The Best One Yet - 🎱 “The 3% Rule” — Omicron’s bull case. Twitter’s #newCEO. Virgil Abloh’s innovation cheat code.

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

The Omicron covid variant has messed with markets, but 1 hedge funder thinks it actually could be bullish for stocks. Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey is quitting as CEO because he is declaring his love for his favorite child instead. And Virgil Abloh just passed away as the most powerful Black executive in fashion — so we want to share his cheat code for innovation: “The 3% Rule.”$TWTR $LVMUY $MRNAGot 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/viewformLearn 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, T-Boy Tuesday, November 30th. It's not just T-Boy Tuesday today. No, it's not Snackers. It is the third night of Hanukkah, it is. Which I've heard is the best night for gifts.

I think you don't get socks this night. This is the night you get the PlayStation. Someone's dropping a PlayStation right now. Today's pod, though, Snackers, is the best one yet. This is a T-B-O-Y. Jack, what's our first story today? What do we got? The Omicron variant has dominated stock market headlines for the last two days.

But Snackers, one hedge funder thinks Omicron could actually be bullish for stocks. For our second story, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey just stepped down as CEO yesterday. Jack, the other Jack, Jack is finally giving 100% of his love to his favorite child. For our third and final story, Virgil Abla was the most powerful black executive in fashion at the most powerful fashion company, and he just died. Well, Virgil had a cheat code for creativity. We think it's pretty brilliant, and we're going to share it with you.

But before we hit those three stories. Wonderful mix of stories for a T-Boy Tuesday. We have an unusual economic crisis happening up north of the border. Snackers, red alert in lumberjack land. Canada has a maple syrup problem. This is like Horters Almanac week 89 and a half. I thought we were going to put this in Monday's Hortar's Almanac update. We could not wait, Snackers, because this is a maple syrup emergency.

The province of Quebec, which is my neighbor to the north, by the way, next. Lovely. Is tapping into their strategic maple syrup reserves. Yeah, snackers. Maple syrup, it is low in Canada, so they're releasing 50 million pounds of maple syrup because people are hungry. You know, it takes about 50 gallons of sap to create one gallon of maple syrup. I didn't. You're just whipping up a snack fact on us in the middle of the intro. I love this, Jack. I learned it from the Baird farm in Vermont. They're snackers, actually. Great farm, great syrup. But 50 million pounds is half of the national stockpile of that sweet maple nectar that the Canadians have been hoarding for years.

We all need that maple nectar. Jack, I put maple syrup. on my saracha. And yes, the Canadian strategic maple syrup reserve is a real thing. Yeah, stackers, real institution. This is basically, this is the OPEC of glucose. There's like 11,000 syrup producers. It's a cartel in Quebec that manages Canada's supply of your pancakes better half. Because Jack, how are you supposed to drive a Zamboni without maple syrup fuel, man? I don't know. But Nick and I see this as hilarious timing, because last week we mentioned that the U.S. just opened up our strategic reserves too. We did. We did. We didn't. In the U.S., though it wasn't maple syrup, these were our strategic reserves of oil.

That's right. Americans are suffering from high gas prices. Canadians are suffering from high maple syrup prices. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies up north? Life's about priorities. Yeah, it is. For some, it's economic fuel. For others, it's belly fuel.

Let's do our three stories. Delicious. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers. 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.

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, stock markets were crushed and then rebounded on Omicron variant uncertainty. But at least one investor, Bill Ackman, thinks Omicron could be a bullish thing for stock markets.

Kind of the opposite of everything you'd expect. Omicron. first identified in South Africa, the Omicron variant is confirmed as of yesterday in at least 10 countries on five different continents. And Dr. Fauci said that because of its mutations, Omicron could be more transmissible than previous variants, but more studying is needed. Dr. Fauci did say that the cat's out of the back. He said it's inevitable that this comes to the United States.

All right, Snackers. So here's what we don't know. We don't know if Omicron is more, less, or equally deadly as previous coronavirus variants. And we don't know whether vaccines are better or worse at protecting against this variant of the virus. It's going to take at least another week before we determine those crucial details. In the meantime, stock markets, they haven't taken this that well. There were travel restrictions announced by a bunch of countries on Friday, and that tanked the stock market for the worst day of a year. Classic what you'd expect.

Cruise lines and airlines fell. Peloton Zoom stocks jumped. But the biggest mover we saw was Moderna, whose stock is up by 30% since Friday. Jack, that helps when your CEO puts on a suit over the weekend, jumps on CNBC and tells everyone, hey, we're already working on a vaccine specifically for Omicron. And that vaccine, specific to Omicron, could be available in months and could be their next profit puppy. Now, experts say you should still get your booster shot. But for markets overall, uncertainty is still the biggest issue. We just don't know enough about this variant.

And investors hate that uncertainty. They hate uncertainty except for one investor. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over at Bill Ackman? Omicron variant could be a bullish thing for the stock markets. Snackers, your first thought, investors first thought. The whole market's first thought was new variant, kind of depressing and bearish, because that could mess with markets, that could prolong the pandemic. But one perspective, one notable perspective, is that this could be a positive and

bullish thing for stock markets. Snackers, enter Bill Ackman, a famous hedge funder who like sharing opinions on the world and stocks and culture and kind of everything, even if you didn't ask for the opinion. Like back in March 2020, when he was one of the loudest people saying, hell is coming. His words regarding the pandemic and that the U.S. economy had to shut down for 30 days. That's what he said back then. So that was March 2020. Today, Dr. Fauci says we don't know how deadly this new strain is.

We need more info. But Bill Ackman is a cutting edge investor. So he's looking at the early data we do have. And he's already making predictions with that incomplete data. For example, Bill Ackman pointed out that the South African doctor who first identified Omicron described the symptoms as extremely mild. His words. We also noticed that the National Institute for Infectious Diseases said that there are fewer

patients experiencing the bad, severe symptoms of COVID if they have the Omicron variant. So Bill is doing what Bill's job is, which is to think three steps ahead. Here's what he's thinking. If the Omicron variant is highly transmissible, which it is, it could replace Delta as the dominant variant. And if Omicron cases are extremely mild, that could reduce the deadliness of the pandemic and potentially get the economy back to normal a whole lot quicker. Snackers, markets rebounded on Monday on news from President Biden that there's no economic shutdowns imminent in the U.S. But markets could rebound even more if Bill Ackman's bullish prediction is right.

For our second story, the biggest tweet of the day yesterday was this tweet, Jack Dorsey has resigned as the CEO of Twitter. Investors think this. is good for the golden child of Jack Dorsey, which is Square. And good for the silver child. Which is Twitter. Okay, so Jack, picture this situation, all right? You're the CEO of not one, but two publicly traded companies. And here's the deal.

You can only eat one meal a day. That is the reality of Jack Dorsey, who has been for the last six years, the CEO of both Twitter and Square, both billion dollar companies, both publicly traded. And apparently he only wants a day. He's an intermittent faster. Oh, by the way, Jack, get this. just learn this. He's also a licensed masseuse. Ah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, snack fact on top of that. A male masseuse is a masseur, not a masseuse.

Well, everyone knows that. I didn't, I didn't know that. I had to go on a deep dive snack style to get that kind of information. So Jack Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2008, became CEO, got kicked out of CEO, then founded Square, a totally different company, but then came back to Twitter. And for the last Six years. He has been the CEO of both Twitter and Square. Two companies he co-founded. It has been a wild ride. Incredible. He's leading two world-changing companies, one media, one in finance, and he's been doing each of them like part-time, basically. Yeah, but part-time's probably like 60 hours a week. That's true. Let's be honest. No more as of Monday. He announced Monday he's resigning from Twitter, effective immediate. Yeah, he's pulling a Gwyneth Paltrow. This is a straight-up conscious uncoupling.

The new CEO is a long-time Twitter engineer who is the current chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal. But here is the problem, Snackers, that Jack and I find fascinating. Dorsey was basically a part-time parent who forgot to teach his kid how to ride a bike. Nick and I crunch the numbers. Under Jack Dorsey, Twitter still hasn't quite figured out how to grow their profits. Okay, Jack, let's go back to October 5, 2015. Twitter stock is up 77% since then. only 77% over six years. Right. And those are the six years that he was CEO. It was.

Under the same period, the S&P 500 is up 139%. And Facebook is up 268% since Jack Dorsey took over. So what we're saying is that under Dorsey, Twitter stock performed half as good as your average stock in the stock market. And a quarter as good as Twitter's biggest rival, Facebook. So yeah, Jack Dorsey's been the parent, but hasn't really talked. his kid how to ride this bike. Jack Dorsey's other kids, Square, we looked at their stock price. They're up 1,500 percent over the same period since Jack Dorsey took over Twitter.

Square has become a peer-to-peer cash app, crypto trading, payment processing fintech phenom firm. So Square is doing 20 times better than Twitter over that same period. But other Jack, first and foremost, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Twitter and Square? All of Jack Dorsey's shareholder children are happy about this family. decision. So if Jack Dorsey was a parent to both these companies, it's clear he had a favorite child the entire time. That favorite child was Square. It was. The way we know, look at his Twitter bio. Do it right now at Jack. His Twitter bar has one word, Bitcoin, which is clearly something that is aligned with Square, not Twitter necessary. Hey, Jack, how about three years ago when Jack Dorsey

planned, you know, a six-month casual trip to Africa to study the African economies while he was the CEO of two companies. Yeah, that was clearly a thing. thin tech focus trip. It was not a Twitter trip. Twitter shareholders, they were so upset about the trip. They forced Jack Dorsey to cancel the whole thing, all of it. Dad, that's my weekend. Come on. Now, a CEO works for shareholders. That is a CEO's boss indirectly. And Twitter shareholders rejoiced that Jack is done treating Twitter as his side hustle CEO. Twitter stock jumped 11% Monday morning on news. They're getting a new parent CEO who's going to give them their full lovely unbridled attention. Square stock jumped on Monday because Jack finally declared his favorite child.

So Twitter now gets the complete affection of a new CEO. And Square gets Jack Dorsey's complete attention to. For our third and final story, Virgil Ablo was a modern icon in high fashion. We want to discuss his influence and what he calls the 3% role for creativity. All right, Snackers, Virgil Ablo, he died on Sunday at the age of 41 from a rare heart cancer. And since then, tributes have been pouring out from leaders and celebrities in fashion, art, and sports. He was the son of immigrants from Ghana, was born and raised outside of Chicago, and then worked in Chicago, rose his way all the way up the fashion industry. Yeah, he became the most powerful black executive in fashion at the most powerful company in fashion, LVMH.

Virgil founded Off White, which got acquired by LVMH. And he was the first black man at LVMH to become the artistic designer at Louis Vuitton. Yeah, he did. And he eventually oversaw 75 fashion houses at LVMH. So the rise of streetwear as a luxury fashion style, that was thanks to Virgil. For a decade in the business, he connected skating culture, hip hop, with like Paris fashion show. But here's the interesting thing. Virgil didn't call it streetwear.

He called it luxury, just a different style of luxury. Right. LVMH was charging the high fashion $400 price tag for the T-shirts that he's designed. So Virgil is why you see basketball shoes, not just on the court, but also on the red carpet. Right. A $600 luxury pair of shoes made of Italian handmade leather can be sneakers. So that was Virgil's accomplishment. At off white, he made stodgy fashion approachable. He made it culturally relevant. He was less into the handbags and cumber buns of traditional high fashion, more into sandals and hoodies. So Kanye and Jay-Z tapped Virgil as the art director for 2011's Watch the Thrones album.

We recently have learned a lot about Virgil Ablo after his passing. But one quote in particular we want to share. So Jack and I are looking at this quote and we're like, this applies to every industry. This applies to every entrepreneur. This applies to every consumer out there. Virgil had a legendary list of cheat codes for innovation and creativity. And one of them, he calls the 3% approach. He originally shared it at a presentation at Harvard.

We're going to share it for you here. So Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddy, Virgil Ablo? If you change something by just 3%, that something is new and creative. What Virgil's saying, Snackers, is to be creative, you only have to slightly innovate something that's old. You might think innovation requires you build something from scratch. No, no, no, no, no. You can put your own spin on something that already exists. Okay, the example Virgil gives for this is he did a Nike collab with Air Force One sneakers.

And he didn't want to make shoes that are unrecognizable. He wants you to know their Air Force Ones, so he just created a new version of an Air Force One. And all he did was change the original Air Force Ones by just 3%. And that made $600 sneakers a new thing. Virgil's whole career, he created products similar enough to make the consumer comfortable. But just different enough to excite them. This is one of several of what Virgil calls his cheat codes for working and design. And it's one of the many positive marks he leaves behind.

Jack, can you whip up the maple syrup? I mean the takeaways for us over there. Omicrod could be bullish for stuff. That's only if it's a less dangerous variant. And for that, we need more data. For our second story, Twitter's got a new CEO. It's not Jack Dorsey. Square's still got the same CEO.

It's Jack Dorsey. For our third and final story, Virgil Ablo just passed. What is design legacy and his cheat codes live on. And here's our favorite one, the 3% rule for creativity. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in via LinkedIn from Taylor Samuelson from Love. Lovely, Dana Point, California. All right.

So if you're an astrologist, you don't just gaze at the stars and count the number of light years. They're off. Apparently, as astrologists, they're like, you know, kind of creative. And apparently they like books in their spare time. It turns out, astrologists have named some geography on distant planets after their favorite books. So, for example, Saturn has like a bunch of moons.

Well, those moons have mountains. And those mountains are named after J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. That's right. If you look up at Saturn's moon, one of them has a mountain called Mount Doom. From J.R. Token's books. And there are Misty Mountains. From the Lord of the Rings books. And also from the Led Zeppelin's on.

So what we're trying to tell you, the fictional geography in a book is now real geography in the sky. Pretty cool snack fact, Taylor. The real question, though, is Jack going to take his Vermont supply of maple syrup, go north of the border and start selling it prices that undercut the Canadian government? That would cause it international diplomat. not a crisis. This podcast will be put on hold. It's a disaster.

Do not do it, Jack. That's actually the subject of Super Troopers three. Jack's going to go up to Montreal and be like, hey, look, I got a, I got grade A Amber stuff in the back. It's in the truck. You got cash? Snackers, before Nick incriminates me, that was a great pod. We'll see you tomorrow.

Have you had your snacks, Daly? And before we go, congratulations to Eamon, who just got a new job in consulting up in Toronto. Happy eighth anniversary to Grant and Mandy Marine. Bermuda Run, North Carolina. And happy 10th birthday to Ricardo Frias over in Miramar, Florida. Happy birthday to Luca de Prenda in Belgium. And happy birthday to Sam Green over in New York City. Anybody else celebrating today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Nick and I own shares of Square. We both own some Bitcoin and we both own some Peloton stock. 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 as the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robintoe Markets Inc., Robinon 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. Parag Agrawal is taken over. He's a longtime engineer who has been chief technology officer. Dude, I just peered up at the FaceTime. It's a face of concern. You didn't think your buddy was going to make it.