Billionaire Summer Camp Kicks Off & FTC Blocks $4B Mattress Merger

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, if you're a tourist in Barcelona, bring your poncho. Protesters have been spraying visitors with water guns. Then summer camp for billionaires just kicked off in Sun Valley, Idaho. What deals will emerge between s'mores making seshes this year? It's Tuesday, July 9th. Let's ride.

0:55Reservations at Washington, D.C.'s finest establishments will be at a premium tonight because the city is hosting some major events beginning today. First up, Fed Chair Jerome Powell is heading across town to Capitol Hill, where he'll testify before the Senate Banking Committee. He only does this twice a year, so it's a rare opportunity for investors to hear how he's thinking about possible rate cuts and the economy more broadly. After getting quizzed by the Senate today, he'll repeat the same exercise tomorrow in the House. Then President Biden and leaders from NATO are meeting in Washington as well for the next three days to mark the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic military partnership.

1:33Ukraine will be a big topic of discussion and a new plan to coordinate the delivery of equipment and training for its armed forces will be hashed out this week. It's also a big week for Biden and his reelection campaign. He looked to put together a solid performance to show the U.S.'s allies and the world he's still fit to lead. You are so right on that restaurant reservation thing. Going to be an absolute disaster. Now, a word from our sponsor meta ai so i was watching the euros the other day and was sending some memes back and forth in an instagram group chat i wasn't in the group chat it was soccer friends from college okay but the memes were flowing when all of a sudden someone sends an ai image of a goat wearing a portugal jersey like ronaldo or an actual goat an actual billy goat so naturally i pulled up meta ai and asked it to generate an image of a goat wearing an argentina jersey and you could just tell the The Argentinian goat was far more naturally talented and better at involving his teammates than the Portuguese goat.

2:32That is shockingly realistic. Shout out Meta AI. Shout out Meta AI indeed. Expand your world and your ball knowledge with Meta AI. Now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger. Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John host a highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They 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!

3:09On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. While you are still trying to unpack your 4th of July overnight bag, media heavy hitters, tech moguls, and billionaires, oh my, are settling into their digs in Sun Valley, Idaho today. Tuesday marks the start of the annual networking conference hosted by the investment bank Allen & Co., known as Summer Camp for Billionaires. With an invite list reportedly including legacy media giants like Warner Bros. Discovery's David Zlaslav, Disney's Bob Iger, streaming royalty like Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, and tech titans like Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg, the stories told around the campfire won't be ghostly in nature.

3:51Instead, there will be plenty of deal-making and gossip as the tech and media elites gather to shape the future of their industry in between rounds of golf and guided hikes. One big talking point will no doubt be the recent Paramount Skydance merger, and matriarch Sherry Redstone will be in attendance. But more forward-looking issues on the agenda will be the ramifications of the upcoming U.S. election, the unraveling of traditional media models, and the increasing market share tech giants are eating up. Neil, what camp drama are you looking forward to this year? Well, I would say maybe a few years ago, everyone would be going up to the hottest people there would be the Bob Igers of the world, the leaders of these huge entertainment conglomerates.

4:32But I think the person everyone wants to get in a chat with will be OpenAI's Sam Altman. AI will be a hot topic. He appears to be on the attendee list, and it's really shrouded in secrecy. You have no idea who's coming until they drop off their PJ in the Sun Valley airport there. But I do think AI will be huge as media and tech grapples with the AI boom. And I think Sam Altman will kind of be the all-star there that everyone wants to get a piece of. There's definitely a totally different power dynamic than there used to be here because it really did used to be those legacy media players that were the kingmakers.

5:09They controlled what the kind of industry did. But now they're the ones sucking up to not even just AI, but traditional tech powerhouses like Tim Cook, like Andy Jassy from Amazon, because these are the deep pocketed people who are controlling the entertainment industry these days. So and yes, you're right. I'd be shocked if some of those media and AI executives, if there are no deals emerge around content sharing partnerships with AI companies, I would be very shocked about that. Right. So in the past, Sun Valley is known as the Coachella for deal making. Some of the biggest mergers we've ever seen in tech and in media have started with Sun Valley and the discussions taking place over foie gras there.

5:52I mean, you had Disney's acquisition of ABC, AOL's acquisition of Time Warner for like $180 billion, Jeff Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post, Google's purchase of YouTube. They all started at Sun Valley. So we'll have to see what happens here. The major big point of discussion will be like, hey, we want to merge. But guess what? But, you know, the Biden administration's FTC has prevented a lot of mergers. They've been very hostile to M &A. So I think that will be a part of the discussion of the global political landscape and the presidential election in the United States about the fact that there's been such a crackdown on M &A and dealmaking writ large.

6:29Yeah. Bundling and unbundling is going to be on the agenda. Because remember, all these media companies are creating these bundles. You have Disney, Warner Bros are bundling Disney Plus, Hulu and Max. and then Comcast has this Netflix, Apple TV Plus and Peacock bundle. So I do think that we're either going to see some decoupling or recoupling, some bundling or unbundling, whatever you want to call it, happening behind the scenes. I also wonder if broadcast rights are going to come up too because commissioners often attend this. Roger Goodell might be there, might not be. So this is kind of the last hurrah it feels like for traditional broadcasting deals, for these traditional media companies to get a piece of the live sporting world because they're just getting priced out.

7:11I mean, we just saw the NBA deal, $76 billion with various partners. It looks like only tech companies are going to be able to afford the increasing inflation around sports media, right, deal. So I think we're going to see maybe a last hurrah of a sports commissioner attending this event. Yeah, so, I mean, if you want to go to Sun Valley, I mean, it does sound like a fun time. I make a lot of money, but there are certain rules that you have to adhere to. You can't talk about the press to the press about the event. You can't arrive late, more than five minutes to any of the sessions and you can't skip out early unless maybe you're Mark Zuckerberg and you have other things to attend to, but you have to stay the whole time.

7:51Alec Baldwin will be in a Santa Fe courtroom today for the start of his trial over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Helena Hutchins on a movie set nearly three years ago. The actor is charged with felony involuntary manslaughter and if he's convicted by a jury, he could spend 18 months in prison. This wild story has had a lot of twists and turns. So here's how we got to this point. In October 2021, while Baldwin was filming his Western movie Rust in New Mexico, he was holding a gun that fired a live round and killed Hutchins. No one suspects Baldwin of discharging the gun on purpose, but prosecutors argue he was negligent with his use of the firearm.

8:30And it speaks to broader safety lapses on the set of the movie, which had a tiny$7.4 million budget. The The Santa Fe County DA charged him and the movie's armorer with involuntary manslaughter, then abruptly dismissed the charges against Baldwin, then brought them back citing new evidence, which is how we've arrived at Alec Baldwin entering a Santa Fe courthouse this morning to see whether he'll go to jail. I was reading a New York Times article about this, and they said it is shocking how much this resembles a Western movie. The plot of Alec Baldwin's trial resembles the plot of a Western movie where there's vengeance.

9:06there's justice and it feels like we're finally reaching the third final climactic at and the stakes are very very high here because yeah Alec Baldwin could go to jail for 18 months if found guilty already though things have been looking a little dicey for the prosecution because they ruled a major ruling that happened yesterday was that they cannot prosecute him as a as his role as a producer because he was an actor and a producer as well so that was a bit of a setback already for the prosecution. But this trial is one that we've been talking about for three years now, and we're finally going to see it kind of come to its conclusion.

9:43Yeah, one of the main, the main nitty gritty detail here would be, did he pull the trigger or not on the gun? He claims he just pulled the hammer back. The prosecution claims he actually pulled the trigger and they'll bring a witness, someone who was holding a boom mic on the set at that moment to testify that Baldwin pulled the trigger. So that will be probably one of the key pieces of evidence. But just zooming out, there are a lot of broader themes. You said this is a Western movie. There are a lot of broader themes going on at play here. First, you have Alec Baldwin bringing in a bunch of Harvard Law lawyers, including Alex Spiro, who's defended Elon Musk and Megan Thee Stallion and other celebrities.

10:22So he's going, they're all like shipping out to New Mexico, where you have these frontier prosecutors who are already sort of hostile to outsiders. And so there's this really fascinating culture cast between corporate lawyers on the East Coast. And then you have the Santa Fe prosecution team as well. And then there is a huge increase in movie films and TV being set up in New Mexico. And there's a little sort of conflict around that because they've got huge tax breaks to film in New Mexico. I mean, Breaking Bad really started the boom. Netflix has a huge studio in Albuquerque. So that is another aspect at play here where there's a huge influx of outsiders coming into Mexico, start filming movies.

11:06And this Alec Baldwin thing is just one of them. And then the final wrinkle I want to bring up too, is that there's these dueling documentaries being produced right now because Alec Baldwin ruffled some feathers because he was pushing his own director who actually was affected by the bullet that he fired to give access to the rust set so he could produce this documentary that painted him in a more sympathetic light. Then There's also another documentary being produced by a friend of Hutchins meant to memorialize her that are being the prosecutors trying to use both of them as evidence. So there's all these different entertainment and wrinkles surrounding this.

11:41And these dueling documentaries is just kind of the third thing that is making this even more interesting. Meanwhile, they filmed the movie. They finished the movie shooting in Montana. And they're currently looking for a distributor to sort of spread this movie and show it in theaters. so I don't know whether they'll be able to do that. But yes, the movie has been finished. Have you ever walked by a mattress firm and thought, how does this place stay in business? Well, you're onto something because it is struggling to stay in business. Mattress firm sales fell 5.6 % last year and it's closed 900 stores since its parent company filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

12:15But Temper Sealy, the biggest mattress manufacturer in the world, thought mattress firm still had some juice left in its old springs and agreed to buy it for$4 billion back in May of last year. Unfortunately for Temprasili, though, Lena Khan and the FTC had other ideas. The agency didn't like the sound of the biggest mattress manufacturer, Temprasili, teaming up with the biggest mattress retailer, Mattress Firm. So last week, the agency voted to block the deal, saying it would give the new entity too much control over pricing. So now the deal between the two of the industry's biggest players is left in limbo, as the dream of a mattress tie-up has turned into more of a nightmare.

12:53I mean, the mattress industry is absolutely collapsing on itself right now. Sales are down 22 % from 2023 to 2021. Reminded me of when we talked about grills the other week, where during the early days of the pandemic, everyone scooped up on fancy mattresses and wanted to really just have the best home experience possible during the early days of COVID and really pulled forward demand. And once you have a mattress, you don't necessarily need one for the next couple of years. I mean, hopefully because they're very expensive. And so I think we're seeing a huge slump in the mattress industry and these firms want to tie up.

13:27The FTC is saying, hey, even if you're still struggling, this would create an anti-competitive atmosphere in the industry because you're tying up the number one retailer with the number one manufacturer. And that's going to box out rivals. The craziest thing about this story, though, is that we keep saying mattress firm is the number one retailer. It only has two point nine percent of the mattress market. So, yeah, technically it's the biggest because that's just of how fractured the mattress market is. all these mattress in a box companies casper tuft and needle these companies that you've probably seen on your instagram feed just completely fractured the market how about this stat though there are more places to buy a mattress in the u.s than there are places to buy a big mac so yes there are more mattress stores 15 255 than mcdonald's which only is 14 000 uh u.s stores so absolutely insane mattress firm still has 2300 locations that's after closing 900 them.

14:19So talk about a fractured market. There are just so many places to buy a mattress. Well, it's not that hard to create a mattress company, as we saw in that huge boom in the mattress in a box industry from like 2017 to 2019 that birthed the, you know, probably the leader in this tree then was Casper. There were 175 companies, all direct to consumer mattress in 2019. That has sort of fizzled out because it was so the barrier to entry is so low because you just are basically a marketing company and anyone can make a mattress. It's just not that hard. And then you pay for Instagram and Facebook ads, but that didn't end up being a sustainable business.

14:57Casper went public in 2020 at a valuation of more than a billion, but its stock price fell to$7 and it was sold for scraps to a private equity firm. So this business model just hasn't worked out for those D2C online mattress companies. Up next, Europeans are tired of the hordes of American tourists descending upon their continent every summer.

15:19This 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. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

15:45eczema isn't always obvious but it's real and so is the relief from ebglyss after an initial dosing phase about four in ten people taking ebglyss achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing ebglyss libri kizumab lbkz a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies.

16:21EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EBCLIS and visit ebclus.lily.com or call Call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Do you ever feel like you're not wanted, like you don't belong? Well, you're probably a tourist in Barcelona last weekend.

16:53On Saturday, thousands of anti-tourist protesters marched through the Spanish city to vent about mass tourism and its negative impacts on the place they call home. They chanted, tourists, go home, and even sprayed people eating at restaurants with water guns, forcing them to switch tables. The anger is real, folks. Barcelona is the poster child of the current over-tourism problem, with more than 12 million people visiting last year alone. Odds are you know two or three people there now. Locals complain that visitors are pushing up housing prices, putting pressure on public services, and turning their city into a Catalan Disney World instead of a place where real people live, play, and work.

17:32They say the juice from tourist money just isn't worth the squeeze of a housing crisis. The government does seem to be listening. Earlier this year, Barcelona announced a ban on all short-term rentals by 2029 and perhaps the most aggressive action by any city against Airbnb. But at least for now, it seems the super soaking will continue until morale improves. All you got to do is look through your Instagram feed right now to see this tourism boom that we're talking about. I find it interesting, though, how quickly Europe's recent history has just been flipped on its head, though, because if you think about the 2010s, It was Germany, these manufacturing heavy economies that were honestly helping drag the continent out of the debt crisis that happened in 2008.

18:17But now if you look at the countries that are driving its economic boom, it is Mediterranean countries, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal. It's interesting, too, because Germany's economy is not doing very well right now. It's flatlining. Yet here is Spain. Spain is Europe's fastest growing big economy, and it's coming a lot of it from tourism. Spain and Portugal and Greece, Portugal's GDP grew nearly 8 % between 2019 and 2024. In Germany, that was less than 1%. Nearly three quarters of Spain's recent growth and one in four new jobs are linked to tourism. And in Greece, as many as 44 % of all jobs are connected to tourism.

18:57So these southern European Mediterranean countries are just absolutely booming and they're overfilled with Americans right now. and the locals are saying to leaders, you're working for them and you're not working for us. And all this money that is flowing in may be short term. You know, we don't know how the winds are going to shift and people might want to visit other places. We're not creating a steady, sustainable economy. Here in Barcelona, our housing prices have increased 68 % over the last decade. And they're just absolutely fed up with all of us going over there and eating and doing all these things that are just sort of ruining their, what they say is just ruining their way of life.

19:36And tourism is a highly cyclical industry. It's very much tied to seasons. It also keeps you from investing in other areas that could build your economy. I mean, in tech, manufacturing, stuff like that. Also, the dollar is ultra strong right now. So if the dollar falters even a little bit, there is a chance that the millions of Americans who are suddenly able to afford their dream European vacations won't be able to go on that European holiday. So lots of intersecting pieces here. Tourism is good and bad. It's the side of the same coin. But I do love that Barcelona protesters were just, the pictures coming out of this were hilarious.

20:11They're just squirting them with water guns. Because when I saw the headline, I thought it was because they were being nice and it was very hot over there. But that was clearly not the case. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. Kids love them. Parents buy them. but there's something deeper going on with our nation's berries that it's important for you to know about and it's this juicy berry secret that i want to talk about on today's edition of toby's trends where i poke around the internet for a trend you should keep your eye on okay here it is you aren't imagining it the berries you are buying at the grocery store actually are tasting better than ever the wall street journal visited driscoll's the world's largest berry company to find out what was up and it turns out that their mad scientists have created a better sweeter line of berry It's called Swedish Batch, and they are marked with a yellow sticker denoting their special status.

21:00They are expensive, and they are somewhat hard to find, but what separates them from other berries is that they were created primarily with taste in mind. When you're a berry farmer, things like color, shelf life, susceptibility to disease, efficiency of harvest, all factor into which berries make it to the shelf. Taste is often not the chief concern at all, but Swedish Batch flipped the script, giving us a chance to see what ultra-flavorful berries actually taste like, maybe for the first time ever. Neil, this is the goat strand of berries that is emerging. I just hope everyone gets a chance to taste them.

21:32Well, as Willy Wonka said about snozzberries, we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams. And it seems like Driscoll's is really taking that to heart and going all in on more of a luxury type of berry because berry sales are absolutely booming right now. They're at$9 billion annually, which is up 40 % over the past five years. This is one of the fastest growing products in the entire grocery store. And they're saying, why don't we go up market a little bit? We might be able to produce less of them, which is those tradeoffs you were talking about. But we'll see if we can sell raspberries for$9,$10,$11,$12 for dollars, a bunch for people who are maybe primed to even going to the farmer's market and won't be surprised to see prices like that.

22:14A lot of the golden rule with berries is that you need to have enough yield for it to be profitable. But Driscoll's came along and said to its farmers, like, hey, you can lower your yield requirement for this one. And they kind of went nuts because they're like, finally, we get to create a berry that just tastes good. A lot of grocery store managers and produce procurement people for places like Whole Foods are saying, we're treating the berry section like the wine section now where you have this vast selection. You can go cheaper if you want or you can go upscale and get the tastier one. So I love the fact that you can go to the grocery store and pick and choose.

22:51It is very pricey, though. And parents listening to this absolutely know what we're talking about because kids are just obsessed with Barry these days. They can't get enough of them. And once you give them a taste of the sweetest batch, you might be breaking the bank from there on forward because they do just taste a lot better. This also ties into a broader trend of produce companies coming out with super luxury fruit. recently Del Monte released a$400 Ruby Glow pineapple, which is this designer pineapple. They're selling for$400. There's$156 melon. There's strawberries from Japan, these pink-hued ones that sell for$128 per pack.

23:31So you're starting to see the fruit aisle just become, yeah, like a wine aisle or a Lamborghini aisle where people are paying hundreds. I don't know how many people, but it's this designer limited item good where people are paying a zillion dollars for just this little fruit or berry. Wait, what's your favorite berry? This is a very important question right here. I was thinking about that. I think strawberry is not, it's not the best. It's the most plentiful, but it's just not the best. I think I prefer blackberries the most. Oh, interesting. Just in terms of the taste, the texture, that's my favorite.

24:00I like the answer. I'm a raspberry guy. I can't go wrong with raspberries. Raspberries are great. All right, the United States has a lot of things going for it. Tech innovation, Yosemite, Wawa. But one thing we kind of suck at is elevators. In a fascinating opinion piece in the New York Times, Stephen Smith, the director of the Center for Building in North America, explained just how horrible America is at building elevators and traces that failure to why no one can afford a home. Get a load of these stats. The United States currently has about one million elevators. That's the same amount as Spain, which has one seventh of our population and less than half as many apartments.

24:37Switzerland has twice as many passenger elevators as New York City, despite them having three times as many single-family homes and roughly the same population. It did not have to be this way. The United States invented the elevator, and it enabled New York to become the economic center of the world. But now, according to Smith, ludicrous building codes and a two-powerful elevator union have made elevators so costly to build that they simply don't get built. And that's a microcosm of America's struggle to build homes, which has led to record high housing prices. Toby, getting stuck without elevators is almost as rough as getting stuck in one.