Tesla's Ride-Sharing App Tease

Feels like home... But isn't. Online real estate platform Zillow expanded its virtual reality feature Monday so you can tour that cozy 1-bedroom without schlepping there. But shares fell 4% on a WSJ report that its "iBuying" house-flipping strategy may "flop."

• The iBuying concept: Zillow will buy your house, often without seeing it, based on the price its algorithm says it's worth. Then Zillow sells it so you don't have to.
• Your benefit: Speed. Convenience. No dressing up your studio to let strangers in to judge it.
• Your cost: You pay Zillow a higher selling fee for that service.

iBuying is like an affordable 2-BR NYC apartment w/ washer/dryer & AMAZING view... Maybe too good to be true. Zillow stock jumped 25% in Feb. when the CEO announced it was doubling down on iBuying. But shares are back down now on word Zillow's not making as much off the higher fee — And on the increased risks of owning tons of homes.

• 2018: 4% of Zillow's revenue came from iBuying.
• 2019: The percentage of revenue from house-flipping is predicted to rise to 41%.

Set your watch to Elon-time... which is typically 18 months late. That's critical context for Tesla's big autonomous driving update — Just as other carmakers push back timetables for robotaxis, CEO Elon Musk said this Monday:

• The surprise: “All Teslas produced today have everything necessary for full self-driving — All you need to do is improve the software.“
• The bold claim: He's "very confident" Teslas will be fully self-drivable by next year.

Airbnb your Tesla in an Uber network for Teslas... Here's the vision revealed Monday: Once the Teslas can drive themselves, owners can add their cars to the Tesla Ride-Sharing App. Elon sees it like this:

1. Tesla owner doesn't need it for a few hours, so switches to "share mode".
2. That Tesla gets summoned by someone who needs a ride.
3. Self-driving system handles entire ride (don't forget to rate the robodriver).
4. Tesla returns to the parking spot to await its owner.
5. The ride fare gets split: Tesla keeps 25%-30%, Tesla owner keeps the rest.

Cue the hazing ritual... Kraft Heinz announced Monday it's replacing its CEO with Miguel Patricio. Shares barely budged on the switch, but they're still down 43% in the past 12 months. Some of that's caused by you not eating hot dogs and mac anymore. The rest is on the company:

1. Kraft Heinz revealed in Feb. that its Oscar Mayer and Kraft brands were worth $15B less than expected.
2. Then it cut its quarterly dividend payout to shareholders by over a third because of smaller profits.
3. And the SEC's investigating it over something in its accounting books.

An "obsession for cutting costs"... That's been the un-fun, un-secret, unsuccessful formula baked into Kraft Heinz lately. It's the business doctrine of Brazilian private equity firm 3G, which teamed up with Warren Buffett to finance the $49B Kraft and Heinz merger back in 2015 (3G also bought Budweiser). Cutting company-wide budgets may have made some short term extra profits, but insiders say it's hurting long term sales.

• Hungry: Beyond Meat targets $1.2B valuation when it becomes the first plant-based meat company to IPO
• Boarding: Bed Bath & Beyond shakes up its board because activist investors told it to
• Plastic: PayPal's Venmo closes in on a new partnership to launch a credit card
• Raincheck: Samsung delays launch of its $2K, foldable phone because of "screen failures"
• Heated: Goldman Sachs releases its Sustainability Report on Earth Day (spoiler alert: change is hard)

• Earnings from Snap, Twitter, Verizon, eBay, and Lockheed Martin

Disclosure: An author of this Snacks owns Tesla shares.