New Crypto-Friendly Era For the SEC? & UnitedHealthcare CEO Fatally Shot in NYC

0:03When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, you are going to regret selling your Bitcoin when I tell you what price it just hit. Then Spotify wrapped, finally dropped, but left some users a little disappointed this year.

0:44It's Thursday, December 5th. Let's ride.

0:51Well, it actually happened. Last night, the price of one Bitcoin hit more than$100 ,000, a major milestone for an asset once dismissed as a fad. It took Bitcoin 15 years to go from zero to 100K, but it's experienced a serious surge in just the last few weeks, popping more than 40 % since Election Day over the prospect of a crypto-friendly administration coming to D.C. next year. Toby, very few people predicted this would happen, but the ones who did will absolutely let you know about it. Oh, absolutely. I'm retiring after this pod today, Neil. No, just kidding. Let's take a quick trip down memory lane, though.

1:29A famous part of Bitcoin's lore is something called Bitcoin Pizza Day. There was this man named Laszlo Hanyets who paid 10 ,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas on May 18, 2010. At the time, the transaction was worth about$41. At today's prices, those two pizzas are now worth$1 ,033 ,709 ,259. Never good, Neil, when your pizza order involves three commas. But yes, an absurd run up for crypto this year. Run up that was spurred in part by a new Trump cabinet choice, which we'll talk about a little later in the show. But first, a word from our sponsor, Yahoo Finance. I think I finally cracked the code as to why Yahoo Finance is such a great resource for investors.

2:15Because it's got real time market data. Well, yes. And a My Portfolio feature where you can keep tabs on the stocks that matter most to you. That too. Also a research tab where you can see everything from economic calendars to investment ideas to reports from experts. All right. I'm starting to think that you cracked the code as well. Well, what were you going to say? You forgot about the latest news headlines so you can stay up to date on all the latest stories that might influence the market. No one likes a know-it-all deal. But everyone likes Yahoo Finance, which you can go check out at Yahoo Finance dot com today.

2:49This 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. Tragedy struck in a midtown New York yesterday as Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealth Group's insurance arm, was fatally shot outside a New York City hotel in what police described as a targeted attack.

3:27Videos show the suspect lying in wait, then fleeing on a gray e-bike after shooting Thompson in the back and leg. Thompson was in town for UnitedHealth's investor meeting, and as of this morning, a manhunt is still underway for the shooter. Thompson's wife, Paulette, told NBC that there had been some threats made against her husband, saying she didn't know the details, but a lack of coverage was involved. Thompson led UnitedHealthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, and the largest private health insurer in the U.S. since April 2021. After Thompson's murder, the company took down the webpages showing headshots and bios for the rest of the company's leadership team.

4:03But Neil, a wild story affecting one of the largest health companies and largest public companies in the world. Yeah, I mean, they were gathered for their annual investor day, which is their exec's opportunity to talk to shareholders and tell them what they're doing in the next year. It is a huge event. Everyone was in town, and they held the event for a few hours. And then the CEO just got up there as people were checking their phones and said, wow, we've announced what had happened. We're disbanding our investor day. So it was an absolute shock to everyone at the company, everyone who knew him.

4:38But apparently, you know, Thompson's story is quite interesting. He was born and was raised in a very rural Iowa town, went to University of Iowa for accounting, worked at PwC for seven years before joining UnitedHealth Group. In 2004, he rose through the ranks to become the CEO of a truly massive division. This division provides health insurance for over 50 million people. It did revenue of$281 billion. It employs 140 ,000 people. So he had a ton of responsibility, had a lot of contacts within the health care space because this is an immense, immense industry where everyone knows everyone. And, you know, a lot of a lot of other health care leaders chimed in saying that he was a very amicable guy, was a very low key.

5:27When something got too stressful, he offered to arm wrestle you to sort of bring the temperature down. So a big loss for the health care industry. Yeah, and just to be clear, he wasn't the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, which is the broader organization, but he was still the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, which was a big, obviously one of the biggest, if not, it is the biggest private insurer in the United States. This has also put a focus on CEO and executive safety policies at companies. Security filings for UnitedHealthcare's parent company don't make any mention that the company was paying for executive security for Thompson.

6:01And it's understandable that a healthcare giant wouldn't necessarily think to provide security expenses because none of its executives are as high profile as someone like a Mark Zuckerberg, as someone like an Elon Musk. But now it probably is a good bet that a lot of these big public companies will start rethinking their strategy, rethinking their approach in the wake of this tragedy. Several tech companies are already way ahead of the curve when it comes to this. I mean, for instance, security filing showed that Meta paid about$23 million on security for Mark Zuckerberg. So even though you wouldn't think to, you know, a health care CEO would need a level of scrutiny and a level of security like this, I think you're going to see a bit of a wave and a bit of a shift in the strategy because of this instance.

6:49Well, you might, though, because health care executives have received threats before over denied coverage and things like that. I mean, his wife did say that he had received unspecified threats in the past. Police also said that. So there is a world in which health care CEOs are provided some security. But now we look forward. The killer is still on the loose somewhere in New York City or in the vicinity. police said they found words written on the bullets that said deny, defend and depose. And they're still working out a specific motive for the shooting. President-elect Trump made his first big move to put a stamp on Wall Street by nominating lawyer Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing current chair Gary Gensler.

7:37You may not have heard of Atkins before, but for bigwigs in New York and D.C., he is a familiar and respected face. Atkins was one of the commissioners at the SEC under former President George W. Bush and has stayed close to top financiers after he founded the influential consulting firm Potomac Global Partners. Under Atkins, a conservative who advocates for deregulation, the SEC could look a lot different than it did under Gensler, who pushed the agency in a more progressive direction. One of the biggest gulfs between them is how they view cryptocurrencies. currencies. Gensler was very much a crypto skeptic, launching unprecedented action and penalties against the biggest companies in the industry, such as Coinbase.

8:17Atkins, on the other hand, is a big fan of crypto and he'll likely take a much later touch to digital tokens in line with the incoming Trump administration's pro-crypto messaging. Toby Atkins is very much a known quantity and he's a pick that will elate Wall Street and crypto after they chafed under the Gensler years. Let's start with Wall Street a little bit and then get to crypto. Atkins has been a pretty big critic of the SEC's current approach to cracking down on corporate wrongdoing or whatever you want to call it. He is actually pretty opposed to imposing these large penalties on companies that have already agreed to settle fraud chargers.

8:52And the reason why you, you know, charge or you levy these penalties against companies is that you hopefully deter them from doing wrongdoing in the future. But Atkins actually has argued in the past that they've already received penalties through a drop in their share prices, and that all you're doing is punishing shareholders further, so who've already been victimized by the company before. So he's kind of a big proponent for not being too overbeying with the penalties that you levy against companies that engage in wrongdoing. As to the crypto side of things, this was exactly the person that the crypto crowd wanted to see, because you are right.

9:28They have been languishing under Gary Gensler, who's been very adversarial to it. The Trump administration has said, We're going to embrace the crypto world. Atkins has embraced the crypto world. So I do think that is part of the reason why, I mean, we tease it at the top of the show. Bitcoin kind of was inevitably pushed up over the 100K barrier because of this pick. And then meanwhile, President-elect Trump made some other nominations yesterday to some high-profile posts. He nominated the fintech billionaire and veteran SpaceX investor Jared Isaacman to serve as the next NASA administration.

10:00And if you remember that Isaacman name, he was one of the two people a few months ago who conducted the first commercial spacewalk 400 miles above Earth. And he has been involved in SpaceX for a long time. And now he's going to head up NASA. I think this is another sign that NASA will work even closer with the private sector to fulfill its space ambitions. This choice was very enthusiastically embraced by the commercial space industry because they know Isaacman is just a huge fan of it. he puts his money where his mouth is. He has been on these space flights. One thing that is a little up in the air right now is that he signed on to fly four of these commercial space flights.

10:40One of the next mission was actually to fly to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to try to raise its orbit to extend its life. And he's like Superman it. Yeah. Like essentially push it back up because Hubble Space is struggling a little bit out there because it's just been out there for so long. But NASA itself has says, I don't know if we really want a commercial person, a private citizen, messing with such an expensive piece of equipment. But now Isaacman might lead NASA. So everyone's like, so what happens now? Are you going to go as the head of NASA if you are approved by the Senate? Or would he kind of fall in line with what NASA has been saying previous?

11:14So some conflicts of interest or whatever you want to call it. But for the most part, people are pretty excited by this pick because Isaacman just loves space. He loves space and he's been to space and he's been a huge booster. But speaking of conflicts of interest, he's a big investor in SpaceX and all these space companies. Their biggest customer is NASA. So if I'm Blue Origin, if I'm Jeff Bezos at Blue Origin or another rocket company CEO, and now I have to compete against SpaceX for a contract with a guy who's a big shareholder in SpaceX, I'm probably a little confused or a little miffed that, you know, what might go into this selection process.

11:49Well, it was the moment that your Instagram stories have been waiting for. Spotify rap dropped yesterday, revealing just how many of your friends went through a pink Pilates princess strut pop phase this year. The answer was probably a lot of them. Artists like Chapel Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Charli XCX dominated listening habits this year. But at the summit of Mount Spotify, there can be only one artist. And the number one most streamed artist globally in 2024 on Spotify for the second year in a row was Neil Frontenow, Taylor Swift. Turns out when you release an album with 31 songs on it, while on the second year of a massive global tour, you get a lot of Spotify streams.

12:29Speaking of albums, for the first time ever, the top eight albums by worldwide streams were recorded by women. Billie Eilish, Carol G, Ariana Grande, and Sabrina Carpenter, as well as SZA, all joined Taylor in the top 10. Despite the cultural sway Spotify rap still holds on people, I did see some complaining a little about the perceived effort from Spotify this year, while 2023 gave us those viral Soundtown features. This year was a little bit lacking with that viral punch. Well, they built a monster, and they have to continually feed the monster with new features that introduce even more shareability and make it an even bigger cultural moment than it is.

13:08I think what you were hearing is that maybe some of the new features didn't get the blood flowing as much. One of them that a lot of people were talking about was the Your Music Evolution, which documented three distinct musical phases for your listening habits over the course of the year. What was the one you mentioned? I forgot. That was mine during the summer. Pink Pilates, Pritches, Strut, Pop. Yeah, so that happened when everyone, when all of like the Sabrina Carpenter Espresso and Chapel Rhone became big over the course of the summer. The other feature that Spotify was hyping up was a AI-generated podcast that was in partnership with Google's Notebook LM, and we had talked about this on the show a few months ago.

13:50This is a viral podcasting tool that you can feed it text, and it will have two AI hosts who very seemingly sound like humans, and will talk about whatever text you put in. In this case, they will either celebrate you or roast you for your musical taste. So those are the two, I would say, big software updates to Wrapped. It didn't seem like they caught on in a viral way that others have. Still, what Spotify has built with Rapt is pretty impressive. It is interesting to see where it will go from here because it is just so huge already and they're probably already thinking about the next Rapt right now.

14:23We've buried the lead long enough though, Neil. Give us your top artist from your 2024 Rapt. My top artist was Guster actually because I went to a show for Guster back in February and I knew most of the words to all of their songs but I wanted to make sure I knew every single word because it is the most sing-along music. So I listened to so much of their music and I guess that carried over into the full year. So yeah, Guster was my number one. And I do have to give you props though. When you shared your Spotify wrapped in the Morning Brew Slack channel full of young tastemakers, they applauded your taste in music.

14:58They did because the other artists were Krungbin, which everyone should check out. Lana Del Rey, trying to think of who other, Charlie XCX, and then I forget the fifth one. But yeah, I was applauded by the Gen Z people here, and I was very, very happy about it. Meanwhile, Spotify has got to be feeling really good right now. Its market cap crossed$100 billion for the first time. Its stock price has surged 160 % this year. So after many years of failing to make a profit and making this business model of music work, it's finally found that magic. Up next, I've been waiting all week for this. I know you have too.

15:37It's time for Neil's Numbers.

15:42eczema 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 librikizumab 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.

16:18EBCLIS 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 ebglis.lily.com or call Call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John host the highly anticipated new competition show.

16:49I 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. Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that gives you better brain food than fatty fish. Today's Neil's Numbers is a special one. It's a year in review edition.

17:25Every December, I look forward to Tom Whitwell's article called 52 Things I Learned in 2024, in which he lists out 52 things he learned this year. They're always fascinating and send you into a deep rabbit hole. So my three numbers this week are drawn from a list of things I learned in 2024. My first number is that college students with last names at the end of the alphabet, starting with U through Z, tend to get grades 0.6 % lower than students with A through E surnames. This was the conclusion of a University of Michigan business school study that analyzed more than 30 million grades at a large university.

18:02What the heck is going on? Are Zimmermans just inherently not as smart as Bloomberg's? Nope. The researchers controlled for a bunch of characteristics. Instead, the study finds that the surprising difference in grades is the result of teachers grading the students at the top of the alphabet first and the students at the bottom of the alphabet last. These days in college, instructors grade assignments using software, or what's known as learning management systems, that always sort documents in alphabetical order by surname. They always start with the A's and end with the Z's, a standardized process that never would have happened back when you turned in your exam by paper and everyone's was jumbled up.

18:39So what's causing the grading discrepancy, the researchers hypothesize, is that instructors get fatigued by the end of their grading gauntlet, translating to worse scores for the end of the alphabet. Wild. It is wild. Another theory mentioned by the authors is that the graders may tend to feel stricter if they've given out a string of A's. We've all been there on an exam before. We go, that's way too many C's in a row. That's way too many B's in a row. I got to switch it up. I think graders might experience a similar thing. We're like, I'm being way too nice right now. I got to start toughening up.

19:10And you saw that too, not just in the quantitative grades that these people are giving, but also the qualitative feedback they were giving as well. For example, they found more negative and impolite comments the later on in the grading process went. Comments like, why no answers to questions two and three? you're setting yourself up for a failing game and never do that again they were literally finding that as you progress through you get a little cranky or maybe get a little bit more uh mean in your in your grading you actually do give worse grades and also worse feedback now i'm just reflecting i'm an f like am i just i'm a total fraud oh have i just been getting grade inflation for for years uh but this this study actually did spur change at one of the companies that is this one of these learning management systems, they now offer a randomized version citing this particular study because if you keep alphabetizing, then the names at the end of the alphabet are going to continuously get penalized.

20:07So actually a remarkable finding. My second number is about the rise of the long movie title and the emergence of the colon in a title along with it. You know what I'm talking about? Furiosa colon, a Mad Max saga. The Chronicles of Narnia colon, the voyage of the Dawn Treader, Percy Jackson, and the Olympics, Olympians colon, the Lightning Thief. This colonization of movie titles is a distinct measurable pattern, according to Daniel Paris at Stat Significant. He found that the average length of movie titles increased by nearly two whole alphanumeric characters from the 1970s until now. Meanwhile, 16 % of movies in the 2020s had a colon in the title, compared to 5 % as recently as the 1990s.

20:51Paris argues that the surge of colon use in movie titles is a regrettable reflection of the rinse and repeat movies Hollywood puts out right now. He writes, these protracted monikers present stories known to audiences and intellectual property, while also offering a small degree of novelty. Hence, instead of Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, you get Superman colon Man of Steel and Spider-Man colon No Way Home. Here's parents once again. Every film is an event, a fleeting once in a lifetime experience that serves as a single chapter in a long running and perhaps never ending story. So this is a modern phenomenon that a lot, as you said, the inventification of movies has led to a rise in colons.

21:31But you also quizzed the group yesterday and said, do you guys know what the longest movie title is that has a budget of$20 million or more? And it's actually 2006 Borat, which goes Borat colon cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan. So that was funny because that was an ironic use of the colon in 2006. But as you go through and you see the sequels, you see the rise of these events, you do see a less ironic use of colon. So it was funny to trace the lineage of Borat making a joke out of it to it becoming a real phenomenon in the entertainment industry. My final number, inspired by the 52 things I learned this year, well, it's more of a fun fact, is something unique about Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport.

22:13It has multiple recombobulation areas where you can recombobulate after the hassle of going through a TSA security checkpoint. Is recombobulate even a word? Not really. It was apparently invented in 2008 by Milwaukee's airport director at the time, Barry Bateman, who wanted to give stressed out passengers a reason to relax and smile after going through security. He asked the sign shop about making a recombobulation area. They replied, You know that's not a word, right? But they made it anyway, and the concept of recombobulating has been embraced by the city ever since. It's also gained national recognition.

22:49In 2009, the American Dialect Society declared recombobulation the most creative word of the year. What's it mean? Simply the opposite of discombobulating or putting back in order. Toby, you lived in Milwaukee. Have you ever recombobulated at the airport? I'm embarrassed to say that I just assumed this was a thing in other airports because yeah, I saw the recombobulation area and you're just in an airport, you're on autopilot. So you're like, of course that's what it's called these days. But I didn't know that there was such a backstory or that Milwaukee embraced the word so much. I do love airport psychology though.

23:23Having a little bit of a funny joke like recombobulation does help that discombobulation, you know, stave off for a little bit longer. One of my favorite airport psychology stories that I've told you is that operators of the Houston airport had this one route where they just received a ton of baggage wait complaints where people are saying, I have to wait so long for my baggage on this one specific route. And they found that it was taking people one minute to walk to the baggage claim and seven minutes waiting at the baggage claim. So what they did is just move the arrival gate so people had to walk further to get to their baggage.

23:55And just the fact that they were walking rather than standing made those complaints drop off a clip. So I think it's very interesting that you can tweak very small psychological things like calling it a recombobulation area and it might lead to real kind of changes in consumer psychology of airport passengers. Well, that list of 52 was just too dang good to only pick three numbers from. So you're getting a special bonus Toby's tally that I also pulled from Tom Whitwell's curated list. And my tally is that there are just 16 trademark scents in the United States. That sweet 16 includes smells like Crayola crayons, play-doh an ocean scented indoor playground in indiana and a type of gun cleaner that smells a little bit like ammonium and gas you know this number excuse me tally was surprising on a few levels one i never really considered that you could trademark a scent in the first place and two there are not a whole lot of scent trademarks out there and it also got me thinking any sense that you think should be trademarkable two that have to be on there is auntie ends i mean that one is distinct and memorable and then obviously gas station scent oh that see that's good but i don't think those would actually pass the requirements for a scent trademark uh they have to have non-functionality so the scent must not serve a practical purpose or affect the product's quality or cost of something like auntie ands i don't think you're allowed to actually do so for example perfumes you're not allowed to uh actually trademark their scent since the scent is their primary function so maybe food works because i guess smell isn't its primary function but I don't know you might be up against it when it comes to trying to trademark anti-annes let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines the French government is in shambles after a no confidence vote passed the National Assembly yesterday ousting the prime minister and sending Europe's second largest economy into his deepest political crisis in decades lawmakers on the left and the right linked up to boot Prime Minister Barnier who released an austerity budget they could not get on board with.