker. Because no one ever encounters Shopify. And they've got 800,000 merchants selling right now. It is so true. They are like one of those Middle Evil poems where it's like, they are everywhere, but they are nowhere. You're like, just tell me the answer to this riddle. It's a spiritual thing you hang over your bed to protect you.

Like, why is the witch asking me? Actually, it's a lot more like Batman because it's everywhere, but it actually is nowhere. So if you bought something online on like blank website, it was probably supported by Shopify's online infrastructure. We're talking Budweiser, New York Times, Tesla, Kim Kardashian's makeup website. Do you hear that third one, Tesla? By the way, I'm a Tesla shareholder. Yeah, me too.

Tesla, if you buy a car on Tesla.com, Shopify is making that happen. It actually moves all the stuff around and covers all the back end of your e-commerce needs. Now, let's get back to the drugs. In October of 2018, Canada legalized recreational marijuana, and that's when lots of weed companies moved on to Shopify in Canada. We're talking like canopy growth or some government cannabis websites. They started using Shopify for their e-commerce needs. But as you all know, recreational marijuana is still illegal federally in the U.S.

In December, though, the U.S. Congress passed a farm bill that legalized hemp-based CBD. Exactly. And that farm bill sets the stage for all of this. And as a reminder, CBD is the non-psychedelic ingredient in cannabis. With a really long name, so we're going with CBD. Now, the thing here when it comes to Shopify is that it has new features that's been using Canada, that it's now letting CBD companies use in the United States to sell online. So if you're one of the like seven CBD companies on Main Street, near town that are trying to sell CBD. You couldn't use Shopify until now.

You probably have one of those names that's like a nice little ironic thing off of pot. CBD for me. Right. Weed for the people. Weed for the people. All the Shopify features that they have right now are really focused on some CBD specific. For example, they will make sure that your sales online are limited to the states where CBD is explicitly legal. And then you'd use the rest of the Shopify products to take care of, you know, the website, your SEO, your accounting, your shipping, all that good stuff. Now, you should talk to a lawyer if you're thinking about selling CBD and think about using Shopify. Because I am not a member of the bar.

No, we are not at all. Get your buddy Ted, who's with like Strauss, McCann and Steinberg to make sure that you understand what's happening. Or my cousin Vinny. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Shopify? The legal gray area of cannabis is becoming a little bit more and more white area. If you walk into the office today, you're going to talk to 10 people. Are you going to talk 10 people in class? You're going to ask them, what's the status of CBD and pod in the United States? You'll get 10 different answers.

Completely different answers. So cannabis is legalized in give or take 10 states in America, but it's illegal federally. And hemp is legalized federally, but it's illegal in give or take 10 states. So the complete like Ipsos-Switchofacto situation there. That legal awkwardness is what makes banks, what makes websites, and what makes other service providers nervous about working with CBD companies. Right, because they don't want to get in trouble for working with a potentially illegal company. So the fact that Shopify is opening up its arms and embracing the CBD industry like this,

that's a big deal. It's another step towards normalization of this new industry. For our third and final story, LinkedIn just launched what we think is its biggest feature yet. Skills assessments. Kind of need a little work on the name there. They do. Nick, if you are John Q. Econ major who just graduated, full disclosure, good friend. Yes. And you want to put proficient in Excel as a skill on your LinkedIn profile? I mean, who wouldn't these days? Well, now you could get that verified, but to get it verified, you'd have to pass a test and know what Control Shift F1 does. Nick? We got a lot of snacks listeners who are laughing at this one right now.

Yeah. Hit us up if you got any secret keyboard shortcuts. Now, LinkedIn quietly bought an online testing startup last year, and that provided a lot of know-how for this new feature. This new feature has 75 skills that you can verify and get a badge for and to really boost your LinkedIn profile. So if you pass, that's what you get? You get a badge. Now, if you fail, what do you got to do? You have to wait three months and then you can take the test again.

Yeah. Or you can take LinkedIn's course. How convenient. To learn about Microsoft Excel and then retake the exam. That's because another LinkedIn acquisition was a company called Linda that the online courses. So also, if you want to keep that skill verified on your LinkedIn profile, then you can't leave LinkedIn. You got to retake that Excel test annually. What do you think we're goldfish, like forgetting?

Hotel California. So Excel is one example. of a skill you can get verified on LinkedIn. Sample question here for you, Jack. All right, you ready? Here we go. Everyone listening up, here you go. Which use of the PMT function will calculate the monthly payment on a four-year car loan of

$30,000 at 5%. The spreadsheet masters are like salivating right now. I don't even feel comfortable asking that question. I barely got the words out of my mouth. So as Snackers, they really want to verify your skills on LinkedIn, and this could solve LinkedIn's credibility problem. LinkedIn has grown up to about 650 million users, but it's become a lot of. a mess of unsubstantiated skills because there are just so many people involved doing so many things.

Well, context here. 650 million users. I think Twitter has about half that. I'm pretty sure someone just endorsed me for something. You can endorse anyone for anything at this week. Yes, LinkedIn profiles are full of embellishments. They're full of exaggerations. And they're probably full of a lot of flat-out lots.

You can endorse for endorsements. I haven't even endorsed you for podcasting skills yet yet. I hope you can endorse for anti-money laundering in addition to money laundering. And you can also like endorse for like cookies in this case. So if you're a recruiter who's using LinkedIn to try to find the right workers for your job, by the way, this isn't a LinkedIn ad. It sounds like one right now. Definitely not.

But you can actually make sure you're getting people with the skills because LinkedIn can verify those skills. And that makes this feature a potentially strong revenue source for LinkedIn. So Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies who have updated their status over LinkedIn? Has LinkedIn been a good acquisition by Microsoft? It's a big question because it was acquired in 2016. for $26 billion. And there was a guiding principle that led to the acquisition. Bring a vibrant network to the Microsoft products.

When I heard that, I thought it meant if you email somebody from your Outlook account, you'll automatically see their LinkedIn profile. It's a beautiful vision. Which would have made sense for business. It seemed like that kind of mission. Now, that hasn't happened. On a kumbaya moment over there. That hasn't happened.

It hasn't happened as far as we can tell. Neither of us use Outlook. Snackers, if you have seen that that happened, please let us know. Now, skills, this new feature, it makes that network we just talked about of LinkedIn a lot more vibrant. It also makes Microsoft products more relevant in the recruiting and HR space. And this could make LinkedIn a straight up bigger moneymaker than it currently is by verifying things. And it could give LinkedIn an edge up over Indeed and ZipRecruiter in the recruiting space. And that's why no matter what you think of Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn,

this skills assessment is the best feature it's rolled out yet. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Shopify just opened its arms to all the CBD shops who want to sell online in America. And CBD is slowly becoming a normalized industry. GM is losing. up to $100 million a day because 50,000 workers are on strike. Companies love disorganized workers. GM workers are organized. Yes, yes they are. Third and final story. Microsoft's company, LinkedIn, is letting users verify skills instead of just going with

the honors system. And John Q. Econ Major better actually learn how to do Excel than just call himself John Q. Econ Major. Snackers, time for our snack fact of the day. This one's keeping with our streaming theme, building off the streaming wars. This one is subscription relevant. Now, you've heard of voodoo. is Walmart streaming company. You may have heard of Roku, which is the little engine that could make a dongle. And you probably heard of Hulu, which double dips with commercials and subscription chips. And apparently they all hired like the same consulting firm to do their names. There's two

U's in each of those companies' names. You've also got Netflix that does streaming and you've got HBO during streaming, but NBC finally released its key name. You know NBC is taking the office away from Netflix starting in 2020, I believe. And they're going to be using their new streaming service, which the name is, peacock. Peacock, which is kind of its logo. It's kind of awesome. Peacocks are awesome. It's a great name.

If you have a peacock feather, play with your cat. They're going to go crazy with that thing. A lot of questions here we got to unpack. Jack and I are going to talk about this later. In the meantime, you guys have a wonderful day. See you then. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the host who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC

and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only and 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.