The Best One Yet - 🍝 “Olive Garden’s single Gnocchi problem” — Lear’s open-the-factory blueprint. Uber’s gig work jobs board. Olive Garden’s survival plan.

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Uber’s latest “Work Hub” moves are making it the ultimate default job board for the gig economy. The Olive Garden revealed shockingly big sales declines (and 1 huge sales increase), but we think its future is in emulating clothing retail with omnichannel sales. Lear probably made the seat in whatever car you’re driving in — and it’s also whipped up a blueprint for every company’s post-corona-conomy back-to-work plans.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, April 8th. Nick, yesterday, stocks? Yeah, barely moved. It did not move much at all. So we're going to get right to our three stories.

Jack and I found a wonderful mix. Happens to be the best one yet. Jack, what do we got first? Our first story, Uber should add a new title to its business card. Also, the LinkedIn of gig work. We're going to endorse them for that. The RideHale app has become the go-to job board for gigging. It's not white collar.

It's not blue collar. We're calling it partial collar. Our second story, you've never heard of Lear Corporation, even though you use their product every single day. When you're snacking on snacks daily in the back of a car, you're sitting on a Lear. The car seat company just published the Bible of reopening factories post-COVID-19 shut down. Jack and I jumped in snacks out. We're flipping through Lear's Safe Work Playbook. Third and final story.

My alma mater. I was trained and educated at the Olive Garden as a waiter. They just had an announcement, and it wasn't an earnings. announcement. It was actually out. We're still here. Everything is mildly okay announcement. That's a real thing now. It's funny because that's what the average diner says when the server returns to the table. Any feedback? Yes. A lot, Jack. We're looking at what its sales update from Olive Garden means for the future of restaurants. Hey, Olive Garden, be more like Target. Before we get to that story, I got a flashback to the winter of 2007 when Nick and I were freshman year roommates at Middlebury College.

It was so cold that winter that Jack had to teach me how to wear three sets of socks in Vermont. Nick somehow got straight in it as I think the professors were just being generous because Nick was from New York. You round up at a certain point. So Nick writes an email to the New York Times and asks if they will publish news that he made the Dean's list. Because, you know, New York Times is his local newspaper. I happened to grow up in Manhattan. It seemed like the only place to go. But I should point out that my roommate Jack also got Dean's. list that quarter. The New York Times ignored Nick's email. The Browler

Reformer ignored my email because they didn't have email. I encourage Jack to go to the Browler Weekly Gazette. Turned out that didn't exist wasn't a thing. Snackers, local news is important for local democracy. It's also an unmatched resource for hilarious police blotter information. True story in the Valley reported this weekend. Local woman reported missing last week was actually just fishing by the creek with their dog. It happens. Sometimes you got to bump it up the front page news. Snackers, with COVID-19 outbreak, local news is crucial right now. But local news makes us money off small and medium business ads, and they're not buying ads right now because of the adpocalypse that we've told you about.

No, most businesses are closed because of COVID-19, so it's not making any sense to pay money to market to you in an ad in the local newspaper. That means local newspapers are kind of in trouble right now. So Zuck is coming to the rescue. Facebook is donating $100 million to help local newspapers. But Jack and I were spitball in this thing, and we know that Zuck's not the only guy out there who can help. Our snackers can kind of help too.

We've all got extra time. We're not doing anything. Why not subscribe to the local newspaper? That's why we're whipping up quarantine challenge part due. While you're running like three miles, listen to snacks daily every day or two miles, give her, take one or two. We've got to keep these paper boys in business. We should all subscribe to our local newspaper. Learn what's going on in our neck of the woods.

Post a picture of an awesome local nugget of news right to Instagram or Twitter. Tag Robin Hood Snacks. Jack and I want to see it. more locally or the better, hashtag digestible local news. Let's hit our three non-local stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers. It snacks about the hearing food is 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.

For our first story, Jack Smother Me and Carbonaro over there, the Olive Garden just gave an update about its sales numbers. The OG Lounge is going to extremes to survive. Now, the thing Jack and I want to point out here first before we jump into anything in Olive Garden is that every company should be updating their catchphrases right now for the next three months. When you're not here, you're still family. When you're here, you shouldn't be here. You really shouldn't be here. Unlimited, socially distanced breadsticks for $5.99. You order the Olive Garden Sicilian spaghetti. You get a bunch of strands spaced six feet apart. You order the noki, it's just a single noki on the plate. They quarantined the noki for you in the takeout. Darden restaurants did experiential branding before millennials were even a thing. We're talking about the restaurant group that owns companies like Bahama Breeze,

whose restaurants made you feel like spring break 96 back in 2005. And Capitol Grill, which makes you splurge on dessert because you're expensing this to your CFO's account. If you're at a Capitol Grill, you feel like everyone with you is a CFO. And the Olive Garden where I worked for five glorious months, which makes you feel like you're in Tuscanay without needing a passport. Snackers, no one can whip off the top of a Guanty like this guy over here. Can I just, I just want to give you full credit for that, Jack. You've got your seamless. I used to torch my own creme bruleys.

Let's just leave it at that. That's a French thing, not an Italian one. Now, Darden Restaurants is interestingly now 1,500 restaurants in that mega chain. Hold on, I hate tweeting Olive Garden right now for serving creme brulee and lying to me for five months. And the stock has lost half of its value this year. So the Olive Garden gave us all an update because we're all probably concerned with how the Olive Garden is doing. If you're a shareholder, you're like, hey, OG, you okay? And they're like, we're still here.

Blink twice if you're still alive. Well, they decided to jump up and a wink three times. Their sales so far this quarter have plummeted 39 percent, and this quarter hasn't ended yet. That was for Darden restaurants, the whole restaurant group. For Olive Garden in particular, sales have plummeted by 71%, 64% and 60% in the last three weeks. It's like the country's on a nationwide Atkins diet. You can't even find a carb right now. That's because in mid-March, Darden made the decision to close all dining rooms. Nobody can dine in anymore. Now, Darden closed 100% of its dining rooms, but an interesting thing we noticed, they've kept open 99% of the locations for takeout. In fact, Olive Garden's takeout sales have

more than doubled from $16 million a week back in February to $40 million per week last week. As a result, when Darden made this, hey, we're still here announcement yesterday, the stock jumped 12% on the delicious update. Also, to sue the investors concerned, they bragged that they have a billion dollars in their bank account, and executives are taking a 50% pay cut. to make sure that we can weather the storm. That is just a classy move. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Olive Garden? The future of restaurants is copying retail.

It's all about Omni-Channel sales. Snackers, throw this one up on a T-shirt, Omni-Channel. It's the ability to nimbly sell to your customers, both online and offline simultaneously, seamlessly. Under relentless pressure from Amazon and online commerce, retailers like J-Crew and Target have upped their Omnichannel game. You'll walk into J-Crew. You're looking for the 4-8-4 khakis in Mediterranean Blue.

They're out of that style. They ID a store nearby, and then, boom, they order them online for you free delivery. Or you're obsessively searching for the perfect dog crate for your new puppy. It's a journey. And you find one at Target, and you order it for curbside pickup so you can get it on the way home. The corona economy is showing restaurants that they must have this type of online, offline, offline flexibility. You must nimbly jump from in-person to in-restraint to online to take-out to delivery. And remember, when you're here, you shouldn't be here.

For our second story, Lear Corp just published their plan for turning factories back on. They're thinking about the post-coron economy? Economy. Now, Snackers, we've gone over how Google just published its COVID-19 mobility report. We mentioned that Tesla published a video for how it's making ventilators. And our buddy, Timmy just published the cheat codes for Matt in 2018 somewhere on social media. In comes Lear. just published yesterday a guide for how to operate a factory safely amid this public health crisis.

Now, Snackers, you may not have heard of Lear, but Lear is the proud Southfield, Michigan-based seat company founded in 1917 in Detroit. You heard of big oil. Yep. You heard of big beer. Noam well. Lear is big seat. We're talking $20 billion a year in seat sales for this company.

Recline, lumbar support, memory adjusted, heated seats, whatever you got, I can get it for you. What do we have to do to get you seen it in this seat, Mr. Kramer? Now, Lear has an unbelievable company slogan. It's not just a seat. It's your personal docking station. That doesn't make you lie back and lie in a seat. Their words, not ours, no joke, real thing. Lear is worth $4.7 billion.

It's a publicly traded company, aka it's worth about half of a lift. Which is highly ironic because the most touched part of any lift experience is probably a Lear product. Now, there's a huge problem here. Car companies aren't making cars right now, which means they don't need to buy seats from Lear. So Lear's decided, since it's not making seats, it's going to take its best, brightest, and strongest minds and put them on a very specific project. Safe Work Playbook. It's what they published yesterday.

It's an interactive PDF. And here's the thing. If GM or Ferrari use it, which are both customers of Lear, Yes. Lear will benefit because GM and a Ferrari will get back to work quicker. Now, Snackers, Jack and I will tweet this out from at T-Boy Jack and at Nick of New York. We want you to see this thing. If you like operations, you need to see this thing.

It's 51 pages. It's an interactive PDF. I don't know what an interactive PDF is, but Lear is bragging about it. Jack, it sounds exciting. It sounds thrilling. This is a good way to spend the 14 hours you're not doing anything with. Number one key point of the five points that they list, the pandemic response team. So this 51 page document is designed for managers who are thinking

about opening up their factory again. They've got a wonderfully simple five-page protocol. The first suggestion, a pandemic response team. Basically assign five different leads from a disinfecting lead to an isolation lead. Doesn't sound like you want to be a lead. The second key part is cleaning and disinfection procedures. They literally have a list of like things that you need to clean and how often, for example, vending machines, they need to be cleaned at least once daily. A lot of touching goes on with those things. The third key is staggering shifts in lunch break. If you have a factory with 200 workers, Lear has a schedule to show how to make those workers avoid each other as much as possible. Yeah, you used to hang out with Bob. You may not be having lunch with Bob anytime soon.

The fourth key is on-site health screenings. The guy standing next to you on the assembly line, if he's coughing, they got a whole flow chart to basically take that symptom and figure out if it's a real disease. And then fifth, protocols for isolating employees who become sick at work. Okay, you designate an isolation room to keep that person isolated, Bob, until you first you first. figure out what Bob status is. Those are the five keys. By the way, we should point out they've got a kind of hilarious waiver to kick things off if you want to read all five. To even look at this PDF online, you have to click accept basically this insurance waiver so that Lear isn't responsible if you open up your factory and somebody gets sick. Even if you're not going to use these five, it's still

great publicity for Lear. They really hope that people start describing the Lear way to reopening a factory. They wanted to make it happen. It's kind of like fetch. I don't think it's going to become a verb. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Lear? Businesses must start planning their return to normalcy right now. Snackers, we'll probably have a phased-in economic restart, and that's the kind that all the CEOs are talking about right now. Larry Cudlow, the president's economic advisor, said yesterday that the economy will begin reopening within four to eight weeks.

Now, manufacturing companies, they can't do work from home because 100% of their stuff is really intense machinery. No, so manufacturing companies need to look at this roadmap right now and get ready for normalcy. Lear is the most profound roadmap we've seen. Snackers, if you're on a Snacks Challenge run right now, you're a little over halfway. You may want to turn around. For our third and final story, Uber has launched Work Hub, aka the new job board for Uber drivers to do other work.

AKA the gig economy's LinkedIn coming out your Reid Hoffman. Nick, when the environment or the climate changes, you need to adapt. I know what you're talking about. You're talking about our buddy Chuck Charlie, Charlie Dee. Sir Chuck Darwin is impressed by Uber's adaptability to the new corona economy climate. Travis Kalanick basically just evolved a new limb over there. Uber's core business rides is a public health risk because of COVID-19. Snackers, if you are Ubering right now, that is arguably illegal. Unless you're like a nurse going to the grocery store to get something super essential. In which case, thank you for everything you're doing right now. That is critical.

That's why Uber is pivoting its app from a marketplace for rides to a marketplace for gig jobs. Very important. Enter Work Hub. We're calling it the gig economies LinkedIn. Now, Uber's biggest asset right now is basically it's army of gig workers that have the Uber app downloaded whether or not they're actually driving. I don't know how many there are, but I assume millions of millions of millions of gig workers. And we're talking about an army that is available, cleared background checks, and

has payroll already set up via Uber's app. There is work for these people, just not as Uber drivers. So Uber's taken the initiative to connect them with other non-driving gigs. Uber's actually got some gigs for these workers, such as Uber Eats, which is food delivery, or Uber Freight, which is truck driving, or Uber Works, which is like temp work from catering events to meal prep. They are getting that done. But the new thing in the Uber app that we've never seen before is non-Uber work.

Snackers, get this. if you're using the Uber app as a driver, you can now get jobs at grocery stores or Dominoes or Walgreens or FedEx where they posted gig jobs. Now, Uber is not making money from this, aka they're not taking some finder's fee for successfully placing you at FedEx. But if we know our buddies at Uber, we know not making money on something hasn't stopped them before. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Uber? This could make Uber the gig app to rule them all. If jobs are listing on the Uber app, then Uber stays relevant to drivers even if there are no driving gigs. Uber could get new workers to come to the app during this coronavirus, since there's so many diverse types of work

there. And then Uber Works and Uber Freight could end up seeing more accelerated adoption in this coronavirus. And in the future, this new work feature, they could monetize it by taking that finder's fee, which they said they're not taking currently. The LinkedIn for gig work could become Uber's actual profit-making puppy, since it's still very much not profitable. Hashtag adjusted profits. You know what we're talking about. Jack, can you stop decanting that Brunello over there and whip up the takeaways for us already? We didn't serve Brunel at the Olive Garden, Nick. You must have never been to the OG. It's a trick question. Good point. Keep on. The Olive Garden is in trouble having closed 100% of its dining rooms in mid-March. But takeout sales have more than doubled,

but it needs to up its Omni-Channel dining game. Our second story, Lear is the king of car seats. So nice. But it's also showing off its factory. operations expertise. It's showing the economy how to safely turn factories back on, which we should start doing yesterday. Third and final story, Uber's core business rides, it's either a serious health risk or downright illegal. And it could become the gig app to rule them all with the new jobs board. Now, time for our snack factor today. This one sent in by a legendary snacker, Nicodio, straight out of Alexandria, Minnesota. He started snacking thanks to his sister-in-law, Claudio from Lima, Peru. Nick manages to pull off a Snacks Challenge run every episode,

including in the face of ridiculous Great Lakes wins. He pointed out a great snack fact like last week, but we're just finally getting to it now. It's a little belated. April 4th was the birthday of two great tech companies, Microsoft and Alibaba. Alibaba would have been turning a very nice, very clean 21. Microsoft would have been turning an ancient 45 years. years old on April 4th, 2020. Yes. Another fun fact, Microsoft was born in New Mexico. Didn't see that. We hear it's a dry heat, amazing place. Nick, thank you for the snack fact. One last thing before we go. If you're interested in trying out a new app to listen to this podcast, check out Listen app. It just launched by our buddy Paul. It's actually fascinating. You can go listen to episodes and then

click on the microphone to record comments that then become comments with other snackers in the episode. For instance, you can ask the question, did I just hear a squeaky toy? Is that Jack's new puppy? And why does Jack keep talking about the puppy during the podcast? And we will respond, yes, yes, it was the puppy. Again, that's the listen app. Jack, fantastic T-boy of a pod. Let's do this tomorrow.

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, 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.