Can anyone compete with Nvidia?
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On the program today, we'll do retail and AI. And we'll talk about

and a little bit of Hollywood. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Wednesday today, the 28th of May. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. We promised ourselves in our production meeting this morning that we weren't going to use the T word on the program today, and we won't. Y'all deserve a break. We do, too.

But just because we're not going to use it doesn't mean the Federal Reserve won't. To follow up from the program yesterday, as promised, we got the minutes of the central bank's most recent meeting this morning. A combined 32 uses of tariff or tariffs in those 19 pages. Uncertainty showed up 17 times. Generally subdued was the tone of that meeting.

The ticker symbol of the day today is NVDA, NVIDIA, the chip design company that's become a bellwether for whether this artificial intelligence economic revolution is going to turn out to be, you know, actually revolutionary.

Revenue came in at $44 billion. That's for three months doing business, a mere 90 days. Part of the reason that Wall Street thinks NVIDIA is worth north of $3 trillion, more than triple what Walmart is worth, is that NVIDIA is still really the only game in town that's designing good AI chips. Marketplace's Matt Levin gets us going.

Fierce corporate rivalries are staples of many industries. Coke and Pepsi, Boeing and Airbus, Microsoft and Apple, NVIDIA, and, well, I guess just NVIDIA. So NVIDIA has about 85 to 90 percent market share in the AI chip market. Sebastian Nagy is an analyst for William Blair. He says...

He says not only are NVIDIA's AI chips just faster and more powerful than most other chips out there. Then they've also developed the broadest ecosystem of developers, the broadest ecosystem of software. And so it's just so much easier to build an application, build an AI model on top of those chips. So where are the other semiconductor companies, the Intels and AMDs of the world? Surely they can build an AI chip in software somebody wants, right?

Pat Moorhead at More Insights and Strategy worked in the chip industry for decades. Traditional semiconductor makers have struggled to compete with NVIDIA primarily because of their architecture. Most of these companies did CPUs. NVIDIA does GPUs. CPUs are what powers your laptop. GPUs were primarily used to power video games until NVIDIA discovered they could power robots.

Big tech companies like Google and Meta have developed their own AI chips, although they've mostly been used for internal purposes so far. Kat Duffy at the Council on Foreign Relations says in the near future, NVIDIA's biggest competition may come from China. Maybe not for top-of-the-line Ferrari chips, but good enough Toyota Camry chips. Once Chinese companies get a handle on producing decent quality, inexpensive chips, they're

there will be an enormous thirst in the global market to acquire that type of chip. Duffy says Chinese companies like Huawei are a couple years behind NVIDIA's latest generation of AI chips, which are subject to U.S. export controls. But think about Huawei's phones, which when they started out were not very high quality phones and are now really significant competitors. To

to iPhones and Androids, smartphones, although soon the competition could be over actual Androids. I'm Matt Levin for Marketplace. NVIDIA shares today down about a half percent during the session, up better than five and a half percent after hours. Elsewhere on Wall Street, down-ish, about a half percent across the board for the major indices. We will have the details when we do the numbers. ♪

We're going to do a pair of stories now about retail. A little yin and yang, alpha and omega, two sides of the same coin. Pick your metaphor, because how retailers are feeling depends very much on what and to whom they're

They are selling. We begin with Dick's Sporting Goods, which reported earnings this morning. A record first quarter, the company says, a four and a half percent increase in same store sales. And, and this is the key bit, they are standing by their full year forecast despite, you know, everything that is happening with economic policy. Dick's is in a small group of retailers that says they are worried, sure, but not sure.

Too worried? Marketplace's Kristen Schwab looks at what's behind the sudden glimmer of hope. Dick's Sporting Goods has a few things going for it. A fairly diverse supply chain, which insulates the retailer a bit from tariffs. A mix of trending brands like Ahn and Hoka. And the stores can be fun. Anthony Chikumba is managing director at Loop Capital Markets.

You've got the climbing wall, you've got the batting cage, a lot of times I'll have golf simulators. Plus, the retailer sells sporting goods, a category that has continued to flourish despite consumers' fickleness. So if sales are strong now, during a slower season, they will be later. Where a lot of retailers will see a pickup in spending is in the back half of the year where you have back to school and then obviously holiday.

Some of the retail industry's surprisingly good first quarter sales, though, are an anomaly, says Barbara Kahn, a marketing professor at Wharton. Consumers are front-loading purchases. And so there has been some increase in spending in some categories to buy these products before the impact of tariffs hits.

Now, typically, one might think consumers stocking up now means they'll spend less in the future, especially if they're worried about a recession. But Chukumba says companies don't hinge their businesses so much on soft data like feelings. What's more important to look at is things like employment, right? I mean, you can't spend if you don't have a job, wage growth, you know, gasoline prices. I think those are a lot more correlated with consumer spending than consumer confidence.

Plus, yesterday's report shows consumer confidence made a big rebound. And Connett Wharton says even if retailers are worried about tariffs, even if they think sales will drop, they're learning to be hush-hush about it. Because when Walmart recently said it would need to hike prices, President Trump said the retailer should, quote,

quote, eat the tariffs. That's a tricky road to walk down because I think attention in this case isn't so great. So more and more, companies may put their heads down and publicly maintain the status quo.

I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace. Macy's reported earnings today, too. They are the flip side of the, yeah, some retailers like dicks are feeling okay story. The legacy department store said it's going to raise some prices because, well, the T word. We promised we weren't going to use it. Forgot to tell reporters and editors, which is my bad. I apologize. Anyway, the company cut its earnings outlook for the rest of the year and for the quarter just ended, reported a 1.2% drop in overall sales from the same time a year ago.

Macy's blamed that particular decline on the drop in international tourists. The U.S. Travel Association says foreign visitors to the U.S. of A were down 14 percent in March year on year. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes has that part of the retail forecast.

The Macy's store on Herald Square in Manhattan is old and famous. It's also a movie star. It's where the miracle on 34th Street happens. People want to visit it. It is part of the tourism experience. It's a destination in a way that isn't typical shopping. Katie Thomas studies consumer behavior at the consulting firm Kearney.

Now, with fewer visitors from Canada, Western Europe, and Asia, there are fewer of them to shop in famous flagship department stores. So they're not buying as much of what they usually buy, whether it's handbags or makeup or sunglasses.

Mark Matthews with the National Retail Federation says stores that carry classic American brands are likely to be affected. Think places that sell sports paraphernalia. Basketball is one of the fastest growing sports abroad, and the NBA is a marquee product. Matthews points to data from Oxford Economics that predicts spending by international visitors will fall by $8.5 billion this year compared to 2024. And shopping is a big chunk of that.

If you take that away and you take some of the other challenges right now that the consumer faces, there is a potential for things to be a little bit more problematic as we move forward in the year. Meanwhile, tariffs are making some items more expensive and less attractive to tourists.

It's a double whammy, if you will. Retail consultant Mark Cohen says grocery and clothing stores in Sunbelt cities are also hurting because they usually sell a lot to Canadians who visit for a few months in the winter. They're not there. Their absence is already being noticed and will become increasingly problematic. Problematic because they could get out of the habit of coming to the U.S. Katie Thomas at Kearney says a lot of shopping isn't as much about brand loyalty as it is about habit.

So when you think of Canadian consumers, maybe they come here just because they've always come here, and now they're going to second-guess that vacation. Same with Europe. So instead of a regular shopping trip to New York or Miami, they'll go to Paris or Dubai and spend money at stores there instead. I'm Stephanie Hughes from Marketplace. ♪

Perhaps not too surprisingly, married couples make up the majority of home buyers in this economy. But according to the National Association of Realtors, the share of single women looking to buy solo is on the rise. As of 2024, single women are 20% of all buyers and single women as first-time buyers jumped by 5% last year.

That brings us to this latest installment of our series, Adventures in Housing, looking in particular at first-time homebuyers. My name is Kirsten Raylor, and I closed on my first house in October of 2023 in Bailey, Colorado, and I am 50 years old. ♪

I always wanted to be a homeowner. That was part of my long-term plan. But I was living in Santa Cruz, California for the past 20 years, and really the only thing I could afford would have been a mobile home, and that wasn't what I was looking for. There had been this draw to Colorado for a long time because that's where some of my family is and my

My living space was very small. It was less than 500 square feet. And I was almost turning 50. It all just kind of fell into place.

My budget was between $400,000 and $450,000. I definitely didn't know what I was doing. I was lucky enough to have a really great realtor and also a mortgage broker and also my financial advisor. And these were all women and they were very supportive of me doing this.

on my own at almost 50. And I mean, it was terrifying. And there were times that it was like, can I afford to do this? Like, and I can, as long as I'm able to stay employed. And it

Honestly, I had some second thoughts when I got here. I mean, for the first few days, I was noticing just all the tiny little flaws, like there's paint on the windowsill and on the floor, and I didn't notice that before. And the forced air heat is very loud. And so I definitely was feeling some regrets, but...

Once my things got here and I, you know, got moved in, I definitely felt more confident in my decision to buy this house.

Despite the cold and the snow, there's been way more pros than cons. Just, you know, the people I've met, being close to my family. I actually met a partner shortly after moving here. So it's been a really positive move. And for as stressful as it was financially and physically and just emotionally, it was worth it. ♪

Kirsten Raylor there in Bailey, Colorado. Whether you are settling into your first home or you're still on the hunt, tell us about it, would you? Marketplace.org slash Adventures in Housing. Coming up... We are 100% dependent upon finding great writers. How a modern production company gets it done. But first, let's do the numbers. ♪

Down industrial is up 244 points today, six-tenths percent, 42,098. The NASDAQ gave up 98 points, about a half percent, 19,100. The S&P 500 down 32 points, just shy of six-tenths percent, 58 and 88. Dick's Sporting Goods, which Kristen Schwab was just telling us about, bounced up one and two-thirds of one percent. Stephanie Hughes was talking about Macy's. The

The department store conglomerate dipped about a third of a percent. Abercrombie & Fitch also beat sales and profit projections, thanks in part...

It's a strong demand for its jeans and dresses. ANF sized up 14 and two thirds of one percent. GameStop, can we even call it a retailer anymore? Did not report results today, but it did announce it's buying around a half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin. Wall Street apparently unimpressed. GameStop gave back almost 10 and nine tenths of one percent today. Bond prices, well, they fell. The yield on the 10-year T-note rose to 4.47 percent. And you're listening to Marketplace.

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This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. One might reasonably think, given that Marketplace World Headquarters shares a hometown with the epicenter of the domestic entertainment industry, that we get over to that side of town quite a bit. In point of fact, not so. But I did have a chance the other day to visit the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank.

Tell me who you are and what you do for a living. I'm Les Morgenstein. I'm the president and chief creative officer of Alloy Entertainment. And we develop books, film and TV and produce. Alloy's been on the Warner Brothers lot since 2012. It's behind a lot of the hit young adult series you've at least heard of. Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries. Also the more recent and maybe not so young adult Netflix series, You.

I read somewhere that you were responsible for something like 900 hours of television. That's a lot. We are. It's north of 900 hours. And we were very fortunate to be producing shows during...

I would say a golden era of TV. So a number of our shows went 100 episodes plus, which is incredible and not something that really happens in this era of streaming. I was just going to say, you say that almost wistfully because it's different now, right? It's very different. You guys used to be big CW, Freeform, all that. And now...

with you just over the big poster over your shoulder is now Netflix, right? A lot of, you're so not invited to my butt mitts, but also on Netflix, right? So you've, you've, you've had to do that thing from linear TV to streaming now. I love the creative evolution. I love that. When you say love, do you mean love or it's been really challenging and hard? No, no creatively. Um, I think the, the,

flexibility of streaming is very different from some of the constraints that broadcast had. I think the business, I am wistful. I am wistful of the pace of it and the number of episodes per season and certainly the economics and success are very, very different. Describe for me how...

Not how you source material, but how it works. How does it happen? Yeah, how does it happen? We're pretty unique. And obviously, each property is different. It has a different life. But the base case is we have a team here where we adapt and produce. But it's slightly different from our team in New York, where they are charged with

ideating. And they get in a room regularly and that can be a very free form environment or it can be very directed. And an example I always give of being very directed is years ago, we got an assignment from our head of TV at the time and it was what's a team desperate housewives.

And we gave that to our group in New York, and that led to the Pretty Little Liars books. Oh, wow. So that team in New York, they get together, they brainstorm ideas, write short treatments in-house, and then go and find authors. Since in most cases we've originated the IP, we control and own the underlying bundle of rights, which allows us to produce in film and TV. I'm not the first person to observe this, but it seems a little...

mechanical, not romantic, not the classic Hollywood idea of somebody beavering away in a basement writing this great novel or miniseries or whatever and then coming to you and saying... Ultimately, it's a marriage. We're not writing books. We are very good producers. We're very good at having a nose for the market, but we are 100% dependent upon finding great writers. On the book side, they're the public face of the book. It's their books, and we become their editors. Right.

What do you bring to the table? I think we bring... No, no, you. Me, personally? Yeah, right, because look, you've been here a long time. You know the ropes in this part of town, but you're not, how to say this, just as I am not your demographic, you're not the demographic either. I'm not the demographic. And across the board, just like we're relying upon finding...

great novelist. It's the same in film and TV who bring the specificity. So those are, in a way, they're partnership decisions. Those are hiring decisions. It's similar with building our internal team where we've done a very good job over the years hiring people who know the audience better than we do and letting them

take the lead on that. Because as you pointed out, I'm not the demo of YA shows. I'm also not the demo of you. You the show, not you me. Yeah, exactly. We may be the same demo. And I don't profess to be, but I do know what a good story is. And I know how to build things and assemble teams.

I was thinking on the way over here about talking to you, and one of the things that came into my mind was you remember probably, well, pre-pandemic, so five, six years ago, the whole idea of peak TV and how there's just so much stuff out there. Yeah. Do you worry about that at all? Look, I've never – answering your question in a slightly different way, I've never worried about competition.

I am cognizant of a contraction that's occurring. And what that does for people who do what I do, it raises the bar. So things need to be that much better, which ultimately is a good thing. The things we produce all take a tremendous amount of resources. So let's ensure that they're as great as they can be. It'll give them a better chance of working.

That idea of not worrying about competition is really interesting because I worry about competition every single day, right? I worry about the bar that I'm setting on marketplace, but I also worry about others in that space. And it occurs to me it must be really freeing to not have to worry about competition.

I think it is. I think we benefit from doing something very difficult. And there are days where we live in that reality, like this is so hard. We're pushing all these boulders up the hill. And ultimately, we're not the decision makers, right?

there's someone at a platform controlling the purse strings. And we have to get their buy-in and get them to say, yes, we're going to spend whatever that number is. But it's always a pretty big number. But we're not sitting here saying, oh, that person...

made a great show, that's limiting our ability to make a great show. We're watching those shows and saying, what can we learn from this? I'm not thinking like, oh, forever. They took a slot from us. Damn them, right? Yeah. Are you able to watch anything uncritically now or are you just... No. It doesn't exist. A frequent conversation...

in our house, because I like to watch shows with my wife at night, is we'll be watching something and I'll feel her looking at me. And then this line will come, do you need to watch this for work?

And that's always the indication, like, honey, I'm not enjoying this, but I understand this is your job. I am unable to watch something taking off my professional hat, including our stuff. Like, I'm our biggest fan. I'm also our biggest critic. And it's not because I want to rag on people who work here, because I think they all do a great job. It's because I want the next thing to be even better. Yeah.

What's the monster under your bed then? I think it's not dissimilar to everyone. Let's just call them on the traditional side of the business. So it's social media, it's TikTok, it's YouTube, it's AI. I don't think our business is going to go away, but I think it's going to be chipped away at over a number of years.

The companies, the producers, the writers, the directors who survive are going to be the best. And I'd like to be on that side of it. But I don't think we can put blinders on and pretend that it's not only younger audience. It's audience. It's movie going. It's watching series. It's all being impacted by other media. Les, thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you.

This final note on the way out today, which comes with this observation. For those of us in the Apple ecosystem, we are currently dealing with, and we're talking device operating systems here. We've got iOS 18 for our phones, iPad OS 18, watch OS 12 and Mac OS 15.

Tim Cook and the gang in Cupertino have apparently decided that is all just too confusing. And Bloomberg reports they are going to announce that henceforth all of Apple's operating system names are going to align with the year after they were released. So the next batch we're going to get is going to be iOS 26, watchOS 26 and so forth. While we're on the subject, does anybody out there remember Windows 95?

Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Jessen Duhler, Drew Jostad, Gary O'Keefe, Charlton Thorpe, One Color Strato, and Becca Weinman. Jeff Peters is the manager of media production. And I'm Kyle Risdell. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM.

This Old House has been America's most trusted source for all things DIY and home improvement for decades. And now we're on the radio and on demand. I think you're breaking into this wall regardless. I was hoping you wouldn't say that. I need to go and get some whiskey, I think. I would get the whiskey for sure. Subscribe to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.