The Best One Yet - 🚦 “The 1st ever robot-car chase” — Cruise’s red-light joke. Grover’s $1B toothpaste. Warner Bros’ birthday.

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

We just got the first self-driving-taxi car chase in the streets of San Francisco, and of course it went viral. Grover hit a $1B valuation to refurbish your iPhone and rent it to a buddy using the toothpaste business model. And a new streamer has been born: Warner Brothers Discovery may be the first profitable streamer. $GM $GOOG $WBD $NFLXGot 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: 2121991Learn 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, Tea Boy, Tuesday, April 12th. Quick update Snackers. Elon Musk will not be joining the board of Twitter. Okay, so last week, we said Elon Musk was joining the board of Twitter. Yesterday, Elon announced it's not for me, actually.

Yeah. So, Jack, what's the takeaway here? Quick takeaway? Elon Musk likes being talked about every day. Yeah, that's it. That's the story. This pod is the best one yet. TBOI.

For our first real story, real story. Cruises? Well, Elon's not. joining Twitter. That's a true story as well. Okay, that actually is, that is a true story. We should clarify. For our first story, cruises self-driving robotaxies are now driving people in San Francisco without a driver. Without a human. So Snackers, what happens when a robot car gets a traffic ticket? That just happened. Actual thing, real video more than story.

For our second story, a new video streamer hath been born. Welcome to the world Warner Brothers Discovery, you beautiful, profitable baby you. Our third and final story, the newest unicorn is Grover. which just hit a billion dollar valuation to take your old iPhone and rent it out to people. Yeah, Jack and I noticed they're using the toothpaste strategy. There's more toothpaste in there if you work at. It's a little bit more. But before we hit that wonderful mix.

It's a fantastic mix for a Tuesday. We got a new side hustle idea. New side hustle, tattel talent. Introducing the Citizens Air Complaint Program by the city of New York. Okay, real thing, it is a side hustle for snitching on smog. In New York City, it is a legal. for trucks to sit idling with their engine on, just spewing out fumes for no reason. Yeah, you'll leave your truck idling.

That's a $350 fine, people. It's a $350 fine. But if you, an ordinary citizen, catch a driver with his truck driving and get video evidence, you get a cut of that fine. Not a small cut. Jack, we're talking to 25% a cut of that $350 fine. That's your payday. What's that?

87 bucks? It's pretty good. I'll take it any day. And tattling on trucks isn't just a side hustle. It's become a profit puppy for many. Snackers, this is the most lucrative money hack since mom's Costco coupon book. One New Yorker is a pediatrician by day helping treat sick children. By night, they told CNBC he's making $36,000 reporting idling trucks.

One banker on Wall Street is enjoying a solid finance salary. But since 2019, he's collected $40,000 reporting idling trucks. An 84-year-old man. 84 is retired. He should be planned shopping. shuffleboard down in Del Boca Vista. Instead, Jack, he collected nearly a hundred thousand bucks reporting idling trucks. Now, when I tattled on my dad, Nick, true story.

I remember you told me this. My dad would stick a rag in our pants and call it the tattletail. It was humiliated. Can you share that on air? This is wild. All of my brothers would rip into me for wearing the tattel tail. You're the one with the tattletail. You don't want to be one with the literal tattletail.

You know who else hates the tattletail? Delivery truck drivers who are getting snitched on. Not a fan. In the meantime, the snitchers, they're making as much money as an MBA. No, Snackers, we're not telling you to quit your day job to become a trucking tattle-taler. Maybe you should quit your day job. Let's in our three stories and collect $87. You're tuned in the snacks 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. We're not recommending any securities. It's not a research report or invest. Spend advice. Not an offer or sale about security. Right.

Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member Fembra slash SIPC. For our first story, Cruise, General Motors Cruise, their self-driving car company, they just had their first ever viral encounter with the police. And viral videos, they can make or break driverless cars. Snaggers, the race for the first self-driving robotaxy cars, It's really down to two companies right now.

Yes, GM's cruise automation and Alphabet's Waymo. And just this month, a huge change just hit the whole self-driving taxi robo industry. Both Cruise and Waymo are picking up real humans for real rides with no driver. No driver. In San Francisco right now. Jack, can you repeat that last part? There's no human being in the car. Nick, you can get a ride down Fillmore Street towards the water and there's nobody in the front seat.

That must be terrified. It's like, look, ma, no hands, because no person. Now, if you live in San Francisco, you've been seeing, like, driverless test cars for a while, and it's probably no big deal. They kind of freak out in your morning runs. But if you live anywhere else, a car driving down the road with no one behind the wheel is a huge deal. We're talking ghost chassis just zipping around the streets of San Francisco. And just last month, the crews began testing with the general public.

regular people can get self-driving cars with no driver behind the wheel. All right, so Jack, I'm still on the waitlist invite for that. Like, I'm still just sitting here waiting for my call so I can test this thing out. Yeah, you might be glad you're still on the wait list because we have our first video that went viral of one of Cruz's driverless cars in a police altercation. But in the meantime, kind of a funny development for these robotaxies. Snackers, last weekend, the San Francisco Police Department, tried to pull over one of these driverless taxis that cruise made. We got a situation over in the Richmond.

Go name 3-8-4-24-4-4. It was the middle of the night. Now, Snackers, again, this is just a regular robo-driverless taxi, like no person involved. And it was just driving around about to do one of its kind of weirdo pickups. But here's the problem. The robo taxi forgot to put its lights on. Now, it's actually understandable that this robocard didn't have lights on

because they navigate with light on, which is lasers. And so they don't need vision. They just need their lasers to work. Come on, robot. What are you doing, man? But still, they violated the law because other cars and pedestrians, they're not using lasers. They're using their regular old eyeballs.

And they need to see this car. So the lights have to be on. Like, we have 2020 vision. That's cute. This robot can, like, see through walls. Oh, and by the way, Cruise is only permitted to do these tests at night between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

If so facto, it's always dark when these Robo Cruz taxis are riding around to pick up humans without a driver. The lights should always be on. So here's what actually happened just this past weekend. According to the video. A cop gets out of their car and starts approaching the driver's side door of what appears to be just a regular old city taxi run by cruise. It's a routine pullover.

Totally routine. There's nobody in the driver's seat. And the cops just standing there like, what is going on? Like a license and register. Oh my God. Then the car starts speeding off. We have our first ever driverless car chase. Yeah, it wasn't fast in the furious.

It was fast and they're curious because like no one knew what was happening. Now we should tell you, the car only went one block further and then it pulled over even further into what was apparently, according to the car, a safer place to pull up. Sir, I'm already pulled over. Can't pull over any further. But this time, two officers get out of the car and approach the driver's side door. Where do you need backup?

Again, they approached the company. completely empty car and didn't know what to do. The incident ended with no further drama. Just many laughs down at the precinct. Bob, you're not going to believe who we pulled over today. And cruise automation confirmed they fixed the issue with this car. They turned on the headlights. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies roaming around the streets of San Francisco without a driver?

Viral videos can make or break self-driving cars. Snackers, here's how Jack and I are seeing this. Like politicians, self-driving cars are going to need the support of them. voters. And like politicians, viral videos can make or break self-driving car companies' reputations. Now, this was a relatively harmless incident. Honestly, we just kind of feel bad for the officers involved. They were trying to protect and serve, but the robocard was completely ignoring and disrespecting them. And everyone enjoying dinner right nearby. Really enjoyed watching this whole thing go down. Oh, there were a lot of sidewalk dinners that had quite a hoot. Quite a hoot.

But we all remember a much more serious viral video, the 2018 dashboard video, when a saving safety driver and his self-driving Uber hit and killed a bicycleist. And that was the Robotaxi equivalent of Howard Dean's I Have a Dream speech. It ended Uber's campaign. A viral video can amplify the good or the bad about self-driving cars. A viral video. That's what's going to make or break the self-driving car. For our second story, a new media glomerate has been born.

Warner Brothers Discovery, you are officially a 43 billion. dollar baby. They're going for profits over streaming. What do you want to be when you grow up? Really profitable media company. Snackers, here's Jackson my pitch for a new streaming series about money, power, fame,

and more power. Which is the plot of like everything Showtime has ever done. Yes. A boring telecom CEO, middle-aged guy wants to become an exciting Hollywood CEO. He was sick of selling phone plans, just wanted to head over to Hollywood, and win an Oscar for some Game of Thrones spin-offs shmovie. Now, that sounds like season four of Succession.

It does a little bit. It's actually a true story. That's what happened to AT&T a few years ago. AT&T, they do cell phones. They do cell phone towers. They do self-service. But they acquired Warner Media a few years ago to get into Hollywood. It was an abject failure.

Totally. It was. So here's the deal. AT&T. They're now spinning off Warner Media. the fun, you know, entertainment stuff. And they're combining it with Discovery, the TV company. They did all that.

And it happened finally, officially. It finished yesterday. Yesterday was the birth day, like the actual birthday, the day of birth, of this new Warner Brothers Discovery baby. It's actually just called Warner Bros. Discovery. I don't think it's Brothers. Family affair. And Warner Bros. Discovery is worth $43 billion,

which is about one-fourth of a Netflix. Or Jack, can you convert that to list? for us over there? $43 billion is about three lifts. Now, Snackers, here's the key with mega media mergers. The first thing that every consumer wants to know, what schmoveys are included in this new company. Yeah, you're basically cross-referencing their library with your DVD collection. And because content is king, whatever schmovies they have, that kind of dictates their entire fate.

Now, Warner Brothers Discovery actually has three streaming platforms, Discovery Plus, HBO Max, and CNN Plus. Okay, so they got a whole bunch of streaming in this brand new Warner Bros. Discovery Company. Not too shabby. Those streamers are probably going to merge soon, by the way. Now, when it comes to movies, this new media company has got Harry Potter. They got Dune. They got Lord of the Rings. Jack, they have D.C. comics.

They have everything that's really loud. And D.C. includes Batman. Where's the remote? Rachel. Where's the remote? But this is, at its core, a television powerhouse. It's a total television powerhouse. So many TV networks.

Because remember, they are. They're combining with Discovery. So they're getting the Discovery Channel. They're getting CNN, HGTV, TNT. They're getting TLC. They're getting TBS. Warner Brothers Media has travel channel, Animal Planet,

cartoon network, food network, so many more. Basically, all of the channels who watched as a kid when you were stuck home sick. So unlike the other streamers, Warner Brothers Discovery has an abundance of TV channels

from your TV guy. Yeah, so this reflects their cable TV DNA, their core. It's like they've been run by Guy Fieri. Another thing they have that the other streamers don't is unfortunately debt. Yeah, this new company's got $55 billion worth of IOUs because they spent so much money to whip up these Game of Thrones prequels. Those dragons, those CGIs, they're not cheap.

Oh, that realistic fire breath. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the brand new Warner Brothers Discovery Mediaglomerate? This company doesn't know streaming, but they do know profits. Snackers, cable TV, it is really bad at growth, but it is fantastic at profits. Streaming is the opposite. They're great at growth, but they're really not good at all at profits yet. And this new Warner Discovery company, it is cable TV at its core. It's just been reincarnated for streaming. Legendary media CEO David Zaslov.

He's in charge of this firm. His team totally lacks streaming experience, but they make up for it in profit experience. Jack, in the last four years, the last 48 quarters, how many of them have been profitable for Zaslov and his media team? Zazlov has 46 quarters of profitability in the past 12 years. That's 46 quarters of profits out of 48. This man is good with advertisers. He's good with Hollywood talent. He's good with the studios and he's good at making money.

Yeah, profits, they're rare for a streamer. But Warner Brothers Discovery CEO, he now expects him. And we expect a new name for this company. It's brutal. Warner Brothers Discovery, it's tough. a sec. And they do lack streaming and tech experience, Nick. But they make up for it with TV experience and profits. Profits. Profits. For our third and final story, Grover, just hit a $1 billion valuation to let you rent your buddy's friends' buddies' old laptop. The supply chain is turning

into the supply ring or supply circle. Nick and I haven't committed to a term yet. We got to commit to one. I like ring. I like ring too because it's like supply chain. is kind of like jewelry. And Supply Ring is then also like jewelry. But Ring is the Circle of Life from the Lion King. But then we were saying with Supply Circle, you get like that nice alliteration. Do you? We'll leave this one up to a both snackers. In the meantime, Jack, would you rent an iPhone?

I might. I've been an Apple refurbished guy for a while. Now, what if that was a used iPhone? Even better. It's got character. Now, Jack, what if that four times used iPhone was just half the price, half the price? Enter Grover, one of Germany's largest startups. They just raised $330 million to pass a billion dollar valuation. Now, at first glance, Grover appears to do one thing, make tech gadgets rentable. Yes, you can rent 3,000 different tech products from this website, from iPhones to Xboxes.

Basically, once you're rent from them, you can subscriptify your whole life. Yes, a Samsung 50-inch TV. It's not a thousand bucks. It's $19 a month on Grover. Okay, so you can't afford the iPhone 13 Pro. Boom, Jack. What are you seeing for the price of that thing on Grover? right now. You can get it on Grover for $49

a month for a minimum of 12 months. Oh, wait, there's one catch. All the products they're selling are used, pre-used, or pre-pre-pre-preused. And they're about to be post-used because once you're done renting the product, you send it back to Grover to be used

by someone else. Now, Snackers, you may remember about a year ago, Jack and I covered a rival to these guys. It was called Backmarket. Great name. Not Black Market. Back Market. You recycle. You reuse. You re-refer. And it gets back into the market. Same business model.

I'm a fan of this company. They don't want gadgets going to the landfill. They want them going into somebody else's pocket. And here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this company. Right now, we keep seeing the supply chain break. What's better than fixing the supply chain? Having a supply ring instead. Supply ring or supply circle.

Again, this is still TBD. I don't finger this one out. But Grover's not UNICEF. The CEO, he's not Captain Planned. They're not just saving the world by recycling your dongos because, you know, it's a nice fun thing to do. They're doing it to make money because to Grover, tech gadgets are like a tube of toothpaste. Totally. Grover finds a little more paste in that tube by just pressing the hell out of their thumbs on that thing.

Oh, everyone hates when you get to that top part, you know, kind of like wrinkling it. Like, why am I doing this? I would spend money to not do this. You say it's empty. Grover finds a bunch more value in that tube. Yeah, Snaggers, they're not just renting and re-renting one of these tech products once, or are you? even twice. The average Grover product is used and reused by someone else five different times. Five times. Five times. They're squeezing the life out of this thing like it's a crust tube. Honey, there's more in there. I'm telling you. It's got to be more. Cut it in half with scissors and then go up and down with this. You know what I'm doing. Some of their supply ring stories are wild. Jack,

how about that GoPro camera we saw? It's been used 27 times. Grover is squeezing more money over four years from that single GoPro camera, then GoPro got off the sale of that original camera. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our supply ring buddies over at Grover? For most companies, sustainability is a cost. For Grover, it's their business model. Snackers, Grover's best source for old phones isn't your buddy Timmy's friend. It should be your buddy Timmy's friend's company. It's easier to sign up Google than it is to sign up all the Googlers. Like, picture all your buddies who are quitting their jobs right now.

Well, that company that they're leaving, they got to do something with that laptop. Like, they got to reuse it. Yes, 15% of Grover's customers aren't individual people. They are companies. That's why Jack and I are thinking that Grover's B2B, business to business, business line is the most exciting part about Grover's business. Grover will do something with those used laptops. They'll clean them, bring them back to factory restored condition, and refurbish them out to someone else. It's easier and cheaper for Grover to sign up one company of 500.

employees than to get 500 individuals to go to their website to make a purchase. Think about it. How many laptops does your company own? A lot. Plus, it's easier to sign up one Google than to sign up all the Googlers individually. Grover could refurbish all the tech gadgets for Google, and Google would win sustainability points. That's what Grover should do. It's squeeze it like a toothpaste. And that's what Grover's trying to do. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? One of GM's Robotaxies got pulled over by the cops.

It was anything but routine. Viral videos, they can make or break the entire self-driving car experiment. Our second story is Warner Bros. Discovery. It's alive and it's fantastic. What they lack in streaming expertise, they make up for and profit expertise. Our third and final story is Grover. They're squeezing value out of your iPhone like it's a tube of crest toothpaste. But we're thinking they should talk at one Google instead of chasing all the Googlers.

Now, time for our snack fact of the day. sent in by legendary snacker, Savannah Westwood from lovely Orlando, Florida. Last weekend, if you watched the Masters Golf Tournament, you saw a whole bunch of caddies. Yeah, what do you think, Jack? Nine or five on this one. Five aren't, huh? Well, you're fired. Well, how about the word catty itself, which is not a word you ever say in any other setting

than golf? No. According to Savannah, caddy is derived from the French word le cadet. In French, that word le cadet means the boy. Which is why it's so funny during the Masters to see so many fully grown men carrying that golf bag. You're basically walking around being told you're the boy. I actually caddied once when I was 13 and I was so out of shape. I couldn't get through 18 holes.

The golfer was carrying the bag by the end of the round. Jack turns to the golfer. He's like, I don't know. What do you think you should be hitting? Snaggers, you look fantastic today. And remember, if you need a quick buck, go find a moving van that left the engine on. Be careful, though. The truck drivers do not like these tattle tailors.

But Snackers, here's the double hack. The trucking company pays the fine, so you cut the trucker in on half the payout. Or you could just be discreet when you're recording the video. Or you just get on this double hack, Jack and I just cooked off. Snackers, Nick and I'll see you're off. Can't wait. If you know, you know. And before we go, happy birthday to Lurie Minami down in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

And happy birthday to Madison Craig in Ottawa, Canada. And Wahoo, Elizabeth Dwyer, happy birthday down in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hope you're having a fantastic celebration with the family. Happy wedding anniversary to Selsso and Kimberly Ruiz in San Diego. And this is wild. Celsso has been deployed for half of them. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack, Nick owned stock of Apple, and I own stock of Netflix. 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 principle and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. Right a hoot.