The Best One Yet
💳 “America’s Fave Gift” — Gift Cards’ surge. White House’s Tech Force. Zillow’s Name-Yo-Price. +Uber Eats Wrapped.
17 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, ceviche Wednesday, December 17th. 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. Whoa, Jack, the dreidel rally, not looking good. We're halfway through Hanukkah. Stocks are down, man. Yeah, I think we jinxed it. I think we shouldn't have mentioned the dreidel rally at all.
Yeah, stock's been down for two straight days while you've been lighting those candles, but we are still close to an all-time stock market high. Market tough. See what I did there? I do see what you did there. Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got on the tea pipe? For our first story, the most popular gift in America for the holidays, a gift card.
Gift cards, even though 20% of that gift card is going straight to Starbucks' profits. For our second story, Zillow is being zucked by Google, so the stock dropped by 10% on Monday. But Jack and I have a wild idea to renovate Zillow's business inspired by a pro wrestler. Name your price. What pro wrestler is that? You're going to hear about the pro wrestler. And our third and final story.
The White House just launched the U.S. Tech Force. 1,000 techies will get paid up to 200 grand a year to work for the government. And we think this tech force is the new resume flex. Yes, we do. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What? A mix of stories for Ceviche Wednesday Jack? No one else is doing this mix.
To quote the legendary British Yeti, Oscar Wilde, life imitates art.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of gift cards in the US economy?
Like how Saturday Night Live did a skit about Uber Eats Wrapped over the weekend. And then Uber actually launched Uber Eats Wrapped this week. No joke. The comedy show joked that Uber should give a year in review on food delivery Spotify style. Like you're in the top 99% of chicken nugget eaters worldwide. Yeah, like your culinary taste is like a 50-year-old couch potato.
Or even worse, you spent 24 grand this year on Uber Eats. But 48 hours after that SNL skit, Uber launched that joke, but for real. It's called Uber. Uber.
Chapter 3: How has Starbucks capitalized on gift card sales?
And according to Nick's Uber rap, he ate 13 banh mi sandwiches this year. I'm more of a DoorDash guy. I'm a bun me guy. I'm a bun me guy. What can I say? So Jack and I decided to whip up some other surprise companies that we think should do a year in review.
Chapter 4: What challenges is Zillow facing from Google?
Jack, kick us off. I'd love to see a Gmail wrapped. Yeah, like you forgot to attach 26 attachments, Jack. Or Tinder wrapped. Three quarters of your dates are holding a trout in their profile pic. That's a huge fish. How about therapy wrapped, Nick?
Chapter 5: What innovative idea could help Zillow regain its competitive edge?
You brought up your mother 463 times this year, my friend. That's some little T trauma right there. But Jack, what about a Microsoft Teams wrapped? 90% of your pings were passive aggressive. No, you don't have to do it. It's fine.
Chapter 6: What is the purpose of the newly launched U.S. Tech Force?
Yeah, could you just do the thing you promised me you'd do? I will just circle back next year. Besties, happy rap season to all those who celebrate.
Let's enter 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.
Chapter 7: How does the Tech Force plan to improve government services?
If you know, you know, cause 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. For our first story, the most popular gift in America this year, the same gift as every year. That's right, it's the gift card. The gift card is thriving in this economy, but the biggest winner is not the person who gets it. All right, Jack, we got a whole white elephant strategy going on here. What are you going to do?
Are you going to give socks, chocolate, cash? What are you thinking, man? Odds are you're giving somebody a $20 Starbucks gift card.
Chapter 8: What was the humorous connection between SNL and Uber Eats Wrapped?
Because the Starbucks gift card may be the most popular gift in America, and we got the data. Get this. Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, said in 2015 that that year, one out of seven Americans received a Starbucks gift card for the holidays. $25 for two double-digit lattes. Last year, Starbucks said they were the number two gift card in the country behind the Visa gift card.
In fact, just last Christmas, the revenue booked by Starbucks for gift cards was $3.5 billion. Jack, can you sprinkle on some context? That Christmas gift card revenue from Starbucks is bigger than the entire annual revenues of Instacart, SoFi, or Burberry. Not combined, but still impressive. And in this economy, inflation has made the gift card the socially acceptable gift.
Pretty much every brand sells a gift card or gift certificate these days. It is wild. Including TSA PreCheck. Yeah, that TSA PreCheck. While we were preparing this podcast, I got an email from WaymoJack offering me a RoboTaxi gift card. Really? Yeah, even they're doing it. Now, besties, we should point out, we would not suggest a gift card for like a five-year anniversary present, right?
Unless it's a Gucci gift card. Nick and I just found out that Gucci does gift cards up to 50,000 euros. Yeah, sit down, stand up, and we'll take two, please. But, Yetis, here is the problem. Consumers are held captive. This is wild. Capital One Research found that Americans buy $500 billion of gift cards each year, which is a shocking 1.6% of our nation's GDP.
I'm sorry, our economy is held captive by gift cards. But Nick, that half a trillion dollars we spend is not well spent. for two big reasons. First, gift cards are like cash, but they're not cash. An unused gift card is like cash without benefits. You don't collect interest. Also, unlike cash, we lose gift cards. We forget we had them, or we let them expire by accident.
Forever 21, you owe me like 200 bucks at this point, bro. Now, estimates vary, but somewhere between 10 and 20% of gift cards are never redeemed. But Jack, back to those Starbucks gift cards, they never expire. And yet Starbucks books the cards not used within 12 months as profit because the chances they actually get used are basically nil.
Starbucks booked $1.8 billion of pure 100% profit just from unused gift cards last year. Now, really frustrated Forever 21. Now, 12 states have introduced laws to help us consumers capture the gift card value that we're entitled to. It's a new thing. They're called the Demand the Change laws. And Jack, how do these things work?
If a gift card is down to its last 10% of value, you can ask for the rest in cash. You can demand change, basically. But in the meantime, besties, we all have a gift card library of plastic sitting somewhere in a drawer in our homes. And since they're unlabeled, you have no idea if there's only three cents left on that card or like 30 bucks or 300 bucks.
You show up to the cash register at Sephora and you're like, can I afford this? We're playing gift card roulette today, aren't we, baby? But still, despite all the issues we just said about gift cards, a lot of issues. I bet you bought your buddy Timmy a $50 Starbucks gift card for Kwanzaa this year. guilty, which leads to our big question. Should you buy a gift card in the first place as a gift?
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