The Best One Yet
🦅 “Falcon Mode” — Lyft’s enshittification. Labubu’s viral dolls. Bezos vs Trump on “Tariff Fees.”
Wed, 30 Apr 2025
Lyft dropped the wildest CEO letter ever… and it includes “Enshitiffication” and “Falcon Mode.”The most popular, viral product right now? Labubu dolls… Their growth hack? Blind boxes.The big business beef was President Trump calling Jeff Bezos… because of a Tariff Fee.Plus, the world’s biggest pasta brand just solved pasta cooking… with the first “Pasta Playlist.”$LYFT $AMZN $PMRTYLyft shareholder letter: https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/letter-to-shareholders Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… the Starbucks Frappuccino 🥤 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: What is 'Enshitification' and why does it matter?
A word that Borderline requires, beep, a bleep. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at Lyft? The greatest risk to a great product is in shitification. Enshitification. Yeah, it is. That's a new term coined by journalist Cory Doctorow. It describes when a great product starts getting bad.
When a once great product pursues bigger profits, it causes the customer experience to suffer. Well, one reason why enshitification happens, according to the Lyft CEO, is something called additive bias. Additive bias is when instead of fixing a product's problems, you add a new feature and think that that will somehow make it all better.
Yeah, like instead of fixing the boarding process on an airplane, you just add boarding priority up charges.
Like that didn't fix the problem, airlines.
No, it actually made the problem worse, airlines. Well, Lyft's CEO basically acknowledged that this is an issue facing Lyft, but it's also facing all of the tech industry. He pointed out artificial intelligence, where every chatbot suddenly gets new features, new bells and whistles. But what about like the underlying hallucination problem?
Well, Jack, the result of that bias for adding things is in shitification. The product gets worse. So, Yetis, try out Falcon Mode to fix your additive bias and make sure to avoid in shitification. Yes. For our second story, Amazon was reportedly going to add a tariff fee to the checkout when you buy something from Amazon, but then the White House heard and gave them a call.
How Amazon responded says something big about Trump's first 100 days. Now, Yetis, last week, remember, we introduced you to a concept we call the tariff fee. A separate surcharge that we're already seeing on our receipts. It's basically a corporate way of saying, hey, this price hike, it's not our fault. Don't blame us. Blame the trade war.
Our prediction then was that the specific term you choose for the price hike would become politicized. Like some companies may label the tariff fee as a Trump fee. Which implies this is Trump's fault. Or other companies may call it the China fee. Which implies this is China's fault. Basically, the term you choose for the tariff fee of a price hike carries some political baggage.
And that came true yesterday. This was the big business beef. First, Puck News reported that Amazon would, quote, soon show how much Trump's tariffs are adding to the price of each product. Basically, a terror feat. And the White House was pissed. The press secretary said in front of all the news outlets that would be considered a hostile and political act if Amazon did that.
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Chapter 2: What is Falcon Mode in Lyft's strategy?
And then things just escalated really fast. Like, President Trump literally called Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Amazon, on the phone. He basically said, what the hell? I thought you were on my side, Bezos. And then the press secretary fired back with another point about Amazon bringing in President Biden to the situation.
The press secretary said, why didn't Amazon do that when President Biden hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? Now, yetis, one way to think about this is that President Trump kind of has a phantom seat in every corporate boardroom right now. So it was no surprise to us that five hours later, Amazon announced they're not planning to add tariff fees and they never will in the future.
So like if Uppa Baby, the stroller company, raises the price of their strollers from $900 to $1,200, they're not going to call it a $300 surcharge on Amazon. On Amazon, the increased price must simply be an increased price. There can't be a new label separating out any kind of tariff or import fee.
And the reason Amazon's doing this besties is, well, from their perspective, they rely on the federal government too much right now to be on Trump's bad side. Think about it. Trump could order the U.S. Postal Service to stop delivering Amazon packages. Or Trump could stop letting Amazon use NASA launch pads for their space and satellite ambitions.
Or Trump could block any acquisition Amazon tries for the next four years. Oh, Bezos, you want to buy TikTok? Cute kid, not happening. It doesn't matter if these blockages are legal or not. Even if they get overturned in courts, it could cause chaos for Amazon.
So in the past, yetis, federal government money and federal services, they were mostly given or available to all companies as long as they didn't break the law. In the Trump era, federal money and federal services is conditional on supporting the president's agenda. Like we said, Trump kind of has a phantom seat in every corporate boardroom.
So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are over at Amazon? After 100 days, no corporation has defied President Trump. Now, yetis, no president has used the power of the office to pressure or punish individuals, companies, or trade partners like this one has. In geopolitics, a number of countries have pushed back against Trump, namely China, Canada, and the European Union.
In academics, Harvard University has pushed back against President Trump. In law, most law firms cave to his demands, but some are suing him in court. But interestingly, in corporate America, we can't find a single major example of a CEO showing resistance to anything the president has demanded of them. CEOs have urged him in private calls and Oval Office meetings to change tariff policies.
And we know CEOs, like, think like economists, like they don't like government involvement and they don't like trade wars. But in public... Can you think of a single major CEO who has refused or disagreed with the president on anything? In the first 100 days of this presidency, we can't find a single one.
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Chapter 3: How did Lyft's cancellation rates improve?
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For our third and final story, the fastest growing toy in the world right now is the Laboo Boo doll. Somehow scary and cute at the same time. Laboo Boo dolls are surging right now, thanks to one sneaky tactic. This is so good. You can't see them. You can't. But yeties, to give you a little background on how Jack and I work for you every day, one way we source stories is Google Trends.
We track what people are searching because that's a window into your desires. Now, interestingly, the term blind box is at an all-time high this week. More people are searching for blind boxes than ever in history. More on that in a moment. But another top search on Google right now is La Boo Boo. Ha ha. As in Laboo-Boo dolls. Not the Goo-Goo dolls. No, no, no, no, no, no. Laboo-Boo dolls.
Laboo-Boo dolls, which kind of look like a Furby and a Teletubby had a baby of some kind. This little toy is enjoying a craze like Beanie Babies mania right now. They have snaggle teeth, bunny ears, a sneaky little grin on these Laboo-Boo dolls. And people want them. Yeah, they do, they do. They look like the animals from Where the Wild Things Are, but like they're on something, too.
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