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Will Jensen Stay As Nvidia’s CEO? & Italians Outraged Over KFC’s Push Into Ski Resorts

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Will Jensen Stay As Nvidia’s CEO? & Italians Outraged Over KFC’s Push Into Ski Resorts

Marketers are urged to invest in LinkedIn ads for superior ROI, with a $250 promotional credit available for new users. A major consumer backlash erupted when Skims’ advent calendar delivered low-value items, leading to viral complaints and a full refund policy. Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s alleged relationship with a suspected Chinese spy triggered a market downturn and intense scrutiny over his leadership role, highlighting the "key man risk" in AI-driven tech firms. Despite the scandal, market sentiment suggests he may remain CEO, with prediction models showing rising odds over time. The expansion of college football’s playoff to 24 teams has sparked debate over the erosion of regular-season game value and the future of bowl games. Consumer trends show a massive shift away from seed oils, driving product reformulation and premium pricing, though nutritional science finds no inherent harm. Additionally, the U.S. government’s potential awareness of the spy case and related investigations is under congressional review. These events collectively reflect broader tensions in consumer trust, corporate accountability, and technological leadership in a rapidly evolving economy.

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marketers say you invest in something that seems incredible like millions of views but then don't see any revenue that's not going to make your cfo happy instead invest in linkedin ads they generate the highest ROAS of all major ad networks spend $250 on your first campaign on linkedin ads and get a $250 credit just go to linkedin.com slash mbd that's linkedin.com slash mbd terms and conditions apply good morning brew daily show i'm neil fryman and i'm toby howell today what is jensen huang's future as the ceo of nvidia then you're ready for december madness college football is expanding its playoffs to 24 teams it's tuesday november 10th let's ride nvidia is not the only company in crisis mode right now people who bought advent calendars from skims kim kardashian's apparel brand have been mighty disappointed with what they found after opening it up the calendar cost $150 but contains cheap accessories like loose hair ties scrunchies and pink bobby pins or as some have described it the kind of stuff that settles to the bottom of your handbag videos of user complaints have gone mega viral with one tiktok generating 65 million views in three days on sunday skims got the sense it uh didn't meet expectations and said it would offer either a full refund or store credit the tiktok comments were very funny one compared the contents of the calendar to things my cat collects from around the house another said it looked like a bunch of stuff that kim kardashian was emptying out of her bedside table which by the way i think people would go nuts for and buy so think about that kim it also got me thinking what do we put in an mbd advent calendar we got no scrunchies but maybe some hairs from my mullet and many pairs of jesus of neil's eyeglasses it might be some legal issues you don't want to read the tiktok comments on that video yeah not good and now a word from our sponsor runway neil i'm trying to come up with a concept for a billboard idea but man am i running out of glue you're gluing together a billboard why wouldn't you just use runway the company giving people new ways to bring their biggest creative ideas to life listen i like it when it sticks to my fingers don't touch anything runway's creative suite gives anyone the power to generate edit and finish video images and audio for campaigns as well as social and product content so whether you're solo or part of a team you can produce the on-brand content you need and with runway ads you can make new creative variants for your best ads sign up for free at runway.com morning brew and get 25 off paid plans with the code morning brew can an individual be so essential to the economy so financially entangled with all the major players so resolute and singular in his leadership that he can avoid punishment for devastating mistakes in other words can one person be too big to fail but enough about me that's the central question as the world reacts to the stunning revelation that nvidia ceo jensen huang had a secret romantic relationship with a chinese spy alice huang jensen has apologized for his behavior and nvidia's board launched an independent investigation into the matter still investors seem to be expecting more shoes to drop even as the broader market surge yesterday nvidia stock dipped more than four percent there are so many unknowns to this story but perhaps the most crucial one to the business world is what is going to happen to jensen is he going to stay on as ceo one thing's for sure if any regular nvidia employee had an affair with a chinese spy they'd certainly be fired and not allowed within a thousand miles of a company computer and the same goes for 99 of ceos in the fortune 500 but jensen's a different beast after co-founding nvidia in 1993 he's emerged as the central figure in the ai boom of the past several years like michael scott on the office it just doesn't work without him thanks to an unusual corporate structure jensen has centralized power and has groomed no obvious successor he is nvidia nvidia is him in a recent bloomberg interview jensen acknowledged i am responsible for an entire industry at least for now nvidia is sticking by their guy on sunday a spokesperson said today's news will not slow nvidia jensen is committed to continuing to lead nvidia ceo without interruption to better wrap our heads around this wild story and help you understand all the moving pieces we spoke to jensen and he said we're going to see how nvidia is going to do for us we spoke to liz hoffman semaphores finance and business editor and host of her own podcast compound interest and fyi we re-recorded the questions this morning in a studio because you want to hear our computer microphones okay here is our convo with liz thanks for being here liz what do you think is jensen huang's future as the ceo of nvidia i think ceo of any other company would almost certainly be fired for this uh i mean we can go through the litany of problems but just huge lapse in judgment you know to say nothing we don't know but what if any company information was actually compromised in any way so that will be a job for nvidia's board and their lawyers over the next couple weeks to figure out but uh i mean the thing about nvidia is like who would take that job this is a company that does not have a number two which is wild jensen has run it he's an incredibly lean sort of fast place he's got 50 or 60 people who report directly to him and you know it seems like maybe one or two are kind of first among equals but that is a big pool of people to draw from it doesn't have a president or a ceo uh and then even if you could find one there's a real question of how valuable is nvidia without jensen the phrase that i keep hearing tossed around is key man risk in ai it feels like a lot of the hyperscalers from meta to spacex to nvidia would be in a really bad spot if their ceos were gone tomorrow seems like the humans in the loop at these top ai companies are a huge liability is that the case yeah that was the subject line of our email newsletter this morning key man risk hundred percent i mean the the other thing is like nvidia has just always been a strange company right founded 30 35 years ago you know for most of its career most of its history was kind of a very mundane maker of video game chips and and the reason that it's not anymore is down to one person johnson long had this vision realized he was sitting on these hugely valuable assets that if you read configure them in some way could be the engine of a brand new economy and all of the deals i mean they are they're the central bank of this ai boom standing behind all of these guarantees and backstops and leases i mean it really falls apart um if if not for nvidia and jensen wong is the reason that nvidia has been able to do that so sheer force of personality has created this real community of other uh ai executives cross ai and wall street brought them into this and created a giant ecosystem that he is holding up with his shoulders and he just got knocked down massively right we know that maybe jensen huang is the key man risk for nvidia but some people are saying he is the key man risk for the entire ai industry do you think this scandal represents an existential crisis for the ai industry as a whole it was just curious to me to look at the stock market today we saw pretty much tech shares boom and all the stock market boom nvidia though was down four percent maybe the only company that was in the red i don't know if i was expecting that if jensen huang and if nvidia does represent the domino that could topple this entire industry yeah i think the read through to why the other tech stocks are up again the big hyperscalers but also the neoclouds um nebby has some core weave which you know i've had a rough couple of weeks i actually think the read-through is that export controls are going to get tighter and so there's going to be more of these gpus to go around if you're a usai company is my sense we'll have to see how those shake out over the next couple of days but i i actually think that's what's going on and is kind of an interesting knock-on effect i don't know i mean the stock is down you said four or five percent today it's you know 100 billion dollars here 100 billion dollars there is kind of the world we live in um but investors are clearly making sort of a two-piece bet and i think that's a good thing because it's going to be a good bet which is is he going to be the ceo of nvidia in a couple of months and i believe there's a calci market on this something like 15 think he's going to get bounced uh and then so i'm not going to affect to what you know nvidia is worth without him how common is honey potting does this happen a lot i mean first of all we're living in a world of corporate espionage and ai particular right it's only been it seems like a million news cycles ago but the justice department charged the saudi national with spying on open ai and bugging their conference room and then you know seemingly trying to organize a plan to leave the country uh companies have been doing these trainings the open ai has been doing these trainings for a couple of months now like there's some great you know videos knocking around twitter where you know it's kind of parody videos of people saying i met the hottest girl today you'll never believe how interested she is in what i do uh yeah this is this is how the world works and these are incredibly valuable secrets and you know you have to think that most executives of big companies have have at least pretended to attend the corporate training center and i think that's a really good example of how the world works and i think that's a really good example of how the world works and i think that's a really good example and i think that's a really good example of how the world works and i think that's a really good example on how to recognize these things i want to talk about the government role in all this because this is fascinating to me so it's being reported that the top echelon of the government knew that jensen was having some sort of unusual relationship with alice huang who is the suspected spy as far back as a year ago and then today on monday the new york times reported that the commerce department was investigating mega speed which is the company that alice worked for but that investigation was dropped after nvidia intervened what questions do you have for the u.s government about what they knew and what they did or didn't do when they knew it well the good news is that the democrats are about to hold like months of hearings to find out exactly the answers to these questions but obviously who knew what when and i think you have to set this in a larger kind of reality check in washington which is that the china hawks kind of really got domesticated you know over the last year two years and uh they you know they have long memories and i think they've been waiting for an opportunity to to find a storyline that that really crystallized the risk that still remains in beijing's ambitions here um you know look i'm not a political reporter so i can't say that i I've got quite the read on where this came from in the Trump administration, but, you know, certainly commerce is going to investigate, you know, they're in charge of chip controls. And so they see a lot of chips going to Singapore. And by the way, you could see this in NVIDIA's corporate filings for a while until they stopped reporting it because Singapore kind of went from nowhere to a large recipient of chips. And Singapore is where Megaspeed was based and a lot of other companies that there is some concern now have been, you know, front doors for for chip sales to China. So I don't know. I mean, but we're about to be treated to a congressional parade of witnesses being asked exactly these questions. Do you think NVIDIA is going to be investigated for securities fraud or is there going to be a shareholder lawsuit? What do you think the legal ramifications are going to be for NVIDIA? Absolutely. I mean, first of all, everything is securities fraud. Like if if a company is going to be investigated for securities fraud, maybe knew about something, didn't say it when they said it, the stock went down. That's an immediate lawsuit. And here the losses are like two hundred billion dollars. So that's going to be a field day for a bunch of plaintiffs, lawyers. But pretty clearly and I'm not a lawyer like but pretty clearly they misled the market about this. Jensen himself made some statements. You know, the head of PR at the company has been on the record saying there was nothing unusual about this relationship. Obviously not true. And you can't tell shareholders things that are not true about material information. And obviously it was material because when shareholders found out about it, they dumped the stock. So, yes, I think that is on some level the least of NVIDIA's problems, but it is obviously a problem. One more question before we let you go, Liz. You have been covering business for a long time. Have you seen anything like this? I don't think that I've seen us. Well, actually, I take that back. Couldn't matter less. But I did have a story like two years ago that the movie theater chain, kind of a quirky dude. He's the one who did an interview once with no pants on and was like out buying a gold mine and like was a real meme stock guy. He had been honeypotted, really blackmailed, catfished by a woman who was criminally charged. So and you know what? He kept his job. And at the time, I remember, you know, I wrote a whole piece about it and saying, yeah, most CEOs don't act like this, but also most CEOs don't do any of the things that Adam Aaron, that kept AMC afloat for a while. And so AMC's board in a sort of circusy, slightly comical way was in a very similar position today to NVIDIA's board, which is they have a CEO who is a real asset to the company who has done something in very poor judgment. Thanks for your time, Liz. We'll let you get back to what I'm sure is a very busy work week with all that's going on. We really appreciate it. You know, Liz has been a business journalist for decades and seen it all. So the business notwithstanding shows the magnitude of the situation. I was checking prediction markets this morning and traders are still putting the chances. Jensen is out SEO by the end of next year at around 15 percent. Sorry, at the end of this year, at around 15 percent. By the end of next year, it jumps up to 38 percent. So for now, it looks like there's a fair degree of confidence that he keeps his job. A few more updates on the story that did trickle out yesterday. Trump is still standing by his guy telling reporters, I asked him, Jensen, did you have any idea she was a spy? He said, I had no idea she was a spy. And I really believe him. But Trump also said the FBI is now investigating the affair. So we will see if that relationship holds up. Finally, Wired reported yesterday, too, that Jensen Huang hired a PR firm called Heller that is known for handling sex scandals last year, right around when he was first linked to Alice Wong. I'm just with Liz here, Neil. I cannot believe the reaction around the AI world isn't more intense, but maybe that key man risk is truly too high and there's no possibility of NVIDIA operating without him. I'm looking right now. NVIDIA stock is up two percent pre-market. Moving on, college football will soon look a lot like college basketball, but it's unclear whether the madness will follow. Yesterday, in a landmark move, the college football playoff and ESPN announced that the playoff will expand to 24 teams next season from the current 12. It's a $1.7 billion deal that locks in ESPN as the exclusive rights holder through the end of the 2031-2032 season. Fans were not asking for this. They've watched in shock as the college football playoff expanded from four teams as recently as 2023 to 12 teams over the past three years and next year, double that, forever transforming the sport they block off their fall Saturdays for. Many college football writers channeled that rage into biting criticism, accusing TV executives and conference leaders of sacrificing fan goodwill at the altar of revenue. Dana O'Neill at CNN wrote, the expansion means college athletics has entered its Violet Beauregard stage, engorged by gluttony like the character from Willy Wonka. O'Neill wrote, the Oompa Loompas eventually rolled poor Violet into the juicing room, squeezing her back to form, though leaving her permanently blue. There is no such quick fix for college athletics. It is permanently bloated, almost beyond recognition. Rich Clark, executive director of the college football playoff, understands this isn't a popular idea, but he doesn't really care. In a revealing mask off moment, he told reporters, quote, we are aware of the fan sentiment and that many fans aren't in favor of expansion, but that was certainly weighed into the decision. It was considered, but ultimately we just need to make a spectacular playoff. Toby, after yet another change to the college football playoff, what do you see as the winners and the losers here? This is just a massive gamble, specifically by ESPN, actually, who is gambling billions of dollars on this idea. ESPN broadcasts regular season college football games, and so the fear is, what if the expanded playoff makes these regular season games less consequential? That's one of the best things about college football is every single week, you will have your season on the line, essentially, because you can't really get into a playoff with more than one, especially not two losses. So the network could be undermining the value of the property that it owns, which is those regular season games. The nightmare scenario that people have put forward is what happens if Ohio State has already secured a playoff position, and they're about to head into their annual rivalry game with Michigan, and the Buckeyes just throw the game. They sit all their starters because they don't really care about this rivalry anymore. They really do care about winning the national championship. So removing some of the juice from the very thing that made college football special, that is the big question mark here. And a couple other losers here are conference championship games because they are going away. So if you're a fan of the SEC championship in Atlanta or the big 10 championship with this new format, those go away. And those were one of the most fun things to watch in early December, but now they have been completely scrapped. The other big loser is bowl games. So right now there are 35 bowl games outside of the college football playoff. And these are those things in late December where your local lawnmower company is sponsoring this, or more famously, Pop-Tarts has this Pop-Tart bowl. Basically, you have these quirky bowl games where mediocre teams who didn't make the playoffs play. And basically, you have these quirky bowl games where mediocre teams who didn't make the playoffs play. And basically, those will become a non-event and perhaps dwindle to zero now that the college football playoff, which everyone is going to watch, has taken over the December calendar. One sector of the college football landscape that might like this is the middle class, not necessarily those top, top teams in any of the major conferences, but a coach like Purdue, Purdue's coach, Barry Odom, he's trying to rebuild the program. He believes that the change will help teams in his position because essentially to keep up right now in college football, you've got to spend millions of dollars building your roster in the NIL era. But that can feel very difficult for, you know, boosters or other people to stomach. If you are Purdue, you're like, we're never going to beat Alabama. We're never going to become Georgia. We're never going to make, you know, those top 12 teams. Now that there's 24 teams, it might make more sense to invest in this roster because we have a chance of getting in. So that middle class keeps their hopes alive more so than at any other time. Right. The middle class in the big conferences, though. And who came up with this idea? The Big Ten Commission. Because through the 2014 playoff, you're going to get more mediocre big conference teams like the Purdue's of the world into the college football playoff. So that's why he came up with this idea in the first place and then got the SEC and other big conferences on board. One winner that I will point out is college towns. So the first two rounds of the playoffs are going to be on campus in the second and third week of December. And typically not much is going on on campus. Those teams are going to have these huge events on campus. The college football playoff. If you're someone like Oklahoma State, you're bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Stillwater when they normally would not be there. So if you're a local business, a local restaurant or a local bar, you're thinking, wow, like I could be in for a windfall in what is typically a very slow period. So one winner is college towns. But just to zoom out, we haven't even talked about college basketball making expanding March Madness to 76 games in the next the next spring. So both college football and college basketball are on the move, expanding their playoff. And I think one of the main points is what does that mean for the regular season? Because it's basically just a formality at this point. Let's expand college soccer while you're at it. That would have given us a little bit of a better opportunity to make the postseason in my playing days. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Toby's trends right after this. Does your credit card help you get airline points? No, my credit card only gives me points. They're useless and I can't exchange them for anything. Wow, that is sad. MasterCard Blackguard is way better. You can earn up to 75,000 bonus points after qualifying account activity with their limited time offer. That's worth up to $1,500 when redeemed towards airfare with no blackout dates or seat restrictions. Visit luxurycar.com slash brew for more details. That's luxurycar.com slash brew. Offer ends soon. Terms and conditions apply. Just like my response to being in a dental chair, many business leaders are probably ready to white-knuckle it through the next few months. But unlike Neil when he's getting a cleaning, business leaders have a real reason to be concerned. Following the midterm elections, major policy shifts could be coming soon. Fortunately, PwC can help. Whether it's shifts in tariffs, AI acceleration, or geopolitical fragmentation, their expertise helps you understand the ripple effect and how you can respond. Let PwC help turn your knuckles back to their normal color. Go to pwc.com slash us slash 2026 midterms. It feels like no one's looking out for retailers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Wait, I have to buy retailers presents too? No, but they do need to get every one of those orders out the door. Thankfully, ShipStation is an end-to-end order fulfillment platform built to handle the order surge of peak season and bring all of your orders into one place even during volume spikes. Peak season doesn't wait, and neither should you. Get ahead of it today with ShipStation and get 60 days free at ShipStation.com with code MBDA. That's ShipStation.com code MBDS. Taxes and fees apply. Are seed oils bad for you? They're in everything from potato chips to salad dressings to mayonnaise, and yet over the past few years, they've become public enemy number one in certain health circles, a trend I want to talk about on today's edition of Toby's Trends. RFK Jr. and the Maha movement have accused these oils of contributing to inflammation and chronic disease. They've bestowed a nickname upon pantry staples like canola oil, which is a soybean, sunflower, and grapeseed oil, the hateful eight. Their demonization has rubbed off on shoppers. Americans spent more than $1 billion on products labeled seed oil-free in the past year, up 72% from the year prior. In the snack industry going through some tough times, sales of salty snacks labeled as seed oil-free have been a bright spot, jumping 87% compared with a 2.9% rise for snacks without the label. The backlash has gotten so intense that major friends and family members have decided to give up on the idea of seed oil-free. Food companies are reformulating their products, replacing seed oils with more expensive alternatives like beef tallow, which is making a comeback in potato and tortilla chips. Avocado oil is surging too, as is butter. But the irony is scientists haven't found that seed oils are inherently harmful. Really, the evidence, if anything, supports the health benefits of seed oil. Christina Peterson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, told Bloomberg. Seed oils contain unsaturated fats, which can lower cardiovascular risk. And yet, avoiding them has gone from a Manoverse podcast talking point into a billion dollar effort from companies to capture part of this vague health halo. Neil, hating on seed oils is big business. Yeah, so Harvest Snaps, which is a baked pea and lentil snacks brand, they moved to avocado oil from canola oil this past year. And the reason is that people really care what type of research. And they found 71% of consumers said the type of oil really matters to them. And 62% of people who bought healthier salty snacks said that they were positive in their view of shifting away from seed oils. And you mentioned this is also big business. Just look at what Pepsi is doing. They recently bought a company called Siete Foods for $1.2 billion. And Siete Foods is known for its popular line of chips made with avocado oil. So they did some acquisitions to bring more avocado oil into their portfolio. And at the same time, within their existing portfolio, like Lay's Ruffles and Miss Vicky's potato chips, they rolled out a line of avocado and olive oil varieties of those chips. So it's really turning these huge businesses into a blender about what do we do with people who say, I really, really care about what oil is in my products. And they are going to have to reformulate their supply chains and their recipes to accommodate this. Another example of kind of that bind these brands are in, Olivia's Croutons. It's a smaller brand, but it's 30 years old. And some major grocery store chains were like, hey, can you reformulate your recipe to remove canola oil and other seed oils from your croutons? So they go, okay, we'll do more butter and olive oil. And what that did is raise the price eight cents per box because those ingredients are more expensive. And then two, cholesterol levels also increased slightly because, you know, butter is cholesterol heavy. So there is some irony there that the very thing that these brands are getting to do by consumers and grocery store chains is make their products less healthy and more expensive, not necessarily a recipe for success, but that's kind of just the environment that they're in right now. The business opportunity is driven by consumer perception, not necessarily any improved nutritional benefits. It's interesting to hear what the nutritional experts say about why seed oils have been vilified over the past few years. And they think it's not necessarily, well, they definitely think it's not causation, but association because we've been gorging on all these ultra processed foods from the supermarket, from the inner aisles of the supermarket. And that's bad for us. And when you look at what's in those, it's a lot of times it's canola oil, it's other seed oils. So they're saying as our, our, as our consumption of ultra processed foods has grown, so has our consumption of seed oils and too much of a good thing is always bad for you. So they're saying that they like seed oils got lumped in with ultra processed foods and that put a target on its back. Let's turn to the finish with some final headlines. Apparently the biggest threat to Italian culture isn't pineapple on pizza anymore. It's fried chicken on the ski slopes. KFC is opening its first ever high altitude restaurants on Italian ski mountains this December, bringing buckets of fried chicken to two of the country's most prestigious resorts. And bear with me here, Cortina de Amparazzo and Madonna di Campaglio. I tried that. Campiglio. Close enough. And the locals are not embracing the finger licking good coming their way. One prominent businessman called the move disgraceful and is threatening legal action. While the founder of Italy said the brand doesn't belong here at all. And that Italians should be eating a nice slice of salami with a glass of fresh wine instead. KFC knows that it's a bit of a curve ball, but the move was aimed at surprising people in reaching places where nobody would expect to find it. Neil, I don't hate it. Think about ripping a little double black diamond and coming down for some piping hot fried chicken at a more affordable price point than other options on the mountain. I am on board with KFC. I I'm not usually a NIMBY, but I am absolutely with the locals here, the local Italians, because they have this refugee. These are these these mountain huts up there. And the traditional dishes that you can get there sound absolutely delicious, like polenta with mushrooms, venison stew, Luganega sausages are a big one, apple strudel. And then you get these big, krafts of red wine. And that just sounds delicious. And, you know, I don't typically advocate for putting up red tape for for not letting the free market side. But some things are worth protecting. And I think the foods that I just rattled off sound absolutely delicious. And like, look, KFC can have everything under 10,000 feet. Let's just keep everything above 10,000 feet local to the Alpine tradition. It also comes at a time when the locals also feel like they're just getting railroaded by all these foreigners. coming into Italy's mountains. The province registered 20 million overnight stays last year for the first time ever. That was up 3%. People are, I know I see these videos on social media of these sweet DJ sets at the top of mountains and people just partying it up. And I'm like, well, honestly, the Alps seem like a really good time for skiing. I think that if they just put a little caviar on top of the fried chicken, I would be like, it's okay. Just go a little high, low with it. And then suddenly it's like a forward thinking concept rather than just normal KFC. But you are definitely overlooking the fact that it would be so good to just have hot fried chicken after going on the ski run. You can have both. You know, it doesn't, one doesn't cannibalize the other. I want both. Let's go high and low KFC. Get us out to those mountains. We'll do a taste test for you. Up next, the FAA announced it is finally retiring floppy disks as part of a massive modernization of America's air traffic control systems. Perhaps more surprising than the retirement is the fact that floppy disks, cutting edge tech from when Reagan was president, are still being used by the agency tasked with running US airspace. The reason is that parts of the FAA are still running on an operating system from the 80s, which requires controllers to manually search for information like weather alerts, airport hazards, and restricted airspace. But the agency has been rolling out a new digital system across its facilities that will put all that info in one place, allowing controllers to access critical updates instantly. The upgrade is expected to be completed by the end of 2028. Neil, we can guffaw. All we like at the fact that the FAA was still using outdated tech, but it's indicative of an ongoing challenge facing the federal government. You gotta modernize these systems without disrupting the services that depend on them. So a floppy disk has over one megabyte of storage. That's at the top end, okay? One standard high-resolution photo on your phone could be well past that. So your phone, just one picture is more than these floppy disks can hold. Back in the 70s and 80s, this was seen as like the revolution of the office, the fact that we had floppy disks everywhere. So. It's kind of crazy that they were still using floppy disks, and it's not the only one. I remember a few years ago, we were talking about Japan, who some government offices were still using floppy disks. So this is a technology that's really overstayed its welcome and all credit due to the floppy disks, but I think it's time we move on. I just checked. I have 33,708 photos on my phone, so that's a lot of floppy disks right there. And finally, a piano player on a cruise ship was rescued after he reportedly spent nine hours treading water. The man, who has not been identified, was an employee of Royal Caribbean's Ovation of the Seas when he was suspected of going overboard at 2.30 a.m. off the coast of Southern California. Later that day, two fishermen near Catalina Island saw him 20 miles offshore and pulled him on their boat before Newport Beach lifeguards took over from there. If their timeline is correct, that means he spent an incredible nine whole hours treading water in the Pacific Ocean. Not a surprise, though, given his expertise in the boxstroke. So there's this famous. This is a famous study from 1957 that I immediately thought of when I heard about this story. It's an experiment conducted by Johns Hopkins psychobiologist Dr. Kurt Richter. Basically, he set up two experiments. One was a baseline. He put wild rats in a glass cylinder of water with no escape, and they tended to die between 1 and 15 minutes because they were super stressed out and also there was no hope of escaping. But when Richter repeatedly rescued the wild rats just before they sank, dried them off, let them rest a little bit, and then returned them to the water, they treaded water for 60 to 80 hours. That's how much of a difference, you know, a little bit of hope actually created in these wild animals. So if you are this pianist, maybe he saw one boat out in the distance and you're like, oh, maybe another one will come by and treaded water for nine whole hours. Hope can be a very powerful, you know, tool when it comes to human endurance and survival. The other thing outside of. Maybe the psycho-biological angle of it is the fact that this is an El Nino year and the ocean was super warm, 76 degrees. If it was any colder, you're probably not lasting that long. So a lot of factors had to go right for this person to survive an incredible, you know, feat of endurance. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Tuesday. We still have a few seats left for MBD Trivia Night in Manhattan tonight. So if you're looking at your calendar and there's a big fat blank, where an activity should be, sign up at the show description and we'll see you there. Another quick housekeeping announcement. Our normal show is going to be off tomorrow because of Veterans Day, but we recorded an interview with a famous author you won't want to miss. So be sure to check that out tomorrow morning and we'll be back with regularly scheduled programming on Thursday. Share your thoughts on the episode or anything else. Send an email to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MBDailyShow. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Liu is our senior. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Tactical direction by Nina Miller. Hair and makeup says fast food out of its opera ski. And our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. You seem to get a bit too intoxicated by it with the chainsaws and all that. Yeah, I think that's true. I got carried away, basically. I'm Walter Isaacson. On my new podcast. The Builders, I sat down with Elon Musk, Dario and Daniela Amadei and more to understand the power they wield, what drives them and where they're taking us. Listen to The Builders starting October 20th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. LinkedIn ads offer the highest ROI among major ad networks, with a $250 credit available for first-time users through a special promotion.
  2. Skims faced backlash after its $150 advent calendar contained cheap, low-quality items, sparking viral TikTok videos with over 65 million views in three days.
  3. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang faced a scandal involving a suspected Chinese spy, leading to a board investigation, a stock dip of over 4%, and intense debate over his future leadership.
  4. The incident raises concerns about "key man risk" in AI and tech, with many fearing the industry could be destabilized if such a central figure is removed.
  5. Despite the scandal, prediction markets suggest a 15% chance Jensen will stay as CEO by year-end, rising to 38% by next year, indicating market uncertainty.
  6. College football's playoff is expanding to 24 teams, shifting fan sentiment and threatening the value of regular-season games and bowl traditions.
  7. Consumer backlash against seed oils has driven a $1 billion market for "seed oil-free" products, prompting food companies to reformulate recipes with costlier alternatives.
  8. The U.S. government’s role in the spy allegations, including Commerce Department investigations and potential oversight gaps, remains under scrutiny in upcoming congressional hearings.

Summary:

Marketers are urged to invest in LinkedIn ads for superior ROI, with a $250 promotional credit available for new users. A major consumer backlash erupted when Skims’ advent calendar delivered low-value items, leading to viral complaints and a full refund policy. Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s alleged relationship with a suspected Chinese spy triggered a market downturn and intense scrutiny over his leadership role, highlighting the "key man risk" in AI-driven tech firms.

Despite the scandal, market sentiment suggests he may remain CEO, with prediction models showing rising odds over time. The expansion of college football’s playoff to 24 teams has sparked debate over the erosion of regular-season game value and the future of bowl games. Consumer trends show a massive shift away from seed oils, driving product reformulation and premium pricing, though nutritional science finds no inherent harm.

S. government’s potential awareness of the spy case and related investigations is under congressional review. These events collectively reflect broader tensions in consumer trust, corporate accountability, and technological leadership in a rapidly evolving economy.

FAQs

Jensen Huang has not been removed as CEO, and NVIDIA has stated he will continue leading the company. However, significant uncertainty and speculation remain, with investors and analysts questioning his future due to the nature of the incident and the company's reliance on his leadership.

Key man risk refers to the financial vulnerability of a company if a critical individual, like a CEO, is no longer available. For NVIDIA, this is significant because Jensen Huang has been central to its growth and culture, and the company lacks a clear successor, making it heavily dependent on his leadership.

Reports suggest that government agencies, including the Commerce Department, were investigating MegaSpeed, the company Alice Huang worked for, and that the investigation was dropped after NVIDIA intervened. However, no definitive confirmation exists that the U.S. government knew about the relationship in advance.

Skims faced backlash because the $150 advent calendar contained cheap, low-quality items like hair ties and bobby pins, which users described as disappointing. The controversy went viral on TikTok, with one video gaining 65 million views in three days, leading the company to offer refunds or store credit.

LinkedIn Ads generate the highest return on ad spend (ROAS) among major ad platforms. Marketers are advised to start with a $250 campaign and receive a $250 credit through LinkedIn's promotional offer, making it a cost-effective and high-performing advertising option.

The expansion may reduce the importance of regular season games, as teams will have more playoff chances. Bowl games are expected to disappear or diminish, as the college football playoff will dominate the December calendar, shifting focus and revenue from traditional postseason events.

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