☕️ Peace, California

Microsoft might finally let us FIY

October 08, 2021 View Online | Sign Up Good morning. Shark Tank returns for its 13th season tonight, and you bet we're going to watch Mark Cuban yell at 22-year-olds for their bamboo towel not being absorbent enough. —Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch MARKETS Nasdaq 14,654.02 +1.05% S&P 4,399.76 +0.83% Dow 34,754.94 +0.98% 10-Year 1.577% +5.3 bps Bitcoin $53,850.71 -2.26% GM $56.44 +4.65% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 7:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. Markets: Stocks continued their upward march after Democrats and Republicans came to a short-term agreement to raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion, which should be enough to cover the US' bills through Dec. 3. GM stock is on a roll after it gave more deets around its big EV pivot this week. Covid: The best treat for kids could come right after Halloween. Pfizer and BioNTech asked the FDA to authorize their Covid vaccine for kids ages 5–11, and shots could be given as soon as Nov. 1. TECH California Leavin' PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images First Grimes, then California. CEO Elon Musk said Tesla is leaving Palo Alto, CA—its home since its founding in 2003—and heading to Austin, TX, where Tesla is building a massive factory complex. "It's tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away....There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area," Musk said at the company's shareholder meeting yesterday. He has a point. A new report projected that the median price for a home in California will reach $834,000 in 2022, after growing 20% this year. And Silicon Valley is even more expensive: A house in the metro area has a median price of $1.7 million. Push and pull The push: Tesla's relationship with California hit the rocks last year. Musk railed against the state's Covid restrictions in spring 2020, when he was forced to halt production at Tesla's plant in Fremont. He even called Alameda County's Covid restrictions "fascist" on an earnings call. The pull: Musk personally moved to the Austin area from Los Angeles to be closer to his other two companies, SpaceX and the Boring Company, both of which have operations in Texas. Also a consideration for that move: Musk has an eye-watering compensation package tied to Tesla's performance, and if he chooses to sell his options he would have a much lower tax bill in Texas than in California. But the company isn't totally leaving CA in the dust. Musk said that Tesla will ramp up output at its Fremont factory, and it's also building a new "Megafactory," which makes Tesla's energy storage product, in California's Central Valley. Zoom out: We won't call it a mass exodus yet, but several high-profile tech firms have moved their HQs out of the Bay Area over the last year and a half. Oracle and Hewlett Packard left for Texas, and data analytics giant Palantir set up shop in Denver.—NF ENTERTAINMENT Let's Talk High-Yield Bonds MGM The 25th installment in the James Bond franchise and the last for Daniel Craig, No Time To Die, is hitting theaters across the US and Canada today after an 18-month pandemic delay. Forecasts suggest that 007 will make a big splash at the box office, and history suggests that he will absolutely demolish a very expensive car in the movie. No Time To Die is expected to rake in $60–$70 million over its opening weekend, though some believe that figure could soar even higher. After all, last weekend Venom 2 beat expectations by around $30 million for a $90 million debut—and that's a movie about Spider-Man's parasite. But every Bond flick has a villain, and No Time To Die has two: The film's franchise-record runtime of 2 hours and 43 minutes (which will decrease showtimes) and an older audience (a demographic that hasn't returned to theaters in the same numbers as younger moviegoers). Actually, three: Rami Malek is playing the bad guy. Zoom out: A blockbuster No Time to Die showing would be on the nose for the struggling film industry, which lost $32 billion in 2020. —MK TECH Microsoft Might Actually Let Us In Giphy After a battle with the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, Microsoft has agreed to study the link between consumers repairing their own products and climate change, as well as loosen some repair restrictions. It's a major win for the right-to-repair movement. Right-to-what now? The right-to-repair movement has pushed large manufacturers that make expensive gadgets to cool it with secretive manuals and strict warranty laws and allow consumers to FIY (fix it yourself). As You Sow argued that if Microsoft consumers can't easily and cheaply fix their products without calling the Geek Squad, they're more likely to buy new ones, which contributes to e-waste and increased carbon emission from the production of the replacement devices. Zoom out: Microsoft is the first US manufacturer that's signaled it's down to open the vault. But pressure is mounting for others to follow its lead. Investors also filed right-to-repair resolutions in September with Apple and John Deere. And in July the FTC formally announced it would support the repair revolution. —MM SPONSORED BY THE MOTLEY FOOL Face Down Your FOMO That weekend trip you bailed on because of a work thing. The karaoke night you were too sleepy for. The rainbow bagel place you scoffed at—until pics of its colorful crullers made you drool.  Life's too short for FOMO. So instead of dwelling on the jaw-dropping past performance of The Motley Fool's past stock picks, we'll focus on what you can do now.  Actually, just a brief dwell: If you'd invested in Amazon when the Fool first sent a "buy alert," you'd be up 21,357% as of Oct. 6. If you'd bought Netflix stock when they first recommended it, you'd be soaring 32,815% as of Oct. 6.  Feel the FOMO creeping in? Fend it off with The Motley Fool's current picks. They can't promise similar returns, but they've selected five new stocks they say are "screaming buys."  Check out The Motley Fool's five new (very vocal) stock picks here.  GRAB BAG Key Performance Indicators Jim McIsaac/Getty Images Stat: 18 former NBA players, including Terrence Williams, Glenn "Big Baby" Davis, and Tony Allen were charged in a scheme to lift nearly $4 million from the league's healthcare fund. Quote: "We are the right company at the right time." WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani showed off some impressive numbers during an investor presentation: September sales hit $228 million for their highest monthly total this year. WeWork, which has benefited from higher demand for flexible office space during Covid, is in the final stages of going public via SPAC. Read: Anyone seen Tether's billions? (Bloomberg Businessweek) QUIZ Squiz Game The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to remembering to bring your reusable bag to the grocery store. It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz. WHAT ELSE IS BREWING Investigators from the US Coast Guard have boarded a cargo ship they think could have caused the oil leak off the coast of California. The number of Americans getting Covid booster shots is outpacing those who are getting their first or second vaccine doses. A Saudi-led consortium completed a takeover of the Premier League club Newcastle United after a long and bitter battle. Given Saudi Arabia's riches, Newcastle will now be one of the richest soccer teams in the world. Used car prices rose to an all-time high in September, showing that inflation is sticking around longer than many expected. SPONSORED BY THE MOTLEY FOOL FOMO, fixed. You may have missed The Motley Fool's early calls on companies like Amazon and Netflix. But you can still get in on their analysts' foresight with the stock they think is best poised to cash in on the 5G revolution. No, it's not the super-sleek giant based out of Cupertino—find out more about this under-the-radar company here.  BREW'S BETS The holiday shopping season is going to be wild: To make sure your biz is prepared, stop by our Retail Brew virtual event next week to hear from experts like the chief business officer of Shipt. RSVP here. Spooky season: The scariest movies ever made, according to science. If you want to keep it wholesome: Here are 99 sober ideas for the weekend. FROM THE CREW How the Technoking Thinks The Brew's cofounder and executive chairman, Alex Lieberman, breaks down Elon Musk's powerful mental models that he used to create and grow his business on this YouTube special of Founder's Journal. Alex goes deep into the thought processes Elon uses to see what we can all learn from the self-styled Technoking of Tesla. Watch here. GAMES Friday Puzzle Today's Friday Puzzle is what's known as a Fermi Problem, which requires you to use logic to estimate a really large number. Of the 1.9 billion acres of land in the contiguous 48 US states, how much is taken up by golf courses? SHARE THE BREW We think you should share the Brew. Not only is it a smart thing to do for your friends, it's also the smartest way to get showered in free Brew swag and exclusive content. Your referral count: 0 Click to Share Or copy & paste your referral link to others: morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=8e8ccc8f ANSWER The amount of land being used for golf courses is about 2 million acres as of 2018, according to Bloomberg. HOW WAS TODAY'S NEWSLETTER? GREAT GOOD BAD Written by Neal Freyman, Max Knoblauch, and Matty Merritt Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? 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