Jack Crivici-Kramer
Appearances
The Best One Yet
đď¸ âInside StubHubâ â The Ticket IPO. Napsterâs $200M comeback. 23&Meâs DNA drama.
In the meantime, let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go.
The Best One Yet
đď¸ âInside StubHubâ â The Ticket IPO. Napsterâs $200M comeback. 23&Meâs DNA drama.
We can't wait no more, so just start the show.
The Best One Yet
𩳠âNike + Skimsâ â Nikeâs deal with Kim Kardashian. Protectorâs bodyguard app. Fire Trucks' oligopoly.
That's a good idea.
The Best One Yet
𩳠âNike + Skimsâ â Nikeâs deal with Kim Kardashian. Protectorâs bodyguard app. Fire Trucks' oligopoly.
From Wondery and At Will Media, I'm Misha Brown, and this is The Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time, like Quibi. It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to, like, get other people to do it. and the 2019 movie adaptation of Cats.
The Best One Yet
𩳠âNike + Skimsâ â Nikeâs deal with Kim Kardashian. Protectorâs bodyguard app. Fire Trucks' oligopoly.
Like, if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie. Find out what happens when massive hype turns into major fiasco. Enjoy The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Get started with your free trial at wondery.com slash plus.
The Best One Yet
đ˝ âLattes & Lavatoriesâ â Starbucksâ policy pivot. LAâs greedy landlords. Planet Fitnessâs biggest risk.
15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy. Tuesday, January 28th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Well, stocks fell big yesterday, Jack. You know why? Your stock market birthday winning streak is over.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
See how that does in your performance review at the end of the year. I'm going to miss a couple one-on-ones. Oh, three one-on-ones. That's interesting. So it turns out people with unlimited paid time off on average actually take 16 days off. We repeat, you could technically take 365 days off, but in reality, you take 16 days off on average.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
The Wall Street Journal found that 16 days is the magic number that most people with unlimited paid time off actually take. 16 is the magic number, but we've got a better number. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone working in America? The best work perk isn't unlimited vacation. It's mandatory vacation. So yeah, it is unlimited PTO actually turns into 16 days PTO.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But the wildest part, it's that that's low from a global perspective. Over in Austria, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Germany, all five of those European countries have a minimum of 20 days you must take required by law. Now, we know what you're thinking. People in Europe, they don't work as much as Americans.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But still, we're talking right now about an unlimited vacation perk that we don't even capitalize on. So the most generous vacation policy in America, in theory, is among the least generous in practice. But one solution to the PTO paradox that Jack and I found, we discovered from working in finance. Mandatory time off. Mandatory time off.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Every year, for 10 days in a row, you had to take vacation if you worked at a bank. Yeah, we worked at a bank, so we weren't allowed back in the building. You had to take time off. It was mandatory. Now, that was partly so the workers wouldn't get burnt out, but also partly because your bank went through your computer while you were gone to make sure you hadn't set up some kind of a Ponzi scheme.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Still, 10 days of mandatory paid time off set a minimum that nobody would feel guilty taking off.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But maybe, just maybe, we need a minimum number of vacation days, like in banking. Americans need more vacation. Unlimited vacation doesn't solve that. Mandatory vacation might. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? DeepSeek is China's world-class AI app, and it's a goodwill hunting moment for the AI industry. DeepSeek crushed the US stock market.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
It's actually good for AI overall, but it's terrible for the AI industry. For our second story, after 10 years of only Pepsi products in the food court, Costco is switching back to Coke. Coke is beating Pepsi because customers buy your product not your celebrities. They want to be friends with you, not friends with your friends.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Red Bull almost didn't happen, and it actually got banned in the entire country of France in the 1990s. But one bold bet and one genius marketer turned this into a billion-dollar brand. Red Bull is now bigger than Chipotle, and yet Red Bull only sells one product. So what's the secret that made Red Bull dominate the world?
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And finally, unlimited PTO is very limited in practice due to guilt, hustle culture, and the realities of working at a startup. But the best work perk, it isn't unlimited PTO. It's mandatory PTO. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, President Trump is claiming victory in his first tariff fight of his second administration.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Over the weekend, the USA imposed tariffs on Little Columbia down in South America. But after less than a day, actually like after less than an hour, Columbia offered to accept deportees in exchange for lifting tariffs. So Trump used the pain of tariffs to extract concessions on immigration. Like we said, tariffs as negotiating tactic.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And second, 1 million Americans who aren't expecting it are about to get a big fat check from the IRS. 1 million Americans were eligible for a pandemic stimulus check, but didn't claim it back in 2021. So they're expected to be as high as $1,400 per person. You'll just get an automatic payment from the IRS, $1 million. of you. Feels like a nationwide lottery with a million winners.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Congrats if you get one in February. And finally, remember that record cold last week like it snowed down in New Orleans on Bourbon Street? Well, it made airplanes go faster. Airplanes set record airspeeds of over 800 miles per hour as they crossed the Atlantic last week. That's right, because the bitter cold made the jet stream move faster, so it gave an extra tailwind to all those airplanes.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
The result, airplanes went 20% faster than usual because it was that freaking cold. And then your plane waited at the gate for two hours, so you actually got off two hours late. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Rachel down in lovely Flagstaff, Arizona. Last week, we mentioned Pluto. Yeah, the planet Pluto. We were talking about the five-second rule. Remember, Jack?
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
There's no more five-second rule. Things that were taken away from us, like Pluto, the planet. Yeah. Yeah, no, that may make you sad, but it's even sadder for Flagstaff, Arizona, because Pluto the planet, no longer a planet, was first discovered in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1930. Here's the criteria for something to be officially a planet. It must orbit the sun. It must be round or nearly round.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Check. And it must be orbiting on its own. It can't just hitch a ride from like an asteroid. Herein lies the problem. Pluto failed the third rule because Pluto shares its orbit with other objects in the Cooper Belt. Which is why scientists downgraded Pluto from planet to dwarf planet. And it's why Flagstaff, Arizona doesn't welcome those scientists anymore.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Ladies, you look fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. But now that you finished this pod, we've got the perfect thing for you to listen to next. And what is that, Jack? The best idea yet. It's our second show, deep dive, 45 minute episodes. They're incredible. Okay, this week's episode, it's on Red Bull. Wild origin story.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
It involves a toothpaste salesman and like a chemist in Thailand selling to truck drivers. It's wild. We got a link in the episode description. We'd love if you check it out. So check out the best idea yet to hear the untold origin story of Red Bull, Jack and I. We'll see you there. And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti Sarah Zuccaro in Las Gadas, California.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
To find out, you'll have to listen to The Best Idea Yet, our weekly show on the products you're obsessed with. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Click the link in today's episode description. Nick, hold the vodka because you got to listen to the wild untold story of Red Bull. Here you go. Oh, thanks, man. Before you dive into that, let's jump into today's T-Boy. Let's hit our three stars.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Also, she just earned her California life and health insurance license. Congrats. Fantastic. Happy birthday to Valerie in Rockford, Michigan, just outside Grand Rapids. And Trent Wisco is turning 49 years old in Greenbush, Minnesota with the best birthday yet. Happy birthday to Kamal Khan in Novi, Michigan.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And a shout out to Marcus A. in Dallas, Texas, who wants us to record a Hotline episode on financing for parents. Comment in this episode if you agree. Maybe, Jack, we whip one of those up. Wow, that's not a bad idea. And get this, Jack. Danny Gull and his wife, Candy, love Reese's so much that she got a Reese's barcode as a tattoo on her neck. And if you scan it, it comes up as Reese's.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
It really does. It really does. Glad you guys liked the latest episode on Reese's from The Best Idea Yet. I know Candy did. Candy absolutely did. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Disney. Nick owns stock of Shake Shack. And we both own stock in Apple.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
For our first story, one Chinese AI app shocked the world yesterday. It's as good as American AI, but at a fraction of the cost. That one app wiped out a trillion dollars from US stocks, and it reminds us of Good Will Hunting. Good Will Hunting, great movie. But Jack, in order to tell this story, can you transport us back to the Cold War in 1957? What was happening?
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Well, our first story is why stocks fell. Yes, it is, Jack. Three fantastic stories for today's pod. What do we got on the T-boy? For our first story, NVIDIA had the biggest single-day loss in stock market history. History. Because it was embarrassed by one Chinese AI app. Besties, we'll tell you what Deep Seek is and why it reminds us of Good Will Hunting. Great movie. Great movie.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
The Soviet Union launched the first satellite ever. They did? The first man-made thing to send up into space and have it orbit the Earth. It was called Sputnik. Sputnik. And America was surprised. Ever since we developed the world's first atomic bomb, we had a feeling that we were the technological leaders of the world in all cutting-edge technology. Until Sputnik.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And 70 years later, DeepSeek is AI's Sputnik moment. That's right. And those are the words of venture capitalist Mark Andreessen. He just said it yesterday, and it is big. DeepSeek is a Chinese AI chatbot that was launched just last week, but it's already number one in the app store. And Jack, what's even wilder than this app already hitting number one?
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Experts say that China's chatbot, DeepSeek, is just as good as America's best chatbot, ChatGPT. Sit down, stand up, and program that again. Across San Francisco, this was the topic of every brunch conversation from like the marina to Menlo Park. It's a Sputnik moment. It's a huge wake-up call for the tech sector. And also, it's a blow to our sense of American superiority.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Oh, and the scariest part of this story for America's AI industry, China is doing it for cheap. China just created maybe the most powerful AI tech in the world, and they did it without any NVIDIA chips. Because remember, the Biden administration, they blocked the export of our best chips to China.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
So DeepSeek is performing AI not with NVIDIA's $40,000 chips, but with very cheap, basic semiconductor chips. Like the Fritos of chips. So Silicon Valley built ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude thanks to hundreds of billions of dollars on advanced AI chips. But China just built the same exact AI thing with the reported six million bucks. That's it.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, they spent a hundred times more dollars than that to build their AI. It's like we've been building this rocket ship with our best, brightest, and biggest budgets. China just built a rocket ship with half the talent and a bunch of wood. It's an impressive feat by China, to be honest.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And honestly, it kind of reminds us of one of our favorite movies, doesn't it, Shaq? This is like Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting. It's totally like Matt Damon's character. He gets the same education as all those Harvard students, but he does it with just a library card.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
In this case, OpenAI is the fancy Harvard student. DeepSeek is Matt Damon. I think it's pronounced Jack. DeepSeek is Matt friggin' Damon. Now, we should sprinkle on a caveat here. To us, this seems unbelievable. That China could develop this powerful AI with such little money and such few resources.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But Wall Street, they announced on Monday through their stock trading that they think the story is true. And that led us to a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in artificial intelligence? This is good for AI, but terrible for the AI industry. Now, yetis, why was NVIDIA worth $3.5 trillion? Well, because cutting-edge AI required NVIDIA's fancy computer chips.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But after this deep-seek story, that doesn't appear true anymore. No, it doesn't. China just built advanced AI. with basic computer chips. The result? Nvidia stock plummeted 17% on Monday. That is the biggest single day drop in value for a single company in history. Nvidia lost $600 billion of stock market value on Monday.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
That's more value than Goldman Sachs, Disney Corporation, and McDonald's combined. Oh, and by the way, other chip makers like Broadcom, Arm, Oracle, they plummeted too. A total of $1 trillion gone from one Chinese app. But here's the nuance Nick and I wanted to share. This news is not bad for all of tech. In fact, Apple actually rose on the stock market on Monday.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
For our second story, Costco just switched from Pepsi to Coke. So we checked in on the most epic rivalry in business. Coke is finally beating Pepsi, and there is one fun reason why. And our third and final story. Unlimited paid time off was once the ultimate work for, but now it's the most resented. It's the PTO paradox. Unlimited is actually highly limited.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Why did Apple rise but Nvidia plummet? Well, Apple is not building their own AI. So maybe with this low-cost Chinese provider, they can get AI onto everybody's iPhones at a lower price. Yeah. Yeah, Jack, like if Chinese AI can lower the price dramatically, maybe more companies could embed AI in their products, like Apple.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
So China's deep-seek breakthrough, it shows that the hardware companies we thought were essential for AI may actually not be at all.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
For our second story, Costco's food court just made the biggest switcheroo in beverage from Pepsi to Coke. So we examined the Coke versus Pepsi rivalry because there is now one clear winner. And there is one reason why. But yetis, if you were at a local Costco last weekend, you may have noticed some drama over in the food court.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
It wasn't the chicken bake or the churros or that one person got ran over by the gigantic Costco shopping carts. Those require like a commercial driver's license. Wide load coming through. No Yetis. After a decade of exclusivity to Pepsi products, Costco's food court is switching over to Coke. To Pepsi fans, this was treason. It was. This was backstabbing.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
This was the Benedict Arnold move of beverages. On the other hand, to the Coca-holics out there, this was redemption. Because the next time you grab a $1.50 hot dog and soda combo at Costco with a double chunk chocolate chip cookie, it's going to come with a Coke or a Sprite, not a Pepsi or a Mountain Dew.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And this is a big deal because, Jack, what were the numbers we discovered on Costco's food court business? It does a billion dollars in revenue, which is on par with the entire chain of Shake Shack. That's right. So this is the biggest switcheroo in the beverage industry since Jesus turned water into wine. I think we can legally say that, Jack. Legally, yes.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But yet, is this got Jack and I curious? So we jumped in T-boy style. What is the status of the epic Coke versus Pepsi rivalry? After all, it's become the generic term for any type of business rivalry. Coke versus Pepsi. It's the Coke versus Pepsi of self-driving cars. Because Coke and Pepsi go back to the 1800s. Well, what did we discover, Jack?
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Pepsi stock is beating Coke stock because Pepsi has a thriving snacks business. So yes, Pepsi is winning the snack battle, but it is losing the soda war. Here's the deal. Pepsi's market share for soda in America hit an all-time high back in 1995 when they had 16% of America's soda consumption. Jack and I were young, soda was cool, but Pepsi was neat. It was young, it was hip, it was rebellious.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Pepsi was the top sponsor of MTV, actually. Carson Daly, he was chugging Pepsi three times a day over at spring break. Next to Carmen Electra. Yeah, that's right. Hey, Busta, we're going to need another round. But since 1995, Pepsi's market share has steadily declined. Now it's just half of what it used to be. Just 8% of America's soda is Pepsi products.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
In fact, last year, Pepsi got passed by old Dr. Pepper in a really awkward moment. Meanwhile, for 30 straight years, Coca-Cola has been number one in soda, maintaining a solid and steady 20% of the market. In fact, regular Coke is bigger in America than Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. You ready, Jack? Combined.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
So now Coke is slow dancing with Costco at prom and Pepsi is standing in the corner feeling really sad that they even came to the dance.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
And why is Coke finally beating Pepsi so badly? Legally, I think we could say that, but culturally, again, maybe not. I'm 0 for 2, Jack. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Coke and Pepsi? Remember, the customer is buying you, not your celebrities. Yetis, how has Coke beaten Pepsi for the last 30 years? Well, two different marketing strategies explain it all.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
really constrained in here. But yet is before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories, Jack. All right, Nick, we're kicking off today with a guessing game. I've got the best idea yet box. And inside is the product we're covering in this week's episode. I got three clues and you have to guess the iconic product. Bring it on, Jack. What do we got? Clue number one.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Since its high back in 1995, Pepsi has focused its marketing on celebrities. It's the brand that hangs out with the cool kids. Yeah, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Shakira, Beyonce, Cindy Crawford. Jack, remember the Kendall Jenner drama a couple years ago? I do, I do. Pepsi wishes I didn't.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
But while Pepsi has focused on other people holding Pepsi cans in their commercials, Coca-Cola's marketing has focused on itself. Right. Coca-Cola ads never feature celebrities. Instead, they always focus on Coke's core value prop. It's refreshing, it's classic, and it's nostalgic. Coca-Cola, it focuses on polar bears, not pop stars. Soda, not celebrities. Santa Claus, not Santa Kardashian.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
In an industry dependent on advertising, like soda is, Coca-Cola's core strategy won. Pepsi, they tried to be cool by association. Coke just tried to be itself. That's how you win in soda, and it's how you win on the dance floor.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
For our third and final story, unlimited PTO, unlimited vacation, unlimited holiday. It used to be the ultimate work perk, but we'll tell you why it's all backfired. And we'll tell you what the magic vacation number really is. One sec, Jack.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Sorry, I'm just checking the Google calendar here, and it looks like we got a Zoom at 3 p.m., a Slack at 7 p.m., and I think someone was in the Google Doc leaving comments at 2 a.m. Who is anonymous antelope? Frank from finance. It's him every time, Jack. Yeah, these technology has enabled workers to be always on call.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
So in response, some companies have adopted unlimited paid time off to compensate for you always being on call. In fact, right now in America, a record number of companies offer unlimited paid time off. That is right. 7% of all employees work at a company with no cap on vacations. Jack, could you sprinkle on some context for us over there, please?
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
7% is up 7x from 10 years ago when just 1% of companies offered unlimited paid time off. Oh, you're telling your parents about this? They don't know because they had to walk uphill three ways 12 days a week with zero vacation, actually negative vacation days. But today, if you work at one of these companies and you're going to Bali with a buddy this summer, you can do it for a month.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Or Jack, if you're going to Tulum for one week, make it two weeks. Oh, put time on my calendar. Sir, your calendar's blocked for the whole month of August. Yeah, because I'm on Block Island. But yet, this is what Jack and I find fascinating about this story. The reality of unlimited paid time off is more complicated than you realize.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
This product was initially made for Thai truck drivers.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
In fact, the more paid time off is offered, the less time people actually take it. Yeah, Jack and I call this the paid time off paradox, the PTO paradox. This is insane. Studies show that workers with unlimited paid time off take less vacation days than those with limited paid time off. Wild. And there are three reasons why. The first is the reality of working at a startup.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
If your company offers unlimited paid time off, chances are they're a smaller company. But here's the problem. You can't take those two weeks in Tulum if you're on the sales team because at a startup, you are the sales team. You're the only one working sales.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
You have the title head of sales. but you're the only one in sales. Okay. So that's the first reason for the PTO paradox. The second reason is reputational guilt. You're simply worried what people will think if you take off too much time. Full disclosure, we've all felt this. Your startup has a hustle culture. Everyone's racing to be first in, last out.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
Maybe helps out? Long rides? Decent guess, but no. Clue number two, it's a drink, but it's better known for extreme sports. Definitely spicy. It's got to be spicy. No, it's not spicy. Clue number three, it gives you wings. It has got to be Red Bull. It's got to be Red Bull. But yetis, here's the twist.
The Best One Yet
đł âAIâs Goodwill Hunting momentâ â Chinaâs DeepSeek Drama. Coke vs Pepsi vs Costco. Unlimited PTO Paradox.
You don't want to be the one noticeably still in Santorini. And the third reason you don't take that much time with unlimited paid time off is the approval process. Yeah, you still need manager approval to take that time off, which gets awkward when you're asking. Oh, you want to take three weeks off in August? Yeah. Your colleague Danny's only taken three days, but okay, I'll approve it.
The Best One Yet
đââď¸ âBoy Soberâ â The No-Marriage Economy. Arizonaâs Crazy Rich Asians. Snow White & The 7 Debacles.
Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop? From Wondery and At Will Media, I'm Misha Brown, and this is The Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time, like Quibi. It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to, like, get other people to do it.
The Best One Yet
đââď¸ âBoy Soberâ â The No-Marriage Economy. Arizonaâs Crazy Rich Asians. Snow White & The 7 Debacles.
and the 2019 movie adaptation of Cats. Like, if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie. Find out what happens when massive hype turns into major fiasco. Enjoy The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+.
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đââď¸ âBoy Soberâ â The No-Marriage Economy. Arizonaâs Crazy Rich Asians. Snow White & The 7 Debacles.
Get started with your free trial at wondery.com slash plus.
The Best One Yet
Exclusive đŚ âEducation Super Appâ â Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn announces next product on TBOY
I am definitely a people pleaser. Yes.
The Best One Yet
Exclusive đŚ âEducation Super Appâ â Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn announces next product on TBOY
You need an art degree to come up with that concept. Who comes up with that?
The Best One Yet
Exclusive đŚ âEducation Super Appâ â Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn announces next product on TBOY
Luis's lasagna principle. It just takes a while. It takes some time in the oven. It just takes a while.
The Best One Yet
đ˘ âBuy the Dip?â â Or sell the dip? Artipopeâs $3,800 baby carrier. Fordâs patriot discount.
Morgan Stanley's getting cleaned out. All right. Let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick.
The Best One Yet
đ˘ âBuy the Dip?â â Or sell the dip? Artipopeâs $3,800 baby carrier. Fordâs patriot discount.
that's it i don't even think they need to practice 50 that's a fat tip t-boy city on your at list if you know you know because we ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the show start the show first a quick word from our sponsor
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Tuesday, T-Boy Tuesday, January 7th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Hey! SPF T-boy, you are looking sharp and tan over there, Jack. How are the Bahamas looking fantastic?
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
If they were selling you a mattress, it better be packaged in a box and advertised on the New York City subway. We saved the latte. We invented avocado toast. No millennials, no jeggings. Just want to point that out. But ever since we launched this podcast, it's Gen Z that's gotten all the attention. Ah, Gen Z, they hate slim fit, they love lowercase letters, and they're a little bit anxious.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Every time we talk to a potential partner, they're like, how many of your listeners are part of Gen Z? And then we millennials had kids, and our kids are part of Gen Alpha. My first two kids are part of Gen Alpha, but my third kid, who's about to come... is technically in a new generation, apparently. That's right. Get this, Yeti.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Starting right now, this month, 2025, Gen Z is having babies, and that has led to a brand new generation. Gen Beta starts right now. Yes, it does. According to demographers, all kids born from 2025 until 2039 are going to be known as Gen Betas. Wild point, by the way. Gen Beta will live into the 22nd century. Yeah, the 22nd century.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So like in 2035, when you're playing Taylor Swift and you're flying Robocop. Your Gen Beta kids are going to ask you to turn off the oldies. In fact, Gen Beta isn't even going to have a driver's license because in 18 years, everything's probably going to be self-driving. You may not know how to drive stick. Yeah. Your kid's not going to know how to drive. They're going to have no idea.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in Gen Beta? Generations aren't defined by time. They're really defined by tech. Yet his sociologist Gene Twinge studies generations and said this, the biggest impact on a generation is the technology that forms its social relations. For example, millennials, we were raised in both a physical world and a digital world.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
You have died of dysentery. Besties, do the words bison, frostbite, or fording a river mean anything to you? Because those words are the foundation of the most important video game in history. The Oregon Trail. Because besties, every red-blooded American student has sat down at a gateway desktop computer at some point to play the Oregon Trail. Some
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So we appreciate things both with and without a digital element. On the other hand, Gen Z was raised in a purely internet era. So mobile and social media have shaped everything they eat, buy, and watch. Gen Alpha was born with virtual worlds like Roblox and the Metaverse. And they're hanging out with their buddies on Twitch. But what about Gen Beta, Jack? What technology will they be born into?
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Artificial intelligence. They'll be raised purely with AI. Yeti's gen beta is going to grow up with AI teachers, AI coworkers, maybe even AI friends, AI boyfriends, AI girlfriends. Little Johnny, who are you talking to on that headset? Oh, it's my AI study buddy. She's a bot and she's wicked smart. So besties, generations are truly defined by the technology that they use to connect.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
For gen beta, we're talking artificial intelligence. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for 2025? For 12 days now, Park City, Utah has been operating at one-fourth capacity because the ski patrollers are on strike. It's a ski-pocalypse! Vail Resorts, they picked the wrong battle. Because when you pick a battle, you gotta crunch the numbers first.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
For our second story, it's New York City's congestion pricing system. It's live, $9 per car during peak hours. Whether this epic traffic experiment has a future depends on the silent majority of non-car drivers. And our third and final story, 2025 brings a new generation of children known as Gen Beta. It's the generation born with AI.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Because generations aren't defined by time, generations are really defined by technology. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, the U.S. Congress certified the 2024 election results with Donald J. Trump as the winner. Vice President Kamala Harris played the ceremonial role as president of the Senate.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Four years after the riots at the Capitol on January 6th, there was no violence on this day. Meanwhile, in Canada, by the way, Justin Trudeau just resigned as his liberal party has lost popularity. And second, Fubo, the internet TV provider, is basically getting acquired by Disney. Disney competes with Fubo with its Hulu live streaming service.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
But instead of competing, Disney was like, um, let's merge Hulu live and Fubo and we're going to have a new separate company. Fubo stock rose 250% on the Disney news. And finally, according to reports, Turkish Airlines has... A bed bug problem. Passengers have reported bed bugs on flights in 2024 from Johannesburg, Istanbul, and Washington Dulles. DSA, I'm going to need another pat down, please.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Dylan Steinfeld from lovely Atlanta, Georgia. Push and play.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
A bowler got the first $1 million deal. I mean, Jack, there's big money in that bowling, man. Yeah, there's big money in bowling. Yetis, you'll look fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. And remember, after the show, we've got the perfect thing teed up for you right now. A fresh episode of The Best Idea Yet about the Oregon Trail. We dropped a link in the episode description.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Jack, fantastic to be back from you looking awesome over there. Great tan, by the way. Thanks, man. I can't wait to do it again tomorrow. Besties, we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Bobby Bullock over in the Air Force, flying high in Sacramento. Thank you for your service, Bobby. And happy birthday to Chris Labosco, the lawyer who's turning 30 over in Brooklyn.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
giant computer in the computer lounge at middle school. But Jack and I were curious, what do you know about where the Oregon Trail actually begins? Because the Oregon Trail was invented by three idealistic 20-something middle school teachers up in Minnesota. They built the game for kids, but the Oregon Trail eventually IPO'd on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Jack, he and his brother were at our New York City live show, and Chris won our Halloween costume contest this year, too. He's having the best year yet, man. Happy 35th birthday to Evan Munoz in Plainview, New York. And Diana Ross Giles, the Pilates queen of Beverly Hills, is celebrating a birthday. Happy birthday to Delia, who's celebrating with her husband and two sons over in California.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
And Ofer Broff in Ranana, Israel is celebrating a fantastic birthday. Happy birthday to Jordan the Shimmy Gustafson in Omaha, Nebraska. And Heb Zimmerman in New York City, happy birthday. Happy Dirty 40 to Steven Brody in Nashville, Tennessee. And Laleh in Lake Worth, Florida is celebrating the best birthday yet. And congratulations to Caleb and Sinead.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Both in the Air Force, both love bowling randomly, and they're both getting married over in Ireland. And Nate Goldstein's got a new job in Greenwich, Connecticut. Gonna throw this out there. Probably six foot five and working in finance. And get this, Nick. Angela, Rami, and Indah over in Stillwater, Oklahoma are having a friend reunion because they tagged one another in a T-Boy merch giveaway.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
And then they're like, We should get together. So they're all wearing the T-Boy merch in their hometown right now. What a fantastic trio, Jack. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the first wins of 2025. This is Jack. I own stock of Roblox and Disney. And Nick and I both own stock of Apple and Zillow.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. We want to get to know you.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
There's actually a case that the Oregon Trail saved Apple, the computer company, early on. And the true story of the Oregon Trail, it even involves Mr. Wonderful. Yeah, that Mr. Wonderful, the guy from Shark Tank. But the wildest part about this primitive computer game, what is it, Ned? Well, Jack, the Oregon Trail, it was never meant to make any money. Which made it make tons of money.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
And that wild Oregon Trail story is the latest episode of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet. The Best Idea Yet, the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. So besties, later today, after this T-boy, check out our weekly deep dive show, The Best Idea Yet. New episodes drop every Tuesday and they're free to listen.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Tap the link in this episode description because the Oregon Trail is simply the best idea yet. You haven't died of dysentery. No, you've survived, and that's why Jack and I got a fantastic show for you today. Jack, listen.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Harbor Island in the Bahamas is one of the most beautiful beaches you'll ever see in your life. The pink sand. It's the pink sand, yeah. We also found a bunch of live conchs, which really freaks you out. You see a beautiful shell, you pick it up and you're like, oh, what is this?
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
For our first story, the biggest ski company in the world has a $400 million problem. This is a ski-pocalypse. Because ski patrollers at Park City are pulling off the biggest strike during the biggest ski week of the year. Jack, to tell this story, how about we go back to my bachelor party? Because it was in Park City. I was hoping you'd bring this up.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
We skied at Deer Valley, but we booked a skating rink at Park City. We did. Where we went curling. We did curling. You know the Olympic weird sport of curling? Where you like broom the ice? You're making it sound like 80-year-old men. We were like 29 years old. It was wild. Well, Park City happens to be the largest ski resort in the United States of America. They have 7,000 skiable resorts.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
and snowboardable acres of terrain. But funny thing, the smallest part of that huge resort has effectively shut it down. Because the ski patrollers at Park City are on strike. The ski patrollers. The Professional Ski Patrol Association is on day 12 of their strike. Now, the strike began on December 27th, and it's still ongoing.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
This is the biggest week of the year for skiers, and it was ruined because of the strike. But, Jack, could you sprinkle on a little more powder context over there, please? Park City is owned by Vail Resorts, which is a publicly traded company, and it's one of the two Goliaths that is dominating the ski industry today.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
It is a publicly traded pure play powder stock, yet Vail Resorts happens to own the Epic Pass, which includes 41 different mountains that you can ski on. Vail Resorts is worth $7 billion, and it controls 36% of the U.S. ski industry. And despite all that massive size, Vail has been brought down to its knees by 204 patrollers in fancy branded jackets. So what did the ski patrollers want?
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
there you gotta watch your fingers they'll eat you before you eat them man i know how is hawaii hawaii was beautiful did sunrise canoeing best surfing of my life jack i eat so much tuna i have mercury poisoning but besties we missed you for the entire vacation so we are happy to be back and jack We've got three fantastic stories for today's T-boy. What do we got, man?
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Why have they decided to go on strike during what's supposed to be the holiday cheer season? Well, Jack, the reason the ski patrollers went on strike is because they want... a $2 raise. That's right.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
The ski patrollers want a base pay of $23 an hour. That's it. Instead, Vail Resorts, the $7 billion ski giant, is playing hardball with the patrollers and will not give them that $2 raise. Instead, Vail brought in patrollers from other resorts to try to break the backs of the strikers. Basically, they hired ski scabs. That's what Vail did. But it didn't work. No, replacement patrollers.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So the resort has had incredibly long lines as only a quarter of the mountain has been open. In fact, three different Yetis DM'd us with photos of what was happening in Park City saying, you got to do a story on this. There's something wrong with the business here, man. Park City couldn't safely open the rest of the trails without enough ski patrollers.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So people's expensive Christmas and New Year's vacations at Park City have been ruined. In fact, it got so bad that Park City turned off the comments on their social media feeds. There's a lot of hate going towards Park City right now. Nobody's got sympathy for the Goliath of the ski industry. On the other side, the patrollers are getting all the sympathy.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
They even set up a GoFundMe page to help finance their strike because they're not getting paid while they're on strike. And that GoFundMe page has $250,000 in donations in just the last week. Now, we should point out this ski-pocalypse over at Park City, it highlights the housing crisis in America's resort towns.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Jack and I jumped into Zillow to be in T-boy style, and we noticed the average home price in Park City, Utah is 1.6 million bucks. Meanwhile, these ski patrollers, they're supposed to live and work for 21 bucks an hour? Just doesn't add up. No, it doesn't, but it does add up to our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Vail Resorts?
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Run the numbers before you pick your battles. Yeah, big question we were wondering here was, was this worth it for Vail? Like, the patrollers are just asking for a $2 increase in their minimum wage pay. Could $7 billion Vail just paid it and been done with this? If Vail had agreed to the $2 pay raise, it would have only cost them $900,000 per year. That's a drop in the bucket for Vail Resorts.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
On the other hand, since the strike began, Vail's stock has fallen 6%. And what's the value of losing 6% of your company check? $400 million. That's right. Because this strike hurts Vail's brand, its loyalty, and it emboldens other potential strikers in the ski industry. Across the other 41 resorts that Vail owns.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
But, Bessies, Jack and I crunched the numbers further, and we discovered that since 20,000 skiers ski Park City each day during the holidays, but half of them couldn't ski during the strike... That's over a million dollars in lost food and beverage revenue just because of this strike. I mean, it's simple math. Add it up.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Vails lost millions of dollars in sales and loyalty over an issue that would have cost them just $900,000 to fix. In every business, you gotta pick your battles. You gotta pick your battles. It's best to run the numbers before you do. For our second story, America's first congestion toll is officially live in New York City right now.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
But the nation's biggest traffic experiment ever now depends on one thing. The silent majority. Oh, Yetis, we've got some tough news if you're driving from the Upper East Side down to the Meatpacking District to go clubbing this evening. What is that, Jack? Because as of Sunday, any car entering Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours has to pay a $9 fee.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
For our first story, it's the biggest strike in skiing history. Park City, Utah has a ski patroller strike. So Jack and I are breaking down the $400 million ski pocket. For our second story, it's the most ambitious traffic experiment that just began in New York City. Congestion pricing, aka the traffic tax. Because what happens on 42nd Street will affect every city in America.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
A $9 Fiat is welcome to the world of congestion pricing. Congestion pricing, a policy that is economically brilliant, but politically not brilliant at all. More on that in a second. This policy is so controversial that six months ago, New York's governor paused the policy at the very last second. Yeah, I remember that, Jack.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
During hot inflation summer, she canceled the whole program because she didn't want to lose votes in the suburbs. But post-election, and after lowering the fee from $15 to $9, congestion pricing is live. Yes, it is. The biggest traffic experiment in America. Honestly, the biggest traffic experiment since the stop sign. It's live.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
And yesterday was the first busy workday in New York City with this new system in place. And how do we do? How to go? What are people saying, Jack? Everything went pretty smoothly. Basically, this congestion pricing scheme, it operates much like E-ZPass, and it controls the lower half of Manhattan. It's actually the same technology as EZPass.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
The city set up 1,400 cameras at 100 points across Manhattan Island, and those cameras read your license plate as you drive through. If you have EZPass, it will charge your EZPass account $9 if you're a car, $22 if you're a truck. And if you don't have EZPass, then they'll mail you a bill in the mail and hope you actually pay that thing. Now we know what you're probably thinking.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
What about Ubers and taxis? Yeah, they have to pay this congestion fee too, but only $1.50, not $9. Now we know what you're feeling, fellow New Yorkers. You already got a lot of fees living in New York, so it feels kind of cringe to pay another one. It's already one of the highest taxed cities in the country. you may not be thrilled about this congestion fee.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
But the big question Jack and I had as this experiment begins is, will this experiment succeed? To find out, we're going to look across the pond because London launched the same traffic tax and they've had it in place for 22 years. That's right. London launched a traffic tax congestion plan in 2003. And it's been working great for those 22 years.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Now, the goal of congestion pricing fees is to reduce the number of cars on the road during peak hours. Because traffic is terrible for a city, you got major costs like noise, pollution, road rage, wasted time. I'm walking here! So a congestion tax, it nudges people during peak hour to not drive a car, but instead walk or take public transit.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Now, Jack, could you please whip out the whiteboard and tell us what happened over in London over the last 22 years with this same plan? The amount of traffic on the road dropped by 30%. People took the subway instead or they just walked. In fact, with fewer cars on the road, London let pedestrians take over the same lanes that used to be reserved for cars.
The Best One Yet
âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So London has more broad, roomy sidewalks, which make for a more livable city. Now, New York City, on the other hand, they don't expect traffic to fall by 30%, but they do expect it to fall by 10%. And they do expect to bring in about a billion dollars in fees every year thanks to this new plan.
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
And all of the revenue from this new congestion fee, it's going to go to funding the public transit system. But that led Jack and I to discovering this wild fact that tells the whole story. New York City's subway trains move more people every day than all of America's airlines combined. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over in traffic?
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
It's the silent majority versus the loud minority. Yetis, interestingly, the biggest group opposed to this congestion pricing plan, it's people in New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, the bridge and tunnel crowd. People who commute by car into lower Manhattan are pissed and they are really loud about their anger that they're going to have to pay nine bucks. But that's
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
The minority, because the vast majority of New Yorkers, they don't take a car. They take public transportation around. That's what we do. On a typical weekday in New York City, 3.6 million people take the subway. Let's compare it to how many people travel in airplanes. The Sunday after Thanksgiving this year set a record for air travel in America with 3 million people flying.
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
That means that New York City subway moves more people on its average day than America's entire aviation industry on its big day. Yeah. And if you add in the 1.4 million bus rides and the 1 million people taking the train, then 6 million people take New York City public transit every single day. And now every one of those people will benefit from fewer cars and more money for the subway.
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
And our third and final story. A brand new generation is born this year. All 2025 babies aren't Gen Z or Gen Alpha. They're Gen Beta. Gen Beta. Jack and I found the one specific trait that will define this younger, younger generation. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories. Amazing mix of stories for today's T-Boy Jack. Trigger warning.
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
So here's the big question. Will the silent majority, New York subway riders, reward their politicians for this grand experiment that prioritizes them? Or will the louder minority, commuting car drivers, put the pressure on to end the biggest traffic experiment in America?
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
For our third and final story, it's not just the beginning of a new year, it's also the beginning of a new generation. Because all babies born in 2025 are part of Generation Beta. And this new generation has one critical trait. Yetis, anthropologists, sociologists, and scientists, they have historically defined the generations of which we all are.
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Sometimes they use milestone events to bookend a generation. Yeah, like baby boomers. They're called baby boomers because after World War II, there was a boom in babies. But usually, they define generations based on a number of years. Every 25 years, a new generation is born because people tend to have kids beginning at the age of 25.
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âˇď¸ âSki-Pocalypseâ â Park Cityâs ski strike. NYCâs traffic tax. The Birth of Gen Beta.
Now, Nick and I think generations are fluid and kind of arbitrary, to be honest. We've done a takeaway on that before. But marketers and consultants love the construct of generations. There's big money in the generations. Like, Jack, we millennials, we had a good run. I remember when every company was catering to us.
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đ âHockey Warâ â NHLâs USA vs Canada win. Botox Bars everywhere. Metaâs undersea cable.
Let's hit our three stars. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick.
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đ âHockey Warâ â NHLâs USA vs Canada win. Botox Bars everywhere. Metaâs undersea cable.
that's it i don't even think they need to practice 50 that's a fat tip t-boy city on your at list if you know you know because we ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the show start the show first a quick word from our sponsor
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
this is nick this is jack it is thursday the new friday april 10th and today's pod is the best one yet this is a t-boy the top three pop business news stories you need to know today i'm so hungry right now jack i forgot you're prepping for your colonoscopy they make you fast for 24 hours and they didn't even tell me about that when i set up the appointment
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Well, their mattress company nearly went bankrupt, and they got bought by a private equity firm, so they're not in the running either. Warby Parker? Okay, interesting, fair point there. That eyeglasses brand, you wore them to the latest Mumford & Sons concert. They're arguably the most successful direct-to-consumer brand that's still standing. 800 million bucks in revenue, $2 billion valuation.
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They're publicly traded. They're doing well. But we think it's Harry's. They have higher sales than Warby Parker, probably a higher valuation. And Warby's didn't even see him coming. Oh, the ironic twist, by the way, Harry's co-founder, Jeff Rader, also co-founded Warby Parker. Isn't that wild? It is wild. Plus, Harry's just made an even bigger move than everything we just said.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
They confidentially filed to IPO. Ticker symbol, R-A-Z-I. In fact, Harry's just looked in the mirror and is so confident right now, they just renamed their holding company to Mammoth. Oh, ticker symbol M-M-M-T-H. I just like triple M, Jack, because like Google became Alphabet, Harry's is actually just one part of Harry's business. So now they're Mammoth. And that's our takeaway.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Harry's? Harry's succeeded because it's actually a startup studio. Yetis, there is one tweak in Harry's business model that made it different from every other DTC brand. Harry's isn't just one brand. They sell so much more than just razors. Through acquisition and the launch of new brands, Harry's has become a startup studio.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Because get this, according to Gartner, by 2028... 25% of job applicants will be fake. We repeat, one out of four job interviews will be with a deep fake robot, and you didn't even realize it. Fake resume, fake referral letters, deep fake digital avatars pretending that they're real in a remote interview. Tell me about a time you faced adversity. Ha ha ha, sure, I can do that.
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They're basically a startup accelerator for completely unrelated businesses that all live under the mammoth brand now. For example, Harry's founded a cat food company internally called Cat Person. That's right, this razor company owns a cat food business. They acquired the company Loom, which is chemical-free deodorant. They're now in the body odor business.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
And Harry's even launched another women's brand called Flamengo, and they launched that internally. Here's an interesting quote from Jeff Rader, that guy we mentioned earlier. We love the idea of having an ecosystem where a bunch of founders are running around building brands. Just running around building brands. And that's not your typical direct-to-consumer company, is it, Jack?
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Harry's beat out all the rest of the millennial brands because it's really a startup studio. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? President Trump dropped tariffs to 10% for all countries except China. To win this trade war, we're going to need to isolate China. So far, Trump's trade war is isolating the U.S.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
For our second story, the Masters sell sandwiches for just $1.50. It's the trend of low-priced sports food. The Masters is letting food be the lost llama that feeds the profit puppy. For our third and final story, Harry's is forming a holding company called Mammoth, and now they're plotting an IPO. It's a razor renaissance because their success lies in what they really are, a startup studio.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Oh, and by the way, we interviewed Jeff Rader, the co-founder of Harry's, like a year and a half ago. Search T-Boy Jeff Rader in your podcast app, and you can find that interview. But Yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today from trade war day number eight, because that was the only news yesterday. First, what a highlight of the relief rally was Apple.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Apple stock jumped 15% yesterday. That was the biggest single day trading jump since 1998 for the owner of the iPhone. And by Jackson, my estimate, this was the biggest jump in value for a company in history. $400 billion in market cap gained. The value of Apple stock gained one entire Netflix worth of value yesterday. And second, Delta Airlines and Walmart both did something unusual.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
They polled their financial guidance. These companies tell Wall Street how much money they expect to make every year. But there's so much uncertainty with the trade war still going on, they just don't know. They like simply don't know. Trump's stand down relieves uncertainty a bit. but we are still in a very uncertain place for the economy. Still trade war too.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
And finally, one more wild twist from yesterday's trade war drama. What do we got, Jack? In the morning, Trump tweeted in all caps that Americans should buy stocks. And then hours later, he actually paused the trade war. So if you listen to his advice in the morning to buy stocks, You enjoyed a tremendous gain yesterday.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Again, from all our research, this may be the first ever insider trading tip-off at a public level. It was an insider trading tip-off that the entire public had access to. Unprecedented. Now time for the best fact yet. This one, a Spotify comment left by Yeti Rafael Sarava. Yesterday, we mentioned that the Bezos Climate Fund is trying to breed cows who fart less in order to slow climate change.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
However, Rafael points out that cows burp way more than they fart. Despite what cartoons might tell you, most of a cow's methane emissions comes out the front end, not the back end. Yeah, about 95% of methane emissions from cows come from their burping. So that's what the Bezos Climate Fund wants to bring. Yeah, they want cows that burp less. That's what they want. Don't we all, Jack?
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Tell me your greatest strength and weakness. No problemo, here's a perfect example. Tell me about a team project. Cannot compute. Cannot compute. Reset. Okay. In fact, it's not just a future issue. Sneaky deep fake interviews are already being reported.
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Don't we all? Speaking of burps, Jack, you look fantastic. I'm about to lick this microphone. What are you doing? Why are you licking?
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Wait, a 36-hour fast? It's a 36-hour fast, and I got to drink some liquid serum tonight. I don't know what's in it, but it doesn't sound fun. Save your energy, dude. You've performed admirably in today's podcast. Oh, well, the podcast, that is energy priority number one right there, Jack. Shipped into low battery mode.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Yetis, while I am getting taken apart or whatever they're going to do tomorrow, enjoy the latest episode of The Best Idea Yet. We have a whole episode on the peep, the peep marshmallow. We got a link in the episode description, and Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Enjoy dinner, baby. And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Kyle Lynn, turning 30, and Yangon Burma.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
And Kyle's getting married on 420. Congratulations, Kyle. Happy birthday to Seth Bond from Carmel, Maine. This man loves his Legos. And Mary Grace, the legendary bestie over in New York City, happy birthday on the Upper West. And a quick shout-out to my brothers, Tuck, Teddy, and Nick. Love you guys, because it's National Sibling Day. And Katie, happy Siblings Day. Thanks for visiting last weekend.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
This is Jack. I own stock in Netflix. Nick owns stock in Delta. And we both own stock in Apple, as well as ETFs of the S&P 500.
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Yeah, there's one San Francisco tech company that just interviewed a candidate named Ivan X. He looked real on the Zoom, but his face didn't sync up with the words, so the interviewer was suspicious. True story, turns out he was actually a fake human created by a real scammer. Here's the scammer's goal.
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Get the job, snag the signing bonus, and then hack into the company with the credentials you just got on your first day. But besties, Jack and I got your back. We know the best way to figure out if your job candidate is real or is fake. Ask the person to eat a bowl of Cheerios right now and drink the milk at the end of the bowl.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
We call it the Cheerio test because they probably have some Cheerios in their house and no bot is going to pass that test. Save us, CAPTCHA. You're our only hope. Because Yeti's one out of four interviews is about to accidentally be with a bot. And if their name is reCAPTCHA, that's a red flag. Jack, let's hit our three stories. Stories, stories, stories.
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That's not a deep pick. Deep picks are way better than that. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
And they're also making you drink some serum every few hours. Jack, I started hallucinating. I thought my Uber driver was a pickle. I tried to lick him. But Nick, you're making a good long-term investment for your health, and I'm proud of you.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
that's it i don't even think they need to practice 50 that's a fat tip t-boy city on your at list if you know you know because we're ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the show start the show first a quick word from our sponsor
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
For our first story, yesterday, President Trump de-escalated the trade war. A 90-day pause on most tariffs except for one country, China. Stocks rose 10% in a tremendous relief rally. They surged. You should check your 401k today. Greg, congratulations. Strong to quite strong. But what remains is the USA versus China. Yeti's trade war almanac day eight. How tariffs are messing with the economy.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
We're keeping track for you from the tariff trenches. Yesterday, stocks rocketed 10%, the biggest point gain ever on Wall Street. And it was all on news that Trump is standing down. That's right, eight days after causing the biggest financial scare in five years, President Trump partially undid almost all of it. He realized he went too far with punishing tariffs to everywhere in the world.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
So here's the news. For every country on Earth, including those ones that had more penguins than people, they are now getting just 10% baseline tariffs. Whether you're Cambodia or Wakanda, there's a 90-day pause on all those punitive tariffs so that everyone can negotiate. Now, investors, they were relieved. Wall Street, it was pumped, except we should point out there is one exception here.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
And who is that exception, Jack? China. For China, Trump did the opposite. He jacked up tariffs on China to 125% after China retaliated on the U.S. So, Jack, let's put that new tariff into context we understand. If an iPhone is made in China and costs $600 to manufacture, it now faces a brand new $750 tax on top of that.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Add it all up, Yetis, and President Trump put the rest of the trade war on ice, but now he's playing a game of chicken with China's President Xi. Because earlier in the day, China raised tariffs on the United States to 84%. So China versus the USA is a hotter trade war than ever. The U.S. versus China cold trade war.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Which leads to our three stories of the day. Jack, what do we got on the T-boy? For our first story, the Dow surged by the most points in one day ever after Trump paused the trade war with every country in the world except for one. China. China. What remains is Cold War II. It's USA versus China. For our second story, the Masters begins today. It's the most exclusive golf tournament in the world.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Now, yetis, Nick and I personally believe that trade is good, unless the country you're trading with is cheating. And to be honest, for decades, China has cheated on trade, sometimes brazenly hurting American companies. We got three big examples, and none of them include tariffs, actually. but all of them hurt American companies.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
So Jack, the first way that China would hurt America on trade was good old fashioned IP theft. To operate in China, American companies were required to share all of their company trade secrets with a local Chinese partner. Oh, and if you refuse to do that, well, China is a notorious hacker of American companies, so they would just kind of go in and steal. your ideas.
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The second thing China did to hurt American companies is currency devaluation. Oh yeah, China's central bank, they actually kept the price of China's currency artificially low. Which keeps the price for made in China goods artificially low, and it's harder for American companies to compete in. Now, this third one is so wild, Jack actually read a book on this.
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China even would give out government bonuses for hurting American companies. We're talking a bully bonus here. Here's how it went down. If a Chinese furniture company cut the prices of their dressers to be so crazy low that it put the US rival company out of business, then China's government would step in and give that Chinese firm a bonus so that they would still profit.
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They incentivized Chinese companies if they put American companies out of business. That was a bully bonus, kind of like a little financial pat on the back, if you will. Now, for decades, America did nothing. We hoped that China would eventually start following the rules of global trade. Well, Trump is finally doing something about that imbalance, but the impact, it hasn't just been on China.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies at American companies? Winning requires isolating China, but Trump's trade war is isolating the U.S., Yetis, we won the Cold War against Russia because of a massive alliance with Western democracies. The U.S. could win the trade war against China with the same strategy of alliances, but so far it has not. And here's the evidence of that.
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On Wednesday, the European Union, our closest ally, basically sided with China and re-tariffed the United States. The optics of that are enormous. They're huge. On the same day that China attacked America with tariffsâ Europe did too. Now, forcing China to stop breaking the rules of trade, that would be a worthy goal of a trade war.
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But to win that war, we would need the rest of the world on our side. So yesterday's de-escalation of trade war too, it could help make that happen. It could bring back allies to our side. Because winning this trade war requires isolating China. But so far, we've just isolated the U.S. For our second story. Gold jacket, green jacket, here it is. The Masters Golf Tournament begins today.
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No cell phones allowed for four full days. But the biggest rule that we love about the Masters is their $1.50 sandwich strategy. We'll explain. Now, yetis, some say the arrival of spring is announced by the flowers. Others say it's announced by the March Madness basketball tournament. But Jack and I say that spring officially begins when you pop your collar for the Masters golf tournament.
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The Masters. It's the golf tournament that even non-golfers know about. That's why Jack and I wrote that poem. Azaleas are pink. The jackets are green. Time to put the Masters up on the screen. Nice. Yeah, it works. It works. The Masters tees off today in Augusta, Georgia, where Tiger Woods actually became Tiger Woods back in 1997. But-
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Besties, Jack and I are not interested in the golf, the merch, or the $20 million prize purse. We are interested in the grub. Because the Masters is a blast from the past, both in cuisine and in cost. It's basically an inflation defier. We'll explain. My nana would love the menu at the concession stand at the Masters. She would be all over it.
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And my social security check collecting grandfather would love the prices. Because get this, Yetis. For the 23rd year in a row, an egg salad or a pimento cheese sandwich at the Masters is just $1.50. And all the other sandwiches. Including like a honey fried chicken sandwich. A pork sandwich, an ice cream sandwich, a bunch of sandwiches. All the other sandwiches are just $3.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
So we were curious, why does the Masters have the cheapest food of any sports venue in the world? And our third and final story, Harry's Razors, the disruptor of shaving, is renaming, rebranding, and IPOing. So we'll tell you why Harry's Razors is actually the most successful millennial startup. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories... Oh, what a mix! Is that a hamburger?
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Jack, can you sprinkle on some context, please, to what we're spending when you and I see a game over at Yankee Stadium? I don't think you can buy anything at Yankee Stadium for less than like seven bucks. I think they take your foot. You have to give a foot if you want to eat a dog. So the Masters, this really interesting contrast.
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To join the club, you have to pay a $50,000 initiation fee, but there's no food at the entire course for more than $3. In this economy? Yeah, we'll take three of those sandwiches. Make it six. And this actually represents a trend. It's not just the Masters and Costco who are dedicated to underpricing their food concessions. No, Jack and I have been following this for a few months now.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Jack, what are the Phoenix Suns doing these days? They unveiled this year a $2 value menu for all their home games this season. Hot dogs, chips, and drinks are just two bucks in the arena. What about Coastal Carolina University? They took it one step further. free food and drink at all their football games this fall.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
And yet the Masters is selling a hot dog for 95% cheaper. What is the Madison Square Garden doing with this hot dog? Apparently it is five pounds and it requires a whole family. But back to the Masters, back to the Masters. The Masters is a unique business. Because it's actually not a business. It's a country club. The Masters doesn't even charge for TV rights.
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Instead, they just require strict adherence to the rules of etiquette. It's a weird organization. It is. They let CBS and ESPN broadcast The Masters for free. With some rules. Like they're only allowed to show four minutes of advertisements per hour. Basically, the Masters puts tradition over profit. But still, what's behind the surprising trend of cheap concessions at sporting events?
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So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies? Go into stadiums these days. Let your lost llama feed your profit puppies. Yetis, not every part of your business should be a profit center. Because sometimes a cost center can drive customers to your profit centers. Here's the idea. Take that $1.50 sandwich at the Masters.
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It boosts happiness, boosts attendance, and the big crowds, they look really cool on TV. And a pimento cheese sandwich was never going to make much profits in the first place. But on the other hand, Jack, merch like t-shirts, hats, and jackets, that is really profitable compared to food.
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And people who go to the Masters are so pumped about the cheap food they get to eat, they're probably going to buy more of the expensive merch. In fact, that's exactly what happens at the Masters. It turns out happy fans spend $10 million a day at the gift shop specifically. And that's where the Masters makes the most money. Exactly. It's the merch, not the food.
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Because not every part of your business should be a profit center.
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đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Oh, never mind, never mind. It's not a hamburger. Okay, Jack, fantastic mix of stories, Jack. The next time you're interviewing someone for a job, we have a warning for you. Yeah, that job applicant could be 100% fake. Now, we don't mean fake like a phony kind of person who's not bringing their true selves to the interview. No, no, no, no, no. Jack and I mean fake as in fake human being.
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
For our third and final story, Harry's, the shaving disruptor, is leading a razor renaissance. They're rebranding, renaming, and IPO-ing. Because Harry's isn't really a razor brand. Harry's is a startup studio. Jack, let's travel back in time a bit. Set the scene for us, 2019 Harry's Razors was a direct-to-consumer shaving unicorn.
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
When Nick asked me to be a groomsman at his wedding, he sent me a Harry's razor kit that said, groom yourself. Yeah, we do. He sent all the groomsmen. It's a very clever gift. I still use that. Thanks, Jack. Jack, well, back then, Harry's was about to sell their razor company to the owner of Schick. For $1.4 billion. Life was good. Grooming was hot.
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
If you shaved a handlebar mustache and lived in Brooklyn in 2019, you were probably using a Harry's razor. But then a big negative surprise came for Harry's. The government blocked the deal. The FTC said that selling Harry's would kill competition in shaving. Even worse, one year later, the pandemic arrived, which caused men to stop shaving because they didn't see anyone in person.
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Shaving shut down. You grew out a lumberjack beard while you were working from home. So after their sale got blocked, COVID crushed the business. The shaving industry looked shattered. Harry should have gone bankrupt at that point. They should have. Which leads to the shocking news. Harry's sales are up 20% since then to $835 million. Jack, that's an all-time high. Yeah.
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Harry's is now the second biggest razor brand in America behind only Gillette. It's a razor renaissance. Redemption?
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
Harry's deserves one of those hot towel massages you sometimes get after a haircut. They need to give it to themselves. Actually, their VCs should give it to them. But yeties, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. We'd argue that Harry's is the most successful direct-to-consumer startup of the millennial era. That's right. We just said it. They're the most successful.
The Best One Yet
đ¨ âGone in 60 tariffsâ â Trade War Pause. The Mastersâ menu strategy. Harryâs mammoth IPO.
In fact, we're so confident in that argument, we will shave our legs if you prove us wrong. Candidate number one to prove us wrong, you might say Allbirds is more successful. The iconic shoe brand is iconic. They went public a few years ago, but their stock, it's actually down 99%. How about Casper Mattress, who seemed to start this whole trend?
The Best One Yet
đ âI own a Waymoâ â Toyotaâs self-driving deal. Dominoâs pizza paradox. The Year-Round Horror Economy.
15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
Yetis, Nick and Jack here with you from the T-Boy Studio. On our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet, we go deep on the most popular products of all time. Oh, and last week, we went back to the most viral product from high school. If you didn't own a Juicy Couture tracksuit, can't sit with us. Juicy Couture, the first business to own the most important real estate on earth, your butt.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
But then a pea in the pod decides to remix their plans based on market research. When the Travis Spring Collection is finally released in stores, the colors have been changed to yellow, orange, and lime green. To Pam and Gila, this gives country fare, corndog. It's not giving class. Yeah. They think to themselves, what pregnant person would wear this?
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
But to their utter shock, those new colors sell really well. It looks like the market research was right. Pam and Gila were wrong. And they take that as a sign that it's time to get out of the maternity business. So Travis Jeans is successful for five years. And then one color scheme gets switched and Pam and Gila decide they're done. Yeah, you know, Jack, it's not just about the gingham.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
It's really like what the gingham represented. Pam and Gila realized that the market shifted away from their personal instincts. Once that happens, it's kind of like a baseball player getting the yips. It's just hard to recapture the magic. It's not always a founder's instinct to paraphrase Taylor and say, it's me. Hi, maybe I'm the one who's lost touch with my core customer. But you know what?
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
That is exactly what Pam and Gila do. They meet their remaining obligations, but then they close up the shop faster than a spirit Halloween on November 1st. But they're not done with the fashion business. They're just done with the maternity fashion business. On to round two. There is no greater hack in entrepreneurship than being a second-time founder. The first go-around is like your mini-MBA.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
You make a lot of mistakes, but you learn from every one of them. So Pam and Gila, they're ready to take on their next idea. And they start with the fun part, the new brand name. Here's what they're whiteboarding, Jack. They're like, you know what? We want something that evokes freshness, bubbliness, like a fun-in-the-sun California vibe. You know, like the kind of feeling that you could...
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
But did you know that the Juicy Velour fashion brand was started as maternity wear? Yeah, it was actually two moms who began with $200 and a trip to the laundromat. And then a decision by Jennifer Lopez in a music video. changed those two women's lives. And then honestly, changed fashion forever. So after the taste of the episode you're about to get, listen to the full thing on The Best Idea Yet.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
bite into and would explode everywhere like a fresh orange there's really just one right answer when you put it that way nick juicy little do they know yetis but that word will soon be spelled out in glitter on the butts of millions of people all around the world So Pam and Gila, now rebranded as Juicy, are ready to take their second crack at running a business.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
But the name, that was the easy part. Now, they actually need a product. It's a clean slate. They could choose anything. They could make evening wear, swimsuits, Pantsuits. But instead, Pam and Gila decide to jump on an emerging trend. They focus on the t-shirt. The t-shirt? Yeah. An emerging trend? Pretty sure they had t-shirts before the 90s. Yeah, they did, Jack.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
But let me go full Miranda Priestly for you on this. You know, it's 1994, and the baby tee is actually coming into vogue. But even with baby tees on the rise, Pam and Gila think that there's a lot of room for improvement. Everything that they see in the shops is either too square or too man-shaped, or it's teeny tiny, made for size zero models. No t-shirt feels like it's made just for them.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
It feels, honestly, like another gap in the market for them to take advantage of. So they set out to design the perfect t-shirt. T-shirt. But Pam and Gila think strategically about this. They think like engineers. They come up with a framework of four key points of quality. Fit, fabric, comfort, and color.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
They consider every invisible pain point you might not think about until you put the t-shirt on. Like, does the armhole fit right? Does it line up with my shoulder right? Will this fabric lose its shape after a wash or two? Each one is a problem to be solved. And then they come out with a bunch of styles, including the 103.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
It's got a V-neck, sleeves that hug the shoulders, and soft cotton fabric as bright as three coats of nail polish. Pam and Gila cannot wait to get their shirts into stores. This 103 is a great place to start. But they're second-time founders now with deep experience. So instead of approaching buyers directly, one store at a time, they hire sales reps, one in L.A., one in New York.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
talk about this New York sales rep for a second. Her name is Lisa Schaller. Think of her as a talent agent. Only instead of repping actors or directors, she's repping Pam and Gila's t-shirts. She's tough as nails with a thick New York accent. I love this t-shirt. So Schaller focuses to just on selling the 103 shirt at first in limited colors and nice small batches.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
These small orders, they aren't super profitable, but here's the idea. They're low risk for the retailers to take on this unknown brand. Soon, these shirts have infiltrated Bloomingdale's in New York and a beloved boutique called Fred Siegel in LA, where actresses, models, and it girls shop. And as luck would have it, a costume designer from Friends. Yetis, you look fantastic over there.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
That was a sample of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet. Now go listen to the rest of the episode. We got a link in the episode description. Juicy Couture is just, by the way, really amazing. How many twists and turns go into this thing? Like it only kind of gets crazier from here. And how they eventually sell the company to a couple of bankers while wearing mini skirts.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
Also, Jack, we should tell the Yetis we brought some juicy pajamas to immerse ourselves in the brand for research for the show. Now I understand why Paris Hilton wore the same pair for six straight weeks. Also a true story. So besties, tap the link that we put in this episode description and follow the show so you can listen to the best idea yet every week. It's the perfect compliment to T-Boy.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
Juicy Couture, you're going to love it. We'll see you Monday with our usual deal. Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop?
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
Jack and I put a link in this episode description. You're going to love it. Here's The Best Idea Yet, Juicy Couture. Here we are in an office park in Pacoima, in California's San Fernando Valley. The office is quiet. A painted fingernail flicks off the fluorescent lights one by one. Pam Skyes-Levy and Ghislaine Nash-Taylor are closing the door on Travis Jeans forever. What? Wait a minute.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
Before the break, we were hearing about how Travis had this huge deal that just signed. What happened during the commercial break, Nick? Well, here's what happened. For five years, Pam and Gila happily created maternity clothes for a pee in the pod. The two companies got along like two... You know where I'm going with this.
The Best One Yet
đ Juicy Couture Tracksuit: How Cozy-Core Went Viral
But then it came time for them to deliver designs for their 1994 collection. And that collection featured one particular pattern. Gingham. Gingham. That's the quaint, square-checked pattern on Dorothy's dress from The Wizard of Oz. Now, Pam and Gila designed their collection using patriotic gingham in red, white, and blue.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
Roll the tape. One of the most talked about Super Bowl commercials. It was only five seconds and it was just the owl's butt growing into another owl. It was the owl and he was sitting backwards. You could just see his back, but you could see his butt crack. And then it started growing like his butt started growing. And then suddenly what it was, it was another owl grew out of the owl's butt.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
And then it just said, do your Duolingo.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
Who comes up with that?
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
But this is an example of the stuff they come up with. They come up with really weird stuff. And I actually believe that as AI matures, what's going to be most valuable is taste. And I think just having all these artists here is very valuable because they have a lot of taste.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
They really kind of have an idea of what's weird and what's quirky and what's unhinged that lets us go move the brand forward. I think the artists are going to do better. I was talking to one of our engineers who pointed this out. Before like 50 years ago, math nerds were not in a good spot. They kind of were ostracized.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
And at some point, because of technology, math nerds, like the richest people in the world are math nerds. And like, they got a boon. It's likely that because of AI, math nerds are not going to be all that valuable anymore. It's cyclical.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
Let's hit them. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick.
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
that's it i don't even think they need to practice 50 that's a fat tip t-boy city on your at list if you know you know because we're ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the show start the show first a quick word from our sponsor
The Best One Yet
𧞠âwtf is that?â â Say Hello to Tariff Fees. Costcoâs 1st beer dupe. Return of the Mascots.
It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to get other people to do it.
The Best One Yet
đ§ âUnicorn Pantsâ â Luluâs leggings turn 10. Chime is the McDâs of Money. Cavaâs hummus surge.
15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.
The Best One Yet
đ âHe went to Walmartâ â The $299 Diamond Ring. Yukaâs MAHA app. Podcastsâ Golden Globes Award.
jack let's hit our three stories 15 years before this song two boys from the northeast met in the dorm they had an idea to cause a cultural storm it's the best one yet but the best is the norm jack nick that's it i don't even think they need to practice 50 that's a fat tip t-boy city on your at list if you know you know because we ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the show
The Best One Yet
đĄ âIdeas = Currencyâ â TED Talksâ CEO audition. Costcoâs girl math. âMuskingâ the US Govât.
Jack, let's hit our three stars.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Dude, my preference is Tush. If you want to go with Tushy, it might be funny if we do both. Well, I think that Tushy is the lower priced model, Jack. This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Monday, January 6th, and today's predictions pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. Our top three pop business wishes for 2025.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
But there is another big box store that we think should begin selling kit homes again. And that store is the Home Depot. Why? I mean, home is in their name. The branding, boom, done. But the bigger reason is that America has a housing crisis. It's true, for the last 30 years, we've had more population growth than new home growth. And that's why prices of homes and apartments are so freaking high.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Demand has simply outpaced supply for 30 years. And now to solve this, picture the Home Depot garden section, your local Home Depot, but with a single family home in the corner. And Home Depot should make this home cool. Yes, they should bring some brand cachet and make it exciting. Okay, what do you think? What kind of thing could they do, Jack?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
A Martha Stewart collaboration to handle the interior design decisions. Or Jack, if you pay a premium, maybe an apple eye tushy toilet comes in the home too. That's an upcharge. But yeties, at the Home Depot, there'd be a constant open house so you could walk in and check out this kit house. In fact, on a policy perspective,
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
They could slash regulations that have blown up the cost and time necessary to build a house. Bessies, Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. We did the math on this. If all 2,000 Home Depot locations sell 1,000 homes each, then what does that mean? That's 2 million new homes for America, which would cut our housing deficit in half. it would cut it in half.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
So we're dusting off the old whiteboard and we're looking at how we did in last year's predictions. Jack, I'm looking at the numbers right now and last year's predictions went... we were one-ish for three. One-ish, basically one for three. Now, we should point out, we call these wishes because we wish they would happen. And we think that they could happen.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And that is a big enough change to relieve home prices, which have accelerated to all-time highs. The only reason we still have inflation is because the price of housing continues to rise. Housing, it's the number one source of inflation, and Home Depot can fix it. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the Home Depot? It takes a village to build a village.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
But Nick, the villagers would be future customers. Yetis, we're not saying that the burden of solving America's entire housing crisis should be on one single company. First of all, we're calling it an opportunity, not a burden. We are. But we're also calling on three companies to step up. And the first is Home Depot.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
They would provide the lumber, the materials, and assemble the home kit, and also provide instructions. The second company would be JPMorgan Chase. The biggest bank in America should partner to provide mortgage financing. And finally, we want to include Walmart. Biggest retailer in America can step in for home furnishings. And, Sebasties, why do we call this an opportunity?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Because each American who buys a home from Home Depot becomes a customer of the Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, and Walmart for life. Picture this. Mortgage repayments to JPMorgan should earn points, and then those points could be redeemable at Walmart. Walmart, and Home Depot. Fasties, a hundred years ago, Sears managed to sell and finance homes all by themselves.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Well, today, our three most powerful big box stores and banks surely could pull off the same thing. Takes a village to build a village, and the villagers will be your future customers. Yes, they will. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for our 2025 predictions pod? Disney should acquire Spirit Airlines and rebrand it Disney Airlines.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Disney Airlines, because Wall Street doesn't like airlines, but Wall Street loves credit cards, especially a Disney credit card. For our second story, it's Apple. Apple should launch a smart toilet and brand it the iTush. The I booty because Apple should go where no competition has gone before, the bathroom. That's where the health data is. And our third and final story was the Home Depot.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Home Depot should start selling homes to solve the housing crisis. Yes, they should. JP Morgan provides financing and Walmart provides furniture. It takes a village to build a village and those villagers become customers. Now, time for the best fact yet, this one predicted by Nick and Jack, because it's all about predictions.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Speaking of predictions, that's a topic that Wall Street publishes every single year. Oh, Jack, there is nothing investors appreciate more than a good old-fashioned stock market prediction. And at the beginning of every year, financial analysts predict where the NASDAQ, the Dow, and the S&P 500 will end up at the end of the year. But here's our big question as we look back on the data.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
How accurate actually are these stock market predictions? They're highly inaccurate. In fact, besties, get this. On average, stock market forecasts are wrong, really wrong. In fact, so wrong, we got the numbers. According to the New York Times, over the last 20 years, the median Wall Street forecast for the S&P 500 was off by 14 percentage points. Ooh. off by 14 percentage points.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Because there's serious business merit behind each of these wishes we have in this episode. And Jack and I discuss, debate, analyze, and finance each one of these wishes before we prepare them for this podcast. So think of them more as wishes than predictions. but yeah. All right, so Jack, let's walk through them. How'd we do last year? One-ish for three. What did we do?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Like in 2022, the average forecast was that stocks would rise 4%. Stocks actually fell 19%. In 2023, they forecast that stocks would rise 6%. But stocks rose 22%. And this is wild. But in 2024, JP Morgan predicted that markets would actually go down. In 2024, markets soared by 25%. 25%. So besties, whatever stock market prediction you hear right now is probably wrong.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Even our predictions in this episode, they're probably wrong. But wouldn't it be awesome if they were right? Yes, it would, Jack. That's why we call them wishes. Yetis, you look fantastic to start the new year. And if Jack and I have any wish for you, it's that you will share this 2025 predictions pod. If you've never shared our show before, this is the episode to share. So here's what you do.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Take the link to this episode and text it to your best friend. Text it to your best buddies out there. And then let us know what you think of these predictions. Like, is Apple gonna launch the iTushy? Is Home Depot gonna solve the housing market? Drop us a comment right now on YouTube, Spotify, or on Instagram. Also, we want to hear your predictions. What do you think Snapchat's going to do?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
What's going to happen with AI? Sam Altman, is he still going to be everywhere next year? So besties, we are pumped to start 2025 with you. Jack, so excited to be back with you. Should we make our regular podcast tomorrow and go back to our routine? Tomorrow's episode will be the best one yet. The top three pop business news stories you need to know. Yetis, it's going to be a T-boy.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
We'll see you there. Bright and early. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Disney. Nick owns stock of Delta, and we both own stock of Apple and Robinhood, as well as ETFs of the S&P 500.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. We want to get to know you.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
We wished that Robinhood would merge with Twitter. And that didn't happen. Something very different happened to Twitter, while Robinhood had a major rebound on its own. But overall, the two companies did nothing together, so that wish was wrong. Now, our second prediction, we wished that Taylor Swift would launch her own ticketing service in 2024. It's me. Hi, Ticketmaster. I'm your problem.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
It's me. We would have called it Swiftix. And she could have disrupted the feeocracy by ending outrageous ticket fees. Like the fee fee. But Taylor, she was too busy. So she didn't have time to launch a business. And that wish was wrong. 0 for 2. Okay, our third prediction. We wished that Trader Joe's would launch a streaming service. We did. Call it TJTV+. And Jack, that one...
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
was kind of right. It was borderline correct. It was pretty close to right. Now, Terry DeJose didn't launch a streaming service, to be clear. But Chick-fil-A did launch a streaming service last year. So our idea was correct. We just picked the wrong food. Yeah, Chick-fil-A, they launched a streaming service. So let's round up. That wish was correct. Let's roll with it, Jack.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
So that was rule number two of Prediction Podcast. Rule number two, look back on your old predictions. But what's rule number one of predictions? Jack, rule number one of a predictions podcast, there's no such thing as a wrong prediction. It just hasn't happened. Yet. Jack, let's hit our three business wishes of 2025.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Well, Jack, I got to say, you're looking fantastic because you are a whole lot tanner over there than two weeks ago. I'm back from Bahamas slash Florida. Nick, you're back from Hawaii. Do people get tan in Hawaii? They do, and I ate more spam than I usually do. I thought pineapples were in Hawaii, not spam. It's a smoothie obsession you've got.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
For our first wish of 2025, it's that Disney acquires Spirit Airlines out of bankruptcy and rebrands it Disney Air. It's the final missing link in Disney's hospitality empire. Disney Air. Now, yetis, Disney the business is many things. It's got more revenue streams than the mighty Mississippi. It's a movie studio, it's a toy company, it's a creative company, and it's a hospitality company.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
In fact, we've jumped into the earnings. Two-thirds of Disney's profits over the last two years are from their parks and cruises division. It's all about hospitality. And now it's time for Disney to double down on that hospitality by launching an airline. Launching an airline. Now, let's sprinkle on some context, Jack. For the last 25 years, Disneyland has partnered with Alaska Airlines.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And before that, Eastern Airlines was the official airline of Disney World. But funny timing, because Spirit Airlines, based in Florida, presents a unique buying opportunity specifically for Disney. Because Because Spirit is in bankruptcy, but they're still operating while they wait for an acquirer. Interestingly, regulators, they won't let Spirit be sold to another airline. And why is that, Jack?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
The regulators don't want further consolidation in the already consolidated airline industry. That's why regulators already blocked Spirit from merging with JetBlue. They don't want another airline buying Spirit Airlines. But Disney's not an airline yet. But they did announce recently they're planning to double their cruise line from six vessels to 13 vessels.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And we also noticed that Disney is spending $48 billion to improve their parks over the next 10 years. It's all about hospitality. The only thing missing is in the air. And the only part of a Disney vacation that stinks is the flight. With this wish. Disney could own the flight. And it makes sense strategically, financially, you name it. Jack, let's go even deeper.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
First of all, Disney Airlines would cost next to nothing for Disney to launch. Great point. Spirit, they're in bankruptcy. Disney is worth $200 billion. Disney Airlines would have hubs in Orlando, Los Angeles, and wherever there's a Disney park. And Jack, how would you envision the terminal gates for Disney Airlines? It'd be like a mini theme park. Yeah, it would.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Yetis, this is our first pod of 2025, and it is already... the best pod of 2025. Because this is our predictions pod, our three big business wishes for 2025. Jack and I have spent hours at the crystal ball. Jack, what are our three predictions for this year? For our first wish, Disney will acquire Spirit Airlines out of bankruptcy and rebrand it Disney Air.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
I'd get to the airport six hours early. Yeah. After TSA, Goofy would give you a pat down. Oh boy, I found a peanut butter in your pocket. Oh boy, you can keep going. The whole plane during the flight would watch the same Disney movie. No headsets needed. It'd be like a school trip back when you were taking the yellow bus. And every lavatory would include wet wipes and diapers.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And the flight crew, they would be in character, right? Are you prepared in the event of an emergency? Hey, Tinkerbell, I'll take another Bloody Mary. With Disney Airlines, instead of parents dreading the flight to Orlando, the flight to Orlando would be part of the Disney experience. And because of what Jack just said, you would pay a premium for those tickets. And what does that mean?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Disney Air could be the most profitable airline in the industry. Non-parents, they wouldn't fly Disney Airlines, would they? Which would be great, because you'd no longer get dirty looks from the annoyed adult who has to sit next to a crying baby. Everyone on the plane would get it. And that's why we wish upon a star for this. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Disney?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Wall Street doesn't love airlines, but they do love credit cards. Now, Yetis, if you tell your Uncle Bob about this idea, he might say it's a bad idea. Like airlines, he's going to say, they're a bad, unprofitable business. He's got a point. Airlines historically struggle to profit. They often end up bankrupt, like Spirit, or bailed out, like every airline has been several times.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
But you know what the most profitable part of air travel actually is? It's actually airline credit cards. If Disney launches Disney Airlines, it would have the Disney Air Magic Card to go along with it. Interestingly, Delta, they made $7 billion from their Amex credit card in 2023. The credit card is the most profitable part of Delta's business. And Disney could benefit the same exact way.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Totally. They'd earn even more financial loyalty from Disney families. So besties, Wall Street doesn't love airlines, but Wall Street does love credit cards. Disney buying Spirit Airlines to launch Disney Airlines with a credit card? I'm wishing upon a star, Nick, and I think it's happening. For our second wish, it's that Apple launches a smart toilet in 2025. We call it the iTush. The iTush.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Yetis, after you hear the story on the iTush, you'll be shocked Apple hasn't launched it already. It makes too much sense. Trust us on this. If you work at Apple, comment after this story. Besties, the greatest tech disappointment of the last decade, what is it, Jack? The Apple car. We never got the ISUV. And the second greatest tech disappointment of the last decade, what is it, Jack?
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
The Apple Vision Pro. I've seen one person wearing it and he looked ridiculous. Well, over the last 10 years, Apple has spent billions billions searching for the next big thing only to come up empty. On the other hand, Apple has been thriving in one surprising category. Yes, it has. Health. Health. The iPhone knows if you fall. AirPods can act as a hearing aid.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And your Apple Watch, Jack, you got one of those. It measures my sleep. It measures my wife's fertility. It measures all sorts of bodily things all day. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook had this big line about health back in 2019. I I almost forgot about this. He said that Apple's greatest contribution to mankind will be about health. That's why we don't call him CEO Cook. We call him Dr. Cook.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And it's not just Apple interested in health. Amazon acquired One Medical. Google acquired Fitbit. And Silicon Valley has basically gone off to med school. Or nursing school. Both. So besties, add all that up, and we think Apple's next big product should actually be a smart toilet. An iTush. An iTush. A tech-enabled toilet that samples your waste for critical health information.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Disney, they already dominate hospitality on land and on sea. Why not in the sky? For our second wish, Apple will launch a smart toilet. This will be Apple's eye tush. An Apple smart toilet. Yetis, after we tell you why Apple should create a smart toilet. You're going to be shocked they haven't done this yet, honestly. And our third and final wish. Home Depot should begin selling homes.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And your stool is its sample. Your duty is its data. It can measure your blood sugar level, your cardiovascular situation, whether you have COVID or not. It can even be an early predictor of cancer, all with a toilet through your waste. All that currently exists in the smart toilet market. Apple should launch one too. And here's why it's perfect for Apple. Product design. Totally, Jack.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
I can picture a white porcelain elegant toilet sitting in the Apple store right now. All over this show. Literally, literally. Like a simple, smooth, clean toilet. It is a literal throne upon which Apple would be a design king. Think about it from a pricing perspective. The smart toilet market is premium and it's growing. It is.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
The average price is $6,000 for one of these smart toilets, and it's currently growing at 10% a year. So the same customer willing to pay $2,000 for a MacBook and $600 for an Apple Watch would gladly pay $6,000 for an iTush. All right, now, Jack, let's look at the market, because the current smart toilet industry is pretty fragmented. Apple, the brand, would immediately stand out from the rest.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
In fact, there are more toilets in America than there are cars, so it's actually a bigger market than you realize. But when it comes to tech, they're always thinking about metrics. They love engagement. What is more engaging than a toilet? We discovered that the average American visits a toilet six to ten times a day. I mean, if you're fewer or more than that, you might want to call your doctor.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
That is consistent, reliable engagement. Perhaps most wild about this is the sanitary benefits. True, because Apple would probably add a basic iPad to manage the whole bidet feature. And that iPad would allow you to keep your phone out of the bathroom. That'd be a huge reduction in germs in our society.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
In fact, according to science, your butt shape is unique to you, just like your face is unique to you and your thumbprint is unique to you. It's called your butt print. It's actually called an anal print, Jack, but we can go with butt print too. So when you sit down on the toilet, it unlocks because it recognizes you.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
just like Apple has Face ID, they could apply the same technology to your butt ID. Add it all up. It's actually surprising they haven't already launched the eye toilet. Also, Jack, what's the one word that Apple has built its whole brand around that begins with P? Privacy. And what do you ask for when you go to the bathroom? Privacy. Privacy.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
I'll tell you, I would never entrust my one and two data to any tech company except Apple. Amazon would somehow end up upselling you on toilet paper. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Apple? Apple should launch the iTush because it would go where the competition isn't. Yetis, since the pandemic, big tech has been battling for your home.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Every big tech company wants a role in your living room, your kitchen, or your bedroom. Every tech company has smart TVs, smart speakers, and smart home devices. But interestingly, we noticed that there's one market where no big tech company has gone. Actually, it's one room where no big tech company has gone. The bathroom. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
Jack and I got a bold plan for Home Depot to fix the housing market with actual homes. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. than this. No one's wishing for this. Yeti's the number two rule of prediction podcasts. What is it, Nick? Jack, here's what it is. We got to check ourselves from last year's predictions.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
For our third and final wish of 2025, it's that Home Depot should begin selling actual homes. Here is a bold plan for Home Depot to help fix the American housing market. To fix the housing crisis. But yet is to really start this story, Jack and I want to go all the way back to 1908. That's when Sears began selling homes. True story. Sears had a product called the mail order home back in 1908.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
They called it a kit house because the house arrived in a train car with 30,000 pieces inside. You thought your Ikea dresser was hard? This home kit included assembly for a 2,000 square foot house. It It included the insulation, the doors, even the doorknobs were included in the Sears mail order home. Now, the promise was that you and a carpenter could build this house in just 90 days.
The Best One Yet
đŽ âThe Predictions Podâ â Apple iToilet, Disney Airlines, and Home Depot Homes.
And here was the key. The house was manufactured in a factory with an assembly line, just like the Ford Model T, which let the costs come down. So Sears, they actually sold 75,000 of these mail order homes just a century ago. Until the Great Depression forced that business line to stop. Now, besties, Sears is gone.
The Best One Yet
đ§ âSeveredâ â AppleTV+ dirty secret. Ben & Jerryâs chocolatey lawsuit. Nvidiaâs AI Super Bowl.
Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop? From Wondery and At Will Media, I'm Misha Brown, and this is The Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time, like Quibi. It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to, like, get other people to do it.
The Best One Yet
đ§ âSeveredâ â AppleTV+ dirty secret. Ben & Jerryâs chocolatey lawsuit. Nvidiaâs AI Super Bowl.
and the 2019 movie adaptation of Cats. Like, if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie. Find out what happens when massive hype turns into major fiasco. Enjoy The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+.
The Best One Yet
đ§ âSeveredâ â AppleTV+ dirty secret. Ben & Jerryâs chocolatey lawsuit. Nvidiaâs AI Super Bowl.
Get started with your free trial at wondery.com slash plus.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
This is Jack. It's Friday, the real Friday, May 16th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Yeah, the DOD could become a customer of Rainmaker. And eventually, Rainmaker could have a B2C business. They could start selling these clouds to consumers. Slip and slide party, no hose needed. What better party trick? Jack, one day you and I are going to go to a gender reveal that involves a cloud of rain coming out of it. And honestly, every rapper would buy this for a music video.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Ludacris, dropping 50K on Rainmaker. For now, Rainmaker is early. They're focused on farmers. But like water, you gotta let the business model flow.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Dick's Sporting Goods acquired Foot Locker, but their house of sports is the real profit puppy. Because as Floyd Mayweather, the boxer, taught us, scared money don't make money. For our second story, United Healthcare is kind of scared money right now. They're down over 50% in one month on a hurricane of bad headlines. You know what?
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Just about every stock in the healthcare industry has underperformed in the past five years. They're all a little bit sick. And our third and final story is Rainmaker. They raised $30 million to make sure that cloud up there starts raining ASAP. Because when it comes to business models like water, you gotta let it flow. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
First, wild story. Hackers hacked Coinbase and then threatened to leak customer information unless they got paid 20 million bucks. It's a classic ransomware hack, but Coinbase... has turned the tables on the bad guys. Yeah, they're going on the offensive and instead of paying the bad guys 20 million bucks, Coinbase is offering a 20 million dollar bounty.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So if you know who hacked Coinbase and you bring those men to justice, could be women, probably men. Probably men. Coinbase will pay you 20 million dollars. Yeah, Jack and I call this the Liam Neeson strategy. Second, Apple just launched CarPlay Ultra. The entire car software is run by Apple. And interestingly, they are starting with Aston Martins, one of the most expensive car brands out there.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
That last one makes sense, actually. Yeah, that one actually kind of works. Why is caviar popping off? Because caviar is actually cheaper than it's ever been. Fish eggs are defying inflation. And it all began back Caviar companies couldn't sell to restaurants because of the lockdown. So they dropped their prices and sold to people directly, no restaurant markup. Plus, now China's selling caviar.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So you can now see the speed, the AC, the heat, even the tire pressure through your phone. Through your car. Through the car. Yeah, through the car. CarPlay. It's the only example Jack and I can find where Apple offers its software without controlling the hardware. The car. Next up, Hyundais. They're all turning over their tech to Apple.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And finally, Disney Plus is going to license movies from DreamWorks Animation Studios. That means Shrek can finally stream alongside Buzz and Woody. And that means Madagascar can finally stream alongside Moana. Peacock's not doing too well, so they're licensing out some of their best movies to their rival, Disney+. Side note, DreamWorks started as an anti-Disney company.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Jeffrey Katzenberg was pissed he wasn't named CEO of Disney, so he made Shrek to kind of ridicule Disney, actually. And that is a story for another pod. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by legendary Yeti, Jason Geiger from over in Buffalo. Push and play.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Oh, sarsaparilla. No one should be able to spell sarsaparilla. That's an illegal word right there. Oh, wait. Jack, are you going to reveal to us now about how you've probably never had any of these sodas?
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Although he had me at Sassafras.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
I had a fear for exotic sodas. I don't know what to tell you. Never forget your first Dr. Pepper, Jack. Never forget your first Dr. Pete. Yetis, you looked fantastic all week. And because it is a fantastic Friday, we're doing an AMA this Friday today on Instagram. So if you've got questions for Nick and me, any questions, we'll answer them at tboypod.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Yeah, last week someone asked us what they thought they should do if they have student debt, but they want to start a family. Jack and I gave them our four quadrant solution. So hit us up at tboypod. Ask us anything. Happy Friday, everybody. Celebrate the wins. So many wins to celebrate, Jack. And we will see you And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Shreyas. Wow.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Over in Bangalore, who is opening up meetings like we open up the show. That's how you do it. For our first story. And Austin Frederick down in Chicago doing logistics is celebrating the best birthday yet. Austin, hope to see you at our live show in Chi-Town. And happy birthday to Wyatt Lowe, who's joining a new team in Pasadena, California.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And Josh Swerdloff turning 28 over in Boston, just outside Boston, proudly stealing those T-Boy takeaways. And Josh, we want you to steal. Josh, that's what they're made for.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And happy 10th birthday to Greta Ransom in St. Paul, Minnesota. I have a niece named Greta. Greta Ransom. Happy birthday. It's a great name. And Ben McGurk and Michelle Crowsdale are getting married in Cincinnati, Ohio. Guys, you'll look fantastic for the weekend. Keep swiping. We know you met on Hinge. And Ethan and Elise Herzog are getting married tomorrow in Northfield, Minnesota.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Shocker, made in China caviar is half the price. Which is why your buddy Timmy is now bumping caviar over at brunch. So yetis, look out for the caviar contrast craze. Jack, is that a caviar on your Kit Kat bar? No, but caviar is now served at Costco for 50 bucks an ounce.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
It's going to be the best day yet. Congratulations to Lizzie and Ben Beckham, who just had little baby August join the family. Leighton, you're going to be a brilliant big older sister. Happy five-year anniversary to Kristen Cruz in Farmington Hills, Michigan. And Cha Young, Kate, and Rachel are celebrating MBA graduations from NYU Stern. Congratulations, guys. The case studies are over.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Promote these people. And congratulations to Emily Harrison, who's graduating from Manhattanville University. This is Jack. I own stock of Moderna and Disney, and Nick and I both own stock of Apple and ETFs of the S&P 500. If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
I wouldn't even know what to do with caviar, to be honest with you. Do you eat it with like a really tiny spoon?
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
For our first story, Foot Locker, their stock jumped 80% because they're getting bought by Dick's Sporting Goods. But we need to talk about the wildest thing in retail. It's huge. Dick's House of Sport. It's huge. But Jack, I want to go full Carrie Bradshaw on you right now. But wow, what a year for shoes it has been. First, Skechers got acquired last month for $9 billion. That's right.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
For our first story, Dick's Sporting Goods is acquiring Foot Locker for over $2 billion. But the real story here is the Palace of Sports. For our second story, UnitedHealthcare is the biggest health insurer company. Check. The biggest employer of doctors. Double check. And the biggest healthcare stock in America. And yet, in the last month, it's fallen 50% on a wild investigation.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
The ultimate granddad shoe is now the third biggest shoe brand on earth. And one month later, we get this. Foot Locker got acquired by Dick's for $2.4 billion. Foot Locker stock surged 80% because Dick's is paying 80% too much. I mean, 80% more than where Foot Locker stock was trading. Dick's basically paid 80% over asking and investors weren't happy. Dick's stock fell yesterday.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And now Jack, we should sprinkle on some context for all our shoe loving besties out there. Foot Locker will still keep its brand. So you can still go to a Foot Locker, try on those Hoka shoes and get dressed up by a man dressed like a referee. And no, this new merch company will not be called Dick Locker like every analyst on Wall Street hoped for. Grow up. Yeah, come on. Grow up.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Come on, come on. But yet, here's what Jack and I found most interesting. It's not Foot Locker we want to talk about. It's Dick's. Because Dick's stock is up 600% in the past few years. And Jack and I are sitting here wondering, how is Dick's defying Amazon, defying e-commerce, defying online shopping, and seeing their stock surge 600%? They're doing it with their house of sport.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Because in the last few years, Dick's has invested in creating physical temples to athletics. These are unreal. And they call them the house of sport. I've never been to one. No. I want to go there for my birthday. I mean, Jack, these are super stores bigger than your entire college athletic department.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
These Dick's stores include football fields, batting cages, rock climbing walls, soccer nets, and virtual driving ranges. Okay, one of them we found even has an ice skating rink in the store. Where are they parking that Zamboni? I don't know, Jack. You need another store just to keep and maintain the Zambonis, man. So it's less store, more like community center.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
I would take my boys to spend a few hours there on a cold Saturday in the winter. There are actually recreational soccer leagues that are doing their entire league out of a Dick's Sporting Goods store, a house of store. And again, this place is huge. Nick, can you sprinkle on some context? 140,000 square feet is almost the size of the Kremlin. What a hilarious comparison.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Like we said, this isn't a house of sport. This is a palace of sports. But they're also expensive. The cost to build one of these house of sport megastores is $15 million more than a typical dick sporting goods.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So yet he's added it all up, and Jack and I got to ask, is splurging on these sports cathedrals a good investment? My instinct is probably not.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Dick's? To quote Floyd Mayweather, scared money don't make money. Scared money don't make money. Yeti's Lauren Hobart is the Dick's CEO. And honestly, we think she deserves a gold medal. Because in the age of online shopping... Who would build a physical store three times bigger than all your other physical stores? Not just that, Jack.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
She built 21 of these stores. There are enough soccer fields now to host the World Cup at Dick's. And in this economy, who's spending a total of $315 million on souped-up sports stores? But get this, besties. Despite costing $15 million more to build each one of them, these stores pay for themselves. In fact, they pay for themselves in the first year.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
According to the Wall Street Journal, these Dick's House of Sports bring in $21 million in extra revenue, leaving $6 million in extra profits per store. That's right. Each House of Sports brings in double the revenue of a regular Dick's, making them positive ROI in one year. Lauren and the Dick's team took a huge risk building out these Olympic-sized venues.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Well, Dick's got an ROI because scared money don't make money. For our second story, the biggest health insurer in America is dealing with a murder, a resignation, and now an investigation for fraud. It's not just UnitedHealthcare. No, it's not. All healthcare stocks are sick right now. Jack, I got a disease, and the only prescription is less cowbell? I think so. Is that how that goes?
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And our third and final story, we're going to make it rain. Make it rain! Rainmakers actually doing that, both literally and figuratively. So we are looking at this cloud seeding startup because a cloud is a terrible thing to waste. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories before the weekend. It's Friday, the real Friday.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
We have never seen a blue chip company fall so hard so fast as UnitedHealthcare. First, their insurance CEO was murdered by 27-year-old Luigi Mangione. Then last month, the stock fell 22% in one day after it said it will not grow this year. Okay, and then this week, their CEO resigned, citing vague, awkward personal reasons. And then yesterday, the stock fell another 11% on the worst headline yet.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
This is bad. A criminal investigation. Hey, Hulu, when are we getting the six-part series on the fall of UnitedHealth? Seriously, because according to the Wall Street Journal, the Department of Justice is investigating UnitedHealthcare for alleged Medicare fraud. Rip it off the U.S. taxpayers. Yeti, here's the allegation which UnitedHealthcare denies.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
When UnitedHealthcare bills Medicare for treatments it provides to seniors, it exaggerates. Yeah, like United would say the patient had the flu when they really had a cold in order to get more money off that patient. If you twisted your ankle, UnitedHealthcare would probably say you broke your ankle. Yeah, what's that thing on your thigh? Ah!
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
United Healthcare thinks that's a pretty big thing on your thigh. Now, if this translates to criminal fraud charges because they like systemically over-diagnose, that could mean billions of losses or settlements for United Healthcare. Also, Jack, on top of that, isn't Congress trying to cut spending on Medicaid? The latest draft of the bill suggests it is, Nick.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Which would trickle down to United Healthcare's revenues. So what we're saying is it's a crisis at United Healthcare. Two top executives are gone from those awful headlines we mentioned above. And I'm sorry, Dr. Jack, can we please pause the pod for a second and just look at how huge UnitedHealthcare is? It's the biggest health insurance company in America with 49 million insured patients.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
United treats one out of six adults in America. It's also the biggest employer of doctors. They got 130,000 doctors and clinicians on the payroll. Including Dr. Doolittle, who, yeah, can talk to animals. Besties, the value of UnitedHealthcare has fallen in half in one month. It used to be the most valuable company in all of healthcare. Now, they're probably getting kicked out of the Dow.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And if it does well, it'll get greenlit to a Hulu documentary. Exactly. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at UnitedHealth? Hope you've stayed away from healthcare stocks because everyone's sick. Yetis, the S&P 500 has doubled in the past five years, but healthcare stocks, they're only up a quarter as much.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
The Vanguard Healthcare Index is up just 25% in the past five years, trailing the stock market's overall 105% gain. Honestly, wherever you look, and Jack and I have been looking, healthcare is having fun. Walgreens sold to a private equity firm last year for a price 90% lower than its peak valuation.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Rite Aid declared bankruptcy this month and is literally the worst retail experience I have ever seen, Jack. Pharma stocks? Both Pfizer and Moderna are down two-thirds on all that vaccine blowback. And then there's United States. It's interesting that healthcare in America is more expensive than it's ever been. And yet this is the case. Besties, healthcare is recession-proof. It's tariff-proof.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Every human being needs it. And yet all their stocks are down. Hope you've stayed away from healthcare stocks because they're all looking sick. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So Jack and I want to tell you about a new trend you may see this weekend. Caveat. Caveat. Now, first of all, Who decided I'm going to eat fish eggs? Well, Jack, that person would be proud because caviar is now being served on everything. That's the news. The new trend Nick and I are seeing is what we're calling caviar contrast.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
For our third and final story, this is wild. Rainmaker just raised $25 million to control the weather and make it rain.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Because business models are like water. You got to let them flow. Now, yetis, Jack and I would like to introduce you to a young man named Augustus Dorico. This guy's definitely going to heaven. Because he may be the most religiously trained human being we have ever heard of. He studied under a Catholic priest, a Jewish Orthodox rabbi, a Sunni imam, and a Buddhist monk.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
This guy isn't just close to God. He may think he is God because his startup controls the weather. It's called Rainmaker. Rainmaker. They use cloud seeding technology that sounds very exciting because they fly a drone up into a cloud and cause that cloud to rain. Yeah, and Jack and I should sprinkle on some context here. Some clouds don't rain. And that's a shame if you really need it to rain.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Because also clouds, they get in the way of the sun. So if you're going to be there, you may as well rain a little bit. Agreed. So cloud seeding basically sprinkles chemicals right up in those clouds to condense the moisture. And that causes water in the cloud to become so heavy that it falls out of the cloud as rain or snow. And this founder, Augustus Dorico, he was actually a Thiel fellow.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So he was paid a hundred grand by the billionaire, Peter Thiel, to drop out of college and get into entrepreneurship. And this is the news. Rainmaker has now raised over $30 million. So they're making it rain constantly. Both ways. This is a deluge on-demand startup. But get this, Yetis. Rainmaking, like kind of playing God, is actually one of the oldest technologies we cover on the show.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
And this is what Jack and I find fascinating. Despite being one of the oldest technologies, it still is not fully commercialized. Rainmaking was invented in 1946, after World War II in Schenectady, New York. Lovely Schenectady, where my dad is from. And the inventor of cloud seeding, which is what it's technically called... is the brother of Kurt Vonnegut, the incredible author.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So add it all up, and we humans have had the ability, the technology to control the rain longer than we've had the technologies of the internet, the personal computer, or the Pop-Tart. The New York Times wrote about cloud seeding 53 years ago with this headline, the US is using rainmaking as a weapon.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
That's right, Jack, the Vietnam War, apparently we were secretly seeding clouds over North Vietnam to try to give our soldiers the advantage, although I think that backfired. Well, today, China's government happens to be the largest cloud seeding operation on planet Earth. And it's actually controlled by the government. It's like a government service. It's the people's rain clouds over there.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
Caviar, the most expensive topping there is, is being served on the cheapest food there is. We're talking fish eggs on fast food. We're talking salmon roe on Snickers bars. That's why Rihanna posted a video of her eating caviar on her chicken nuggets. Hailey Bieber put caviar on her In-N-Out burger. Jack, there's a restaurant down the street called Sorrel. They're putting caviar on cheesecake.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So it's wild. This technology is basically unchanged for 80 years. And yet you don't hear of many cloud seeding businesses around. That's right. Rainmaker is basically using the same chemical to make the clouds rain. They're using silver iodide. The big difference with this startup is that they use drones.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
So they can more specifically target a cloud more efficiently. Also, they're using radar advancements to better predict where the clouds are actually moving to. The result? Making rain is now more economically viable. Rainmaker actually charges 50 bucks an hour per cloud to make it rain. So if Farmer Dan badly needs rain, Rainmaker will make sure no cloud goes wasted.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
a business model that Jack and I call MAS, M-A-S, Monsoons as a Service. And that leads to our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Rainmaker? Business models are like water. You got to let them flow. You So yet he's on the Rainmaker website. They actually say their customers are farmers, you know, because their rain helps save a soybean harvest.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âMake it Rainnnâ â Rainmakerâs rain startup. Dickâs Foot Locker palace. UnitedHealthâs worst month ever.
But there's a number of ways that rain on demand can be commercialized. Jack and I were brainstorming this on the entertainment side. Hollywood, movies, they use weather for filming opportunities. Hospitality. The ski industry could use artificial natural snow to extend the season by a full month. And Jack, not to get dark here, but remember what we just said about Vietnam, right?
The Best One Yet
đĽ âLAâs Fire Heroâ â Watch Dutyâs #1 fire app. Rolls-Royceâs Picasso car. $1T of Gift Returns.
Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop? From Wondery and At Will Media, I'm Misha Brown, and this is The Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time, like Quibi. It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to get other people to do it.
The Best One Yet
đĽ âLAâs Fire Heroâ â Watch Dutyâs #1 fire app. Rolls-Royceâs Picasso car. $1T of Gift Returns.
and the 2019 movie adaptation of Cats. Like, if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie. Find out what happens when massive hype turns into major fiasco. Enjoy The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+.
The Best One Yet
đĽ âLAâs Fire Heroâ â Watch Dutyâs #1 fire app. Rolls-Royceâs Picasso car. $1T of Gift Returns.
Get started with your free trial at wondery.com slash plus.
The Best One Yet
đť âEat Pray Chewâ â GrĂźnsâ $500M gummybear. Googleâs DVD moment. Englandâs Ron Weasley trade deal.
15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick. That's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Friday, the real Friday, February 7th, and today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. Here's the top three pop business news stories you need to know today. The people have spoken. We got more comments on Spotify than we ever have before. I know. It was awesome to see. So we found the three most fascinating business stories on the Super Bowl.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Instead, the chip will instantly tell the refs whether the brotherly shove was successful or not. Great. So AI is now coming for the chain guys on the football field, Jack. So besties, that ball you see on the field, it's more than just a ball. It's actually our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at Wilson?
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
The closer we get to automation, the greater we value the handmade. Yetis, Jack and I see huge value in the potential for AI and robotics. It can improve quality, lower costs, huge power. But the reason Wilson can charge $150 for the Duke is that this football is made by humans. There are no robots at this factory, yetis. hands of the people of the town of Ada, Ohio.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
That's what makes those Duke footballs. And consumers see value in that, and they'll pay a premium for it. It romanticizes the product. It's kind of like, yeah, sure, AI could make a podcast perfectly tailored for you, but your connection to a podcast is to the host. That's what brings value. The fact that Jack said shimu on the podcast the other day. Instead of timu or shien.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Who is going to win, the Eagles or the Chiefs? The answer, none of them. Nope. Because the real winner of this Super Bowl is a retired basketball coach from upstate New York. Get this, ladies. Pat Riley, the former NBA basketball coach, could make millions on this football game. Not because he's betting on the game. It's because of an investment.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
A robot podcast host isn't going to do that. I'm a human being, okay? And besties, you value your handmade vase at home way more than you value your factory-made bowl. That's why people will pay a premium, 150 bucks for the Duke, the most expensive football on the market. The closer we get to automation, the greater we value the handmade.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the real Friday? For our first story, it was the Super Bowl commercial curse. Prices are up 15% to a record $8 million this year, and artificial intelligence is making its debut. Because the only thing Americans still do together is watch the NFL.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
For our second story, Apple is paying $50 million to sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show, but Kendrick Lamar sees zero. But this is the ultimate unpaid gig worth doing. And our third and final story, the NFL football is still made at a factory in Ohio. A new factory with no robots. Because the closer we get to automation, the more we value the handmade. But yetis, this pod's not over yet.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Here's what else you need to know today that has nothing to do with the Super Bowl. First, a federal judge delayed Trump's deadline for workers to respond to a buyout offer. Quick reminder, in a vague and intimidating email, President Trump offered all 2 million plus federal employees seven months paid severance if they resign. But if they stay, the email warned, they might be fired.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And if they're not fired, they'd face a totally different work environment. But a judge just said that none of that was by the books, so they're postponing the deadline to look into it. Second, Amazon just announced earnings, and this was historic for Jeff Bezos. For the first time ever, Amazon passed Walmart to be the number one company by quarterly revenue.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
But Amazon also projects the lowest growth on record for this year, so the stock actually fell. And finally, Snapchat's founder, Evan Spiegel, has a new job title, and this is wild. VP of product at Meta? Yeah. It's a fake description. It's on his LinkedIn profile. It's really funny though.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
If you go to the CEO of Snapchat's LinkedIn, he says he's a loving husband, father of four boys, and VP of product at Meta. The CEO of Snapchat is making a joke because Meta's Mark Zuckerberg infamously steals any feature that Snapchat launches to their app. Never forget Yeti's Snapchat. It was the first ever zucking. Instagram stories is what Snapchat used to be. Now, time for the best fact yet.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
This one whipped up by our defensive coach. At the end of Sunday's Super Bowl, chances are the head coach is going to get a Gatorade shower. It began in the 1980s, actually, with the great New York Giants. They were the first ones to dump and waste a whole bunch of Gatorade on the coach. Now, since 2019, you can actually bet on what color the Gatorade would be that gets dumped on the coach.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
It could be Arctic blue, fierce yellow, rager red. I don't think rager red is a Gatorade flavor.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
I made that one up, Jack. Well, the last two times the Chief won the Super Bowl, Andy Reid got purple Gatorade dumped on him. So the big question this year, what color will the Gatorade dump be? Purple is the favorite because Andy Reid apparently loves purple Gatorade. A pop in pink and slam in salmon, that's actually the last, the lowest chance odds on Gatorade. Okay, let's wrap this up.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
We have a poll on Spotify. Tell us what color you think it's going to be. Yetis, you look fantastic today. Jack, I'm so glad I taught you how to really kind of make that spiral happen over there. Your form's great, by the way. I'm going to ignore that dick in my throwing form. But Nick, I just looked into it. Pat Riley, you know he has the trademark on three-peat? Yeah, Jack.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Jack, could you sprinkle on some more context for us, please? In 1989, Pat Riley's LA Lakers had just won two straight NBA championships. So his new goal was to win a third straight NBA championship. But before the season tipped off, Pat called his lawyer. Because Coach Riley registered the trademark for three Pete.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Because he wanted to win three in a row with the Lakers. Oh yeah, we can't say three-peat. He didn't win a third in the row. You're kidding. So he owns the trademark to the three-peat, but he's never actually had a three-peat? That is preposterous. Pat, if you're listening, and we know you are, you owe us an explanation.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
So besties, remember to send this to whoever you're watching the game with this weekend. My money's on the Chiefs. Well, not my money, but I'm rooting for the Chiefs. I'm a Giants fan. I can never root for the Eagles. And Jack and I will see you Monday. And before we go, a happy birthday to our former roommate, Ben Zorak, 37 years old, the Z-Man.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
He travels with a ladies carry-on suitcase, but he's all Z-Man. Looks good on him. And Gotham Morgini in San Antonio, Texas, has been listening for six straight years at T-Boy. Fantastic to have you with us. Happy birthday, Gotham. Happy birthday to Al Patron in New York City, who's also finishing up her MBA program at NYU. And Kelsey Albertson in Ridgewood, Queens.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Happy birthday to the publishing dynamo. Happy birthday to Stephen Horwitz, who's celebrating down in Silver Spring, Maryland. And Victor S. is turning 13 years old down in Katy, Texas. Dad is an active Marine. Thanks for your service, Dad. And Victor, happy birthday. Happy 16th birthday to Caroline Moore. who's swimming with the manatees to celebrate.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And Sasha Gang in South Korea is sick but recovering for the birthday. Happy 30th birthday to Hans Brownfish, who, get this, is eating a steak as big as his face to celebrate. Checks out, and Keeve Curling's turning 16 years old over in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Happy birthday to Matt Friedman in New York City. Esquire. And Neil DeVay's got a bachelor party right now in Tulum.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
What a weekend for it, Neil. Congrats to Kristen Thackeray, who just sent in her final paper for that international relations degree. Jack, a lot of people told her this was not possible. And a big shout out to The Grext, a group text chain of nine epic yetis who are celebrating 15 years of friendship in Menlo Park. If you know, you know, drop it in the chain.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And Elena is prepping for her CFA in SF. Keep crushing the books, Elena. You got this. And congratulations to Lizzie Horvitz for relaunching Finch. Choosefinch.com. It's the destination to make sustainable purchases. She's back, baby. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Nick and I both own stock of Apple.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Three-peat, as in three and repeat, because he wanted to win three championships in a row. What we're saying is that Pat Riley, this coach, owns the right to three-peat in any context. So now, if your high school wins their third straight hockey championship and sells three-peat t-shirts, you gotta pay Pat Riley.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
If your daughter is the top cookie seller in Girl Scouts and gets a three-peat badge, you gotta pay Pat Riley. And if the Kansas City Chiefs win their third straight Super Bowl in a row, they're probably gonna sell three-peat merch. But they're gonna have to pay Coach Riley an estimated $1 million in royalties. So, Yetis, we bet you Pat Riley is rooting for Pat Mahomes this Sunday.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Because he wants to repeat as many three-peats as he can repeat. Pat Riley's tricky trademark is the real Super Bowl winner. If you know, you know, Jack. Let's hit our three three-peat stories. Don't sue us, Pat!
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
For our first story, Super Bowl commercials are a reflection of the tech zeitgeist, but they could also be a curse. And that Super Bowl curse could be coming to AI. All right, Jack, favorite Super Bowl commercial right now on three. One, two, three, go. What do you got? The E-Trade babies. Yeah, those are good. Seeing that little baby talk about balancing his portfolio, it gets me every time.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
So besties, grab some wet wipes for those buffalo wings and then send this episode to your buddy who you're watching the game with this weekend. Then grab some placards for the celery that's going to get stuck in your teeth because you're going to be talking about these takeaways the whole game. In the meantime, Jack, should we break and get to the takeaways? What do you think? Ready?
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
I'm a sucker for those M&Ms that talk. Any kind of answer qualifies candy, you know? Yeah. You put eyelashes on a Twizzler and I'm going to be laughing for three weeks. But the red M&M kind of bullies the yellow M&M. Yellow M&M is a little misunderstood, but Yetis, the tickets to this year's Super Bowl, their prices are down 60%.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
There just aren't enough Eagles fans to compensate for Chiefs fatigue. But viewership at home at this year's Super Bowl will be at an all-time high. Hi. An expected 117 million people are expected to watch the game, which makes it the biggest advertising opportunity in the world.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And since brands spend so much money on the ads, they post the Super Bowl commercials early on YouTube two weeks in advance. So we already know what you can expect. First, if you enjoy When Harry Met Sally or The Fast and the Furious, those commercials are coming your way. Second, if you're a Boston boy, Duncan will serve up a couple of Aflac brothers for you again this year.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Hey, Darlene, two pumps for Ben. And if you like a good conspiracy theory, Uber paid Matthew McConaughey to share a doozy in their Uber Eats commercial. But yet, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. Every year, the best funded new technology treats the Super Bowl like a mainstream coming out party. Three years ago, we called it the Bitcoin Bowl. Yeah, we did.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Because Coinbase, FTX, and Crypto.com each ran Super Bowl ads. But months later, Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with fraud and crypto prices plummeted. Two years ago, we called it the Super Betting Bowl because it was the first Super Bowl to take place in a state with legalized sports betting. But MGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel each had ads, but they've all just done okay since then.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And then one year ago, Timu and the electric cars, that was the focus of Super Bowl commercials. But one year after Timu and electric cars were in the Super Bowl, Timu has tariffs. It's terrified, literally. And electric car sales slowed big time last year. So, Besties, add it all up, and it appears there may be a curse of the Super Bowl commercial.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
When your tech industry finally has a Super Bowl commercial, the next year, your industry's not doing that well. Well, funny timing, because, Jack, who did we just discover is doing a surprise commercial at the Super Bowl? OpenAI. That's right, AI. The leader of artificial intelligence is doing their first commercial on Sunday, and Google is doing an AI commercial as well.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
So Sam Altman might be facing a little bit of AI voodoo when it comes to the Super Bowl commercials. Sam Altman could pop the AI bubble if there is one. Super Bowl curse may hit AI. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone watching commercials? The only thing all of America still does together is watch the NFL.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Yetis, this is wild, but despite cable TV being half of what it was 15 years ago, Super Bowl ads are more valuable than ever. Fox sold a dozen 30-second ads for this year's Super Bowl for $8 million each. That's up 15% from last year's record. In fact, one Fox exec told Variety, the only place where you can aggregate legitimate scale with one commercial... is the Super Bowl.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Three stories for today's show. What do we got? For our first story, a 30-second Super Bowl commercial just hit a record high price of $8 million. But when it comes to tech trends, the Super Bowl ad is actually a curse. For our second story, there's a wild secret about the Super Bowl halftime show. The performer is paid nothing. That's right.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Now, let's translate what that Fox VP means. Yeah, what does that mean, Jack? The NFL owns 72 of the top 100 television broadcasts of last year. The only live TV that America watches together is the NFL debates and Thanksgiving parade. Outside of those things, we're all siloed in personalized podcasts, YouTube videos, and social media feeds.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Oh, and another reason Super Bowl commercials are more valuable than ever? Well, actually three more reasons. First, the ads are unskippable. Yeah, you can't pay five bucks extra a month to not watch the ads. Second, the Super Bowl is relatively apolitical. unlike X, Meta, or many other advertising spaces. And finally, Super Bowl commercials are the only ads that people actually want to see.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Because advertisers actually bring their A-game. Yetis, the only thing all of America still does together is watch the NFL. And that is why more than ever, the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of advertising. For our second story, the Super Bowl halftime show costs $50 million to produce, but Kendrick Lamar will get paid minimum wage. These are the crazy economics of the biggest concert on earth.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And his funny thing, but the only thing more watched than the Super Bowl, what is it, Jack? The Super Bowl halftime show. Yeah. It's a game within a game, and it's the game that's going to get your mom out of those queso chips.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
No, the first halftime show actually happened in 1967, which I think was Super Bowl I. I believe it was, Jack, and it featured a jazz trumpeter who played Miles Davis in midfield. Things changed in 1993 when the Super Bowl halftime show had its first megastar. Michael Jackson. And he moonwalked his way into A-list stardom. First time he'd ever been seen by a billion people on Earth.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Ever since, it's been only A-list artists who perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. And those artists typically demand seven-figure paydays to perform anywhere. But here's what we thought was insane. For the Super Bowl, they're paid zero. They get paid nothing. We repeat, you know, Katy Perry with the Sharks, Riri with the pregnancy reveal.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
To perform at the Super Bowl, they got paid minimum wage. Yeah, it's actually minimum wage because they don't want to break minimum wage laws. Yeah, they got paid 15 bucks an hour. So besties, Jack and I were fascinated. We jumped in T-boy style and we discovered the economics of the Super Bowl halftime show. What do we got, Jack? This year, Kendrick Lamar is getting paid nothing.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
It may even cost him money to be the Super Bowl halftime performer. All right, we'll explain. Here's how it goes down. Apple Music actually pays $50 million to be the sponsor of the halftime show. And the NFL keeps $35 million of that. It's sponsorship revenue. It's pure profit for the league. Now, the artist actually gets $15 million out of that $50 million deal, but with one big catch.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
All that 15 million that the artist gets, it's for the production budget. True. It can only be to pay for the concert. Yeah. The artist has to pay for the backup dancers, the balloons, the set, the fireworks, even the rehearsals. And the left shark, if they bring another left shark into the performance. The artist has to pay 3,000 part-time workers from security to marketing.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Kendrick Lamar will make zero dollars at the halftime show. So we found the ROI. And our third and final story. For 70 years, one factory in Ohio has made every single football that the NFL uses. It's Wilson. Wilson is a publicly traded pure play ball business. And Jack and I went deep in the ball pit. But yet is before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a fantastic hunt.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Yeah, Riri, she had to spend on that. In fact, when The Weeknd performed in the Super Bowl in 2021, he was over budget. True. So he actually had to pay $7 million out of his own pocket to pay for his halftime show. Sit down, stand up, and write the checks again, because The Weeknd performed at the Super Bowl, but ended up $7 million poorer. So here's the obvious question.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Why is Kendrick Lamar doing this show for free? Is he that determined to make Drake, like, have a harder time up north in Canada? Sounds like Kendrick's doing a diss track on himself. I'm not like us. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies watching the halftime show? This is the ultimate unpaid gig worth doing. Yetis, the Super Bowl halftime show is 12 minutes long.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
We did the math, and that is equal to 24 Super Bowl commercials, a value of $150 million. And that extremely valuable exposure boosts these musicians' entire businesses. Get this. Usher announced his concert tour right after the last Super Bowl, and prices surged 40% because of his performance. Justin Timberlake's music streams jumped 500% after his recent Super Bowl halftime show.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Oh, we love this one. Riri added 3 million Instagram followers after her Super Bowl performance. That is very valuable. Oh, and searches for her beauty brand, Fenty Beauty, surged 800% after the gig. Now for Kendrick Lamar, this is perfect timing. It is. Because last week, he announced his next concert, which begins in April. Tickets are on sale right now.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Oh, plus he's doing a movie with the South Park guys, Kendrick and South Park. All of this extra attention from the Super Bowl halftime show, it's going to drive demand for his future productions. So besties, Kendrick's free performance is actually an investment to market his entire business. Kendrick will get paid $0 for the halftime show, but he gets the biggest financial return of his life.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
For our third and final story, Ohio is home to the one factory that's made every single NFL football since 1955. The pigskin the players hold this Sunday is a lesson on what customers value. Yetis, Da Vinci created the Mona Lisa. Beyonce created Halo. And Eli Manning created... A spiraling football. A perfectly thrown spiral is the magnum opus of American jocks, isn't it, Nick? It's peak bro art.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Few know this, but I actually taught Jack how to throw his first spiral. All right. Oh, wait, I forgot. No, no, you taught me. Okay. Do you see what I'm holding? I see what you're holding. This is an official NFL football. My dad got each of us brothers one of these for Christmas. And it's the subject of today's story.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
But that football that Jack's holding, that masterpiece is a Wilson football made in Ada, Ohio. Makes sense. It's made in Ohio. Yeah. Football was invented there. And the Hall of Fame is still in Ohio. But funny thing we noticed, all footballs are still born there too. The population of Ada, Ohio is only 5,000 people. But the one factory there produces 500,000 footballs each year. Yeah.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
But a fantastic mix of stories. Love the mix, Jack. Nick, to celebrate a touchdown, is Travis Kelsey going to get down on one knee and propose to Taylor Swift? I don't know. He didn't tell me. But you can actually bet on that along with four other Taylor Swift bets this weekend. It's going to be a wild weekend. Yeti's this Sunday. It's Philadelphia versus Kansas City.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And sends 27,000 of them to the National Football League. 5% of their revenue comes from the NFL, the most important football buyer in the world. And get this, the NFL actually requires that all game balls that they use are made in the USA. Now, besties, Jack and I always thought it was called American football to differentiate it from soccer. But in reality, it's more of an America situation.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
Yeah, it is, yeah. They call it American football as a statement of pride, not to clarify. Yeah, in fact, just like the fashion or the car industries, interestingly, even the football ball industry has tiers. It has different levels. And the Duke, as it's known, the official NFL football, is the top of the line. It costs $150. That's basically the snitch of the gridiron.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
And it's actually the same ball that has been played in every single 58 Super Bowls so far. But here's the fascinating part of this story. The brand new factory in Idaho, Ohio, it's built in the age of automation. But the entire manufacturing process is extremely human. Yeah, the company that owns Wilson, that makes all this, that built this new factory, it's actually publicly traded.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
It's called Amherst Sports, $16 billion. We covered the IPO. But the assembly line is shockingly old-fashioned. From the hand stitching of the seams on this football. Which is incredibly cool. To the hand breaking in of the balls, which equipment managers on each NFL team do by hand. So the entire process of making the football is a human process. It's a craft.
The Best One Yet
đ âThe Super Bowl Podâ â Kendrickâs $0 Halftime Show. Wilsonâs football monopoly. The Curse of the Commercial.
The only part that's not is the microchip. Because since 2017, each ball has been implanted with a nickel-sized chip to detect with great accuracy the speed the ball is thrown and the distance the ball is run. And most interestingly, Jack, that chip in the ball is going to be used like a GPS device on the field, right? Someday, refs won't have to bring out the chains to measure our first down.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
This is Nick. This is Jack. It is Friday, the real Friday, April 4th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Jack, breaking news. The White House has just announced new tariffs on Wakanda. That's right. The fictional country of Wakanda from the Marvel comic books has just been tariffed.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Now, at first, I thought this was a dumb idea. Jack questioned the whole story. He really did. Why would a handbag store... Start side hustling as like a concert venue. Like, are you a bag shop or are you an ice cream shop? I'll tell you what, Jack. If they added a mechanical bull, I'd probably buy three bags before I even walked out. No, you wouldn't.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
But like a mechanical bull would be so incongruent with the bag store. I guess you're asking, Jack, if people dwell more, but to what end are they dwelling? I could take my shirt off and people would dwell more. Well, maybe not. Maybe not. So Jack wants a takeaway for our buddies over at Coach. More dwelling, more selling.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Yeah, according to Path Intelligence's latest white paper, there's a high correlation between dwell time and spending. The more time a customer spends chilling with an ice cream cone or a DJ or a custom tote bag embroidery station, well, the more likely they are to walk out having swiped their credit card.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Plus, the more time they're dwelling in your store is the less time they're spending at the competition store. So Coach is adding on-brand, non-disruptive activities to their stores to increase dwell. No to the mechanical bull. No to me taking my shirt off either. But yes to a live string quartet. So Yeti's Coach handbags, they reveal a big new data point. More dwellin', more sellin'.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the real Friday? White Lotus has captured the zeitgeist for eight weeks because their episodes drip. They don't drop. Netflix's binge felt like disruption, but it was just a temporary interruption. For our second story, Apple. Everything Americans buy from abroad has a new tax. For the iPhone, it's $324. Well, who's going to pay that tax?
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
You're at Buffalo Wild Wings watching the Final Four this weekend, plus every baseball game and golf. Plus a couple basketball games and hockey. Jack, what is the solution to watch all those games? Glasses? that let you watch 10 screens at the same time. Get this, Buffalo Wild Wings is now selling a single pair of glasses to let you watch 10 screens at once.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Us consumers, Apple, and maybe Foxconn, the factory, too. And our third and final story is Coach. They're adding activities in their stores to increase dwell time. We've literally never said the word dwell as many times as we just said it. And they're doing it because more dwelling leads to more selling. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Yeah, we were curious. First, the only stock market winner yesterday, McDonald's. They ended up 2% at an all-time high. Why? Because investment banks hugely raised their expectations yesterday that the economy was going into a recession. The S&P 500 is now down 12% from its all-time high, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is down 18%.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
By the way, Nick and I, we don't sell our stocks during panics like today. No way down. This isn't investment advice, but we've been through these before, and downturns have always rebounded. And second, Hershey's chose T-Day, tariff day, to make a huge announcement, shockingly. The chocolate company is buying Lesser Evil, that popcorn brand you see at the co-op. I know you're a popcorn guy, Jack.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Hershey's is going to pay up to $750 million for the popcorn brand if they hit some fantastic milestones. And finally, the final four is this weekend. Four number one seeds are remaining on the men's side. Three number one seeds and one number two seed remain on the women's side. March has had no madness. Zero madness. If you picked only the favorites to win, you're probably winning your bracket.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And that's kind of lame. Eastern Purdue Central State University just didn't do it for me this year, Jack. The less risks you took on your bracket, the better you've done. Yeah, I only had upsets. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Breaking News, Jack. The White House has just announced new tariffs on Westeros.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
The Fifth Kingdom in Game of Thrones will now have a 25% tariff on barley, grain, and dragon's eggs exports. Oh boy. Is the Bank of Braavos going to cut interest rates to account for this? Breaking News update, Jack. I'm getting word that Queen Cersei of Westeros is putting retaliatory tariffs on all U.S. weapon exports. True story. I got a feeling Littlefinger's behind this whole policy.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
I got a feeling Littlefinger's behind all of this tariff stuff. Wow, that was the best fact yet? That was it, Jack. That was the news report, man. That was the news report. Okay, all right. Good way to end the week. Yetis, you look fantastic over there. And Jack and I whipped up a little something special for this podcast for you tomorrow morning.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
We got a tease about one of the subjects of today's episode. The iPhone. We've got a tease of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet, where we tell you the untold origin story of Apple's iPhone. You can tap the link in the episode description today or just wait till it drops on the feed tomorrow. It's a fantastic story. Wild team behind it. You're going to love this.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
But in the meantime, Jack, so many wins to celebrate this week. Incredible time with you at the Ambys. What an amazing trip to Chicago. Sorry we didn't wear tuxes, but you looked amazing in that Navy suit. That red carpet was the Jack carpet. Besties, celebrate the wins, and Jack and I will see you Monday.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And the wildest part, you don't plug these in. They don't have a battery. They don't even use electricity. No, because these glasses are simply attached with 10 mirrors sticking out of the frames. It's like those mirrors you can attach to your bike helmet. I can picture that. But there's 10 mirrors. So besties, you put these on, you can watch Duke versus Alabama directly ahead.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Lauren Bergeron, who's celebrating not just a B-Day, but a wedding. She's turning 40, her fiancĂŠ Caleb's turning 45, and they're going into it with a whole lot of love in Pinehurst, North Kakalaki. Nice! And happy 35th birthday to Sam Wilkins in Eugene, Oregon. And Enzo Benfanti, the T-boy, a husband in Buffalo, New York, has got the best birthday yet.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Happy birthday to Chrissy DeLore from Brooklyn, who's not a recession brunette. And Princess Adelina in St. Joseph, Michigan has known this theme song since she was in the womb, and that means she's going to have a best birthday. Happy 30th birthday to Brianna Winberg in Winbury, Massachusetts, who's doing a Euro trip with her buddies.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And Carly Kanick is celebrating a birthday in Chicago with her puppy Francisco, her husband Mark, and a whole lot of logistics. And a big shout out and happy birthday to Karen Huang in Kingston, Ontario, who has shared this pod with more of her business school students than anyone north of the border. Karen, we stand on guard for thee.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And everyone in northern Michigan who's been stuck at home in ice storms, we're here for you to whip up the takeaways and keep it entertaining. And congratulations to Ashley and Arnold, who are celebrating their dinkhood with a wedding in Las Vegas. And Lizzie and Jared are getting married over in Kauai, Hawaii.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
They met at Duke's Business School, and these blue devils are the top seed in the marriage ceremony. Oh, and a big shout out to little brother Chuck, who is a T-boy. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon, Restoration Hardware, and Netflix. Nick owns stock of Nike and Lululemon, and we both own stock of Apple, as well as ETFs of the S&P 500. How's your dwell time, Greg?
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
I'd say strong to quite strong. If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. We want to get to know you.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
and then tilt the nine mirrors just right so you can watch the entire Major League Baseball slate. Jack, this is not a bifocal, it's a tenfocal. It's not four eyes, it's ten eyes. This is the biggest innovation in glasses since the croquis. You kind of look like Edward Scissorhands, but on your head. In a good way.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
The way Jack and I see this, this isn't even the cleverest part of the innovation, is it, man? The cleverest part is that they're not giving them away for free. Buffalo Wild Wings is charging $10 per use. Which is still 99% cheaper than those Apple Vision Pros. And you only look marginally more ridiculous. So yeah, it is one chicken wing chain just out-innovated big tech.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And these spectacles, they're a spectacle. Oh, yeah. Jack, let's hit our three stars.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
For our first story, the White Lotus season finale is this Sunday. Whose dead body is going to end up floating in that pool? Nobody knows. But the bigger question, is HBO's drip strategy better than Netflix's drop? We have got the answer. But Yeti is White Lotus. Sex, money, and room service. Someone's going to get undressed, and someone's going to die. Popper, I'm going to need more lorazepam.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
I don't think that's a real headline, but I would be surprised. Breaking news. Jack, I'm getting word that Black Panther, the leader of Wakanda, is putting retaliatory tariffs on America. That's how the news cycle has felt recently. We are living through history. The S&P 500 sank by 5% yesterday, the worst day since 2020. It's all because of Trump's global trade war, which we'll get to in a sec.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeti's in February. We told you about the White Lotus effect. Wherever the show films, tourism jumps by 20%. Is that the patio where Lori wings at Valentin? Well... Sure, I'll pay $2,000 for that room. By the way, we just got new numbers. The White Lotus actors all got paid the same fixed rate, $40,000 per episode, and there was no negotiating.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
So regardless of fame, each and every actor got paid $320,000 for the whole season. Whether you were Saxon, Lachlan, or Piper, you got the same pay. Yeah, it's a big show, so the studio has leverage in terms of what they're dishing out for paychecks. Patrick Schwarzenegger, by the way, He actually cried when he got selected for the cast. He posted a video about it.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Yeah, in the video, I think he goes, Tsunami! But seriously, where's my lorazepam? I think it's lorazepam. But I love where you're at, Zach. But yet he is no spoilers here. Jack is two episodes ahead of me. And we noticed that the biggest drama in White Lotus isn't Chelsea's teeth or the brotherly love. It's the publishing strategy. That's... the biggest drama.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
More specifically, the drip strategy versus the drop strategy. Because Netflix lets you binge it all, but HBO makes you wait seven days for the next episode. We're talking about the delay versus the deluge. The binge blitz versus the trickle treat. The Netflix feast versus the HBO tease. This is the biggest divide in streaming. It really is.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Do you let viewers watch at their leisure all at once if they want? or do you make them wait for a weekly schedule? Well, we have noticed that so far this year, the shows that drop weekly are winning the cultural clout. White Lotus and Severance both captured the zeitgeist as momentum grew each week with the new episode.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And anecdotally, everyone you know has been freaking out about Severance for the last 10 weeks. Probably already chose a Halloween costume of Mr. Milchak. Because with both the White Lotus and Severance... Over two months, the cast members got to make PR appearances on late-night talk shows. Honey, is that Mark S. on Conan? Let's watch.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And for eight weeks, the office water cooler had one conversation topic. Hey, Frank, is Mook a murderer or what? I got a lot of theories. Plus, I've seen eight weeks of White Lotus memes. Each week, we had a highly memeable moment that spread like fire Monday morning on social media. Oh, but Jack, on the other hand, what was happening with Netflix's shows in Q1?
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Squid Game 2 dropped the day after Christmas. I didn't hear a peep about it. Meghan Markle's show got a lot of publicity that first weekend, but then they both kind of flamed out after a few days. Adweek actually studied a dozen different shows from the last two years, and they found that fan engagement is three times higher when there's a weekly release schedule versus one big drop.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
So add it all up, and it looks like the Netflix feast is getting roasted by the HBO tees. We bet your buddies are talking more about Severance and White Lotus than they are Squid Game. What's Squid Game? So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in media? Sometimes disruption is actually just an interruption.
The Best One Yet
âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Yetis, when Netflix streaming technology introduced the binge, it disrupted how we all watch TV. And it was so popular, we assumed that the Netflix way would become the new norm. Every streamer would drop the whole season at once. But despite the existence of that binging technology, the trend has actually gone in reverse.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
HBO Max, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, they all keep their premium shows on a weekly drip schedule. I mean, Jack, even Netflix is seeing the appeal. Love is Blind is now a weekly drip release. Here's the deal. As Hollywood's financials remain squeezed, marketing teams want to spread out the marketing bang to make their bucks last longer.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we For our first story, the White Lotus season finale is this weekend, but it's already answered the biggest debate in streaming. The HBO weekly drip versus the Netflix binging drop. For our second story, this week, President Trump dropped a nuclear tariff bomb in Trade War II. So let's zoom in on the $324 iPhone tariff.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And now we've got enough evidence to confirm that the drip strategy is beating the drop strategy. It shows that disruption isn't always permanent. What looks like disruption might actually just be a temporary interruption. For our second story, on Wednesday, Trump dropped a nuclear bomb in his trade war.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
To understand the fallout, we're looking at the iPhone and the new $324 iPhone tax that someone's going to have to pay. Now, Yeti's a bit of historical context. The United States set up the global world order after World War II. It's made us the richest country in the world. But President Trump thinks we should go back to when America made stuff in America.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
So he blew up the world order on Wednesday in a way that only the president of the United States could do. Jack, could you recap the key numbers for us over there, please? Here's the key trade war escalation from Wednesday. A minimum 10% tariff on every country that we buy stuff from abroad, plus extra tariffs on countries that we have a trade deficit with.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
The wildest part may be that the United States put a 10% tariff on the McDonald Islands off of Australia, which, Jack, how many people live there exactly? No people, but penguins live there. Yeah, there are penguins. We should point out those penguins, they're going to have to pay. Now, Nike stock plummeted on Thursday by 10%. Because we get 97% of our footwear from abroad. Lululemon fell by 10%.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Because 50% of our clothing comes from China or Vietnam. And restoration hardware dropped by 30%. Because that lovely sconce in your mother's kitchen was made in Asia. But it's not just investors who are suffering. Consumers will too. And to best illustrate the pain, we're looking at the brand new iPhone tariff. More specifically, the $324 iPhone tax.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Because yetis, Apple assembles 90% of its iPhones in China. Well, China just got a brand new 34% tariff on everything they produce. But that's on top of the 20% tariffs that Trump already placed on China last month. Good point, Jack. So, add it all up, that means we've got 54% tariffs on anything made in China coming to America. That's basically a 54% sales tax.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
on the most popular product of all time, the iPhone. We should sprinkle on a little more context here. The 54% tariff isn't paid on the $1,000 price tag of your next iPhone. Right, Apple buys iPhones from China's Foxconn factory for about $600 each. And that's the price that the tariff applies to, the $600.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Now, besties, Apple whips up your iPhone in China because the labor costs are less, but this new tariff... cancels all that out. Still, we don't think there's any way Apple moves their iPhone factories to America. They would only do that if they were certain that these tariffs were permanent, which they're almost certainly not.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Timmy Cook donated a million bucks to Trump's inauguration hoping for an exemption and it looks like he didn't get it. But we expect them to continue lobbying for that exemption. Or just hope that China cuts a deal with the U.S. to cancel all these tariffs. In the meantime, Walmart, Nike, General Motors, your mom's sconces from restoration hardware.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Virtually every big company is facing the same issue to varying degrees. A new tax on their imported products. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Apple? Who is going to pay the $324 iPhone tax? You know what, Yetis? Honestly, the short answer, we don't know yet. But we can tell you that nobody is going to be unscathed.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Maybe the factory, Foxconn, is going to pay for some of the tariff by lowering the price that they sell the iPhone to Apple. The Chinese factory could become less profitable or they could cut the wage of their workers. Either way, someone's going to pay. More likely, we think Apple is going to pay for this tax by accepting a lower profit margin. Or potentially, Jack, we U.S.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
And our third and final story, for some reason, Gen Z is spending all their time hanging out in Coach handbag stores. Turns out the reason is a brand new concept, and it's called dwell time. Dwell time. Dwell time. I could use some dwell time. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories to go into the weekend with Jack.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
consumers could pay because Apple's got a lot of leverage and could just pass the tariff on to us. I'm not going to buy an Android phone, and Apple knows that. So if they raise the price by $324, I might delay my new iPhone, but eventually I'm going to get a new iPhone. Well, there you go, Jack. We just lost a sponsor.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
So besties, only time will tell how much of the new $324 iPhone tax trickles down into the price we all pay at the Apple Store register. It's probably going to be split in some way between Foxconn, Apple, and us consumers. But in response, Apple's stock fell 9% this week, which is double the drop of the whole stock market. Besties, this is the most uncertain moment for the U.S.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
economy since the pandemic. Well, one of the millions of questions our economy faces, who's going to pay this $324 iPhone tax?
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
For our third and final story before the weekend. A strange new phenomenon is taking over coaches' handbag stores. Gen Z is just hanging out. We need to talk about a new way to measure retail success. Dwell time. Dwell time. Now, yetis, if you work at a Wall Street bank, odds are at least one person in the room is about to drop a Coach bag on that conference table.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Coach, the accessible status symbol bag. Still, $200 to $2,000. This is a subtle urban flex, baby. It's not a Hermes Birkin bag. but you definitely don't want to leave your bagel inside it. Tom Wamsgan will spank you if you do that. Coach is owned by Tapestry, a $13 billion American fashion conglomerate, and their stock's done pretty well this year. It's up 40%.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
But Jack, what's the weird thing that's happening at these Coach handbag stores? The online publication Modern Retail noticed that Gen Z is just hanging out at Coach stores, like a half hour, an hour. Young people are just like meeting up at Coach for hours like it's a public park. Why all the retail loitering? Honey, where were you today? Uh, I hung out at Coach, Mom. Stop asking questions.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
What were you doing at Coach? Well, the answer, Jack, is a new concept called dwell time. And Coach made it happen. Coach redesigned 12 of their stores to strategically test a new idea. They wanted to get young people to come inside the store and just dwell. Dwell. Dwell. Hang out. It's actually a whole new KPI that Coach measures they call dwell time. It's an experiment.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
According to every tech company, glasses... are the future of computing. You got Google Glass, Meta Ray Bands, Apple Vision Pros. They're all glasses. But the most powerful glasses aren't from Silicon Valley. They're from Buffalo, New York. We're talking Buffalo Wild Wings glasses. Here's the problem.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
They're setting aside 50% of the floor space at these 12 stores for an activity to compel you to just stick around for a while. They're like, they told the architect, let's have a mirror here, let's have the changing room here, and let's put the dwell zone right here. Here's an example of what's in one of the dwell zones.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Yeah, like Jack, they would have a customized bag area so people could hang out and watch a custom bag get made right before their eyes. Another has an ice cream shop inside so that you can lick your... What do you lick, Jack? What are you going to lick in that store? Here's where we're going with this dwell. You could lick your moose tracks while browsing a really expensive handbag.
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âď¸ âWakanda got Tariffâdâ â Trade Warâs nuclear fallout. White Lotusâ drip strategy. Coachâs dwell time.
Well, Jack, I got to ask, after all of these new dwell stores, is the dwell concept working for Coach? Absolutely. At least it's causing your people to dwell more. Yeah. These dwelling activities have increased the time spent in stores by 4 to 8x compared to a regular store. At one Coach store in Malaysia that had live music and a DJ, you spent 12 times as much time in the store just dwelling.