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SpaceX and Tesla Consider Mega Merger? & People Are Making Their Smart TVs Dumb

29m 44s

SpaceX and Tesla Consider Mega Merger? & People Are Making Their Smart TVs Dumb

SpaceX and Tesla are reportedly considering a massive merger, driven by shared advancements in AI and autonomous systems, with Elon Musk stepping aside to avoid conflicts of interest. SpaceX's AI operations have surged, turning a previous loss into a $431 million profit, marking a strategic pivot away from reliance on Starlink. Meanwhile, Netflix faces mounting pressure from declining viewer engagement, staff layoffs, and a content lineup dominated by Disney’s *Ice Age* films, raising concerns about its original programming strategy. A troubling pattern emerges in corporate acquisitions, where startups like Poppy and Welley are being sold or discontinued after underperformance, highlighting the difficulty of integrating disruptive brands into legacy companies. In parallel, consumers are increasingly hacking their smart TVs using open-source tools or AI to eliminate bloatware, ads, and data tracking, seeking simpler and more private viewing experiences. Air travel prices are soaring, especially in Europe and the U.S., with Thanksgiving flights rising 31% and Sundays being the most expensive days. Jay-Z is confirmed to perform in the Super Bowl halftime show, continuing his strategic partnership with the NFL. As a closing note, the show highlights two user-friendly recommendations: pan-frying hard-boiled eggs for a unique culinary twist, and watching a new documentary on elite runner Grant Fisher, which explores the discipline behind athletic excellence. These developments reflect a broader trend of consumers, investors, and technology users demanding greater control, transparency, and authenticity in everything from corporate strategy to daily technology use.

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Are you sucking wind from trying to keep up with AI and its impact? Take a breather and tune in to the Intelligence Shift, Morning Brew's new podcast with PWC. It bridges the gap between big picture AI concepts and what it actually means in practice. Host Dan Priest is joined by expert guest to discuss AI's role in sports, music, HR, and more. Listen to the Intelligence Shift wherever you get your podcasts. Good Morning BrewDaily Show, I'm Neil Freiman, and I'm Toby Howell. Today SpaceX and Tesla are considering the biggest merger of all time. Then, people are hacking their smart TVs to make them dumber. It's Wednesday October 21st, let's ride! Well this is exciting, the United States has a brand new national park. Yesterday, with the stroke of a pen, President Trump upgraded Chirikawa National Monument to Chirikawa National Park, handing Arizona its 4th Nadi Park in the country its 64th. The 19th square mile site in southeastern Arizona is known for its who-dos. Those dramatic rock spires you associate with Bryce Canyon and other balancing rock formations that were formed almost 27 million years ago after volcanic eruptions sent ash all over the area. The newest national park established before this was New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia, designated as one in December 2020. I mean, I know it's only a day old, but this place might be the goat national park already. The Apache name for it translates to land of the standing up rocks. It's also considered a sky island, which is a forested mountain rising out of a desert grassland. You got species from Mexico, Sierra, moderate mountain range, mixing with species from the Rockies. Burgers apparently love the place. If Yosemite is MJ and Yellowstone is LeBron, this is Wembenyama, new to the league, but already one of the greats, staking its claim. Looking at where it is, it's in the middle of nowhere. That's what you want. That's even better. It's so hard to get to. I guess you have to fly to Tucson and then drive a couple hours east into the true middle of nowhere. But that doesn't stop people from going to other national parks. I've been to Glacier National Park. That's up near the Canadian border in Montana. That felt like a long haul to get to, but that was spectacular. I just love hoodies. Like Bryce is one of my favorite national parks because these rock spires are unbelievable to look at. Looks like you're on another planet. They're super cool. So the fact that there's another one of these is pretty awesome. I love the boulders that are perched on impossible palaces. They look like they're about to fall, but they're just because it's been 27 million years of erosion. So very cool, Victor Wembenyama of National Parks. Mother Nature, you can't beat her. Now we're from our sponsor, Liberty Mutual. Toby, you know, I love a good jingle. Oh, that's why you wear that big ring of noisy keys that everyone in the office can hear from the mile away. I thought you were just trying to live out your childhood dream of being a janitor. I meant a jingle like a song. My keys are not that big and I gave up on my janitorial dreams after the accident. I got a good jingle for you though. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Man, that one is an earworm. Not only that, but Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance to save you money. But your quote at Liberty Mutual dot com, that's Liberty Mutual dot com yesterday. Elon Musk confirmed the worst held secret and corporate America SpaceX and Tesla are considering merging on SpaceX's earnings call must said that the boards of both companies had created special committees to evaluate whether linking up makes sense. Elon said he's recuse himself in the process over conflicts of interest. He is after all the CEO of both companies and most of his wealth is tied up in Tesla and SpaceX stock. But told analysts, I think it would be a good idea given the similar work the two are doing on AI, space data centers, autonomous cars, and humanoid robots. A good idea, maybe, but certainly a bold idea. With SpaceX valued at $2 trillion in Tesla worth $1.5 trillion, it would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Musk wants to keep his foot on the gas pedal after SpaceX reported booming financials ingested second ever report as a public company revenue searched 161% from a year ago topping expectations while profits came in at 4.4 billion, trouncing projections of 1.9 billion shares popped more than 10% after Elon dropped the good news. Let's talk about this potential merger. Elon Musk controls 82% of the voting power at SpaceX, so obviously he's going to be one of the deciding factors on whether these two companies merge. But this is really about control. Elon Musk has longed for more control over Tesla for years now. The combined entity would give him that finally. He's wanted to push it towards autonomous vehicles and robots for a long time now kind of wants to neglect the auto business. So this all goes back to his grand vision of just having more control over where his companies go. It also this earnings report seemed to be symbolic because it's only their second one, but already SpaceX's AI operations have or SI operations have surpassed Starlink. It's not the same company that we saw even at last quarter. Just last quarter Starlink was comfortably ahead in the amount of revenue it was bringing in. But now its AI infrastructure business is scaling it very quickly and it used to be this company that mainly relied on this one business line. Now it is a company that is diversified with SI operations being the money maker. Right. They're calling it SI because that's what Trump wants and Elon Musk is close with Trump. Yeah. I mean just look at the numbers. A year ago the AI business recorded a $1.7 billion loss. Now the AI business actually posted a profit of $431 million. It's very interesting to hear Elon get on the call and talk about this particular merger because in the past he's been accused of having a little too much control over the boards of his companies and putting Loyalists on so he can just get what he wants and I'm thinking specifically about that pay package that was voided back in 2018 that went before a judge in Delaware and that was you know that was struck down because Elon had too much control. Now he's saying look I'm hands off. I think it would be a good idea. I'm not saying it's going to happen. It's certainly not a certainty, but I'm going to let the shareholders and this independent committees take over from here. When you talk to the shareholders they do need to have they do need to prove this of more than 50% in a vote and you know I think they are going to just look at the stock price. SpaceX was up over 10% after this merger was hinted at Tesla shares also rose. They love the idea of combining these companies under the leadership of Musk. We haven't really talked about how kind of insane these earnings were from just a investing perspective. SpaceX stock is up 10% pre market this morning as people are digesting the fact that it kind of massively exceeded expectations in just its second quarter ever as a public company. It's also lifting up some names that have been beaten down recent weeks. Namely core weave iron these neocloud providers. The reason why that's happening is because they said that SpaceX could rent out its capacity several times over the demand for compute is still there. SpaceX is seeing it at the very highest levels. Elon Musk is spending a lot of his time in Memphis at one of their data centers just trying to get more compute developed. So the fact that that demand looks so healthy is lifting of these cloud providers which have been, you know, maligned recently seeing if their business model can withhold the massive amount of debt that they're taking on. Those names are up around 3% pre market as well. So SpaceX's booming business was a mirror image of another company that dropped its earnings at exactly the same time yesterday afternoon Netflix streamer is one of its most precarious positions in years and the pressure is only ratcheting up after a rough report. Revenue while still up 12% is increasing at its slowest pace in three years and the company forecast a fourth straight quarter of sluggish growth. But the even more important metric engagement is trending lower in a statement accompanying the results Netflix acknowledged we know there's some investor concern about view hours growth jargon for how long people spend on Netflix but stressed levels remain healthy. But while it's displaying confidence publicly, its actions over the past week reveal a company that knows it needs to shake things up in a big way. Just over the last seven days, Netflix has cut 6% of its staff, 1,000 people, and its biggest layoffs since 2022. Then it got its creative leadership, parting ways with long-time content chief Bella Bajaria and film head Dan Lynn. To be clear, Netflix remains the king of streaming world by a good margin with an astonishing 325 million paying subscribers all over the world. It sales in profits, still healthy, it's breadth of content, unmatched, it's churn levels, the lowest in the industry. But the dangers are real and growing as evidenced by Netflix's stock plunge of more than 40% this year and tack on another 7% to the decline after last night's gloomy outlook. It is dire at Netflix and the reason I say that is because if you want to talk about the fact that they've dropped the ball with original content lately, all you have to do is look at the top 10 movies on Netflix right now. Five of them are from Disney and they're ice age titles that have been recently licensed. So that is not what you want to see when you're a firm that is spending 15 billion dollars a year on producing your own contact. The fact that all of the ice age movies are taking over. I thought they stopped at three. I know. It's an ice age five. They're fantastic movies but that is kind of a warning signal right there and it's also warning signal that some of the things that in Netflix has been so excited to tell investors about recently just haven't panned out Peter Kafka who is a media analyst for business insider said Netflix has spent the last few years telling investors about its foray into video games. Today's earnings update has zero reference to that business. No discussion whatsoever of this category that they were are supposedly so excited about a few years ago. And it just goes to show that some of the experience, or the experiments that Netflix has been serving up just really haven't worked out for them. - Yeah, I'm gonna talk about the leadership changes at the top because Bella Bajaria has been the head of content at Netflix since 2016. She's had some really big hits, but also some big flops. Her philosophy was that she wanted to create content that was a so-called gourmet cheeseburger. So think about what a gourmet cheeseburger. It's premium and commercial at the same time. It's squid game, it's Wednesday, it's Bridgerton, it has mass appeal, but also there is some quality. Didn't seem like people wanted the gourmet cheeseburger. If you look at what are succeeding right now, it's HBO and it's Apple. They want the steak, they want the flame and yarn. So they bringing in a new guy to head their content, Peter Rice from Fox, where he absolutely killed it. He separated movies like Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle, who was the director of Slumdog Millionaire, said he was literally the best executive I've ever worked with. So universally across this industry, they love this hire of Peter Rice to come in and head their content. We'll see if he takes it in a different direction. It looks like Netflix though, is definitely starting to focus on just getting better content in the United States in Canada where it's viewership has been struggling, has all these side quests, podcasts, creator stuff, and it seems like it will still lean into that to compete against YouTube, but at its core, they're bringing in Peter to just make better shows that are buzzy and that'll be stuff that you talk about when you come into the office. Maybe they need to bring in the team behind Ice Age, because clearly people are resonating with that content. That's not, that is a smash burger. That's not a gourmet cheeseburger. Horus steak, that is a smash burger. We love smash burgers. Moving on, you know when your favorite startup gets bought by the big corporate giant and you think, oh, that brand is so cooked. It's been happening a lot recently. Buzzy startup acquisitions by conglomerates have not been working out as planned, revealing the immense challenge to stay relevant in the ever changing consumer space. Case in point, Welley, a young company that makes brightly colored bandages and other items that'll help you get fixed up after a particularly rough tumble. In 2021, the CPG Behemoth Unilever bought Welley to add a splashy modern health name to his portfolio. But this week, just five years later, Unilever announced it had sold Welley to a private equity firm. Same thing is playing out at PepsiCo, which, as you've heard on this show, is on the Struggle Bus. Bloomberg reported that Poppy, the insurgent prebiotic soda brand that Pepsi bought for $2 billion last year, was missing its growth targets. And as a result, a bonus payment that was supposed to go to Poppy shareholders and founders has dwindled, initially, that payout was supposed to be $300 million should Poppy hit its benchmarks. But now, given the brand's slowdown, those payments are estimated at just $12 million. Toby, this has been the playbook for decades. Big company buys disruptive startup to help it remain current. What's going wrong now? Well, part of that playbook is the fact that maybe they don't buy these companies always to grow them. Maybe the playbook is actually this big challenger brand emerges its growth starts to threaten the incumbent's market share in a certain category. So they acquire it. And then suddenly the challenger starts to lose a bit of momentum. Maybe the brand becomes part of a much larger portfolio than the synergies aren't quite there. Or maybe management is balancing the overall health of a portfolio versus the specific health of a challenger brand. And then suddenly that acquired brand is no longer a threat. Maybe you paid a lot of money for it, but it actually is OK that it didn't pay out because the entire purpose was just defending your moat to begin with. That's a little bleak. It is a little bleak, but it happens-- I mean, do you want me to go through all the acquisitions? Just in the beverage that have happened in the past couple of years, I'm going to do it. Coca-Cola bought honesty eventually discontinued. Coca also bought Odualla eventually discontinued. Body armor was bought by Coke for nearly $6 billion. They took a $760 million impairment three years later. Rockstar was bought by Pepsi. Snapple was bought by Quaker Oats decades ago. The sold for just $300 million a few years later. So this is quite literally the playbook within this industry. So it's not surprising to see it happen to Poppy and others. But I want to provide one counter example. I was thinking of some because, yes, there's a long list of companies buying other startups and then kind of shutting them down. I'm thinking of Lululemon with Mirror or Walmart with Benobos. Didn't shut them down, but sold it for pennies on the dollar afterwards. One success story is Raios, which was bought by Campbell Soup. I think this is a perfect distillation of something that maybe this Campbell's bought it to invest in it. It's really performing strongly in the couple years since they bought it. This is the tomato sauce brand. That brand recently topped $1 billion in trailing annual net sales. So that's the Campbell's now $4 billion brand alongside Campbell's Goldfish and Pepperidge Farms. So for every example that you can say of a big company buying a disruptor. Yeah, there's fewer examples of perhaps these success stories. But there are a few out there if you want to look. The other thing that people are pointing out to founders about this is the difference between upfront crash, cash versus urnouts. Remember, Poppy was supposed to have another $300 million coming their way. It is dwindled down to basically nothing at this point. And a lot of founders who have been through the same thing said, hey, listen, don't necessarily trust in urnout. Because, again, the incentives get misaligned. After an acquisition closes, the buyer controls a lot of those decisions that affect your performance. So it's out of your hands, really, if you meet those performance thresholds. Nikita Beer, who has sold a lot of startups in his day, he used to be like the head of product at X, he said, one thing Facebook said during our acquisition negotiations that I won't forget, we don't do performance based urnouts because you don't have control of the outcome. So that is just something to remember. If you are a founder in a position lucky enough to sell your company for millions or even billions of dollars, sometimes that money doesn't come your way because of factors outside of your control. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with a story about dumb TVs right after this. Every day, shareholders meet to discuss important matters about the company's you invest in. Now, you can easily make your voice heard too. Vanguard investor choice makes it easy to set your proxy voting preference for your eligible Vanguard index funds. In just a few clicks, you can have a say on important shareholder topics like executive pay and director elections. Visit vanguard.com/investorchoice to learn more. It's your shares, it's your voice, it's easy. Vanguard investors own shares of their index funds and those funds own shares of the companies they invest in. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. Looking good today, Toby. Thanks, man. My Stitch Fix box came in. So I'm officially one of the top two most stylist co-hosts of Morning Brew Daily. What a coincidence. I'm also one of the most stylish co-hosts here. Thanks to my Stitch Fix stylist, which has been helping me look really good on camera. Stitch Fix makes it easy to look and feel good, take a quick quiz to get matched with a human stylist who handles the rest. Get styled today at stitchfix.com/morningbrew. That's stitchfix.com/morningbrew. We all love connecting over a video call, a quick text, or that group chat that never, ever stops pinging. With AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for zero dollars with eligible trading. It has the most advanced iPhone camera ever and a big leap in battery life. So you can turn this deal into a long lasting connection, connecting changes everything. Requires trade in of $230 or more in eligible plan, terms and restrictions apply subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Smart TVs have taken over living rooms, but people want them to become dumber and are using AI to neuter them. There is a growing segment of tech savvy and also not so tech savvy people hacking their TVs to strip away some of the bells and whistles and return to a more uncluttered viewing experience. One open source project is called dumb TV and lets you block annoying ads and time wasting updates. Your TV should do what you paid for, your apps, your HDMI inputs, and nothing else, it says on its mission page. Another approach is from clean your TV and similarly promises to strip away bloatware, replacing it with a cleaner interface reminiscent of Apple TV. Both projects are free to download off GitHub, but others are going at it alone. One viral post from exuser Ryan Doyle said he sent Claude code the information on the make and model of his TV and then asked it, "Can you hack this?" Claude walked him through step by step and he posted a video of his newly responsive and ad-free setup. People have been hacking electronics for decades but the rise of vibe coding software makes it so normies can do the same. If you open X right now and search for dumb TV, you will find dozens of people cooking up their own interfaces that honestly do look a lot better than what your existing TV provides. You know, I would not mind if my smart TV was done or because every time I turn it on, it feels like an assault on the senses. If you buy a Samsung TV, it'll ship with about 20% of the total storage already taken up by its operating system. That includes apps like Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video that come pre-loaded and oftentimes, they won't let you uninstall them. So there's a fifth of your memory already taken up and then there's another kind of bloatware that is common among smart TVs, which is called ACR or automatic content recognition. And you're not gonna like hearing this but what this technology does is it captures screenshots of content and other types of things like audio clips to determine what you are watching so it can sell your viewing data to advertisers. So it's kind of like salt on the wound. That only is it bloating up your smart TV experience by just making things slower and just having all this data connected with it but it's selling your information to advertisers. as well. So it's not crazy why a lot of people are wanting to dumb down their smart TVs because opening it, yes, is a little overwhelming. I guess I hadn't really thought about it because I'm just in a data with ads wherever I go in life. The last night I was, I did open my smart TV and I was like, why is this look like Times Square billboard? I think the issue is the fact that TVs have memory to begin with. Not the fact that 20% has already taken up the Guardian talk to Paul, a public servant from Australia about his disdain for smart TVs. He said, "When my last telly, a glorious 32 inch dumb TV died recently. I spent about three weeks scouring the city looking for something comparable. What I found is they do not exist anymore. He had to go to the back of a second hand store to find a TV with a DVD player and just no internet connection whatsoever, just the functionality that you used to have in your TV. You should just be a monitor. But now they all connect to Wi-Fi. They all have memory. They all have pre-loaded apps and you're certainly seeing this swing back to a dumber version of the technology because no one really wants that clutter." Okay, so how easy is this to do realistically to dumb down your TV by vibe coding? Is that something that the average person like me should undertake who's not necessarily the most savvy with technology? Maybe not because there are, for every dozen of people who are showing off their ability to create these beautiful interfaces? There's other people saying that they bricked their TVs using clod. Sometimes clod won't even walk you through the steps as specifically as you want. But you don't actually need AI whatsoever to do this. There are already established home screen replacement apps for smart TVs, a TV launcher, projectivity launcher, FT launcher. If you are a little bit scared of doing something like that, if you have the right TV model, you can just download these things and it will reduce that clutter for you. But if you want to take it on, I mean it probably is a fun product. Just be prepared that you might brick your TV and you might need to get a new one soon. Let's switch to the finish with some final headlines. If you are eyeing a European trip at any point in the next year, close your eyes. Airfarers over there are about to be higher than your cousin coming back from a walk-up Thanksgiving. You're going to see Airfarers rise next year in Europe. I think by 10-15 maybe 20% Ryan Airco, Michael O'Leary, set out a news conference yesterday, placing the blame on rising fuel prices due to the war in Iran. You're going to see the biggest increase in Airfarers, I would say, in the history of Europe for the next 12 months, O'Leary continued. Even if Europe isn't on your radar, flying home for Thanksgiving might require one of your parlays to hit. According to the travel site Hopper, US Airfarers this holiday season will be the highest they've been in at least a decade. With Thanksgiving average round trip tickets coming in at 31% more expensive than last year and Christmas up 23%. Neil, customers have been getting dinged by higher prices gradually over the past year, but it looks like the dam is breaking. Whatever you do, and I know a lot of you can't help it, do not fly back on Sunday, November 29th, because that is the most expensive day. If you book a round trip flight and come back on Sunday, the 29th, you will pay a severe premium. Those domestic round trip tickets are averaging $604. If you stay until Monday or Tuesday, that average drops to $350. That's, I'm doing some math, $250 cheaper to come back a few days later, or you'll still save a couple hundred bucks by coming back on Black Friday. So, Hoppers, and then the analysis said, literally the mine that you will step on here is that Sunday, which is one of the busiest travel days of the year. Toby, you already booked your flights when you coming back. That's why I'm shaking my head. It is I'm coming back right on. I'm doing the fly out on Wednesday, fly back on Sunday, which is what every single person wants to do. So, yes, I am getting dinged pretty hard right there. The reason why airfares are going up obviously is because the price of fuel is going up so much, but travelers aren't walking away. Either airline executives say demand has remained extremely durable despite the higher prices. So, you actually did see airlines go up, airlines stocks go up yesterday because of what Michael is saying, because you know, you are seeing their airfares rising, but customers are basically saying, we're tough in it out. We got to go home for things giving anyways. We're eating that extra $250. So, it is pretty crazy, but people are just still flying despite how high prices are getting. So, they say to book Thanksgiving travel, the best window to do it is three to five weeks before Thanksgiving, and that five week window opens tomorrow. So, tomorrow is five weeks to Thanksgiving. So, don't book your flight today. Book it tomorrow. I'm just joking. I don't really know, but that's a rough estimate three to five weeks before Thanksgiving. You're all booked up, right? That's October 22nd to November 5th. Yes, I am booked up. I'm not coming home on Sunday, which is why it's not as expensive as yours. All right, up next. Jay Z has been choosing who performs that the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019. For the upcoming Super Bowl, he hired himself. Pluck reported that the legendary rapper will perform at February's big game in Los Angeles and could make an official announcement at a shows in the city this weekend. Despite not having any real hit since 2013, Jay Z remains hugely popular among millennials and Gen X, and has played a string of mega shows this summer, the 30th anniversary of his debut album and the 25th anniversary of the blueprint. At Yankee Stadium in July, he grossed over $42 million across three shows. And back in May, headlined the Roots picnic in Philadelphia in front of 80,000 people. Toby, this guy's married to Beyoncé's collaborated with pretty much everyone in the business. The cameo rumors are going to be off the charts. I mean, the NFL loves Jay Z and his company Rock Nation. They have had the relationship since 2019. They just reupped it in 2024. So I think they're going to trust him when he says I know the man for the job. It's me, baby. I am a little sad, though, because my oldie Cyrus and Justin Bieber have both been in the mix a little bit. So if this report does come true, I'm sure it's going to be an awesome show, but get the beads in front of the last time. Come on, it's going to be awesome. Okay, we close out every Wednesday show with suggestion box where Toby and I each share a recommendation to get you over the hump of the week. I've already the last hole. So the box is mine and my recommendation is pan-fried hard boiled eggs. Look, you probably have your preferred way to make eggs scrambled over easy omelette. But after a while, that gets boring. And in the past few months, a new way to prepare eggs has gone viral, pan-fried. Basically, what you do is hard boiled eggs slice them in half, then put them on a pan with some oil, creating a golden brown crust. Before I recommended this to you all, I had a chime in person yesterday, which I did. And yeah, absolutely. And Doris, serve with your favorite condiment and dress them up however you'd like. I am appalled. I'm disgusted. It's gross. My issue with pan-frying these things is it's got to make the yolks just chalky and dry. It does. Okay, so what I do was I boiled it for eight minutes because I don't, I really don't like a chalky yoke either. So I, you know, typically if you want the most hard boiled, that's 10 minutes. So I did a little soft boil with eight minutes. And then when you cut them in half and put them face down, you know, yoke side down on the pan, it caramelizes a little. It creates this crusty crust and you got what tastes like in between a hard boiled egg and a fried egg. It's really this hybrid thing. But when you fry them, it doesn't create a chalky yoke. I guess that's what you, you know, what happens when you boil them, but preparing them this way just doesn't happen. And you don't really taste that chalkiness at all. How many did you eat yesterday? Two. Yeah, I can tell. I can tell here in the studio. I'm getting a little whiff of some some fried egg over there for you. All right, my recommendation is to watch a new documentary that is out. You can see everything just kidding. It's a Grant Fisher documentary on YouTube who is Grant Fisher. He is a runner who won two medals in the five and 10K at the Olympics in Paris. He is America's maybe best distance runner ever. And a creator who lives here in New York that I really admire Marcus Milione made a documentary and posted it to YouTube. It's only about 40 minutes long, but it's a great look into what makes an elite athlete tick, especially his relationship with his coach. I'm just a fan of well-made things from small teams and small creators. So even if you're not into running, go check it out. It's called ordinary excellence, the story of Grant Fisher. When is he going to make a documentary about you? I don't know if I'm to that level yet, Neil, though. But here is here's probably why I brought this up to. My fun Grant Fisher fact is I was heading to a camp for a national team soccer growing up back in my heyday and Grant was sitting next to me on this fight. He was also a very high level soccer player. Turns out he was better at running than soccer and has gone on to running the Olympics. But I always have a little piece of like Grant Fisher lore that this great distance runner was just in the seat next to me as we were flying to a national team. You might be a better podcaster than him. So you got that. He's very well spoken, actually. So I don't even know if I have that either. Okay, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday to share your thoughts on the episode or anything else. Send an email to morningbroodaleatmorningbrood.com or DM us on Instagram @ambidaleeshow. Let's roll the credits. Emily Mill iron is our supervising producer. Raymond Lut is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake, technical direction by Nina Miller. Hera makeup thinks they'll just say local for Thanksgiving and our show is a production of Morningbrood. Great show right now. Let's run it back tomorrow.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. SpaceX and Tesla are considering a historic merger, driven by shared AI and robotics ambitions, with Elon Musk stepping back to avoid conflicts of interest.
  2. SpaceX's AI operations have outperformed Starlink, posting a $431 million profit after a prior $1.7 billion loss, signaling a shift toward diversified revenue.
  3. Netflix is facing internal and external challenges, including declining engagement, high staff cuts, and a content lineup dominated by Disney’s *Ice Age* films, signaling a possible decline in original content appeal.
  4. Acquired startups like Poppy (PepsiCo) and Welley (Unilever) are being phased out due to underperformance, revealing a recurring pattern where big corporations fail to sustain disruptive brands.
  5. A growing movement of users is “dumbing down” smart TVs using open-source tools or AI to remove bloatware, ads, and data collection, seeking simpler, more user-controlled interfaces.
  6. Airfares in Europe and the U.S. are rising sharply due to fuel costs, with Thanksgiving travel becoming especially expensive—especially on Sundays—while demand remains strong.
  7. Jay-Z is set to perform in the Super Bowl halftime show, continuing his long-standing relationship with the NFL, despite not having a recent hit.
  8. A viral trend of pan-fried hard-boiled eggs and a documentary on elite runner Grant Fisher are recommended as engaging, low-effort weekend activities.

Summary:

SpaceX and Tesla are reportedly considering a massive merger, driven by shared advancements in AI and autonomous systems, with Elon Musk stepping aside to avoid conflicts of interest. SpaceX's AI operations have surged, turning a previous loss into a $431 million profit, marking a strategic pivot away from reliance on Starlink. Meanwhile, Netflix faces mounting pressure from declining viewer engagement, staff layoffs, and a content lineup dominated by Disney’s *Ice Age* films, raising concerns about its original programming strategy.

A troubling pattern emerges in corporate acquisitions, where startups like Poppy and Welley are being sold or discontinued after underperformance, highlighting the difficulty of integrating disruptive brands into legacy companies. In parallel, consumers are increasingly hacking their smart TVs using open-source tools or AI to eliminate bloatware, ads, and data tracking, seeking simpler and more private viewing experiences. , with Thanksgiving flights rising 31% and Sundays being the most expensive days.

Jay-Z is confirmed to perform in the Super Bowl halftime show, continuing his strategic partnership with the NFL. As a closing note, the show highlights two user-friendly recommendations: pan-frying hard-boiled eggs for a unique culinary twist, and watching a new documentary on elite runner Grant Fisher, which explores the discipline behind athletic excellence. These developments reflect a broader trend of consumers, investors, and technology users demanding greater control, transparency, and authenticity in everything from corporate strategy to daily technology use.

FAQs

The Intelligence Shift podcast bridges big AI concepts with real-world applications, discussing AI's impact in areas like sports, music, and human resources, hosted by Dan Priest and expert guests.

Yes, SpaceX and Tesla are considering a merger, with Elon Musk stating that special committees are evaluating the possibility, citing shared work in AI, autonomous vehicles, and robotics as key reasons.

SpaceX reported a 161% revenue increase year-over-year and profits of $4.4 billion, surpassing expectations, with its AI operations now becoming a major profit driver after previously being a loss-making segment.

Users are removing bloatware, ads, and auto-updates from smart TVs to restore a simpler, more focused viewing experience, often using open-source tools like 'Dumb TV' or TV launcher apps.

Dumb TV is an open-source project that lets users block ads and unnecessary updates, replacing the default interface with a cleaner one focused only on apps and HDMI inputs, improving control over their smart TV experience.

Netflix is dealing with declining engagement and a drop in original content quality, with many of its top movies being licensed Ice Age films, signaling a potential loss of viewer interest and creative direction.

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