The Best One Yet
🕯️ “Everyone’s watching it” — Conclave’s Pope pop. Uber’s robo-VW-hippie-van taxi. The Great Capitalist Pause.
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
Since the Pope passed, streaming of “Conclave” is up 3,200%... It’s the power of Shelf IP.Uber & VW just hooked up for robo-hippie-van taxis… It captures Uber’s Switzerland Strategy.Every company’s put their investment plans on ice… We call it the Great Capitalist Pause.Plus, Starbucks bought 200,000 Sharpies… now its new CEO wants a doodle on every cup.$UBER $VWAGY $AMZN $NFLXWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Susper Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.—-----------------------------------------------------Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Why is Conclave trending in streaming?
So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Uber? Uber's strategy? Switzerland. Be the neutral party in the autonomy wars. Now, Yetis, under the previous CEO, Travis Kalanick, Uber's goal was to eliminate the driver. That was the key to Uber's future profits. But then Uber's self-driving test car killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
So the next CEO shut down the self-driving car division altogether. And that was key because it's when Uber pivoted. They said, we're not going to make self-driving cars, but we can still lead self-driving cars. It's the Switzerland strategy. Yes, it is. Uber said, let's be the neutral party that welcomes every self-driving car to join our app. I mean, just look at the robo-taxi math.
Like Amazon, Tesla, Google, they are investing billions into self-driving vehicles. Uber, they're not spending a dime. And yet Uber is still leading in self-driving because it's the app to use to hell. The result, Uber is the asset like higher profit margin position in the value chain. Uber is becoming the rich neutral party in the autonomy wars, like Switzerland. It's a fondue deal.
It's fondue finance. It's cuckoo clock capitalism.
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For our third and final story before the weekend, the big takeaway from markets, business news, corporate earnings reports, everything financial right now, it's that all plans are on pause. Because of the relentless volatility in 2025, we're calling this moment the Great Capitalist Pause. But first, besties, a happy earnings season to all those who observe the fiscal calendar. Congratulations.
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Chapter 3: How has the Great Capitalist Pause affected investments?
And that is Uber's strategy in the autonomy war, as we call it, the Switzerland strategy. Be neutral. And our third and final story, the relentless volatility of the trade war has resulted in the great capitalist pause of 2025. If you're gonna do tariffs, do them with laws, not tweets. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.
First, Adidas is all over Nike lately and just running away right now. Adidas just announced $700 million in quarterly profit, double-digit sale growth across all channels and all markets. The reason, interestingly... retro shoes. The Adidas Gazelle, the Samba, the Tokyo classic Adidas is right there. Their casual wear is the new work wear.
And second, Tony Hsieh, the legendary founder of Zappos, passed away five years ago, but get this, they just found his will. Now, when he died, there was no will, so there's been a court battle. But someone just submitted what looks like his will, signed in 2015, to the court. It's like a scene from Succession.
It's a $1.2 billion fortune, and the money looks like it's going to Harvard, the Red Cross, and the Gates Foundation, among a lot of people. He also wrote something specifically to his beneficiaries, urging them to experience the wow factor in life. I think he was basically saying, like, live now. Like, don't wait to spend your resources and live life. Live now. He's a fascinating guy.
What a cool message. And finally, scientists have discovered a brand new color, and the color is Olo. It's a really intense blue-green turquoise that scientists say no one's ever seen before, but I'm looking at it right now. I feel like I've seen this. I feel like it's, I have a bathing suit. I feel like they're like multiple raves you went to in college that were like themed with this color.
It's actually a pretty complex color. They say scientists at UC Berkeley beamed five lasers to create it. And now the fashion industry already wants in on it. I think we could have used those resources better. Lasers. All right, now time for the best fact. Yeah, this one is a correction. That's right. Uh-oh.
We got a correction on the show sent in by Connor Blodgett, CJ Knipper, and Louis Monroy, as well as Ken C. Yesterday, we said, I'm sorry, Nick said that the Ninja Turtle Donatello used nunchucks as his weapon. Turns out the Ninja Turtle Donatello actually used a bo staff as his weapon of choice. Michelangelo had the nunchucks. Everyone knows that.
But side fact on the Ninja Turtles, the Ninja Turtles movie was actually the most successful indie film of all time. The 1990 movie made $200 million at the box office without... an experienced Hollywood producer. And it only cost 13 million bucks to make, making it maybe the greatest ROI in Hollywood history, the Ninja Turtles movie. Side note, it's none-chucks, not num-chucks.
Should we just correct our correction on this correction, Zach? Yeah, no, I said num-chucks earlier. It's actually none-chucks, which I never knew until we did that episode of The Best Idea Yet. Yetis, we did do a whole episode on the Ninja Turtles origin story. Check it out this weekend, The Best Idea Yet. It's the next thing you gotta listen to. Yetis, you look fantastic over there.
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