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Chapter 1: What is Big Tech's pledge regarding data center bills?
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, America's new Gilded Age is in Wyoming. Then Apple just released its cheapest laptop ever. It's Thursday, March 5th. Let's ride. think we're all in need for a feel-good story, and I think I found just the one.
So each year in Paris, a competition is held, the Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française, to determine the best classical baguette in the French capital.
Chapter 2: How does Apple's new low-cost laptop compare to competitors?
The winner receives 4,000 euros and the opportunity to supply bread to the French president's residence for the next year, plus immense bragging rights. The blind tasting competition was held last weekend, and the victor was Sithampari Pillai Jegathipan, a 43-year-old Sri Lankan immigrant who taught himself to bake in 2008.
He is the second immigrant from Sri Lanka to win the competition in the last three years and joins other baguette makers from West Africa, Algeria, and Tunisia who've been crowned the best bread maker in Paris. Toby, I am submitting my candidacy as a judge for next year's Grand Prix. This is a serious operation.
The judges grade the entries on five criteria, appearance, cooking, inner texture, smell, and taste. Aesthetics are huge when it comes to brand. You need the crunch of the outer shell to pair well with the soft texture
inner pockets of air it should look like a beehive very uniform air pocket distribution and each group of judges gets five baguettes at a time so most of them say if you are a rookie to the judging aspect of this you take too big of bites you fill up too soon so you have to pace yourself throughout the uh the afternoon also as soon as the winner was announced people went to google to check out this uh this bakery and someone screenshotted the google reviews of this place
88 reviews, 3.8 stars. So maybe take it with a grain of salt or a grain of yeast whenever you're shopping around for a baguette to try in Paris. All right. And now a word from our sponsor, Bland AI. Toby, I need some help. Hey, buddy, whatever it is, no can do. But maybe try Bland AI.
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They're able to drive serious ROI across industries and their 127% net revenue retention rate means people keep buying more of Bland for their business. To learn more, head to bland.ai.mbd. That's bland.ai.mbd. When Trump was running for office, a core pledge of his was to cut electricity prices in half, but your bill has likely gone in the exact opposite direction. The cause is no secret.
Power-hungry data centers are popping up everywhere, pulling billions of dollars worth of electricity off the grid, contributing to an affordability crisis that is looming over midterm elections. So Trump told tech CEOs to meet him in his office. Yesterday, leaders from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and others made the trip to the White House to sign the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.
The promise is, you build these data centers, you pay for your own power. No more plugging into the grid and sticking regular old Americans with the bill. The companies also agreed to work on individual pricing deals with different power providers, put money into training local workers, and use their facilities to help power neighborhoods during power outages.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do data centers pose to local communities?
Nitrogen is probably the most at risk right now because they are made from natural gas. So when gas supply gets disrupted, nitrogen fertilizer supply follows as well. Phosphates also are at risk of disruption. Saudi Arabia supplies about 40% of all U.S. phosphate imports. So just another industry to have in the back of your mind as this conflict kind of unfolds.
Yeah, farmers are definitely watching that closely. One industry that we have talked about a lot that pertains to this conflict is AI and the drama between the Pentagon, Anthropic and OpenAI just continues to escalate. There were reports out yesterday that Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei has resumed discussions with the Pentagon about the way its AI is used in the U.S. military.
Remember that at the last minute last Friday, OpenAI's Sam Altman swooped in with a deal with the Pentagon after the Pentagon announced essentially blacklisted Anthropic and treated it worse than they do Chinese or Russian companies because they didn't agree on the way that AI would, Anthropic's AI, would be used in military warfare. Now, there was another report that came out.
It was a memo from Dario Amadei to his employees after that OpenAI deal came, and he absolutely ripped into Sam Altman. Remember, these two guys do not like each other at all. He said that the Pentagon didn't want to work with Anthropic for not giving Trump dictator-style praise. And he called that OpenAI Pentagon deal, quote, safety theater. So he absolutely went into OpenAI.
And who knows whether that will throw another wrench into the talks that appear to have resumed with the Pentagon between Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and Anthropic. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's numbers right after this. Cyber attackers these days don't need exploits, they'll just use your allowed tools against you.
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Chapter 4: How is the energy crisis impacting data center operations?
More people are living alone, they're spending less time with friends and family, they're living longer, and the stigma of individual leisure activities is wearing off. Some theater people say that single ticket buyers present an enormous opportunity for the industry to grow its shrinking audience. And at least one company is taking advantage.
As NPR writes, venue operator ATG Entertainment has launched a solo seats project that aims to make individual theater going less intimidating. At their inaugural event, a showing of the notebook in San Francisco, 60 people signed up for a $75 ticket that included a discounted orchestra street, a pre-show mixer with other solo seaters, and a free drink.
Toby, we all want to know, would you see a Broadway show by yourself? This I have thought about because we were having a discussion earlier yesterday. Is it different than going to a movie alone? And I do think it is different. One, because of the lighting. It's just a little bit brighter in Broadway theater than in a movie theater. So you feel more perceived. And then two, intermission.
So intermission, you have to get up. You're probably looking left and right. You're like, who are you talking to? So it's definitely a harder experience to go to Broadway theater alone. But I do believe you have done this before. Yeah, I go to Broadway shows alone. Not all the time, but I have no I'm not intimidated by it. There's no stigma for for me. I go to movies alone. So I am all for this.
I think it is a really big opportunity for for the theater industry to grab people like me. I don't know if I would go to this particular mixer event. I don't know if that's necessary because I'm happy to go alone. But for certain events like theater or movies, you're not talking to anybody anyway. So I don't see what the big deal is. at the intermission. You got to make small talk with someone.
Have you heard of your phone, Toby? No, no, no. We're not going on our phones. We're flipping through the Playbill. There's so many good things in there. This is like the peak of solo travel right now. Google searches for solo travel, not just solo theater, going double from 2018 to 2023. So right now, this is the time to be, you know, solo meal out there in the world.
All right, for my final number, snail mail is back and side hustlers are cashing in. According to the Wall Street Journal, a crossing guard in Burlington, Vermont, who sends out mailers featuring her daily observations, makes about $14,000 a month from the business.
Another woman in Austin, Texas, who sends out letters and recipes to thousands of subscribers, did about $45,000 in revenue in January alone. These entrepreneurs are part of a growing group of artists who found a lucrative niche in analog mail clubs. They sent out everything from stickers to letters to art prints on all kinds of topics to a list of subscribers who can't get enough.
Christine Tyler Hill, the crossing guard in Vermont, began her mailer mogul journey in 2023 when she started uploading a cloud report to social media in which she noted the seemingly mundane but charming things she'd see on her shift every morning. A dog on a walk, falling snow, etc. Once that began to gain traction, the journal writes, she decided to dip a toe in the actual business and
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