The Best One Yet - 🎨 “TikTooooook” — TikTok’s tripling. LegalZoom’s piggyback IPO. Exxon’s Greenpeace.

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

TikTok just made 1 small change to your videos with 1 huge impact. LegalZoom IPO’d thanks to America having its most entrepreneurial year ever. And Exxon Mobil’s CEO just got caught in a sting operation that tells us how they really fell about climate change.$LZ $XOMGot 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 Friday to Real Friday, July 2nd. Happy 4th of July Independence Day Friday. Last pod for us before the three-day weekend. Snackers, we'll see you on Tuesday. Jack, I'll see you on Tuesday.

Kick back and enjoy your hard thought constitutional right to hug a bald eagle. That's not legal advice. Also, make today's pod the best one yet. Jack, it's our best one yet. For our first story, TikTok is tripling the length of their videos from 60 seconds to three minutes. But the real story here is that. TikTok is straddling two worlds. For our second story, legal zoom stock popped 35% on their IPL to speak.

Jack, we got ourselves another piggyback stock. It's legal zoom. For our third and final story, the most unusual story in Snacks history, I think, courtesy of Greenpeace. All right, Snackers, ExxonMobil just got caught in a sting operation so awkward. We actually just had to cover it on this podcast. Snackers, before we hit those three wonderful stars. Honestly, fantastic mix before the three-day weekend. Nick, I got an Independence Day buzz right now.

you're talking. It's the pre-pre-July 4th day, so you get a good feeling before it. It's also, though, happy belated Bobby Bonilla day, which was yesterday. If you're a Mets fan, you know it well. July 1st, the day that the Mets baseball team pay the former slugger a million dollars every year. Here's the catch for the Metropolitan's Baseball Club. The 58-year-old Bobby Bonia hasn't hit a home run in 20 years. Very strange. We dove in further snack style. Bobby Bonilla is a player who agreed to a unique pay. plan with the Mets way back in the year 2000. To end his contract, which the Mets wanted to get out of, they agreed to pay Bobby Bonilla

a million dollars every year for 25 years from 2011 till 2035. If so facto, the Mets are splurging a million bucks every year on a man who hasn't touched a bat in two decades. The Mets are looking at their record in the NL East. And then they're looking at the news they just paid Bobby Bonilla of million dollars again. Worst day of the year. for Matt's fans. So Nick and I looked at some other unusual payment plans in corporate history. Jack, can we talk about Brooklyn Brewery, the legendary brewery? They got a logo that looks like the Brooklyn

Dodgers actually, but when they needed their logo, they didn't pay cash for it. No, they gave the designer 5% of equity in the brewery and beer any time. He enjoyed a keg anytime he wanted until he passed away a couple years ago. Also, you got college athletes who had no payment plan until yesterday. Yesterday was the first day that a March Madness Basketball star, a pole vaulter, a javelin thrower, can actually get paid. EA Sports is considering adding actual college players names to their video games. Finally, Snackers, happy belated Bobby Bonilla Day. And congrats to all the athletes in the United States getting paid in new and very strange ways. Let's turn our three stories. It's in the game. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way.

For snacks about the hair 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. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you.

Robohood Financial, LLC, member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, big news, TikTok is going from small videos to medium-sized videos. Ticktack's parent company, bike dance. The most important thing is that they play in two hemispheres while the rest of Big Tech just plays in one. Can we talk about maybe the most fundamental, important, valuable, lovely quote that drives this podcast, Jack? I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have enough time. Let it sink in. Let it sink in. Maybe that's a Mark Twain quote.

It may be. But Nick and I usually have like a lot more content for this pod. Yes. But we want to keep it brief for you. And it takes us more time. to make it briefer. It's always harder. Your essay, your teacher's always like, make it shorter.

It's going to take you four days to write that essay. That's why TikTok has always been such a creative challenge for posting because you got to squeeze it in 59 seconds. I want to make the video about how to order the culotta from Dahlene. How do I do that in 30 seconds? It took me a week to prepare. You now have three minutes to talk about all Adaline's hazelnut pumps. Yeah, you do.

Because TikTok is officially expanding it to three minutes. That's the new limit for video. Small change, huge implications. It's now TikTok. Exactly. Because three minutes, Snackers, that's kind of a big deal. That is three times as long as TikTok has always been. It's going to mess with the algorithm.

It's going to show you different videos now. Totally different content. And maybe make it feel more YouTubey. I mean, does this mean, Jack, we can put the intro of this podcast now on TikTok? Do we fit? Are we TikTok? I think we're TikTokable. Or TikTok-in-Wilzers.

This is great. Let's just run with this. Let's just tell our mom's that. But the real story here isn't TikTok. It's bite dance. The private tech giant that owns. TikTok. If you're thinking TikTok Snackers, start to think about bite dance as well. Last month, PFWTMs leaked that TikTok's owner, BiteDance, doubled their revenues last year to $34 billion.

Okay, so TikTok doing $34 billion. Jack, can you sprinkle a little context on that number for us? Snapchat did $2.5 billion in revenue last year. Okay, so Snapchat's doing a whole lot less than our buddies over at TikTok. Facebook did $86 billion last year. A lot more than our buddies at TikTok. TikTok, it's kind of in the meaty part of the curve of social media revenues. Also, ByteDent has 1.9 billion users. Yes, they do. That's something we need to talk about. It is something we need to talk about, which feels like a takeaway moment.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies at TikTok owner, BiteDance? TikTok's greatest competitive advantage is that they straddle two worlds. Funny thing, Snackers, that 1.9 billion users number about TikTok, it isn't just TikTok. That's actually about TikTok and do you. Du Yin. Du Yin is TikTok's sister app. It's a Chinese version only in China, but it's also owned by bite dance. You may not have heard about Du Yin even though you may be TikTok in all the time.

It's the same short form videos. It's the same dance routines, the same makeup tutorials, the same tips for how to keep your baby cool during a heat wave, which my wife's been TikTok in all week. You gotta be TikTok and that also slight difference here between TikTok and Du Yin. Yeah, Du Yin is filtered through the Chinese sensor machine. TikTok not as much. Otherwise, these two sister apps have the same algorithm, but different servers, same owner, but different countries. So ByteDance has managed to straddle two worlds. Wild. All of the West, including North America and Europe, big markets, as well as China. But Jack, what about Facebook? How about them? It's been banned in China since the start.

Jack, how about Snapchat? Also blocked in China. Jack, how about Google's not in China because open internet search is illegal in China. Snackers, TikTok's owner, ByteDance could become the first tech company to hit a whopping 4 billion users because it straddles to worlds with two apps. The rest of big tech is just in the West. For our second story, legal Zoom just jumped 35% on its IPO. Yes, this story is not about the company. It's about the company's piggyback. Legal Zoom.

Actually, by the way, tech company here, but a 20-year-old tech company, they've been in the business a while. They're not fresh out of law school. They just made partner. They did. And some celebrations are in order, including for the co-founder, Rob Shapiro. Rob Shapiro, co-founder of LegalZo in 1994, was defending OJ Simpson as part of OJ Simpson's dream team. That's right.

There were a lot of IPO last week. This was the only one where a member of O.J. Simpson's legal team actually co-founded the company. He must have been thinking, I'm making way too much money. I can't believe how much I can charge as a lawyer. This is silly. I need to disrupt my own legal industry before someone else does. And here's what Rob Shapiro noticed. You notice that only 8% of legal work in the United States is provided online.

There's an opportunity to offer lower-priced legal work using technology. Pretty simple. So, LegalZoom is basically automating lawyering. Yeah. You walk through some questions, you give some information. And boom, you get the produced, completed documents that you need to do your thing. It's basically H&R block, but for the fine print things that could get you sued and screwed. Turbo tax, but for wills and testaments.

Now, here's the goal behind LegalZoom. It's to get you legal work you need without a single billable hour of a very expensive lawyer. Right. If you click like the I Need Help button, you might end up getting a lawyer on the line, in which case you're going to pay more. But typically, if you want legal work done, either you're splurging on an attorney or you're begging your buddies, cousins, aunts, mom for advice, which is awkward. Pro bono.

Or just pay $79 to LegalZo. That's their pitch. And LegalZo, we jumped and snacks out to the IPO paperwork, just notched its best year ever, we're talking half a billion dollars in sales in 2020. And this year, growth is accelerating. They had 27% revenue growth. Not crazy for a tech. No, it's not. But it is 20 years old, as you said. But here's what Jack and I find fascinating about LegalZo. The reason for these record numbers, 2020 was the most entrepreneurial year in the United States history. More businesses were created last year than any year since we've been keeping the data. I was shocked by that. I was shocked.

We sat down. We stood up. We sat back down again. But if you think about it, digital startups are easier than ever to start up. I mean, you got Shopify, Square, Etsy, all these tools that help you launch a business online, even when you're working from home, even if you've got one bandwidth of Wi-Fi. It's all you need. And then you got the phenomenon known as the creator economy, which is kind of a big deal. Everyone's favorite term from last year. It was like the theme word.

Daryl hates his job and he's been sneaking into the storage closet to do a podcast. Guess what? He turned that side hustle into his full hustle. Guess what? I heard Daryl sold that podcast to Spotify for $100 trillion, Jack. That's why there's a huge demand for LegalZoom services right now. Get this, Snackers. 10% of all new LLCs registered in the United States last year used LegalZoom to do it.

Janine quit her job. Yes, she did. Grab Daryl. Together, they started a college and coffee company. Why wouldn't? They filed their documents in Delaware and they used LegalZoom to produce it off. You put the coffee on your face and you can drink it. Fantastic.

Jack, what's the take? takeaway for our buddies over at LegalZo. LegalZoom is the piggyback stock to the creator economy. Now, Snackers, you could frame LegalZo as just another enterprise software business to business company like DocuSign or Dropbox or Salesforce out there. Or Shopify or the other ones were mentioned. But LegalZoom's core revenue is a bit more nuanced. Yes, it is. They make most of their money when businesses are formed. So LegalZoom's $79 service fee so that you can launch your business is directly correlated to entrepreneurship. And the trend right now, people are quitting their jobs, launching companies, like doing it cheaply, and doing it online.

So illegal zoom isn't that trend, but it's piggybacking on that trend. For our third and final story, ExxonMobil is trying to convince the world it's taken climate change very seriously. One of their top lobbyists just really ruined that campaign. I mean, can I say it's maybe the most unusual snack story of the week, Jack, being a little self-reflective here. Snackers, this story starts with Greenpeace. which just pulled a sting operation on ExxonMobil. That's generous.

I think we can more specifically call this a Borat operation. I think Sasha Barron Cohen's evolved in this story. Very inspired. Snackers, Greenpeace engages in civil disobedience to protect Mother Earth at all costs. They don't hug trees. They protect them with their bodies. Some controversial moves doing that, by the way. They have kayaked in front of an oil rig.

Yes, they have. And let their kayaks bob there so the oil rig can't go to sea and drill oil. That's what they do. They're also really good at stopping you off the subway and asking if you have 30 minutes to make a donation, which you definitely don't have. Well, Nick, they also repelled off of a bridge to prevent said oil rig from cruising under the bridge. Do you have one hour so I can tell you about what's happening to rabbits in Norway?

But this time, Greenpeace decided to put on a suit and pretend to be a corporate recruiter. And they got an ExxonMobil lobbyist to candidly speak his mind all on tape. So not realizing he was being recorded and under false pretenses, here's what the senior director of federal relations for the oil company ExxonMobil actually said in real life. But before we tell you what he said. Yeah, we got to say sign. A little context. If you see government affairs or government relations, you should think about lobby.

And if you hear federal relations, you should think about lobbying to senators and members of the House of Representatives. So this lobbyist said that ExxonMobil, quote unquote, reels in members of Congress like they were fish. Specifically, he referred to one crucial swing state senator. Which is funny because Exxon. Mobile publicly says that they're committed to carbon capture in order to slow global warming. Funny thing. The lobbyist actually says that's mainly for show, not for real. ExxonMobil publicly says that they support a carbon tax to fight global warming.

Well, the lobby says that's quote unquote not going to happen. It's actually just a talking point for ExxonMobil. And finally, ExxonMobil says on their website that they understand climate risks. Well, the lobbyist says they fight climate science and have backed shadow groups to conduct research to cast doubt on all that climate science. This is all coming at a super awkward moment for Exxon. Because in May, we covered about Exxon's embarrassing defeat in a big shareholder vote. Yeah, shareholders voted for major change at ExxonMobil.

Three new board members are on ExxonMobil because they're proactive about climate change instead of dragging their feet about it. Then you got this Borat situation happening that's so embarrassing, the CEO had to publicly apologize, said the lobbyist doesn't reflect the views of ExxonMobil. And Nick and I are thinking, if he doesn't reflect the views of ExxonMobil, why did he get promoted so many times to become the senior lobbyist in charge of DC lobby? We're looking at the LinkedIn. We've seen the endorsement. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at ExxonMobil? There is good lobbying and there's bad lobby. Yeah, Snackers lobbying can be good, like when a company understands lawmakers' goals and then helps them achieve those goals.

For example, a lobbyist may say, oh, Congresswoman, you want to protect children from car accidents? an extra camera is going to raise the prices of cars for everyone. What if we do some new mirrors instead, win-win? That would be an example of good lobbying. You help the congressperson achieve their goal, and you keep prices down and, you know, probably help your profits too. On the other hand, lobbying can be in bad faith, you know, spreading misinformation to skew public opinions or to sway politicians, kind of like hook and fish. Sometimes lobbying is financing politicians in a transactional profit-boasting quid pro quo. So you got good lobbying, you got bad lobbying. This was an of some bad lobbying.

Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the three-day weekend? TikTok is tripling their video limit to three minutes. They might triple their user base to four billion humans because bite dance straddles two worlds. Legal Zoom is sitting happy as a publicly traded $10 billion company. It's piggybacking off entrepreneurship and the creator economy. Exxon Mobile says that they understand and are committed to fighting climate change. Well, their top lobbyists just confess the truth about Exxon's bad. lobby. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one tweeted in by Vanith Maiden, long-time

legendary snacker, by the way, from lovely New Jersey. Two hundred and forty-five years ago, our founding fathers took the ultimate IPO declaring independence. Yeah, they literally put their lives on the line for a new country. Small detail, though, that often gets lost down there in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress actually voted for independence two days earlier on July 2nd. Today. So July 4th is actually when they signed the thing and then printed them. It took them two days to get those pens and inks and feathers ready. So today, arguably more important than your barbecue in two days. John Adams would probably say today should be the national holiday.

I know what you're thinking. John Adams! Snackers, you look fantastic today. Jack, I'll see you Tuesday. We'll see all these people on Tuesday. What are you going to do, by the way? I know what you're going to do, actually. You're going to get the octopus. No, not at all.

Fins and feathers. Oh, yeah. Also, I bought a bunch of wiffle ball bats and balls. I'm going to see my three brothers. We're having like a whiff mom turn. The takeaway here, tentacles aren't fins. Snackers, have a great weekend. We'll see you Tuesday.

Can't wait. And before we go, happy 245th birthday to the United States. Congrats to Shreya and Nitya for moving in together in New Jersey. Samantha and Craig Pailor finally having that COVID-delayed wedding in Atlanta. It's going to be fantastic. Diego Romero, congrats on graduating from B-School in Madrid, Spain. Chad and Emily Hirsch, new parents down on Walnut Creek, California. Jack, any advice?

Just tuck baby wipes. everywhere in the house. You'll never know where you're going to need. Happy birthday to Sidney Weinberg from Scarceale, celebrating with a barbecue. Remember, if there's no pulled pork, it's not a party. Happy birthday to CJ from Rockwell, Texas. Jeff B, turning 30 down in Chicago. According to PFWTMs, Andrea Mina is a snacker for life celebrating her birthday in Denver. Colleen, happy birthday down in Charlotte, North Kakalaki.

And Matt Lilly in Camden, New Jersey. And Victor Dinn, the Neskacker, celebrating the birthday in Tempe, Arizona. Happy birthday to Mark B in Toronto. And Mark D.G. Marino in Fairfax, Virginia. And Brad Cohane in Jupiter, Florida. And happy birthday, Lydia Munt in Liberty, New Jersey. And we are celebrating Marty Zweig. The man who called the 1987 stock market crash,

it would have been his birthday today. An absolute legend, literally, across Wall Street. Snackers, whatever you're celebrating today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins. We'll see you Tuesday. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Spotify, and Nick own stock of Shopify and Square. Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the host who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets Inc or any of its

subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security and is not an offer or sale of a security. The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC member FINRA SIPC. Adam's