Morning Brew Daily

AI is Driving a Memory Shortage & Detroit Wants to Revive the Sedan

30 min
Feb 17, 20262 months ago
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Summary

The episode covers a critical global memory chip shortage driven by AI data center demand, which is forcing consumer electronics makers to raise prices and delay product launches. Additionally, the show discusses ByteDance's advanced AI video generation model C-Dance 2.0, Detroit automakers reconsidering sedan production, and viral internet trends like looks-maxing.

Insights
  • AI infrastructure buildout is creating cascading supply chain disruptions across consumer electronics, with memory chip makers prioritizing high-margin data center chips over consumer products
  • Memory chip price increases of 75% month-over-month and 600% year-over-year are forcing major tech companies to either absorb costs, raise prices, or exit product categories entirely
  • Chinese AI companies like ByteDance are competing in video generation and creative tools rather than chatbots due to English-language training disadvantages and export control restrictions
  • Consumer price sensitivity is forcing automakers to reconsider sedan production as loss leaders to maintain brand loyalty, despite profitability challenges
  • Viral AI-generated content appears to be a deliberate marketing strategy where companies allow copyright violations to generate press and awareness before enforcement
Trends
Memory chip shortage extending product timelines and forcing 2028-2029 delays for major gaming consolesResale market for secondhand computer memory components spiking 300% as new memory becomes prohibitively expensiveByteDance emerging as competitive threat in creative AI tools (video, photo, text-to-video) rather than large language modelsConsumer shift toward affordability driving automakers to reconsider entry-level sedan segment after decade-long focus on high-margin SUVsAI video generation capabilities improving in narrative/storyboarding quality, narrowing gap between AI and human-created contentClip farming and Discord-based content distribution creating new attention economy dynamics for influencer marketingCollectibles market (Pokemon cards, NFTs) continuing to attract venture capital and celebrity investor interestValue-focused consumer behavior spreading across industries (fast food, automotive) as inflation pressures persist
Companies
Microsoft
Building AI data centers that require massive memory allocation, contributing to global memory shortage
Meta
Building AI data centers that require massive memory allocation, contributing to global memory shortage
Amazon
Building AI data centers that require massive memory allocation, contributing to global memory shortage
Google
Building AI data centers that require massive memory allocation, contributing to global memory shortage
Micron
Memory chip manufacturer diverting production to data center memory, away from consumer gadgets
Samsung
Memory chip manufacturer diverting production to data center memory, away from consumer gadgets
Sony
Considering delaying PlayStation launch to 2028-2029 due to memory chip shortage
Dell
Raised prices on commercial laptops by up to 30% due to memory chip costs
Nintendo
Stock down 45% over six months; considering raising Switch 2 prices due to memory shortage
Apple
Stock fell despite strong earnings due to investor concerns about rising memory chip prices
Tesla
Elon Musk stated company will build its own memory chip manufacturing plant due to shortage
ByteDance
Released C-Dance 2.0 AI video generation model with capabilities comparable to or exceeding OpenAI's Sora
OpenAI
Acquired OpenClaw AI agent project; Sora video generation model compared to ByteDance's C-Dance
General Motors
President stated desire to produce hybrid electric sedans after discontinuing Chevy Malibu in 2024
Ford
CEO said sedan market is vibrant; setting up Kentucky assembly line that could produce sedans
Chrysler
Planning to produce small cars described as beautiful, fun to drive, and aspirational
Toyota
Struggles to make profit on Corolla sedans despite strong sales
Xiaomi
Chinese smartphone maker avoiding certain memory-intensive products due to profitability concerns
Disney
Sent cease and desist letter to ByteDance for copyright violations in C-Dance 2.0 model
Paramount
Sent cease and desist letter to ByteDance regarding C-Dance 2.0 copyright violations
People
Tim Cook
Apple CEO predicted historic memory chip shortage will impact product launches and consumer prices
Elon Musk
Tesla CEO stated company must build its own memory chip plant due to severe shortage
Peter Steinberger
Austrian software developer who created OpenClaw AI agent; acquired by OpenAI for undisclosed sum
Clavicular
20-year-old streamer who became face of looks-maxing subculture; featured in New York Times
Logan Paul
Influencer and wrestler who sold ultra-rare Pikachu Illustrator card for $16.5 million
A.J. Scaramucci
Venture capitalist and son of Anthony Scaramucci; purchased Pokemon card for $16.5 million
Johannes Hossflat-Klabo
Norwegian cross-country skier with nine Olympic gold medals; compared to Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps
Pim Neal
Six-year-old Girl Scout who shattered Pennsylvania record with 100,000+ cookies sold in one season
Quotes
"We have been warned, so far in 2026, a parade of tech execs like Tim Cook and Elon Musk have predicted that the historic shortfall in memory is going to shake up product launches, squeeze margins, and raise prices for consumers"
Neil Freiman
"We've got two choices, he said. Hit the chip wall or make a fab."
Neil Freiman
"I would kill to have a hybrid electric sedan. We're working on how to do that."
General Motors President
"The sedan market is very vibrant."
Ford CEO
"I hate to say it, but it's likely over for us."
Rhett Reese
Full Transcript
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Maybe you've heard about the sports equinox, which are those rare days where all major sports leagues are in action. But today I'm dubbing the holiday equinox because billions of people all over the world will be celebrating a holiday this Tuesday. Down in New Orleans, the throw-in beads for Mardi Gras while in Brazil, Carnival began on Saturday. For Muslims, tonight is the beginning of Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. And in Asian cultures, today is the start of Lunar New Year, ushering in the year of the fire horse. And speaking of Lunar New Year, have you seen who's being embraced as sort of a mascot this year? It's Draco Malfoy. His face is everywhere in houses, on sites that are selling Lunar New Year decor. And it's because, according to the BBC, the Chinese translation of his name Malfoy is Ma Er Fu, which contains the words for horse and fortune, which is seen as especially auspicious in the upcoming year of the horse. Harry Potter is furious right now. And now a word from our sponsor, FlavCity. Neil, I don't care what people say. It is easy being green. You finally started recycling? No, of course not. I'm talking about FlavCity's new pepperminty shamrock all-in-one protein smoothies. I'm talking 25 grams of protein, 10 grams of collagen, and functional mushrooms in just one scoop. Huge relief. These protein smoothies provide quick nutrition on the go. Just add milk or water, shake for 20 seconds, and you're all set. No blender required. The limited edition Shamrock flavor is fantastic, but they've also got banana bread, brownie batter, vanilla, and more. Seriously, they taste as good as any milkshake. Head to go.shopflavcity.com slash MBDS to try any of their delicious flavors. That's go.shopflavcity.com slash MBDS. The world is facing a memory crisis. and no, I'm not talking about forgetting where you left your keys. Memory, one of technology's fundamental building blocks, is facing an unprecedented shortage that could jack up the price of your next gaming console, smartphone, or computer if they get released at all. Already, Sony is considering delaying its next PlayStation launch to 2028 or 2029, while Dell has hiked prices on some of its commercial laptops by up to 30%. Rumor has it Nintendo could raise the cost of its Switch 2 this year for the same reason. We have been warned, so far in 2026, A parade of tech execs like Tim Cook and Elon Musk have predicted that the historic shortfall in memory is going to shake up product launches, squeeze margins, and raise prices for consumers in a supply chain crisis that may well last years. Musk admitted the shortage is so dire that Tesla's going to have to make its own memory plant. We've got two choices, he said. Hit the chip wall or make a fab. Wait, why are we running into a wall again is a question you might ask. Here is the quick answer. AI. It all comes back to AI. Big tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google are building galaxies of AI data centers, all that require loads of memory to run. And to capitalize, companies that make memory chips, such as Micron and Samsung, have diverted their production lines to make memory specifically for data centers, leaving the consumer gadget makers like smartphone and PC companies fighting for the scraps. Toby, welcome to Ramageddon. So we do a little memory lesson because I feel like when people hear memory, their minds might go a little bit blank. So I'm going to break down the types of memory that we're talking about. First, there's DRAM. You're going to hear that word a lot. DRAM is sort of like walking into a library. You want to access an information. You want to access a book from a shelf. You walk to the shelf. You grab a book. You walk back. You repeat. It's very easy to do. It's good for a lot of normal tasks. It's not that fast compared to different types of memory, but it's cheap. Like a library card is cheap. You can access a lot of information that way. The way I remember DRAM is the Daft Punk album, Random Access Memories, because it stands for Dynamic Random Access Memories. Yeah, I didn't even say what it's for. So thank you, Daft Punk. And thank you, Neil. And then there's HBM, which is High Bandwidth Memory. And that is what a lot of companies are moving into because instead of walking to the shelf every single time, it's just like piling a lot of books right next to you on a table. It's much quicker. It's much more powerful. You can access information more quickly. It's literally built in a stack. And that is what a lot of AI chips need in order to perform their functions. And it's what a lot of memory makers are shifting production towards because they get a little better margin on that compared to something like DRAM. So there's a shortage of all types of memory right now, mainly because of allocation of resources from memory makers. And these companies are getting whacked. Have you looked at Nintendo's stock charts recently? Can't say I have, actually. Okay, well, it's disgusting to look at. Nintendo stock is down at 45% over the last six months. And it's all because of memory. They just had their earnings call earlier in February. They said that the memory shortage is going to squeeze margins of the Switch 2. And their stock promptly lost 11%. We also saw this happen with Apple. Apple had an amazing earnings, right? They were like, we just had the best quarter we've ever had. They're selling 23% more iPhones. But the only thing investors paid attention to was the rising prices of memory that Tim talked about and their stock fell, which was very perplexing given how good of a quarter they had. So it's just wrecking companies, these consumer gadget companies left and right. And it is tough because you know who's going to bear the costs of this memory shortage is probably consumers because prices are going to have to rise on this thing. I mean, the fact that the PlayStation is going to become more expensive or even delay, the fact that smartphones are going to get more expensive, these are things that are going to hurt your wallet as AI is kind of just wanting all of this demand because hyperscalers right now, you know, like the metas of the world, the people who are bringing on these big data centers, they are first in line. Everybody else, including you, me, and people who just want normal consumer electronics are back to the line. So we didn't even talk about the prices, right? This is why Nintendo and Apple are getting crushed because they're saying, well, we are paying so much more for memory. So here's what we're talking about. We're talking like this price chart is the opposite of Nintendo's stock chart. The cost of One type of DRAM was up 75% from December to January. In the span of one month, the cost of this type of memory jumped 75%. And then you have contract prices for DRAM and another kind of memory, NAND Flash. They're up 600% over the last 12 months. That's a seven-fold increase. So if you a company and you need memory to go into one of your products you either are going to raise the cost of your product or you just not going to sell it altogether And you see Dell and you see other PC and smartphone makers like Xiaomi in China saying well I not even going to offer this particular product with this type of memory because I just can't make it profitably. A very funny, you know, sub point to the fact that RAM is so expensive now is that resales of old consumer electronics are spiking. So computer overhauls which sells computers in New York City said they sold 16 gigabytes of DRAM which is not a lot for $160 before they were like we couldn't sell that for any money right now big data supply which is a California recycler of electronics said their revenue in January was up 300 percent because driven entirely by secondhand memory demand so maybe go through if you have an old PCs sitting in your garage. I don't know who actually does that, but if you do have one, go check to see if it has a memory card in there because you could probably fetch a pretty penny for it. Moving on, last week a video of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt on a cinematic rooftop was going viral across social media, but outside the 1994 gothic horror film interview with Vampire, the two megastars have actually never shared the big screen together. So where did this clearly Hollywood-level fight scene come from? A new AI video model called C-Dance 2.0 that once again has the movie industry shaking in its boots. C-Dance comes from ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, and is currently only on offer to Chinese users but will soon be available globally on its CapCut app. You can use it to create scenes with a single line of text, much like OpenAI's model Sora. And like Sora before it, C-Dance's capabilities have the industry talking. In response to that Tom Cruise Brad Pitt video, which was created using a two-line prompt in C-Dance, according to the user who posted it, Deadpool screenwriter Rhett Reese responded, I hate to say it, but it's likely over for us. But this is Hollywood we're talking about, and they're not going down without a legal fight. The Motion Picture Association said the model was violating copyright on a, quote, massive scale. Disney sent a cease and desist letter saying that ByteDance was hijacking Disney's characters, and Paramount followed suit with a letter of its own. Neil, we saw a very similar freakout happen when OpenAI debuted Sora, but by many accounts, C-Dance is more capable and it comes from a Chinese parent company, meaning the freakout is all the bigger. Is this just the marketing playbook now for a video generator? You come out with an AI video generator, whether you're OpenAI or MidJourney or Google or ByteDance, and you just let the users rip copyright and you get all this press because everyone's saying, oh, look at what Mickey Mouse and Goofy are doing. And then you got Disney sending a cease and desist letter. I feel like we've repeated this a million times, but it does drum up a lot of excitement for these particular products. And then, you know, the companies that make them kind of go back with a tail between their legs saying, oh, you know, this is so sad. We're going to crack down on this copyright infringement. But in the end of the day, you know, there still exists and a lot of people know about them. So I wonder if ByteDance looked at what happened with these other video generators and said, let's just do the same thing. I do just want to shout out ByteDance because it's been a little bit of a forgotten name, at least for American AI users. But apparently its flagship AI model is approaching the same level of usage as Google and OpenAI, at least based on token consumption. Their monthly active users are still lower, around 250 million, according to Quest Mobile, which is far below the 800 million that both Google and OpenAI are sitting around. But that being said, a lot of people in the AI industry are saying that maybe ByteDance is not going to be able to compete on chatbots because, one, most chatbots function using English as a first language. They're a little behind in terms of training. It's very hard for them to spin up the data centers needed to train these models because of export controls. So maybe they're looking elsewhere and say, where else can we win? That is photo editing. That is video editing. That is text-to-video generation. These models, they can have a wedge into. They're not as finicky or as heavy to train as large language models. And so maybe look out for the video tools that are coming out of ByteDance in China. Yeah, is this actually a step forward? Should Hollywood be freaking out? And, you know, some of the community is divided. Some are saying we're cooked. Some are saying this is trash. But it does seem like this is a step forward in the sense that it's better at storyboarding. That was one area of these existing AI video generators where it was kind of lacking. Like they could create a amazing 15-second clip of something like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting, but they just didn't have this narrative arc to it. And that maybe was one of the biggest gaps between what a human could create and an AI could create. This Sea Dance seems like it's pretty good at storyboarding and creating a compelling story. So that's why maybe more and more people in Hollywood are saying, well, yeah, this this industry employs hundreds of thousands of jobs and those could be soon wiped out. Moving on in the biggest coming out of retirement surprise since Gronk, the sedan is ready for its comeback. As The Wall Street Journal writes, Detroit's big three automakers are once again entertaining the option of making smaller cars just years after sending them to the farm upstate. The president of General Motors, which made its last Chevy Malibu in 2024, said recently, I would kill to have a hybrid electric sedan. We're working on how to do that. The CEO of Ford, which terminated the Fusion five years ago, said last month the sedan market is very vibrant. Ford is setting up a new assembly line next year in Kentucky that could also make sedans should they want to flip that switch. Finally, Chrysler is planning a small car that will, quote, be beautiful and fun to drive and aspirational, according to its CEO. A sedan comeback would truly be unbelievable given how hard they've crashed in the past decade and a half. As recently as 15 years ago, passenger cars accounted for about half of new vehicle sales in the United States. Last year, that fell to just 18%. In the sedan's place, trucks and SUVs have captured American hearts, minds, and market share. They've proven popular with consumers and automakers because they're far more profitable to sell, but perhaps they've become a victim of their own success. Car buyers are getting sticker shock from SUVs that regularly cost more than $50,000 and are looking for more affordable alternatives. This could be the sedan's time to shine. Sedans are just so hard to make money on because all of these quotes coming from these auto exams are going, yeah, we would love to have one, but in the next breath they go, we just can't figure out how to make one a profitability. Even the Japanese automakers like Toyota said that we are struggling here. We make money on the Corolla, just not a lot. That is coming from Toyota, a statement. So it is just interesting that they're all in a rock and a hard place between a sedan and an SUV. And they just really would love to bring a sedan to the market, but it's just difficult to right now. And it's frustrating for these consumers of these brands because sedans are usually entry points into brands. If you want to become a Ford person, if you want to become a Toyota person, you want to have a starter car. You want a car that's below $25,000. So you're actually losing some of that brand loyalty from those initial buyers that maybe will pay off in a $50,000 plus SUV down the line. So that is why industry analysts are saying like, you maybe need a loss leader in this point to just get people in the door and buying your brand. And that may be the justification if I'm an automaker CEO and I'm saying, well, should I roll out a sedan or not? Maybe you could think of it as a loss leader and get people hooked on Ford Focuses or exports and then hope that their next car will be a Explorer Expedition or F truck So that one way you could think about it What happening now is reminding me a lot of what happening at McDonald Because last week, McDonald's reported an amazing quarter because of their insistence on value. They rolled out a McValue menu, and that really led to booming sales because they were just dialed in on affordability. And that's what automakers are trying to do or thinking about right now. It's not as easy to flip a switch and create a cheaper burger as it is to make a cheaper car. But what's happening both in the fast food and auto industries and honestly across the entire economy is companies want to meet consumers where they are, which is they need to make more affordable things. The cars are very expensive to make, and it's not as easy as just saying let's build a sedan and sell a sedan because they can't make a lot of money on it. But it does seem to be that this is where the trend is going. It is very ironic that and very poetic that you mentioned that this new Kentucky assembly line that was meant to be made for $30,000 electric trucks for Ford is now being studied whether it could be converted to sedan. So it does feel like the auto industry is always one step behind what the consumer actually likes because they poured all these resources into electric vehicles. Now they're taking massive write downs on those. I wonder if we're going to see this big sedan push and then the consumer is going to go, actually, I do like my big car. I like staying above the traffic. Maybe I do just love minivans. Just invest in minivans. Everyone wants a minivan. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Toby's Trends right after this. 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It's about building awareness, spotting patterns, and knowing when to push and when to pull back so you can show up with more energy, presence, and intention. Turn insight into everyday action. Try it out at join.whoop.com slash brewdaily. That's join.whoop.com slash brewdaily. If you understand the sentence, Clavicular ran into a frat leader at ASU and got brutally frame-mogged by him, or the sentence, Clavicular was mid-jester maxing when a group of foids came and spiked his cortisol levels, then this Toby's Trends segment is not for you. For the rest of you, congrats on living a well-adjusted life, but I will do my best to explain the rise of what is broadly known as the looks-maxing movement. Glavicular is a 20-year-old streamer who rose to fame as the face of this subculture, where mostly young dudes go to extreme lengths to improve their physical appearance. Clav has been on steroids for years. He bone smashes, which is when you hammer your jawline to create a literal chiseled look, and generally tries to mog other guys. This life brings with it a whole new vocabulary. Jester maxing is the act of acting clowness to try and get girls. Foyds are just lame people. Mogging is sort of to outshine. So when Clavicula was getting brutally frame-mogged by an ASU frat leader, it meant that the frat leader had bigger muscles and wider shoulders than Clav did. This extremely online vernacular has broken containment of late. The New York Times recently sat down with Clavicula, helping usher in his look-smacking philosophy to the mainstream, and it's only spread from there. On Thursday, an official campaign account for North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper posted that he was seen vote-maxing, while the Republican National Committee recently praised President Trump for jobs maxing the economy. Neil, the internet spits out these new terms and phrases constantly. Eventually, they will feel out of touch. But right now, this is how people are talking. And I'll pause there before I explain Max too hard and spike your cortisol levels. I appreciate that. Toby, I was always wondering what it feels like to get mogged every day on this podcast. Are you speaking for yourself or for me? We won't go down that. Okay, this is the most Toby's trend that's ever Toby's trended because just the vocabulary of this has escaped containment and everyone seems to be using this like quote unquote maxing language. There's been a lot of focus on this young man's politics and where sort of what corner of the internet he comes from. Last month he was found partying in a Miami nightclub with far right figures Nick Fuentes, Andrew and Andrew Tate. They were seen chanting along to the Kanye West track, Heil Hitler. And so that was not necessarily a good look for this guy. He has said in the past few weeks that he swears off politics. He doesn't really care about politics. What his philosophy is transcends politics. And he was even asked about the 2028 presidential election, who he might vote for in that. And he said that he would probably prefer Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, over J.D. Vance, who's the vice president, not because of any politics, but because Newsom would mog Vance, right? Like Newsom just has a better look to him and he's a better looks maxer. So this is kind of just kind of a window into this man's worldview. Yeah, it's very like almost 670 in the type of where did this meme actually come from? It just came from a lot of different cultures that tied into a big thread that is now encapsulated by a looks maxing movement. And I do think that one thing that has contributed that's added fuel to this fire is just the fact that clippers are now so ubiquitous on social media. And by clippers, I mean people who go through these long live streams that someone like a clavicular does and just pick out the choice moments to then post online. And since we're in an intention game, it's the intention economy that we live in. The captions that they do post used to promote these clips are just absurd. So when I talk about you know gesture maxing at the club with foids like that is someone that is language that a clipper posted in the the idea that it going to go viral Like they doing this on a purpose But I think that you can talk about the rise of a movement like this without talking about these clip farms that are housed in Discord servers that streamers are paying to get their word and their brand out there. It's like a totally different attention game where they just flood the zone with so many different clips that it's just crazy right now, the world that we live in on social media. All right, let's move on from looks maxing in Sprint to the Fitness with some final headlines. There's another meme online that says, Claude, build me a billion dollar company, make no mistakes, poking fun at the idea that Anthropix chatbot is able to spit out a unicorn on command if you just ask it to. But the meme sort of became reality this weekend after the creator of the viral AI agent OpenClaw joined OpenAI for an undisclosed but likely hefty sum. OpenClaw, which was previously ClaudeBot and then MoltBot, was launched just last month by a single Austrian software developer named Peter Steinberger. It went super viral for its ability to carry out tasks autonomously for humans, like managing calendars or shipping code. Despite it being an offshoot from Anthropix's Claude Coding Agent, it was OpenAI who swooped in with a package Steinberger couldn't refuse to snag one of the hottest properties in the AI arms race right now. Neil, the project is open source and is currently losing $10,000 to $20,000 a month. Not exactly the stuff of big money acquisitions, but the project built up so many loyal fans that apparently everyone from Zuck to Sam Altman wanted a piece of the open claw pie. Reminds me a little bit of the Wordle story. Yeah. Where there's one guy sat down at his computer, coded something, and then you had big brands wanting to buy in. Now, Josh Wardle, I think his name was who built Wordle, uh, got a deal for in the low millions. And the, uh, uh, reported number for this particular deal was in the low billions was at least a billion. This is what this, uh, bidding war does, but it just shows that on any given Friday night, you could be coding the next billion dollar app, or you could just be sitting watching Love Island. When it comes to Pokemon cards, you don't need to catch them all. You just need to catch one that's really valuable. On Monday, influencer and wrestler Logan Paul parted with his ultra rare Pikachu Illustrator card for $16.5 million, making it the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction. It's an impressive return for Paul, who bought the card for 5.3 million in 2021, and a sign that this collectibles boom is not slowing down. So who bought the card? One A.J. Scaramucci, a venture capitalist and son of former White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci. The younger Mooch said this was just the start of a, quote, planetary treasure hunt. He said, I'm planning to buy a T-Rex dinosaur fossil, the Declaration of Independence, and I'm not stopping there. This is only the beginning. There was controversy tied to the sale because there's always controversy when it comes to either of the Paul brothers. When he originally bought the card, he offered to sell 51% on the marketplace that he founded called Liquid. Liquid eventually went under and lots of people were like, dude, are you gonna pay back these fractional owners of the card that they bought on your site that is now defunct? And he clarified on an expo that ultimately only sold 5.4% of the card instead of 51% and then did make those funds available to withdraw for people. But so lots of legal issues are swirling around this, namely the fact that Liquid is currently facing fraud charges from Canada's Securities Commission. So classic Logan Paul, controversy follows wherever he walks. Kind of bearing the lead here. A Pokemon card just sold for $15 million, $16 million. I didn't even blink an eye at that though because it was expected to sell for like this amount of money. The fact that it is, you know, Scaramucci descendant is just another like funny internet chapter for it. All right, the Olympics is now in its second and final week. So sad, but there are plenty of intriguing storylines to be wrapped up before the flame moves on from Italy. First is the absolute dominance of the U.S. women's hockey team. They have romped their way to the gold medal match versus Canada, having given up just one goal through six undefeated games. They're simply on another level. And speaking of greatness, Johannes Hossflat-Klabo, the Norwegian cross-country skier, is drawing comparisons to Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps in terms of blowing away the competition. He just became the winter Olympian with the most gold medals ever with his ninth total, and he's still got two more events to go. Need to find out this man's VO2 max. Finally, there's been lots of curling drama with the Swiss men's team accusing Canada of cheating via a double touch. Instead of apologizing like you'd expect, the Canadians shot back with an F off and extra umpires were called in to monitor the situation. Canada has the last laugh, though, because the Swedish men were eliminated from the event. It is so messed up that during an Olympics where we have Clabo staking his claim to be winter Olympian goat, the fact that we have this storied matchup between two hockey powerhouses, I am so locked in on a curling controversy because the camera angles, the yelling at each other's faces, like the creation of Adam, like finger picture that has been going on around on social media. But I am sort of Team Canada on this, believe it or not, because brushing the stone after release has negligible impact at best and negative impact at worst. So technically, by letter of the law, they're violating some rules. But by the fact that they're doing that, they're probably only hurting themselves. So I think it's a little bit of a manufactured controversy. That's where I lie. I know everyone was wondering, where do you lie? I think you're right. It is a manufactured controversy. But there have been a lot of those throughout the Olympics. and it's just been, it's just, it's been exciting, I would say. Are you team Sweden or are you team Canada in this? I haven't dove in, to be honest. You gotta dive in, you gotta dive in. Although- There's so much other things to focus on. Maybe stone don't lie though in Sweden is eliminated. Finally, I want to introduce you to one of America's most promising young entrepreneurs, Pim Neal, a six-year-old Daisy Scout in Pittsburgh. This weekend, Neal shattered the Pennsylvania record of most Girl Scout cookies sold in a season, topping 100,000. How did she do it? Neal is a natural marketer, she has knocked on doors, worked the phones, and gotten word-of-mouth traction at church and community groups. Shirley also helping is a viral TikTok campaign her dad has been running on social media, where Neil pitches her digital shop and keeps her audience updated with the most recent numbers. Toby, we must do all we can to protect her from Forbes 30 Under 30. Okay, so she wants to eclipse the all-time career sales record of 180,000 boxes held by a Girl Scout whose name is Katie Francis. But here's what I'm going to say. Katie started in 2011 with no TikTok. So I feel like Pim has some inflated stats because she's in the social media era. It's hard to compare stars across eras like this. It's like MJ and LeBron. MJ paid in a more physical league. I would argue Katie is MJ in this regard. But also Pim did reach 2,026 boxes without the help of social media. So she has the fundamentals down as well. So it's tough to say these are two stars at the very top of their game, but I think I'm still Katie Francis is the goat when it comes to the debate of Girl Scout cookies. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Tuesday. If you want to get in touch, send an email to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at mbdailyshow. 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. Hair and makeup never remembers to come to work. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.