The Best One Yet - 🍦 “We all scream for $$$” — Ice Cream Truck’s VC cash. Snapchat’s 60% surge. Amazon Prime’s hook ‘em & book ‘em.

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

A New Jersey ice cream truck just raised Venture Capital money, but our Takeaway has nothing to do with ice cream… just VC $$$. Amazon is jacking up the price of your Prime subscription because it��s time to hook ‘em and book ‘em. And Snapchat stock surged 60% because it realized early the greatest threat to social media isn’t regulation… it’s Apple.$SNAP $AMZN Got 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, the real Friday. You made it to February 4th. Okay, we have 8 to 15 inches of fresh powder outside. I know what to go on over there. I know what you want to talk about.

Have I told you about the snow tires? I know you want to talk about the snow tires. Oh, my God. Nick, these snow tires are studded, which means there are metal spikes coming out of the rubber. It sounds like a Marvel character. It's like Super Shredder, man. How do you put these things on, by the way? I can't believe.

They're street legal. Honestly, I don't even know where the chassis is. So, like, I'm just impressed you even got these going. Snackers, hope you're staying warm today post-Snowstorm. Today's pod is the best one yet. This is the best snacks daily we've ever put together. So, Jack, what's our first story? Amazon stock just jumped more than we've ever seen in one day.

Yeah, but we have some bad news. Snackers, Amazon Prime, it just hooked you and it booked you. For our second story, an ice cream truck in New Jersey. Just raised a round of venture capital funding? This story has nothing to do with. With ice cream. For our third and final story, Snapchat, has the same general business as Facebook does. And yet Snapchat stock just did the complete opposite of Facebook stock.

It's an unzucking, desucking, rezucking, rezucking? Pre-zucking? Rezucking. Let's go with that. But Snackers, before we hit that wonderful mix. A fantastic mix to head into the weekend, Jack. It is February, which means this is the month of both Frederick Douglass's birthday and Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Yes, same week.

Actually, Jack and I jumped in snack style. That is why they designated February to be black and black. History Month all the way back in 1915. But we want to introduce one incredible stat from McKinsey. We love this stat. Black Americans are more likely to start a business than any other ethnic group. And black businesses go way back, even before the first Black History Month. Jack, can we talk about Madam C.J. Walker, please? Madam C.J. Walker was born on a plantation in Louisiana in 1867. Her parents had been enslaved before the Civil War end. Yeah, and Madam C.J. Walker, she launched a

line of hair products selling door to door throughout the South. She became the first self-made female millionaire. Jack, how about Barry Gordy? I love this one. He is number seven out of eight children and founded Motown records in Detroit in 1960. Yeah, Snackers, Detroit was known as Motor City, but then it became Motown thanks to Barry's music. You ready for this? Please. Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Diana Ross. Barry produced a whole new genre of very danceable music. Now, Jack, this one just feels like a takeaway. Can we talk about our buddy, Dr. Lonnie Johnson? Dr. Lonnie Johnson served in the Air Force and then invented the Super Sok.

The Super Soker. We're talking the number one selling water toy of all times. Snackers, happy Black History Month. We want your Black History snack facts all month long. Better yet, Jack and I were talking, we want you to send us your voice. Here's the deal. We have a link in the podcast episode description. It's for a Google form where you could submit a text or audio.

Black History Month snack. We want it on the pod. Get it done. Let's hit our three steps. You're tuned in to 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 investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Right. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. financial LLC, member Fenbara slash SIPC.

For our first story, Amazon, it's stock, just jumped more in a single day than honestly Jack and I have ever seen with Amazon stock ever. Sorry for the buzz killed out. This is going to cost you money. Now, yesterday, the NASDAQ tanked because basically met his stock plummeted 27% and dragged everything down with it. It broke hearts like Sarah Marshall. It did.

In the meantime, Amazon said, hey, hold my packing tape. I got it from here. Amazon stock searched. 18% yesterday after announcing their fourth quarter earnings. And the reason why, honestly, it wasn't the revenues. It wasn't Amazon sales. Revenue jumped a modest 9%. I don't know if I've ever seen single-digit revenue growth by Amazon. On the other hand, Jack, can we talk about Amazon's profits over there? They doubled. Yeah. Amazon made $14 billion in just the last three months of last year,

which is twice as much as the year before. Amazon's the old man at the gym still throwing up dumbbells while you're like stretching out your glutes for 30 minutes. Dude, watch your form. You're going to hurt your back. Yeah. Amazon's got that like Bert Reynolds strength going on, you know? The real surprise was a one-time surprise. A one-off delight to the Amazon earnings. Snackers, you only see this once in a lifetime from Amazon. Here's what it was. An electric truck. Remember Rivian, the electric truck pioneer that went public with an IPO in November? Our other buddy, Timmy, the other Timmy, he's like trying to

on the wait list for that thing. Well, the biggest investor in Rivian was Amazon. Get this snackers. Jeff Bezos, he snagged a whopping 22% of Rivian stock just three years ago. Shrewd move. He's like Sean Parker with Facebook, Justin Timberlake, the social network. Cut the the, it's cleaner. So now Amazon has one business line in yesterday's earnings that looked like in Dresen Horwitz. Amazon's $1 billion of money invested into Rivian is now worth $12 billion, thanks to Rivian's stuff. Doc job. Not too shabby. And all those Amazon gains count as last quarter's profits for Amazon. In just three years. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies doing like Metro Capital over at Amazon?

Prepare for hook them and book them. Snackers. One more thing that Jack and I should tell you about. And you may want to sit down for this. Jack, you want to tell them? I don't want to tell them. I feel bad. Amazon Prime is getting hiked. Yeah, you're about to pay more for Amazon Prime. They're raising the annual Prime membership price from $119 to $139 starting two months. 17% price hike. That's the first price hike for Amazon Prime in four years. And 200 million members are effective. Jack, one second.

I'm just whipping out our whiteboard over here. It's going to cost humanity $4 billion if we all end up paying for this Amazon Prime price hike. 20 extra bucks on 200 million accounts. Yeah, Snackers. That's if you still want the free two-day delivery and the move. movies and the free perks and you still want to be part of society. Which you do because you probably want to stay a part of society. Now, there is one reason for this. Prime now costs more to

Amazon. Yeah, Amazon is paying workers more. They're paying more for packaging and shipping. So they're passing those costs onto us. But the way Jack and I see this, the other reason Amazon's hiking the price of Prime is because they hooked you and now they're booking you. We've all become dependent on Prime, especially during the pandemic. So Amazon is capitalized. now. Hook them and book them. For our second story, Jack wants to talk about these snow tires. All right. There we go. Nick, they're incredible.

I'm sure they're great. I want to see some picks. I feel like a tank in this thing. You wear the snow tires. You don't let the snow tires wear you. Ice cream snackers. The second story we got is ice cream truck scream, which just raised some venture capital money to gramify your cones. But the real story is not about ice cream. No, it is not about ice cream. But we should talk about the scream. which was profiled and business insider.

It's a small New Jersey ice cream truck company. It's just a year and a half old, this business. And it was started by an ex-Goldman investment banker. He preferred, you know, sprinkles to spreadsheets. Who can blame them? This ice cream truck isn't your standard vanilla, chocolate or swore. They're not doing like, you know, the SpongeBob Popsicles, Jack. That's not their thing.

Or the firecrackers. They're offering fancy toppings. They're doing Giradelli chocolate as your topping. And creative toppings, like, goooky crisp. Maybe a little fruity pebbles sprinkled on there. Oh, and then Jack, at the end, they have something they call the finale. Litter dust. Yes.

So when you post this, people have no choice but to double tap it. Now, as you can imagine, Snackers, whether it's the truck or it's the ice cream you get, this whole situation is all about the look. This is a bright pink, good-looking truck. It's not your creepy old Mr. Safi that used to prowl your neighborhood. With the bow tie and like the head that's a cone, which is kind of creepy. It's like so freaky, you know? Oh, do we figure out if there's music with this truck?

I assume it's music, although not the Mr. Softie, like harassing music that plays in your your head for three weeks at a time. This thing is so pink, it looks like a my little pony. The whole operation Snackers is Instagram candy. Yeah, it tastes like a TikTok. But Snackers, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this ice cream truck. It's what's not fascinating about this ice cream truck. This is a great business, but it's nothing groundbreaking. It's five trucks that prowl 14 New Jersey towns and offer ice cream. And yet, the founder wants to add a hundred more trucks because he just raised $2 million in venture capital. money and wants to raise more.

Yeah, this isn't grandpa's soft serve business. No, it's not. But it's also just a truck with like fancy Giradelli chocolate sauce. Yeah, Jack and I were looking to this further. There's only one techy thing about this. You input your address online and then they'll text you when they're nearby so you get the heads up. So maybe they don't play music.

Other than that, when it comes to the scream truck, nothing scalable, nothing softwareish and nothing proprietary. Again, great business, but it's basically just a fleet of ice cream trucks with like a smartphone and pink brandings. And yet, despite everything we just said, this truck is funded by venture capital. And they want to raise more venture capital. Now, you don't have to be a tech company to raise venture capital money. And this ice cream is probably delicious.

But Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the scream ice cream truck? This isn't about ice cream, you scream. We all scream for ice cream trucks. No, it isn't. This is about venture capital. Yeah, Snackers. That's the real story. Because in 2020, that was a record year of venture capital investment in tech startups until 2021.

A whole bunch of money went into tech startups, but a lot of that money came back to venture capital last year because we had record numbers of IPOs and SPAC listings. So what Jack and I are saying is record money went into a record number of startups and that record money then came back to the VCs in record amounts of cash. That's why, despite writing huge checks the past two years, the venture capital industry still has more cash than they know what to do with. As the Wall Street Journal put it, there are record sums of unspent in. investment right now. Jack, what's the number of how much cash is just chilling there? This is the nicest problem we've ever heard of anyone having. $900 billion of cash just sitting on the sidelines with VCs right now. Because these firms have already invested in every cloud company, every Metaverse,

every crypto company, every Web 3. Yes, the venture capitalists don't know where to invest money next, so they're putting it in like cookie dose Sundays and banana splits. An ice cream truck is raising venture capital. That says more about venture capital than ice cream. Our third and final story before the weekend, Snapchat just had its biggest single day jump of the stock ever. Those iPhone privacy settings, Facebook complained about not a concern for Snap. First of all, Jack, let's just get right into the numbers.

Well, so far this year, they're ugly. Snapchat stock is down 70% from their all-time high and fell another 20% yesterday. Boom. And then, like, Jack and I are preparing for this pod. And then Snapchat stock searches 60% after hours in the afternoon because of their earnings. It's all because Snapchat announced their fourth quarter earnings, which included their first ever profit as a public company. Mazel to Snapchat. Gluck vunch.

Put this one up on the fridge with like the spectacles drawing you guys did. Snapchat brought in $1.3 billion in sales in the fourth quarter. Yeah, mostly from ads that interrupt your snaps. And an adorable $23 million, eddy-bitty, tiny-bitty yellow polka dot profit. Now, this was a shock because Facebook, they just report. earnings and they have the same business model of Snapchat. Yeah, Facebook has ads that interrupt your feet. And yet Facebook stock did the opposite stock market reaction as Snapchat's did.

Yeah, Facebook stock plummeted 27%. Jack, can we sprinkle on a little context here about what's going on with these two social media companies? The entire online advertising industry has gone through a huge shift. Yeah, Snackers, you've noticed this in subtle ways that have a big impact. It's Apple's privacy focus. Specifically, their new app tracking transparent. We're talking about that little dialogue that jumps up on your iPhone that says, basically,

do you want this app to track you? You pop up in Resi because it's Friday night and you want to make a last minute reservation. And then Apple's like, hey, this app wants to stock you, but you have the option to not get stocked if you want. It's like, of course everyone selects. Yeah, please do not let them stock me. Let's go with the no way to the stocking by the restaurant reservation app. And every time someone opts out of letting the app track their online activity, a tiny bit of

Zuck's soul implodes. In fact, Facebook blames some of their earnings yesterday on that Apple privacy feature. But Snapchat, Snapchat's not too worried about it. No, they're not. Their CFO actually said, you know what? We've already begun to recover from Apple adding this privacy feature. And that's a big deal because in just the first six months of Apple's new iOS 15 privacy setting, social media companies missed out on an estimated $10 billion of potential ad revenue.

Well, it appears that Snapchat has already found a fix. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Snapchat? The biggest threat to social media may not be government regulation. It may be Apple. Snackers, Apple? They own over 50% of America's iPhones. Those phones, they're the rails. They control your access to, like, the mobile internet.

The iPhone is the gateway to your attention and the gateway to your wallet. Now, Zuck doesn't want to be at the mercy. of Tim Cook's privacy crusade. Zuck hates this, which is one reason he is so obsessed with building his own hardware that circumvents the iPhone, namely the VR headsets.

Now, whenever people talk about the biggest threat to social media, they talk about government regulation. Politicians have talked about regulating big tech for years, but nothing has happened. The biggest threat to social media right now isn't regulation.

It's Apple. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend? And one's earnings were rescued by Rivian. Now Prime is pulling a hook him and book them. Chaka! For our second story, Scream is a venture-backed ice cream truck fleet. Which says more about the venture capital industry than it does ice cream.

And our third and final story is Snapchat. Their earnings really, really impressed, especially after what Facebook did yesterday. So Jack and I are thinking Apple, that may be the biggest threat to social media. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in from Eli London over in New York City. You might think of McDonald's as a happy meal and big back company. Understandable. They're really a real estate and building company.

Get this, Snackers, the real estate holdings of McDonald's are worth an estimated 25 billion with a B dollars. We saw this in the movie, the franchise. We did, yeah. McDonald's owns the property and the small business owner that runs the restaurant has to lease it from McDonald's. So about a third of McDonald's total revenue is from the franchisees paying rents to McDonald's. McDonald's is a huge land. If you open McDonald's, you're paying rent to Ronald. Snackers, you looked fantastic all week.

Remember to celebrate some wins this weekend like, I don't know, sticking some snow tires on your tires. Happy Black History Month. We want your snack facts all months. So check out the link in the description of this episode. Have a fantastic weekend. Jack and I. We'll see you Monday.

And before we go, happy birthday to my little sister, Katie Martel, from the Upper East Side of New York City. Katie! Katie! And congratulations to Hannah-Saur, who just qualified for the finals in the women's mogul event at the Beijing Olympics. And happy birthday to Devi Shah from Garden City, New York. And her twin sister, too. Your mom and brother would be proud.

And happy birthday to Anna Elena Smith down in Redwood City. And you just Chopra in Dubai. And Taylor over in Ottawa, Canada. Happy 44th birthday to Nahabad in Montreal, Canada. And Amoria de Priest. Enjoy that birthday down in Kansas City, barbecue. Happy birthday to Juan Arsola. Texas. And Diana, the product manager, M. over in San Francisco right down the street. Happy birthday

to Katie Olson in Sacramento. And Andrew Lou, enjoy the birthday in Gilbert, Arizona. Anna Lamperelli, happy birthday down in New Jersey. And Charlie Vitavic over in Duluth, Minnesota. And the Google ad legend, Brandon Bourne, is celebrating another year in Baton Rouge. And Jack, Bree and Johannes, they're getting married down in Australia. Happy two-year anniversary to Jason and Shana in San Jose. And Fantastic Friday to Lexi Christensen in Surprise, Arizona. Anybody else celebrating something today, including gold medals, make it a tea boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack.

I own stock of Amazon, Nick own stock of Apple. 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 Robinood Market Inc., Robinood 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.