Tip of the iceberg

It’s Monday everyone! Strap in for a jam-packed Brew to get you over the Sunday Scaries. Here’s your refreshing Brew for April 10.

DIGIT OF THE DAY

Millennial-focused media company Mic has raised $21 million in Series C from Lightspeed Venture Partners (more on them to come), Time Warner Investments and others in order to roll out nine new channels on their site. Mic drop.

Ticker

MARKET CORNER

Market Snapshot

Stocks finished off a tumultuous week only slightly down, despite two major risk-off events including the Syrian airstrike and a disappointing jobs report. Investors shrugged off the news, also sending Treasury yields and the dollar higher.
This week, investors will pay close attention to financial stocks as earnings season kicks off.

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Feds Find ‘Systemic Compensation Disparities’ at Google

In court on Friday, Department of Labor officials accused Google of violating federal employment law, suggesting that "discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme."

Naturally, Google rejected the claims, saying it performs annual salary reviews and found no gender pay gap within the company. Friday’s hearing was the result of a case filed in January, in which the department is seeking in-depth hiring data, a requirement of all federal contractors. Google rejected these claims as well, and the investigation remains open.

This is just the tip of the iceberg

Silicon Valley is under fire, and its problems go well beyond Google. Peter Thiel’s Palantir was also sued for similar contractor data in 2014. However, issues around employee data and compensation aren’t the only things plaguing the Valley—there may be a larger diversity issue at play. Speaking at Auburn University this weekend, Apple CEO Tim Cook said "the U.S. will lose its leadership in technology if this [discrimination] doesn’t change."

YouTube Shuffles Ad Rules

After Amazon, Coca-Cola and other high-profile companies yanked ads from YouTube in recent weeks, the Google-owned company said it would not display ads from any publisher that has less than 10,000 combined views on their channel. Since a relatively small fraction of total channels reach that milestone, the company says it can better vet potential ad placement. Pex, an internet data firm, estimates only 12% of all YouTube channels have accumulated over 10,000 total views.

TaskRabbit Might Order Up a Sale

Gig economy darling TaskRabbit, the on-demand app for grocery shopping, furniture building and apartment cleaning, is looking to sell itself—and has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to advise the process. To date, the San Francisco startup has raised at least $38 million from VCs such as Lightspeed Venture Partners (the OG Snap investors) and is already cash flow positive in many cities. TaskRabbit’s strong momentum is driven by a number of key partnerships (like with IKEA), rapid expansion into 40+ cities and the dissolution of several competitors.

Two Companies, Two Lost Product Chiefs

Pour one out (or two): streaming pioneers Netflix and Spotify both lost Chief Product Officers last week. Greg Hunt, who joined Netflix 18 years ago to oversee the company’s transformation from old-school DVD delivery service to streaming powerhouse, will depart for meditation app Headspace.

Elsewhere, Apple has poached Spotify product head Shiva Rajaraman to help roll out its premium streaming service to compete with Amazon and Netflix. This comes at a time when Cook & Co. aim to double revenue in Apple’s Services division (think Apple Music, iCloud and the App Store) by 2020.

What Else Is Happening…

KFC will no longer use antibiotics in its fried chicken
Hackers set off tornado sirens across Dallas
Google has rolled out fact checking in search results to fight fake news
Spanish golfer, Sergio Garcia, earns $1.98 million in first Masters and major win of his career

Economic Calendar

Monday: Labor Market Conditions Index, Janet Yellen Speaks
Tuesday: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, 10-Year Treasury Auction
Wednesday: Delta Airlines, Pier 1 Earnings; Import and Export Prices
Thursday: JPMorgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo Earnings; Weekly Jobless Claims, Consumer Sentiment, Fed Balance Sheet
Friday: Consumer Price Index, Retail Sales

WATER COOLER

2016: Hot and Cold for CEOs

This past week, many public companies released their 2016 annual reports. Yes, there’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo, but the reports also include some interesting nuggets, including juicy CEO compensation data. We all know the stock market killed it in 2016, but you wouldn’t know it based on some CEOs’ salaries:

Bob Dudley, CEO of BP, received $11.6 million, a 40% drop from 2015. This came after 60% of BP’s shareholders voted on an opposition to BP’s pay policy. Power to the people.
Home Depot’s CEO, Craig Menear, was paid $11.5 million—a 1% decrease from last year. It might sound like a small drop, but it’s pretty odd considering the company’s profit increased by 14% in 2016.
Not all CEOs were feeling the pain: Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS, saw his pay increase 23% to $69.6 million. This jump was fueled by a $32 million bonus. We see you, Leslie.
Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, is also feeling good after 2016. He was paid $19.1 million, a 30% increase from 2015.

THE BREAKROOM

Question of the Day

What is the only number in English that has its letters in alphabetical order when spelled out? (Answer)

Stat of the Day

$1 trillion: the total debt that American credit card holders have racked up for the first time since before the Great Recession. While this may appear concerning, people are spending significantly more money, and the credit card delinquency rate (i.e. not paying your bill on time) remains very low.