The Best One Yet - “Pasta vs. Oil” – Uber’s unicorn contract. Oil’s historic 200% plummet. Mobile gaming 2.0.

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

We noticed Uber snagged a nearly $1B government contract that no one is talking about. The price of a barrel of crude oil was $140 when we were in college — and it just plummeted 200% in one day to cost less than your lunch (spoiler: Negative prices may become a thing). And gaming is having such a moment right now, Facebook Gaming lets you live stream your Fortnite to Facebook.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 Tuesday, April 21st. Mark gets kicked off yesterday with a 600-point decline. Not fun. Jack and I managed to find some really good stories, though. What do you think about today, Jay? This is the best one yet. Let's go with that. Let's start with the first story. What do you think we should start with? Oil just had its most historic day in centuries, no exaggeration. Oil was $150 a barrel back when Jack and I were in college. Now it's negative 23. Not a typo. Not a typo. Real. Fiske did it. thing. The price for 42 gallons of oil, aka a barrel, that's one barrel. Plummeted by 229% yesterday to go negative for the first time we've ever seen. But all Jack and I can think about is one really bad pasta party. We're going to bring that up. For our second story, we noticed something on the US government's website, USA. USA, that's worthy of congratulations for Uber. Almost slip by us, but it was $810 million. We're calling this a unicorn contract for Uber, aka a unit contract and the company that's enjoying it is Uber. For our third and final story.

Do we mention the last story it was about Uber? For our third and final story. It is game on for video games in the stay-at-home chapter of Earth. And Facebook is feeling fobo. So Mark Zuckerberg launched a new Facebook gaming app on Monday. No big deal. It's not about playing video games. It's actually just about watching other people play video games.

Before we get into that, we should explain why we mentioned 42 gallons of oil earlier in this introduction. Turns out oil only comes in barrels. That's pretty much how you're getting it, and that's 42 gallons in one barrel. Yeah, one barrel equals 42 gallons. I don't know how that translates to kegs. I'm going to preempt the question everyone's asking. They need to adopt like the Starbucks venty latte grande situation over there. This is Robin Hood Snacks, Robin Hood's Daily podcast, but we've also talked about Robin Hood's core feature, which is commission-free investing. Even if you're not paying commission, some stocks, they can just, like, they feel expensive. They feel expensive. One,

stock of Amazon, bold disclosure, I own a stock of Amazon, cost $2,350. Yeah, do you want a car or do you want a share of Amazon? Meanwhile, a share of booking.com, which is like kayak and price line combined, you can't name your own price on this thing. No, it's $1,400 for one share of booking. Boom, sell your bike or have a bar mitzvah. Either one, that's how you're getting this. It's the only way you're buying a stock. Now, Robin Hood is now offering fractional shares, which means you're no longer limited to investing in one entire stock. Which is like, buying oil in a single 42-gallon barrel only, which can be frustrating. It's really frustrating. Instead, now with Robin Hood fractional shares, you can purchase a fraction of a share, starting at just

$1 or $2 or however much stock you want. So for Snacks Daily podcast listeners, we're giving you a free stock if you set up an account at Robin Hood, and that free stock, it's on us. Sign up at at Snackspodcast.robinid.com so that we know it's you. Yep. And once your account is set up, A free stock is just sitting there waiting for you to snack. It's begging for you. It's Snackspodcast.robinhood.com to get your free stock today. P.S., if you already have a Robin Hood account, that's awesome. You can still get a free stock if you refer a friend.

Enjoy the stock. We're going to hit our three stories. You're tuned in to snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about the hair ain't food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robin Hood 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, Jack Canola or Olive. Nick, my wife's Italian, so olive? The answer is usually avocado, but oil itself just had its worst day ever. Snackers, prices plummeted for a barrel of oil by two. $200% to $1. No joke on this.

Prices actually turned negative yesterday. Jack and I were staring at the screens, negative numbers. People don't want oil so much. Oil companies have to pay you. What do we have to do to get you off the lot in this car? We will give you money to take the car off of this lot. That's pretty much what's happening. Now, there is an imbalance in the oil universe.

Almost overnight, the economy's engine was basically just switched off. It's sitting there. It's idle. It's not doing anything. Factories aren't running. planes aren't flying and you're not commuting right now. No, you're not. But before the 2008 financial crisis, that's when oil was enjoying the good life. It was at $140 a barrel when Jack and I were freshman. Nick and I were freshmen in college. We had no idea what was going on outside of our building and like

the common that we belonged in. Basically, you're looking at oil. You're like, hey, I don't have to actually do anything with this stuff. So that sounds fine. It's expensive. But since then, the price of oil has been, give or take 30 bucks around $70 a barrel. Then yesterday morning we woke up and things got freaky, the price had plummeted 90% to $1 for a barrel of oil. I was already shocked and was sending Nick text messages like every two minutes. You can get one slice of pizza or you can get 42 gallons of oil. Unbelievable equation there. But then things got like Twilight Zone like am I dreaming? Like is this real funky? We need to triple check this. The prices went negative. Oil companies will now pay you to take on a barrel, aka 42 guys.

gallons of oil. In Soviet Russia, oil pay you. Now, nobody wants to use oil today because the economy is pretty much not running, but they will store it for later. So last week, we told you how OPEC Plus, aka the Real Housewise VOPEC, decided to cut oil production by like 10 to 20 percent because they really want to boost prices. OPEC plus isn't a streaming service. It is a cartel of 23 oil countries, including Russia and Saudi Arabia. But even though this cartel managed to get together and change how much oil they were producing, it still wasn't enough to mass way outweigh the incredibly low demand right now.

Even though we have a glut of oil in the economy right now, which means way too freaking much than we need, that doesn't mean that oil prices can't bounce back in the fall when maybe the economy gets back to normal. But here's the funny thing about negative prices, Snackers, and this is why you don't really see them, that means they are literally paying you to take the product off their hands because they don't have any place to hold it.

They can't just let the oil, like, overflow into the rivers that would kind of be atrocious. Oil's not like an eight-year-old kid who can figure out that it can just watch TV. But here's one of the most wild but logical parts. Some companies are agreeing to take oil off the oil company's hands. Yes. Storm in some gigantic ship.

Put that ship in the ocean and wait for the economy to recover and then sell the oil for not negative prices. It's just chilling. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in little oil? This is like a pasta party that you really overestimated how many people work on it. Snackers, we have all been there. You're hosting six friends are coming over. You got the pasta al dente.

You got the spaghetti ready. The meatballs are set. Then you totally screw up how many servings are in each pack. You think TSP stands for 10 square pounds. You accidentally make pasta for 38 people. It's the worst. And you imported that really fancy San Marzano tomatoes, a grass-fed local beef.

Boom, you can't eat all the leftovers, and you got no room in the fridge. You got all this food. You're pushing it literally into your friend's arm. in the Tupperware, you're telling them they have to take it home because we're not throwing it away. So you're forcing your friends to pile up the Tupperware and they're saying, please, guys, just take this home with you. Nick, I will give you this bottle of Merlo if you just take the pasta home. And you can keep the Tupperware.

Then your friends are getting upset. They're complaining. They don't want to schlep this back. You're already messed up Julius purse. And everyone is getting happy in this situation. That's kind of the situation we have here. Oil companies made too much pasta. They're forcing their friends to take it and give it. them free wine. For our second story, we noticed that Uber just won an $810 million contract. It probably totally forgot that it even applied for. It was like the upside surprise of the day for Uber. Boom. This is also the unit contract of the day because it's a unicorn-sized contract. And this all came about because we noticed here at Snacks a rando update on the U.S. General Services

Administration website. File 47 QMCB19R.002. I kind of wish we could have said we made that up, but that is actually the code for this contract. The announcement was super vague. It said an $810 million award was going to Uber Technologies. And Nick and I are like, that's just Uber, right? That means $810 million is going over to Uber, which is more money than an entire company Casper mattress is worth. It's also about as much as Blackberry makes and sales for the entire year. So we're looking at this. We thought, you know, we should jump in snacks now, see what's going on with this unicorn contract, unicraft.

Bring it back to November, Uber responded to a government request for proposal. And if you know what a request for a proposal is, you know it's at least 70 pages or it's not a request for a proposal. If this thing doesn't make you hate filling it out, then it's not really an RFP. Now, the government made a request for a proposal, and this is what they were looking for. Specifically, a government-wide ride share, ride-hale service to meet on-demand passenger transportation needs of federal employees while carrying out official duties. Translation, the federal government needs some rides for its 2.1 million civilian workers. Military not included on this,

they get to take the Humvee. Sounds like it should be an option on an Uber, by the way. We're thinking, though, this is for like Uber rides from the senators to get from Union Station to Capitol Hill and from the airport to wherever. You get McConnell and Pelosi and a carpool, boom, you can have some fantastic legislation going on. Now, since we're talking about taxpayer money for senators rides, you need to follow some rules, aka some red tape. Snackas, you got to whip out the whiteboards here. We're giving you a list of the three things you got to have if you ever want a government contract.

You got to follow these three things. First, you need to prove that it was a fair contest and the project was awarded to the best company for the best price. The government's going to check that your father-in-law isn't the CEO of the Swingsaid company that you just applied to be in Oakside Park. How convenient this RFP also comes with my mother-in-law. favorite apple pie. Number two, you're going to have to prove that this thing doesn't do any environmental harm. We're talking environmental impact studies. You need to prove that new swing

said no-growth park won't disrupt the raccoon migration that naturally occurs through that park. You mess that up, they're never going to be happy over in the raccoon community. Third, you need to prove the deal won't lose your votes. That's not actually a real rule, but it's kind of like the reality of modern politics, and you should probably be taking this into account. Snackers, the goal of government red tape is to prevent bribery. Prevent corruption and prevent waste. They want you treating taxpayer money with respect, so they make the RFPs really boring and you got to jump through these hoops. So five months after Uber applied for this RFP, they won the $810 million contract.

It's almost a billion dollars. We're calling it a unit contract, so Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Uber? This unicorn contract is also an obituary for the taxi industry. Honey, how was work? You know, I just got signed the biggest deal ever. If Uber gets the whole 810 million from the government, that would be equal to 6% of Uber's annual total revenue. So Jack and I are looking at this, we're kind of shocked that Uber could be the official provider of government rides potential. If you needed official news that the taxi industry is dead, this is kind of it.

And the government, which awkwardly kind of hates Uber, now has Uber as its official ride provider. All you snacks, challenge runners out there. Time to head back. We're a little over halfway through. For our third and final story, Facebook just randomly launched its own mobile gaming app out of nowhere. The biggest thing since Game Boy Color. Jack and I are looking at this. We jumped in Snacksdale, tried to play it, and we're calling it Facebook Gaming 2.0. Facebook Gaming 1.0 was back when we were in college. This is our second college reference of the pod.

Farmville Words with Friends, those March Madness brackets where you could actually compete against people. That was incredible. I was number one bracket within Ross Dining Hall. Jack had six acres of people. Cavs was a beautiful thing. It was a wonderfully innocent time. We went to college in Vermont, Nick still adjusting to Vermont culture. Now, that was because Facebook was a platform for other games, but now this is something totally different. When you check out Facebook gaming, which is getting its own separate app from Facebook, the first big button that Mark Zuckerberg wants you to push,

it isn't play. No. It's go live. That's because this app really isn't about gaming. It's about watching gaming. It lets anybody stream the game that they're playing using their Facebook. account. Boom, everyone becomes a video game star in the audience. It's democratizing video gaming for the world online. Unlike the rest of Facebook, this won't have any ads. Wild. It's monetized through stars, which is some sort of Facebook alternative currency, not Libra, but it's a currency that fans of you as a gamer can buy and then send you, which you can redeem as money. It basically looks like an emoji for a falling star that someone spent zero time actually designing and caring about. If you play Madden football on All Madden, you can side hustle maybe making some stars from

your fans. Facebook is making money when someone purchases a box of like 250 stars and then gives them to a gamer who they really, really love. Now, Facebook gaming is also taking place in some of the biggest arenas in the world. Turns out if you're trying to game typically and you want to set up like a tournament with friends, you can only do that if you're a legit pro on Twitch. You're not going to be able to do that if you're just a rand out. On Facebook, any user can challenge their friends to some video game tournament online and play using their Facebook account. Also, classic Facebook move that Jack and I notice here. They dropped the word connected like 50 times when referencing that they were launching this product. Classic, Zach move. Snackers, if you work at Facebook, please tweet at us how many times you heard the word connected today infused into a conversation at a Facebook meeting. Now, the Facebook gaming app apparently was available yesterday, although Nick and I could not find it on a our iPhones. But if you were living in Latin America or Southeast Asia, you could have been playing the Facebook gaming app for the last one and a half years. It wasn't even supposed to launch in the US until June. But Facebook knows that everybody is staying at home right now, so they launch

yesterday so we can start using this thing stack. So it's like everyone, you're working from home, but you're going to have to work overtime at home. We're getting this thing out two months early, guys. Now Facebook is taking on Amazon's Twitch and YouTube, which Google owns, because both those apps let you stream video games to everybody. Yeah, and if you're a big tech company and you don't have a gaming app, then you're not really a big tech company these days. Facebook is already number three behind Amazon, Twitch and YouTube, though, which we'll talk about in a second. More on our takeaway. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Facebook?

Facebook is the internet. Its competitors are just apps. Snackers, get these numbers. Seven billion people live on planet Earth. Four billion people have access to the internet, and Facebook has two and a half billion users. As I mentioned, Facebook is basically the internet. Meanwhile, if we look at Facebook's rivals and gaming right now, Twitch has 140 million monthly active users. 140 million. That's cute. Adorable. Facebook already has some simple games on Facebook and 700 million people have been playing them with their Facebook account. Before this new app even launched, and if you're one of the rivals right now, there are a lot of barriers going on here.

Like someone has to download your app if they're going to play you. Facebook already has the world. Now it's adding one-click games. Jack Kenyon, whip up the takeaways for us over there. is selling for negative prices, and no, unfortunately, that doesn't mean you'll get paid for a gallon of gasoline. Gas prices should fall over time, though, because oil companies basically made way too much carbonara. For our second story, Uber applied to be the official ride provider for the federal government. And guess what? They just won. It's worth $810 million, and it's kind of the final line in the taxi industry's obituary. For our third and final story, Facebook is taking on

Amazon, Twitch, and YouTube for video game streaming supremacy. Facebook already is the internet, the competition is just apps. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one from Francisco Barbosa, Mucha abrogato, Francisco. Francisco's a father of five from Portugal. We want to say a quick hello to his five kids. Thank you, thank you, hello, hello, and hello.

The microwave was invented in 1945. Turns out by accident. There is an engineer working near, you know, just some casual radars like the old magnetron tube. Actually, not casual at all, because it was part of a defense military contract. But then that engineer reached into his pocket and noticed that the magnetron tube

had melted the chocolate bar, which he was saving for later. I mean, now we know you never go near a magnetron tube with a bar of chocolate. Now, before we head out, we made a joke yesterday about Mark Zuckerberg aiming for the moon with a Libra cryptocurrency but landing in Nova Scotia instead.

Now, we recorded that on Friday before the shooting in Nova Scotia happened. It was just an absolute, absolutely unfortunate bad timing. Our hearts go out to Nova Scotia. Nick, that was the best one yet. Can't wait to see it tomorrow. Can't wait, man. The free stock program is subject to certain limitations and the offer is available to new users only, subject to the terms and conditions are RBNh.c.c. Free stock is chosen randomly from the program's inventory, and investing is risky. Fractional shares are illiquid outside the Robin Hood platform and are not transferable to other

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and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.