☕️ Reverse happy hour

Why Wendy’s is introducing surge pricing... February 28, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [Knightscope]( Good morning. If your late husband left you an enormous pile of Berkshire Hathaway stock and offered the instructions, “Do whatever you think is right with it,” how would you spend it? For Ruth Gottesman, the right thing was to make the Albert Einstein College of Medicine tuition-free for all students. On Monday, Gottesman, the board chair and a former faculty member of the Bronx, NY, school, announced a $1 billion gift to cover tuition costs, which the college says is the largest donation ever to a US medical school. And the acceptance rate was already around 2%... —Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 16,036.80 +0.38% S&P 5,078.17 +0.17% Dow 38,972.42 -0.25% 10-Year 4.315% +1.6 bps Bitcoin $56,757.31 +4.10% Viking $85.05 +121.02% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 11:00pm ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks were [mixed]( yesterday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq inching up and the Dow dropping ahead of the release of key inflation data later this week. Tuesday’s big winner was Viking Therapeutics, whose stock more than doubled after it reported [positive results]( for its weight-loss drug trial in a bid to break into a sector dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.  FOOD & BEV [Wendy’s introduces reverse Happy Hour]( [Wendy’s sign with flashing dollar signs.]( Francis Scialabba Finally, Wendy’s created a way to make waiting in line even worse: paying more when you get to the end of it. The fast-food chain, already the most expensive on the market, [said]( it would introduce “dynamic pricing,” Uber-like surge pricing for menu items at certain times of the day, next year. Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner revealed that the company will spend about $20 million through the end of 2025 to install digital menu boards at its US locations that can facilitate surge pricing during busy periods like lunch rushes. Get used to it: Ride-hailing apps and ticketing companies like Live Nation have caught flak for introducing markups due to surge pricing on their platforms. But despite extreme customer pushback, these companies continue to dominate their fields, so it’s either pay the elevated prices or…don’t see the Eras Tour and walk home in the rain. - Within the last year, President Joe Biden and lawmakers have criticized Live Nation for its exorbitant prices and fees while the Justice Department investigates the company on antitrust grounds. - The company still plans to [expand]( its dynamic pricing model and offer even higher-priced VIP options. Wendy’s move is likely to draw even more ire since the whole proposition of fast food is that it’s supposed to be relatively cheap and consistently priced. Looking ahead…if successful, Wendy’s adoption of surge pricing could spread to other fast-food chains and restaurants as digital menus make the option much more feasible than when all menus used to be printed. It’s already crept into everything from bowling to (for a brief, hated moment) [getting a good seat]( at the movie theater.—MM   PRESENTED BY KNIGHTSCOPE [A crime-fighting…bond?]( [Knightscope]( Earning 10% in annual interest is almost unheard of today. But [Knightscope]( giving that opportunity to everyone with their new bond offering. The Knightscope Public Safety Infrastructure Bond [pays you a 10% cash return every year for up to five years](. While you earn interest, Knightscope uses the funds to help make the country safer. Their autonomous security robots (ASRs) are already helping law enforcement fight crime. Your investment will help bring even more of their ASRs where they’re needed most. Deadline alert: Today’s the last day to invest before February’s bond offering closes. [Start earning 10% interest today](. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [Macy's store]Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Macy’s is closing 150 stores and giving itself a makeover. The troubled retailer is shuttering the underperforming locations—equal to 30% of its footprint—as part of a [pivot toward luxury]( to boost sales and hold off the activist investors trying to take control of its board. Macy’s will instead expand its higher-end Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury chains, which have found success as shoppers increasingly look to either low-end or upscale offerings, leaving Macy’s to cater to a shrinking middle class. Macy’s stock has dropped 75% since its 2015 peak. Warner Bros. Discovery broke off merger talks with Paramount Global, CNBC reported. On second thought, WBD is saying “I’m good, actually” to owning rival entertainment company Paramount Global, [walking away from talks]( that started to heat up earlier this year. Paramount Chair Shari Redstone has made it no secret that the embattled company is for sale, as she’s set up a committee to consider potential bids. A combined WBD-Paramount could have created a streaming service to rival those of Netflix and Disney, but Warner Bros. execs apparently decided not to pursue it. Skydance Media, meanwhile, is said to still be performing due diligence on a possible Paramount acquisition. 🚙 Apple is reportedly canceling plans to build an electric car. Your dreams of someday wearing an Apple Vision Pro inside an Apple car are dead. Bloomberg reported that the tech giant is [scrapping]( the decade-old, multibillion-dollar effort to develop an autonomous EV and either laying off or shifting the department’s 2,000 employees to AI projects. Work on the car, which would have cost $100,000, was reportedly troubled, as Apple could not settle on a strategy and replaced the team’s leadership multiple times. The decision comes as some companies shift focus away from EVs amid weaker demand. HEALTHCARE [American healthcare is under cyberattack]( [UnitedHealth cyberattack]( Francis Scialabba Cyber villains have struck again, and they’re going after the US health system. Pharmacies and hospitals nationwide are coping with a [debilitating cyberattack]( against the prescription processor Change Healthcare, owned by America’s biggest health insurer, UnitedHealth. The health tech company noticed the breach last week and rushed to disconnect its systems, throwing a wrench into pharmacies’ ability to dole out pills. Change Healthcare said yesterday some of its services were still on pause, and it's unclear if any patient info was stolen. Hard pill to swallow Drugstores nationwide were initially unable to run patients’ insurance, but UnitedHealth told CNBC earlier this week that pharmacies have since found alternatives as the company continues to deal with the fallout. The debacle underscores how sweeping an impact malicious computer geeks can have: - Change Healthcare serves over 67,000 pharmacies and handles up to 1-in-3 patient records in the US. - While independent pharmacies were the most chaos-stricken, medicine mammoth CVS said it was also impacted. Whodunit? UnitedHealth suspects a “nation-state associated” culprit, but Reuters reported others think the profit-motivated cybergang BlackCat might be responsible. BlackCat was previously involved in hacking MGM casinos and Reddit, stealing their data and demanding a ransom. Hackers love healthcare…due to the sensitive nature of the industry’s data. It suffered a record number of cyberattacks last year, according to the HIPAA Journal.—SK   TOGETHER WITH BAMBOOHR [BambooHR]( All onboard! To retain and impress new hires from day one, level up your onboarding process with tools and software designed to streamline the ride. In fact, 97% (!!!) of employees agree that a streamlined process is important. For more trends and strategies, pick up [The Definitive Guide to Onboarding]( BambooHR’s [free gift]( to orgs everywhere. TECHNOLOGY [Vending machines got caught peeping on snackers]( [screenshots of vending machine error message]( u/SquidKid47 via Reddit Huge day for Facebook uncles: The University of Waterloo in Canada is removing 29 vending machines from campus after students discovered the touch-screen snack dispensers have been secretly monitoring them through tiny cameras. What tipped them off? A Waterloo student snapped a pic of a cryptic error message on the screen of an M&M-branded vending machine and [asked]( Reddit, “hey so why do the stupid m&m machines have facial recognition?” A spokesperson for Invenda—the automated retail company that makes these vending machines for M&M-owner Mars—spun it as “people detection and facial analysis, not face recognition,” according to [Ars Technica](. Invenda claims it only uses this technology to trigger the menu screen when it detects a customer’s presence and that visual data is not stored or shared. Still…a Waterloo student publication [discovered]( that Invenda sales brochures advertise the ability to gather demographic data, including gender and age. Students say they had no idea they were being watched, which poses a problem for Invenda, since taking face image data typically requires explicit consent. Why put a camera in there? Invenda sells “anonymized data analyses,” as reported by the student newspaper, which means retailers could be using the info these vending machines collect to stock them with the hardest-to-resist snacks.—ML   GRAB BAG [Key performance indicators](#) [TikTok logo]TikTok Stat: It turns out that TikTok is kinda for the olds? Or, at least, the app is not as Gen Z-focused as most headlines would have you believe. Journalist Ryan Broderick [pointed out]( that nearly 40% of TikTok users are in their 30s and 40s—in other words, millennials (and some Gen Xers). For comparison, that age group accounted for just 20% of Instagram’s user base a decade ago. Broderick identified another striking data point that might spook the teens in your life into declaring that TikTok is no longer cool: Users 35–49 are more likely to upload videos than users 18–34. Quote: “Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now.” Let them eat…Froot Loops? Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick is under fire after he went on CNBC this week and suggested Americans should eat cereal [for dinner]( to deal with the high cost of groceries. When asked if his comments would sit well with consumers, Pilnick replied, “It’s landing really well.” Social media posts pillorying the executive quickly blew up, but not everyone was hostile, as some declared there’s absolutely nothing wrong with housing a box of Apple Jacks for dinner. Read: Thirty chefs open up about tipping, Gen Z, and the challenges of running a restaurant today. ([New York Times]( NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [Donald Trump]( and President Biden cruised to victory in their party’s primaries in the swing state of Michigan. As of last night, about 13% of Democratic voters had chosen “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. - IPO updates: [Shein]( is reportedly considering switching its listing from New York to London after meeting US resistance, while Swedish fintech startup [Klarna]( is moving forward with its US IPO, valued at $20 billion. - [Chevron]( said its $53 billion deal to buy Hess could be in jeopardy due to Exxon Mobil and China’s Cnooc challenging the acquisition. - [BYD]( unveiled a luxury hybrid SUV that can float in the event it falls into water. - [Sony]( laid off 900 PlayStation workers, or 8% of the division’s global workforce, after it cut the sales forecast for the PS5. RECS [Wednesday to-do list] Watch: [American ice football]( which is exactly what it sounds like, is growing in popularity across Germany. Drive: The [best cars of 2024]( according to Consumer Reports. Sweat: An inside look at Europe’s annual [sauna marathon](. You need to calm down: Marriott is now offering Taylor Swift [concert tickets]( in exchange for loyalty points. Shop Morning Brew: Get the [Morning Brew Starter Pack]( classic hoodie, water bottle, and dad hat—for 40% off when you buy the bundle. A click away: Chat with top AI models and use one-click AI anywhere with [MaxAI.me](. Improve your writing, get instant summaries, and speed up research with this AI browser extension. [Check it out]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Word search: Prepare for Leap Day tomorrow with pictures of leaping animals. [See them get air here](. Nickname trivia Below is a list of famous nicknames. Can you identify the people they refer to? - The Queen of Soul - The Answer - The Sun King - The Half-Blood Prince - The Iron Lady - HOV - Big Sexy SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER - Aretha Franklin - Allen Iverson - Louis XIV - Severus Snape - Margaret Thatcher - Jay-Z - Bartolo Colón Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: pillorying, meaning “attacking or ridiculing publicly.” Thanks to Cari from Kerrville, TX, for politely making the suggestion. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. ✢ A Note From Knightscope This is a paid advertisement for Knightscope Inc.’s Reg A offering. Please read the offering circular at [(. 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