🐊 “4th-and-Pickle” — Gatorade’s picklejuice plan. ChatGPT’s chief-of-app. Spunge’s sneaker disruption. +150 Friend Rule.

0:28This is Nick. So, you know, we got a lot of questions going, but if you got a question, hit us up, send us a voicemail. We'll get it on the pod. Also, sorry to those we couldn't give Sora invites to. We got inundated. By 6.01 a.m. yesterday, we had like 20 requests for our Sora codes. We only had like two invites each, so we are sorry we couldn't get them to everyone. But in the meantime, Jack, we got three fantastic stories for today's T-Boy. What do we got on the pod? For our first story, runners, bikers, and NFL players are all drinking pickle juice. Pickle juice is becoming the unofficial drink of athletics.

1:01And that is a threat to Gatorade, which needs to get out of the lab and look at real life. For our second story, it's the latest big thing from OpenAI. You can now order DoorDash or search Zillow within ChatGPT. First, we said chat would kill the website, but now chat is killing the app. And our third and final story. For the first time since Allbirds, we're covering the launch of a brand new sneaker company. If you want to see the future of sneakers, besties, then you need to know about sponge. But yet is before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, what a tease, what a mix. Love the pod today, Jack.

1:35What's the real number of friends you can actually squeeze into your life? It's 150. 150, because unlike in calculus, the limit in friendship does exist. 150 friends is the maximum number of friends the human being can handle. Call it the friendship frontier. Do not venture beyond it. And it's all according to a new study from Brigham Young University. And the limiting factor, it's our brain. Yeah, the brain. It's just 2 % of our body weight, but uses 20 % of our energy. Our bodies can handle more bodies. But our brains can't take another Jane or another Blaine, my friend. Now, 150 people, that's a lot of people.

2:11You're not calling that many people to see what they're up to this weekend. I can't even make up 150 names on the spot, Jack. So within the 150, there's actually 10 friends with whom you spend 60 % of your friend time. Jack and I call these 10 the tenacious 10, if you will. And odds are, you're texting today's podcast to one of those Tenacious Ten. About this story. Oh, you definitely got a fantastic Tenacious Ten text change tactic. But yet is remember the rule of friendship. The max capacity is 150. So, Basties, if someone's trying to be your buddy today and you're just not vibing with them, you can just say, hey, I'm sorry.

2:43The fire department says I can't handle one more person. By the way, our buddy, Timmy, he was friend number 63 for us. Is he dropping in the rankings or is he climbing, dude? No, I've been keeping track the whole time, man. Yetis, 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. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.

3:20Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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4:19Who's Henry? Besties, use code TBOI at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just 50 bucks. Zip recruiter. Yeah, one thing Jack and I do to save time, customer service laundry shows. Yeah, we haven't trademarked it yet, but we fold laundry while waiting on hold with customer service while also watching a TV show. Like got to call Delta, you know you're going to be on hold, you may as well be folding laundry and watching a show. It's not multitasking, it's triple tasking. But if you're a business owner, you can save time hiring with ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested qualified candidates first, so you save time by meeting the right people faster.

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5:35For our first story, Gatorade is losing market share, but we think we've got the solution. And the solution is pickle juice. The best way for Gatorade to innovate right now is to look at what people are already doing. Now, Yetis, when Jack and I were back in college, there was a cool new drink order you could throw out at the bar. And Jack, what was that drink order? Not Nickelback, Pickleback. They served you two shots. One had whiskey, the other had pickle brine. You drink the whiskey first, you follow it with the pickle. That was back when Jack and I were roommates, but today, athletic Gen Zers are pounding entire glasses of pickle juice straight up.

6:12And they're not doing it to get tipsy. Ironically, pickle juice is now a health drink, not a Hennessy chaser. Besties, runners, bikers, berries, boot campers, they are all swinging their own pickle juice as a salty solution to stop cramps. In fact, pickle juice just had a mainstream moment. It did? On the gridiron on Sunday. Okay, Jack, watching the 49ers game in San Francisco last Sunday, 90 degrees, but the sideline was stocked with pickle juice. It was overflowing. The athletic trainers on the 49ers served the quarterback, Mack Jones, a bunch of pickle juice shooters while the cameras were running.

6:46Pound three shots of pickle juice and a banana, and that charley horse is going to go away. Ah, nature's electrolytes. So besties, this is what Jack and I found fascinating about the story. Pickle juice is not just trending among hardcore athletes, it's now the unofficial sports drink of the NFL. Which is awkward for the official sports drink of the NFL. Gatorade. Totally. Gatorade, as it's also pronounced, which is celebrating its 60th birthday this year, as we've mentioned before on this pod. It was invented on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, hence the name Gatorade. These professors created Gatorade to aid the football team, and then NFL teams started ordering it up nationwide.

7:24But Gatorade's not independent. They got acquired by Quaker Oats in 1983, which got acquired by PepsiCo in 2001. For a not-too-shabby 13 billion bucks, but I'm sorry, Jack, pause the pod, flag on the field. Gatorade's market share in the sports beverage category has fallen from 80 % at its peak to 60 % today. And the problem for Gatorade isn't Powerade, Body Armor, or all those rumors about yellow five ingredients. Yeah, don't get the lemon lime. No, no, no, no, no, no. The risk and threat to Gatorade is salty electrolyte powders that are disrupting the sports drink market. It's not Gatorade Frost you're drinking after, Pilates.

8:03You're sipping liquid IV or Element in your enormous Stanley mug. And therein lies the opportunity that we think Gatorade can seize on. Pickle juice. Pickle juice. There it is. Yeah, sure. You know, it's the 60th birthday of Gatorade, Jack. Like, you could make the case Gatorade should lean into nostalgia right now, right? But we think Gatorade should lean into novelty. Exactly. With pickle juice. Make the unofficial drink the official. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Gatorade? The real world is your lab. You don't need R &D. You simply need observation. Or another way we put this, you need the research lab of hard knocks.

8:45Okay. Does that work? Do you think about it? Nice fucking balling on there. Besties. You see, Jack and I have been covering business news for decades now, and there are a variety of successful products we've seen not born at a company. The company didn't invent the idea. They simply productized what consumers were already doing. For example, Gillette heard that women borrowed their husband's razor in the shower, so they created a new brand for women, and that became Venus. Uncrustable noticed that parents had to cut the crust off the PB &J or the kids would go crazy, so they invented crustless peanut butter and jelly, a.k.a.

9:17the Uncrustable. Jack, you've got a 43-step skincare routine. What did the Skinny Confidential do that's kind of like this? Well, every grandma tells you that putting ice on your face in the morning, it's the oldest trick to reduce puffiness. So Lauren Bostic at Skinny Confidential productized it into an ice roller. Yeah, these aren't accidental inventions. These are observational inventions. And now Gatorade, we think, should respond to the pickle juice trend by putting it in a bottle. And slapping the Gatorade logo on it. That is the real world acting like an R &D lab. And you know what? it's already got product market fit.

9:50For our second story, DoorDash Burritos, Zillow Homes, and Spotify Music all in chat GPT. Yeti's OpenAI just killed the app by putting them inside your chatbot. Chatbots will soon be the gatekeeper to your entire internet. Now Yeti's first, some breaking news. Apple is reportedly building a chat GPT-like app to overhaul Siri coming next year? That's an eternity in artificial intelligence. Oh, yeah, it is. JetGPT is going to announce a thousand things before next year. I mean, for example, on Monday, we covered OpenAI launching the Sora app, a new AI-only social media video app, unprecedented. The next day, OpenAI acted like Kingmaker again, announcing a deal with AMD that sent AMD stock up 28%.

10:43I'm sorry, Jack, Bloomberg just calculated that OpenAI has announced a trillion dollars of data center deals. Nicholas, one Harvard economist who used to work at the White House says that 92 % of America's GDP growth this year is AI data centers and infrastructure. Sit down, stand up, and plug me in again, Jack. ChatGPT is leading all of it. It's me. Hi, I'm the economy. It's me. But besties, one of OpenAI's but jillion announcements that we thought worthy of full coverage on T-Boy this week is this story. And what is it, Jack? On Monday, OpenAI had their annual developer event in San Francisco, and they announced apps in ChatGPT.

11:27Now, what this means is that without leaving your chatbot, you can order from DoorDash, check real estate listings on Zillow, or even listen to songs on Spotify inside ChatGPT. Get this, Yetis. Nick thinks this was his idea. I'm not saying that, but I'm kind of saying that. You know, like last week we were ordering pizza, a little Friday tradition since we had the baby. And I was like, Molly, you know, it took me like 12 steps and three and a half minutes just to execute a simple pizza order on Uber Eats. Nothing upsets a San Francisco resident, like too much friction to getting your pizza to your door.

11:58All I want is the pepperoni. Well, now you could tell Chachi PT, order me three margarita pies from A16 and get them to my home ASAP. Boom, done in 10 seconds. Like a good assistant, chat will place the order for Nick through DoorDash without Nick ever having to open the DoorDash app. That is big. And Jack, how is that happening? OpenAI launched a public developers kit so that any app company can integrate their app directly into ChatGPT. Or as tech reporter Casey Newton put it, he compared this to what Facebook did back in 2007. This is OpenAI's platform play. Remember Words with Friends and Farmville?

12:40Two games you could only play within Facebook. Well, similarly, you can now get dozens of app-like services within ChatGPT. Now, why would an app like DoorDash surrender their consumer relationship with Nick and let OpenAI be the gatekeeper to access Nick's pizza orders? DoorDash wants those burritos and those pizza orders. Why are they doing it, Jack? The reason is that OpenAI has 800 million weekly users, and it's growing every day. Apps have no choice. Basically no choice. ChatGPT is simply where the customer is, and you got to be where the customer be. So Jack, what's the takeaway, despite my grammar, for our buddies over at ChatGPT?

13:20Your chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff. Yetis, earlier this year, Jack and I noticed websites were changing their content to appeal to chatbots. We coined the phrase AEO, answer engine optimization. And last month, we covered OpenAI's new direct shopping feature. So you could like buy candles from Etsy directly within ChatGPT. So we coined another phrase, not B to B, not B to C, B to A, business to AI. That story was another reason to design your website, not to appeal to consumers, but to appeal to chatbots. Well, OpenAI was already cutting out websites from the human equation, and now they're cutting out apps.

14:00So we're escalating our freeze coinage. Your chatbot is becoming your chief of staff. Besties, human experts, and Google search, they used to be the gatekeepers of information. But soon your chatbot will be the ultimate gatekeeper. It'll be your chief of staff. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.

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15:25Before our New York City live show back in April, Jack and I went sober for two weeks. True story. Couldn't risk getting sick. I didn't want to be groggy. I couldn't afford a hangover. It was New York, baby. Okay, but Jack, celebrating the wins is what we do. And so for our live shows, we crack open something special. So we drank Biro, the premium non-alcoholic beer brand co-founded by Tom Holland. Yeah, I actually first saw it at my grocery store. Delicious tastes like a celebration. feels fantastic and looks legit. More on the looks in a sec. And if it's good enough for the actor who played Spider-Man, it's good enough for us.

16:00You see, it pairs well with a pickleball game, a profitable earnings report, or with the best podcast. So, Yetis, if you want to celebrate the wins with all the taste of a premium lager or IPA, but none of the alcohol, there's no better choice than beer out. Okay, pause the pod. Did we mention the can is straight up gold? This thing will stand out at every one of your next parties. Trust us, we've done it. only beer we know that actually upgrades the scene like a promotion. So, Basties, if there's a win you're celebrating every day, Bureau is the non-alcoholic brew brand you gotta bring. So use code T-Boy for 20 % off your first order at BureauBrewing.com.

16:36For our third and final story, there's a brand new running sneaker challenging Nike. In fact, the man behind this shoe turned down a job at Nike. Introducing Sponge, the one-man sneaker company. Now, yetis, when you're covering fashion as an industry, you notice that it's led by big creative people with big personalities and big philosophies. Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Miranda Priestly, Mugatu. Well, one fashion designer, Salehi Bemburi, is known as the sultan of sneakers. This guy has collab sneakers with Crocs, with New Balance, with Versace. It's across the entire spending spectrum. And last year, Nike tried to hire him, but he said, no, I'm starting my own sneaker company.

17:23And on Wednesday, it launched. It's called Sponge, and 39-year-old Benberry is the founder, designer, and co-owner of the startup. It's not backed by a big sneaker company. He's partnering with a boutique fashion company to turn his shoe designs into shoe drops. And his first wild sneaker dropped yesterday. You're going to start seeing this thing around. We'll post a pic of it on our story on Instagram. More on that in a second. First, Nick, let's go back to business school and talk barriers to entry. Ah, barriers to entry when you're banging on that door, but you cannot get into that industry, Jack.

17:55Sneakers have a lot of barriers to entry. You see, besties, anybody can launch a functional beverage or a makeup brand or a podcast. It's a pretty low startup equipment cost over here. But try launching a new car or a new sneaker brand. That requires way more time and way more money to invest. High barriers to entry is why you don't see many car startups or many sneaker startups out in the world. The upfront cost is huge just to get your first product off the assembly line. And the risk of failure is even huger. So most entrepreneurs avoid those industries. In fact, this shoe is often cited as the most complex part of the entire fashion industry because it is more engineering than it is style.

18:36For a shirt, for a dress, for pants, you only need a few sizes. But for foot? I mean, there's dozens of different shapes of feet. Okay, and it's supporting your whole body, and you need two dozen different sizes. It is a completely different challenge. It's engineering, but Benberry is going for it. He's taken the risk, and he's actually going for it alone, like Phil Knight did launching Nike 61 years ago. And the first new sneaker of the new Sponge brand just dropped yesterday. The shoe is called Osmosis and it's a trail ready running sneaker. The inner sole kind of looks like a coral reef. The outer sole is like molten lava.

19:11We never really have seen anything quite like this thing. It's giving nature. The four color choices are basically Mother Nature's color palette. Although it also kind of looks like a cartoon spaceship as a shoe. Like if SpongeBob SquarePants was going on a hike, he would wear this. It stands out. But besties, this is what we found fascinating. We just don't get many new shoe brand startups, do we, Jack? No, we don't. Hoka and On, they launched in 2009 and 2010. Allbirds, they came in 2016. And now, nine years later, we're finally getting another. Sponge, launching in 2025. So Jack, what's the takeaway facing these barriers to entry over at Sponge?

19:49Salehi Benberry climbed the career ladder in other people's sneakers. Now he's at the top wearing his own. Yeti's Salehi story is wild. Born in New York City, he went to Syracuse University and then took a job at Payless Shoes after college. Payless Shoes? No offense. It's the bottom of the rung when it comes to the sneaker ladder. It's called Payless. Now he moved over to Cole Haan eventually, and then he got a job at Adidas's brand Yeezy, which is Kanye's brand, and things started going up. And by that time, he had the credibility to carve out permission in his contract to do collabs. That's when Salehi started doing collabs with Crocs and New Balance, and that's when his name became known.

20:31Along the way, he built up a million followers on Instagram and just published a coffee table book about the sneakers he's designed. Besties, Salehi is a case study in climbing the career ladder in other people's sneakers. Now he's at the top, finally wearing his own. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Gatorade should productize what hardcore athletes are already drinking, pickle juice. Pickle juice aid because sometimes you don't need an R &D lab, you just need observation. For our second story, now that apps are integrating directly into ChatGPT, it's becoming the complete gatekeeper to your internet.

21:11Your chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff. And finally, Sponge is the new sneaker brand launched by a guy who Nike tried to hire. Salehi climbed the career ladder in other people's sneakers, but now is at the top wearing his own. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First government shutdown, day eight. Here is how you're going to start feeling it, and you're going to start feeling it in the air. Actually, in the airport. Yeah, before the air. Because the latest update is that air traffic controllers are calling in sick rather than work without pay and without guaranteed back pay either.

21:45So flight cancellations and delays are starting to add up nationwide. And honestly, this is how federal government shutdowns tend to end. When air travel gets sufficiently disrupted and it's frustrating to anyone flying. And second, Amazon's next big move, prescription medicine vending machines. Amazon is installing digital kiosks to fulfill prescriptions without a person involved at their one medical health clinics. You can walk up to a vetting machine, tap for thytastrosol, and then boom, that thing drops down like a soda can. We assume the side effect disclosures get printed out as a receipt.

22:20Oh, that would be nice. And finally, Cheetos just launched pants specifically designed for you to wipe your fingers on. Yeah, the pants are orange. So they blend in with the Cheetos crumbs. And they have Velcro spots on the hips where you rub your hands when they're dirty. So they can hold the crumbs that you are rubbing on your legs. But why would you want to hold the crumbs? I don't get the Velcro part. No, no, no. You don't want them to fall on the ground yet because you would let the pants absorb them. I don't think they're absorbing them. Honestly, the biggest shock here is that Kenneth Cole, the fashion designer, collabed with Cheetos to make this hapkin.

22:52In the meantime, the napkin has been disrupted. Now time for the best fact yet. This one's a voicemail sent in by legendary Yeti Dylan Steinfeld from lovely Atlanta, Georgia. Nick and Jack, following up on the story about Sharpie, which as you mentioned on the pod, is owned by Newell Brands. Newell is headquartered in a suburb of lovely Atlanta, Georgia called Sandy Springs. Newell sits in the queen of the King and Queen Towers, which at 570 and 553 feet high are the two tallest suburban buildings in the entire United States. Shout out my Atlanta Yetis and besties. Now I understand why they always say Georgia doesn't do peaches, it does Sharpies.

23:34That's why, Jack. 570 feet, that's a skyscraper. And isn't having skyscrapers the definition of being a city? I think the suburb just became the herb, Jack. Yetis, you look fantastic today. and Jack and I got one request for you. You see, we are now in the final day to vote to win Best Business Podcast. And the voting is 27 % to 27 % between the Best Idea Yet and the Morning Brew Daily. Oh, we are tied right now. So besties, go and vote. We got a link in the episode description. We'd love to pull ahead in the final minutes. You got this. If you ignored our previous CTAs to vote, this is the one not to ignore.

24:15Oh yeah, this is the one we really mean. It was such a special first season. Nick and I are really proud of this series. And if we won the award, it'd be frigging awesome. We all kind of win it. Thanks so much, Yetis. Jack and I appreciate the ballots. And we'll see you tomorrow.

24:32And before we go, a happy 12th birthday to legendary Yeti, Liam Devine from lovely Savannah, Georgia. Making Sharpies. And happy birthday to Valeria in Seattle, Washington, who converted her dad to become a Yeti. Welcome to the pod. And Kylie Ho from lovely Los Angeles, California, introduced their buddy Matt to snacks five years ago. And now both of them are snacking and t-boying. And a happy birthday to you, Kylie. And finally, a big shout out to Diane Prince, who corrected us that when we said dry bar costs about 40 bucks, it's actually up to 55 bucks these days. Full disclosure, Jack and I haven't got a blowout in a couple of years now, so we didn't realize the inflation situation.

25:12Although I'm due for a perp. This is Jack. Nick owns stock of Zillow and Nike, and we both own stock of Apple and Spotify. Walmart business. Yetis, we cover business trends on our show, and they move faster than you can spell GPU. One minute it's vibe coding, the next it's agentic. Tomorrow it's probably gonna be in-person old school again. Yeah, well, while you're managing this to stay ahead, the last thing you need to worry about is supplies for your company. Carol, do we have the cogs needed to meet our Q1 sales commitments? It's Carol outsourced that mental load instead to Walmart business.

25:46Walmart business lets you buy the bulk supplies your business needs. AI tools are there for your digital work. Walmart business is there for your physical work. Like restock your office inventory with low prices, reliable shipping, and fulfillment. Walmart business helps simplify your operations so you can focus on building and selling your product. You see Carol in accounting? She'll be relieved that Walmart business is all over it. Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax-free shopping, both in-store and online with Walmart Business, saving you more while getting you everything you need.

26:15It's Walmart built for your business. Sign up for a free Walmart business account today at business.walmart.com.