AI is changing tech, but where's the energy coming from?
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I'm Yasmin Gagne. I'm Josh Christensen. And this is Most Innovative Companies. On today's episode, Fast Company Deputy Digital Editor Morgan Clendaniel. By 2028, AI could use more power than the country of Iceland. How much they used in 2021. Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beard. It was like all action. Brad Pitt, all set to queen. I don't miss a time.

And as always, keeping tabs. It sounds like someone who is not great at singing trying to sing the National Anthem, but it's not like, oh my God, wow. You're like, well, she didn't get those notes. But first, here's the download. The

The news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. Trump has officially chosen his running mate for the 2024 election, and it's everybody's favorite junior senator from Ohio, J.D. Vance. If you are not familiar with J.D. Vance, maybe you're familiar with his writing.

from a 2016 best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that was also turned into a truly terrible movie in 2020, starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams.

Vance is also a former venture capitalist, having previously worked for Peter Thiel and AOL founder Steve Case. Vance's own VC firm launched in 2020 and was backed by former Google CEO and Democratic mega donor Eric Schmidt. Meanwhile, if you want to leave a review of Vance's book on Goodreads, you can't because they shut down that review function, which is just like an A-tier move.

Yesterday I was looking at photos of J.D. Vance and, you know, I'm not here. I only I'm only here to say that people are hot on this podcast. I'm never going to call people ugly, but but I wouldn't describe him as the spoiler alert. He's not hot. He does have amazing eyelashes, though. I was like, is he does have good eyelashes? He's not wearing makeup.

The same Eric Schmidt we just talked about, along with George Soros, have donated large sums to President Joe Biden last month. Biden raised $38 million after the debate. Other billionaires are also taking sides, though. Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Elon Musk both endorsed Trump, and Musk donated $45 million to a pro-Trump super PAC. Great. Thank you so much, dude.

Every time I hear these political supporting numbers, at some point I'm just like, well, it is the future of democracy that's at stake. But then I also think about, like, I don't know, half a million homeless people across the country. Yeah. And it just makes me sad. But anyway...

That's enough politics for this podcast. More politics than we've ever talked about, honestly. Burberry has appointed Joshua Shulman, veteran of Jimmy Choo and Bergdorf Goodman, as its new CEO. Their last CEO only lasted two years, so the company has now gone through four different CEOs in the last decade.

First quarter revenue is down and sales are declining for Burberry across all regions. Global finance company Intuit laid off 1,800 employees or about 10 percent of its workforce. Over half were labeled as underperformers in a memo from CEO Sasan Godarzi, where he noted that the company has, quote, significantly raised the bar on our expectations of employee performance.

Now, Intuit plans to hire 1,800 new employees in engineering product and sales roles. That's kind of crazy. Yeah, it feels like a bit of a salt on the wound going out. It's like, just so you know, this isn't because we're in financial straits and need to do layoffs. You're just bad at your job. It's not me. It's you.

And finally, it's time to celebrate consumerism with Amazon Prime Day. Stores including Timu, TikTok Shop, Target, and Walmart are all competing with Amazon and offering deals through July. And now... Target Circle members hive rise up. Well, this all sounds very fun. Well, now it's about to take a dark turn. Climate experts warn that

Prime Day can be disastrous for the environment, causing mass overconsumption and sending loads of single-use plastics to landfills. Wow. Well, and that's the news you need to know this week.

So, Josh, if you were a presidential nominee, who would you pick as your running mate? And why would you not choose me? Well, I was going to say, obviously, like you're my co-host. I could be your Kamala. I just like show up and make no sense all the time. The super cuts of your turns of phrases would be amazing. I can't wait for that. Who would I choose as my running mate in a serious way?

Oh, man, this is hard. Thinking of my post-presidential career, could I choose somebody where I know we would make great reality TV together after everything goes wrong? That's true. That's a good point. In that case, I'm going to choose Heather from Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. She had the details on reality Von Teese. That's what we want in a vice president, someone who comes with receipts. Yeah.

What about you? I feel like there's no way to actually seriously pick someone here. No, there's nothing. All we know is we need an older white dude if I'm running, so. That's true. Who's like a good older white, like Tom Hanks or something. We

We'd win. Yeah, Tom Hanks would definitely get you there. Although people would be like, why is he not running for president? Yeah, that's right. Too much weight at the bottom of the ticket. And now this is just a deeply unserious conversation because we needed a little bit of levity before we go into our next story. Yeah. So in the newscast, we mentioned that Amazon is terrible for the environment.

And the reason we bring that up again is because last week, Amazon announced that it had hit 100% of its renewable electricity goals seven years early. But

But a report from an Amazon employee group argues that this claim is misleading. They say that only a fifth of the company's data centers in the U.S. actually run on clean power. But that latest Amazon report actually coincided with a report by Goldman Sachs about AI's power demand, which says utility companies will need to spend nearly 40 percent more in the next three years to keep up with demand from cloud service providers like Google and Microsoft. For example, Triton.

Training an AI model like OpenAI's GPT-3 required just under 1300 megawatt hours, which is the amount of power used by 130 U.S. homes in a year. So if Amazon and other companies are already struggling to change to renewable energy, what's going to power AI? More fossil fuel consumption? Will tech companies do anything to mitigate the environmental impact?

Here to break it down for us is Fast Company Deputy Digital Editor Morgan Clendaniel. Welcome back to the show, Morgan. Hey, Yaz. So I want to start by talking about this report from Amazon Employees for Climate Justice Group. They're saying that Amazon plans to invest over $5 billion into Saudi Arabia to build new data centers by 2026.

They claim that since Saudi Arabia's electricity is all powered by oil and gas, the investment contradicts the company's commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy. Can you explain the discrepancy here? Yeah. So Amazon buys renewable energy credits, RECs, we'll call them RECs. So they buy a renewable energy credit for the amount of clean power that's produced by a solar plant or wind farm.

And so in theory, RECs are supposed to push new renewable energy to get built because you've invested in a certain amount of solar power that now a company knows you're going to buy. Is it like sort of buying carbon offset credits? You know what I mean? Like some companies do that? Similar to that, but not exactly the same.

So the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group says that 60% of Amazon's RECs are unbundled, which means that they don't fund any new renewable infrastructure. They just give credit for renewables that already existed or were already going to be built.

Amazon also doesn't buy any credits that are specifically tied to the grids powering their data center. Right. So like one thing you could do is be like our data center is in Virginia. And so we are buying renewable energy credits like at solar plants in Virginia. So our data center is.

specifically is powered by clean energy, but what they do is just sort of buy renewable energy credits globally. So their Virginia data center could be running on coal, even though they've paid for solar power, you know, in Canada. Gotcha. And similarly, the credits that they're using aren't tied to the time the energy was used. So,

So the data centers are running all day and all night. You know, if you're buying only solar renewable energy credits, that's obviously not doing anything about your nighttime power use. And as, you know, Amazon builds new data centers, which every company is doing, if they put it in a place where there's no renewables available, that can mean fossil fuel dependent grids end up building new fossil fuel power plants to help.

power the data center. So generally, the Amazon employees for climate justice are saying that RECs that Amazon is buying don't really mitigate the emissions that its data centers are using. What was the company's response to the report? Yeah, so, you know, our reporter asked them to respond to the report. They got back to us after we published and said that the 22% figure is based on incorrect figures and assumptions. Classic. Yeah, classic. And

and noted that their RECs, they're using them until

The wind and solar power that they've invested in comes online. But the employee group stands by its calculations and says those hundreds of projects shouldn't be counted yet because they don't exist now. They might not get built. And again, they're like not always on the same grid as the data centers. Did Amazon give you a timeline for when any of this is happening? No, you know, it's like. No chance. It takes a while to build wind turbines and put up solar. So who knows?

So, branching out a bit, I also want to talk a little bit about the overall ecological impact of AI, since that's where Amazon and other companies are putting their efforts. According to the World Economic Forum, the computational power required for sustaining AI's rise is doubling roughly every 100 days. Why does AI require this much power?

To explain it a little, AI sort of requires a lot of power in two different areas broadly. There's the training phase and what's called the inference phase. So the training phase is when you feed it every word that's ever been written or, you know, tons of images and that teaches the model how to behave. And then the inference phase is just the fancy word for saying, you know, the phase when you ask it to make

make a picture of the Pope eating spaghetti or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shrimp Jesus. Yeah, exactly. Which we've talked about. Yes, if you want to sound fancy when you ask it to make shrimp Jesus, you can say I'm operating the inference fizz. Right now, the environmental footprint is split according to studies. Training is about 20% and inference is taking up the lion's share at 80%, obviously.

Global data centers add a lot of power because they require a lot of cooling and it requires a lot of power to keep the data centers cool. And globally, the data centers, all data centers, not just AI ones, account for like one to one and a half percent of global electricity use. And the energy required to run AI tasks is accelerating, you know, around 26 to 36 percent, depending on what study you look at.

So that means by 2028, AI could use more power than the country of Iceland is a good example. How much they used in 2021. So it's obviously a country's worth of power for shrimp Jesus. Yeah. For some context, you know, when we're talking about the amount of power AI requires, what does it mean on a grand scale? You just mentioned the country of Iceland, obviously. But how do you think about this sort of

effect on the global energy mix? Well, so, I mean, I think that's like an important thing to think about when we're talking about this. Obviously, one to one and a half percent of global electricity use is pretty small. And so like when you see a number like AI is growing by 36 percent, it's still like 36 percent.

growth of a small number. I do think it's important to take a slight step back and be like, this is not the number one problem in global electricity use. And it's just a hot thing right now. And so it's like, there are some alarmist headlines about it. At the same time, it is growing really fast. There's no sort of end to the vision of what AI can do. And so like,

good to start thinking about it and thinking about solutions now instead of waking up in 10 years and it's 50% of global electricity use and we're like, oh, whoops. Should have thought about that earlier, right? So I think it's obviously sort of in between those things. But I think it is important to put in context that it's not like a looming problem. If you were going to try to fix the global electricity crisis,

use, like try to lower global electricity use, AI is like not the first thing you would pick. But like, let's make it so it doesn't have to be later. There was something kind of reassuring about that Goldman report, not the energy use part. That was actually probably the more alarming part. But it was nice to see a report that was like,

yeah, a lot of shit generated by AI is wrong. I was like, thank you. Somebody finally, it's just like, is this really the way of the future? I think it probably is, but it was nice to read a more measured take on the potential of AI, if that makes sense. There's really been no in-betweens on any AI headlines.

have line. Exactly. It's the same to this electricity question that Morgan just brought up earlier. It's either like the end of the world or it's the beginning of a new utopia. And the reality is probably somewhere in between. Every tech company is now facing the challenge of how to meet enormous energy demands from AI. Microsoft's energy use jumped by about 30 percent since 2020, thanks to AI. Google's emissions have grown by nearly 50 percent since 2019.

How can cloud commuting services like Amazon Web Service continue their operations without maxing out the power grid? Yeah, I mean, so there's, you know, some strategies that companies are starting to use. They're like pretty intuitive. There's stuff like capping power usage.

They can try to do some of their tasks during low energy use times. You know, they could set it up so the model is just training it at night when there's like more flexibility on the grid or do bigger projects in the winter. You know, in our hypothetical Virginia data center, like maybe you want to do a thing that gets the data center really hot in January, not in August. Right. So you're spending less power cooling it.

And, you know, there's sort of technical stuff about centralizing data centers, which could help reduce the energy consumption instead of having them spread all out. I think, like, this is also positive. It's not just environmentalists whining at the AI companies. You know, if they use less power, they are spending less money also. There's a business upside for them to make these efficiency gains as well. I want to jump back to the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group calling out Amazon on its energy use.

How do you think Amazon could improve here? What were the kinds of demands that employees were making? So employees actually pointed to Google as a better model. So there's a tech company that they say is doing better. Google, you know, aims to use carbon-free energy 24/7 on every grid where it operates, which is basically like if its data center is drawing power, that power is coming from solar or nuclear or wind or whatever else.

Amazon, in response, says it prefers what it calls an emissions-first approach to buying clean energy, which is that it's trying to maximize its carbon reductions, which includes buying the RECs. There's a Princeton study that shows Google's 24-7 approach is more effective. So the Amazon employees have some ground to stand on there. But no doubt Amazon will be issuing its own report. Sure. Yeah.

What are some of the steps we can do as consumers to be more aware of this technology? I'm guessing Josh needs to stop trying to make more shrimp Jesus photos. Yeah. Or at least do it in the winter. Yeah, exactly. Confine your shrimp Jesus-ing to colder months. Well, you don't know where the data center is, though. Yeah, that's true. It's in a subtropical land. It's probably close to you, though. But anyways...

It's summer right now. I think your air conditioner is probably doing a lot more to your energy footprint than your trim Jesus thing. But it is worth considering that these things don't happen miraculously. The creation of your funny AI thing does have an impact beyond your computer. That makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you so much, Morgan. Thank you.

We'll be back with Morgan for Keeping Tabs, but first, a quick break, followed by our interview with Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer. We're back, and it's time again for Brands That Matter with Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer. This is our monthly segment where Jeff takes us through the latest in the world of branding and marketing. Beer! Beer!

Welcome back to the show, Jeff. Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me. Or Jeff, as I should say. Oh, ooh, ooh la la. Oui, oui. Fresh from France. Fresh from France. Jeff, I was hoping that you would come back from your trip to the south of France. Like a sophomore study abroad student. Just a beret and mispronouncing everything.

I'd be like, Jeff, what did you have for breakfast? And he'd be like, a croissant. Croissant. An omelette de fromage. Every morning I had a...

Yes, well, I was at Cannes Lion. Yeah, last time we talked to you, you were heading out. Yeah, it was a big week. I mean, people should check out our reels and all that on Fast Company socials. I have one piece of feedback for your reels. Oh, yes, please. Consider a beret instead of a baseball cap. I mean, that's more like life advice. Yeah.

Thank you. I'll take that into consideration for next time. So yes, I was at Cannes Lions. I interviewed the Kelsey brothers at Sport Beach, which is run by Stagwell, which was a lot of fun. They were really cool and interesting. They were exactly like they are on the podcast, even not in front of the public, even just backstage waiting to get on stage. They were comparing chest hair lines. It was really funny. And I talked to Chief Growth Officer of Kraft Heinz, Diana Frost, Google CMO Lorraine Tuhill,

And Amazon, let's see, Delta, a whole bunch. Also, oh, Mike Cesario, founder of Liquid Death. And just talking about what they were thinking about the rest of this year, because the fall is a busy season for brand work, back to school and all the sports start and blah, blah, blah. What were some of the sort of common themes? And were people talking about AI? Yeah.

Oh, gosh, yes. Actually, the first session, I think, of the week was on stage. I mean, David Drogo is the CEO of Accenture Song and Mira Marotti, the chief technology officer of OpenAI. So, yes, AI was on everybody's mind. Or you tell us what the overall conclusion was. Can I take a guess? Sure. AI will give us time for more human creativity. You know what? And less boring tasks.

Every talk, every talk you go to. Fair enough. You know what I will say, though? So much of the discussion has been either like it's this creative revolution on one end of the spectrum and on the other, it's an apocalypse for jobs and human creativity.

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't just about kind of accelerating the speed and cutting down costs like the efficiency of the work. A lot of it was talking about how it can elevate the humans that are working there now as it comes to brand creativity and brand work. They were thinking about how this can actually make all the work better, not just cheaper and faster.

more things will be engaging and more things will be better. Maybe that'll happen. But in the short term, I think we're just going to see a lot more crappy work faster. Like if you look at that Toys R Us ad that came out the other week that was fully created by AI and you look at it and you're like, yeah, no shit. It's terrible. Toys R Us was the dream of Charles Lazarus. May all of your dreams come true too. Hell yeah.

I was into it. That kid has a real creepy look in his eye. It was terrible. We talked to the creatives behind the Michael Cera Sarave work, which was gangbusters in culture. And one thing I asked them was the creative directors behind it.

what does this matter? Even if it's the titanium, it's like the biggest, it's like the best picture of the Cannes Lion Awards. It's like, it's not category specific. It's just about the best work. And they were up for it. And they were just like, they had all this cultural validation, but it is cool in the industry. It helps them careers, but it also just, when you're recognized by your peers, it actually, it means a lot.

The winner of Titanium was actually DoorDash for its DoorDash Everything Super Bowl campaign. Boo. It was good. No, it was cool. We did talk about that before you left. But I think it was a cooler idea than the actual, the execution, what actually happened. The idea and the logistics behind it were super creative. And I'll tell you, though, one thing, this is kind of behind the scenes, the agencies or the brands had to go and present Titanium.

their case to the panel of judges, not just submit an application. And the original intent of this wasn't for a big song and dance, but was that the judges had a chance to, because all the applications obviously are presenting the best, the best stats, the best everything. So the people who know the industry actually can look at those applications and be like, okay, hold on a second. But what about like peel the onion a little bit. But like one thing that was

interesting and maybe a little worrying is that much like when we talk about Oscars, you know how there's like the Oscar campaign? Yeah, we talked about this last episode. It's less about the movie and more about how studios lobby and like market themselves specifically for an Oscar and how I'm on the side of that might dirty the water a bit in terms of just

judging a film on its merits and how it is. The same goes here. I mean, the presentation to the judges is about asking those questions and hearing to make sure these things are real. And what it sounded like to me, someone was saying there was a comment where, and I won't say the brands, but they were talking about how one brand was up for the titanium. They said the presentation was a little sleepy.

And then another one was, oh, so dynamic and so amazing. And my question was like, who cares? That's not the point. The point is the work's already done. It's not about like creating another little piece of work to pitch the work. Can there be an award for the best marketing product

Of a marketing campaign. The Riz titanium. The Riz titanium. Yeah, totally, totally. I mean, this is a human factor thing. I mean, anytime there's an award and there's a judge or there's like a panel that comes up or like we see it in like job interview coverage. It's just like the sort of things that get valued that actually have nothing to do with the quality of the work or the person's ability to do a job gets valued because we're humans and we like people with Riz, essentially. You know, DoorDash just sent

the car full of shit to every judge. No, no, no, no, no. They're very good. And I think one thing that's interesting because the Cannes Line is the biggest awards, most global awards, that I think a lot of Europeans don't really even know

Michael Cera necessarily or the cultural impact of that, how funny that is and how weird that is. Sometimes lost in translation can happen as well. So Jeff, what are some of the ads you've been looking at this week? I saw Etsy on the list.

Etsy launched a new brand campaign that I think is actually going to be, they're going to buy some time and be part of Olympic advertising in the next couple of weeks. But they have a tagline they introduced in 2017 called Keep Commerce Human. And it's basically leaning into their platform as a place for handmade goods, a place where individual humans are the retailers, as opposed to the explosion in Amazon and Shine.

What does a robot know about love? That said, I think your point still stands about keeping commerce human, but I did read some stats about the fact that it's like full of drop shipping places. Oh, really? Etsy's like overrun with that stuff. But anyway. Sure. It is a criticism for sure. But I do think as a, as a,

And certainly they're not trying to say like, forget technology. The spot itself is cool. And it's been said, this is not an original thought by me, but it was kind of the antithesis of the Apple crush ad where everything was being crushed into a piece of technology. It really leans into the handmade aspect. And I think just as a brand message, that is something that Etsy has.

It differentiates Etsy as a retail platform. Right, yes. And it's definitely something to lean into. But it's funny, it's interesting how they're straddling that, not anti-technology, but pro-human in a way that is using technology to make it even better. What about Taco Bell, which I know you love? You're fully team taco. Yeah, I do like Taco Bell. Back in 2019, they actually opened a...

pop-up hotel in Palm Springs. And it went gangbusters. It sold out. It got all kinds of earned media. It was a huge...

brand success. So now this week they announced what they're calling an early retirement retreat exclusively to its rewards members, which I think just means like adult camp for anyone who wants to feel like they're retired. It's called the Cantinas and it's a two-day experience that will be in San Diego in sort of mid-August. And it'll have, they say, quote, senior-inspired sun-soaked activities like shopping, dining, golf, aerobics, pickleball, of course, and

And memberships are available only to Taco Bell Rewards members. And I think it said overnight reservations are like $150 and day passes are $50. I'm sure it's going to sell out and it's going to be full of merch. That's pretty cheap, actually. Yeah, exactly. The brand...

and is now leaning into in new ways, the combining of like experience beyond their restaurants, beyond their food to really connect with fans, but also obviously get coverage like this. We're talking about it. It's going to be written about whoever goes to the cantinas for a two day experience is going to post like crazy about it. Obviously it's silly, but I think it's super smart. Now,

Now, there's also the new Brad Pitt F1 trailer, which I am very excited about as a Drive to Survive fanatic. Now, McLaren, all have a speed on the straights. Our shot is battling in the turns. We need to build our car for combat. How am I supposed to make that safe? Who said anything about safe?

It's just cars. It's just driving noises. If you asked AI to create a trailer for an F1 movie starring Brad Pitt, it might do it. It was like all action. Brad Pitt

All set to Queen. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It actually was a great trailer because it didn't give really anything away. But apparently, but F1 was involved in this film. So that's why I'm bringing it up as a bit of a brand. It didn't give anything. It was just car, car. All adrenaline straight into your veins. Who said anything about making it safe? And that's it. That's the only plot point we got. Perfect. So the Olympics are coming up next week. What kind of ads should we expect to see? What are you looking at?

Well, I mean, obviously, you're going to get all the usual suspects of all the major sponsors, your Coca-Cola, your Visa, your Hisense, maybe, I don't know, some Russian conglomerate, who knows? McDonald's, of course. But I like taking a look at like some of the less than sort of expected partnerships.

and see how they'll play out. Glossier has become the first ever beauty partner of the U.S. women's basketball team through a partnership with USA Basketball. They've been featuring like women's basketball players in their ads for like a really long time. They've kind of really committed to this whole thing. Yeah, they're a WNBA sponsor. So this will be just on the Olympic side for women's basketball. Should be cool to see how they use that. Another thing that I'm really excited about is that they're going to be

Another one is the Gap brand Athleta has an Olympic TV ad and a campaign starring Simone Biles. And that was actually created in-house by Athleta. You got Reese's peanut butter cups. They're changing their shape for the summer with metal-shaped peanut butter cups to support Team USA. Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah. So it just stays round. Right.

Is this the joke? There's different rounds. No ridges. Oh, no ridges? No ridges, man. Oh, okay. A little USA, USA stamp on the top. Another weird product one is Chipotle rolls out gold wrappers for their burritos, which I had never heard of, but apparently this is a thing during the Olympics. Does anyone notice? No, if you got a burrito that was in gold, you'd be like,

I'm eating this burrito. Cool. Like there's nothing. Is this inside out? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure about that one. This still has guac on it, right? Yeah, exactly. Now let me ask you, what is your favorite Olympic ad? They're not as maybe talked about as much as like, say, Super Bowl ads. But the Olympics is one of those opportunities that brands can do what they call like brand ads, where it's less about like, hey, buy this product because it's good and you'll like it. And it's more about vibes. Right.

I do love the P&G's Thank You, Mom, which I believe started for the Winter Olympics, but it basically had

a bunch of athletes showing moms taking their kids to sports. And it's like a real tearjerker. P&G, proud sponsor of moms. It's so emotionally manipulative. Totally, totally. Josh, what is your, do you have a favorite Olympic ad? I mean, it's definitely the Thank You Mom ad. It's like, it's really good. I also thought just from a sheer like good ad, like a good pitch perspective, the Airbnb commercial was...

was pretty good. Why stay in a hotel on the touristy side of Paris? Get an Airbnb on the Paris-y side of Paris. So I was like, okay, that's a pretty good pitch for Airbnb. It was a cool kind of like claymation style animation of it that was cute and short and sweet. I thought that was effective. Love claymation. I was looking for a good Canada-related ad to bring up in this segment before we close.

And I found one from the earth. And I found one. Excellent. From like, when is it? It's from 2006. Do you remember Ben Johnson? Yeah.

He was the fastest man. I know exactly what you're talking about. Canadian disgrace, Ben Johnson. He like broke the world record for a hundred meters and then he got done for steroids. Oh, and he came back and tested positive again in a drug test and was banned from sport. And then this company called cheetah power surge sports drinks hired him to

to make ads where he says, I cheetah all the time. It was so bad. It's so bad. It's rough. And it's really embarrassing for him. That cheetah ad. I resent you bringing that up. I resent this whole thing. That does not represent Canadian advertising. Don't need to win this podcast. National magazine. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me.

We are back with Morgan, and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each of us shares a story, trend, or piece of pop culture we're following right now. Sourced from the many, many tabs open on our computers. And Morgan, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? So last night was the baseball home run derby before the All-Star Game. And some woman who I've never heard of because I'm old named Ingrid Andress sang the national anthem there.

And apparently did such a bad job that everyone's making fun of her. And then she just announced that she did such a bad job because she was drunk and is going into rehab. So like she did such a bad job. Oh no, this is so dark. Oh, that got so dark. So like I was, I just saw the headline that I'm keeping tabs on watching the actual performance, which I'm going to be honest is like bad, but not, I,

I feel like people are overreacting. It was like not a great national. Is it Fergie level bad? No, it's like not Fergie level bad. It's just like it sounds like someone who is not great at singing trying to sing the national anthem. It's like, I guess she should be good at singing because that's her job. But it's not like you're not like, oh, my God. Wow. You're like, well, she didn't didn't get those notes. I feel like people are being a little harsh.

Yeah. She's no, uh, remember that child who sang the national hockey game? Oh, she was my keeping tabs. She was amazing. She was so good. And she was like seven. Well,

Well, she should give Ingrid Andrus some tips when she gets out of rehab. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? Okay, so there's this TikTok comedian's account. His name is Jeremy Colhane. And he does this series within TikTok. You know, you can group things as series. And he has this one series called Soft Boys. Yeah.

which is about 13 videos deep at this point. And I don't know why it's called soft voice necessarily, but it's basically him and three other comedians. It's all a bunch of white men, younger comedians. Basically, the premise of each of these videos is that these four guys are doing like cringy TikTok trends and dances. So they have one that's like

to the chaperone song. They have others that are to like other things that are in the view. And so they do these really like cringy satirical versions of those. But then the video is all cut after like they finish the,

the TikTok video to, like, a POV shot across a field watching them and listening to them talk about, like, how it went in this very absurdist way between the four of them. And then the videos start to slowly incorporate true crime elements that's basically that all four of these guys, the soft boys, are actually...

presumed dead from cold cases and they work in this this true crime podcaster who's investigating these quick cuts i like this makes no sense how i'm describing it you have to watch it i don't know why it tickles me so much but it's really funny and it's really i think pretty smart in a development and just so absurd and bizarre but i'm really into it

I will be honest. It sounds awful. I respect that. No, yeah, I respect that. It's fine. I don't think I'm giving the soft boys justice. Yes, what are you keeping tabs on?

So today, the New York Times food critic Pete Wells announced that he's retiring or like, I don't know if he's retiring from working altogether, but he's leaving his job. I know people really loved his review of Guy Fieri's restaurant. That was entirely questions. I felt like that was punching down a little bit. It made me sad because Guy seems like a nice person. I don't know if it's punching down. Guy Fieri has a lot of money. He's very successful. And is very successful. I guess

I just want to say it's easy to make fun of it. Oh, yeah, that's true. But everybody loves going to Flavortown. That's true. The one I loved was his review of Senior Frogs and Times Square RIP.

I think it starts with like chaos reigned or something. But he actually had a really good time. But the interesting thing about his retirement was he wrote an article about it in The Times and he talked about the toll that restaurant reviewing had taken on his health. And he also spoke to other food reviewers, Adam Platt, a couple of others, about the

how bad it's been for them basically to eat these sort of like salt, fat, acid, heat, sugar meals constantly, like a few times a week. And listen,

It's hard for me to feel too sorry because I think restaurant reviewing is kind of a dream job. You get to go out and eat with your friends all the time. But it's not something I thought about a ton. He talked about how a lot of like male restaurant reviewers had died pretty early deaths. I did think that was a little bit of like...

rather than causation because then he talked about a lot of women who managed to live a pretty long time. But anyway, super interesting. I'm sad he's retiring. I like his reviews. But the piece is also fascinating. It's a really like

interesting way to go out and gives you an insight into a job that seems pretty amazing. And I've always really liked Pete Weil's article. He's definitely been like a go-to if I've been like looking for a restaurant to go to. Like he's one of the reviewers I'll go to. And it was a really well-written article. A little navel-gazing, but also... Yeah, it was like, dude, I don't know. If they paid me to eat at restaurants, I would be happy for when it's worked.

But also just well-written and an interesting story from his perspective, which is par for the course for Pete Wells. And as somebody addicted to sugar, I understand where he's coming from. And that's it for Most Innovative Companies. Morgan, thank you for joining us. Of course. Anytime, yes. Our show is produced by Avery Miles and Blake Odom, edited by Julia Xu, mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres, and our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review, and we will see you next week.