Why College Kids Can’t Find Jobs & New Wegovy-Like Drug for $199/mo

0:00Tonight 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 I do win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere tonight on NBC. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, fresh college grads are open to work on LinkedIn, so why can't they find any jobs?

0:41Ben, remember the open AI voice that came out sounding a lot like Scarlett Johansson? Well, the real Scarlett Johansson is none too pleased about it. It's Tuesday, May 21st. Let's ride.

0:57Okay, to start the show today, I want to tell you about a new newsletter Morning Brew launched yesterday. It's called Brew Markets, and it covers, you guessed it, the stock market. Neil, you have been hard at work with the Brew Markets team developing this new product. It comes out five days a week right after the bell. Who would you say this newsletter is for, and what can people expect if they sign up? Well, it's definitely for people for whom Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, is their favorite Morning Brew Daily segment. It's intended to provide active traders or those who want to be people who are on their Robin Hood a couple times a day with a brief summary of the day's market moves, along with expert opinions, practical tips, and markets education in just a five-minute read.

1:37And let's just go through yesterday's edition, for example. They talked about one of the most prominent bearish analysts lifting his target for the S &P 500, which is good news, and then whether surging copper prices are on the verge of collapse, and hims and hers getting into knockoff weight loss drugs, and what that means for their stock, which is also what we're going to be talking about on this show a little later. Yeah, I loved the first edition. It just goes one level deeper than maybe any other morning brew product has gone before. So it is for someone who would enjoy morning brew daily.

2:06And I think you would enjoy brew markets as well. The easiest way to sign up is just pull out your phone or computer and Google brew markets were the first thing that pops up and you can subscribe using that link. Now let's hear a word from our sponsor Sage, not the herb, but a tool that saves finance professionals a lot of time and money. Today, I want to talk directly to you, the finance professional. You are both the engine that powers a business and the glue that keeps things together. But oftentimes you might be stuck in neutral, bogged down by manual tasks instead of doing what you do best, which is adding strategic value across the business.

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3:08If you're interested in saving time and money, visit sage.com slash morningbrew. Sage helping businesses flow. This 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.

3:43Class of 2020 high school grads, you all have it rough. You missed walking in 2020, and in 2024, nationwide protests have disrupted your graduations again. But this so-called real world that awaits you is once again testing your mettle. The youth leaving college are entering a tough job market. On the surface, the numbers look good. Low unemployment, good jobs growth in some sectors like healthcare, but finance, consulting, tech jobs, you know the jobs that you feel good putting on your LinkedIn profile, those are getting harder to come by. Employers are hiring at their slowest pace of the last 10 years, even excluding the major dip that occurred during the pandemic.

4:22And entry-level hiring in particular is projected to fall by 5.8 % in 2024 compared to last year. Combine that with the fact that less workers are leaving their jobs to, and Glassdoor's data showing that confidence among entry-level workers is at its lowest level since 2016 makes a lot of sense. Neil, it's just been body blow after body blow for this particular class. It really has. You're seeing a big bifurcation in the job market right now. And you said overall it's healthy. But look at where the jobs are coming from, the job growth. It's in sectors like leisure, hospitality, and retail. Those are driving a lot of the gains.

4:58And if you're a college grad with a fancy degree that you spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on, you're not looking for a part-time role. You're looking for something in the white-collar space, professional services, where you can sort of put your degree to use. And those white collar entry level jobs and professional services in tech, in consulting are the ones that are just not really hiring right now. Software development job postings are down 30 percent this year compared to last. So this is a tough job market. If you are looking for that cushy role at a Google, a Meta, an Amazon or an EY or a Deloitte.

5:32Yeah, it felt like just a couple of years ago, seniors were able to leverage multiple job offers, negotiate higher compensation. That is just not the case anymore. It is because big tech is hiring less, but it's also because the roles that big tech is hiring for are a lot more to do with AI these days. And that's just not a great fit for entry-level workers because most of these AI roles require some additional years of experience. But it could also be that the technology itself is removing the need for some entry-level workers, which is a little bit of a scary thought that we've been warned about, that maybe AI is already coming and making these entry-level roles a little bit more redundant than they have been in the past.

6:08So it is just crazy that even it gives shades of the time after 2008, 2009, when a lot of people in finance with MBAs and whatnot started drifting to the tech sector because there was no one hiring in finance. Now it seems like the opposite. A lot of people from the tech sector are drifting to other places like health care or finance that need these software development roles. Yeah, we've talked at a very high level so far. Let's get into some specifics. So go to Rice University in Texas. In 2022, Meta Platforms was one of the top employers for Rice grads. Last year, they didn't hire a single one.

6:43So that's just one example of how Meta, I mean, they fired a couple, the tens of thousands of people, and they're not doing job cuts anymore, but they just aren't hiring at the pace that they used to. So if you just look at Rice specifically, that's one example showing how big tech is really just not hiring college entry-level positions as they had been. Yeah, and it just affects the entire psyche of a generation at this point. A lot of these articles we were reading were just about what it feels like to send hundreds of applications out into the void right now. A lot of unanswered applications lead to a lot of pain.

7:15It lowers your expectations. And for some sense, it just gives even more ammunition to that argument that college was a waste of time and money. So I do think we're going to see some long-term effects of this specific job market being so tough on this specific class. Yeah, and one of the biggest trends we're seeing is Gen Z going into the trades, which doesn't require a college degree, and they're paying over$100 ,000 to get in. So, you know, I think that trend may only continue as these big tech firms and the big consulting firms sort of slow down their hiring. New segment alert. Love a new segment.

7:49This one is called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. and in it you'll hear one piece of news that's good, one that's bad, and one that's uglier than me crying while watching the opening montage of Up. Gotta start with the good, them's the rules, and the good news is that the ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse, is on the move. After being stuck for nearly eight weeks, the Dali was being towed by tugboats back to the port it began its journey from all the way back in March when it lost power and crashed into the bridge, killing six construction workers.

8:22Getting the Dali unstuck is a big step forward in clearing a channel for ships to pass through and start the rebuilding process, which is expected to take more than four years and cost up to$1.9 billion. It's also a relief to the 21 crew members, mostly Indians, who have not been able to leave the ship this entire time. Yeah, first of all, shout out to the tugboats. We're watching a video right now of the tugboats pulling this massive ship. And those always give me, I just want to pat them on the back because they're doing such a good job They're so small, but yes. Do you understand how tugboats can pull this massive ship?

8:56Yeah, please write in. The physics of it are incredible. But yeah, this is just a huge sigh of relief for the Port of Baltimore. Around 20 ships are expected to arrive in the next week going forward. And we're finally going to see kind of a return to normalcy. They said they've seen bookings for the roll-on, roll-off vessels, which are the vessels that can carry automobiles, which is what the Port of Baltimore is definitely known for. So finally, it's just like this big unclogging and it's a big relief, especially for those crew members to have been stuck on board. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about why they couldn't leave.

9:27First of all, they have visas that have expired. These were one month visas in the United States, so they can't technically get on U.S. soil. And at the same time, the U.S. has regulations and laws in place that require a cruise vessel to be on the crew because this is a big ship with a lot of machines, a lot of moving parts. and you need people on the ship to handle all of that so something worse doesn't happen while the ship has just been stuck there. So these people have been on the ship for almost two months now for various reasons. And I think once it gets back to port, they'll be able to leave hopefully.

9:59And the FBI has a criminal investigation ongoing into the circumstances that actually contributed to the collapse. So they've taken the crew members' phones. So they're still under investigation for that as well. Let's move on to the bad now. and it comes courtesy of OpenAI. Remember the AI voice assistant rolled out last week that impressed people with its ability to converse naturally, but also creep people out because of how much one of the voices named Sky sounded sultry, drawing comparisons to Scarlett Johansson's voice in the movie Her. Well, they already have pulled the plug on it. Things took a turn for the creepy when Scarlett Johansson herself jumped into a fray with a statement saying that OpenAI had originally contacted her nine months ago about being a voice actor for the model, but she turned that offer down.

10:45Fast forward nine months later and she and her team were shocked and angered to hear a voice come out that sounds just like her. The statement she issued says she ended up reaching out to get legal counsel and sending Sam Altman multiple letters, which explains this sudden and reluctant U-turn from OpenAI. Neil, probably a good call to just pull this voice off the market. Yeah, this is definitely a he said, her said situation. Honestly, it's the most bizarre. So if you were like, what is the weirdest thing that could possibly happen? This is it. I think what both sides do agree on is that OpenAI did reach out to Scarlett Johansson.

11:20Sam Altman did confirm that. But OpenAI said they had a voice actor already on the books to record this particular voice, which is called Sky. And Scarlett Johansson is saying that Sam Altman asked her to license her voice, to use specifically her voice. And that's where this contention is happening. At the same time, Scarlett Johansson said that two days before this presentation last week that Sam Altman once again reached out to her and asked her final time for her voice. This is extremely weird and it does not look good for Sam Altman and OpenAI, which had said all of OpenAI's leaders in subsequent interviews had said that Scarlett Johansson's voice had not inspired this voice and had nothing to do with it.

12:04But their reputation has taken a huge hit because it has become clear that it at least in some respects was involved in Sam Alvin's not helping things because he tweeted her at the end of that announcement. Right. He's almost he's pulling the Elon Musk playbook where he seems to be like directly contradicting and undermining the things that his company is publicly putting out. Because, yeah, when you tweet something like her, it's almost rubbing it in Charlotte Johansson's face saying like, no, we didn't use you at all. But here I am referencing the movie that you play a voice actor of an A.I.

12:33assistant. So, yeah, and I just think that there's wide-ranging implications for these AI chatbots that also, even before the Scarlett Johansson situation came out, there was this investor at Menlo Partners who said that eight of the top 50 most used generative AI apps in the world are related to AI companionship. So when you release a voice that people are already drawing attachment issues to or they're saying that they feel very connected to, that is something that you have to consider when you're rolling out these AI voices. And so I do think that we've talked about super alignment and maybe the way that AI leads to the end of the humanity is just the fact that people find companionship with bots rather than each other.

13:13So I do think that was like a downstream effect that maybe they didn't put enough thought into when they rolled out this voice that you're able to connect with on a very intimate level. And the fact that Sam Altman reached out to Scarlett Johansson to get her voice in the first place, knowing that her voice was one that people associate with people falling in love with the chatbot in the first place, is extremely creepy. Meanwhile, you have all these allegations swirling around OpenAI about how they steal IP to train these large language models. And now you have a real life example of them allegedly trying to steal someone's voice for their chat bot.

13:47Raises a lot of questions for Open AI. And it could set off a very explosive legal battle depending on what happens. Scarlett Johansson wants to know how exactly this voice assistant was trained and created. And maybe we'll find out due to legal proceedings. Finally, the ugly is Red Lobster. You've heard on the show for weeks about Red Lobster struggles, how it abruptly closed more than 90 stores. but yesterday it did the deed and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And the details are about as ugly as a lobster, up to its eyeballs in at least$1 billion in debt. Red Lobster said it would close more locations as it prepares to sell most of its assets.

14:24The bankruptcy notice also provided more juicy information about that debacle of an all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion last year. We knew it led to an$11 million loss for the company, but there may have been something more nefarious and bizarre going on. According to the court filing, the all-you-can-eat shrimp's actual goal may have been about boosting the sales of Thai Union, a major investor. Thai Union is a seafood supplier, and under CEO Paul Kenny, Red Lobster ditched its two other shrimp suppliers, leaving Thai Union as the only one remaining. So if you put two and two together, it seems that Thai Union may have been compelling Red Lobster to run this shrimp promotion just so it could sell more shrimp to Red Lobster, causing it to run out of money.

15:08Seems fishy. Yeah, the last two owners of Red Lobster have done the chain dirty because the owner before Time Union, which is this PE firm called Golden Gate Capital, when they sold, they financed the deal by doing the sale leaseback agreement, which essentially means they bought all the land underneath the Red Lobsters and required the franchisees to pay them money to enrich the PE firm. And so that kind of bogged down these franchises with now they're having to pay their owner money just to operate on their land. And then you go to this Thai Union thing, which seems like a shell company. And I use that or like a shell front, pun intended, for just boosting its own shrimp sales, its own crustacean sales.

15:47So I just feel bad for Red Lobster. It's a staple of American cuisine, and yet their owners are doing it dirty. Up next, a new player has entered the GLP-1 weight loss space. 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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17:30A company not named Eli Lilly or Novo Nordisk has jumped in the GLP-1 weight loss drug game and it is riding it to all-time highs. The digital pharmacy Hims and Hers that rose to prominence selling generic versions of Viagra and Rogaine introduced access to the class of drugs that include Ozempic and Monjaro, and the stock went nuts. Shares closed up more than 27 % yesterday, good for its largest intraday gain in more than three years. Usually developing a drug costs billions of dollars in many years, but Hims and Herds took a backdoor route and partnered with one of the largest generic manufacturers in the country that has FDA oversight to introduce the drugs to its customers.

18:09Because it's working with With a generic manufacturer, it can charge a lot less. You can get an oral medication kit for$79 a month, while injections start at just$199 a month. Compare that to a Zempic, which can run someone over$1 ,000 a month before insurance. Neil, you can tell by how the market reacted here that this is a very big deal, both for hims and herds and customers who have run up against big shortages of the medication. Yeah, and that shortages are exactly why they can make these drugs. because, I mean, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have patents on these GLP-1 semaglutide drugs. But there is a provision in the federal government where if there is a shortage of a particular drug, then it allows other pharmaceutical manufacturers to make a generic version of that drug because people need it, want it, etc.

18:58So there is a clause called this compound—it's called compounding in the industry. And you can create a compounding drug here if there is a shortage going on. And it's kind of a loophole. And that's exactly what hims and hers is exploiting to undercut prices of Wigovi and Manjaro by 85%. Yeah, as long as the manufacturer is FDA approved, then they can get on this compounded drug train. The actual drug itself aren't FDA approved. It's this very weird wrinkle in kind of the drug law. And the FDA does warn that patients should not use compounded drugs if the actual name brand version are available.

19:34But yeah, it is legal. And Hims and Hers has done this in the past with other types of drugs. And it does seem like this is a great way to beat out competitors on the key statistic that matters, which is availability, because there's so many shortages of these name brand drugs that, of course, if you are someone who wants access to them, you would go and consider a compounded version of the drug. And meanwhile, tell me if you've heard this before. this is him's and hers fastest growing division weight loss surprise surprise they're on track to eclipse a hundred million dollars in revenue in this particular division by next year and currently their annual revenue is about a billion dollars in sales which first of all is very impressive for a startup that was founded in 2017 so they're already doing gangbusters business and if this is their fastest growing division they're about to do a tenth of their entire sales by next year in these weight loss drugs.

20:26So, I mean, you can see why every pharmaceutical company under the planet is wanting to get into this space. Right. It gives me almost Long Island blockchain vibes. Remember, during the blockchain revolution, a company just added blockchain to its name and it goes nuts. It does seem like if you can't get in AI right now, get in the GLP-1 space. That is what shareholders want to see. And when you look at the statistics, it's very interesting because we know that about one in eight adults said they've taken a GLP-1 recently in a survey actually just this month, but we don't have any insight into how many people are taking these compounded versions, which are becoming a lot more popular.

21:01So who knows, like half of the population could be taking either these brand name ones or a compounded knockoff essentially. So that is another wrinkle where you just like have no insight into how many of these drugs are being sold. Now buckle up for a long plane ride to New Caledonia, a remote French territory in the Pacific that could be on the verge of civil war right now. And there's major implications for nickel. The past few days, French police arrived in New Caledonia to get under control, swelling protests that have blockaded roads, closed the airport, destroyed businesses and left six people dead.

21:38Pro-independence activists in the territory are incredibly angry about a new law adopted in Paris that would give more voting rights to New Caledonia's non-indigenous population, diluting the influence of the native people. So what does this have to do with nickel? Well, nickel is the New Caledonian economy. The territory is the world's third largest producer of primary nickel, and it accounts directly and indirectly for about a quarter of New Caledonia jobs. Like copper, nickel is a key ingredient for many products powering the green energy economy, such as lithium-ion batteries for EVs. But unlike copper, which is hitting record highs, nickel prices have collapsed recently due to oversupply.

22:18That's an economic disaster for New Caledonia. And that malaise is also fueling these protests. Toby, French President Emmanuel Macron has a serious problem on his hands. Yeah, it does, because France was trying to roll out this new kind of policy where they're trying to leverage their own nickel surges to reduce the influence of China in the region. And China has a very large kind of stranglehold on the resources within the Indo-Pacific region. And so Emmanuel Macron has been very vocal about saying like, hey, we want to leverage New Caledonia to propel our own EV efforts and propel our own European battery factories.

22:55And yet here they are having a lot of tension here because of a variety of things, falling nickel prices and then that law that they are trying to pass. And when the people of New Caledonia hear Macron being like, we want to use all of the nickel reserves in this remote Pacific island to buttress our own manufacturing, our own geopolitical standing to them that that says that that they hear colonialism. And, you know, nickel has been a big part of the French draw to this territory ever since the 19th century. And so they're rebelling against this, you know, French neo-colonialist, at least rhetoric that Macron is doing.

23:29So we'll see how this plays out. The problem is these prices have been collapsing, which has cratered their economy. They have three nickel processing factories on the islands that could go out of business because nickel prices have collapsed. Indonesia started producing a ton of nickel, which flooded the market. And so in the copper industry, you have this undersupply. They can't find enough copper. Meanwhile, over in nickel, which has similar properties and is similar inputs into all these clean energy products, they have way too much supply. I do think, though, that demand is expected to triple in the coming years.