The Best One Yet
👻 “Halloween Canceled” — Spirit’s trade war-ning. Fortune 500’s founder fun. Pizza Hut’s reading app.
Thu, 05 Jun 2025
Spirit Halloween cancelled their summer costume preview… because the trade war has a tail.A record 55 women lead Fortune 500 companies… and a record 24 founders do too.Pizza Hut’s “Book It” app … it’s an original example of gamification.Plus, Ikea did a commercial in 1994 that changed the country… The 1st ad with a gay couple.(FYI, here’s that Ikea ‘94 commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCGv1hN6S9E)$AAPL $YUM $METAWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Tommy Bahama’s Beach Chair 🏖️Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.TBOY Live Show Tickets to Chicago on sale NOW: https://www.axs.com/events/949346/the-best-one-yet-podcast-ticketsAbout Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, TBOY Lite is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Our 2nd show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly.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 did Spirit Halloween cancel their costume preview?
This is Nick. This is Jack. It is Thursday, the new Friday, June 5th, 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. Yetis, you are listening to one of the top 50 podcasts in the world. We just got the numbers from last week. Yeah, we started spiking on the Apple charts. It's all thanks to your listening, so thank you.
Besties, thanks for being a part of it. Top 50 shows in the world. In the overall category. Overall. Not like pop business news pods hosted by former college roommates. Top 50 overall. So thank you, Besties. Jack, three stories for today's team boy. What do we got in the show? For our first story, Spirit Halloween just canceled their Halloween preview party.
Because the scariest part of the economy right now isn't the tear of teeth, it's the trade war tale. For our second story, the Fortune 500 list for 2025 just dropped this week. And we found the two most interesting numbers. We hope the number of women CEOs keeps rising, but we know the number of founder CEOs will. And our third and final story is Pizza Hut.
Their most powerful product isn't pepperoni pizza, it's a book club. That's right, book it. The popular summer reading challenge for kids is Pizza Hut's soft power. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories. No one else is doing that mix. Love the mix, Jack. 1994 was a wild year for the world.
I mean, Jack, you had the OJ Simpson car chase, you had Michael Jordan quitting basketball, and you had Jeff Bezos founding Amazon. In 1994, you also had Ikea run a commercial on television. So Jack, let's pause the pod for a sec and talk about that Ikea commercial. In the commercial, a couple of guys are buying furniture. Very nice. Steve is more country. He likes a farmhouse furniture vibe.
Dana's more modern. He prefers sleek, dark rugs and some heavy curtains. Here's the thing. Steve and Dana are not roommates. That's right, Jack, because Steve and Dana are a gay couple. And in 1994, this was the first time a commercial on American television showed that. We repeat, Ikea was the first brand in America to explicitly show a gay couple in a commercial.
The network was so worried about this commercial, they wouldn't air it during prime time. They actually waited until 9.30 p.m. when kids were asleep before they showed it. They treated it like R-rated content. That's right. It was a couple of dudes shopping for sconces in an Ikea. Now, today, every pharmaceutical ad has like six different and diverse couples that appear in it.
I mean, odds are that that Thytastrosol commercial stars a lesbian couple in wheelchairs. That's the reality. But big change always starts with the first one. And in 1994, Ikea was that one. So happy Pride Month, Yetis. And besties, if you've got the best pride fact yet, hit us up. We want to get it on the pod. We dropped a link in our episode description to that Ikea commercial.
In the meantime, Jack, let's hit on three stories.
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Chapter 2: What are the key trends in the Fortune 500 for 2025?
Like you could have just Googled it, you know. But Jack and I do want to respect our buddies over at Fortune and point out that by publishing this list every year, it's the changes in the list that are an opportunity to reflect on bigger changes in the economy. And the biggest change in the list this year is the number of founder CEOs and the number of women CEOs within the Fortune 500.
Jack, let's go back to 1995, right as bleached hair and the Spice Girls were hitting the scene. Back then, not a single company in the Fortune 500 had a female CEO. That's right. Today, 55 do, and that's a record. To sprinkle on more context, 55 CEOs is up more than double from 2018. For comparison, 55 women CEOs beats the 50 CE bros named John, James, or David.
Those James, they're always gunning for the top over there. By the way, we included John spelled both J-O-H-N and J-O-N. We're thinking ahead. And if you use a silent G, we have to have other discussions. Side note, the first woman CEO on the list was Mary Barr, CEO of General Motors, which is number 18 on the Fortune 500. But Jack, let's now turn our heads to the founder CEOs on the list.
There are 24 Fortune 500 companies still run by their founders. That's right. And that includes Meta. With Mark Zuckerberg. NVIDIA. With Jensen Huang. Tesla. With Elon Musk. Airbnb. With Brian Chesky. In fact, that number of 24 founder CEOs, it's actually up 50% from 2020, back when just 16 companies were still founder-led.
To sum it all up, the number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500 has doubled since 2018. And the number of founder CEOs has grown 50% in the past five years. But Jack and I want to look ahead on this, and we hope the number of women CEOs keeps rising. But we know the number of founder CEOs definitely will. Reason is our takeaway. Yes, it is.
So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone looking at the Fortune 500? As tech continues to boom, founder CEOs will too. Yeah, it is. For a long time, Wall Street wanted founders out. You needed to install a trained MBA in a suit with a tie at the top. Because coming up with a great idea to start a company is very different than running a huge organization.
Yeah, that's why when Facebook went public, investors wanted Jack Donaghy to replace the hoodie-wearing Zuckerberg. But that didn't happen. No, it didn't. And Zuckerberg's success shows why founder CEOs are on the rise. Because tech is booming, and the trend is that tech founders give themselves something called super shares.
Mark Zuckerberg only owns 14% of Meta, but he has 51% of the voting stock. That's key. Which makes him the emperor of the company. He will always be the CEO. There's nothing Wall Street can do about it. And honestly, tech founders have become great operating emperors, if you think about it. Like, they know how to run businesses right now. And Zuck is the example.
Zuck isn't an awkward, pimpled college dropout anymore. He is a ruthless manager CEO. Zuck and Elon, they have proved the founder to CEO funnel. They will fire, hire, acquire, and conspire to ensure success, that a builder can still be a boss. As tech continues to boom, which we're pretty sure it will... Their founder CEOs will too. You can go from coding to the corner office.
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Chapter 3: How many women lead Fortune 500 companies?
And they came up with an idea that was both simple yet incentivized. And crucially, the idea got schools involved. So here's how Pizza Hut's book it goes down. First, teachers get a stack of paper certificates. And after a child finishes a book, they got a sticker. And when that certificate has five stickers on it, it is valid for one free pizza at your local Pizza Hut. Oh, ching, ching, ching.
You finish Pride and Prejudice, boom, that's a pepperoni. To kill a mockingbird, boom, meat lover's pie. Catcher in the Rye, that's a sausage pie, little Johnny. Come on down. And when the child got that certificate and filled it up with stickers, it was like a million-dollar bill to them. Yeah, they would look up and hand it to the waiter with enormous pride. Finished the books, got the calories.
It's a huge achievement. It is. Actually, in one year, the Book It program reached 14 million kids through 600,000 participating classrooms, K-6. Honestly, we could not find another education source for kids that is reaching that scale. Besides maybe Sesame Street and the public school system. And here's the news.
After 40 years, Pizza Hut is transitioning and launching the Book It program as an app. Although we hope they keep those paper certificates because kids love paper certificates. Everyone loves Elisa Frank. But Jack, pause the pod for a second. Um, Pizza Hut trading books for pizza? From a parenting perspective, that's called a bribe. But from a tech perspective, that's called gamification.
Before Duolingo gamified language learning, Pizza Hut gamified book reading. That's right. Pizza Hut is basically one of the earliest examples we can find of true tech gamification. And Jack, my favorite professor from business school, wrote a whole book on exactly this issue. Professor Warbach. You've told me about him. I love Professor Warbach, Dan of Wharton.
Well, he had this great quote about gamification. He said, a well-designed game is a guided missile to the motivational heart of the human psyche. Gamifying isn't adding bells and whistles that don't mean anything. like confetti every time you execute a trade. No, it needs to be intrinsic. Gamification is about manipulating what you find to be fun for a real-world objective.
And there's nothing more fun and motivational at the heart of a 10-year-old than pizza. Also, Jack, there are no bells and whistles in this Pizza Hut app. Like, we looked at it, and it's a very simple reward structure. That's it. Five bucks, one pizza. Actually, you can change the ratio of rewards, we should point out.
And honestly, the way we see it, this separates Pizza Hut's Book It program from other child-focused food products like McDonald's Happy Meal. Because when it comes to the pizza, you've earned this pizza. It also shows the kid the value of hard work. Although we should point out, Jack, there's also an interesting benefit for Pizza Hut, isn't there?
When the kid brings in that certificate to redeem their pizza, they don't come to the restaurant alone, do they, Nick? That's right, Jack. Pizza Hut gives out the free pizza to the kiddo, but then they sell two more pies to the rest of the family for dinner. Plus sodas, plus cheesy bread. And the salad bar. One sec, Jack. I just got to finish the giver so I can get a four-cheese pie.
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Chapter 4: What does Pizza Hut's 'Book It' program illustrate about gamification?
The average saver puts 14.3% in, which is really impressive. That's up nearly a full percentage point from 2020. If you're saving 14% of your income, you're getting A-plus in our book. 70-year-old you. It's going to be making it rain. The 70-year-old loves you. And second, Elon has continued his divorce with President Trump with more public trolling.
On Wednesday, he began a campaign to try to tank the Republican budget bill because it adds so much debt and spending. The latest, Elon has urged Americans to call their congresspeople to oppose the big, beautiful spending bill. And he's amplifying it all on X, the platform he controls. All of this, according to Speaker Johnson, has quote-unquote pissed off the president.
And finally, OpenAI's board drama from a couple years ago Spoiler, it's going to become a movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Yeah, like remember when Sam Altman was pushed out and then rehired like four days later? It all happened over my paternity leave, I think. It was insane. Well, since art imitates life, that drama is becoming a real-life movie.
The movie is going to be called Artificial, and it's being done by Amazon MGM. Michael Cera is going to play Sam Altman, just calling it right now. Written and directed by ChatGPT. That's not true, though. That was a hallucination. Now time for the best fact yet, which is a correction from our buddy Alec B., who wrote into the pod. We told you how Costco pioneered the big box gas station.
They now have 719 of them. Well, one thing we didn't mention is that Costco also has electric vehicle charging, not just gas stations, with more of them to come. By our count, 27 locations are now electrified. Call them Kirkland Kilowatts. Which leads to a trivia question I just spontaneously wanted to drop on Jack. Jack, which big box store actually has the most electric chargers in America?
Good talking.
My head is telling me Walmart, because that's actually where I charge my Rivian off. Jack, what does your heart tell you? My heart tells me REI. Is it REI? Trey, can we get a buzzer? Is it neither of them? The correct answer was already mentioned on this show. Jack, that's the hint. Spirit Halloween. Can we get another eh noise?
The correct answer for the most number of electric chargers at a big box store in America is Ikea. Wow. Yeah, they got over 300 of them. Fantastic. Not too shabby. Ikea's like winning the hearts and minds of the Yetis and Besties right now. Yetis, you look fantastic. That's soft power, by the way. That is soft power. Yetis, you look fantastic right now.
Thanks for helping us become one of the 50 biggest pods in America. And remember, if you haven't yet, tap to follow us so you get T-Boy every day. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Juliana Aguirre over in Munich, Germany. Danke, Juliana. And happy birthday. Happy birthday to a stink, Darwin Martinez.
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