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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonavan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the

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Speaker 1: Tech are Ye and Hey Tari, this one's for you.

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Speaker 2: I love all things tech. How's that?

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Speaker 1: You know? Tari's been bugging me about doing my old

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Speaker 1: lead in. Today we have a very special episode with

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Speaker 1: a very special guest co host. This co host is

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Speaker 1: one of the co hosts of the Saverer podcast. She

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Speaker 1: hosts the brain Stuff podcast, and ten years ago she

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Speaker 1: was co host of this very ding dang show. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to tech Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum.

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Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, Hi, it is good to be back.

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Speaker 3: And that I didn't need to know that number ten

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Speaker 3: years That's fine, that's I'm fine with that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember how ten years ago you would often

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Speaker 1: punctuate episodes with but Jonathan, you're so old.

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Speaker 3: It was important to remind you someone's got to keep

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Speaker 3: you in line.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this will be the sobering fact of the episode.

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Speaker 1: Next June, I turned fifty. So yeah, you were telling

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Speaker 1: me I was sold when I was on the verge

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Speaker 1: of forty. It turns out during the pasting of time,

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Speaker 1: I've only gotten older and more cantankers.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm an entire like seven years younger, which

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Speaker 3: means that I'm a heck in spring chickens.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, seven years younger, as in she means she's

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Speaker 1: actually de aged seven years over the course of ten.

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Speaker 1: We don't know how she does it. And Lauren, when

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Speaker 1: I invited you to come on to the show, I

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Speaker 1: asked you if you had any suggestions for topics, and

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Speaker 1: you came up with one that I had never really

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Speaker 1: covered before, and I think is very important. And it's

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Speaker 1: all about food delivery app companies. You know, your your

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Speaker 1: door dashes, your Uber Eats, your grub hubs and what not.

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Speaker 1: And you had talked about how you wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: not just about how these things work, not really even

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Speaker 1: about how they work. We're going to leave that stuff aside.

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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the impact these companies have

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Speaker 1: had not just on customers, but restaurants and their own businesses.

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Speaker 1: Because in the old house stuff works days, we might

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Speaker 1: have called this how they don't work.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so it's super fascinating to me as a

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Speaker 3: human person who a you know, well, I mean, I

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Speaker 3: think about food all the time because I'm sort of

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Speaker 3: continually hungry, but also it's just in a hypoglycemic way.

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Speaker 3: Don't worry, I'm doing fine. But also someone who talks

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Speaker 3: about food for my podcast, if you couldn't tell from

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Speaker 3: the namesaver, it's a food history, science and culture podcast.

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Speaker 3: And we did an episode about delivery and takeout in

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Speaker 3: general back in twenty eighteen, and it is wild to

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Speaker 3: me how wrong those numbers were when I pulled up

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Speaker 3: those notes to start taking notes for this episode, because like,

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Speaker 3: there's been just a wild boom all of those delivery

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Speaker 3: apps since the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: Of course, yeah yeah, yeah, you all might not remember this,

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Speaker 1: but just a few years ago we had this global

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen outbreak where many of us were forced to

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Speaker 1: work from home, and in fact, it completely transformed the

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Speaker 1: way we do podcasts. Back in the old days, we

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Speaker 1: would come into the house Stuff Works offices over at

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Speaker 1: the old Pon City Market location, and we would record

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Speaker 1: in one of the whisper rooms or one of the

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Speaker 1: two podcast rooms. Well not one of the two, because

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Speaker 1: Stuff you should know, pretty much had that one on lockdown,

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Speaker 1: but the other one. And that's how it worked and

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Speaker 1: we would come in. But then, of course the pandemic

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Speaker 1: forced all of us to create kind of at home

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Speaker 1: ad hoc podcast spaces.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, March thirteenth, like a Friday. I think they

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Speaker 3: just emailed all of us. They were like, Okay, there's

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Speaker 3: a pandemic, don't come back. We're mailing you on microphone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we all got like overnight deliveries of like

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Speaker 1: the bare basics we would need. And they're like, you

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Speaker 1: got to have some sort of software to record into

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Speaker 1: and then figure it out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and like also, oh, you needed a studio. I

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Speaker 3: didn't have a walk in closet, which is kind of

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Speaker 3: the best thing to do. So I just like opened

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Speaker 3: the door to my closet and hung like my biggest

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Speaker 3: gothist dresses on the back of the door and just

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Speaker 3: talked into my clothes. And that was about a year.

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Speaker 3: That was about a year of recording that was.

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Speaker 1: That was also very much like the way the original

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Speaker 1: House Stuff Works podcast room was because all we had

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Speaker 1: was a.

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Speaker 2: Giant Kirk closet. It was it was an alcove.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, way back in the day when we were back

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Speaker 1: in Buckhead, even before the Pont City Market days.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where we were recording originally.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and so during all that time where we're

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Speaker 1: all locked down, Like obviously, food delivery services flourished, right

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Speaker 1: because people wants their foods and they couldn't always go

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Speaker 1: out and get them. You certainly couldn't go out and

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Speaker 1: dine out in a lot of locations for a very

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Speaker 1: long time. Yeah. So obviously, like like a lot of

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Speaker 1: the tech sector in twenty twenty, they had a boom period.

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Speaker 1: But as it turns out, that's that's not even the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the story. It's not even the middle of

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Speaker 1: the story. That's like the Act three part of the story.

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Speaker 1: We've got a lot of precursor stuff to talk about.

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Speaker 1: And I love that you included in our notes here

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Speaker 1: a section on ancient history.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, we have to go all the way back

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Speaker 3: to the early nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I almost wanted to say, Joe Piscopo was teaching America

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Speaker 1: how to laugh. That's the nineteen eighties. So that doesn't

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Speaker 1: even work.

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Speaker 3: Uh okay, So y'all might not know this, but one

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Speaker 3: of the things that I learned from doing Savor is

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Speaker 3: that one of the first, if not the very first

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Speaker 3: products delivered from an online order was a pizza. It

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Speaker 3: was nineteen ninety four, and this Pizza Hut franchise in

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Speaker 3: Santa Cruz piloted pizza dot net. You could go online,

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Speaker 3: fill out a form with your delivery info and your order,

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Speaker 3: and it would be delivered. And I know that sounds

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Speaker 3: really basic here and now, but it was revolutionary at

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Speaker 3: the time. And it worked funnily enough by submitting data

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Speaker 3: from the form to a server in Wichita, which was

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Speaker 3: Pizza Hut's headquarters, which then sent the order to a

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Speaker 3: computer at the restaurant in Santa Cruz, where an employee

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Speaker 3: would receive it and then call you to confirm the order.

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Speaker 1: So not a one step process. In other words, no, no, yeah,

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Speaker 1: As it turns out, this is an infrastructure that would

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Speaker 1: not scale. Can you just imagine being that employee in Wichita, Kansas,

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Speaker 1: Like I gotta call somebody over in Des Moines, Iowa

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Speaker 1: because they ordered a pizza. But fascinating because I mean,

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Speaker 1: like ninety four, that's before a lot of people even

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Speaker 1: had a handle on what the World Wide Web, let

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Speaker 1: alone the Internet was. Yeah, and certainly a time when

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would have been reticent

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Speaker 1: to order anything, because the thought of any kind of

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Speaker 1: purchase over the internet seemed inherently dangerous, although in this

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Speaker 1: case with calling to confirm your order, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if the actual purchase happened over the phone.

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Speaker 3: That's yeah, that's what happened. That you would give you

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Speaker 3: you'd give them your information at that point and so

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Speaker 3: and go from there. But it was so early. But

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Speaker 3: from there, and you know, with the growth of home

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Speaker 3: computing and internet access, there were a few small businesses

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Speaker 3: that picked up the concept, like The New York Times

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Speaker 3: reported on one in upstate New York in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 3: seven that hosted menus for forty restaurants and had like

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Speaker 3: checkout system and used a third party delivery service. They

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Speaker 3: reported in this article that more than five hundred people

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Speaker 3: had visited the website.

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Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, which you know, again again early days for

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Five hundreds right now, you're like

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Speaker 1: five hundred clean, But no, that's a big deal.

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Speaker 2: It was.

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Speaker 3: It was, but it sounds so quaint. To quote The

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Speaker 3: New York Times, there is no charge to visit the website,

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Speaker 3: but the customer pays the delivery, varying from about four

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Speaker 3: to six dollars depending on the service used.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, if simple times, and then I had to

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Speaker 1: include I had to include the fun tangent. This is

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Speaker 1: not connected to necessarily delivery services, but you know, just

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Speaker 1: to show how important pizza is to the evolution of

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Speaker 1: the Internet. One of the most famous examples of someone

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Speaker 1: using the digital currency bitcoin to buy something tangible was

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Speaker 1: in fact a pizza.

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Speaker 2: But it was. Yeah, but it.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't that suddenly Domino's was taking bitcoin instead a the

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Speaker 1: titular Florida Man Florida man. In this case, a guy

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Speaker 1: named Laslow went on too a bitcoin oriented forum and

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Speaker 1: offered anyone who would be willing to bring him to

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Speaker 1: I don't know, large ish pizzas so we would have

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Speaker 1: some left over to eat the next day. For the

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Speaker 1: princely sum of ten thousand bitcoin, could do it. So

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Speaker 1: back then bitcoin wasn't worth anything. It was less than

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Speaker 1: a penny for a bitcoin. But today that ten thousand

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Speaker 1: bitcoin pizza would cost you one billion dollars because bitcoin

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Speaker 1: is over one hundred thousand dollars now. Oh so that

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Speaker 1: guy ordered two pizzas for a billion dollars. Talk about

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Speaker 1: a raw deal.

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Speaker 3: But he was the first.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it was we'll be talking about a lot of

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Speaker 1: raw deals, sometimes literally if you're ordering a salid.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was not an actual delivery service in that case.

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Speaker 1: It was just some rando online who happened to live

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Speaker 1: in the same Florida region who was willing to go

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Speaker 1: and schlep to Papa John's and buy a couple of

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Speaker 1: extra large pizzas and bring it to this guy, and

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Speaker 1: then they got ten thousand bitcoin at the time. Of course,

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Speaker 1: back then you'd had there were no way of knowing

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Speaker 1: that bitcoin would eventually reach the absurd value of one

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars per bitcoin, which I still don't understand

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Speaker 1: even though I cover this for a living.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I feel real touch right now. So cool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got those early, early examples where it's a

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Speaker 1: very primitive kind of Jerry rigged approach to delivery. Moving

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Speaker 1: forward from that, we got into the dot com bubble

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Speaker 1: craze where anyone could have an idea, or as I

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Speaker 1: put it in our notes, an idea of an idea,

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Speaker 1: and get investors excited about it, who would then pour

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Speaker 1: ridiculous amounts of money. Because the Internet was just seen

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Speaker 1: as a as a gold rush. Everyone wanted to get

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Speaker 1: in on it. Everyone had fear of missing out, and

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Speaker 1: in the process you had these folks who had interesting ideas,

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Speaker 1: but they didn't have a real business plan that supported

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Speaker 1: that idea in any kind of sustainable way. So the

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Speaker 1: oh no, Yeah. The two examples I have in our

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Speaker 1: notes are are Webvan and I was actually a customer

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Speaker 1: of webvan because Atlanta was one of the cities they

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Speaker 1: rolled out to after they opened in the Bay Area,

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Speaker 1: and Cosmo, which I was never a customer of because

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Speaker 1: that was like a bike messenger kind of thing. So

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Speaker 1: it's more like really dense urban locations like New York City.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't really ride bikes anywhere in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: Not if you want to live. No, it's mad Max

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Speaker 1: Fury Road out there, y'all. And not to mention like

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Speaker 1: if the cars don't get you, the pothos will. So

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Speaker 1: webvan gets started, and they were doing more like grocery delivery, right.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't It wasn't like they'll go pick up a

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Speaker 1: meal at your local burger king and bring it to you.

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Speaker 1: But they also ran into the issue of creating an

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Speaker 1: unsustainable business model, and they got so much money so

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Speaker 1: early on that they immediately started to expand into other cities,

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Speaker 1: like Atlanta was just one of them, Chicago and Seattle

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Speaker 1: were others. And the problem was they had not proven

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Speaker 1: that they could have a revenue model in their first

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Speaker 1: city that would actually support the business before they started

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Speaker 1: to try and scale. So I bet you can all

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Speaker 1: guess where this goes, because ultimately Webvan, like so many

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Speaker 1: other dot com companies, imploded. Now part of that is

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Speaker 1: also because the market in general crashed. No more investors

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Speaker 1: willing to burn money by throwing it at Webvan because

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Speaker 1: it was just churning through that cash super fast, like

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Speaker 1: as soon as it was coming in the door, it

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Speaker 1: was going back out again. So without that constant source

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Speaker 1: of cash influx from investors, Webvan couldn't, you know, screw

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Speaker 1: around until it figured out how to make it work.

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Speaker 1: Like the whole ethos of fake it till you make

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Speaker 1: it just wasn't viable at that point, and so Webvan

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Speaker 1: did not make it. It died along with Cosmo, which

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Speaker 1: would eventually come back in a different form. But that's

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Speaker 1: another story for another time. So the interesting thing to

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Speaker 1: me is that some of those elements from the dot

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Speaker 1: com days, I would argue are still in play today,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we'll talk about those, but it's a

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Speaker 1: slightly different story. Like I would say that the current

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Speaker 1: run of food delivery app companies learned lessons from webvan,

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Speaker 1: but in the way that they learned them so that

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Speaker 1: they could repeat those mistakes almost exactly.

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Speaker 3: It does sound strikingly like some of the stories we're

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Speaker 3: going to get into.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially like with companies like door Dash, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to really dive into that and start talking about

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Speaker 1: some of the elements of these app companies and some

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Speaker 1: of the real major cons In just a second, before

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Speaker 1: we do that, let's take a quick break to think

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Speaker 1: our sponsors.

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Speaker 2: Okay, welcome back.

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Speaker 1: Now that we have all bowed to the altar of capitalism,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about horrors of late stage capitalism

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Speaker 1: for the rest of this episode. So let's talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about some of the app services that are

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Speaker 1: out there. It's funny because they're in some ways there

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Speaker 1: are fewer than there used to be because we've had

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Speaker 1: some consolidation in the market. But the big three, or

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Speaker 1: at least the three that I kept seeing sighted everywhere

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Speaker 1: because obviously they're smaller ones and there's regional ones.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and these are in the United States. There are

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Speaker 3: a whole other players around the world.

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Speaker 1: An excellent point, Lauren, Yes, absolutely, So the big three

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Speaker 1: that we were gonna be talking about, primarily, I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about door Dash.

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Speaker 2: That's the big one. That's the one that I typically use.

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Speaker 1: When I use it, although now I feel so guilty

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Speaker 1: now that I know more, I don't be using it

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Speaker 1: so much.

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Speaker 3: But it's like sixty some percent of the American food

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Speaker 3: app delivery business.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: And then you've got grub Hub, and then you've got

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Speaker 1: Uber Eats, and Lauren, I'll tell you Uber Eats is

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Speaker 1: one I never want to use. But that's because it

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Speaker 1: has the word Uber in front of it, and that

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Speaker 1: company is like toxic to me.

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Speaker 3: Uh huh oh yeah, No, same, same, And I understand

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Speaker 3: that basically the drivers are the same, but I'm like,

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Speaker 3: can I give them money through a different app?

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Speaker 1: Can I use a different incredibly corrupt corporation to siphon

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Speaker 1: money in tiny drips to the poor gig economy workers

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Speaker 1: who are actually doing the work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: If y'all wonder why I think Uber is toxic, you

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Speaker 1: just need to look back at the year twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 3: Yepper's that's the exact year I was going to mention,

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Speaker 3: uh huh.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, what a horrible whole Uber dug for itself

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Speaker 1: had created such a toxic work culture that the guy

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Speaker 1: who took over Uber after all that is still trying

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Speaker 1: to dig the company out of it, you know, seven

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Speaker 1: years later, and here we are. But that's another story

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Speaker 1: for another episode. So what I thought was funny was

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Speaker 1: that between those three, grub Hub is technically the oldest

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Speaker 1: of the three big ones here in the States. And

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Speaker 1: when it first started in two thousand and four, it

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Speaker 1: was founded by Matt Maloney and Mike Evans. It didn't

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Speaker 1: start off as food delivery. Instead, I think the story

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Speaker 1: is Mike Evans was hungry and he was frustrated because

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Speaker 1: he couldn't tell which pizza places in his area would

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Speaker 1: actually deliver to his apartment. So I'm sure all of

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Speaker 1: us have been in that situation where you're like, am

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Speaker 1: I in the delivery area for this place? Or am

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Speaker 1: I outside? Because then they're not gonna be able to

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Speaker 1: bring my order to me or what?

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Speaker 3: And if I'm going to have to call someone on

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Speaker 3: the phone, then like gosh, I don't want to have

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Speaker 3: to call two places.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, especially if you're a millennial, because I understand

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Speaker 1: that you will melt if you have to talk to another.

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Speaker 2: Human being on the phone.

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Speaker 3: True facts, and being.

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Speaker 1: A gen xer, I have a slightly higher tolerance, not

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Speaker 1: much higher, Honestly, I can't claim to be super comfortable

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Speaker 1: calling up strangers. But yeah, like he thought, oh wait,

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Speaker 1: what if I create a tool that makes it easy

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Speaker 1: for me to reference which restaurants are actually going to

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Speaker 1: deliver to my place? And then what if I were

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Speaker 1: to make that tool something that other people could use?

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Speaker 1: And the story was he took one hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: dollars out of his personal wealth, which was like the

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Speaker 1: entirety of what he had at the time, I poured

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Speaker 1: it in and that became Grubhub. So Grubhub initially was

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Speaker 1: all about discovery, right, discovering which restaurants in your area

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Speaker 1: could actually potentially deliver to you. And it would only

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Speaker 1: be later, starting in twenty fourteen, when grubhub itself would

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Speaker 1: pick up the delivery company service. By that time, they

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Speaker 1: were no longer the first in that in that realm,

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Speaker 1: someone else was already doing that, and that someone else

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Speaker 1: was bumped up Bob Palo Alto Delivery. You all know

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Speaker 1: Palo Alto Delivery, right, Oh yeah, yeah, Pad, good old Pad,

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Speaker 1: Like I get tie from them all the time, the

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Speaker 1: Pad tie.

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Speaker 2: It's great.

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Speaker 1: Oh man. Yeah. No, Palo Alto Delivery would of course

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Speaker 1: change its name because those guys were thinking way too small.

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Speaker 2: They were like, hey, if we want to expand.

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Speaker 1: Beyond the Bay Area, maybe we don't call it Palo Alto.

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Speaker 1: So they changed it to door Dash. This is where

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Speaker 1: we have like the scary music sting because they're kind

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Speaker 1: of the villain of the piece.

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Speaker 2: If I'm being honest.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a hero of the piece.

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Speaker 2: No, I think everybody.

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Speaker 1: Well, I will say this, I think the gig workers

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Speaker 1: are the heroes.

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Speaker 3: Goodness, but they are oh and the and the underdog

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Speaker 3: restaurant like small business restaurant. Yes people, Yes.

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Speaker 1: The restaurants and the drivers, I would say, are definitely

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Speaker 1: like they're probably hurt worse than anybody else. I don't

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Speaker 1: think consumers get out great either, but like the end customer,

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's a great deal for them necessarily.

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Speaker 1: But I definitely think that the restaurants and the drivers

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Speaker 1: or the delivery people that they get shafted pretty dramatically.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to say it any other way.

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Speaker 3: Nope, that's just it.

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Speaker 1: So Uber announced uber Fresh in twenty fourteen, the same

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Speaker 1: year that grub Hubs started to deliver, and of course

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Speaker 1: alto deliveries have been going for a whole year by then,

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Speaker 1: and then by twenty fifteen it became Uber Eats. So

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Speaker 1: uber Fresh became uber eats, and that is that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the ground setting for where we're going to talk next,

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Speaker 1: which is actually about the business side of things. And

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Speaker 1: this isn't typically a business podcast, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: important to get and I of all the different components

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Speaker 1: that are going together with this to kind of say like,

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Speaker 1: sometimes tech enables things that aren't really good for anybody

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Speaker 1: that's involved in the Like it's to a point where

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Speaker 1: you're like, why is this even happening because no one's

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Speaker 1: coming out well in this.

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Speaker 3: Like why have we why have we disrupted? Something like

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Speaker 3: that's not always a good word.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no. And in investment, it's like the go

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Speaker 1: to right, Like for the longest time, everyone wanted to

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Speaker 1: position the company to be We're going to disrupt the

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Speaker 1: blank sector, right. So for Uber and lyft. It was

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Speaker 1: the taxi sector. Well, originally it was the limo sector.

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Speaker 1: That's what Uber started off as. So you have a

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Speaker 1: really interesting stat here about how much this market is

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Speaker 1: actually worth.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So as of twenty twenty four, the global food

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Speaker 3: delivery app market is worth some one hundred and twelve

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Speaker 3: billion dollars a year.

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Speaker 1: Wild Okay, We're gonna have a lot of moments to

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Speaker 1: kind of take a breather and say, hey, late stage

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Speaker 1: capitalism sucks, doesn't it. So here's one of them, guys.

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Speaker 1: And when I say guys, I apologize all you folks

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Speaker 1: out there. I don't want to be, you know, dismissive

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Speaker 1: of anybody, all you folks out there. This is why

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Speaker 1: I think it. I say it sucks because you can

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Speaker 1: have a company that is valued at a certain amount

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Speaker 1: but doesn't produce anything of value or is actually actively

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Speaker 1: harmful to itself and others.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Like it doesn't support its own workers, it

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Speaker 3: doesn't support the systems that it created to disrupt things

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Speaker 3: like I'm like, what are what are we doing here?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost It kind of gives me the feeling

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Speaker 1: of like a parasite that will stay on its host

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Speaker 1: until the host dies and then the parasite dies too.

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Speaker 2: Like that's that's kind of what we're talking about. If

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Speaker 2: we think about the host.

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Speaker 1: In this case are all the restaurants and as for

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Speaker 1: where all this value goes, one of the crazy things

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Speaker 1: about this business is that there's enough competition in the

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Speaker 1: space among the large delivery services and all the various

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Speaker 1: smaller regional ones that in order to compete against the

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Speaker 1: others in the market, these companies will often run promotions

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Speaker 1: that cut into their own revenue. So they're spending money

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Speaker 1: in order to win customers at the expense of their

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Speaker 1: competitors who are also doing the same thing. So even

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Speaker 1: when these companies are generating revenue by being very popular,

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Speaker 1: like even during the pandemic, they're spending that money often

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Speaker 1: not just in your normal operating costs, but in an

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Speaker 1: effort to stand out against the other big competitors. And

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Speaker 1: so you just it's money comes in and money goes out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Greb Ho former CEO, called this the problem of

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Speaker 3: and I quote promiscuous customers.

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Speaker 1: Wow, I mean, I like how it's blaming it on

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Speaker 1: promiscuous customers when in fact, like I mean, okay, if

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Speaker 1: I'm a customer, and I am. But let's say I'm

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Speaker 1: a customer and I don't have any loyalty to any

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Speaker 1: particular brand, right I don't. I don't care who's bringing

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Speaker 1: me my food.

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Speaker 2: I just want food. Then I'm probably going.

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Speaker 1: To take the step of saying, all right, well, if

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Speaker 1: I order from door Dash versus Uber Eats, how much

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Speaker 1: is one going to be versus the other? Or even

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Speaker 1: have grub Hub up. You know, maybe I've got like

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Speaker 1: one of those James Bond Villain style bank of displays

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Speaker 1: with all the different possibilities, and I'm gonna say, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: this one, this delivery service B gives me the best deal.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to go with that, or even like delivery

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Speaker 3: service Bee has the restaurant that I want to order from.

440
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:59,360
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, because here's that too. There's that too. Man.

441
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:02,439
Speaker 1: Oh, I've got so much to say, but yeah, I

442
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:04,919
Speaker 1: can't blame me for doing that, right. That's that's what

443
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,680
Speaker 1: customer does. That's what competition is supposed to do. Competition

444
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 1: is supposed to be all about, you know, businesses competing

445
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:14,680
Speaker 1: for the for customers, customers having the chance to make

446
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 1: choices that best reflect what they need and want and

447
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: are able to purchase, So calling promiscuous customers, I'm like,

448
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:26,719
Speaker 1: that's putting the blame on them. I think is is

449
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 1: maybe missing some of.

450
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:29,640
Speaker 2: The bigger picture elements.

451
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, Okay, Well I'm glad, I'm glad I'm

452
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,399
Speaker 1: not completely off base there. Sometimes I go off on

453
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 1: these old men can taker's rants and then someone has

454
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: to point out, like Jonathan, you're just missing the point,

455
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh.

456
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I just I think it's difficult at a

457
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 3: certain point for anyone involved in all of this to

458
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 3: wrap their head around what exactly is the product, who

459
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:55,160
Speaker 3: exactly is the customer, and what exactly is the service

460
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,880
Speaker 3: because there are too many of those overlapping in all

461
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 3: of these decisions. As a hypothetically third party.

462
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: App Absolutely, yeah, yeah, you're hitting right on the point here.

463
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about like.

464
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 2: Spoiler alert, y'all.

465
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 1: This next segment can be called how this is good

466
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 1: for nobody? So, starting off, I like, how are these

467
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: app app companies bad for restaurants? So on the restaurant side,

468
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: when you, as a customer order something from a restaurant

469
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 1: and you're doing it through one of these apps, the

470
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: app ends up charging a commission fee to the restaurant.

471
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: According to McKenzie the analyst firm, this commission fee can

472
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: be anywhere between fifteen to thirty percent of what that

473
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: meal is priced at on the app. So if I

474
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:52,639
Speaker 1: go and buy a ten dollars sandwich from some vendor,

475
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: then the restaurant actually only gets seven of those American dollars,

476
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: and three of those dollars go to whatever company I

477
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: was using. So that's right off the bat. And on

478
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 1: top of that, at least for a while, restaurants weren't.

479
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: Apps were punishing restaurants that would price their delivery menu

480
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 1: at a different rate than their dine and menu. So

481
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: it meant that if you're thinking, oh, well, why don't

482
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,120
Speaker 1: you just if you're the restaurant, you're selling ten dollars

483
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: sandwiches and you end up only taking seven dollars, why

484
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: not increase the price so that it comes back down

485
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: to the ten dollars and you're not taking a huge

486
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: loss on that particular item. It's because the apps were like,

487
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 1: don't you dare do that, or we will delist your butt.

488
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, right. So this isn't a big deal for

489
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:48,360
Speaker 3: big chains like McDonald's or whatever, but even fairly successful

490
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 3: small business restaurants cannot absorb that unless they raise. These

491
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 3: are places that are if you don't if you've never

492
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 3: looked into managing a restaurant, or if you've never watched

493
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 3: the beayar, these are places that are operating on extremely

494
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:07,640
Speaker 3: thin margins already.

495
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw one analysis saying that typically the profit

496
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: margin for a restaurant is somewhere between seven to twenty

497
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: two percent. That's twenty two being on the extremely high dream.

498
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 3: That's wild.

499
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're hitting.

500
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: Twenty two percent profit margin, you know you're swimming and

501
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: pepperoni and money. But most most of them are closer

502
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: to that seven percent. And that's because about a third

503
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,159
Speaker 1: of your revenue has to go to the ingredients, so

504
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: all your food and stuff, about a third has to

505
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: go to labor, and then a good deal of what's

506
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,239
Speaker 1: left over is going to rent an overhead, right, just

507
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: the keeping the lights on, keeping the brick and mortar running.

508
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: And then whatever's left is your profit. It typically isn't

509
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: very much. So if on top of that, a delivery

510
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: service is taking fifteen to thirty percent of the price

511
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:06,360
Speaker 1: of an item away as a commission, then you rapidly

512
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: reach a point where there is no way to run

513
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: a viable business if most or even a significant part

514
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: of that business is in delivery service. And that's just

515
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: that's just the brutal truth of it. Another quote from McKenzie.

516
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: This is a direct quote from the mckenziy website.

517
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: Quote.

518
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: Even as customers are paying a forty percent premium on

519
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: the cust of their actual meal, so end quote, that's

520
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: you know, us having to pay more for the delivery

521
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: thing than we would if we went to the restaurant

522
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: to dine in. But getting back to the quote, it

523
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: is worth noting that restaurants themselves receive around only fifty

524
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: five percent of the total customer spend, so customers have

525
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: to spend more and restaurants are getting less. That's what

526
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: it boils down to.

527
00:27:53,680 --> 00:28:00,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, much, and at the scale that is disrupting in

528
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 3: a negative sense the way that restaurants operate because of

529
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 3: the sheer capacity that these apps give to customers to

530
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 3: place orders. You know, in ye olden days, you walk

531
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 3: into your favorite brunch spot, you realize there's an hour wait,

532
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 3: you go someplace else. Yeah, but now that is invisible

533
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 3: to the consumer, and it's up to the restaurant to

534
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 3: put hold on their app orders, which no one wants

535
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 3: to do when they get too busy to serve their

536
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 3: physical customers, which is like, hypothetically the purpose of most

537
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:29,120
Speaker 3: restaurants to serve customers.

538
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people who are actually there.

539
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: Who are there, Yeah, I don't know how many of

540
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,679
Speaker 1: y'all out there have had this experience, but I certainly have.

541
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: And it's anecdotal, so it's not really you can't count

542
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: this as evidence, but I've certainly had the experience of

543
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: going to restaurants and feeling like, feels like it's taking

544
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: longer for my order to get to me than it

545
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: used to.

546
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and very well, maybe.

547
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: That the kitchen is backed up because they've got not

548
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: just the orders of the other people you see around you,

549
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: but all the different delivery services that are working with that.

550
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: And it puts the restaurants in a very delicate position

551
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: because either they play the game so that they can

552
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: have access to these customers that otherwise they do not have.

553
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: And more and more of us have become accustomed to

554
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:11,719
Speaker 1: being able to order from our favorite restaurants and have

555
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: it delivered to us, rather than having to get our

556
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: sorry butts off the couch and go back out. I

557
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: am counting myself in this. I don't drive all Like, yeah,

558
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: I don't drive. So if I'm not driving, I have

559
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: a very limited number of restaurants that can easily reach

560
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: without having to call a ride haling service, which, by

561
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: the way, just as bad as all these always like

562
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: ride hailing. Essentially, you could take the store, the conversation

563
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: we're having and poured it over to right hailing. Basically

564
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: it's very similar, yes, uh, except in there instead of

565
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: it driving restaurants on business, it's driving like taxi services

566
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: out of business anyway. Yeah, so like, uh, there's lots

567
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: of people who have become accustomed to this, and so

568
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: the fear is that if you don't play the game,

569
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: you lose those customers and you might not have enough

570
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: foot traffic to keep you going because again, those profit

571
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: margins are so narrow, so you might think, yeah, I'd

572
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: rather get something than nothing at.

573
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 3: All and nothing sure, right, because like restaurants are scared

574
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 3: right now, Like keep in mind that some seventy thousand

575
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 3: restaurants closed in America due to business challenges during the pandemic.

576
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 3: So it's the choice of something or nothing at all.

577
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 3: But you know, like they're also like they're missing out

578
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 3: on tips for their workers, which can be discouraging to

579
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 3: the staff. They're missing out on incidental orders that come

580
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 3: from you sitting around for more than an hour and

581
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, let's order desert. Oh let's get another round. Sure.

582
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 2: Yeah.

583
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, and that's another thing, right, like restaurants, Some

584
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: restaurants will do the delivery stuff counting on the fact

585
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: that they can do sales in their brick and mortar

586
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: locations that cover for the lack of funds they're getting

587
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: through the delivery. So in other words, like alcohol sales obviously,

588
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: like that's something that restaurants can much more easily do

589
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: in person than through delivery and can help compensate for

590
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: the losses they might experience participating with a delivery app service.

591
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the weight staff and their

592
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: access to tips, because this is a reminder to anyone

593
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: who's not in the United States that in many places

594
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: in the US, it is absolutely criminal what weights staff

595
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: can be paid.

596
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, this is a fun one. We did an

597
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 3: episode about this a few years back on Savor and

598
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 3: it is the angriest that I think I've ever heard

599
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 3: Annie Reese be in her life. But yeah, like in

600
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 3: the US, you are allowed to pay a restaurant server

601
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,719
Speaker 3: less than the minimum wage because it's called the tipped minimum.

602
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 3: So how this works is you are assuming that the

603
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 3: customer is going to make up for that gap in wages,

604
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 3: and in fact that I'm the concept is like, maybe

605
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 3: you get paid more.

606
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: But yeah, but maybe mister money bags has come in

607
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: and has ordered a stake medium rare, and they liked

608
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: you so much and called.

609
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 2: You so many diminutive.

610
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: Epithets that they have dropped like one hundred dollars on

611
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: their fifty dollars bill or something.

612
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 3: But right, in practicality, that is frequently not how it works.

613
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 3: And furthermore, the whole system is based on the fact

614
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 3: that no one wanted to put No one wanted to

615
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 3: pay formerly enslaved people to do jobs after enslavement ended

616
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 3: in the United States. So that's fun.

617
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, As it turns out, that whole thing about tips

618
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: and businesses using tips to justify what should, in my opinion,

619
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: be criminal behavior will come back around in this very conversation.

620
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: But before we get to the point where my blood

621
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: pressure rises and I pass out, let's take another quick

622
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: break to think our sponsors.

623
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 2: Okay, we're back, get ready to get angrier.

624
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's terrible for restaurants in general, Like some

625
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: restaurants can weather it better than others, as you mentioned, Lauren,

626
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: But I think it's pretty safe to say that it's

627
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,959
Speaker 1: not great for pretty much any of the restaurants involved

628
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: in this system, like they feel like they're in advice.

629
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: I actually respect the restaurants that continue to hold out

630
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: and not participate in the system. It's frustrating as a

631
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: customer doesn't drive. But on the flip side, I'm like, well,

632
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: I can at least be comforted in knowing that that

633
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 1: restaurant's not bleeding themselves dry by catering to customers where

634
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: they're getting less money due to commissions being taken out.

635
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: But it's also bad for drivers, as it turns out,

636
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: the folks who are actually delivering your food. If you

637
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: thought the restaurants were getting the short end of the stick,

638
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: well don't worry. There's a shorter end of that stick

639
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: and the drivers are the ones getting it.

640
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 2: So in the early days.

641
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: When these food delivery apps were brand new, obviously there

642
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: weren't that many people who were actually working as drivers

643
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: and delivering food. So there's a relatively small pool of

644
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: delivery people, which means the customers were there. So the

645
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: demand was high, but the supply in the form of

646
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: people what can actually pick the stuff up and bring

647
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: it to you was low, and that meant that in

648
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: order to attract new people to come in and drive

649
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 1: for these companies, the companies were offering fairly significant payouts.

650
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: And there was a New York Times article that data

651
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: from twenty nineteen, so it was before the pandemic outbreak,

652
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: which I'm sure would have dramatically altered how this story unfolded.

653
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: But they talked about how in those early days, a Postmates,

654
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: which rip Postmates delivery driver in New York City could

655
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 1: get ten dollars per delivery just paid out from the company.

656
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:13,479
Speaker 1: So that's that's the ten dollars before tip. However, by

657
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: the time it gets to around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,

658
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, you were talking more about four or five dollars.

659
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: And they also would have these things called in Postmates,

660
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: they call them blitz. This is the same thing that

661
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 1: you would see in Uber as a driver or Lyft

662
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: as a driver. The idea is that you get a map,

663
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,839
Speaker 1: kind of a heat map, showing you where demand is,

664
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,320
Speaker 1: and if demand is suddenly really concentrated in part of

665
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: the city, then you get more money for heading over

666
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: there and picking up jobs in that area because the

667
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 1: demand is much higher there. So drivers will say, oh,

668
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,399
Speaker 1: I'm close to that part of the town anyway, I'm

669
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: going to start driving in here until this, until this

670
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,240
Speaker 1: heat map changes, and I'm going to make extra money

671
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: by delivering in this specific part of the city. Yeah.

672
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: In those cases, you're talking about up to maybe twenty

673
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: dollars per delivery, so that's huge.

674
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, And usually I know that in ride

675
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 3: apps this has passed on to the customer, where it's

676
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 3: those surge rates where you wind up paying you know,

677
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 3: thirty bucks for a ride instead of fifteen or whatever

678
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 3: it is.

679
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 1: Well, the money has to come from somewhere, so it

680
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: does make sense that the customer ends up being the

681
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: one to foot that bill, because you can't stay in

682
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,319
Speaker 1: business as a company if you're just like, sure, I'll

683
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: pay extra when the demand is higher. That's not how

684
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: businesses work. So I'm not going to be I'm not

685
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: going to be completely unreasonable, even though I'm still like

686
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:47,200
Speaker 1: late stage capitalism, blow eat the rich, and so while

687
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: i still feel that deep in my soul, I'm not

688
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: That's not how I'm going to go.

689
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 2: With this particular issue. But what was what You were.

690
00:36:55,120 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: Already starting to see some some questionable practices in these days,

691
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: even back when there were decent payouts. Part of that

692
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:07,280
Speaker 1: is the way that these companies would try to attract

693
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: new talent is to kind of crow about how much

694
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: money drivers make per hour. But the catches a lot

695
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: of these companies were only counting the actual minutes where

696
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,720
Speaker 1: someone was on a delivery job, and if they weren't

697
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: on a delivery job, if you're working but you're idle

698
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,839
Speaker 1: because you don't have a job you can pick up

699
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: at that particular moment, it doesn't count. So the company

700
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 1: would be like, all right, let's count up out how

701
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 1: many minutes did this person work today. Okay, they collectively

702
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: worked two and a half hours. We're going to use

703
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 1: that to calculate how much they earned per hour. And

704
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: we're going to ignore the hour and a half of

705
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: downtime this person had.

706
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 3: While they were waiting to get another for their phone.

707
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:52,959
Speaker 3: To make an annoying noise again. Sure.

708
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

709
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: So this would be like if you had an office

710
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 1: job and you worked on a project and you finished

711
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: the project and there was say an hour of downtime

712
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: between that and the next project you could work on,

713
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah, we're not paying you for

714
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: that hour. You had to be here, you had to

715
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: be here and be ready, but you don't get paid

716
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: for that hour that you were here. That was your

717
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 1: leisure time as far as we're concerned. Yeah, women unions exist.

718
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 3: Yes, Solidarity, solidarity absolutely, so don't worry.

719
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 2: It gets worse.

720
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: If you've used these food delivery apps services, you know

721
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:37,839
Speaker 1: that there's usually a way where you can add a

722
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: tip to your driver, and a lot of these companies

723
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: are very big on Hey, one of your tip goes

724
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: to these drivers, which technically is true. What they don't

725
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: tell you, at least something that has been practiced in

726
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,479
Speaker 1: the past, is while your tip will go to the driver,

727
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: what they'll do is deduct however much tip you gave

728
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: from the amount they would pay that driver normally, so

729
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: that the company pays the difference. So if a company

730
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: were to pay The example in the New York Times

731
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: article was there was a delivery that would six dollars

732
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 1: and eighty five cents, and the woman who ordered the

733
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 1: delivery generously added a three dollars tip. Right, that's incredible.

734
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:21,439
Speaker 1: It's like an almost a fifty percent tip on top

735
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: of the delivery, or at least six dollars eighty five

736
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: cents I think was the payout, so I guess the

737
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: full price was probably higher. But the driver, instead of

738
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,399
Speaker 1: giving six dollars and eighty five cents plus the three

739
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: dollars tip, got six dollars and eighty five cents. And

740
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 1: what the company was essentially saying is that three dollars

741
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: tip you got that. We just didn't pay you three

742
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 1: dollars because you got tip that much. This is sort

743
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 1: of getting back to what Lauren was saying about weight

744
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: staff and the idea of tips being just an anticipated

745
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: and expected, foregone conclusion you're gonna be making out of

746
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: the waves. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's just I don't have

747
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: to pay.

748
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 3: You as much because you're getting tipped.

749
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in this case, they're literally not paying as

750
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: much per delivery. They're using the tip to be an excuse.

751
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:13,359
Speaker 1: They're subsidizing the company through tips by saying, oh, well,

752
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: we don't have to pay you at six dollars eighty

753
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: five cents, You got a tip for five dollars you get,

754
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: we just have to throw in a buck eighty five.

755
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:23,319
Speaker 2: What do you think for that one?

756
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 3: If you didn't hear it, I just did a big sigh.

757
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: Yes, basically all I heard it. I was just like,

758
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: you know, I can't talk about it much because I do.

759
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 2: Get emotional, Like I legit, get emotional.

760
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: And I get angry. And then when I get angry,

761
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 1: I get crying because I'm a cancer.

762
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:44,479
Speaker 2: And so and by that I mean I was born

763
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:44,919
Speaker 2: in June.

764
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: I'm not a cancer on society or not. Like sure,

765
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:50,919
Speaker 1: I mean some people might say so, but don't worry.

766
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: I'm leaving the show. So yeah, you'll be fine. Yeah

767
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: this got me so mad. And then of course you

768
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 1: have the other point in here, not just that. Okay,

769
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: so the tips thing is terrible. But one thing these

770
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: companies collectively have been doing both righte hailing and food

771
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: app like these food delivery services is resisting the move

772
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: to count drivers as employees.

773
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 3: Right This is a huge, like legal question that is

774
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:26,280
Speaker 3: plaguing our times and all of these major food delivery

775
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:30,840
Speaker 3: app companies anyway, probably all the delivery driver apps in general,

776
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 3: they've all been embroiled in employment lawsuits that started cropping

777
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 3: up for the food sector in around twenty fifteen, in

778
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 3: which drivers have been accusing them of wrongfully classifying them

779
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 3: as independent contractors instead of actual employees. And the business

780
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 3: reason for that is, you know, if you're an independent contractor,

781
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 3: you can pay someone below the minimum wage and you

782
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,839
Speaker 3: don't have to give them benefits. Sounds great, right hey yeah?

783
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, Again, if you're a corp and you're thinking, how

784
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: can I get away from all these pesky costs that

785
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: my company would otherwise incur?

786
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 2: Oh, I got it.

787
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: I'll go with independent contractors. I can think of certain companies,

788
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: one that we both worked for that kind of did

789
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: this quite.

790
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 3: A bit, and we all started as that thing.

791
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have fond memories of how stuff works. But

792
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: the longer it went on, the harder it was to

793
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: like that place and of course what it turned out to.

794
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure you know this that they got

795
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 1: rid of their entire editorial board and replace it with AI.

796
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's something I struggle with still over on

797
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:39,840
Speaker 3: brain stuff, because I still get a lot of my

798
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 3: topic concepts and like base scripts from HowStuffWorks dot Com,

799
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 3: and now I have to vet every article that I

800
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 3: pick up from the website in terms of whether or

801
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:51,839
Speaker 3: not it was written by AI. Most of them are

802
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 3: labeled as such.

803
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: But I'm like, whooh, yeah, cool, because once upon a

804
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: time we had journalistic standards at that place.

805
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, we're.

806
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 3: Getting away from it.

807
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 2: We're getting away from it.

808
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: But like, like, I think there's connective tissue that kind

809
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: of ties this all together, this idea of tech enabling

810
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 1: something like it makes me think of the the the

811
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:19,359
Speaker 1: quote from that documentary Jurassic Park Park, Yeah, you knew

812
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: exactly where I was going. I like that You've worked

813
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:25,439
Speaker 1: with me so long. You knew what I was going

814
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: to say, Like, she knows my jokes, y'all so much.

815
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: She knew I was gonna be. Like, just because you

816
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: could doesn't mean you should should Jeff Goldbloom Jurassic Park

817
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven or whatever it was.

818
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:40,240
Speaker 2: Wow.

819
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: The fact that it was earlier, the nice I was

820
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: like ninety two. But the fact that you knew where

821
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: I was going, that's it's cool.

822
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:50,439
Speaker 3: I do that joke too, which is part of what Yeah, it's.

823
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 2: Time for me to go out the pasture.

824
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: No, No, it's it's it is. It is one of

825
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: those things I find frustrating, and I think it's indicative,

826
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: Like when we look at the food delivery apps, like

827
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: to me like that, that's a great example of how

828
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: like you can see where the need is right, you

829
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: can see where I'm a customer, I'm hungry, I want

830
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: food from this place. This is going to deliver the

831
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: food to me. I don't have to go there. The

832
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: value proposition is clear. The business model that makes it

833
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: supportable still remains.

834
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 2: Obtuse opaque, if you will, JANKI.

835
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, yerhaps unattainable. But I mean there is hope that

836
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,759
Speaker 3: some of this worker rights things stuff is going to

837
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 3: get worked out in the future. There was one of

838
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 3: those lawsuits that I mentioned involving grub hubs specifically, was

839
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 3: finally settled after eight years in a federal district court

840
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:45,959
Speaker 3: in California in favor of the driver.

841
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, California's labor laws are sure incredibly friendly on the

842
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: labor side, Thank goodness. You know, we got to have

843
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:58,399
Speaker 1: something to We have to balance Texas out somehow. Yeah,

844
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: I know, shots fired at Texas. I love the state, y'all,

845
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 1: but your court system is a mess.

846
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, anyway, the.

847
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, like, and there are clearly repercussions for that, Like,

848
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: if we get to a point where drivers are classified

849
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 1: as employees, that's obviously going to have an enormous impact

850
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 1: on the entire business, which ultimately will likely mean that

851
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: consumers will have to pay more. But on the flip

852
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:29,359
Speaker 1: side of that, it might mean that it's a more

853
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 1: equitable situation for the other parties there. And like, as

854
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: a customer, I mean, granted, I'm in a very privileged position,

855
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: but as a customer, I would feel much better knowing

856
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: that the restaurants aren't taking out as much out in

857
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:45,439
Speaker 1: commissions as they had been, and that drivers are being

858
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: fairly compensated, Like there aren't any groups within the ecosystem

859
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 1: that are being victimized when right now that's clearly what's happening.

860
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have this apparently socialist, communist whatever idea that like,

861
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 3: when everyone is making a living wage, society works better.

862
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:04,319
Speaker 2: Yeah.

863
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: I tend to agree with you, uh, and by ten

864
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: I mean one agree with you. Yeah, I feel the

865
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: same way. I Like, I've heard people argue like, yeah,

866
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm a small business owner and I

867
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: worked really hard. I'm like, yeah, but your employees work

868
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: really hard too, and don't they deserve to be able

869
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 1: to afford basics like like a home.

870
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 3: And yeah, and the same thing on my end as

871
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:33,439
Speaker 3: a consumer, you know, like some people are like, well,

872
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 3: I can't afford to go out to eat and to tip. Brother,

873
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 3: that means you can't afford to go out to eat.

874
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, until until such things change. Like there are

875
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: certain restaurants in the United States where they specifically have

876
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: a no tipping policy because they say, we pay our

877
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: staff a living wage. And to you, I say, I

878
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: doff my cap were I to wear one? Right?

879
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 2: Yeah?

880
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that ethics is nice when that when you encounter it,

881
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: it's just so rare. Interestingly, one of the things one

882
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: of the arguments I ran into when I was looking

883
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: at the webvan story came from someone who had formerly

884
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 1: worked at webvan and then moved on and worked at

885
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: places like Oracle or whatever, was saying that he felt

886
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: that one of Webvan's big mistakes was trying to aim

887
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: for a mass market customer pool instead of making it

888
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: a luxury item. And the reason for that is for

889
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: this business model to work, we have to price it

890
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:31,399
Speaker 1: like a luxury item. But since we were arguing we're

891
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: going to give you whole food style food at safe

892
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: way style prices, you were hamstringing yourself right out the gate.

893
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: And if instead you say we'll give you whole foods,

894
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: quality goods at essentially whole foods and slightly elevated prices,

895
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: but we bring it to you, then your customer base

896
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: is going to be smaller, but is also going to

897
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,799
Speaker 1: be made up of people willing and able to pay that.

898
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: And if that service is to exist, that's the one

899
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 1: way that that part of the revenue model makes sense.

900
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: And it's unfortunate that it cuts other people out who

901
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: might otherwise benefit from the service. But ultimately, if your

902
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 1: business is unsustainable at most, what you're doing is you're

903
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: treading water for a given number of years before everything collapses,

904
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: just as it did with the dot com bubble.

905
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 2: Hey, we're not done.

906
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: There's still it's still bad for customers, you know, because

907
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: it does cost us more.

908
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 2: You know.

909
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: Again, I'm going to quote McKenzie again because they had

910
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 1: a great piece on this and they said, quote, if

911
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,240
Speaker 1: a typical meal from a fast casual restaurant is priced

912
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: on a delivery platform's menu at around twenty five dollars,

913
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 1: The customer might end up paying a total of roughly

914
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars excluding tax, because there's all those additional fees,

915
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: some of which might seem like artuary. Yeah, okay, like

916
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: where does this come from?

917
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 2: Where did that?

918
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: Like I get I get a delivery fee, like a

919
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: delivery searcharge on top of this. That makes sense, But

920
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 1: then if you have extra fees, what do those go to?

921
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 2: Now?

922
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 1: Right now here in the United States, as we record this,

923
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 1: we have organizations that are trying to make sure that

924
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 1: like hidden fees and such are far more transparent. But

925
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that will not be the case come

926
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: January twentieth. That will change dramatically as we have a

927
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 1: change in administrations. And I say that confidently because the

928
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 1: people who are typically arguing for the other side are

929
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: the ones who are going to be put in charge.

930
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: They're the ones who are like, you know, pro business,

931
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 1: but by pro business they often mean like pro profit,

932
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 1: and pro profit often comes at the expense of consumers

933
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: and employees. I mean, that's really what it comes down to.

934
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 1: So while we currently can enjoy a brief surge of

935
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: support for transparency, I don't think it's going to last.

936
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm too sent, Lauren, am I

937
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 1: two cynical?

938
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 3: That would be lovely if you were. I love it

939
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 3: when you're wrong.

940
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: No, you know, in this case, I wouldn't mind it myself.

941
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 1: Like I'm typically pretty grouchy when I'm wrong, but in

942
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:18,399
Speaker 1: this case, I'd be kind of happy if I were, like, hey,

943
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: you know that thing you said you were one hundred

944
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: percent off base, Like, hey, if that means people are

945
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: are are being transparent with their their billing methods and

946
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: all those hidden fees are suddenly revealed, I'm all for it, because, y'all,

947
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,480
Speaker 1: I can't. I remember buying a ticket to a concert

948
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:40,399
Speaker 1: once where the convenience fee was literally more than the

949
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 1: ticket I was buying.

950
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, uh yeah, whoo. I love that. I love that. No,

951
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 3: and I didn't think of I didn't think of your

952
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 3: point at all while I was having a brief moment

953
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 3: of joy in this life reading that FTC news headline

954
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 3: about companies like ticket Master and stuff that have all

955
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 3: of these like what does that fee for? Nobody knows? Yeah, yeah,

956
00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 3: and to at least make it more transparent, to at

957
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 3: least not hit you with that when you're already seven

958
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 3: stages into the checkout process, and you know, you know

959
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 3: that there's a million other swifties trying to get those tickets. Yeah,

960
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 3: whatever the case may be.

961
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still of the Sohi while again, I'm in

962
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 1: a privileged position, and I could technically afford a ticket

963
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,320
Speaker 1: to say, the B fifty two's concert that's going to

964
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 1: happen in Athens, Georgia to open up their new hockey

965
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 1: arena for the rock Lobsters. That's the name of their

966
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 1: that's the name of the minor league hockey team in Athens.

967
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:38,760
Speaker 2: Isn't that great?

968
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:40,240
Speaker 3: That was a beautiful sentence.

969
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

970
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 1: I literally was looking at tickets and then I started

971
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 1: seeing the price tag and I was like, I'm still

972
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: I'm still a nineties kid, where I'm like, like, man,

973
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:51,800
Speaker 1: pan more than thirty bucks to see a band play

974
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:52,879
Speaker 1: is just a rip off.

975
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:53,240
Speaker 2: Man.

976
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 1: That's how my brain works, because I went to clubs

977
00:51:57,560 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 1: in Athens, Georgia in the nineties and if you were

978
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 1: paying more than thirty bucks and you were getting shaken down.

979
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 3: I grew up with Depression era grandparents. Man, Like I

980
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 3: still save my yogurt tubs.

981
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, listen, our our glassware are Mason Jars,

982
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:15,360
Speaker 1: so I hear you. Hey, this is Jonathan from the

983
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 1: Future breaking in on the conversation that Lauren and Jonathan

984
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: had in the past. Lauren's trying real hard not to

985
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: laugh on the other end of the microphone. Right now,

986
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to take a quick break to thank

987
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: our sponsors, but we'll be right back with more grousing

988
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 1: about this terrible business model. It turns out like these

989
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,839
Speaker 1: app companies, they're taking money from restaurants and commissions. They're

990
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:50,240
Speaker 1: taking money from customers in the form of customer fees

991
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 1: that are somewhat difficult to understand. Also, by the way

992
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: I even put down, they have subscription models where you

993
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: can for a monthly price pay a subscription where those

994
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,799
Speaker 1: fees are are reduced or waived. And I love your

995
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:06,839
Speaker 1: perspective on that.

996
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is so this is so mafia to me,

997
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:13,760
Speaker 3: because it's like, hey, we instated these completely arbitrary fees,

998
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:18,720
Speaker 3: would you like to pay to remove some of them?

999
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:20,399
Speaker 3: Like what kind of shake?

1000
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: I know?

1001
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 2: Right? Like and of course, like the.

1002
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: Benefit to the company is sure, if you're ordering all

1003
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:31,439
Speaker 1: the time, if you're ordering delivery all the time. Then

1004
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:34,279
Speaker 1: maybe a subscription would mean that on a month to

1005
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 1: month basis, you're spending slightly less than you would assuming

1006
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: that you would be buying the exact same things in

1007
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: either case. But if you're the kind who just occasionally

1008
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: buys stuff, if you subscribe to this and the company

1009
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 1: is like awesome, for any month where you didn't order anything,

1010
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:48,359
Speaker 1: you still paid us.

1011
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 3: We still made money, still pay us ten bucks, And

1012
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:50,760
Speaker 3: that's great.

1013
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 1: Now that money still spends the same y'all. But it

1014
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 1: turns out that even though companies have all these different

1015
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:01,799
Speaker 1: methods of generating revenue, they're not profitable.

1016
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love these evil corporate overlords. Still aren't profitable.

1017
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:12,280
Speaker 2: They aren't. There's they don't make money, y'all. They don't.

1018
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 1: I mean they make money, but they don't make more

1019
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: money than they're spending. So they're operating at a loss.

1020
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 1: Like the sobering thing I saw in all the granted

1021
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: this was from twenty twenty three, but the sobering thing

1022
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 1: I saw was that door Dash has never had a

1023
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: twelve month period where it made a profit. It made

1024
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:34,040
Speaker 1: a profit one quarter where it was like a pandemic

1025
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,279
Speaker 1: boom where they made a profit in one quarter, but

1026
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 1: otherwise they're spending more money than they're bringing in. And

1027
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:47,360
Speaker 1: yet you have investors pouring money into these companies. I

1028
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 1: guess hoping that in the long term, once they do

1029
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 1: hit that sweet spot of scale, they're going to be

1030
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: printing money like it's nobody's business, and the returns are

1031
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:59,800
Speaker 1: just going to come flowing into the coffers.

1032
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:05,439
Speaker 3: This is so all right. So, year over year from

1033
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 3: April of twenty nineteen to April of twenty twenty, sales

1034
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 3: were up on these apps by one hundred and sixty

1035
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 3: two percent because a number of things happened in April

1036
00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty.

1037
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 2: Yes, but.

1038
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 3: Like and sales are still up year over year for

1039
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 3: these for most of these companies, but by only by

1040
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 3: like seven to eight percent. And when you take that

1041
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 3: to your shareholders, yeah, you know, they're like, what.

1042
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:38,840
Speaker 2: Right, Like everybody eats.

1043
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 1: But again, the operating costs are incredibly high, and they're

1044
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: variable costs that are impossible to predict from quarter to

1045
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:50,800
Speaker 1: quarter or even week to week. And if your variable

1046
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:55,760
Speaker 1: costs are that variable, you know, where you can't plan,

1047
00:55:56,520 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 1: then how the heck do you forge a path to profitability?

1048
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: Like if I don't know how much it's going to

1049
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 1: cost me to do business next month. I can't be

1050
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,279
Speaker 1: sure I'll be in business two months from now. And

1051
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 1: that's how all of these app companies are operating. I

1052
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 1: also looked at an article in the Motley Fool, which

1053
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:18,880
Speaker 1: typically I don't look at because I'm not an investment

1054
00:56:18,960 --> 00:56:21,719
Speaker 1: kind of person, and I find a lot of their

1055
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 1: stuff impenetrable to me because I'm like, number go up that.

1056
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I'm dumb when it comes to that.

1057
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 1: But the Molly Pool had this great bit about door

1058
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:34,840
Speaker 1: Dash in particular, So this is a this is a

1059
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 1: quote about door Dash quote. The company has large variable

1060
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 1: costs on every order, making up fifty percent of revenue

1061
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:46,279
Speaker 1: in the first quarter, and spends twenty five percent of

1062
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: its revenue on sales and marketing to attract and retain

1063
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 1: its customer base. Add on research and development costs and

1064
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 1: general administrative overhead, and door Dash posted a one hundred

1065
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:01,759
Speaker 1: and seventy one million operation loss in Q one. That

1066
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:06,080
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty three, so that is a year old.

1067
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:09,640
Speaker 1: But that's that's not unusual. That is sort of a

1068
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:12,480
Speaker 1: typical experience for these these companies.

1069
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the thing is like those administrative costs include

1070
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 3: all of this work. Like the amount of scrabbling that

1071
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 3: these companies are doing like little crabs in a bucket

1072
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:29,720
Speaker 3: is a lot. Like they're wrangling these big partnerships. For example,

1073
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 3: DoorDash has offered free trial memberships, which you mentioned earlier,

1074
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 3: for customers of like Roku and Chase. They launched a

1075
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 3: co branded Chase credit card. They're offering exclusive access to

1076
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:46,840
Speaker 3: different retailers, like like Costco is only through Uber, CBS

1077
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 3: is only through door Dash, and they're negotiating. Also, I

1078
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 3: didn't know this exclusivity agreements with small local restaurants.

1079
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:58,080
Speaker 1: So in that case, you're like, oh, you can only

1080
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 1: get delivery from this place if you go through this

1081
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: one specific.

1082
00:58:02,920 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 3: App and so on a contract level. Like that's that's

1083
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,560
Speaker 3: wild to me because you have these huge corporations going

1084
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 3: to you know.

1085
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 1: Billy Bob's barbecue boutique, yeah or whatever it may be. Listen,

1086
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: no hate on Billy Bubs. They make a mean smoked turkey.

1087
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: Leg I had to come up with something I would

1088
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 1: actually eat be a second.

1089
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:29,240
Speaker 3: It was like a lot of barbecue stuff off limits

1090
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 3: for barbecue, Like why did I say barbecue.

1091
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 1: Maybe because Fox Brothers is right next door Fox Brothers,

1092
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:42,000
Speaker 1: Fox Brothers smoked chicken wings. Okay, uh, I can't get distracted,

1093
00:58:42,560 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 1: Actually I absolutely can, but I won't alight. So the yeah,

1094
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 1: this is like just a rough deal all around to

1095
00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 1: the point where there are still think pieces being generated

1096
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: every year about is this actually a viable industry or

1097
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 1: will the rug get pulled out from under it at

1098
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:05,640
Speaker 1: some point? Will there be a point where these companies

1099
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 1: can do business in such a way where they're not

1100
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: killing the restaurants because obviously if they kill the restaurants,

1101
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:14,920
Speaker 1: then there's no delivery business either, and they're not bleeding

1102
00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: the customer to the point where everyone says, no, let's

1103
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 1: not order delivery, it's too expensive, let's just go there.

1104
00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 3: Right, or do without yeah, or do without yeah.

1105
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: And the answer to that is still unknown, like we

1106
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:30,439
Speaker 1: just don't know. It really heavily depends on how much

1107
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 1: investor how much risk investors are willing to take on.

1108
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 2: This to me, by the.

1109
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: Way, Lauren, is really kind of wild because I think

1110
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: about companies that generally speaking, like establish companies that have shareholders,

1111
00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:48,440
Speaker 1: how they often will favor short term results over long

1112
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 1: term direction. Oh, like that's usually how we think about

1113
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: capitalism these days, right, Like, you know, forget about what

1114
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: long term success looks like, we need to make it

1115
00:59:58,120 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 1: go up this quarter exactly?

1116
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 3: Can it go up next quarter?

1117
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta grow quarter to quarter. Like, if

1118
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: we that number, it's not it's not enough that we

1119
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 1: make money. We have to grow forever. Yeah, yeah, forever grow. Hey,

1120
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:13,919
Speaker 1: we worked for a company called Discovery that found out

1121
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:18,040
Speaker 1: that's really hard to do. Hey, Warner Brothers, Discovery, how's

1122
01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: things going?

1123
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 2: Uh?

1124
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:22,280
Speaker 1: Man, I'm throwing a lot of shade. I mean, I'm

1125
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:27,760
Speaker 1: going out, who cares? Like this is where a burning

1126
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:31,480
Speaker 1: tech stuff down? As I leave, I'll tell the new

1127
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 1: hosts it's yours.

1128
01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 2: No.

1129
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:38,959
Speaker 1: Uh but yeah, it's just it's just super super hard

1130
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:41,920
Speaker 1: to look at and and justify or or to to

1131
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 1: grasp with these two different realities where you have investors

1132
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 1: on one side who expect monthly improvement or quarterly improvement,

1133
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: and meanwhile you have these other investors who are making

1134
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 1: the long term bet that one day these companies are

1135
01:00:56,120 --> 01:01:00,040
Speaker 1: going to not just be profitable, but be able to

1136
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: grow year over year just like other businesses. And it

1137
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 1: seems perhaps Yeah, yeah, so, uh, this has been a bummer.

1138
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah. So interestingly, the industry does have a little bit

1139
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:21,120
Speaker 3: of a solution, but I'm wondering exactly how borkeed that

1140
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:21,840
Speaker 3: solution is.

1141
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I don't know how realistic the solution is.

1142
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:32,880
Speaker 2: Either, let's let's think it over.

1143
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 1: So one solution that I mentioned already is this idea

1144
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: that the whatever the future version of this, however it

1145
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 1: shakes out, like hopefully one the one of the future

1146
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: predictions is that there'll be fewer competitors, that these these

1147
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:51,120
Speaker 1: companies are going to further consolidate, because as you mentioned, Lauren,

1148
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: we've already seen that like Postmates is no longer its own.

1149
01:01:54,240 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 3: Thing, right, Yeah, they got bought by someone. Yeah yeah.

1150
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:02,520
Speaker 3: Uber also bought out Drizzly Yeah.

1151
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there were other instances of that too. I

1152
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:06,640
Speaker 1: remember looking and seeing like a couple of others, some

1153
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 1: of which were services I had never heard of, which

1154
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 1: might have been like regional or something. But so that's

1155
01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: part of it is that when there are fewer competitors,

1156
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 1: then you have less not that I think fewer competitors

1157
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 1: is necessarily good, but it means that you'll have less

1158
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 1: of this wild spending on the corporate front of trying

1159
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 1: to run different promotions in order to attracting keys. Right, yeah,

1160
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 1: you're essentially your undercut is what Lyft and Uber did,

1161
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: especially in the early days, where they tried to bleed

1162
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 1: the other one out of a market by severely underpricing

1163
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: rides and hopefully just convince the competitor that, oh, this

1164
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 1: region is just not profitable. Let's pick up stakes and move.

1165
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:52,800
Speaker 1: Didn't work out that way. It eventually shook out that

1166
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:56,800
Speaker 1: they just kind of had to cohabitat in most markets anyway.

1167
01:02:57,720 --> 01:03:00,479
Speaker 1: The other element is that consumers will be paid more

1168
01:03:00,600 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: like we will we will foot the bill for uh.

1169
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:05,600
Speaker 2: These these.

1170
01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: Various fees in order to keep the business afloat as

1171
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 1: far as revenue goes without it cannibalizing the entire restaurant industry.

1172
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:18,960
Speaker 1: And again that that's rough for people who are dependent

1173
01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: upon this for the occasional delivery, but they're not in

1174
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 1: a income level where that's something they can easily do.

1175
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: So that's the solution I've heard. Have you heard any others,

1176
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: Laine or are we are we doomed?

1177
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 3: Okay, well, well what if? What if restaurants should even

1178
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:46,360
Speaker 3: have the restaurant part. What if they were only for

1179
01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 3: app delivery?

1180
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:51,400
Speaker 2: Oh, you mean if they were like a ghost.

1181
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:56,040
Speaker 1: This is where your American Shadows thing comes into play, right, Oh,

1182
01:03:56,440 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: spooky ghost kitchen.

1183
01:03:59,360 --> 01:03:59,959
Speaker 2: I really would.

1184
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:02,280
Speaker 1: Ghost kitchen was something we could talk like, we could

1185
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 1: just do a thirteen Days of Halloween. But it's just

1186
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: ghost kitchens. I did.

1187
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:11,080
Speaker 3: I was searching my Google drive for ghost kitchens to

1188
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:13,000
Speaker 3: see I knew that I had made notes about it

1189
01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 3: somewhere and I couldn't remember where, and American Shadows outlines

1190
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:17,760
Speaker 3: did come up.

1191
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:19,720
Speaker 2: That's hilarious.

1192
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:23,880
Speaker 1: Ghost kitchens are also sometimes called dark kitchens. You might

1193
01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 1: be familiar with these. These are kitchens that technically don't

1194
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:29,920
Speaker 1: have a brick and mortar space of their own. They

1195
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:34,080
Speaker 1: might rent kitchen space in an existing restaurant. They might

1196
01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:37,840
Speaker 1: even be a subset of an existing restaurant. It's just

1197
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:41,000
Speaker 1: it almost becomes like a test kitchen where a restaurant

1198
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:44,120
Speaker 1: can can start making cuisines that normally they like. It's

1199
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:47,640
Speaker 1: normally an Italian restaurant, but we're gonna make impanadas or

1200
01:04:47,640 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, right, And sometimes it's like a

1201
01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: kitchen that's run out of I ordered one once that

1202
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:56,400
Speaker 1: was a kitchen run out of a church, a local

1203
01:04:56,480 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 1: church just down the street from where I live. They

1204
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:02,960
Speaker 1: sold very expensive grilled cheese sandwiches.

1205
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:07,640
Speaker 3: Were they good grilled cheese sandwiches?

1206
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 1: I would say they were almost holy because it wasn't

1207
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 1: actually run by the church. It was just in the anyway.

1208
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:19,240
Speaker 1: Almost Yeah, it was church adjacent. It was it was Jesus.

1209
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:25,160
Speaker 1: So I was having a Cheesus moment. Yeah, Lawd's just

1210
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:28,520
Speaker 1: shaking her head to disapproval. Annie would have liked that

1211
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:31,400
Speaker 1: one anyway. An he loves puns.

1212
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1213
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:37,240
Speaker 1: So, so these are our businesses. Sometimes they will all

1214
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:41,760
Speaker 1: coexist in one structure and use the same kitchen equipment

1215
01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:45,000
Speaker 1: and kitchen utilities and all that sort of stuff. But

1216
01:05:45,040 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: they'll be like five or six or sometimes eight different restaurants,

1217
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:50,160
Speaker 1: all all represented and.

1218
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:54,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and so it hypothetically brings down the overhead

1219
01:05:54,200 --> 01:06:00,760
Speaker 3: for everyone. Yeah, and you know, like so the basic

1220
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 3: reason for this is that, you know, because of this

1221
01:06:05,080 --> 01:06:08,440
Speaker 3: rise of online convenience culture, and also, you know, we

1222
01:06:08,480 --> 01:06:11,480
Speaker 3: all had some legit health concerns during the pandemic. Some

1223
01:06:11,480 --> 01:06:15,800
Speaker 3: people still do. So digital food orders and delivery has

1224
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:18,920
Speaker 3: been outpacing the growth of dine in traffic by like

1225
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:25,320
Speaker 3: three hundred percent since twenty fourteen. Yikes, and you know,

1226
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:28,200
Speaker 3: and that counts, you know, right, Like even before the pandemic,

1227
01:06:28,280 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 3: we saw a reduction in in house dining, with chains

1228
01:06:31,720 --> 01:06:35,440
Speaker 3: like Starbucks operating drive through only locations. Lots of pizza

1229
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:38,360
Speaker 3: chains have spots that are delivery or pick up only.

1230
01:06:39,160 --> 01:06:44,320
Speaker 3: But some of these ghost kitchen concepts are weirder, like

1231
01:06:44,800 --> 01:06:47,320
Speaker 3: for the ones operated by the big chains, Like is

1232
01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 3: it expanding into a new concept or is it kind

1233
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:56,120
Speaker 3: of catfishing people? Yeah, Like some of these places have

1234
01:06:56,280 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 3: branded themselves as being part of another chain, like Chili's

1235
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:07,000
Speaker 3: has It's just Wings or Boston Market has Rotisserie Roast,

1236
01:07:07,320 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 3: And I think that those have pretty prominent branding like hey,

1237
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:13,880
Speaker 3: this is from this place, right, But others have been

1238
01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:18,600
Speaker 3: real opaque. I think Chili's only came around to being

1239
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:23,840
Speaker 3: clear about it, Like recently, Applebee's operated one called Cosmic Wings.

1240
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 3: Denny's has a sandwich concept called the Meltdown. I hoop

1241
01:07:28,120 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 3: had thrilled cheese.

1242
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 1: Man. I need to get a job just naming ghost kitchens,

1243
01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:38,440
Speaker 1: like like do you need a do you need a

1244
01:07:38,520 --> 01:07:42,880
Speaker 1: lame dad joke name for your ghost kitchen concept called Jonathan.

1245
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:46,680
Speaker 3: They're all like this to attract your attention on these apps.

1246
01:07:46,920 --> 01:07:50,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've definitely seen them too on door dash, Like

1247
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:51,959
Speaker 1: there are times where I'll look and I'll say, huh,

1248
01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:55,040
Speaker 1: that looks like a weird restaurant name. I've not heard

1249
01:07:55,040 --> 01:07:56,840
Speaker 1: of it. It says it's a mile and a half away.

1250
01:07:56,880 --> 01:07:58,160
Speaker 1: How do I not know of this place?

1251
01:07:58,360 --> 01:07:58,480
Speaker 3: Right?

1252
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:01,760
Speaker 1: It turns out it's a ghost kitchen. And not that

1253
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:04,000
Speaker 1: there's any again, not that there's anything wrong with that,

1254
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:07,480
Speaker 1: but some of them are these sort of spin offs

1255
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:11,600
Speaker 1: of existing brands. Some of them are entrepreneurs who are

1256
01:08:11,640 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 1: hoping to make a mark in the restaurant space without

1257
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:17,559
Speaker 1: again having the massive overhead like you were talking about, Lauren,

1258
01:08:17,600 --> 01:08:20,280
Speaker 1: Like a lot of these kitchens have very few people

1259
01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:24,799
Speaker 1: actually working the kitchen itself. So like, I feel conflicted

1260
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:28,120
Speaker 1: about these too, because for the ones that are multiple

1261
01:08:28,160 --> 01:08:31,000
Speaker 1: outlets that are all using the same space, it may

1262
01:08:31,080 --> 01:08:35,759
Speaker 1: just be a relatively tiny staff that's responsible for making

1263
01:08:36,320 --> 01:08:42,439
Speaker 1: the whitest variety Like forget forget the Cheesecake Factory with

1264
01:08:42,520 --> 01:08:45,879
Speaker 1: its eight hundred page menu. This is even more variety

1265
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:47,559
Speaker 1: than that, and that gets wild.

1266
01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:51,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't know, like, okay, so this is

1267
01:08:51,760 --> 01:08:57,680
Speaker 3: this is a fun callback. One of Uber's co founders

1268
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:01,880
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen bought a controlling interest in a controlling

1269
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:07,439
Speaker 3: interest in this ghost kitchen property company called Cloud Kitchens.

1270
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 3: That Uber co founder and the reason this was in

1271
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen was the guy who made Uber so toxic,

1272
01:09:16,200 --> 01:09:17,559
Speaker 3: Calanick kal Nick.

1273
01:09:18,560 --> 01:09:25,400
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, I have never heard a good story about

1274
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:26,400
Speaker 1: Travis Kalanick.

1275
01:09:27,200 --> 01:09:30,200
Speaker 3: He and honestly, he looks I'm rewatching the good place

1276
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 3: right now, and he looks like the bad place.

1277
01:09:33,080 --> 01:09:33,320
Speaker 1: Dude.

1278
01:09:33,400 --> 01:09:37,599
Speaker 3: He looks like the guy who's like who's like, hey,

1279
01:09:37,600 --> 01:09:38,719
Speaker 3: how you doing you pregnant?

1280
01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:41,320
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that guy that's impossible like that.

1281
01:09:41,479 --> 01:09:42,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.

1282
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:47,840
Speaker 1: He comes across with an incredible bro energy that I

1283
01:09:48,000 --> 01:09:49,720
Speaker 1: just can't really abide by.

1284
01:09:50,160 --> 01:09:52,240
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah.

1285
01:09:52,960 --> 01:09:54,599
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a lot more we could say

1286
01:09:54,600 --> 01:09:57,639
Speaker 1: about ghost kitchens too. I mean the Internet tie ins,

1287
01:09:57,840 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 1: Mister Beast being a famous one where he used his

1288
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:03,800
Speaker 1: name and his clout to kind of do a tie

1289
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:07,320
Speaker 1: in and try and do this this restaurant, and there is,

1290
01:10:07,600 --> 01:10:09,479
Speaker 1: or at least there was like a pop up kitchen

1291
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:12,719
Speaker 1: physical mister Beast place, at least for a short while,

1292
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:16,040
Speaker 1: but they were all mostly places that were doing something else.

1293
01:10:16,080 --> 01:10:17,880
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, we're also doing mister

1294
01:10:17,960 --> 01:10:23,120
Speaker 1: Beast's stuff. And as you might imagine, because this wasn't

1295
01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:28,160
Speaker 1: like a true franchise, there was no like actual standard

1296
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:31,639
Speaker 1: of quality. Not to say that you were necessarily going

1297
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:35,639
Speaker 1: to get a bad experience going from one location to another,

1298
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:38,719
Speaker 1: but it would not be a consistent experience.

1299
01:10:38,439 --> 01:10:41,120
Speaker 3: Right, right, which is what we have not been trained

1300
01:10:41,160 --> 01:10:42,439
Speaker 3: to expect from a franchise.

1301
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:42,840
Speaker 1: Right.

1302
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:45,680
Speaker 3: We've been we've all grown up on McDonald's and there

1303
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:49,200
Speaker 3: you know, precise number of fries per containers.

1304
01:10:48,680 --> 01:10:51,520
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I'm if I'm going to an outback steakhouse,

1305
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:53,320
Speaker 1: I want to know that bluemin onion is going to

1306
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:57,040
Speaker 1: have that specific spice blend and sauce that's going to

1307
01:10:57,080 --> 01:10:58,680
Speaker 1: put me into a cardiac arrest.

1308
01:10:58,439 --> 01:10:59,080
Speaker 2: After three mins.

1309
01:10:59,240 --> 01:11:00,000
Speaker 3: Slap every time.

1310
01:11:00,439 --> 01:11:02,479
Speaker 1: Oh it's so good, but I can never have it again.

1311
01:11:02,920 --> 01:11:03,839
Speaker 3: No, you probably shouldn't.

1312
01:11:03,960 --> 01:11:08,920
Speaker 1: Well I never should have, but now I can't because

1313
01:11:08,920 --> 01:11:12,880
Speaker 1: it would kill me. That's just the truth of things,

1314
01:11:12,920 --> 01:11:15,360
Speaker 1: like That's that's my life. Now, That's okay. I had

1315
01:11:15,479 --> 01:11:18,040
Speaker 1: plenty of them leading up to that, So.

1316
01:11:18,880 --> 01:11:20,639
Speaker 3: I identified the problem I.

1317
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:21,360
Speaker 2: Didn't miss out.

1318
01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:23,760
Speaker 1: Is what I'm saying is that I got to experience

1319
01:11:24,120 --> 01:11:27,720
Speaker 1: the transcendent joy of eating a blumin onion at an

1320
01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:32,320
Speaker 1: outback steakhouse listening to Jamaine Clement, a New Zealand performer,

1321
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:37,240
Speaker 1: do the commercials for Outback. So you know, I feel

1322
01:11:37,240 --> 01:11:40,320
Speaker 1: like I feel like I'm in a good space. Well,

1323
01:11:41,439 --> 01:11:43,800
Speaker 1: I wish we had a nice spin to put on

1324
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:47,320
Speaker 1: the end of this. I mean, I hope that this

1325
01:11:47,439 --> 01:11:50,360
Speaker 1: industry does shake out in a way where all the

1326
01:11:50,439 --> 01:11:55,840
Speaker 1: various parties involved end up getting a decent like go

1327
01:11:56,040 --> 01:11:58,960
Speaker 1: of it, and not have it be something where it's

1328
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:03,200
Speaker 1: an unsustainable business model that is predatory upon the very

1329
01:12:03,840 --> 01:12:07,120
Speaker 1: entities that make the business possible, that being the restaurants

1330
01:12:07,160 --> 01:12:10,880
Speaker 1: and the drivers. Like it's it's clearly not something that

1331
01:12:10,880 --> 01:12:13,479
Speaker 1: can last forever, and the question just is when does

1332
01:12:13,520 --> 01:12:15,680
Speaker 1: it all collapse in on itself or when does the

1333
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:20,240
Speaker 1: industry change so that it can support itself, And we

1334
01:12:20,360 --> 01:12:20,840
Speaker 1: just don't know.

1335
01:12:21,600 --> 01:12:25,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love to see it though, because heck,

1336
01:12:25,160 --> 01:12:29,719
Speaker 3: it is lovely getting nice food delivered to my house.

1337
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:33,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not not having to, you know, go out

1338
01:12:33,280 --> 01:12:35,400
Speaker 1: there and fight it. It also would be nice if

1339
01:12:35,400 --> 01:12:38,720
Speaker 1: we could find a solution where if we do make

1340
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:42,000
Speaker 1: the effort to go out to brunch, we can finally

1341
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:44,640
Speaker 1: actually eat at those places we've heard about forever but

1342
01:12:44,720 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: can never actually get a table at.

1343
01:12:46,800 --> 01:12:48,720
Speaker 3: I think that's just Atlanta. I don't think. I don't

1344
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:51,000
Speaker 3: think we're ever going to have a solution to Atlanta

1345
01:12:51,080 --> 01:12:51,759
Speaker 3: brunch culture.

1346
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:58,240
Speaker 1: I want to go to Dell Bar so bad, long

1347
01:12:58,320 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 1: time I only do walk up. Oh yeah, doh bar. Okay,

1348
01:13:04,439 --> 01:13:09,400
Speaker 1: Well that's micro podcasting to like a very narrow audience there,

1349
01:13:09,840 --> 01:13:14,080
Speaker 1: narrow casting to the extreme. Lauren, thank you so much

1350
01:13:14,120 --> 01:13:17,040
Speaker 1: for coming back to tech stuff to revel in the

1351
01:13:17,640 --> 01:13:21,599
Speaker 1: madness and chaos that is the food delivery app business.

1352
01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:25,280
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, anytime. I love madness and chaos. No, thank

1353
01:13:25,280 --> 01:13:26,880
Speaker 3: you so much for having me. It's been it's been

1354
01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:27,720
Speaker 3: wonderful being back.

1355
01:13:27,840 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 1: Please tell everybody where they can find your work.

1356
01:13:31,120 --> 01:13:33,479
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure. If you would like to listen to

1357
01:13:33,520 --> 01:13:37,639
Speaker 3: my other podcasts, they are brain Stuff, Savor that spelled

1358
01:13:37,680 --> 01:13:40,960
Speaker 3: the American Way as a vo r and uh yeah,

1359
01:13:40,960 --> 01:13:43,640
Speaker 3: American Shadows is defunct now. But if you if you

1360
01:13:43,760 --> 01:13:46,559
Speaker 3: like true crime, like historical true crime, and I'm kind

1361
01:13:46,600 --> 01:13:48,200
Speaker 3: of doing like you know, like my my kind of

1362
01:13:48,200 --> 01:13:51,240
Speaker 3: sweaty balls voice. You know, I'm like, real, real serious

1363
01:13:51,280 --> 01:13:52,200
Speaker 3: about it.

1364
01:13:52,280 --> 01:13:53,760
Speaker 2: Your voice, it's.

1365
01:13:53,720 --> 01:13:57,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Sorry, that's like a decade's old SNL joke.

1366
01:13:57,479 --> 01:13:58,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I love.

1367
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:01,559
Speaker 1: I listened, I because I was like, oh, I didn't

1368
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,559
Speaker 1: somehow I never even knew about this show that you

1369
01:14:04,640 --> 01:14:07,320
Speaker 1: had done, Like I don't know how it slipped under

1370
01:14:07,360 --> 01:14:09,320
Speaker 1: my radar. I didn't know about it. And then I

1371
01:14:09,320 --> 01:14:12,240
Speaker 1: started listening. I was like, uh, she's pulling a Ben Bolin.

1372
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 1: She's she has altered her voice slightly for this because

1373
01:14:16,439 --> 01:14:17,799
Speaker 1: of the tone of the show.

1374
01:14:18,200 --> 01:14:24,040
Speaker 3: Mm hm. Those and the aforementioned Thirteen Days of Halloween

1375
01:14:24,400 --> 01:14:29,880
Speaker 3: oh so good. And then Twelve Ghosts, which was also fantastic.

1376
01:14:30,280 --> 01:14:33,960
Speaker 3: Oh I loved working on that one so much. And

1377
01:14:34,439 --> 01:14:38,400
Speaker 3: Twelve Ghosts is a wintertime, nice, spooky anthology show. Our

1378
01:14:38,479 --> 01:14:41,640
Speaker 3: celebrity host for the whole thing was Malcolm McDowell. I

1379
01:14:41,720 --> 01:14:44,920
Speaker 3: technically had lines with Malcolm McDowell. We didn't do them together,

1380
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:47,839
Speaker 3: but you know, but he talks to my character. That's wild.

1381
01:14:48,040 --> 01:14:48,519
Speaker 3: I loved it.

1382
01:14:48,560 --> 01:14:51,479
Speaker 1: I got to do an episode of season two of

1383
01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:54,519
Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween, and technically I got to act

1384
01:14:54,520 --> 01:14:59,160
Speaker 1: against Katheen to Jimmy, although I didn't share physical space

1385
01:14:59,200 --> 01:15:02,000
Speaker 1: with her at all or even hear her, I was

1386
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:04,160
Speaker 1: I was acting off of I think it was Matt

1387
01:15:04,200 --> 01:15:06,080
Speaker 1: Frederick who had to say her lines to me.

1388
01:15:06,240 --> 01:15:07,720
Speaker 3: That sounds right while I was.

1389
01:15:07,680 --> 01:15:10,280
Speaker 1: Talking into a human head shaped microphone.

1390
01:15:10,720 --> 01:15:11,240
Speaker 3: So weird.

1391
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:14,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, the bine oorl mics. I love those, y'all. Thank

1392
01:15:14,360 --> 01:15:17,240
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed this epic

1393
01:15:17,360 --> 01:15:21,400
Speaker 1: rant of an episode as we railed against the heavens

1394
01:15:21,960 --> 01:15:25,720
Speaker 1: and hold out what little hope we can have for

1395
01:15:25,920 --> 01:15:30,120
Speaker 1: a SAE future in this industry. Please take care of

1396
01:15:30,160 --> 01:15:33,679
Speaker 1: yourselves if you feel the need to order delivery, don't

1397
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:36,280
Speaker 1: have a huge guilt trip over it. But you know,

1398
01:15:36,560 --> 01:15:38,760
Speaker 1: being an informed consumer I think is always the right

1399
01:15:38,800 --> 01:15:39,280
Speaker 1: way to go.

1400
01:15:39,520 --> 01:15:41,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and tip your driver, Tip.

1401
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:44,080
Speaker 2: Your driver, tip your driver.

1402
01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:46,880
Speaker 1: And if you find out that the company was using

1403
01:15:46,920 --> 01:15:51,160
Speaker 1: it to subsidize their business, flip them off real good. Okay,

1404
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:54,439
Speaker 1: With all that being said, take care of yourselves and

1405
01:15:54,439 --> 01:15:55,479
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again.

1406
01:15:56,120 --> 01:15:56,439
Speaker 2: Really.

1407
01:15:56,520 --> 01:16:07,440
Speaker 1: Sin Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts

1408
01:16:07,479 --> 01:16:11,960
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1409
01:16:12,000 --> 01:16:13,559
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,