Berkshire Dumps More Apple Stock & Boeing’s Costly Space Test

0:00I'm NFL linebacker TJ Watt and this is my personal best. YPB by Abercrombie is the activewear I'm always wearing. That's why I reached out to co-design their latest drop. I worked with designers to create high-performance activewear that holds up to my toughest workouts. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in-store, online, and in the app. Because your personal best is greater than anything.

0:29Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, the antitrust trial of the century has just wrapped up. Is Google search in real trouble? Ben Drake and Kendrick Lamar have brought back the diss track. But what does their beef say about the current state of the music industry? It's Monday, May 6th. Let's ride.

0:53Toby, this weekend, you attempted something most normal people would never consider. A 48-mile bike race on gravel. How'd it go? What are your takeaways? I was humbled. I know we have some bikers who listen to this podcast, and I tip my helmet to you guys because I thought I was in shape. I thought I had the aerobic capacity for this race, but I got wrecked. I actually ended up not finishing the race. I had to hitchhike my way back 26 miles in. This nice man named Scott picked me up. He's a retired petroleum engineer. I learned a lot from him, actually. Learned about how refineries work. I think I got a new Morning Brew daily listen out of it.

1:31But yes, overall, the experience was incredible, but very humbling. Did you learn anything about setting goals that you didn't think you could achieve? What's known as these big, hairy goals, which are these huge targets that, you know, potentially you may not be able to hit and just you may DNF halfway through. Yeah, I learned that there's a difference between confidence and delusion. I did not prepare for this properly. So I think I overestimated my ability. So there is a huge difference between training and preparing and then feeling versus just tossing yourself over the deep end. It's much easier.

2:03And you did that. And I did that. And it did not work. But bikers, tip my helmet to you. And now let's take a moment to hear about the bundle of joy that is the Wendy's Cinnabon pull apart. Neil, I'll be the first to admit I'm a sweet treat guy. And there is no better treat than this collab between Wendy's and Cinnabon. Oh, believe me. I know. I'm not a sweet treat guy, but I'll admit it's tough to resist snagging a bite of a pull-apart. You do the classic, oh no, I'm good, I don't want anything, but then when the smell of that warm, sweet cinnamon sugar rolled dough hits your nose, you go, well, maybe I'll have a bite.

2:37Hey, it's literally called the Wendy's Cinnabon pull-apart. It's meant to be shared. I'm not judging. Just maybe order your own next time, okay? If you're like Neil and always rely on your friends for your sweet treats, consider heading to wendys.com slash morningbrew to try out the new Cinnabon Pull Apart to get a taste for yourself. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs.

3:15Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. It was Comic-Con for Finance Bros this weekend in Omaha, a.k.a. Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting. It's for people far and wide flock to hear how the portfolio of companies Warren Buffett has assembled over the years is doing, and also hear some sage words of advice from the Oracle of Omaha. This year was more of a somber affair, as it was the first meeting in decades that Buffett did not have Charlie Munger by his side, who passed away last year at the age of 99. Buffett actually handed a question off to Charlie through sheer habit, which was a funny but bittersweet moment.

3:55Buffett also cracked a joke or two about his own mortality, saying he hopes to attend next year's meeting, while also reaffirming that Berkshire Hathaway's succession plans, which would see Vice Chair Greg Abel step into the CEO's seat, are fully in place for a smooth transition. As for the business side of things, it was kind of a weird quarter for Berkshire. The company reported a$12.7 billion profit in the quarter, which is only about a third of last year's$35.5 billion haul in the same quarter. But most of that number was affected by a change in the paper value of some stock it holds. Its operating income, which is the money that the company owns outright, like Geico, actually brings in, jumped 39 % to$11.2 billion.

4:35The company is now holding a record$189 billion in cash as it waits for more tasty buying opportunities to come its way. Neil, what were some of your takeaways from another legendary Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting? Yeah, I think all of the questioning, the pondering of mortality was my big takeaway. Buffett is about to turn 94 and he didn't have Charlie Munger there. That was definitely the most poignant moment, though, when he turns to his lieutenant, Greg Abel, who's going to take over from him. And he says, Charlie, and passes off the question to him. And Greg Abel's like, you know, I'm not Charlie.

5:08And everyone got a good laugh about it. But it was definitely a bittersweet moment. Greg Abel was like, wow, that was the biggest honor I could have ever had anyone compare me to Charlie Munger. There was a video tribute to Munger about all his quips from over the years. So he was definitely missed. The big topic was succession. It does appear like Warren Buffett's going to hand the reins to these two guys, Ajit Jain and Greg Abel. Greg Abel is going to be the CEO. And the question was, are they going to be able to pick up where these two guys left off? And you know what? They may not have the same je ne sais quoi as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.

5:43But among shareholders who were there, who were interviewed, they were like, yeah, these guys, you know, they're very solid. They're going to grow your money. They may not have this aura around them, but they are completely competent. Yeah, the succession plans, especially at Berkshire Hathaway, are just so important because the company is Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. So then what happens in the post-Buffett and Munger era? So that's why they devoted so much time to speaking about it. But let's also talk about this cash pile because it's topping legendary standards at this point because there is a path to the cash pile reaching$200 billion in this next quarter.

6:19And the reason why it keeps growing so big is that Berkshire Hathaway owns these cash-flowing companies. And Warren Buffett is saying we don't see any eye-popping opportunities to deploy this cash. And also cash is doing very fine for them right now. its interest and other investment income hit$1.9 billion. That's coming from just parking the cash in essentially treasury bonds and just taking the yield on that. It's doing fine for them. So combine all those factors and that's how you get a cash pile that is only rivaled by like the likes of Apple in terms of corporate America. They're making$1.9 billion in income from just putting their cash in a bank account and buying treasury bonds.

7:00That is literally the craziest thing I've ever heard,$1.9 billion. The other big topic du jour was this apple stake that Warren Buffett has built up over many years. It's become to be their biggest stockholding. Turns out Buffett did trim his apple stake this past quarter, and he said it was nothing to do with the business. All he had was positive things to say about Tim Cook and the way he's handled the transition from Steve Jobs. He said it was for tax purposes. But overall, if you look at Berkshire's portfolio of companies. They touch every part of the economy. They employ 400 ,000 people. So they're very closely watched by investors to see, hey, how's the economy doing?

7:36And those operating earnings did increase 39%. So everything is pretty hunky-dory overall in the US economy, according to Berkshire Hathaway. The final note is Buffett did talk about AI. And what I like about Buffett is he doesn't try to explain things or understand things that he has no conception of. And when it comes to AI, like he's a he's a pretty standard 93 year old guy, maybe a little smarter than most. But he's like, yeah, I really don't know the implications of AI. But he said that there there's a lot of potential for scamming. And that's because he watched a video of himself. And he was like, this is super eerily, eerily realistic.

8:14And he's like, this has potential potential for a lot of good, a lot of bad. I see a lot of the bad as well. Yeah, he said, if I was interested in investing in scamming, it's going to be a growth industry of all time. So, yes, just speaking to the fact that this has the potential to be weaponized for harmful outcomes. After taking so many L's on Earth the past few years, Boeing is hoping it can score a much-needed win by leaving the atmosphere behind. Tonight, Boeing is planning to launch its Starliner capsule that will ferry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. It's going to have that sweet new car smell.

8:51This vehicle has never carried a human crew on board before, and the stakes are as high as the altitude. For Boeing, Starliner is a chance to prove it can safely shuttle people to orbit and calm nerves over its quality control measures. And for NASA, it's an opportunity to reduce its dependency on SpaceX and add a new model to its space taxi fleet. And you're going to be shocked, shocked when you hear that Boeing Starliner has had lots of troubles getting off the ground. It's had just two uncrewed test missions, and even those ran into issues. On one of them, the computer on board the spacecraft was 11 hours off, leading to chaos.

9:27In all, the Starliner program has been delayed for seven years and cost$1.5 billion more than expected. But finally, it appears that all systems are go for a launch tonight that will take NASA and Boeing into uncharted territory. Yeah, we have to go back before the time where the door plug blew out, before the whistleblowers came forward, before the DOJ opened this criminal investigation into the Alaska Airlines incident. Before all that, Boeing had this Starliner program that was trying to reach space with astronauts. And it's almost like eerily the same tale of the tape, though, when you look at the setbacks that Starliners had.

10:02It landed that$4.2 billion contract from NASA, but then its onboard computer failed in the first test flight because in a very classic Boeing move, the internal clock was off by 11 hours, which caused all sorts of complications. Valves got stuck on the second flight. And then also when Boeing finally had things up and running, they felt good about it. They realized that the insulation they'd used on wires was flammable. So it is almost it writes itself at this point, just all the setbacks Boeing has had, both in its ground and its normal airline operations, but then also in its quest to to reach the International Space Station.

10:37So it almost feels like the perfect Boeing story. But hopefully everything goes correctly this time around. Boeing has really turned into a punchline, but it wasn't always. So let's go back to why this thing is happening in the first place. The NASA ends the space shuttle program in 2011. 11. It's like, OK, we need to find a new way to get people, our astronauts into space. We're not going to build it ourselves. We are going to hand this off to commercial partners. So in 2014, they handed out six point eight billion dollars in contracts to two companies, Boeing and SpaceX. In the last 10 years, SpaceX has launched nine crewed missions to space and four private missions over that time span.

11:17Boeing has launched two uncrewed test missions. So Elon has absolutely lapped the field when it comes to actually getting people in space. Boeing has been delayed for years, cost overruns, and they actually got double the amount of money that SpaceX did. So from NASA's perspective, they've been relying on SpaceX for the past four years since that first mission in 2020 to get their astronauts into space. And they're like, we need another, we need to diversify our supplier base, right? Like what if something happens to SpaceX? Then we have no way of getting astronauts into space. So now it's very nice, beneficial that Boeing has finally got their act together.

11:53We're like, maybe now Boeing can take our astronauts to space as well. It's a perfect look into the approaches of the two different companies. I mean, you have the very traditional company in Boeing that has been around for a long time, does a lot of things a very certain the Boeing way. And then you have SpaceX who builds, who tests and crashes. They want to learn and then build again. And their development cycle is just far more rapid. And we see that in just the sheer amount of flights that it has launched. And Boeing is still trying to get off the ground here. So yeah, tonight is going to be a big night for Boeing.

12:26We're all rooting for it to see. Let's put that out for sure. Absolutely. 1034 Cape Canaveral, 95 % chance of good weather over there on the East Coast of Florida. So hope it all goes well. We'll be tuning in. The US government has been throwing darts at a monopoly board in recent years, trying to get a case to stick against the tech giants that dominate our online lives. And before we headed out for the weekend, the first suit to really find its target, U.S. Justice Department versus Google, reached its finale and put the fate of its search business in the hands of a federal judge. The DOJ has accused Google of illegally wielding monopoly power to control the search engine business, sidelining competition, and delivering a lower quality experience to customers as a result.

13:09Google has maintained that it's just better than the other search engines out there, so that's why everyone uses it. Most of the trial played out over a 10-week period last fall that saw both Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testify, but there were still some tasty nugs that emerged in closing arguments. One I want to highlight is that court documents revealed the exact number Google pays Apple for the privilege of being Safari's default search engine. The number is$20 billion, which happened to be 17.5 % of Apple's operating income, a.k.a. it's a lot of money and good fodder for the government to point a finger at and say, does that seem fair for the competition?

13:48Neil, after everything that's come out in this trial and after the closing arguments on Thursday and Friday, do we think Google is a monopoly? Well, the judge himself doesn't even know. He said, I can tell you as I sit here today, I have no idea what I'm going to do. And he acknowledged that this is the most consequential antitrust trial since Microsoft in the 1990s. And whatever he decides to do with Google will impact billions of people all over the world because of how much people use Google. So this is such a huge deal. And it does all revolve around that$20 billion number because that is something you can point to to say, Google, you have 90 % of this market share.

14:25And sure, you may have done that in a not an anti-competitive way. You might have done that in the fair way. But the fact that once you got there, you started to leverage that for these anti-competitive practices by essentially using that power to pay Apple$20 billion to be the default search engine on Safari is a prime example of anti-competitive behavior. Google said, look, Apple could have inked a contract with anybody. They could have gone with Microsoft Edge from Microsoft. They could have done their own browser. They could have gone with Bing. But they chose us. Why? because we're just better and you can't fault us for just being better.

15:02Yeah. Google also argues that the government is defining the search engine market too narrowly. Yes, it obviously holds a very dominant position over those other names you mentioned, like the Bing's, like the Yahoo's of the world. But when you zoom out a little bit and you think about consumers searching with intent on the internet, it's not just Google that is the playing field. For instance, if you are looking for a product, you would go to Amazon. If you're looking to stay on an overnight biking trip, for instance, you might look at Airbnb, or if you want to look at a restaurant nearby, you would go to Yelp.

15:35So Google was trying to say, let's take a more broad approach. It's not just the search engine market we're talking about. It's anybody searching for anything on the internet. When you look at it that way, we have a lot more competition. So look out for a decision in the next weeks or months ahead that could be hugely consequential. If he does rule against Google, then the phase of this trial will move to what's called the remedies phase, which is basically the judge will decide what are the penalties that Google has to pay or do. And that could lead to some major shakeups in how people use the Internet.

16:06Up next, you know what time it is. Neil and I pick our winners of the weekend.

16:13Raise the runners. Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Tonight on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John hosts a highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life.

16:53They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere tonight on NBC. Welcome back to our winners of the weekend, the segment where we highlight two things that had an even bigger weekend than Anthony Edwards. I won the pre-show Thumb War, so I get to go first. And my winner of the weekend is diss tracks, because we are in the middle of the most intense war of words in decades.

17:33Drake and Kendrick Lamar, two of the biggest names in hip hop, spent the weekend hurling insults at each other in a flurry of songs that had fans scrambling to decode the lyrics before the next track was released. Even Dua Lipa was tagged in to explain it all on Saturday Night Live. This weekend's diss track extravaganza was remarkable for a few reasons. First was the sheer output of production. Drake released three songs and Kendrick released three songs over a span of 36 hours. Second was the personal attacks. I mean, this got ugly with accusations of physical abuse, addiction, secret children, things that would seem to be off limits.

18:09Of course, diss tracks are core to hip hop's DNA, but this year they're taking over the genre. Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion kicked off 2024 trading barbs, and Drake and Kendrick just took it to a whole new level. Toby, put on your cultural critic hat here. What do you think is going on? I read this article, this Ringer article from Charles Holmes, and he basically said that we're living in this world where hip hop is not producing megastars at the level of Drake, at the level of Kendrick anymore. so now they're just starting beef over nothing really it's not necessarily advancing the genre these are not sonically the most interesting pieces of work that either artist has put out but at this point they are probably only two artists that can command this sort of attention so they're just going at each other it is interesting too though because drake is the king of the internet he has retained this popularity because he knows how to leverage memes knows how to leverage internet culture.

19:03Think back to Hotline Bling in 2019 where that Drake dancing meme just took over the internet. But this time around, I think Kendrick is winning this beef because he is above the internet. He doesn't go on Instagram stories. He does not trade barbs on social media platforms. He seems above it all. And I think that has actually helped contribute to him having the leg up in this beef because it's not a good look if you're Drake trying to post a response on Instagram stories. It's impossible to look cool. You only look cornier if you do that. And I think that's at the heart of this beef is like, who is more, more cornier at this point?

19:38Obviously there's some very serious, uh, allegations in there as well. So that's just my take on it. I think that Kendrick is winning because he is above the internet at this point. Meanwhile, this is just great for both of their royalty checks that they're collecting because people cannot get enough of this. I mean, they're listening to all these songs very intently. Yesterday, I checked the Spotify top 50 and Kendrick's Lamar's Euphoria was the number one song and Drake's Family Matters was at number five. So they are just gonna keep pushing these out because people are listening and there's a huge demand for it.

20:12Everyone's getting rich off this. Labels are gonna get rich. Kendrick and Drake get rich. Streamers who post these reaction videos get rich. TikTokers break down the whole saga and these like five to 10 minute TikTok videos are getting rich. So there's no real losers in a beef like this. Everyone seems to profit off of it. So, but maybe that's why. Maybe the artistry. Right, the artistry of it. That's people are saying like, maybe hip hop needs to evolve a little bit and move beyond like this old guard, just beefing with each other over nothing really. My winner of the weekend is Insomniacs because boy, do I have a sleep cure for you.

20:45It's not counting sheep. It's not pounding melatonin. And it's not listening to J. Cole's diss track. It's listening to Randy Smith, who many consider the most boring man in the world. Randy Smith is a former motivational speaker who did most of his work in the 80s and 90s, but has recently discovered renewed popularity as people use his soothing and boring voice to fall asleep. An old tutorial he recorded in 1989 on how to use Microsoft Word was re-uploaded to YouTube with a new title, The Most Boring Video Ever Made, and now has 3.1 million views and over 11 ,000 comments from people praising him for being so perfectly monotonous that it helps them drift off to sleep.

21:25You know, it's not just Randy Smith either. There is this whole cottage industry that's arisen dedicated to satisfying the needs of a sleep-deprived nation that enjoys falling asleep to people yapping about various boring topics. Yeah, one of my favorite parts of the genre is this website that produces podcasts that recreates a baseball game, a fictional baseball game that would appear on the radio maybe a few decades ago. And they have the crowd noise, which is this white noise. And this guy's doing this baseball game play-by-play in a very hushed tone. That has become super popular for people to use to fall asleep.

22:01There's also Bob Ross videos of him kind of going on and on about his paintings. There's a loops of BBC shipping forecast. So this genre has really exploded. People are reading short stories. People are reading made-up stories. People are reading Wikipedia entries. and so this subgenre of podcast has blown up because people aren't getting as much sleep as they used to and they want to fall asleep. Can you fall asleep to people talking? Because I cannot. Yes. You're good at that? Oh yeah, put me in a lecture class in college and I fell asleep very, very easily. I don't know if it was the setting, but if you just port me over to any one of my, you know, I won't say the class, but any one of those lectures and just play that audio, I will fall asleep in an instant.

22:43But it is very interesting to see how this category of music or sounds has blown up. I really hope people aren't using Morning Brew Daily, but I understand if you do. We're the opposite. We are the opposite. That's why we cranked the music up so loud so no one can fall asleep to us. If you've looked at the Apple App Store over the past few weeks, you may have noticed an odd name sitting atop the free app charts. Delta. No, people aren't suddenly downloading the airline app en masse. Delta is a video game emulator app. It can bring back the glory days of retro games from retro consoles, but on modern technology like your iPhone.

23:18Think different iterations of childhood classic consoles like the Game Boy, Nintendo DS or NES, and classic games like Mario Kart. It also mimics the authentic gameplay with all the buttons and other controls each game was designed for. If this feels a little illegal, you're kind of correct. Emulators are legal, but downloading copies of games is illegal. It's a bit of a gray area. To play anything on these emulators, you technically need to extract a copy from an old cartridge of a game that you personally own. But in reality, most people are just downloading copies of games off the internet via Reddit or Google.