CEOs Sound Off Against Tariffs & The NCAA Case Upending NIL

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0:28Good morning for your daily show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Jamie Dimon leads a chorus of billionaires slamming tariffs. Then how a single tweet added, then erased trillions of dollars from the U.S. stock markets. It's Tuesday, April 8th. Let's ride.

0:46So the Nintendo of America president was making the media rounds yesterday discussing the impact of the trade war on the Switch 2, the company's much-anticipated new console whose pre-sales have been delayed due to tariffs. And that's interesting, but what you really need to know is this guy's name is Doug Bowser. Yes, Bowser, like Mario's arch nemesis. The Nintendo executive and the video game villain have no connection, but it could be a sign of normative determinism, the theory that people tend to gravitate toward work that fits their names. Well, if you thought that was a crazy bit of Nintendo naming lore, try this one on for size.

1:24There was this civil rights attorney, John Joseph Kirby, who famously defended Nintendo in a major IP case that allowed Nintendo to keep using the name Donkey Kong. That win helped solidify the company's rise and also earned him the honor of being the namesake for their little pink character, also named Kirby. And get this, I'm named Toby because my mom stubbed her toe on a B and Neil is named Neil because, okay, I'll stop. Let's get to the ad. A word from our sponsor, Tax Act. If you run a small business and you're doing your own taxes right now, stop. Seriously, drop the Form 1040. There is a better way.

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3:17But how we got to that relatively benign closing figure was an absolute roller coaster. As expected, the market opened deep in the red as Trump showed no signs of backing down from his tariff plans. But then things went haywire right around 10 a.m. Suddenly, the S &P 500 switched from red to green, soaring over 7 % in a matter of minutes. The culprit? A rumor started on X that there would be a 90-day pause on all tariffs except for China. The tweet in question came from an anonymous account that goes by Walter Bloomberg, no relation to the actual Bloomberg, who wrote that the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, said Trump was considering a respite.

3:57That rumor spread like wildfire. It was eventually picked up by CNBC, leading to the massive stock run-up. Then came the reality check. People started to realize that the rumor was exactly that, a rumor. And an hour later, the White House issued a statement outright denying the report, and the market quickly made a U-turn. Just to put the volatility into perspective, the entire stock market gained, then lost more money in a matter of minutes based on a single unverified tweet than it was worth 40 years ago. Two and a half trillion dollars of movement, one tweet. Finally, just to throw one more variable into the cauldron of volatility, Trump went on to threaten an extra 50 % tariff on China if they didn't rescind their 34 % tariff on U.S.

4:40goods. It all combined to add up to a whole lot of nothing. The S &P 500 closed down just 0.2%, while the Nasdaq eked out a 0.1 % gain. Neil, there were dumps, then pumps, then dumps again, enough to give your portfolio whiplash. It was pretty wild. I mean, the S &P 500 was down 3.4. Sorry, it was down 4.7 percent for the day, officially entering bear market territory. Then this tweet comes along and everyone's like, well, where is this information from? So there's a wild goose chase on Twitter to find that. But it had really severe market implications. And then the S &P 500 went from down 4.7 % to up 3.4 % for the day before finding a sense of calm and futures look good this morning.

5:25They're all in the green. All three indexes are up over 1%. Japan's Nikkei index was up 6 % for the day. So it seems like markets are finding some measure of calm after two and a half days of truly insane volatility and a big sell off. The Wall Street Journal kind of tracked down this tweet origins to an account named Hammer Capital on X. It is an anonymous account that with 692 followers and a bio that reads memes and vibes. That was the first time this rumor started. And then it got picked up by this much larger Walter Bloomberg account. And then just absolute chaos broke out. And I think a lot of people take the takeaway from this story is just how fast information moves in today's trading environment.

6:08because it really just underscores how many investors are just fevious for any information that might calm this market, but then also how quickly Wall Street's high-frequency trading algorithms react to news like that, which is why we saw this just incredible run-up. It's one of the biggest intraday moves ever in the stock market. You have to go back to March of 2020 to find a move of similar magnitude, and it all comes from really these algorithms reacting to this one little shred of information. So I think it just shows the current trading environment we live in has the ability to make these massive moves based on just how quickly you can react to new information.

6:50And it also shows how thirsty investors are for Trump to roll back these tariffs. It perhaps is a preview of what could happen should he rescind the tariffs. Yesterday, we got even more conflicting news. Investors really want to know. They're flying blind right now. They really want to know whether these tariffs are permanent or they're part of a negotiation. And Trump was asked this, whether they are permanent or up for a negotiation, because that would provide a lot of clarity for investors. And he replied, they can both be true. And this was also evidenced yesterday by conflicting reports by two of his trade advisors or his economic officials.

7:27Secretary of Treasury Scott Bacent said that following a very constructive phone discussion with the government of Japan, I'm starting to negotiate with Japan. 11 minutes later, Peter Navarro, the key architect of this trade plan for Trump, wrote a Financial Times op-ed where he said, this is not a negotiation. For the U.S., this is a national emergency triggered by trade deficits caused by a rigged system. So you have one economic official saying, we're starting negotiations. The next 11 minutes later saying, we are not negotiating. And that has left traders very confused, which could provide an overhang for the markets for days to come until we get a little more clarity.

8:05Meanwhile, the market turmoil since last Wednesday has lost Wall Street Titans a lot of money. And anyone who's watched their portfolio tank, you know that you start to get a little cranky. A number of the biggest names in finance have spoken out against Trump's tariffs in the last few days, warning of severe economic headwinds to come and even possibly a recession. One of the more surprising critics is Jamie diamond the leader of the biggest bank in the country jp morgan and the most tenured and influential of all wall street ceos in his annual letter to shareholders shareholders yesterday morning diamond said that there were some legitimate reasons for the tariffs however he added in their current implementation they will drive up inflation and slow down growth and you better wrap this up soon because quote the quicker this issue is resolved the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse that is a reversal from Diamond's position as recently as January when he told people worried about tariffs to, quote, get over it.

9:01Diamond's not the only one, not the only banking baron sounding the alarm. Bill Ackman, a Trump supporter, warned of economic nuclear winter over tariffs and the influential, but typically private investor Stanley Drunkenmiller issued a rare statement on X saying that he doesn't support tariffs over 10 percent. Toby, the billionaire dam has broken. It absolutely has. And it's not just Wall Street specific billionaires as well. Elon Musk has also been sounding off against this tariff situation. He's kind of publicly sniped at the key tariff architect you mentioned, Peter Navarro, saying that his PhD from Harvard is a bad thing and not a good thing.

9:38And then Navarro kind of struck back and said, he's just protecting his own interests. He's a businessman. Of course, he doesn't like this. So you are seeing some of these cracks form in kind of this coalition around Trump with Elon Musk, with Bill Ackman, you know, sending a lot of tweets about how he wants a little 90 day timeout on this tariff situation. So you are seeing the who's who of Wall Street, basically influencers. I know it's a ridiculous thing to call Jamie Dimon, but that's what they are kind of sounding off and letting their feelings be known about these tariffs. And another one of those influencers was someone we talked about last week, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

10:12He got up at the Economic Club of New York and said he didn't talk about the tariffs specifically, but he said most CEOs I talked to would say we are probably in a recession right now. This comes after his annual letter last week where he said we are in one of the more uncertain economic environments that he's ever seen. So he's joining the chorus along with Bill Ackman. And another name to know that spoke out was Ken Langone. He's the co-founder of Home Depot, longtime Republican donor. He said, I don't understand the gosh darn formula. He didn't say gosh darn. He said something else similar.

10:45I believe he's been poorly advised by his advisors about this trade situation and the formula they're applying. So Ken Langone, Larry Fink, Bill Ackman, Jamie Dimon have all kind of said recently in the past few days that we need to get this thing wrapped up because it's causing a ton of uncertainty and could lead to a recession. And then even on Washington as well, Ted Cruz has raised fears about the next election cycle. And then some Republicans have started pushing towards signing legislation that would allow Congress to remove tariffs with a majority vote. So you are seeing some pushback on the Hill as well.

11:17And then finally, we are going to hear from Wall Street once more again this week because JPMorgan, BlackRock and Wells Fargo are all due to announce earnings on Friday. What if I told you that Florida beating Houston last night in the men's national championship game was not the most important thing to happen in college sports yesterday? Perhaps the more significant development happened in a courtroom in California where a judge heard the final hearing and a settlement that will rip up the NCAA's amateurism model as we know it and allow schools to directly pay players for the first time. Experts say it's the biggest structural change in the entire history of collegiate athletics and arguably one of the most significant legal milestones in sports history, not just college.

11:58The settlement stems from several massive multibillion-dollar lawsuits filed against the NCAA over player compensation, which the organization has worked for over a year to resolve. The judge still needs to approve it, and she declined to yesterday, telling lawyers to make some small tweaks and get back to her in a week. But when she does, as expected, the landscape of college sports will never be the same. Among the sweeping changes, schools would be able to start sharing revenue with student athletes. Team sizes would be governed by roster limits instead of scholarships. And name, image, and likeness deals, NIL, would be overseen by a third-party clearinghouse that ensures they are fair value.

12:36Toby, there's two major parts of this settlement, one looking back and one looking forward. Yeah, let's look at the backward-looking one first. It offers a remedy for college athletes who played before 2021, which is when the NCAA allowed players to cash in on their name, image, and likeness. And so there's about a$3 billion,$2.75 billion pot that is set to be distributed to those players. And that is really based on which sports you played and at which schools. The majority of that money is going to go towards the Power Five conferences and money-making sports like football and basketball. So if you are a swimmer or maybe if you are a soccer player, you're not going to get a large sum, but you will have a little bit of money waiting there for you.

13:20But it really is the future where the big transformation is kind of aligning here because going forward, allowing schools to share revenue with student athletes is just a complete rewritten and a complete upending of the old amortism laws that governed NCAA sports. So this is definitely one of those things that completely rewrites the rulebook around how college sports are going to be approached. Yeah. So schools will have a for now a twenty point five million dollar salary cap to spend on players. And it applies to those big four power conferences, plus the Pac-12 and other schools can opt in.

13:56And the question is, will this increase or decrease parity? And as always, with NCAA changes, it appears like this is a rich get richer situation. Alabama, Ohio State, all these companies make a ton, or all these schools, they are basically companies. They make so much money in their athletic departments because of these powerhouse football programs and secondarily basketball. So they will have more money to marshal to pay players. And also, while NIL is not going away, it's moving to a third-party clearinghouse situation managed by Deloitte, they will probably have more resources at their disposal to broker NIL deals.

14:32So players will be able to get some of that revenue sharing and NIL deals. So it does seem like the power conferences will put even more distance with the rest of the pack. One knock-on effect of this, too, is that it's a totally new way of running an athletics program, and it's a lot more pro-based. And so what you will be seeing is more of these GM figures come in to say, hey, how do we manage a roster? How much is a player worth? What salary should we devote towards them? So you're going to see colleges and universities hiring, sometimes former athletes, Like Steph has been named the GM of Davidson's basketball program.

15:03So you are going to see people coming in to run these like professional sports franchises because that's basically what they are. And then finally, one thing that we have to mention is that with these new roster sizes incoming, a lot of players who maybe were under scholarship will now no longer be receiving the aid that they thought they would. So that's been a big pushback from a lot of current and former athletes is saying, hey, you are up ending these kids lives here. They're probably going to have to transfer, but transferring is a very traumatic situation. You don't bring your friends with you, even though you might play a sport there.

15:34So you are seeing some pushback specifically around this roster limitation from athletes, which is maybe one of the big sticking points that will hang this settlement up. Up next, let's talk about Toby's Trends. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one.

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17:20What if I told you that the hottest new fashion trend wasn't wide-legged jeans or biker shorts, but something much more attached to you? Something you probably dealt with in middle school? Something on your teeth? Yep, brace yourself for another Toby's Trends, because today we're talking about braces making a comeback. Suddenly, jaw hardware is the hottest new status symbol amongst the youths and adults alike. Orthodontists have reported a rise in interest in the once uncool OG metal braces as wearers are embracing their imperfections and flashing metallic smiles with pride. Part of it is tied to popular culture, old and new.

17:57There was Marsha Brady in The Brady Bunch and, of course, America Ferreira in Ugly Betty. But contemporary stars like rapper Lil Uzi Vert are also proudly flaunting their orthodontic infrastructure, leading to an uptick of young people wanting to do the same. Part of the appeal, though, is undeniably tied to price tag. Braces can range from$3 ,000 to$10 ,000 and are often not covered by insurance. So rocking 10 racks on your face is just the latest way to flex. Plus, accessories like colorful rubber bands and jewels turn braces into tooth bling and offer wearers another outlet to express their individuality.

18:33Neil, as a former brace face myself, I'm happy to see this narrative shifting, but it is a bit baffling at the same time. Well, I was going to say, I wish they were cool when I had them in eighth grade. And when I think about a braces comeback, that usually refers to something you respond to someone when they make fun of you for having braces, which, you know, I think happened to a lot of us back in the day. It's a little it's a little baffling. But, you know, as you mentioned, you can see it as a way to personally express yourself. recently I did do Invisalign and you know in this article about about braces they were like they quoted a bunch of people saying Invisalign was boring and I'm like yeah that's kind of the point you want to keep this thing a little discreet because it's very visible but the tides have turned the youth have spoken and I guess braces are cool again braces are cool but you are right that part of it is that Invisalign is not only boring but people are don't like having to remember to wear their trays and you have to wear them for 22 hours a day.

19:31You have to take them out when you eat. So part of it is just the logistics of it all. They'd rather just have these braces. But part of it is that a lot of people are just saying that they're embracing this. They are literally working on self-improvement. So like, why would I hide this thing? Like I'm trying to invest in my experience here. So now you're seeing kids who used to, you know, beg to take them off, begging to leave them on because it's become a part of their personality and something like that. And these orthodontists are posting in Facebook groups, national Facebook groups and going, is anyone else seeing this?

19:59And they're all like, yes, for some reason, these kids do not want to take them off. So I think it's a good thing overall though, because braces were traumatic for a lot of kids. Like you didn't want to even smile. It made us all do those smizes where you don't open your teeth. But now if people are embracing them, I think that's overall probably a good thing. Now let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Shopify has drawn a line in the sand when it comes to AI usage at the company, stating that not only is it encouraged, but AI use is now a fundamental expectation for all employees.

20:31Shopify CEO Toby Lutke emphasized the critical role AI will play in a memo he posted on X yesterday. He told staff to treat AI as a tool for innovation and efficiency and push to integrate it into tasks like product development, performance reviews, and even hiring decisions. Lutke highlighted that teams must demonstrate why AI cannot fulfill the needs before requesting additional resources or headcount. He also warned against stagnation, arguing that embracing AI is and will be essential for staying competitive as a business. You know, outside of Klarna's AI-obsessed CEO, this might be the most explicit endorsement of AI we've seen from a major company.

21:09And Shopify, Toby, has always been the Toby with an I, not you, has always been kind of pushing the technological bounds of workplace productivity in early 2023, kind of rock the hr world he sent this memo directing employees to stop holding an absurd amount of meetings the company literally went into people's calendars deleted 12 000 events freeing up 95 000 hours and now he goes with this very you know buzzy uh or interesting boundary pushing ai memo as well saying you can't get more people on your team if ai can do that and you have to prove that AI can't do that. And you just wonder how big the overall headcounts of tech companies is going to be now.

21:51We saw huge hiring during the pandemic. Then there were major layoffs, and now it's kind of stagnated. Shopify had a total headcount of 8 ,100 at the end of December from 8 ,300 a year earlier. And you wonder with this new directive, whether that will ever grow again. Klarna, as you mentioned, is another AI forward fintech company that wants to decrease its headcount from 4 ,000 to 2 ,000. You just wonder what this means for the overall picture for tech jobs. Another company thought, hey, what if we did Game of Thrones, but make it real? Colossal Biosciences announced yesterday that they had created three dire wolves, which haven't existed on Earth in more than 12 ,000 years.

22:33If Colossal sounds familiar, that's because it's the$10 billion company trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth and de-extinct a bunch of other lost species like the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger. But it surprised the world yesterday with the introduction of the direwolves, two brothers named Romulus and Remus, and their sister named, of course, Khaleesi. How did they do it? The team took gray wolf cells, edited the genes to focus on specific direwolf traits, like heavy muscles, inserted those cells into domestic dogs, then finally implanted those into different dogs that served as surrogates. Voila, you get a direwolf.

23:08Toby, are you impressed? I am impressed, mainly because these direwolves are going to be really big, bigger than normal gray wolves when they're fully grown, 140 pounds. But also these animals were bred by, you know, studying DNA from original direwolves, which date back to a 13 ,000-year-old tooth, a 72 ,000-year-old skull. So they had to pick and choose these genes and insert them into genes from a gray wolf. And yeah, their next stop is de-extinction. But I'm also impressed with this other announcement that was kind of overshadowed by bringing direwolves back. And that was that they had cloned four red wolves, which are currently a critically endangered population in the U.S.

23:46And the aim is to bring more genetic diversity to the population of captive red wolves. So they're trying to breed and help save the species. So even amongst these buzzy, you know, bring back Game of Thrones, extinct era wolves, they also are working towards, you know, supporting and trying to save species that are currently alive today. So that's kind of the colossal playbook that we've been seeing make headlines with this big announcement, but also work to save current species on Earth today. I have to make an admission. I didn't know dire wolves were real. That is a fair admission. Right? Yeah.

24:18I thought they were straight up Game of Thrones characters. Well, I mean, are they real still? Because technically these are cross-banned with gray wolves, but that is a fair admission. I probably was on the same page, but I would never admit it live on this podcast. All right, let's move on. Some people will do anything for clicks, even if it means risking death or potentially causing a micro-apocalypse. In March, a YouTuber who goes by the name of Neo-Orientalist illegally visited North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean, home to the ultra-isolated Sentinelese tribe, leaving behind a coconut, a can of cola, and a whole lot of risk.