Toby Howell

You've called it a bribe.

It is a bribe.

There's a lot of legal issues around doing this that we will get into.

It is natural.

The one thing that a lot of people were pointing out too is that this toll system only works if there is still an imminent threat of attack.

So Iran still has an incentive to keep things very dangerous because they want to keep continuing to charge these tolls.

So it is a thing that is pointing to maybe the war continuing because Iran has everything in their interest to not open up the Strait of Hormuz.

They kind of like this new normal of charging tolls.

ships $2 million or more to go through the Strait of Hormuz.

That means we might see a tax on ships continue for the foreseeable future.

Moving on, Starbucks is one year into new CEO Brian Nichols' turnaround effort, and it's reached the, what if we just gave all our baristas a bunch of cash stage of the process.

Under a new bonus program, Starbucks will award baristas and supervisors a quarterly bonus of $300 if their stores meet certain targets the company announced yesterday.

A good year means $1,200 in extra pay.

The company is also adding the option for customers to tip while using their mobile apps to order and bumping up the frequency of barista paychecks to every week instead of every other.

The idea is by putting more cold hard cash into barista's green apron pockets, it will lead to more inviting cafes with faster orders and warmer exchanges with customers.

In general, it seems like cash has regained its spot as king of the hill when it comes to compensating employees.

In the completely opposite domain of AI startups, companies are offering much higher cash compensation than before, with median base salaries, not including equity, rising 25% to $200,000 since 2022.

Neil, whether you're a barista or a deep learning expert, things like culture or perks are paling in comparison to the allure of cash right now.

Companies aren't overthinking it and are giving more money to their employees to try and drive results.

Yeah, the idea is even though you are seeing that pay raise of 5% to 8%, Starbucks expects better earnings results to offset the cost of those bonuses.