Oura Unexpectedly Delays IPO & Phoebe Bridgers Bans Phones From Her Shows

0:01Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why you'll never see a video of a Phoebe Bridgers concert. Then the smart ring maker Aura shocked the market by delaying its IPO. It's Wednesday, September 30th. Let's ride.

0:20Sometimes you got to give yourself a pat on the back and we're doing just that on this international podcast day. Morning Brew Daily is up for a Signal Award, which hands out accolades to the world's best podcasts in the business category. And we need your help to win. This is decided by a fan vote. So whoever rallies their listeners the most will add to their trophy case. Toby, think the MBD gang is up to the challenge? I know they're up to the challenge because we were also nominated in this category last year, and we did pretty well taking home the audience vote. If you want to vote for Morning Brew Daily, we will put a link in the show description.

0:56Signal does make you put in your email to vote, but it takes 20 seconds total. Also, if you voted last year, which I know every single one of you did, you should already have an account. Last year, we were in a dogfight with the Pivot podcast hosted by Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher. This year, it looks like we're fighting with The Verges podcast, Decoder. They are at 36 % of the vote right now. We're sitting at just 22 % as of this morning. Let's switch that one more time. Vote at the link in the show description. And now a word from our sponsor, Roku Ads Manager. Neil, how are you when it comes to trying new things?

1:31Well, making this show with you is something new. So I've got a pretty open-minded approach. Well, after hearing about what Roku's got on offer, a lot of advertisers will probably adopt your mindset. Roku is offering a$5 ,000 match to first-time spenders on Roku Ads Manager. So not only do you double your investment, but you access premium streaming inventory all in one buy. Plus, with their self-serve platform, you can go live in minutes with no DSP fees and real-time in-platform reporting. Not to mention that the Roku home screen reaches 125 million people daily with an average of 4.3 hours of streaming per day per account.

2:06Head to advertising.roku.com slash MBD and use code BREW5K to get the offer. Aura, a company that tells you if you're ready to take on the day, is telling investors it's not ready to take on the public markets. The smart ring maker was supposed to go public yesterday at a valuation of around$15 billion, but surprised everyone by postponing its IPO instead, citing uncertainty in the market. Companies try to set up their debut for the ideal time, hoping to begin trading under the most bullish conditions possible. So postponing to wait for greener pastures is not out of the question. But what had people scratching their heads is, these are pretty dang green pastures we're in.

2:47The tech-focused NASDAQ 100 hit a record high last week and is up 3 % in September, while the S &P 500 is up 12 % for the year. The time appears to be now, Aura. Plus, demand was there with the IPO shaping up to be four times oversubscribed. But it's also not that hard to find warning signs, too. The 10-year Treasury yield is at its highest level since 2007, and September's consumer confidence reading was the lowest since 2014. CEO Tom Hale humblebrag that Aura has, quote, the luxury of choosing our moment given the strength of its business. So, since the vibes were slightly off, it opted for a different moment instead.

3:25Aura isn't alone in their choice, either. One nuclear and one insurance company also recently postponed their debuts, citing market conditions. You know, I wouldn't elevate this to the level of a Toby's trends quite yet, but it is telling to see a strong business, see a market near all time highs and still say, uh-uh, we're good. Yeah, market whispers like Axios' Dan Primack, who have sources inside, said that this was basically because Aura wasn't able to get the price that it wanted. It wanted to raise as much as$2.2 billion, valuing it at$15.6 billion. Investors just seem to balk at that valuation.

4:01It also comes at a time when Apple is releasing its upgraded health app, which does a lot of the same things that Aura's app does as well. So they're seeing increased competition in this space. everyone is releasing a health tracker. They're trying to get a$16 billion valuation. There's some hairy things going on with oil and treasury yields. Yes, stocks are very much near an all time high, but maybe those are a few of the reasons why Aura backed away is because they wanted to be valued at something. Investors weren't giving it to them, so they're just going to wait it out. Aura does have the luxury of being in a very strong position too.

4:34They We posted revenue of$1.2 billion over the past nine months, ending June 30th. So that is up 74 % from the same period a year earlier. It has 5.7 million paying members at this point. And they're riding a pretty broad adoption curve right now. U.S. wearable adoption has jumped from 13 % to nearly 50 % over the past decade. I'm wearing two right now, and I know other people. Actually, no aura ring, just a wedding ring. Flex. The flags right there. But clearly this is becoming a category that people are more comfortable with. So that's why it was kind of shocking to see them balk at this. The other potential elephant in the room is Anthropic.

5:17Anthropic might be just sucking all the oxygen out of the IPO market. They are full steam ahead with their IPO. Their prospectus leaked to Reuters and we got a peek under the hood. They're seeking a$2 trillion valuation, which is eye-popping. And maybe that is why Aura is like, all right, maybe there's not going to be that much left over for us at a measly$15 billion valuation if trillions are flowing into Anthropic. There's some very interesting things under the hood, though, of this leaked prospectus, namely that they said that AI could produce catastrophic or existential risks to humanity. Talk about a vibe killer when it comes to going to public.

5:58that was mentioned, but then they also saw some financials Reuters did and Anthropic reported a net loss of$42 billion last year with revenue of just$8 billion. So$2 trillion valuation with those numbers has some people scratching their heads a little bit. But again, that is a big, big elephant in the room and maybe why Aura felt a little crowded out. You can't talk about the upcoming IPO market and all of these companies maybe backing away without that Anthropic IPO, which is perhaps coming in November. OpenAI delayed. We talked about delaying of IPOs, but OpenAI did that a few weeks ago, citing safety concerns.

6:34They pushed theirs into next year. It looks like another companies are doing the same, but not anthropic. Looks like that's gonna become in November and that could exceed SpaceX as the biggest one of all time. Moving on, the Trump administration launched a new AI-powered website that aims to be your one-stop concierge for navigating the federal government. When you head to America.gov, you'll encounter a chatbot that is supposed to help you do everything from renew a passport to enroll in government programs like Medicare. Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder who led the project, said the chatbot would modernize constituent services like never before and set a standard, quote, you'd expect of a superpower.

7:13AI teaming up with a.gov URL is like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Artificial intelligence has been heralded as the next industrial revolution, potentially testing humanity itself, while government websites have a reputation for testing nothing but your time and patience. Who could forget the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov during the Obama years? The Trump team hopes to avoid a repeat of that by leaning on veterans from the private tech sector, like Gebbia, to avoid a boondoggle by a technological illiterate government. That relationship with tech was on full display yesterday when, in conjunction with the America.gov launch, Trump hosted a gaggle of tech leaders at the White House for lunch, including Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Dario Amadei.

7:54As fears of AI safety heat up, the leaders signed a voluntary accord that focuses on four self-policing mechanisms to keep the technology from spiraling out of control. When asked whether the document was binding in any form, Trump replied, it's morally binding. Let's go back to America.gov for a second because the promise of this site is very, very tantalizing if they can execute. There are 29 ,000 government sites sprawling across the apparatus that is the US government. If you can collapse that into a single search bar, obviously that is a better system than the one that we are currently under.

8:31Now, is that actually going to be the case? So far, it's off to a bit of a rocky start. We have both tried to access it repeatedly over the past 24 hours. it is still down it doesn't work at all like nothing happens when you chat is unavailable right now i said help me get toby to shut up my mind's actually even glitching harder it when you type it in it has a suggestion question over it i can't even see what i'm typing so that is hurdle number one does it actually work hurdle number two is people who did actually get access to it and uh were able to get it working said that it mostly just directs you to visit other government websites.

9:06And yes, the government will say that's just the early stage right now. But when you promise something about, you know, collapsing all these sites into one search bar and then all it does is reroute you to the sites that you were trying to avoid. Is that really a step forward? Is that really AI transforming the government? Those are the big question marks right now. Marco Rubio did his best Steve Jobs impression. It looked like a tech rollout yesterday. And one of the things that he pledged was that got people excited was starting next year. Americans will be able to apply for a passport fully online.

9:37You just type in, how do I apply for my first passport? Then you can upload your passport photo. No more going to CVS for those super awkward photos and mailing things in. This will be perhaps a fully online thing. Now let's move to the second part of this story, which is about all the tech CEOs that were in the White House in Washington, D.C. yesterday. I mean, it was a who's who. Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Dario Amadei. Sam Altman wasn't there, which for reasons we'll probably talk about later on. And the theme that you hear from the Trump administration around AI as all these safety concerns heat up is we think that industry can self-police.

10:16That's also what you hear from NVIDIA's Jensen Huang. Others say we need regulation from the government, but the Trump administration has over the past few weeks, as these concerns have heated up, just said, I think that industry can do this by themselves. They will take it upon them to self-regulate. And that's what you saw with this document that was signed by six executives. There's no legally binding anything. They just said that we'll put some monitors in place. We'll take care to be careful. And that's that. It was also just funny to see all these AI leaders in the same room as president Trump.

10:47The interviews were going viral of Dario Amadei kind of like dissociating while Trump is talking a little bit. And then also the seating chart went super viral as well, because of course, Trump posted that on a true social and people were saying this is kind of a way to approximate who is closest to the administration, literally physically, by who's sitting closest to Trump. On his right was Jensen Huang. On his left was Elon Musk. And then at the ends were Anthropic. Dario Amadei was pushed pretty far towards the end. So again, it's a seating chart. How much do you really want to look into it?

11:19But some people are saying it shows the administration's opinions and feelings towards these companies by literally how close they were sitting to trump's seat at this dinner moving on college sports in the nil era has become the wild west so congress is stepping in to try and tame it the senate passed the protect college sports act this week in a bipartisan attempt to bring some rules back to a college system that has been transformed by nil payments runaway transfers in conference realignment during that period of change supporters say the ncaa has lost its teeth it would be nice if college sports could somehow magically fix itself, Senator Ted Cruz said, but this is a matter of law, federal law, and it is only Congress that can fix it.

12:00The bill seeks to bring some guardrails back by granting the NCAA limited antitrust protection, which would give it a chance to establish some nationwide guardrails, replacing those that have been litigated away. Among the two-year rules would be slowing down the transfer portal by giving the NCAA power to impose transfer limits again. It would also cap conferences at 20 schools, allaying fears that a few super leagues would emerge, leaving outsiders fighting for scraps. It also explicitly preserves the rights of student athletes to make money off their name, image, and likeness, but bring some more tangible regulations around things like how they interact with agents.

12:37Supporters of the bill, which include the NCAA, think that some rules need to come back to replace the free-for-all that college sports has become. But critics say all this law is doing is giving institutions more control over athletes again. Neil, Senate passes does not mean that this is becoming a law just yet because the House is in recess until after the midterms. But President Trump strongly supports it, saying it would, quote, save college sports in colleges themselves. So it does have some powerful backers. Supporters are tapping into this general sentiment that a lot of college football fans are feeling that things are spiraling out of control.

13:12You might down the line have just two conferences, the Big Ten and the SEC. You've seen these transfers go wild with rent to quarterbacks coming in for one season, then absconding for another team and then going to another team after that until they're like 26. You have crazy conference realignment where you have UC Berkeley playing Clemson in a conference matchup. People declaring for the draft and then coming back just to play college football. So that's why Ted Cruz is one of the main backers of this bill saying, if we don't act, we're just going to see 30 to 50 competitive football programs in this country and the remainder of the programs go under.

13:49So what they rolled out, however, was basically a reassertment of the NCAA back over college football and college sports for a few years now. After those stinging defeats in the courts was the NCAA losing its grip on the power of college sports and players were empowered to get money from NIL and move colleges and things like that. But now this is basically restoring the power dynamics that we had for much of the past few decades. And that's exactly the issue that people have, because on the table, too, are things like coaching pay and athletic department budgets. And one big amendment to this bill that did not pass was trying to cap coaching salaries at five million dollars a year and limiting contract buyouts as well.

14:33That amendment was defeated. So a lot of people seized on that and saying, like, if you really want to, you know, get a handle on the ballooning costs and the money that is flowing into the college sports system, and yet you don't want to actually regulate coaching pay, which is one of the biggest expenses on any athletic department's budget. But you do want to regulate what student athletes can do, whether they can move schools or not. That seems like you're just going for the same power grab that you had in years gone by, and you're not actually trying to solve this issue. So Cory Booker, too, who played football at Stanford, say it is a bill for the control and power of the NCAA and member institutions.

15:10So he kind of read between the lines here and says this is not necessarily. Yes, probably some rules need to come back to the college system, but I don't know if the best way to do it is by just giving the NCAA all the power back again. This was also very fascinating from a PR standpoint, because maybe you've seen commercials related to this bill. This was very public. Its backers and its critics both flooded the airwaves to try to sway public opinion on this. ESPN got a lot of backlash last Saturday when it gave Ted Cruz about 10 minutes of airtime to promote the bill on college game day. You know, it had a politician on.

15:44People were like, why is Ted Cruz on my college game day? I'm trying to get ready for for the big games. But he was promoting the bill there. And then the converse of that, NAACP President Derek Johnson went on SportsCenter a few days and then criticized the bill. That was a much smaller audience. But you're seeing a huge PR push, big communications launch from all sides of this bill because I think they're just trying to tap into the sentiment. You know, people are very emotional around college sports and especially college football. Couldn't it be me? But that is sort of where we are in this moment in America.

16:17The problem for its backers is that, sure, the Senate passed the bill. And this is the farthest that any college sports regulation has ever gotten in Washington, D.C. However, before it heads to President Trump's desk, as we learned in elementary school, it needs to be passed by both members or both chambers of the legislative branch. And, yeah, the House is just not here. They got dismissed. They're chilling. And they're not coming back until November to vote on anything. And it's very much a question mark whether they will approve this in its current form. All right, we're going to take a quick break and talk about phone-free concerts right after this.

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17:51Go to plod.ai slash brew and use code brew for 20 % off all Plod devices. Oh, woo! What is happening? I'm just excited for what a howling good time families can have at any of Great Wolf Lodge's 22 locations across the country. Splash away in the indoor water park where it is always 84 degrees. There's a massive wave pool, a lazy river, and tons of water slides. There's also a bunch of great dining options, spacious suites, and complimentary daily events like nightly dance parties all under one roof. Book your stay at greatwolf.com. That's greatwolf.com. Last week, just about every young person I know in New York went to see Phoebe Bridgers, who played three sold-out nights at the Barclays Center.

18:40But when I asked to see a video of her playing Motion Sickness, my favorite song, of course, they looked at me like I was an alien. Didn't I know that Phoebe had banned phones from her concerts? Thus began my education and now yours. For her 45-date world tour, which began mid-September, the indie superstar has banned phones from her performances. And not as in, please don't use your phone or I'll be disappointed, but more like, you need to put your phone in this sealed pouch to gain entrance. Bridgers is not the first artist to ban phones. high-end comedy clubs have been doing it for years, and a number of prominent musicians have as well.

19:14But because of the size of her tour, her largely Gen Z fan base, and the absolute nature of the restriction, the phone ban has sparked a major debate over big topics like memory, scarcity, and what it means to live in the moment. For Bridgers, banning phones aims to preserve her mental health in the spotlight. According to a New York Times reporter who went to the show, about halfway through, Bridgers thanked the audience for turning in their phones and acknowledged that she had a rough couple of years as public attention on her grew. She said she felt comfortable performing more vulnerable and personal songs with the understanding that none of it was being recorded and spread across the internet.

19:48Toby kind of feels like a watershed moment in the Gen Z led device backlash. Absolutely. Because people love filming concerts, which it's kind of the worst genre of video ever. Have you ever watched a concert video back after you took and go, wow, I'm so glad I have that. But according to Samsung, the average British concert goer records 12 and a half minutes of video per show. That is a lot of video time, but I do think artists are kind of in their soul realizing that this is not what they want their experiences to be. They want their concerts to feel like concerts again where everyone is present.

20:24They actually think that it increases the value of their show because if you cannot watch it on TikTok or you cannot watch it on Instagram after the fact, it drives up the value of the experience itself. So obviously you want to do that. if you are a performer. And then plus, some performers said they just felt weird up there. Canadian DJ Kay Trinada was very direct about having the audience film while they were performing. They said, it looks mad awkward from where I stand. So from an artist perspective, yes, there's lots of reasons why I can understand why you would tell people, leave your phones in your pocket.

20:58I don't wanna see all those screens. I wanna see you engaging with me. But the fact that Phoebe Bridges is saying, you need to put this in a yonder pouch like they do at comedy shows, or you basically can't go into my concert unless you put your phone away, not just in your pocket, but in this sealed pouch that you can only pick up after, is one of the more extreme things that we've seen because a bunch of artists have said, don't use your phone at my concerts. I thought what Harry Styles did was pretty cool. At a recent gig in Manchester, he basically had his fans put their phones away, but instead gave out disposable cameras alongside a note, quote, thank you for really being here with me, dance with all your friends.

21:35So you get a disposable camera, which is a very Gen Z thing, but you're supposed to not use your phone. You don't have to put it in a pouch, though. Bob Dylan also, in his previous tours, has said, don't use your phones, and we'll have the security staff in the audience be the police, not necessarily put it in your pouch. It's very interesting, though. There is a backlash to this. Not everyone agrees that you shouldn't use your phone. Billie Eilish is one major superstar who says that phones are just a part of our lives now. and that she said, when I was young and we'd go to concerts or festivals, I would film every single minute of it and then I would watch every single video that I took over and over until I even had the audio of the crowd memorized.

22:15It's not to be poo-pooed. It's an important part of the culture. It keeps us connected. It does. Yeah, and a lot of the fact that Phoebe Bridger's audience is young, they don't even know a world before phones. So it's just such an integral or just a normal part of life that it feels completely irrational to try to put that away. Also, if you can't afford a ticket to the show, a lot of her fans are like, hey, I love actually watching your videos after the fact because it does feel like I had a chance to experience a part of this without shelling out for a ticket price that may be beyond my means.

22:48So that is another argument as well. I don't know. In general, I feel like we are shifting that way as a society. It is not out of the question now or weird even to be told to put your phone away at certain events. And so the fact that that's becoming more of a norm, I do think that this is just the tip of the iceberg as people probably will continue to adopt phone free concerts going forward. I'm all for it. Proud of us for not bringing up golf until this point. But the famous example is that the Masters at Augusta doesn't allow phones. And all these pictures go viral of maybe the 18th green of people watching this most intense putt.

23:26they're all locked in because they, they are no phones allowed as opposed to any of the other golf tournaments, the other majors where everyone's looking, you know, there's, they're mediated through their phones for this major, you know, this big, big moment. So it's happening across society. The backlash to phones is real. We'll see how far it goes. Best sporting experience I've ever had. Your best sporting experience you've ever had. Neil's never been to the masters. All right, let's, let's spread to the finish with some final headlines. Open AI is coming after Meta's muse. The company unveiled Dots yesterday, its version of an always-on AI assistant that can go off and do stuff for you.

24:03Powered by its new Astra model, you can give Dots a job like combing through customer feedback or turning a podcast interview into clips where you make Toby look really smart, and it can work in the background. The timing of this release is no accident. MetasMuse has exploded in popularity by promising to do essentially the same things, screwing around your digital life to book reservations and cancel subscriptions. Neil, by my count, there's the iMessage-based Instinct, a AI assistant startup that just raised at a$14 billion valuation. There's Metamuse, which is still the number one free app.