Instagram’s Map Feature Sparks Backlash & Sweetgreen’s Future Wilts

0:00Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the 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! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC.

0:34Good morning, Bird Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Instagram Maps has entered the running for the most hated app update of the year. Then Trump wants to bring the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back to the public markets. It's Monday, August 11th. Let's ride.

0:55Good morning and happy Monday. It's going to be a great week. And you know why? Password is back. A few weeks ago, we ran a game that asked you to uncover a word from a series of clues. and the feedback was so positive, we are running it back. Here's how it works. The Brew's puzzle creator, Jack, has created a password, a secret word that you have to guess. Each day this week, we'll give you one clue at the end of the episode that will help you get closer to figuring out the word. You only get one entry, I repeat, one entry, and you can use it at any time this week, but the earlier you send it in, the more likely your name will be selected for the prize.

1:33If you take a wild guess on Monday and happen to get it right, then your entry is worth five submissions. On Tuesday, after the second clue, entries are worth four submissions. By Friday, entries are worth one submission. Okay, Toby, let's hear the first clue. Yeah, before I give you the first password clue, some additional logistics to submit your guess. You can head to the Google form linked in the show description. We will also be posting the link and the clue on our Instagram story. This is also the last time we will be giving you the hint at the beginning of the show. As the week progresses, Wait until right before Neil reads the credits to hear the next password clue.

2:07Now, without further ado, the first clue for you all to mull over. The password becomes something gross when you change its second letter. The password becomes something gross when you change its second letter. What is Jack cooked up for us? If you're feeling confident, go ahead and submit at the link in the show description or on Instagram. If you're not, you got four more hints coming your way. And now a word from our sponsor, LinkedIn Ads. Toby, I keep getting ads for things I have no use for. Like what? There's this one for a nose hair trimmer that pops up over and over again. I find it interesting that you think that's something you have no use for, but I hear you.

2:48We are inundated with useless ads every day. And a big part of that is because marketers are wasting their time and money. We can revisit the nose hair thing later, but LinkedIn Ads can help you stop wasting resources like money, time, and effort. like 71 % of B2B ads, they can find the right audience for your brand. They've got over 130 million decision makers and more than 10 million C-suite execs, aka the people you need for your business on their platform. Target by job title, industry, company, and more. So try LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will even give you a$100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it for yourself.

3:23Just go to linkedin.com slash mbd. That's linkedin.com slash mbd. Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. One of the lasting legacies of the 2008 financial crisis was the government using taxpayer dollars to bail out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, locking them into a government conservatorship. But 17 years later, a growing number of people, including President Trump, want to bring the two mortgage market linchpins out of that agreement and back into the public markets. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published a report saying that the Trump administration is making plans to potentially sell stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, valuing the two companies at roughly$500 billion combined.

4:05They sound like they could be your neighbors down the block, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stand for Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Despite both having mortgage in their name, neither Fannie nor Freddie actually lend money directly to home buyers. Instead, they buy mortgages from banks, bundle them into investments, and promise to cover losses if too many homeowners can't pay, which helps keep mortgage rates low. But it also caused them to suffer massive financial losses when the housing market crashed, prompting the government to step in and keep them from going bankrupt.

4:39And there they've remained under government control, albeit with a small float of publicly tradable shares, for the last 17 years, despite numerous stop-start attempts to end the conservatorship. Neil, this could be another one of those failed attempts, but Trump in a slate of wealthy investors, including Bill Ackman, have been pushing for this idea for a long time now. Are Fannie and Freddie finally going to make this partial stock market exit that's been teased for so long? Think of the biggest, most complex financial transaction you can imagine. And then this is 10 times more complex and bigger than that.

5:13It would be the biggest IPO of all time. They're looking to raise$30 billion. That would top Saudi Aramco's$29.4 billion listing in Saudi Arabia in 2019. That's currently the number one biggest IPO on record. And then the second one for the U.S. market, which is the top one in the U.S. market, is Alibaba's$25 billion IPO back in 2014. So these combined companies could be worth$500 billion, raising$30 billion. They're aiming to have this happen by the end of the year, and they're convening the right people. A few weeks ago, the White House gathered all the CEOs of the largest six banks in the country, Morgan Stanley, J.P.

5:54Morgan, Goldman Sachs, et cetera, et cetera, because this IPO is going to be so big that you need all of these banks on board to help out. Investment banks certainly want this because it is such a complex deal that it would be a massive boon for Wall Street banks because, remember, they're the ones who get the fees for advising on those deals. And just the size of this listing alone would mean that a lot of different bankers would take part. So they're kind of licking their chops at this. Also, a lot of the big hedge fund investors want this as well because Bill Ackman has been kind of betting for years that this exact thing would happen and it has been slowly accruing shares in the public part of these companies.

6:33Again, this is a very confusing thing because even though it's in a government conservatorship, some shares are traded over the counter. They're not listed on like your normal brokerage app that you could go in and buy this morning. But a lot of more sophisticated investors have been saying like, hey, we think this is coming down the pipeline. Let's start accruing a stake. And since Trump has elected, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares have been inching upward. They've more than doubled in value. So after this latest report from the Wall Street Journal, they were up 20 percent. So again, you have a lot of very powerful people from Wall Street banks to sophisticated hedge fund managers who have a vested interest in this, which is why a lot of people are saying this time around we could see them return to the public markets.

7:15But there are critics of IPO-ing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As you mentioned at the top, they have been credited with keeping mortgage rates low for Americans for decades. And I know mortgage rates don't seem that low right now. They're around 7%. But compared to the rest of the world, the United States, Americans do pay a lower mortgage rate, and they have this 30-year fixed rate mortgage, which is kind of unprecedented around the world. And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do get a lot of the credit because they create this incredibly liquid market for mortgage-backed securities. And they take so much risk off the table because there's this implicit government guarantee that they will get bailed out should many borrowers default on their loans.

7:56So the reason that you're not paying even more in mortgage rates is because of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the concern is that if it goes away from this government control through an IPO, then mortgage rates will spike. And that's why people are saying, well, hold your horses here. Think of the broader implications for the housing market. Yeah, and there is no deal, no guarantee a deal will come together. Remember, IPOs are complex things. They take a long time to prepare, especially as one as complicated and complex as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So some bankers are still skeptical whether this timeline is likely.

8:33But this probably is the best attempt to privatize these firms that we've seen over the last 17 years. Instagram has spent the past few days putting out fires after a new location sharing feature was panned by users. Last week, Instagram quietly rolled out a new map view that allows you to passively share your location with friends, and it'll show the locations you recently tagged in posts or stories. If that sounds familiar, it's because Snap has a similar feature with Snap Map and Apple has Find My Friends. Instagram called the function a new lightweight way to connect and continued its infamous run of copying features pioneered by Snapchat.

9:09But the launch was a complete mess. Many Instagram users believe their locations would be immediately broadcast to the world without them consenting to it, leading to concerns about stalking and harassment for high profile figures, children and women. And it even caught the eye of lawmakers. Two senators, Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, wrote to Meta urging it to get rid of the maps feature. This backlash led Instagram CEO Adam Masseri to take out his mop and clean things up. On Thursday, he wrote that your location will only be shared if you decide to share it. And if you do, it can only be shared with a limited group of people if you choose.

9:44By default, location sharing is off. Still, the most popular reply to Masseri's clarification was, literally no one asked for this, which pretty much sums up how people feel about Instagram's latest update. I can see why they did it though, because it is very much a part of Gen Z culture to share your location. A lot of us have been raised on GPS where your parents have your location through Find My Friends or something like that. Snap Map obviously brought it to social media many years ago. So there is a desire to see what your friends are doing in real time. I think Instagram did correctly judge that.

10:18what I don't think that they realize is that one people have trust issues when it comes to Instagram is the biggest social media app in the world they have trust issues with meta in general so it's just a different vibe they bring and then also the fact that it felt more public than something as intimate as a find my friends where you have to explicitly give your friend permission to track your location just small little calibration errors led to a pretty big backlash to what should have been a popular feature rollout. So if you are wondering what this means for you and whether you have location sharing on, you can go to the DMs page in Instagram, tap the new map option.

10:55If it's the first time you're accessing this feature, you will get a pop-up I just did this morning. It will notify you that no one can see your location until you share it with them, and you can change your settings at any time. Then you can go into your settings and choose which people you want to share it with, whether it's friends or close friends friends or certain users or no one. So if you're wondering whether your location is being broadcast by default, it is not, but you can go into the DMs page and then drill down to the map and, uh, and turn it off or turn it on. You can do whatever you want, but that's, that's kind of how you can use it.

11:27I still don't even have the feature for some reason. I've been updating my app and now I kind of wish I was on it. So I'm just left stocking find my friends with the rest of everyone else. All right, let's move on. Despite selling salads for nearly$20, somehow sweet green has never turned a profit. Wall Street has been okay with that since it was growing, but Sweetgreen's earnings just before the weekend changed the narrative, sending the stock into a tailspin. Same-store sales fell nearly 8 % the second quarter, pushing operating losses to over$26 million. It caused a 23 % wipeout in its share price on Friday, which means the stock is now down 70 % since the beginning of the year.

12:05CEO Jonathan Neiman thinks part of the issue is the chain strayed too far away from its core salad offerings. That's a not-so-subtle jab at the recently introduced French fries side called Ripple Fries, which are getting the axe even though customers love them because they were too hard to make. Talking about the Ripple Fries, Neiman said, we realized that it became a complexifier for us, which is a word you should definitely remember next time you're playing Scrabble. But Neiman also says a turnaround plan is in place that includes giving customers bigger scoops of proteins and leaning more heavily into seasonal menu items.

12:38So, Neil, ripple fries are out for being too complex and too good. Bigger scoops of chicken are in. That's the plan to put Sweetgreen back in the green. Well, it needs to because this company is really flailing right now. And the CEO said there were a couple of different factors at play. One is macro trends. He said it's pretty obvious that the consumer is not in a great place overall and spending on restaurants is way down. It was the worst first six months of a year for restaurants in the past decade. They had better growth during COVID than right now. So clearly consumers are pulling back. And he also pointed the finger at himself and the management team and saying that our stores are not delivering right now.

13:18They went out across all of Sweetgreen's locations and found that only one third are performing at or above standards. Two thirds represent a meaningful opportunity for improvement. Fifteen dollar salads is just not a great value proposition right now when people are looking for cheaper and discounted options. I do just want to pour one out for these ripple fries, though, because we talked about it when they debuted because a lot of people at Sweetgreen were very excited for this. They're these air fried, healthier versions of French fries. They weren't as oily. I actually did go and try them, and they were quite good.

13:50And they kind of shot themselves in the foot here because so many people liked them, and they were very popular, but they were not very easy to make. So it's just that classic, do we sacrifice efficiency for this one menu item? Probably not. They gave them the ax, even though they did have a good, strong quarter. So just kind of a microcosm of everything that's going wrong with Sweetgreen right now, that even their successful menu items are somehow still biting them in the butt. And then the one final thing that I do think that they messed up on was getting rid of their seasonal menus. Consumers love seasonal menus.

14:21We've seen this in many different industries, from Starbucks with the pumpkin spice latte. It's one of their biggest sales drivers. Sweetgreen had a similar thing where they bring out a bowl that kind of match your season that you're in. And they got away from that cadence and said, big mistake. Customers clearly like that. We're going to go back to more seasonal menu items. So I do think a lot of these were kind of self-inflicted wounds and that they do seem to have a better grasp on what consumers want going forward. Who's going to say no to bigger scroops of chicken? That's definitely something that people want.

14:49But, yeah, in a rough spot right now because not a lot of people are going to these overpriced salads in urban markets. That's why I think the biggest thing they need to do is offer value and lower the price if they can. They're going to do these$13 menu bull drops. And that, to me, is the key because last year during summer, it was a complete reversal. We talked about fast casual chains doing so well, Chipotle, Cava, and Sweetgreen. They were booming and fast food chains like McDonald's were doing poorly. McDonald's over the past year has gone to great lengths to broadcast to consumers that there is value here at McDonald's.

15:24They rolled out value menus and other things that gave people more bang for their buck. sweet green did the opposite rolling out steak and going in the more premium direction and now these companies are flailing chipotle had a really bad quarter as well so i think you just got to go back to value that's what people want right now now let's head to our winners of the weekend this episode is brought to you by square new york is a food lover's dream and that goes for your morning brew as well anytime i'm craving a coffee with a side of chill vibes i head to ralph's coffee There's a place for every mood and every craving.

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17:11Terms and more at applecard.com. Welcome to Winners of the Weekend, the segment where Toby and I picked two things that scored the most free samples at the farmer's market. I won the pre-show game of musical chairs, so I get to go first. And my winner is anyone with a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon stash, because those are redeemable once again. On Friday, a Bed Bath & Beyond store opened in Nashville, the first new location since the company filed for bankruptcy two years ago and closed its 300 stores around the country. The new owners of Bed Bath & Beyond, the brand House Collective, are firing up the hype machine by saying they'll accept the 20 % coupons that became synonymous with the chain.

17:49and also offering new ones at the door. But can coupons resurrect Bed Bath & Beyond from the retail graveyard? Back in 2023, the company filed for bankruptcy after being late to the e-commerce game and struggling with higher costs. The business changed hands a few times through a series of complex deals and is attempting a small-scale comeback in Tennessee. The new owners say they'll have six stores planned for the Nashville market, and if that goes well, maybe they'll expand further. If you end up checking out the new store, you'll notice at least one thing that's different from the previous edition, the name.

18:19It's called Bed, Bath, and Beyond Home, probably to clarify that the beyond just means the rest of the home. Toby, you think this comeback has legs? Are they just gonna keep adding modifiers to their name? Bed, Bath, and Beyond Home, and then also lawn, and then also maybe your bathroom, and this and that is just a funny modifier. I think they're gonna run out of signage space, but I do want to dive into this confusing journey to coming back, because you said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was the most complex deal that we could think of. But listen to what Bed Bath & Beyond 2.0 has had to gone through.

18:52So overstock.com, this e-com website, bought the brand's intellectual property in 2023 after its bankruptcy. It rebranded that to Beyond Inc. and launched an online-only version of Bed Bath & Beyond. But then eventually, Beyond Inc. took an ownership stake in this new brand, Kirkland's, which is a home decor chain with around 300 stores. Then it gave Kirkland exclusive license to develop and create Bed Bath & Beyond home stores. And then just for fun, Kirkland later rebranded to the Brand House Collectives and plans to convert some of its Kirkland home stores into Bed Bath & Beyond stores. It is literally so complex, so many things to, you know, revive this iconic brand, albeit with an extra word attached to the end.

19:33So all that to say, still think it's a tough time in home decor. The housing market isn't great. You need people to be buying houses to then go buy stuff to put in those houses. So I think they have a long road ahead of them. It's a good lesson that when you're a retailer and you file for bankruptcy, it's never the end of the story, whether it's Circuit City or Radio Shack or Toys R Us. I mean, Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, and now they've relaunched in the Mall of America in Minnesota and inside the American Dream Mall in New Jersey. So they're also attending a small scale comeback.

20:05We'll see what happens to Claire's, which we didn't talk about, but filed for bankruptcy for the second time last week, that tween store that, you know, millennials loved. So yes, probably not the end of the story for Bed Bath & Beyond. It's making the comeback in the Nashville area. If you end up going, let us know how the vibes are. My winner of the weekend is AOL Dial-Up Internet because it lasted a lot longer than you probably thought it did. The service that brought millions of people online at the dawn of the internet is actually still around and kicking, but AOL revealed on Friday it would wind down its services by the end of September.

20:38The end of an era was delivered in a small article on its help portal that some eagled-eyed users caught. Hardly a fitting send-off for something that brought so many people online. Still, it comes as a shock that AOL in the year 2025 was still providing dial-up internet service to users. Some of those are in rural areas with limited access to broadband, while some are just tech nostalgics who still love the outdated digital serenade that dial-up was so famous for. Still, it's worth eulogizing this part of internet lore. Back in the early 90s, the internet wasn't a thing. Connecting to it was hard.

21:13Into that void stepped AOL, who at its peak had over 18 million subscribers in 1999. But eventually, the technology was supplanted by other internet service connection methods, and subscribers have since dwindled to the low thousands. Still, that's a winner in my book because despite losing its relevance decades ago, it still managed to last 34 years. So many memories of dialing up to the internet on your telephone network. Did you do it? Yeah, of course. That's crazy. I'm old. In the 90s? Yeah, I absolutely had AOL, and that's how you connected to the internet. What you didn't know at that point was it was really slow.

21:50Dial-up speeds don't reach over 56 kilobytes per second, which means they're too slow for streaming video or audio, playing any sort of game that was developed recently. Lee. Now we measure internet speeds in megabits or gigabits. So we've come a long way. Broadband has brought us to a new place. Absolutely pour one out for something that connected so many people to the internet. I didn't know that the dial-up tone was functional. Oh, I guess I did know it was functional, but that process of beeps and words and whatever noises you're hearing, that's establishing connection over a phone line. Those tones are actually specific tones and sounds that modulate and demodulate data into an audio signal.

22:30So maybe a lot of people know this. Maybe I am just too young for that. But those things that you're hearing is not just, you know, some internet nostalgia thing. It is just a very – it's a way to transmit data over a telephone, phone line. So, yeah, never had the pleasure of actually using AOL dial-up internet. That being said – I don't know if I would call it a pleasure. I mean, it's a nostalgic pleasure. But I do have an AOL email address. That was my first email address. I just looked at that. I have 70 ,000 emails in that somehow because it's just been accruing marketing emails from whatever I signed up for when I was a kid.

23:04So maybe those will become a nostalgic thing going forward as well because, yeah, it's all about Gmail these days. It's Monday. So here are the major events you need to know about to stay ahead in the week ahead. Today, Intel CEO Lipu Tan will visit the White House to talk with the guy who wants him fired. Last week, President Trump called on Tan to step down from the position, calling him highly conflicted due to previous investments in Chinese companies. Trump's move was extremely unusual. The government doesn't typically involve itself with management decisions at private companies, but fits with the pattern of the president pushing companies to make major strategy changes, whether it's Coke using real sugar or telling Walmart to eat the tariffs.