Morning Brew Daily

The thought of getting a $1,200 check in the mail from the government was nothing short of crazy just six months ago. Ask Andrew Yang. But now, that once impossible idea is reality—most Americans will receive a little somethin’ something’ from Uncle Sam as part of the government’s $2.2 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

But what should you do with that money? If your groceries and basic necessities are already covered, should you splurge your Trump Bucks or save them? And what kind of boost—if any—will this program give the U.S. economy?

This week on Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, we’re diving deep into personal finance in the COVID-19 age with money expert and author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich Ramit Sethi. In the episode, Sethi covers…

Why you need an emergency fund and what you should do if you’re in an emergency but low on the funds

How and where we can find opportunity (read: earning potential) in the depths of a painful recession

Whether it’s harder or easier to get rich today when compared to our last recession a decade ago

Listen now and learn more about how your personal finance situation could change.

You’ve read about the couple stuck in the Maldives. You’ve obsessively stalked ticket prices for Amsterdam in the fall. You’ve heard the cruise industry’s weary pleas for forgiveness. Now, it’s time to understand how—and if—the travel sector emerges from the pandemic that’s brought it to its knees. 

Today on Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, Rafat Ali, founder and CEO of travel media and research company Skift, explains what’s at stake for the global travel sector, plus why the rest of the economy is finally recognizing just how impactful the travel industry is.

Ali breaks down what’s at stake for airlines, cruise lines, hotels, and one particular Silicon Valley home rental platform in this new norm—a norm that’s proving we can survive in a socially distant, vacation-free, remote-work world. 

Ali will also give you the final answer to the question you’re all wondering: When is the right time to buy plane tickets?

Listen now to find out.

Today, the world gets its first glimpse of Quibi, the short-form mobile video platform as famous for its high-octane leadership as it is for its $1.75 billion in pre-launch venture funding.

Also today? Business Casual listeners get an exclusive interview with Quibi CEO Meg Whitman. In this conversation chock-full of insight, Whitman explains how Quibi is straddling the line between competition for time and competition for dollars.

As a veteran tech leader (and the former CEO of both eBay and HP), she has plenty of inside-baseball analysis about playing into the trend of our dwindling attention spans instead of resisting it. Whitman also explains to Business Casual…

What it’s like to launch a consumer product in the middle of a pandemic and likely recession

What it takes to raise $1.75 billion in funding without showing investors your product

How to attract the finest talent from both Hollywood and Silicon Valley

Plus, Whitman defends her claim that Quibi, a video streaming service, is not entering the streaming wars. Want to understand that one? Listen now.

Like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal. That’s the motto on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, where 1 million members share the most horrifyingly risky stock market strategies imaginable. 

And in these volatile times, those bets are riskier and bigger than ever. So this week on Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, we spoke with r/WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski to understand the new norms in market psychology.

Rogozinski, a serial entrepreneur who takes almost no responsibility for the fortunes both won and lost on the subreddit he created, explains…

Why millennials are approaching investing differently during the COVID-19 pandemic

How a fundamental lack of trust in the investing system impacts markets across the board

When bear vs. bull markets are nothing but a social construct

Listen to the episode now.

You could use some good news. Today on Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, we’re delivering just that—a conversation on the business of giving back with charity: water founder Scott Harrison.

Charity: water’s not your average nonprofit. Harrison has made the organization’s business model famous in the finance world for his focus on almost radical transparency and a nontraditional banking setup. 

In this episode, Harrison goes deep on how that works...and justifies the highly unique, heavily Silicon Valley-influenced (and sometimes criticized) model.

Plus, Harrison—who’s a former nightclub promoter—has something of an unorthodox approach to marketing that sheds light on more than just the nonprofit community. Small taste? He’s more concerned with what Nike or Apple is doing than what his direct competitor is doing.

This episode might make you feel better in a downer of a news cycle, but that doesn’t mean we’re holding back on the business analysis. America’s 1+ million charities raked in $427.7 billion in contributions in 2018—meaning charitable giving is big business.

Listen now and let us know what you think.

You’ve read every guide to improving productivity while working from home. You can list every country by confirmed COVID-19 cases in both ascending and descending order. Your Andrew Cuomo impression is getting scary good.

But now you’re wondering...how does this all end? And what are the world’s leaders doing to hasten that ending?

To find out, Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast spoke with geopolitical whiz Ian Bremmer (he’s also a celebrated political scientist and the president/founder of the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group and GZERO Media).

Bremmer offers an honest assessment of the many ways government responses to COVID-19 differ, both for better and for worse. Plus...

Who wins and who loses if the free world’s leadership scheme shifts

How world leaders prioritize both human lives and economic livelihoods

Why the possibility of a cold war between the U.S. and China has some experts concerned

Listen now for answers.

What would you do if you were in the room negotiating a stimulus deal with D.C.’s top brass? Do you know what you’d say? And what you’d lobby for? Mark Cuban does.

This week on Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, Cuban—owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Shark Tank investor, and media exec—does just that...and explains why perfection is the enemy of progress.

As Cuban sees it, the longer lawmakers hem, haw, and split hairs over the appropriate response to COVID-19, the more they hurt American taxpayers. Right now, aching businesses big and small need leadership, but the government can only do so much. Cuban explains…

Why we have no choice but to make decisions with imperfect information

How bailouts should be structured to benefit more than just the corporate elite

When perspective matters more than profit

And because he’s Mark Cuban...he gives plenty of entrepreneurial advice. Don’t miss this episode—listen now.

The economy is hurtling toward a likely recession every day. And just like you can rely on your roommate eating all the good WFH snacks on day two, you can rely on markets experts to wonder...is the government going to do anything here?

For its part, the Federal Reserve is doing something. Several things, in fact, from last-minute emergency rate cuts to major loans for big banks.

But what does the Fed’s rapid fire monetary policy mean for your day to day, from getting a mortgage to choosing a bank? And will it even work? This week on Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, the Brew’s Kinsey Grant interviews her college Econ professor to get those answers.

Washington & Lee University’s Professor Art Goldsmith gives a master class in how Fed policy works, why it exists in the first place, and what we can expect from central bankers as COVID-19 wreaks havoc on business.

Because when “explain it to me like I’m five” fails, there’s always “explain it to me like I’m 19.”

We hold these WFH truths to be self-evident: that we’ll always wear pajama pants no matter how many times we promise to get dressed, and that we’re spending way more time than usual scrolling through social media. 

About that second one...social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become lifelines for human contact and important headlines in the era of #socialdistancing, putting pressure on Big Tech to clamp down on falsehoods and potentially harmful viral cure-alls. 

But can Zuck & Co. handle it? Are they stepping up to the plate to root out dangerous misinformation? Can we trust anything we see on social media anymore?

In this special episode of Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast, Bloomberg social media reporter Sarah Frier explains how tech c-suites are navigating what, for many, has become the most uncertain periods of their existence...and how those business decisions impact society.

Listen now and let us know what you think.

Back before the stock market was breaking all the wrong kinds of records and the global economy was teetering on the edge, Morning Brew’s Business Casual podcast learned a well-timed lesson in resilience.

Our teacher? ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman. The fitness subscription startup he leads became 2020’s first unicorn before 2020 was even a week old. But getting to that point— and building the kind of business that can survive today’s uncertainty-riddled economic environment — took time. And several different business models.

This week on Business Casual, Fritz goes deep on the importance of owning your mistakes and keeping yourself honest, even when it’s hard. Because reversing the way you make money? Not easy. Plus, Fritz explains…

Why some marketplace businesses fail (looking at you, MoviePass)

When it makes sense to lose customers on purpose

How sustainability matters more than virality