Tough Tariffs… Softening? & Nike's Sprint To Dominate Running Again
31:45 Share

It's smart to always have a few financial goals and a really smart one you can set earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at Discover dot com slash credit card.

Good morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Yale is doing something even more unthinkable than when they rejected me. Then Nike partnered with one of the greatest middle distance runners of all time to try and break the women's four-minute mile barrier. It's Thursday, April 24th. Let's ride.

Good Thursday morning. We missed a big birthday yesterday. YouTube turned 20 years old. Time sure does fly when you go down the Denver Airport conspiracy rabbit hole. On April 23rd, 2005, the first video was uploaded to YouTube, grainy 19-second footage of a visit to the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo.

The 20 years since has seen a lot of videos and a lot of growth from Lonely Island to the Evolution of Dance to Kony 2012 to Gangnam Style to Mr. Beast. Now, YouTube is estimated to be worth about $550 billion as a standalone business, more than Netflix. Toby, I know it's hard to choose, but I have to ask, what's your favorite YouTube video ever?

Well, first, I just want to go down memory lane here because I grew up with YouTube. It was right smack dab in my early days. So remember the OK Go music videos on the treadmills? There's obviously Charlie Bit Me and then Charlie the Unicorn as well. Harry Potter Puppet Pals. As I read through this list, I'm like, what was going into my brain during these formative years? And then Dude Perfect was a big one too. They were very early to the YouTube days as well. But those were foundational and I hope some of

our listeners can remember those, but the YouTube video I've probably watched the most. And that is my favorite is one called where dreams go to die. Gary Robbins and the Barkley marathons. This is a inside look into what is considered the hardest ultra marathon in the world. So anytime I have to do something hard, I watched that YouTube video for a little perspective because nothing is as hard as the Barkley marathons. Do you have a favorite YouTube video in mind? I mean, recently it's been Rory McIlroy, every shot, uh,

final round at the Masters. I've been watching that one on repeat. Recency bias, but I think that totally recency bias. And now a word from our sponsor, Planet Oat. Neil, you ever upgrade your phone and immediately start to wonder how you were ever rocking the old one? As a recent phone upgrader, I am

well aware of that feeling. You think you're living a perfectly acceptable phone life, then bang, everything gets faster, smoother, better looking, and you realize what you were missing. That's the planet out effect. Pour it into your coffee once and suddenly your whole morning routine just levels up.

It's rich, creamy, velvety, like your taste buds are finally looking at a 4K screen. And if you go for the unsweetened version, zero grams of sugar and still full of flavor. Plus, it's dairy-free, peanut-free, soy-free, and gluten-free. So if your mornings could use a little upgrade, give Planet Oat a try. Get your hands on the oat milk that has it all. Visit planetoat.com for more.

U.S. financial markets has found a new favorite food, and that's any crumb from the Trump administration that shows it is softening its stance on trade. And yesterday, they got a few of those tasty morsels, which pushed indexes into green territory once again. First, there was Trump easing off some of his favorite punching bags, Jerome Powell and China. On Tuesday, he clarified that he had no intention of firing the Fed share despite all the criticism, while yesterday,

Trump softened up his tone on China, saying that tariffs will drop substantially from the current 145% rate. We're going to be very nice. They're going to be very nice, he said, much to the S&P 500's delight, which jumped more than 2% as it digested his new stance.

The change in tune likely stems from a meeting Trump had with CEOs earlier this week. The president sat down with the heads of Walmart, Target, and Home Depot, who privately warned that the current tariff and trade policy will lead to price hikes and store shelves emptying in a matter of weeks as tariffs hinder global logistics.

Their fears are warranted. American importers have already began to cancel shipments from China, with U.S.-China shipping falling 60% in the weeks since the latest tariffs on China were announced, according to Ryan Peterson, the CEO of logistics firm Flexport. So, Neil, while the market partied yesterday on the back of some good soundbites,

actual trade looks like it's still in a little bit of a precarious position. Yeah, the trade war is going to the stock market. And they're like, why are you so obsessed with me? Because the market is hanging on every single word coming out of the White House from either President Trump or Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. It surged more than 2% after Trump said we would probably see a come down in the tariffs. But then

It went a little bit down after after Bessent said, well, this wouldn't be unilateral. We need to actually get a deal with China. And they're down again this morning in futures trading. S&P 500 is down about point five percent because China just came out and said,

Well, we haven't heard from the White House. No one's called us. And here's the thing about negotiating with China. They do not call you first. There's only one time in recent memory when a Chinese leader initiated contact with an American leader. And that was after September 11th, 2001, when they sent a telegram of condolence to George W. Bush. But still, George Bush still had to make the first call. So

If the Americans are intent on negotiating with China, they cannot rely on Xi Jinping to make the call because they just don't do that. Yeah, so that's why the soundbite of we're going to be very nice to them did cause markets to kind of jump a little bit. But let's look at the actual activity around ports, what is actually going on in this trade war. And activity is certainly declining. Right now, there are 22 vessels scheduled to enter the port of Los Angeles this week. There's only 18 scheduled to enter next week.

And then just 12 the week after that. So it doesn't take, you know, a math degree to realize that that number is going down. And then, yeah, Flexport CEO has kind of sounded the alarm here and said, we're talking about 60% down from, you know, typical levels here. Axios did kind of do a deep dive though and said that this is low numbers that we're seeing right now, but not unprecedented. Right now, the forecast for May 4th,

of the number of containers that will enter the port of Los Angeles is about 62,000. Go back to March 4th, 2024, 61,000 containers were kind of waiting to enter the port. So it's not necessarily something that is historically bad or low right now, but tech trade volumes tend to mean revert. They come back to like a stasis point. And if we keep declining, then that's when we start entering, you know, historically low territory.

Yeah, you're hearing from pretty much everyone in the freight industry trying to shout from the rooftops like you guys don't know what's going on here, especially in Southern California, where 500000 people work in logistics and where, you know, most trade from China comes through the ports. We do 600 billion dollars worth of trade with China. Most of that, 95 percent of that comes via ocean shipping to the port of Long Beach and Los Angeles. So Craig Fuller, who founded the trade publication Freight Waves, warned of

about the trucking industry where, you know, these ships come in with their containers and then to get to their warehouses in, you know, inland California, they have to be trucked in. He said that year over year trucking activity out of Los Angeles is down 23%. It will likely drop to 50% in the coming weeks if there isn't a trade war

He said massive layoffs are coming to the West Coast trucking sector where logistics is the second largest employment sector in the entire region. So you have Ryan Peterson of Flexport, who is one of the biggest logistics firms out there. This guy, you know, inside in the trucking industry, warning of a major slowdown, major layoffs, businesses getting hurt unless there isn't a comedown in tariffs. So it seems like President Trump is, you know, he did talk to Walmart, Target, Amazon,

and Home Depot CEO warning of empty shelves, mass layoffs. So we'll see what happens. I mean, China said that there's no negotiations going on, but markets are very much hanging on every word of this because of the huge economic impact it has. The nation's top universities are stockpiling cash at levels not seen since COVID or the great financial crisis to prepare for a financial standoff with the federal government. The Trump administration has so far pulled

suspended or put under review more than $10 billion in funding to schools, it says don't do enough to combat anti-Semitism. The colleges dispute those claims, but they're still breaking into the piggy bank to weather the upcoming storm. Harvard raised $750 million in a bond deal, Northwestern $500 million, and Princeton University $320 million. But

Yale is going even further. The Bulldogs are reportedly aiming to sell up to $6 billion of their private equity holdings, equivalent to nearly 15% of its gargantuan $41 billion endowment. That Yale would consider shaving off private equity holdings is raising a whole lot

lot of eyebrows because a few decades ago, Yale pioneered an endowment strategy literally called the Yale Endowment Model that emphasized illiquid investments like private equity over the traditional mix of stocks and bonds. This approach changed institutional investing forever, and some argue that Yale's retreat from private equity may be a worrying signal for the sector more broadly. But

But however they're doing it, through bond sales or by selling private equity, it's clear that top colleges are building a financial fortress because economic winter may be coming. Yeah, I mean, this is something that Yale and other colleges have been looking out for. Yale's president warned that reliance upon government support may subject the entire university to conditions and requirements...

which can undermine the capacity of faculty and trustees to chart the institution's destiny. So build up your finances separate of what the government gives you. But if I told you that quote actually came from Yale president Kingman Brewster back in 1975. So this is a very old tug of war that we're seeing.

And actually so old, in fact, that it goes back to 1755 when the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut voted to refuse Yale's annual grant. So AKA very similar to what we're seeing right now with the federal government pulling funding from institutions and institutions.

That was funny because on the surface, it was tied to budget constraints during the French and Indian War, but technically it was actually a religious dispute between the president and the head of the General Assembly. So all this to say, this is not necessarily a new thing that we are seeing. Maybe the ways that the colleges are kind of building up their financial fortress, as you described it, are new though. And doing things like selling illiquid private investments in private equity is maybe a warning bell because of just

how foundational that's been to this endowment model that has carried us through these last few centuries. Yeah. So David Swenson, a few decades ago, he was this guy that came in to lead the Yale endowment. He looked at what colleges were doing and he said, okay, you got 64% in stocks and 40% in bonds. These are very liquid investments, meaning you can sell them very quickly and convert them into cash. And he thinks, he said,

oh, why aren't we doing more illiquid investments? Why aren't we doing venture capital? Why aren't we doing real estate? Why aren't we doing private equity? Those could probably generate better returns. And, you know, we probably don't need this cash right away. So we changed up Yale's investment model pretty much every single college project

you know, followed this path. And the fact that they're selling or they're planning to sell $6 billion worth of private equity is certainly a warning signal to this sector. There's been a boom in private equity, certainly over the last decade. But in recent years, it's been very hard to find exits for companies. The way private equity works is you typically, you know, buy a company, you make it more efficient, you pump up the value and then you sell it off after 10 years that you own it.

The problem is in this market environment over the past few years, it's been very hard to sell that off. And maybe Yale is a canary in the coal mine for a broader reckoning in private equity.

Nike is looking to get its mojo back, and it thinks the answer is to get someone to run a mile in their shoes faster than you can make a bag of rice a roni. Faith Kipyagon is a Kenyan track star who is widely acknowledged to be the greatest female middle distance runner of all time. And Nike thinks she can also be the first woman to break the mythical four-minute mile barrier that has captivated the athletic world since the days of Roger Bannister.

The project, titled Faith Kipyagon vs. the 4-Minute Mile, is a way for Nike to show it's still got the juice after years of losing market share to rivals like Ahn and Hoka. It's attempted these moonshots before, most recently working with Elliot Kipchoge to try and break the two-hour mark in the marathon. The idea is to put the athletes in their latest generation of super shoes that attack

margins in order to make them incrementally faster. Precise pacing formations, carefully calibrated nutrition, and ideal conditions are some of the levers that Nike hopes to pull to shave off seconds from Kip Yegan's time. Now about that time, right now Kip Yegan is the world record holder in the mile, having run a 4.07 back in 2023. So these shoes, Neil, have to be very super in order for her to shave off 8 seconds.

My first question when I saw this was, well, can she do it? Is that even possible? Well, there were scientists that did a study. They posted it in the Journal of the Royal Society Open Science. They said, yes, she could do it under very specific conditions. She could run 359.37 with drafting provided by one pacer in front and one in back. And then you change out with two other pacers at

800 meters. They said if these conditions are fulfilled, then she could possibly do it. And I'm sure Nike is really hoping she does, but maybe it doesn't even matter because they're in this for the publicity anyway, and to promote themselves as the purveyors of a super shoe and athletics that they've kind of, you know, missed the boat on over the past few years. Yeah, they definitely need to get kind of their swagger back a little bit. I think this might be a step too far though, because I mean, Faith Kipyagon is truly just like the

goat middle distance runner for women. And unfortunately, she's not necessarily super close. I mean, 407, it seems like it's close. I mean, seven seconds, but that is a gargantuan model. Right now, her 1500 world record is 349, and that converts roughly to a 406, the

second mile, so there's still that pretty big gap there. So the biggest lever they can pull here is the pacing. Using male pacers, too, is a big leg up. They'll do that same formation that they did with Ellie Kipchoge, too. Pacer in front, pacer behind. So there are levers, and if anyone can do it, it is her, but

I don't know. I don't want to put... Here's the thing. It doesn't matter, though. It doesn't matter, yeah. Because we're talking about elite runners and Nike in the same sentence, and that's all they want because during the previous thing that they did with LA Kipchoge, they released the Vaporfly, which was their super shoe that changed running forever. So maybe they've got another super shoe in store that they're going to roll out

with this particular event, but it's going to be cool. And we will definitely watch. And I also have to bring up Toby. You got a big race coming up on Sunday, Toby here. He's not going to talk about it, but he is running the London marathon on Sunday. So good luck to you. Thank you. And yes, Kyle will be here to fill in tomorrow and as well on a Monday, who knows? I'm not exactly in faith, Kip Yegan shape. So we're just going to, we're just going to leave the bib number of mystery and then report back if it goes well.

Speaking of numbers, Neil's got some coming up next. Got five minutes to spare? Let's face it. If you're listening to a podcast, you have five minutes to spare. Then you have time to become a more serious investor with Public.com. On Public, you can build a multi-asset investment portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto, and more. Plus, Public has everything

Alpha, an AI-powered investment research assistant that can answer questions about any stock. They're also a U.S.-based company and member of FINRA with an award-winning customer support team trusted by millions. Generate fixed income with a suite of yield accounts like Public's high-yield cash account set at an industry-leading 4.1% APY. Fund your account in five minutes or less and you could earn up to $10,000. Yes, 10K, when you transfer your old investment portfolio.

Start at public.com slash morning brew. That's public.com slash morning brew. Paid for by public investing, full disclosures and podcast description. Picture this. You're creating a new software product for your biz, but need to get smart about all the new cloud tools and tech first. Learn how to quickly move your software product ideas from roadmap to reality with the AWS for software companies podcast. From generative AI and cybersecurity to data privacy, product

leaders are managing a whole lot of change. On the pod, you'll learn how your fellow product leaders are navigating innovation at their orgs. Each episode brings AWS and product leaders together in a roundtable discussion to chat through what you need to know to get to market faster and continuously optimize your product. They're covering everything from building and implementing generative AI to modern data architecture and machine learning. Stream AWS for software companies everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will have your brain purring like a V10 engine on a Porsche Carrera GT. My first number is $1 trillion, which is how much wealth was created for the 19 richest American households last year. Yes, just 19 households.

Think Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates and Buffett increased their wealth by one trillion dollars in a single year. That is more than the value of Switzerland's entire economy, according to The Wall Street Journal. And if you stacked one trillion in dollar bills on top of each other, it would reach more than a quarter of the way to the moon. It means that the super billionaire class now controls a record share of the United States' total wealth.

Back in 1982, the 0.0001%, the richest of the rich in America, accounted for 0.1% of America's total wealth. That was 11 households back then. Now, the 19 richest households control 1.8% of America's total wealth following the biggest one-year increase on record last year. Toby, thanks to the U.S. economy's growth over the past few decades, every group has seen their net worth go up

But even as the overall pie has expanded, the top, top echelon accounts for a bigger slice. Yeah, there was kind of this gradual rise. And then in recent years, there's been a massive, almost exponential looking rise. And this is not your neighbor with the pool in the McMansion. This is

I mean, toss as many zeros after that point and then tassel one on the end. That's the percentage that we're talking about here. And a lot of it is due to just the stock market. Most of their wealth is tied up in the stock market. And 2024 was a very good year. Together, the last two years, 2024 and 2023, were the S&P 500's best consecutive years in nearly a quarter century. So even though the market has kind of gone south recently, we are coming off just a historically poor,

pot market for, which obviously leads to compounding returns for, you know, that top echelon. For my next number, meat is having a renaissance. Sales of poultry, beef, pork, lamb, and other meat in the United States reached a record $105 billion last year, according to the New York Times. Americans ate nearly 7% more meat last year than before the pandemic, while the number of people who said they're trying to eat less meat dropped to the lowest level in at least five years, just 22%.

If you're surprised by this, I know, me too. It was only a few years ago that Americans were foul on foul. They wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot skewer. The reasons were numerous. Meat was seen as unhealthy, bad for the climate, and cruel to the animals. And into the meatless void came a plant-based rush. Burger King introduced the Impossible Whopper. Top restaurant Eleven Madison Park went vegan. And the recipe site Epicurious banned beef from all its future content.

But if meat was so over back then, it is so back right now. Just look at Texas Roadhouse, which grew sales 15 percent last year and overtook Olive Garden as the country's top casual dining chain. And what's fascinating, Toby, is that meat is being embraced by people on both the right and the left. There's this bipartisan or nonpartisan movement to put meat back on the culinary map worldwide.

What is going on here? I mean, a big part of it is that Americans are obsessed, and actually a lot of people are obsessed with protein, and meat is largely seen as the less processed way to satisfy that craving. I mean, food makers in 2024 introduced 97 new products with protein,

protein in the brand name. That is more than double a year ago. So this is clearly the trend in nutrition right now. A lot of it also might coincide with weight loss drugs like Ozempic taking off. When you lose weight, you are also potentially losing muscle mass. So protein intake has spiked in response to that. And then you can't ignore the influencers either. I mean, I

probably cannot open TikTok or Instagram Reels right now and scroll without seeing some usually shirtless dude, you know, with a huge cutting board full of meat in front of you telling me to like eat carnivore. I mean, Joe Rogan has said that he has followed the carnivore diet, which is entirely meat. So it's a confluence of a lot of different trends, but a lot of nutrition experts and also just people who analyze the food industry said this was a crazy

For my final number, a movie about cardinals gathering in secret to elect a new pope is booming in popularity as cardinals gather in secret to elect a new pope.

Streaming viewership for Conclave, last year's Oscar-winning drama depicting a fictionalized vote on the next pope, has jumped 283% after Pope Francis' death. On April 20th, right before the pope died, people watched 1.8 million minutes of Conclave. On Monday, that increased to 6.9 million minutes watched. Those numbers could get much bigger because on Tuesday, the movie became available to stream for Amazon Prime members before you had to rent or buy it.

So, it's clear that people are turning to Conclave to learn more about this mysterious process by which cardinals seal themselves off from the world to elect a new leader. But is the fictional account accurate? Experts say, honestly, yeah, for the most part. Sure, some of it is a little overdramatic, but according to Catholic historian Kathleen Sprouse Cummings, the film did a great job of portraying the types of conversations that happened before at Conclave and nailed a lot of the details.

Toby, talk about making a timely movie. I know, and I can't think of 283% increase more well spent because we both really enjoyed the movie. This is kind of the running up that hill, you know, Kate Bush moment from Stranger Things where you just see something just get a massive tailwind and start jumping up the streaming charts. And yeah, I do love that they did...

focus on the small details. A lot of it goes back to the actual book that it was based off of. So you got to give credit where credit is due. Still not everything is exactly right. They pointed out things like tables in the Sistine Chapel are positioned differently and the Cardinals actually do not address each other the way that they do in the film. So,

I don't know if those are creative liberties, you know, changing the orientation of the tables. But yeah, just exactly the movie that people needed right now because you are curious. It is a secretive process and it does do a great job of illuminating what actually goes on behind those closed doors.

Now let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. As Google stares down an antitrust trial that could force it to shave off its Chrome business, OpenAI is tossing its hat in the ring and saying, you know what? If we had to, we'd be interested in buying the lucrative web browser. As the Justice Department soldiers through a three-week trial to sort out what to do with Google after a judge last year found the company monopolized the search market, a variety of witnesses have been called to the stand, one of which was OpenAI's head of chat GPT, Nick Sperling.

When asked whether his company would seek to buy Google's browser, he responded, Yes, we would, as would many other parties. Not only does Chrome spit off money, but OpenAI is most certainly interested in its power as a distribution vehicle. Chrome has 3 billion users compared to ChatGPT's 300 million and would represent an avenue to find its way onto Android smartphones,

after being mostly stonewalled on that front. Neil, it feels like OpenAI is kind of being your ex's best friend here and saying, oh, just come here, Justice Department. I'll be your shoulder to cry on and also date you and make billions of dollars off of Google Chrome. What do you think Microsoft is thinking right now? Because they've invested $13 billion into OpenAI. They have a tight partnership contract.

And they also have a browser and a search engine. And here you have OpenAI saying, actually, you know, we're not so satisfied with what Microsoft has produced. We really want the Google one. So I do think part of it, though, is like the smartphone deal, because remember, OpenAI struck this partnership with Apple to kind of have their models end up on their phones, but completely have been shut out by

Android, mostly because Android is owned by Google. And so you go to Samsung and say, hey, can we jump on these phones? And they say, no, we're using Google's Gemini platform. So I do think that part of it is just figuring out how to enter into the other half of the smartphone market, which would be very big for open AI. And then also, yeah, they're a competitor and they get called to the stand. Of course, he's going to say, well, I'm not

going to say no to this. Like you're asking me, like, of course we would want this, but who knows how real this actual deal is because, you know, it could create just another monopoly if you hand it over. And we don't even know if Google is going to be forced to sell Chrome. We'll know by August.

American mothers could get a $5,000 check for having a baby under a proposal pitched to the White House to encourage people to marry and have more children. The concept of a lucrative 5K baby bonus is just one of many schemes currently under consideration as part of the government's efforts to stave off a depopulation crisis here in the United States.

A number of countries that are shrinking, like Japan and South Korea, have launched financial incentives to spur more baby making, but we haven't seen those types of measures yet in America. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, in particular, have adopted a pro-natalist approach that advocates for more families, and they've been fielding a bunch of plans from anyone who has any ideas. Another idea, separate from the baby bonus, is to award a National Medal of Motherhood to mothers with six or more children.

Yeah, this is the question of kind of this generation right now as developed nations are struggling with falling birth rates, which leads to aging populations, which leads to the young population having to take care of this aging population. So it leads to a lot of issues. And we've seen in Tokyo they've instituted a four-day work week for government employees to try to encourage people to start families. So a lot of different experiments. Maybe we should adopt that one. Yeah, four-day work week. Well, yeah.

We got a pretty good gig for five days. But yeah, cash for babies is sometimes not as effective as it sounds because so many factors go into having a kid's current economic situation, what you think the future is going to be like, your own specific life circumstances. So $5,000 for a baby does sound good on the surface, but other nations have kind of struggled to make that exact transaction work. If you thought trade between the U.S. and China was frozen over, it's got nothing on the NFL draft that kicks off tonight.

Barring any last-minute deals, every team will go into the draft with the original first-round picks for the first time since 1967, according to the AP. Now, we're recording this on Thursday morning, so this could be null and void by the time the Titans are on the clock with the first pick. But if stasis remains, feel free to drop that little nugget at your draft watch party.

More likely, though, we'll see some movement. Last year, there were five draft day trades. And it looks like there's not a ton of mystery at the top of the board. The Tennessee Titans are picking first. And sportsbooks have Miami QB Cam Ward at 99% to go number one overall, which would be the seventh time in eight years that a QB went first. Will you be turning in to see who the Eagles snag with the 32nd pick overall? I got to say...

I love sports. The NFL draft is just pretty much low on the list of things that I care about, especially when your team wins the Super Bowl last year. And so you're picking last. But I trust Howie Roseman to get to rebuild our roster a little bit. But we'll see what happens. Yeah. I mean, the quarterback trend, both trends are very interesting. The fact that there hasn't been a trade, a single trade on the first round before the draft kicks off, which is remarkable. And then

just shows how, you know, shows how this league has become passing first from 1991 to 1997. There was only one quarterback that was selected number one overall. And you can pause this podcast if you're a sports trivia buff and want to guess. But the answer is Drew Bledsoe. And so, yeah, this is a transition that has taken place over a couple of decades here in the NFL where just the quarterback is valued above every single other position.

All right. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday. Toby, safe travels to London and run fast. For any questions, comments or feedback, send a message to Morning Brew Daily at morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer.

Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Uchenua Ogu is our technical director. Scoop Stardaris is on audio. Hair and makeup bit my finger. Devin Emery is our president, and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Grabbing a quick meal is easy. It's getting a quick meal that's also good for you that's tricky. Do I want to get takeout on my way home from work? Yes. Does that takeout sometimes make me feel bleh afterwards? No.

Also, yes. Luckily, Factory has chef-made gourmet meals that simplify eating well. They're never frozen, dietician approved, and ready to heat and eat in two minutes. With 40 options across eight dietary preferences on the menu each week, chow down on meals tailored to your goals. Choose from options like Calorie Smart, Protein Plus, or Keto.

Factor even has smoothies, breakfast, grab-and-go snacks, and more add-ons for you to munch on throughout the day. But the best arrives at dinnertime when my brain is shut down and all I want to do is take down my number one favorite spicy Creole chicken thighs. See, I'm more of a four-cheese tortellini and Italian sausage guy. Fills me right up, and I still get to enjoy the sauteed kale and garlicky green beans that come on the side. Eat smart with Factor. Get started at factormeals.com slash factorpodcast.com.

And use code FACTORPODCAST to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code FACTORPODCAST at factormeals.com slash FACTORPODCAST to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box.