Friday, March 25, 2022

☕️ After-school job

Uber and NYC taxis put their past behind them...
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Morning Brew

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Good morning and Happy Friday. In a bid to cover up all the cringe content we uploaded in middle school, we've been creating a lot more videos on the Brew's YouTube channel—and they're really good! Scroll down for video links and to read about a YouTube contest we're throwing.

Max Knoblauch, Matty Merritt, Neal Freyman

MARKETS

Nasdaq

14,191.84

S&P

4,520.16

Dow

34,707.94

10-Year

2.375%

Bitcoin

$43,931.62

Nvidia

$281.50

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

  • Markets: Investors were feeling risky yesterday, piling into tech stocks and semiconductors in particular. Nvidia, the seventh-largest S&P 500 company by market cap, soared on expectations that it'll play a pivotal role in the development of AI.
  • Geopolitics: Brussels was a buzzin' with Western leaders holding several emergency meetings over the war in Ukraine. President Biden made some news, calling for Russia to be expelled from the Group of 20 (G-20) major economies and announcing that the US would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.

RIDE-SHARING

The wave-down is going extinct

A photo-illustration combining an Uber vehicle and a NYC yellow cab. Dianna "Mick" McDougall

After more than a decade of reenacting Gangs of New York, Uber and NYC taxis are forming a partnership: Uber announced Thursday that its app will offer users the ability to hail a yellow taxi in the Big Apple.

The partnership—the first of its kind in the US—means the city's 14,000 cabs will be available along with the roughly 80,000 Uber vehicles operating in New York when users turn on their app. So, no more excuses about not getting to your friend's birthday bar crawl in Astoria.

Uber expects to start the service later this spring. Passengers will pay about the same for a taxi ride as an UberX ride, Uber said.

The historic alliance of different-colored sedans offers much-needed drivers for Uber, which is experiencing a shortage throughout the country. Taxi drivers, on the other hand, will likely see an increase in rides after the pandemic crushed the classic Midtown wave-down.

It hasn't always been so rosy

Disrupting taxi services, particularly in cities like New York, was one of Uber's main objectives since its conception. Co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, who resigned from the company in 2017 amid reports of a toxic work culture and allegations of ignoring sexual harrassment, was particularly spiteful of yellow cabs.

  • "We're in a political campaign, and the candidate is Uber and the opponent is an asshole named Taxi," Kalanick said in 2014.

Uber's lower fare prices and easier driver onboarding caused taxi medallion prices in NYC to plummet over the last decade, leading around 1,000 drivers to file for bankruptcy. Several taxi drivers in the city died by suicide, which advocates blamed on mounting financial pressures caused in part by Uber.

Now, though, Uber sees taxis as its future and has a goal of listing every taxi in the world on its app by 2025.

Another benefit for Uber: In Hong Kong, where Uber already partners with thousands of taxis, the company claims that 35% of users who hail a cab through the app go on to use Uber's other services.—MK

        

WORLD

Tour de headlines

Chart of jobless claims St. Louis Fed

Jobless claims fall to a near 53-year low. We're hereby nominating the chart above for the National Economic Chart Hall of Fame. Less than two years after jobless claims went vertical to 6.15 million, the number of Americans filing new claims came in at 187,000 last week—their lowest level since 1969. While a tight labor market is undoubtedly good news for workers, it also puts more pressure on inflation.

Would you lease an iPhone? Apple is working on a subscription service for its hardware products including the iPhone, Bloomberg reports. In the same way that you pay for iCloud storage or Apple Music, you'd fork over a monthly fee for iPhones and iPads (which would not be equivalent to the gadget's price over X number of months). Recurring revenue is Tim Cook's love language.

NYC lets Kyrie play at home. Mayor Eric Adams said he'll exempt athletes and performers based in NYC from a broader vaccine mandate for private employers, arguing the economy needs them to get back to work. In practice, this means unvaccinated Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving will be able to play at home again, just in time for the stretch run. Critics say that's no coincidence, calling the exemption the "Kyrie Carve Out."

        

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GEOGRAPHY

The Sunbelt also rises

Map of where counties are growing US Census Bureau

Everyone you know moved during the pandemic. A new Census Bureau report helps clear up where they left and where they ended up. Here are four takeaways:

1. Americans chased the sun. Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and Atlanta collectively gained 300,000 residents from mid-2020 to mid-2021.

2. That came at the expense of "superstar cities." New York, LA, Chicago, and San Francisco lost more than 700,000 people combined over the same time frame.

3. Growth is heavily concentrated. The 10 fastest-growing counties in the US made up nearly 80% of population growth during the period studied.

4. Size doesn't matter. Micro areas, or regions with a core city of fewer than 50,000 residents, reversed their yearslong stagnation by increasing their populations. Kalispell and Bozeman in MT and Jefferson, GA, led the way.

Big picture: Immigration is the X factor. Immigration levels plunged during the pandemic, which helps explain the population loss in America's biggest cities. Some demographers say a bump in immigration post-Covid could result in those population declines representing a "blip," rather than a more permanent trend.—NF

        

CYBERSECURITY

If Euphoria kids could code

Samuel L Jackson saying, "I hate this hacker crap." Jurassic Park/Universal Pictures via Giphy

Tech companies are learning what most of us already knew: Teenagers are so scary. The City of London Police arrested seven teens yesterday in connection with the infamous Lapsus$ hacking group that has targeted companies like Microsoft, Nvidia, and Okta over the last year.

Cybersecurity experts said they tracked down the group's alleged ringleader, a 16 year old, in Oxford, England, who reportedly amassed $14 million from his after-school hacking job. London Police wouldn't confirm if he was one of the seven arrested.

Lapsus$'s goals were simple: Hack a company, steal its data, and threaten to leak the data until the company paid up. Earlier this month, Lapsus$ stole the source code for Samsung's Galaxy devices, and in February, Nvidia said the group was leaking employee credentials online.

The downfall: Whether it's a highly sophisticated cyberattack or a post-band-rehearsal Denny's hang, the loudmouth teens always ruin it. Authorities discovered Lapsus$ because the group routinely bragged about its attacks on social media, and the 16-year-old leader was also doxed by rival hackers.—MM

        

GRAB BAG

Key performance indicators

Billboards advertise Clark Brothers gun store and shooting range in Warrenton, Virginia Eva Hambach/AFP via Getty Images

Stat: Nearly one in five US households purchased a gun during the pandemic, pushing the total amount of US adults living in a household with a gun to 46%, according to a new survey from NORC at the University of Chicago. First-time gun buyers during the pandemic were more likely to be younger people and racial minorities than those pre-Covid.

Quote: "The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades."

In his annual letter to shareholders, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink predicted that the war in Ukraine will transform the global economic order established after the Cold War. While the last three decades were defined by countries building trade links across the world, now they may start looking inward to shield their economies from supply chain disruptions and geopolitical conflicts.

Read: Predicting Best Picture winners using coughs and sneezes. (Journal DOI)

        

QUIZ

Hail a quiz

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The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to rescheduling your dentist appointment.

It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

  • More than half of Ukraine's children have been displaced by the war, according to UNICEF.
  • An ETF launched yesterday that targets the stocks of companies led by "high character" CEOs. Tesla and Meta did not make the cut.
  • Google will begin to show open appointments when you search for doctors or health care providers.
  • Ice-T made a dad joke about gas prices.

TOGETHER WITH APPLE CARD

Farewell, fees.* When you spend with your Apple Card, fees are out. That means no late fees, no foreign transaction fees, and definitely no sneaky hidden fees. You'll also earn up to 3% unlimited cash back with every purchase, every day. Apply with no impact to your credit score. Terms apply.

BREW'S BETS

Friday finds: Here's what the Brew writers are doing with our eyeballs when we're not sending newsletters.

Niche content: Bo Burnham songs, but lo-fi.

T-shirt season is officially here. Upgrade your wardrobe for spring with bestselling tees from the Morning Brew Store. Shop now.

GAMES

Friday puzzle

Today's puzzle is another excellent one circulated by early PayPal employees.

Use the letters given to complete the grid so that four other words can be read downwards and across. Your bank of letters: A A A D D D E L L R R S S T Y Y

Friday puzzle

FROM THE CREW

Comment on our YouTube for a chance to win $$$

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In this episode of Brew Breakdown, we explain how the metaverse works, where the vision of digital worlds came from, and what blockchain has to do with all of it.

If you need any more enticing…subscribe to our YouTube channel and comment on the video which topic you want us to break down next. Once you do that, you'll be in the running to win $500. We will pick three lucky winners on March 28th. Watch now.

*Terms and conditions apply. US entries only.

ANSWER

Starting from the second row and going down, the words are: radar, oddly, sales, and tryst.

         

Written by Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, and Max Knoblauch

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