The Best One Yet - 🔮 Predictions Pod 2022

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

In our 1st pod back for 2022, we whipped up an un-zuckably bold episode: Our 3 big business predictions for 2021:1. Twitter will become the 1st American Super App2. The 1st robot-only, human-free fast food restaurant is coming3. The #1 show, movie, and shmovie in America won’t be AmericanAnd in case you’re craving them, here is last year’s “3 Big Biz Wishes” episode:- Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/1st-pod-back-our-3-big-biz-wishes-for-2021/id1386234384?i=1000519275805- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1M8N35PoTcuLCNymA8Vati?si=ma9xhti1TEGw4VDtFEybBwGot your own business wish? Hit us up on Twitter @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All right, should we do this? I bruised my toe. As long as you don't bruise your tongue. We need that thing for the pod. All right, here we go. Here we go. Three, two. This is Nick.

This is Jack. And this is Snacks Daily. Welcome back. It is Monday, January 3rd. Nick, I just saw you last week in Florida. I just saw you in Florida. What's going out of here? It was great to see you.

Did I tell you I went full Betty Crocker and made like three key lime pies? Because I have to give you a key lime pie. Snackers, this is our first pod of 2022. If so facto, this is a fatto. our best pod of 2022. We're greeting you into the Happy New Year with our best one yet. We are. Jack, first story, what do we got? Actually, first prediction, what do we got? This year, we'll get the first American super app. Snackers, it all comes down to Twitter. For our second prediction, a classic fast food chain will launch the first ever humanless,

robot-only restaurant. Yeah, your chicken wings, they're going to be fried up by Optimus Prime this year. For our third and final prediction, the next great movie, show, and shmovey. in America this year won't be America. Because the next venture capital investment is language arbitrage. Language arbitrage. I love this term, language arbitrage. This is a great term. Also, I just love this lineup.

This is a fantastic lineup. This is a special pod for our first pod of 2022. Jack, we only do this once a year. While Nick and I were together last week, we gazed into a slamming salmon crystal ball of the future, Gandalf style. Totally, with like a little bit of Miss Cleo. And here's what we whipped up. We whipped up our three big,

predictions for the new year. How did we do last year? Because we did the same thing last year and the year before that. Jack, I am looking at the whiteboard. And last year, our predictions, we went, we went one for three. We were one for three. 33. That's not bad. I mean, they were bold predictions. An adjusted one for three. It was an adjusted one for three. Wish number one last year, we wished for the anti-Apple Alliance. Apple launched movies, music, and fitness into one subscription bundle last year. We wished that Peloton, Spotify, and Netflix would ban together for an anti-Apple subscription bundle. And Jack, did that wish happen last year? No. Okay. It didn't happen. It didn't laugh. All right. So, Jack, what was wish number two last year that we had? Airbnb and

Uber for anything. We wish that Airbnb would become the platform to share anything. Nick, we wished that on Airbnb you could rent out your unused lawn. Please. Rent out your unused pool or even your unused Weber grill. And that Uber would become the platform for any kind of ride. And Jack, did that happen last year? No. No, it did. It didn't happen last year. Okay, okay. So what about wish number three? What was our third wish last year? We wished that DoorDash would acquire a struggling restaurant chain so that they could make their own food for delivery. So the delivery company, DoorDash, they didn't acquire a restaurant last year, but they did launch a restaurant last year. This fall, DoorDash launched and scaled ghost kitchens in California. Yes, they did.

own Ghost Kitchen. Our wish, it kind of happened last year. That's an adjusted score right that. Our third wish kind of gave a thing. For our 2022 prediction snackers, we ran them by our moms over the holidays. Oh, and a spoiler alert, our moms loved these predictions. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our first prediction pod of the new year? There's no such thing as a wrong prediction. It just hasn't happened yet. Let's in our three stories. Boom. We're back, baby. You're tuned in the daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about the hearing food is 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. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member FINRA FNRA slash SIPC. For our first story, they haven't said that in a while. Actually, our first prediction. We're going to get the first American super app and it's going to happen this year. And it starts with Twitter. It starts with Twitter. Super apps, you know, they talk a big game, but they don't save the world. Super apps aren't superheroes. They're not thwarting Count Zuckerberg in his quest to turn us into like the Matrix. Yeah, it isn't like a blue pill, red pill situation. These are apps that do everything. There's like one app with a range of digital services that span

entire industries. Super apps don't wear capes. No, they don't. But they did. But they did. begin in Asia. They are big in Asia. Huge. But they haven't become a thing in the United States yet. It's like fetch. It's just like not catching on and we haven't all done it. And because broadband internet is weak in developing countries, it's beneficial there to have just one app running on your phone. The best example of this, Jack, remember last year? We covered Grapp, the Singapore-based super app that just IPO. Grab does payments. Yep. It does rides. It does delivery, it does video streaming and vacation booking. There's more. You want me to go on? And he can pass. This is all in one app.

It's crazy. It's like you don't even need all those pages of apps on your phone. And Snackers, here's the secret about super apps. The beautiful thing about super apps. If you own one super app, you own the whole phone. Zuck's like, I'm going to hire 10,000 people to work on a super app. I'll take two of those. So we don't have a super app in America, but we think we're going to get a super app in America this year with Twitter.

The key ingredients for a super app, if you think about it, it's media, information. and payments all in one half. Perfect timing, Jack, because Twitter, they just launched all of that and more in the last year. You want information? I want information. That is Twitter. That is what Twitter does.

That's the core product. But they acquired a newsletter company last year in case you weren't convinced. Jack, you want media? Twitter was the most successful zucking of Clubhouse. They're now the leader in live audio with Twitter spaces. Oh, and Jack, you want payments? Cha-ching. Twitter launched tipping last year.

one click, you can send like five bucks to your favorite fantasy football Twitter account for all the tips you've gotten for free over the past season. And here's what's so magnificent about that. It's not just tipping in this case. Each click is a micro payment. Micro payments. That's really what Twitter is working on with tips. That's a big deal.

Twitter can evolve tipping into micro payments for specific microservices. Jack, sit down, stand up, sit back down again. Imagine this. Twitter could let you pay $1 to watch one episode of Selling Sunset if you'd just want to watch one episode. Instead of subscribing to like a streamer for $10 a month. Or Jack, let's say you don't want to do a whole annual subscription to the Los Angeles Times, even though it's a great newspaper. You could pay just $1 to read that one paywalled article that's relevant to you from the LA Times through Twitter.

Okay, so let's step back. You could watch video or listen to audio all while scrolling through all the information on Twitter. And you can micro pay for micro things all in one Twitter app. It sounds like Twitter has set up the foundation. to become America's first super app. Super apps don't wear capes. They wear 142 characters. I love that. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over Twitter?

The fastest and most ironic way for Twitter to become a super app, it could merge with Square. Yeah, a stack of Twitter. The co-founder, Jack Dorsey, he left Twitter to focus on his payment company Square, you know, like a month ago. But Jack Dorsey knows that Twitter is a little baby super app. app with a lot of potential that could look real nice as part of Square, which is now called Block, actually.

And it's a little baby because Twitter, it's only worth $35 billion. It's like two lifts. Square is worth more than double that. So it could afford to acquire Twitter. Because Square owns cash app, it could be the perfect fit for Twitter micropayments. And Square just acquired Jayze's music app title last year. So you can be listening to Jayze's Empire State of Mind while using Twitter, which actually makes a whole lot more sense. very super happy. So Jack Dorsey, he just quit Twitter to focus on Square. But to become the first American super app, Twitter might want to merge with Square. For our second prediction of 2022, here it is, a fast food chain will launch a robot only humanless restaurant this year. Why? Because

there's fewer workers than ever, but more robots than ever. This is Nick. This is Jack. Actually, Jack, we should, we should sprinkle a little context on this. Can we back up? like two years on this? Yeah, can we give ourselves some credit for once? Two years ago, Jack and I said Chipotle would launch their first table-free restaurant. No tables, just the food. Pre-pandemic, Nick and I noticed takeaway and delivery were booming. So Chipotle did that.

Yeah, they did. Why not have a no small talk just banging out burritos location? During the pandemic, when you couldn't even eat inside, Chipotle launched their first ever delivery and take-out only Chipotle location. Gwock was still extra, but you couldn't sit down. This year, we think one chain will kick it up a couple notches. Not tableless, but a humanless restaurant. A whole kitchen run by robots.

Boom. Filet flipping, Pepsi porn, Tater Totson. Just the robots. No people. It'll look less like a kitchen, more like a ridiculously advanced Tesla car fax. Yeah, you're going to walk in, Jack. You're going to order on a kiosk. Then you're going to grab that food when it arrives on a conveyor belt.

This restaurant's basically going to be one enormous, sophisticated vending machine. You're going to be like, can I talk to the manager? They're going to be like, yeah, one second. Let me get C3PO for you. Now, this kind of makes sense because the go-to playbook throughout business history is that if you reduce human labor, you can potentially boost profits. This is a tale as old as time. It's why robots talk to you for like 10 minutes every time you're just trying to get a hold of the Delta. Representative, representative.

Oh, you'd like to talk about your reservation? Please enter your 43-digit customer ID number. Press star one to continue with this call. Actually, this is also why everyone is racing to like launch a robo taxi ASAP. And it's also why Dahlene might get replaced by a coffee making droid. So it makes sense that there should become a rush soon to launch the first robot-only restaurant. And the company that does will get a lot of PR buzz. They'll probably be invited to the Today Show.

And consumers will want to go check it out and experience it. The TechCrunch crew is going to do like 43 articles on this in 43 minutes. Loneless Wings by R2D2. You know who's like perfectly suited to be doing this, Young Brands. They love this kind of thing at Young Brands. They are making lots of like fuzzy PR splashy moves. They own Taco Bell and they own KFC. And honestly, the PR team at Young Brands is craving a story

about a robot run KFC, a KFC where the robots are whipping up your drumsticks. It'd be exciting for Young Brands, but for society, the first fast food robot-only restaurant wouldn't be quite as delicious. It is always sad when technology takes people's jobs. And if you're a consumer trying to get a sandwich,

you can't ask the robot to pick out the juicest fried chicken tender thing. So, like, that's going to stink too. Jack, if you walk up and ask for your trademark, one-third Pepsi, two-thirds diet Pepsi, good luck if you're asking the robot to do that math. A robot-only KFC, it's going to have a little less of the Colonel Sanders warm touch. Robots aren't singing your happy birthday. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies? over at the first robot-only restaurant chain.

This is the culmination of two new persistent trends. Yeah, Snackers, two data points that Jack and I noticed over the holidays, we're just connecting them together right now. The first is the labor shortage. Restaurants are so desperate for staffing. They're jacking up hourly wages and paying bonuses if you sign up like it's Christmas. Now, you heard about that one last year, but the second one you probably didn't hear about.

There has been a quiet surge in robots. Get this. American companies, they ordered 29,000 robots in just the first nine months of 2021. That's up 37% from last year. And part of those record numbers are behind the scenes robots working in the food industry already. So you've got advances in tech that are making some food tasks doable sans homo sapiens. The labor shortage isn't ending soon. No. The robot demand surge.

That's not ending soon. Jack, add it all up and you can almost smell it. The first robot only, no humans required fast food restaurant this year. For our third and final prediction for 2022, here it is, the top movie, the top show, and the top shmovey for this year that we're all going to be talking about, it won't be American. And big money is going into big dubbing. All right, let's go back, 2020 Parasite. They win best picture at the Oscars.

Total shock. 2021, all we talked about was SquidGame. Oh, yeah. You see a guy who's playing cards at a train station. You should avoid that guy. The reason these were both hits in America, even though these were Korean productions in the Korean language, total surprise.

It's because Hollywood realizes language doesn't matter anymore. And that recognizable stars don't matter either. Jennifer Anderson, great in the morning show. But Jack, how about Player 67 over in Squid Game? There wasn't a single recognizable actor in Squid Game from an American perspective. and that show still crushed it. And that is why this year, just like last year, the top show will be a non-English show.

The Squid Game phenomenon wasn't a fluke. It's actually the future. Now, Netflix, Netflix knows this. And Netflix is creating a huge peer pressure situation about this. Everyone in Hollywood is looking at Netflix, which budgeted $17 billion for new shows, movies, and shmooves this year. That is one lift. Netflix spent the equivalent of one lift on stuff for you to watch.

Meanwhile, Disney, Warner Media, Apple TV Plus, they're spending way less. Peacock, they spent less than a peanut. Now, sure, this year, you're going to see productions like the House Targary and Game with Thrones prequel at HBO. HBO is going to spend a bazillion dragon coins on this thing. But you should also expect a surge this year in shows produced in Korea, in Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico, and France. And they'll be directed and produced and starring Koreans and Brazilians and Nigerians and Mexicans

and some guy named Pierre. Because Hollywood realizes his story. storytelling is universal. It's just uniquely expensive in the United States. It's so expensive. So Jack and I, we're looking at this too. And here's what we're calling this phenomenon. Language arbitrage. Language arbitrage is when you produce something not in the English language, then dub it into English and all the other languages too. Right. So Jack, you're not going to make a hit show in each country for each country. You're going to make one hit show, then hire voice actors to read the script in every major language.

You know, Netflix could grow by creating more shows or they could grow by scaling their existing shows. In other words, Netflix could produce 100 shows for 100 countries, or one show and then dub it into 100 languages for those countries. Charlie, that's the take it. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the entire content media everything industry? Huge venture money is going into dubbing text. Snackers, production companies, they're realizing it's lower cost to produce outside the United States. And they're going to do more of them. So eventually, they'll want to lower the cost of dubbing too with automation.

Exactly. So instead of paying voice actors, why not build the technology that will translate English movies into like spoken spanglish? Marvel AI is one startup trying to develop just that technology. Exactly. This is basically voice as a service software. They're converting everything someone saying into the other languages. They're working on artificial intelligence that can read the script of Spider-Man and then produce Peter Parker's lines into like 12 languages so you can sell the market worldwide. So like Tom Holland pops on his suit and says, with great power comes great responsibility.

This technology will translate it, Grosher Kraft, Grosser, Antvote. Somehow German manages to make the good guy sound like the bad guy, Jack. The streamer that owns this dubbing technology, they'll be able to multiply their existing content library. at like no cost, just push a button. And that is why huge venture money will jump into language arbitrage. Jack, can you whip up those three prediction takeaways for us over there?

This year, we'll get an American super app and it starts with Twitter. Media, information, payments all in one app, Twitter plus baby square. For our second prediction, one fast food chain will launch a full robo restaurant. Because there are fewer workers, more working robots. who are going to build you a bucket of wings. And our third prediction of 2022 is that the top show, movie, and Schmovie in America won't be American. So big money is going to go into language arbitrage.

Now, time for a snack fact of the day. This one sent in by legendary snacker Spencer, whereas from lovely Afton, Virginia. Spencer thought he noticed more snack stories recently on digital assets than years prior. We're talking crypto. We're talking NFTs, the stuff that's not fungible. Spencer Doven Snack style showed off his quantitative analysis. Spencer looked at our first 100 episodes of Snacks Daily Podcasts back in 2019. And he compared those first 100 episodes to the final 100 of 2021.

Okay, here's what Spencer found. Back in 2019, only 4% of our episodes had stories on digital assets like crypto. In 2021, 22% of episodes had digital asset news. So Jack and I are going to NFT this episode and send it to Spencer. Snackers, a bonus to this bonus pod. We're offering you a free New Year's resolution for this year. Share your snacks. You share your popcorn.

You share your Oreos. You share your RX bars. Share your snacks daily. We would love if you tell a buddy about your favorite snacks daily episode from 2021. In the meantime, Jack, you're still in Florida? I am. Two more days. You know, I know you're still in Florida?

Because you're not wearing a T-shirt right now. In fact, you don't have any shirt on right now. You're not wearing anything right now. You really spun this to snacks after dark real fast. Jack, you know, if you're in South Florida and say Bitcoin three times, the mayor of Miami appears and tries to sell you a condo. Snackers, we're kicking off the year right. We will see you tomorrow.

Thanks for snacking. For our fourth and final prediction, you will listen to Snacks Daily tomorrow too. And before we go, congratulations to longtime Snackers, Nick Marino and Alexa Nore. Happy second year anniversary, honky talking over in San Francisco. And congratulations to Jan Perez for selling her company one year ago.

And shout out to Abby from Chicago, who's living life over at the Snook Inn. Adriana, we're in person. You're now a certified money coach over in Montreal camp. And congrats to Asia Poonjani who just got into dental school down in Texas. Happy first year anniversary of dating to Dominica and Marie in Austin, Texas. And Megan O'Malley just got promoted over in Portland, Oregon. Happy 30th to Zareem in Atlanta, Georgia.

And Adam over in Atlanta, Tim. Happy 21st to Ashley Yeh in Old Tapin, New Jersey. Jay B, happy birthday originally from the Upper East Side. Happy birthday to Jackie Marino in Tribeca, New York. And Judah turning 28 over in Chicago. Happy birthday to Gabriel Atkins in San Diego. And anybody else celebrating in 2022, make it a T-Boy today. Celebrate the wins this year.

This is Jack. Nick owned stock of Apple. I own stock of Netflix. And we both own stock of Chipotle, Block, Peloton, and Spotify. And we both own some Bitcoin. And we both own shares of Airbnb. 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 on the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc., Robin Hood Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. Grosser Kraft, Grocer for Antvote.