Meta Agrees to Historic $18B Settlement & NYC Has More Tech Workers Than SF

This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Framman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Meta settles for $18 billion and a landmark moment for social media. Then Bill Gates is sounding one of the loudest alarms yet when it comes to AI. It's Thursday, August 27th. Let's ride. If you missed the solar eclipse in Europe a couple of weeks ago, tonight brings the next best thing, a lunar eclipse beginning at 9.23 p.m. Eastern. The Earth will travel between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow on the moon's surface, covering 96.2% of it at the peak. It should be a pretty cool sight because the Earth's shadow on the moon will make it appear reddish orange in what's been dubbed a blood moon. Best part is it'll be visible from the continental U.S. if the skies cooperate. Don't skip your afternoon coffee, though, because the eclipse will heat up around 10.30 and peak at 12.12 a.m. Neil, I've been saying this. There are more eclipses this year than ever before. It seems like every single week there's some celestial body passing in front of another one. Am I crazy or are there more this year? You're not crazy. It's not necessarily more this year, but the reason that there is two in the past couple of weeks is because solar and lunar eclipses do come in pairs. There's usually one eclipse and then two weeks later when the sun or when the moon goes from a new moon to a full moon, we get another eclipse and there's just fortuitous math the way these celestial bodies appear in the sky because of size and distance. It's pretty crazy the way this works out. The sun is 400 times farther away from Earth than the moon is, and the sun is also 400 times bigger than the moon, so it cancels out. You know, you do your second grade math there, and these orbs look the same size in the night sky. Of course you knew the actual answer to why there's been more. Do you know why it turns red, though? No. It's not that exciting, but sunlight's obviously made up of a spectrum of colors, and our atmosphere actually absorbs most of the yellow and blue parts of the spectrum. The only one that skirts by is the red part, which is why it gives the moon a blood red hue. There you go. And now a word from our sponsor, American Express. Neil, I am all go. You're what? I am up the wall. I am nonstop. I am busy, which is why I appreciate the American Express Business Platinum Card because it's backed by a membership that's designed to support businesses wherever opportunity shows up. With award-winning customer service, statement credits for key business solutions, and a premium travel benefits, the Business Platinum Card gives you support that's there when you need it most. So while you're focusing on running your business, the Business Platinum Card and American Express membership are built to back you every step of the way. Learn more at go.amx.morningbrew and find out your welcome offer, which could be as high as 300,000 membership rewards points. That's go.amx.morningbrew. Offers and benefit terms apply. Facing potential. 200 billion dollars in damages from a sprawling lawsuit, Meta decided it was in a settling mood. Just over a week into the trial, the social media giant reached a landmark settlement with 48 states agreeing to pay up to 18 billion dollars in penalties over 10 years and make key changes to Facebook and Instagram to make them safer places for kids. It's among corporate America's largest settlements ever. Attorneys General hailed the deal as a historic win. D.C.'s A.G. Brian Schwab called it a, quote, monumental public health crisis. victory for young people, saying the safety features Meta is required to install will fundamentally and immediately change how young people use Instagram and Facebook. In a statement, Meta called the settlement an important step that aims to set a new industry standard for kids' safety on the internet. We want to get this right for parents and teens, the company wrote. But the fact that Meta came to the negotiating table instead of seeing the trial out shows how fraught its predicament is. This year has brought a wave of trials. Many have compared to Big Tech's Big Tobacco moment, where mounting backlash against social media has resulted in significant legal peril for major platforms like Meta. This case in California was seen as the climax, acme pinnacle of the social media reckoning. Dozens of states had come together to accuse Meta of hooking kids onto its apps using addictive design features, then misleading the public about the harms. They were seeking about $200 billion in damages and ultimately ended up with 18 of that. Toby, for almost a decade, we've been wondering whether the pushback against social media has resulted in significant legal peril for major platforms like Meta. Big Tech would amount to any material consequences or reforms. That was finally answered yesterday. Meta generated $32 billion in operating cash flow in the June quarter alone. So relative to its overall cash generation abilities, this settlement is not particularly expensive, which is why actually some were confused as to why the stock didn't do much yesterday. There's a lot of other factors feeding into why Meta stock is not exactly loved on Wall Street right now, but it did briefly go up, but end of the day, right around flat. Jim Cramer, to cite a market watcher, said, well, this stock is hated because I would have thought that this was great news because of how small the settlement was in comparison to how big it could have been. Yeah, let's talk about those two phases that you mentioned. Super interesting, very unique settlement here. We have two parts. One is the 70% that Meta will pay out over a decade. That's $12.7 billion. And then the other 30% is contingents on two different conditions that are met. It's if YouTube and TikTok, which are completely separate companies, implement similar design changes that Meta is about to do like a one hour daily limit night mode. So you don't get push notifications at night and age assurance measures. And then also YouTube and TikTok have to pay the 30% match. So they also have to pay about $5 billion for this to unlock Meta's additional payment as well. So Meta is really tying this to broader changes within the social media industry. They want their competitors to do the same because their argument is that, look, we can make the kids go to other platforms and nothing will have changed. They're also taking out major ads and major newspapers, pushing YouTube and TikTok in this big PR campaign to make these changes as well. So very interesting, very unique settlement where we're seeing this in two phases designed to change the overall industry. I think the real consequence isn't the monetary penalty. It's the fact that Meta is forced to change how its apps operate. The important distinction here is that those features that you mentioned, those overnight limits, those blocking notifications during school hours, those will be on by default. And that is always the big question mark when it comes to social media change. If features are on by default, it forces you to go through into the settings and manually toggle them off. That is a lot more friction than before versus if you had to opt in. It's the opt in versus opt out debate. So the fact that you have to opt out is the thing that people think will bring real change here. Meta has been to ever put these safety measures into place. You go back to 2020, Adam Masseri, the chief of Instagram, announced plans to hide Instagram like counts. That was something that's been in the works for a long time now, but ultimately backed away from the plan because he did not want to reduce the amount of time people spent on Instagram. I mean, Instagram's entire business model relies on your attention scrolling so they can sell you ads. Any decisions that you make that reduces that intention is bad for business, which is, again, why this feels like a big step forward because these are attention-blocking measures that are now on by default when it comes to kids and their social media. Yeah, just to sum up, so if you are a kid under 18 or you're a parent, here are the exact features that Meta is going to change because of the settlement. There's gonna be a two-hour daily time limit, no access at night as default, no notifications during school hours, prompts every 15 minutes of continuous screen time being like, hey, you've been using this, you've been using this for a while, and more robust parental controls. To sum this up, I think there is a wave. There's no denying that there is a ton of momentum building against big tech. We've seen a number of countries limit social media to over 16. Australia was the first, but then Britain, Canada, Denmark, Indonesia, and New Zealand are all following suit. Meanwhile, Meta still faces thousands of lawsuits that have been filed by school districts and individual plaintiffs, going ahead, there's been a lot of comparison about big tech's big tobacco moment, this moment for Meta compared to this moment for, say, Philip Morris. Well, when they reached the settlement back in the 90s, that wiped out, that shielded them from all future lawsuits. This one doesn't, so Meta still has a lot of legal wrangling still to go. At 5.30 a.m. yesterday morning, the infamous market soothsayer, Jim Cramer, tweeted out, I sense a monumental day. What had Cramer up? What had Cramer up early and ready to roll on a seemingly random Wednesday? Well, you can't fault a man for getting excited for the biggest company in the world. report its third quarter earnings. NVIDIA lived up to the expectations Mr. Kramer foisted upon it and more. It reported nearly $100 billion in revenue and emphasized there is more growth to come. NVIDIA is the market bellwether, and investors pay attention not only to the numbers they report, but their guidance going forward to see if the AI freight train has enough fuel to keep chugging along. And on that front, NVIDIA soothed any worries. Wall Street had been expecting its revenue to grow 45%, but NVIDIA said, nuh-uh. How does 70% growth in the next fiscal year sound to you? Incredibly, we are seeing demand acceleration even at our scale, its CFO said. CEO Jensen Huang followed that up by assuring everyone that, quote, the AI infrastructure build-out is at full steam. Now, of course, when the AI trade is popping up most of the market, it's almost not enough to be amazing. You have to be spectacular. NVIDIA's stock had closed lower for seven seconds. NVIDIA's stock had closed lower straight days leading into earnings, but finally rose 7% as investors breathed a sigh of relief. Still a sigh of relief begs the question, relief from what? Despite NVIDIA beating expectations 16 quarters in a row, its recent moves from chip seller to data center financier has some people nervous. NVIDIA has assembled a $500 billion credit line for various financial firms to help its customers better afford its chips, raising concerns of circular financing. It's not just enough for it to report great numbers quarter after quarter after quarter. It's become the AI Lorax forced to speak for the entire industry. Not exactly surprised that NVIDIA is making nearly $100 billion in a quarter because paid attention to big tech earnings a few weeks ago. Each one of them came up and said, we are going to spend like $200 billion this year on AI CapEx from Meta to Amazon to Google. And most of that spending is going to be spent on NVIDIA. So NVIDIA is going to be spending $200 billion on NVIDIA. So NVIDIA is going to be spending is going to NVIDIA. And so NVIDIA is reaping the rewards, but that also is becoming a bit of a risk, a bit of a liability because those hyperscalers, those big tech companies account for about half of NVIDIA's revenue. And this transformation that you're talking about for NVIDIA to become the more of the bank of AI, it's trying to attract new customers. And these customers are often smaller than Meta. They're smaller than Amazon and NVIDIA stuff is expensive. So what they're doing is unlocking a lot of finance, so that these smaller companies, these less creditworthy companies can start buying their chips. It's called vendor financing. It's been used in the telecom. There was a bubble, you know, back in 99 and 2000. So we'll see how this plays out, but it's been a very, very fascinating transformation because a lot of people just can't afford NVIDIA stuff. So they're saying here, we're going to help you get financing for that so that you can buy stuff from us. It really just shows how you become a victim of your own success. Whenever you do something great in this life, people go, all right, well, what's the next step? And then you're like, and right now there's very little concern about demand around NVIDIA's chips. Like quarter after quarter, they have proved that this is durable. People are going to spend, these hyperscalers are going to buy NVIDIA chips. So what are investors concerned about? They're concerned about circular financing, but they're also concerned about China. NVIDIA still isn't counting on any money coming out of China going forward. It expects zero data center revenue from China next quarter. So that's concern number one. Number two, we've talked a lot about how prices have been going up. That hurts NVIDIA as well. They're saying that their gross margins are going to fall going forward because they also have memory as an input cost. And then number three, they kind of have competition emerging from their own customer base. OpenAI and Anthropic are both working on their own custom chips designed around their specific AI needs. Jensen Huang kind of shrugged it off and say, those are very specific to their needs. We are still the general computing platform that a lot of people are going to use. But those are the question marks that are now hanging above NVIDIA. Not so much is their demand for their chips. Moving on, Bill Gates is scared of the pace of AI progress, and he wrote a nearly 6,000 word essay to voice his qualms. His main point, the people building AI understand how dangerous it could become, but the financial incentives are so great it prevents them from saying so publicly. The private versus public disconnect comes from Gates' own experience in the technology world. He points to three technological turning points he has lived through. The first was back in the 80s, seeing graphical interfaces, which convinced him that personal computers would become the future. But then he puts seeing chat GPT and cloud code in action right up there alongside computers as the other seminal tech moments of his life. It is with that context in mind that Gates launches into his darkest fears, namely that AI differs from other tech revolutions of the past. Most tech proponents argue that new breakthroughs may destroy some jobs, but will create even more new ones. Gates, however, looks at AI as quote, utterly, absolutely, completely, totally different. For starters, most technology doesn't bring with it the threat of bioterrorism in the same way AI does. Gates also thinks mass unemployment is possible because AI doesn't just affect a single industry, but all parts of the economy, leaving lots of people vulnerable to job losses. Gates has some solutions in mind. One, have governments tax AI usage, making it more expensive to replace a human worker with AI. And two, make AI a more expensive tool. One, have governments tax AI some jobs off limits to AI and what Gates dubs human reserved roles, which he'd apply to jobs like caregivers, for example. Neil, plenty of room here to critique the messenger given Gates's public missteps in recent years and his position as one of the richest people in the world. But what do you think about the message itself? I would like to lobby Bill Gates to make podcasters human reserved jobs too. What stood out to me is, is this the same guy from the three years ago? Because he also wrote something about AI three years ago. And he said, look, maybe AI job disruption is going to be bumpy, but it would be a manageable transition. People would work more efficiently. It's going to bring about huge gains. So he was pretty optimistic about the technology not too long ago. And now here he writes this nearly 6,000 word screed saying, quote, I am in a state of shock that I'm sort of the first one saying this is crazy. This is insane. I'm just deafened by the silence. So this is a person who has spent a lot of time in the tech industry. And he said, look, maybe AI job disruption is going to be bumpy, doing a complete 180 on what he thinks AI is going to bring to humanity. I can't help but think about the position of these stories in our show lineup today. We just talked about NVIDIA saying that absolutely we are seeing AI become useful. We're seeing this mass adoption, like growth is going to continue full steam ahead. And then you have Bill Gates saying like, wait a second, the economic usefulness of this technology does not offset the question of whether it is ultimately good for society. So that was his big point. He was trying to make the argument too that he is uniquely positioned to make this argument because he has worked in technology. He understands it. He also doesn't have any financial incentives. You might roll your eyes on that one because he still owns a lot of Microsoft stock. But he was saying that I can be the person to sound the alarm right now, even though all these other companies are just kind of blinded by the economic benefits that they will reap rather than what it will actually mean for society. Fascinating how this debate is playing out because anthropic CEO Dario Amadei has been criticized by many in the tech world for being too doom and gloom about AI. He's come out and said, I think that 50% of white collar jobs are going to be wiped out. And people are saying, what are you doing? Like you're trying to sell this product to people. You can't say this is going to be the end of all humanity. It's going to wipe out 50% of jobs. So he's gotten a little more quiet on that respect. Bill Gates is saying, look, I actually agree with you, dude. Like you should also speak up. And then we also have Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, the CEO of Meta saying, launching this new optimistic AI message over the past couple of weeks saying, I think AI is going to be really good for humanity. Just really interesting how this messaging is playing out. Then you have the whole data center issue where people, you know, nine out of 10 people hate data centers. And that is going to be an existential threat for the growth of the AI industry. So here's Bill Gates coming in saying, look, if you think the data center thing is bad, you need to be regulated because the backlash that is coming when everyone loses their jobs because of AI will make the data center backlash look like basically nothing. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's numbers right after this. Meet Amazon ads rising star, Daryl Spencer, who set out to redefine men's self-care with his brand crown skin. Amazon ads helped him grow. I walked away from big tech to build a luxury brand in a category that no one was paying attention to. With the help of Amazon ads, I'm reaching relevant audiences and competing with the biggest names in men's grooming. We've scaled to over $500,000 in monthly revenue. Watch crown skin story at advertising.amazon.com slash rising dash stars. Cybersecurity as we know it is dead. It's a figure of speech, but the truth is the old model was built on protection, safety nets, recovery plan systems designed to withstand the last era and maintain the status quo. The AI era demands confidence, that you can secure and accelerate your business operations. So nothing stops your momentum. Rubric can give you that confidence. Their singular platform is designed to secure your data, control your AI and protect your identity built as one architecture, not stitched together after the fact. To learn more, head to rubric.com slash mb. That's R-U-B-R-I-K dot com slash mb. Neil, you know how parents always get loads of unsolicited advice about kids' clothes I believe it but I can't say I've experienced it Wait, are you expecting, uh. No, for clothes you can actually count on, there's Little Sleepies. Real moms created Little Sleepies with clothing designed for the realities of daily life with babies and kids. Plus, super soft, super stretchy fabrics and no scratchy tags. Snag some for the kids in your life at littlesleepies.com. That's littlesleepies.com. Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats in the week's news that will have your friends nicknaming you Claude. For my first number, what would you say is the tech capital of the United States? Because it's not as clear-cut as you might think. According to the latest tech talent report from CBRE, New York has overtaken the San Francisco Bay Area as the region with the highest tech workforce by total headcount. The New York metro area grew its tech talent to over 394,000 between 2022 and 2025, an 8% increase, while the Bay Area's tech workforce shrank by 6% to around 375,000. The reason New York is now on top is. It's got a more diversified industry base than San Francisco, and those industries, banking, insurance, real estate, have gone all in on artificial intelligence, bolstering their tech teams to reap the efficiency benefits of the AI age. J.P. Morgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, said recently, I think we will be hiring more AI people and fewer bankers in certain categories, and it will make them more productive, while Goldman Sachs is building a so-called digital factory floor to automate the repetitive tasks in finance. All right, so New York now has the edge in talent, however, when it comes to. Instead of following the money, all roads lead to Silicon Valley still. The Wall Street Journal reported that companies in California have raised around $366 billion in venture funding since the start of the year. That is more than three times the amount of the other 49 states combined. Startups in New York, in second place, raised just $27 billion. I think it's so funny that New York has become this tech capital because of one thing. They want to put AI into production inside. They are highly regulated businesses. Rather than simply experiment with the technology, that is mainly what's. Not mainly, but that is a big portion of what's going on in San Francisco, is that you have these researchers who just want to go down the rabbit hole for the sake of going down. Versus in New York, they're like, wait, this can make us 2% more efficient. Let's hire every single person we can. So that's, I think, the biggest disconnect. But you are right to say that San Francisco is not this wilting daisy in the tech world. It's clearly attracting all of the venture dollars. And it really hasn't even. It hasn't even lost the AI-specific crown either. They still lead in raw number of AI specialists, not just broad tech workers. AI represents 26% of all SF tech job postings versus just 17% in New York. So still very much the AI center of the universe. For my next number, the prime minister of Japan is kind of a hermit. At the very least, she loves working from home. Since entering office last October, Sanei Takahichi has not left her house at all on a majority. of weekends and public holidays, Nikkei reported last Friday. Compare that to Japan's previous 3 prime ministers, who spent a maximum of just 16% of non-weekdays entirely at home. Bloomberg dug into her schedule even deeper, finding more proof she just wants to be left alone. As of July, Takahichi met with finance minister officials 50% less often than the previous 2 PMs, while holding the fewest cabinet meetings of any leader since 2012. It's not like she's playing video games. Last month, Takahichi celebrated on social media that she. finally got 5 hours of sleep for the first time in a while, with 0-3 hours being the norm since becoming prime minister. However, all this alone time has become a bit of a political problem, and opposition leaders and media figures have called attention to Takahichi's "homebird tendencies." A few days ago, she defended herself on X, writing, "Work conducted at the official residence, such as meetings held there, are not reported as part of the prime minister's daily schedule, but from my perspective, it's also a workplace." 0-3 hours of sleep? I will never. complain again. The other story that is going viral around her "hermit-ness" is the fact that she befriended a cockroach. When she moved into the official residence for the prime minister, she said that, 1. I have never encountered her ghost, because there's absolutely rumors that this residence is haunted, but she did encounter a cockroach, but before killing it, she was like, "Wait, wait a second, what if this is part of the long cycle of reincarnation?" She befriended the cockroach, eventually they had someone come in and kind of spray for bugs, and she added, "I was relieved, but somehow felt a little lonely, a little sad, because she no longer had her cockroach buddy." For my final number, Iceland has virtually no murders, yet crime is its favorite literary genre. In a delightful article, the New York Times notes that Iceland, with a population of 400,000 people, has virtually no murders. It was major news when the number of homicides doubled from two before 2020 to about four in the years after. According to some surveys, it's the safest country in the world, but whatever crime they lack for in real life, Icelanders make up for by devouring crime fiction, which has become the most popular type of literature in the country. One Icelandic crime writer, who also happens to be the former prime minister, told the Times, "There are more fictional murders in Iceland every year than real," adding, "Which is good." So, what draws the people of Iceland to violent stories they simply cannot relate to? One factor may be an embrace of the broader Nordic noir heritage. As anyone who's read "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" knows, the people who live in these northern European countries, like Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, love a good murder mystery. But maybe more influential are the Icelandic sagas, sometimes described as "Icelanders' Second Bible." These stories, from as early as the 13th century, are still taught in high schools and describe bloody Norse feuds and romantic rivalries, themes that echo in modern-day crime thrillers. Still, Toby, you kind of have to admit it's odd. There's only been one serial killer ever in Iceland, Axelur Bjorn, and he died in 1596. These Icelandic authors crack me up because they're like, "We have such poor source material to pull from." One said, "The typical Icelandic murder is two drunk guys in a kitchen." That's how most of the murders happen. You just get into a brawl, so it's not exactly exciting for authors. So these authors get creative. They have started calling up a full-time forensic pathologist 24/7. They're like, "How does a body react if it is decaying in lava?" At first, the pathologist was like, "This is kind of fun. I love being the expert here." He started teaching a course on it, but then, eventually, he was like, "All right. It's getting too much. It's gotten too gory for me. Stop calling me. Just make it up, guys. It's fine. It's a book. You're allowed to inject fiction into a crime fiction." He says, "Why not? You can say whatever you like." So just a very funny thing of them begging for any morsel of material and the one guy saying, "Dude, just make it up. It's fine." All right. Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. News that seemed directly lifted out of an apocalypse movie, massive floods on the border between China and Nepal swept into towns and villages with unimaginable force, obliterating everything in their path, including people. At least 168 people have been killed in Nepal and over 1,000 more are unaccounted for from 50 different countries. Viral videos showed peaceful scenes and then wham, a wall of water bigger than you've ever seen with a force you can't even fathom engulfing the frame. Researchers across the globe were trying to piece together. How this large of a flood could have occurred because weather officials said there's been no significant rainfall in the area. They're zeroing in on one leading hypothesis that a huge chunk of ice with a width of 2,000 feet snapped off a glacier high in the Himalayas and plunged almost 4,000 feet to the valley floor where it was atomized into water, sparking the deadly deluge and mudslides. These videos are unfathomable. They're around social media right now, but watch them at your own caution. There are still 341, 440 videos. There's a lot of news out there about what's going to happen next. I'm not sure what's going to happen next, but I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm not sure what's going to happen next. monae davis is up to uh awesome to see girls succeed in the little league world series unfortunately they're out but ohio was just too good i mean i watched that game they were they were peppering it all over the ballpark all right that is all the time we have thanks so much for starting your morning with us have a wonderful thursday to share your thoughts on the episode or anything else send an email to morning brew daily at morning brew.com or dms on instagram at mb daily show let's roll the credits emily milliron is our supervising producer raymond lou is our senior producer our producer is olivia graham and our associate producer is olivia lake technical direction by nina miller hair and makeup also doesn't really leave their house devin emery is our president and our show is a production of morning brew great so daniel let's run it back tomorrow the following is a paid advertisement toby do you have a personal philosophy yes everyone you should have more money new york life's protection powered growth philosophy might align with yours then it explores how protection can serve as a strategic foundation for long-term financial success that enables future opportunities their approach brings protection and growth together helping clients build confidence through every stage of life to learn more head to new york life.com slash protection dash powered dash growth that's new york life.com slash protection dash powered dash growth