| | | | | |  Kate Dehler | | IN THIS ISSUE | What's behind Alphabet's stock split | Quibi's founder on lessons learned | Can we interest you in a nuclear bunker? | | | | Good morning. Anyone else feel like all of their friends are getting married this year? My web traffic this week has consisted exclusively of Google Flights, Zola registries, and hotel booking sites. At least I'm in good company. Nearly 2.5 million weddings are expected to happen in 2022, according to the trade group the Wedding Report. That'd be the highest total since 1984. Wait, what the heck was going on in 1984? The NYT hopped in a time machine and revealed how weddings can reflect wider social and economic trends. - More weddings are a sign of a strong economy. Couples get hitched when they have disposable income and believe they can financially support a family. The US economy in 1984 was growing at a faster rate than in any subsequent year until…2021.
- They're also a sign of changing social norms. President Ronald Reagan's brand of conservatism promoted "traditional family values," TV shows like Family Ties did the same, and former hippies emerged from their communes and embraced monogamy.
This year's wedding boom is probably less indicative of a broader cultural reset and more due to mass cancellations in 2020–2021, but nonetheless it'll be closely watched by demographers for whether it produces a much-needed baby boom. The US population increased just 0.1% last year, the slowest population growth on record. —Neal Freyman | | | | | | | | | Dianna "Mick" McDougall A year ago Jeffrey Katzenberg was seeing stars—and not quite like he's used to.The well-known Hollywood power broker took a blow to the chin with the sale of Quibi, the short-form mobile media company he founded in 2018. The service shuttered just six months after launch and didn't quite spark the video revolution that he and CEO Meg Whitman had hoped. Today its remnants reside with Roku. What do you do when you're knocked down? Get back up, of course. Katzenberg regrouped with WndrCo, his well-funded investment firm that birthed Quibi, and got back to business investing in others' companies. Among his latest ventures is a digital security company called Aura, led by founder and CEO Hari Ravichandran. Morning Brew spoke to Katzenberg about his latest project and lessons learned from Quibi's flameout. Jeffrey, you're a Hollywood guy, known for your time running Walt Disney Studios and DreamWorks Animation. You last founded Quibi, a short-lived, short-form mobile media company. What on earth do you have to do with cybersecurity? About five years ago I sold DreamWorks [to NBCUniversal]. The moment after shaking hands to do that, my next thought was, if I were 20 years old today, what would I be doing? I would be in digital technology. The innovation, the entrepreneurial activity…I thought what would happen would be 10x what it was. So I reached out and found excellent partners, two ex-Dropboxers, and started WndrCo. They're twice as smart as me and half my age. They homed in on the wide path of digital and cyber technology. So it has been a place of interest and investment for us from the beginning. Aura is a consumer opportunity. It's a subscription service, marketing...so many of the things I find very familiar. "Consumer" is as broad as it gets. How do you limit your purview? There is simply not a facet of our daily lives that in the next 10 years is not going to be, in significant ways, impacted and transformed and improved through digital technology. Ordering food on a menu? How 20th century. Or maybe second century. Driving, how we get to work, how we communicate and collaborate. Not evolutionary, but revolutionary. So when you have a bottomless well of curiosity, it's a world of extraordinary opportunity. When we last spoke, you were about to debut Quibi. What did you learn from its failure? I couldn't be prouder of what we built and delivered. The big idea of a next generation of film narrative, longform stories in quick bites. The content that was made, the talent that contributed to it, the studios that made it. They exceeded my expectations. But I am humbled by its failure. It clearly did not have a product–market fit. We can argue about, was it the product, was it the market at the time we launched, or was it never to be a fit? But we do get up everyday and take a little TV with us and have in-between moments. Will it never be a product–market fit? I'm not sure. So I'm humbled. In life I believe the greatest lessons you learn are from your mistakes and misses and not your successes. Trying to follow your exact path on your next success usually doesn't lead to success. But the learnings from failure are powerful. I am humbled, but not humiliated by it, because I am proud of what we did. Why is Katzenberg so bullish on Aura? Read our full interview here. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. | | | | | | Teamwork does, in fact, make the dream work. But that dream can morph into a nightmare if your team's efforts are out of sync and people seem disengaged. With MURAL, you can add an online whiteboard to your next meeting, purpose-built to increase collaboration, transform teamwork, and make meetings more inclusive. Plus, MURAL works with Slack, Zoom, Webex, and Microsoft Teams to make it easy to turn ideas into action from anywhere—ideal for hybrid workplaces. Best of all it's free. And don't sweat it if you're not the Van Gogh of design and presentations—creating engaging, structured meetings and workshops is simple thanks to MURAL's 300+ templates and intuitive features. So Van Gogh get 'em. Start a FREE whiteboard here. | | | | Each week, our workplace whisperer Shane Loughnane answers a reader-submitted question about problems at work. Anything nagging at you? Ask Shane here. Garry Brown, legendary Western Mass sports columnist, passed away this week following a career that spanned more than seven decades. I grew up reading his signature feature, "Hitting to All Fields," written as a stream-of-consciousness sampling of the world of sports. In lieu of our typical Q&A layout, today's format is an ode to Brown and his unique style. Just sitting and wondering how many winning Super Bowl squares I'll need in order to make up for January's sack of my 401(k). On the bright side, President's Day is just around the corner. Three-day weekend, anyone? Don't forget to let your manager know you're observing National Haiku Month. If that email can't be written in 17 syllables, it should probably stay in the drafts until March. Honk if you remember commuting (and honking?) in pre-Covid rush hour traffic. Yeah, I don't miss it either. News item: Energage announced the recipients of its 2022 Top USA Workplace awards this week. Check here to see if your recently renovated home office made the cut. Add Milton's red stapler to my list of all-time favorite office supplies. Must-see TV: my upcoming remake of the movie Groundhog Day, where I finally manage to solve a Wordle in fewer than three tries. Speaking of groundhogs, let's hear it for ol' Phil. Proof that with a little hard work (once a year, to be exact), you can still reach the height of your profession without an advanced degree or a TikTok account. You're getting old if you watched George Costanza sink his teeth into the Penske file. In case you missed it: The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed (Ask a Manager). There'll never be another Tom Brady. Hope you enjoyed the change of pace. Remember, if you have an issue at your workplace, share your concerns and maybe we'll reply to you in a future Brew. | | | Francis Scialabba It was a wild week for the stock market, so we won't be disappointed if you missed a bit of juicy news: Google parent company Alphabet said it would split its stock 20–1. That means come July, Alphabet shareholders will receive 19 more shares for every one that they own. It doesn't mean they'll be 20x richer—the price of the stock they hold will drop a proportional amount. If the stock split were to happen today, Alphabet's share price would fall from $2,865 to $143. Why does it matter? In many ways, it doesn't. A stock split does not change the value of the company. It's simply a way to increase the number of shares outstanding. Think of it like slicing a pizza. At a share price of almost $3,000, Alphabet's slices were as wide as a monstrosity you'd scarf down in Adams Morgan at 3am. With the stock split, it's cutting company ownership into more snackable portions. But, in the end, the pizza isn't growing—there are just more slices to be shared. So why do it? Well, that's kinda the point: By making the slices of its company smaller, it hopes that more people will look at them and say, "Well I guess one couldn't hurt." Alphabet said the goal of the stock split is to attract more small-time investors who might have been intimidated by buying in at such a steep share price. - Only 27 other stocks in the S&P 500 have share prices above $500 besides Alphabet.
However, lowering your share price to make it more enticing runs counterpoint to current investing trends. Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab, and other brokerages all allow investors to buy fractional shares of companies, which means you don't have to shell out nearly $3,000 to acquire one share of Alphabet. These days, you can buy in dollar amounts—so $500 would get you 0.17 shares of Alphabet, or $2 would get you…much less. But you could still do it. Yet there's evidence this bit of corporate inception can be effective. To see why, let's look at what happened when two other tech giants, Tesla and Apple, split their stock recently. - When Apple split its stock 4–1 in July 2020, retail investors upped their purchases from $150 million per week to nearly $1 billion, according to Vanda Research.
- When Tesla split its stock 5–1 in August 2020, retail investing jumped from $30–$40 million/week to $700 million.
There may be another play for Alphabet here—and that is to pad its resume for inclusion in the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average. Because the Dow is weighted by share price (an antiquated system, to be sure), Alphabet at its current price would overwhelm all of the companies. It would become the Alphabet Industrial Average. At $247, it becomes a much more attractive candidate for the Dow. Final fun fact: According to Newton's third law of motion, a company can also execute a reverse stock split. You don't want to own a company that attempts such a maneuver. The goal of a reverse stock split is to boost a company's share price, perhaps because it's gotten so small that it's vulnerable to being delisted on an exchange. The parent company of MoviePass (RIP) conducted a 250–1 reverse stock split in 2018 when its shares had plummeted to eight cents a piece. Needless to say, it didn't work out.—NF | | | | | | Defend your portfolio when inflation attacks. Inflation is a hot topic, and for good reason: Its assault on the economy is potentially quite damaging, from your wallet to your investment portfolio to the entire stock market. One way you can hedge against inflation is by investing in alternative assets like real estate. Learn more in our interactive guide to portfolio diversification, created together with Fundrise. | | | | Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that's not afraid to go underground. We'll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price.  ZillowToday's property is in Abilene, Kansas, the home of the Eisenhower Presidential Library and the Greyhound Capital of the World (dog, not bus). This decommissioned missile silo is the perfect place to kick back 170 feet below ground, relax, and survive a nuclear strike with the fam. Amenities include: - 6,900 square feet, no bedrooms (yet!), 1 bathroom
- The scariest ceilings you've ever seen in your life
- 11 acres of barren dirt
- Bonus Quonset building with water and sewage
How much to turn this place into a really expensive Airbnb for bachelorette parties or whatever? | | | - Two good reads about Tumblr from The Atlantic and The New Yorker.
- Remembering the Aqua Teen bomb scare that shut down Boston. (Input Mag)
- Meet the NSA spies shaping the future. (MIT Technology Review)
- On cat pictures. (The LA Review of Books)
- Why celebrities are buying Bored Ape NFTs. (Polygon)
- A good long look at TED talks. (The Drift)
- There are too many video games. (The Bottom Feeder)
- Scents are a key part of a store's identity, even during Covid. (Retail Brew)
- From Yellowjackets to Euphoria and Atlanta, meet the music supervisor crafting the sound of our favorite television shows. (Vanity Fair)
- How insects take flight. (Aeon)
Feed your pup with love this V-day. Your dog deserves fresh, healthy, human-grade food from The Farmer's Dog. Their pre-portioned steamed meat and veggies arrive at your door, ready to serve—puppy eyes guaranteed. Get 50% off your first box today.* *This is sponsored advertising content | | | Welcome back to Morning Brew's Meme Battle, where we crown a single memelord every Sunday. Today's winner: Oliver in Canada  This week's challenge: You can find the new template here for next Sunday. Once you're done making your meme, submit it at this link for consideration. | | | | |  | Written by Neal Freyman, Max Knoblauch, Andrew Nusca, Jamie Wilde, Matty Merritt, and Shane Loughnane Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - Emerging Tech Brew: AI, crypto, space, autonomous vehicles, and more
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