Snacks Daily

Cyber Monday set a record as the biggest online shopping day in US history — but the real winner this year is Shopify. Jack Dorsey is busy being the CEO of both Twitter and Square, but now he wants to live in Africa for 6 months. And McDonald’s is looking to enter the Chicken Sandwich Wars, but its biggest challenge comes from the inside: Franchisees.

Black Friday in-store shopping actually fell from last year — but purchases made on smartphones and with in-store pickup dominated, so we’re renaming it: “Mobile Cyber Pickup Week.” SoulCycle just lost its CEO while Peloton stock had its best week ever, so we’re getting on both bikes. And Dollar Tree’s stock dropped 19% last week, so we’re looking at how tariffs are about to change everything.

The 2nd half of our Snacks recording live from Spotify. We sit down with Max Cutler, the Founder & MD of Parcast Studios at Spotify — his startup was acquired by Spotify earlier this year. We’re asking about how he first pitched his company, whether podcasts will follow the Netflix strategy, and what his favorite pod is. Ever.

Ebay snagged StubHub for itself in 2007 for $300M, but it just sold the ticket company for a cool $4B. Uber has officially been rejected from London because policy risk is a real thing. And Charles Schwab treated itself to an early gift by buying up rival TD Ameritrade for $26B — and the strategy was straight out of Game of Thrones.

Allbirds’ CEO noticed that Amazon’s been knocking off its go-to shoes — Amazon calls them “equivalents,” we call them “knock-offs”. Target is enjoying shipping nirvana and shares are up 91% this year because it’s pulled off same-day shipping magic. And PayPal splurged $4B for deal-snagging pioneer Honey, but Wall Street ironically thinks it overpaid.

Spotify invited us to their NYC offices to record a live podcast — it’s a podcast about podcasts for our podcast listening Snackers. We introduce to the Snackers how we got into podcasting, how we built this podcast (every day), and the 5 ingredients for a podcast that people will actually listen to. 

Victoria’s Secret still has its 83 year old CEO despite (another) rough quarter — So we whipped up a gameplan for them to get less out of touch with millennials. Greek yogurt legend Chobani just introduced its first non-dairy option: Oat milk. We’re wondering if plant-based milk is a trend or a fad. And TJ Maxx and Urban Outfitters both reported earnings, but discount prices is helping one and hurting the other.

Warby Parker is the OG disrupter, cutting out the middle man of retail — now it’s launching its 2nd everproduct line: “Scout” contacts. Microsoft was threatened by Slack, so it launched a rival/knockoff messaging service called Teams — we just learned it’s got 20M users. And Home Depot usually just rides a strong housing market to strong profits, but it botched one part of the business that relies on Home Depot alone.

Coty cosmetics realized it was probably easier to just acquire 51% of Kylie Jenner’s beauty brand than compete (so it did). Ford unveiled its Mustang-looking electric SUV that’s not just a compliance car. And The New York Times broke down what FedEx did with its tax cut money… which highlights what companies actually do with their tax cut money.

Fancy home goods chain Restoration Hardware jumped 8% after an investment by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway… and it’s totally not Warren’s style investment. Pinterest is such a nice social media company that it’s not throwing enough advertising at users. And Peloton will reportedly launch 2 new products in 2020 as it uses Tesla’s playbook.

Canopy Growth is the most valuable cannabis company, but the price of cannabis it sold last quarter dropped by 27% because Canada’s got an oversupply problem. Daimler and Ford just announced big investments in electric cars, while Tesla’s won awards. And our “Maybe-Unicorn of the Day” 1Password knows you don’t want to remember 243 usernames and passwords — it’s service makes you remember just 1. 

Google plans to launch a checking account, another sign that Big Tech wants to understand your daily spending. Nike decided it no longer wants to sell on Amazon, probably thanks to its new CEO (who is an eBay guy). And the Uber for freight, Convoy, just raised $400M to take on… Uber Freight.

TikTok set a record for app downloads, so Facebook just decided to knock it off with a new Instagram feature. Alibaba’s Singles Day set a sales record of $38B in 24 hours — so we’re looking at why the stock fell. And big milk giant Dean Foods just filed for bankruptcy, but you can’t (totally) blame Millennials for it.

Adidas tried to update its manufacturing with a fancy new “speedfactory,” but now it’s relocating them out of the US and into Vietnam and China. Both Bumble and Walgreens have something in common: They’re suddenly into private equity. And Apple is planning for an iPhone-less future with iGlasses and iHelmets (we made up those names) after its 5-year plan was leaked.

Party City’s stock dropped 67% after a brutal Halloween and helium crisis, so we’re looking at what issues it can actually control. Zillow has pivoted from just exposing real estate prices to also buying homes — that’s a big and risky bet. And with Gap’s CEO getting fired last week, 2019 has become a record year for CEOs losing/leaving their jobs.