Good morning. We're not scientists but that stuffing honestly still looks fine. —Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch, Neal Freyman | | | READ THIS TO REMAIN A SUBSCRIBER Want to keep receiving Morning Brew? Clicking on newsletter links is the only way for us to know you are reading (and enjoying) Morning Brew. If you don't click by next month, you will stop receiving this newsletter. Click here to let us know that you're still an active subscriber. Thanks! | | | |  | Nasdaq | 15,782.83 | | | | | S&P | 4,655.27 | | | | | Dow | 35,135.94 | | | | | 10-Year | 1.513% | | | | | Bitcoin | $58,285.20 | | | | | Moderna | $368.51 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: Consider the dip bought. Stocks regrouped much of their losses from their steep sell-off on Friday, relieved by President Biden's pledge not to reimpose lockdowns. Moderna shares have now jumped nearly 35% in two days as investors see big $$$ in a potential Omicron-specific vaccine.
- Economy: Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will begin two days of hearings on Capitol Hill today. Expect Powell to field questions about how Omicron will change the Fed's approach to combating inflation.
| | | Photo Illustration: Mick McDougall; Getty Images/Joe Raedle After eight years of watching brands bully random people on Twitter, Jack Dorsey said he was stepping down as the company's CEO yesterday. He's handed the keys to the birdcage to Parag Agrawal, Twitter's current CTO. 300-character background: Dorsey cofounded Twitter in 2006, and served as the hot-take site's first CEO until he was pushed to chairman in 2008. Since he returned to the corner office in 2015, Twitter became profitable and established itself as the world's digital watercooler for culture and politics. But a lack of product innovation and (some argue) mismanagement means it's still sitting at the social media kids table. - Twitter's stock climbed 67% during Dorsey's most recent tenure, compared to Meta's (formerly Facebook) 260%. And Twitter only snagged $3.7 billion in revenue last year, while Meta raked in almost $86 billion.
You can't fit a Twitter peg into a Square hole In a letter to staff, Dorsey said he was leaving in part because he believes the company is ready to move on from its founders. But it's worth noting that Dorsey is staying on as CEO of another company he cofounded: the payments giant Square. He'd been double-dipping as CEO of both Square and Twitter since 2015. Decentralize Dorsey. The tech mogul has expressed his undying love for bitcoin numerous times, saying at one point it could bring about world peace. Some analysts speculate that Dorsey's departure is mostly about freeing up time for making big crypto moves at Square. - Square began offering bitcoin trading through Cash App in 2018, created an independent team for bitcoin open-source work in 2019, and announced it would launch a whole new business to build decentralized finance (DeFi) apps for bitcoin in July.
Crypto might also be central to Twitter's roadmap. Agrawal, a machine-learning and AI expert, has been leading the company's Bluesky project that aims to create a "decentralized standard" for social media. And apparently he's only ever had positive airport experiences, tweeting just 10 times this year. + Fun fact: Argawal joins the growing ranks of powerful US tech executives of Indian descent. Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and now Twitter are all run by people who grew up in India.—MM | | | Francis Scialabba As scientists work to collect more information about the new, highly mutated variant of Covid-19 called Omicron, world leaders are stressing patience, feuding over travel bans, and pushing boosters. Here's the latest. Boosters get a boost: The CDC leveled up its booster recommendation, now saying that all US adults "should" get one. The UK is also accelerating its booster rollout in light of Omicron, opening up third shots to all adults. Biden tried to soothe Americans' nerves: The president called Omicron a "cause for concern, not a cause for panic." He doesn't anticipate additional travel restrictions or lockdowns on account of Omicron, which gave a boost to airline stocks. Speaking of travel bans: They're extremely contentious. The UN's secretary-general called out the many countries who've banned travel from southern Africa, where the new strain was first detected, saying that region "should not be penalized for identifying and sharing crucial science...with the world." Japan, Morocco, and Israel have closed their borders to all outside travelers. Therapeutics: Companies working on treatments that combat Covid-19 said they believed their drugs would be effective against Omicron. Pfizer's CEO said his company's antiviral pill was designed with mutations in mind, so he has a "very high level of confidence" it will work.—NF | | The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had a Cyber Monday blowout of its own: free second chances for Amazon workers attempting to unionize. Workers at an Amazon facility in Bessemer, AL, are getting a second union vote after the NLRB found that the retail giant improperly interfered with the first election back in March. That vote resulted in a more than 2-to-1 defeat for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)—the labor union behind the Bessemer organizing drive. Why the second chance? The union alleged that during the first election, Amazon pressured workers to cast their votes in a mailbox on company property, in view of security cameras. This could have given workers the impression that Amazon would have a role in counting ballots and may have intimidated them into voting no, the NLRB found. According to an NLRB official, employees also could have inferred that Amazon was tracking their vote by maintaining a list of who took "vote no" pins, which Amazon handed out leading up to the election. Zoom out: With Amazon's high employee turnover rate, the company's staunch opposition to unionization, and a wage that goes further in Bessemer than in larger cities, the union still faces a tough battle in Alabama. The second vote has not been given a date.—MK | | TOGETHER WITH THE MOTLEY FOOL | | Yes, we know that's not the saying. But we're trying to make a point here. That point is: Crypto right now is, shall we say, not unlike a gold rush. And that means there could be just as much opportunity in the tools being used as there could be in the shiny rocks. Crypto tokens are like shiny rocks indeed, but a great crypto investment strategy has potential to make investors $$$ regardless of whether a given token is  -ing or not on a given day. The Motley Fool found a company that might be perfectly poised as a long-term shovel—a sturdy metal one with a nice leather handle, if you will—for the broader crypto market. And these folks put their decentralized currencies where their mouths are: The Motley Fool has invested $5 million in bitcoin, so you know they're putting their crypto chips on the table with their members. Learn more about investing in crypto for the long term here. | | Stat: On Giving Tuesday, here are some figures on the state of philanthropy in the US… - Americans gave $471.44 billion in 2020, which accounted for 2.3% of GDP.
- More charitable dollars went to religion (28%) than anywhere else.
- Jeff Bezos was the top donor in 2020, giving $10.2 billion, followed by MacKenzie Scott ($5.7 billion) and Michael Bloomberg ($1.6 billion).
Quote: "This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021." Merriam-Webster's Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski explained why the company chose "vaccine" as its 2021 word of the year. Lookups for the word surged 601% over 2020, when "pandemic" was Merriam-Webster's word of the year. Read: The secretive prisons that keep migrants out of Europe. (The New Yorker) | | | FOX Does this count as another Simpsons prediction? An episode of The Simpsons featuring jokes about Chinese censorship is absent from the recently launched Disney+ in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Disney+ subscribers trying to watch The Simpsons will notice that episode 12 of season 16 isn't in the show archive. The missing episode, titled "Goo Goo Gai Pan," centers around a Simpson family visit to China where Homer describes Mao Zedong as looking "like a little angel that killed 50 million people." The family also passes a sign in Tiananmen Square (where several hundred protestors were killed by Chinese soldiers and police in 1989) that reads, "On this site, in 1989, nothing happened." It's unclear whether Disney preemptively censored the episode or if the company was asked to do so by government officials. A recent film censorship law grants the Hong Kong government the ability to censor movies on national security grounds—but it doesn't apply to streaming services, according to a government statement. Zoom out: Hong Kong has been cracking down on art that references Tiananmen Square. The University of Hong Kong is removing a 24-year-old memorial statue, and a photograph by exiled Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been scrapped from the online archive of Hong Kong's new art museum, M+.—MK | | - CNN host Chris Cuomo used his journalism sources to scoop up more info on sexual harassment allegations against his brother, former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, according to transcripts released yesterday. CNN said it's reviewing the new docs.
- Pitching ace Max Scherzer agreed to a 3-year deal with the NY Mets, where he'll make an average of $43.3 million a year—a new record. For comparison, the Baltimore Orioles' entire payroll is $37 million.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sold roughly half his shares in the company last week, netting him more than $285 million.
- Frenzied demand for Spider-Man: No Way Home tickets crashed theater websites yesterday, and some scalpers were selling them for as much as $25,000 on eBay.
| | TOGETHER WITH IMA® (INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANTS) | | What's on tap for retail in 2022? Find out on December 14, when we'll speak with two experts about all the trends to look out for next year, from alternative payments to emerging pickup options. Register here. Giving Tip Tuesday: If you want to give back on Giving Tuesday, check out GiveDirectly, which sends money directly to people living in poverty and is matching all donations made today. The creative process: Watch Paul McCartney go from nonsense guitar strumming to figuring out the hook for "Get Back" in 2 minutes. | | Brew Mini: Thank you, Harry Potter, for helping us solve the clue "Make out, in Britspeak." Play the full puzzle here. The Quitting Diaries In light of Jack Dorsey stepping down from Twitter, we pored through famous resignation letters in history. For this quiz, we'll give you an excerpt from a notable figure's resignation letter; you have to name the person. - "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come."
- "Dear Mr. Secretary: I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States."
- "After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry."
- "Keep inventing, and don't despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1."
| | | On Day 2 of our 12 Days of Giveaways, we're handing out a $500 Airbnb gift card to one Brew reader and someone they refer. To enter the raffle, all you need to do is slam that share button below and get a friend signed up to the Brew before midnight (ET) tonight. And every confirmed referral is one entry to win, so the more you refer, the more entries you get. Europe? Costa Rica? Florida? Wherever you go, we'd appreciate some pics. Share to Win*Disclaimer: Only readers with US addresses are eligible to participate. Check out the terms and conditions. | | - Steve Jobs
- Richard Nixon
- Pope Benedict XVI
- Jeff Bezos
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