The Best One Yet - 🐝 “Robo-bees live in a luxury yurt” — WWE’s new wrestling bicep. Beewise’s $80M smart hive. Amazon’s 1st ever union.

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Beewise just snagged $80M for smart hives that make bee honey drip money. World Wrestling Entertainment already did fake chokeholds, now it’s doing real drama TV. And Amazon just got its 1st ever union — and that could threaten 2-day free Prime delivery as we know it.$WWE $AMZNGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewformID: 2108572Learn 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 Monday. Welcome back. It's April 4th. Trivia. Yes.

What cotton is the softest cotton? Answer, what you're wearing. Oh, yeah, it's the flannel. Nick's decked out and a flannel. First pod with a dress coat. I like what you're working with. Is that an LLB or is that a car? No, it's a Christmas present from Alex.

Okay. That's not a brand, but we can roll with it, Jack. Snackers, honestly, first pod with the dress coat. Last day of us recording from Mass. It is pod's the coziest one, yeah. It's actually also the schmanciest one yet. T-B-O-Y. TV-O-Y.

For our first story, does a swarm of robo bees and a techified beehive scare you? What do you put it like that, Jack? B-Ys just raised $80 million to make honey profitable. Our second story is the WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment. Fake wrestling is launching real TV shows. Our third and final story, you have 30 minutes for lunch and eight minutes to go to the bathroom. And that's why one Amazon warehouse has officially unionized, and the workers there have a story to tell. But Snackers, before we hit that,

wonderful mix. Honestly, fantastic mix and I do feel very cozy. Hortar's Almanac week 107. Week 107, things were running out of because of the pandemic. Jack and I have been keeping track for you. This week, we're running out of spring break. Okay, it's April. Like, literally, chronologically, you're running out of time. We're just out of time. There isn't much time to wear a tank top and go to a party with fake party glasses. Which is like, why Jack and I met up to ski ASAP and honestly, there's barely any snow. If you're not Cancuning with a crew right now, it's probably too late. Yeah, we're hoping you're listening to us on a Jeplew to Jamaica.

But we're also running out of spring break, not just because of time. True. We're running out of spring break things. Great point, yeah. Because you can't break for spring unless you got these assets. There is an economic shortage of lifeguards in Florida. There is Hasselhoff when you need them. There's a shortage of rental cars and cobblown. I hope your havianas are good for walking people. There's a shortage of wait, staff, and NASA.

I know you love a conkfritter. The conkfrater's not arriving for like an hour and a half yet. It's not the Caribbean without the conch. No, it's not. Most of it's badder, but you know what? we appreciate the dip. The only thing there's a surplus up. Yeah. Sunburns on the back part of your back where no one's reaching.

A lot of sunburns in spring break. Also, we got extras of those yard long cups from Senor frogs that you never asked. Carlos and Charlie's senior frogs. Potato, potato. Let's power our three stories, baby. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers. The 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. 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 Fenbara slash SIPC. For our first story, B-WIS, just raised $80 million to create, you know, casual swarms of robot bees. It's actually teched out be hides. It is, it is. And this is part of a growing ag tech industry.

Do you remember the last time you were stung, by the way? Only once. It was a double whammy for me. Can I tell you the story? They always come in hoards. A bee flew into my face. It's like in the face. Sabotage.

Then was mad at me for my face being in the way and stung my toe. Jack, I don't want to go out of a limb here, but this sounds premeditated. I lost twice. Well, you look great now. In the meantime, Snackers, what doesn't look great is the bee apocalypse. 30% of bee colonies disappear every year. It's called colony collapse disorder. And Einstein, Albert Einstein, talked about how significant this could be decades ago.

Bees are crucial to the world. And Einstein said, If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years left to live. Now, it's kind of a mystery why all these bees are dying, but there are a whole bunch of theories like deforestation, pesticides, climate change, all the bad stuff. Right. And if we lose 30% of beers a year, beekeepers make up for it by investing in new hives every year. But this one startup in Israel, bee-wise, they have a better idea how to save the bees. They think we should techify the beehives.

They've basically created a smart home, but for the bees. This is the most aggressive tech engagement with insects since Ant Man. And that is why BeWIs just raised a whopping $80 million to scale their cozy hives where bees can thrive. This big human-made beehive, it looks like a giant computer server. It does. But with stacks of honeycombs instead of like computer chips. What Jack and I are trying to say is basically what they've created is an Amazon Alexa, but for insect homes. This hive thing has climate control to maintain the right temperature.

Just like you have a nest thermostat in your home. And this big thing monitors the hives for disease. Just like you have a Fitbit to monitor your house. There is also automated honey harvesting. Because honestly, bees do all this work from the queen and they kind of like a break too. Here's the business model. Bees are the users of these tachified hives, but apiaries are the customers. And this is the goal.

If you optimize honey output, then you optimize honey money. Right. Bee wise is to help make profits in the bee industry. Right. On a unit economics degree, they're trying to make each hive much more profitable. It's your classic has business. Yes, not a SaaS model. This is a has a service.

Right. Yeah. Apieri's paid $2,000 up front. Then $400 a month for this techie service. And it gives you 24 colonies in that big computer server looking. So you're shelling out 400 bucks a month. It gives bees these like fancy homes. But it does make your hives run like efficient factories.

And it makes the hives comfier for those worker bees. And you're kind of spoiling the bees. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at B-Wise? America's oldest industry is getting a makeover. It's called AgTech. Agricultural technology. Snackers, we've been plowing and planting for generations, but you don't fix a green thumb if it ain't broke.

We are seeing more innovation in farming than ever. And it's called AgTech. Yeah, the field of AgTech. Last year was actually a record year for AgTech. How much money they bring in? $5 billion of investments in 440 venture capital backstartners. Can we talk about John Deere? because I know you love John Deere.

He's a Vermonter. He is. But the company's in Illinois, that green tractor looked pretty much the same for 165 years. John Deer unveils their first ever self-driving tractor for sale

this fall. It's telling the toil like a Tesla. Nicely said. Now, we've also covered vertical farming, which is when you grow lettuce in a high rise, not on a flat earth.

So Jack and I are looking at this. America's oldest industry is getting a software upgrade. Robo beeehives are just one part of it. For our second, story, world wrestling entertainment is expanding from fake wrestling to real TV shows. In media, you're one of two things. Yeah. And it's hard to do both. Two biceps. And it's hard to have both biceps. World wrestling entertainment, by the way, W.W.E. publicly traded

$5 billion sports company. It's funny that this is a publicly traded stock. It totally is. It's like the hardest core thing in Connecticut, by the way. Yeah, Greenwich, Connecticut. I feel like that's off brand to like the product or stuff. It's like just off I-95. The WWE, you've seen it, you believe it. It's huge men in Speedos bashing each other with steel chairs. Yes, and people paid to see that in real life because, you know, that's what you got to do. I've paid when I was a kid. I went to Springfield Civic Center.

Travel all the way down. I saw Bill Goldberg do his spear. Oh, he sounds fun. I saw, um, Disco Inferno was great. I think that's a song. I don't know if that's a man. It's a man. Okay, it's a man.

But Snackers, so those live event tickets and Stone Cold Steve Austin T's that Jack was loading up on in size Schmedium. They are just 20% of this company's business. 80% of the WWE is TV deals. TV deals. WWE makes almost a billion dollars a year. So you can watch the pile driver, the suplex, the DDT. Did I surprise you? You did surprise me.

On TV. No one knows what a DDT stands for. No. But WWE, yeah, technically it is sports. It is entertainment sports. But it's really a media company. They depend on wrestling programs. Which means this news was kind of.

of a surprise. The WWE is working on its first ever scripted TV shows. We know what you're thinking. Isn't the Undertaker's choke slam scripted? Yeah. Seemed to come out of nowhere. Here comes still cold Steve Ozning guys. And it is scripted. We've all seen those punches that don't even come close to the face. But this is different. This is like literally a team of writers kind of scripted. Right. WWE is doing scripted dramas for the streaming networks. Okay. Can we talk about the first scripted drama, which is on Espaniel? A Spanish language comedy about a Mexican woman who

really wants to become a luchadara. Yeah, she wants to wear the mask like Nacho Libre was wearing. Great movie. Yeah. And this is going to be a good, clean, family fun. Yeah, this is a rated G, and that's not your typical WWE content. The second show, the WWE is doing, is called pinned. Pinned.

Because you have to pin someone for a three count to win the match. It's a movie about a media mogul family, like succession, but with wrestling. It's a drama loosely based on the McMahon family. Yeah. Vince, Shane, Linda, Stephanie, maybe even Triple H. Oh! Triple H is showing up. But Snackers, that's not all.

WWE is getting into documentaries. WWE is getting artsy. They're going for an Emmy. They think they're Shonda Rimes and Ken Burns. At the same time. So, Jack, what's a takeaway for our buddies over at the WWE? Media falls into two categories. You're either creating or distributing.

Snackers, from influencer posts on Instagram to like the real housewives of Aspen, all of these involve media companies. And those media companies are either creating content or distributing. Creating or distributing. It's hard to do both. Like Netflix and Disney Plus, they do both, Jack. That's rare. That's rare.

It's rare. The WWE tried to do both. They launched WWE streaming network. They did. I remember well. But it failed. It totally failed. They actually shut down WWE streaming last year.

The content ended up on Peacock instead. They looked in the mirror. They took off their mask and they realized they only have one media bicep. The WVE failed at distributing content, but it is fantastic at creating content. And now with these scripted shows, they're doubling down. on the creating. For our third and final story, Amazon workers on Staten Island have formed Amazon's very first labor union.

This is a big deal. Huge. Six thousand Amazonians will now demand to be treated more reasonable. Okay. Now, this story, it actually begins with a guy named Christian Smalls on Staten Island. He was working in the largest New York Amazon warehouse on the fifth borough, Statenown. So the pandemic started and Mr. Smalls working at Amazon organized a strike at that specific warehouse, like 50 people ended up joining him.

Yeah. He says that Amazon wasn't doing enough to keep workers like him safe from COVID-19 while they were on the job in the early pandemic. Well, then things took a twist because Amazon fired Chris Smalls for a very bizarre reason. Amazon said they fired him because he was violating social distance policies. They didn't fire him for organizing a strike because, you know, it is illegal to fire someone. Amazon didn't do that. Organizing a strike. Amazon fired him because he was standing five feet from someone, not the mandatory six feet from someone.

How convenient. He didn't have a measuring tape with him. But Chris got the last laugh. He did. It all went down on Friday. He spent the last two years organizing a union drive at the Amazon Staten Island warehouse. Because he and his coworkers, they wanted more reasonable productivity rates. More reasonable is their words. And it may be strange to hear productivity rates, but Amazon uses a very strange tool to measure their workers' productivity. Amazon is notorious for measuring what they call time off task. Time off task. And they rank the productivity of all 6,000 workers in that plant like they were a

worker being. It's called time off task. Let's say you have to go to the bathroom. Okay. That's time off your task. Let's say you have to go to lunch. That is time off your time. Amazon is constantly, like a tech company, watching the metrics and ranking you against your coworkers. And here's where things get freaky. Because like, let's say you just want to take a bathroom break after you just taped up a package, probably your, I don't know, 20,000th package of the day. Well, once you tape up that package, which probably has like an electric toothbrush going to Connecticut, classic. The clock starts ticking. Yeah, your break would end the next time you scan another package. Amazon uses tech to meticulously track the productivity of every worker. Every second is counted as that time off your task.

It sounds incredibly stressful to work under those conditions. I'm sweating right now. So last week, kind of unsurprisingly. Amazon's workers voted yes. They want to form Amazon's first labor union. They'll ask to be treated more humanely, probably also ask for more pay and more benefits too. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Amazon?

Unionization is a threat to two-day prime delivery as we know it. Two-day prime shipping free for members. You love it. The OG value prop of Amazon. Two-day free prime shipping is. is a logistical miracle. And it's made possible by those notorious productivity quotas. So to protect two-day prime shipping, Amazon didn't want a union that would fight those productivity quotas.

That would prevent it, basically, from pulling off this magical miracle of shipping. To try to get this union vote to lose, Amazon decorated that Staten Island warehouse with posters that said, vote no to unionization. And then, Jack, I couldn't even believe this one. Amazon even held mandatory meetings to explain to their employees why they thought unions were bad. Workers had to attend. And here's someone speak about what's bad going to happen if the union comes. Boom, Amazon lost. Staten Island formed Amazon's first labor unit.

And honestly, this could spread to other warehouses soon. If it does for Amazon, this could threaten two-day free prime delivery as we know it. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to kick off the week? I have a correction for the B-Y story. Perfect. They're not like smart homes for bees. They're like luxury urts. Yeah, they're like yours.

Snaggers, AgTech, it is innovating America's oldest industry. The WWE is expanding from fake combat to real TV. In media, you're one of two things. You're creating or you're distributing. Our third and final story is Amazon. Both Amazon and Starbucks got their first labor unions this year. And this threatens two-day free prime shipping as we know it. Now, time for a snack fact from snacker Nathan Cormier,

currently in Indianapolis, Indiana. If you average 10 to 11 hours of driving a day, which is about the most you can do it in a day. It's hefty. It would take you about four days to drive from New York City to Los Angeles. Okay, you did New York City to San Francisco. Vermont to San Francisco. Oh, wow.

It took us like eight days. Can you run out of Seltzer on like mile 283? Middle America does not have Seltzer in their gas stations. Well, Jacked it in like a week. The fastest anyone has ever driven from New York City to Los Angeles is just 25 hours and 39 minutes. Arnie, Toman, and Doug to butt. They accomplished this in 2020 during the pandemic.

Yeah, I guess traffic was low back. Okay. One wild caveat here, though, the average driving speed to hit that record, 112 miles per hour. That's why perhaps the biggest accomplishment here, zero speeding tickets. That's the win. I don't think they make police cars that go that fast.

I think that's the plot of Fast and the Fury 6. Tokyo Drive. Okay. Don't ask me. Ask Ben. All right. Snackers, you look fantastic today. Jack, uh, flannel pants tomorrow? I have a pair. Do you really? I don't think you do. I got one in case of an emergency.

Snackers, Nick and I'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, happy birthday to Anoush Aurora over in Mumbai, India. Happy birthday to Fern from Bangkok, celebrating in Singapore. And Griffin Kelton, happy birthday in Raleigh, North Carolina. Happy birthday to Julie Rich, who's in the Navy, and celebrating in the port of San Diego. And Fred Lynn, enjoy the birthday in Palos. Happy birthday's estate. from Hanover.

Just outside of us. And Hector Day and happy birthday in Houston. Congrats to Sarah from the Bronx, who just got into Columbia School of Social Work. And Appay Rowd, enjoy the new job over a tonal. Congrats to Robbie for getting a new gig in Chicago. And congrats to the newest cohort of scouts over at Hawk Ventures. Congrats to Jamea Hunter and Russell Davenport, celebrating their anniversary in Houston.

Meanwhile, Allison and Ron have got their 30th wedding anniversary today over in Marblehead Mask. Congrats to Jarvis and Margarita. Getting married in Sonoma. That is a great place to have weddings. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a tea boy. Celebrate the wins and the Pino. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon, Netflix and Disney.

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. He was working in the largest New York Amazon Warehouse on the fifth borough stat now. The largest borough. Actually, no, it's not the largest borough, but... It's not? Queens is the largest. A lot of corrections coming.

It's cutting.