2023 Year In Review: The Biggest Stories and Stories You Forgot

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0:29Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, we hand out awards for the biggest, most viral, and floppiest business stories of the year. Even better, no one has to give an acceptance speech. It's Friday, December 29th. Let's ride.

0:48So every winter, Morning Brew's newsletter asks its readers to vote on the Golden Mug Awards, which is like the Oscars, but much bigger, and for business news. In today's show, we are going to reveal the winners and the runners-up in four categories, biggest business news story, story you most forgot about, most viral story, and the flop of the year award, and discuss whether, in our opinion, Brew Readers made the right choices. Plus, in each category, Neil and I gave ourselves a captain's pick on a story that we felt super passionate about, and then Chris Rock slapped each other if we don't agree.

1:22But before we get into the awards show, I want to hand out my own award, MBD sponsor Yahoo Finance. Get on up here. You just won the Charlie Munger Memorial Finance Platform of the Year Award. This might have been the least dramatic race in history. Yep. This is like when the return of the king romps through the 2004 Oscars with 11 wins. There's just no competing with what Yahoo Finance can offer. From key business news updates to real-time financial data, all in one place. Yahoo Finance wants to thank its family for supporting it through the rough times. But most of all, it wants to thank you MBD listeners for showing them so much love over the past year.

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2:34Series premiere tonight on NBC. Now, let's get to those awards. Our first award to hand out is the biggest business news story of the year. It's a huge one. Morning Brew readers picked chat GPT and AI eating the world for this one. And to me, it is clearly the correct choice. Why? It's simple. Follow the money. Capital flooded into AI development this year. Microsoft invested$13 billion into chat GPT creator OpenAI. Nvidia, I'm sorry. I didn't learn anything this year, obviously. The company that makes the chips that power AI systems spiked more than 230 % to top a$1 trillion valuation. and four-week-old startups were raising hundreds of millions of dollars without releasing a single product.

3:20It is a flat-out gold rush, and it shows that investors truly think generative AI will change everything, how we work, how we communicate, how we think of and make art. But with great opportunity comes great risk. This year, governments across the globe have been racing to create guardrails around this rapidly advancing technology. Major world powers, including the US, EU, and China, warned that AI could bring about catastrophic harm to humans if left unchecked. Elon Musk called AI the most disruptive force in history and one that would eventually replace human jobs. Even Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, signed an open letter warning that unregulated AI could lead, could be the asteroid that wipes out humanity.

4:01So it's possible we'll look back at this year, 2023, like we do 1712, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype for the first modern steam engine, sparking the industrial revolution. Or it's possible AI won't live up to the hype and we're once again being carried away in a giant tech bubble. I think it's gotta be the former and it's not the latter at all because again, the monetary aspect, but also just the fear you hear in some of these voices, like that's been one of the main discourses around AI is are we moving too fast? And there's not a lot of technologies that make people discuss it and try to regulate it in the way that it does.

4:37So I just think in sheer terms of the money, in sheer terms of how afraid people are, it is not a flash in the pan at all. Yeah, I mean, Google, just one example of how much money is flowing into AI this year and how much is at stake here. It was boosting the stock market for the entire year, and especially the Magnificent Seven, which are these seven tech stocks. Google released its chatbot, Bard, and it got one answer wrong in its premiere, and And Google lost$100 billion in market cap because of that one flop. So the expectations are through the roof. And if we just look at Wikipedia as a proxy for what people are interested in, if we're trying to crown the biggest news story of the year, ChatGPT was the most viewed article on Wikipedia.

5:18So I think it's safe to say that Brew readers and Brew listeners got this one totally right. So the runner up in this category for biggest news story of the year was the Fed hiking interest rates to 22 years highs. Just for some perspective, the last time we got rates as high as this past year, President George W. Bush had just taken office, and we were still jamming out on MP3 players. We withstood 11 rate increases since March of last year, as we left the days of zero interest rates far behind, and Jerome Powell desperately tried to get inflation under control. Just the sheer amount of things rate hikes affects leads me to believe that this could have been the number one story of the year.

5:55Mortgage rates reached 20-year high. Treasury bond yields spike. And there was a general sense that we could slip into a recession at any moment. Neil, if someone had taken a shot for every time we mentioned interest rates this past year, they'd have been sloshed. Yeah, I think in terms of economic impact to everyone's wallets, there's no question that the Fed raising interest rates to such extraordinarily high levels in such a rapid fashion. I mean, this started back in the spring 2022. And as we're talking now, it seems like they've just stopped. So in terms of, yeah, what affects my wallet, what affects my daily life?

6:31I think something, even if it's the Fed, something you don't actively think about, it is just kind of ruling your life from your 401k to how much you pay for a house, to how much you pay for your credit card loan and all of that stuff. Also, just in my lifetimes or since I can remember kind of paying attention to what's going on in the broader financial market, I lived, I was a zero interest rate phenomenon, baby. I had only known this era of cheap money. So to see these interest rates rising to 22-year highs was something that I had never experienced. And so there was a lot of ripple effects.

7:04My money sitting in a cash account is doing, or a money market account is doing very well, yielding 5.5 % right now. We talked about it being the golden age of cash. So again, if we're talking about what hits people in their wallets where it matters most, can't go wrong with it. It could have been No. 1. And it looks like the Fed may have pulled us off this soft landing, bringing down inflation from 9%. It's around 3 % now. It's on its way back to 2%. It might be bumpy. But we have not entered a recession yet. And I think we can thank consumer spending and possibly all of the movies and concerts that happened this year.

7:40People had a lot of savings, and they were willing to shell out for these goods and services. So, yeah, maybe the Fed pulled it off. We'll see next year whether we go into a recession or not. Knock on wood. OK, let's get into our captain's picks now for biggest business story of the year. My captain's pick is Hot Strike Summer. This year was one of the busiest in the 21st century for labor organizing with Hollywood actors and writers, auto workers, pharmaceutical staff, hotel workers and many others hitting the picket line. As of October, there had been 312 strikes involving about 453 ,000 workers compared to 180 strikes involving 44 ,000 workers two years before.

8:19And it paid off because these striking workers secured historic gains. Auto workers at Detroit's Big Three got a 25 % increase in wages. Hollywood creatives got protections from AI. And UPS drivers who threatened to strike stand to make$170 ,000 by the end of their new contract. Toby, what do you make of all this labor activity? It does seem to go kind of in waves and in cycles because you see one labor organization or the other start to strike. And then others kind of follow suit once they see that they have leverage right now. And workers have had leverage. It's been a very tight labor market.

8:52Unemployment has stayed below 4 % all year, which is pretty crazy when you consider the rate hikes that we've been seeing. So it does seem like these things happen in bunches. And great summer overall for labor activity. Okay, my captain's pick is the Ozempic craze. Again, I look for widespread ripple effects, Neil. You know this. And this diabetes medication turned super weight loss drug extraordinaire. has those ripple effects. The snack industry is bracing for a downturn. The airline industry is forecasted to save millions on jet fuel. And diet companies are quaking in their boots, all because this class of drug is going to lead to an overall lighter population.

9:28So in terms of those ripples, I feel very comfortable picking Ozempic as the biggest biz news story of the year. I was just listening to another podcast where Derek Thompson had people come on and present the bull case and the bear case for Ozempic-Wagovie, this whole class of drugs. The bull case is that these are incredible behavioral modifiers. They don't just help you lose weight, but they have numerous ripple effects, like you were talking about, on the economy because they also serve sometimes as anti-addiction drugs. So you're going to crave less alcohol. You're going to crave less snacks.

10:02And you're going to opt for more veggies and fish. And who knows what kind of ripple effects that will have. There is a bear case. There are serious side effects here that are still being figured out because these are relatively new class of drug. And then there's the cost situation. Insurers don't cover it yet, and they may not. We'll see. But that is the big question because right now it is unaffordable. Those are the two big bear cases for me is will people be able to afford it? And then will they be able to produce enough of this drug to go around and actually make the impacts that all of these forecasts are kind of foreseen?

10:34But there's no doubt it's had huge effects. I mean, you've had Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wagovi soar to become the most valuable European company past LVMH. And Eli Lilly, which makes Monjaro, the same class of drug, is now the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world. Meanwhile, Pfizer, which did so well during the pandemic with its vaccine, has not been able to produce something that has been able to compete with these other ones. And it is completely floundered this year. It's crazy how fortunes can change so quickly in that industry. all right let's move on to our next category which is the new story you most forgot about ironically and again you all nailed this one in my opinion king charles iii's coronation this year there was a full-on procession from buckingham palace to westminster charles was presented with a scepter and an orb given a crown worth more than 57 million dollars and he ascended to a literal throne in front of 2 200 people and yet no one remembers it i think it's because support for the monarchy has just been declining in recent years, especially as Prince Andrew controversy surfaced, and of course, all the Prince Harry and Meghan drama.

11:37So I think people are just burnt out on the Royals. Yeah, the only thing I remember about the coronation was that it disrupted Premier League games for a weekend. I was so annoying, especially from a fantasy Premier League perspective. It still does get attention, though. 10.3 million people in the US tuned in. That's roughly 1 million fewer than Queen Elizabeth's funeral. But it's also just a third of the almost 30 million people who watch Prince Harry and Meghan's weddings. Everyone still loves a royal wedding. I mean, you forgot Queen Elizabeth died. I know. Well, that's true. But hey, listen, there's only so many news stories you can fit in your brain.

12:08All right, what's our next? The rudder up for the news story you most forgot about is the song Rich Men North of Richmond, a working class anthem from no-name Virginia artist Oliver Anthony. For a few days in August, this song was all anyone was talking about. It debuted on the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and was used by conservative politicians to highlight how elite liberals were out of touch with the regular folk of America. Anthony later told all the politicians, holding him up as a hero to knock it off. He said, I sit pretty dead center down the aisle on politics and always have. I see the right trying to characterize me as one of their own, and I see the left trying to discredit me, I guess in retaliation.

12:45That's gotta stop. Rich man north of Richmond, Toby. Footnote in history, or maybe a symbol of American culture in 2023? Yeah, I think it's a snapshot of a specific moment in time. There was just so much grift happening on either side of the song where, again, it was this little known guy. The song was pretty good. Let's mention that, that the dude can clearly sing, but how it was co-opted by both political parties was just kind of something that really thrust it in the forefront of people's minds, but I don't think there will be any lasting cultural impact from this. Okay, my captain's pick in this category is the Titan submersible that imploded on its way down to the Titanic.

13:22My most vivid memory of this year is sitting at our desk when the report dropped that tapping sounds had been picked up during the search for this missing sub. We eventually learned that the sub had imploded in milliseconds due to a flaw in the whole design. And so while the search was afoot, it was all anyone could talk about. Just everything from the hubris of the CEO to building the sub out of carbon fiber to the fact that they were diving the Titanic. all of it combined into a story that was maybe smaller in scope than others we've mentioned, but certainly big enough to remember. Yeah, the one thing that stood out for me, this is, I did not forget this story.

13:58So I don't know if people forgot this story, but it was kind of a big deal, and maybe it shouldn't have been a big deal. My most vivid memory is the resurgence of James Cameron, who directed the Titanic, because I didn't know this going in, but he is a submersible expert. So he was giving interviews all over the place, and is one of his most incredible quotes during this whole saga. He said that he's calculated that he spent more time on the ship, the Titanic, than the captain did back in the day. It's such a James Cameron quote. This whole story, people were kind of divided on because at one point, there was that whole oxygen craze where that's what we were all counting down was they were running out of oxygen slowly if they were still stuck down there and unmoored in some way.

14:40And so you didn't want to actively kind of root against these people. Yeah, they died. Yeah, it was a very tragic story. But then there was the fact that a lot of them were wealthy and billionaires and that there was like the hubris involved of diving to a Titanic in a submarine designed by the CEO in a way that a lot of people said was just, again, there was a ton of hubris involved. He made it out of carbon fiber. It wasn't. The safety precautions were also designed by him. So it was just all this cluster of emotions that people were feeling around it. And it turns out the whole search was for not because it had imploded seconds.

15:15There was discussion about whether this would maybe reduce or mitigate the rise of extreme tourism, of people going to the extreme depths of the earth or up to the highest mountains or into outer space. And I don't think there's been any lasting impact in that regard. Absolutely not. I think it's human nature to strive for the highest mountains and die for the deepest depths. Yeah, there you go. Okay, my captain's pick in the story you most forgot about is the smoke from Canadian wildfires that blanketed New York and other northeastern cities for a few days this summer. It was really crazy from a sensory perspective to see orange, hazy skies and to smell fire that was burning hundreds of miles away.

15:54But also, it took a toll mentally, which I wasn't expecting. All you were thinking about that week was your breathing and weather was being impacted by the smoke, and you just couldn't think about anything else. And for many people in New York, I feel like this was a wake-up call about climate change and a realization that you're not really shielded from environmental disasters, even in this concrete jungle. Yeah, wake-up call was definitely the word for it. I could not believe that I opened up an air quality index that showed global air pollution in New York, had the worst air quality of anywhere else in the world.

16:25And I'm sitting there reading that while sitting in New York. And so it just was one of those things where you often can look at climate change. You can look at these climate emergencies as something that happens around the world or not directly affecting you. But when it's literally around you in the air, you can no longer put your head in the sand. Yeah, I mean, we got out of the studio that morning. We walk out into our office and it just smells. And then you look outside and it's orange. And this thing is seeping through the windows. And I don't know, I just I just remember not being able to concentrate.

16:54I was focusing on my breath. I was like, what is going on here? And, you know, people live with that every day in cities where, you know, the air quality is terrible. And so it was just an interesting, interesting wake up call for us. It was also the memes were outrageous as well because Blade Runner got a lot of shouts. Also Diablo, the video game launched around the same time. So there was this billboard showing Diablo, which is a game that kind of has devilish or hellish undertones juxtaposed against the sky. And you're like, that is one of the greatest marketing ploys that you can have. Speaking of marketing, our next category is the viral moment of the year, and it was Barbenheimer, Neil.

17:33Again, Brew Readers nailed it. It combined every single ingredient of pop culture into one viral mix. You got A-list movie stars and directors, endless memeability, endless marketing budgets, and a once-in-a-generation juxtaposition of topic matter that may never be replicated again. And Neil, how much of you, how much of this do you think was organic hype and how much of it was crafted by Warner Bros. insane marketing push for. I want to give all the credit to regular people who took this and ran with it. I mean, I don't you can say that all the ingredients were there, but I don't think it would have happened unless grassroots online social media people kind of took with it and ran with it and made the memes and made the T-shirts and just drum and started talking about it.

18:18And then only later did maybe the top-down people, executives at Warner Brothers or large media organizations start writing about it. But I really think the driving force of Barbenheimer and really any viral situation is the people who make jokes and create really funny crap. I don't know if I fully agree with that, honestly, because the amount of marketing that Barbie did was not – you can't overlook it. Remember, they did the Airbnb, Ken's Mojo Doja Kasha house where they completely retrofitted the thing. They had the Dubai kind of AR experience where Barbie was like stepping over their tall buildings.

18:55There was everything was branded pink so much to the point that the world literally ran out of pink paint. But you're right. In terms of connecting the two movies, that did mostly come from. I also think you can't overlook just the name, Barbenheimer. It just rolls off the tongue very well. Incredible name. That may have sparked everything. And Barbie wrote it to$1.4 billion at the global box office. The runner up for the most viral moment was the Chinese spy balloon that floated into our airspace and into our imaginations in early February. U.S. defense officials have said that the balloon did not collect any intelligence and it appeared to be blown off course by high winds.

19:30But it did lead to a full-scale paranoid freakout that highlighted the deterioration in relations between the world's two great powers, the U.S. and China. What I'll remember about the spy balloon fiasco is that we took down the Chinese spy balloon and several other suspicious balloons in U.S. airspace with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles that cost about$400 ,000 a pop. And ultimately, most of those balloons turned out to be hobbyist weather balloons. So yeah, just to reiterate, we sent F-22 fighter jets to fire a$400 ,000 missile at balloons released by some weather nerds. Yeah, there was a school project, if I remember, that got their poor balloon shot down by a $400 ,000 military missile.

20:12I kind of, I remember thinking at the time, this is a good spy tactic because weather balloon or these balloons were very high up in the atmosphere. They're very difficult to detect. So I understand kind of the scare of, wait a second, these things could be all around us right now. And then I also remembered almost the Renaissance painting of them. First one being shot down. They were pulling it out of the water. It was this scene that just had this gravitas to it. So again, if you want to combine the things that make something viral, like you need the imagery associated with it. And Spy Balloon definitely had that.

20:42My captain's pick for most viral moment of the year was Drippy Pope. Drippy Pope refers to the viral photo of Pope Francis sporting a stylish Balenciaga-esque puffer jacket, looking like he marched straight out of Milan Fashion Week. but the image turned out to be an AI-generated deepfake. It went viral, A, because it looked so dang real. It wasn't so far off that you couldn't believe the Pope actually rocked that coat. And then, B, it was still in the earliest innings of generative AI when it comes to images, so people weren't as good at identifying fakes. Neil, if I remember correctly, you were originally faked out by this.

21:18Certainly. I had no idea. I was like, I don't know what the Pope wears. I know he wears the robe, but this was a white overcoat, you know, a little puffy jacket. I mean, it gets cold in Northern Italy. So, you know, I didn't know whether it was real or not. And I guess that is the whole idea of it. Right. A lot of kind of web culture writers declared this the first mass level AI misinformation case. It was, again, kind of in the early part of the year. So people were just coming to terms with how powerful these tools were. And so the juxtaposition of this religious leader and this, it was also part of a trend along that time where people were kind of Balenciaga-ifying Harry Potter, all these different famous characters.

21:58And the two things that did end up saying that you could tell that it was fake is that his crucifix was a little deformed and then his glasses were kind of melting into his face. So once people looked closer, they did end up realizing that drippy folk wasn't as drippy as people thought. Earlier this month, just to tie this whole story full circle, is the Pope called for global AI regulation. There you go. He's a little late, you know, eight months after he went viral. OK, my captain's pick is all of the crazy airline passengers who went viral this year. There was the marketing executive who had a meltdown on an American Airlines flight claiming someone in the back of the plane was not real.

22:36There were those poor souls on the Delta flight heading from Atlanta to Barcelona that had to turn back two hours later after. And I'll just quote the pilot pilot here. A passenger had diarrhea all the way through the plane, constituting a biohazard. And finally, there was that off-duty pilot in the cockpit of the Alaska Airlines flight that tried to turn off the plane's engines but was successfully restrained by the captain. Turns out he had taken shrooms a few days earlier and was having a real bad time of it. Overall, the rate of unruly passenger incidents on flights has dropped off by 80 % since record highs during the mask mandate days of 2021.

23:11But they're still above pre-COVID levels and the skies are busy with crazy people doing crazy things. That's what was crazy about this category to me is that if you just said plane passenger freakout was most viral, you really wouldn't know what you were talking about. Of those that you mentioned, though, I think the worst one to be a fellow passenger on has got to be the diarrhea one. I think that's unarguable. That would just be an absolute disaster. They called it, yeah, biohazard at a certain point. Disgusting.

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