💁‍♀️ “AI For Moms” — Dazzle’s FemmeBot. DoorDash’s Instacart haul. Royal Caribbean’s Panama Canal. +Octo-bull

0:00This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, so Viche Wednesday, October 28th. And today's pod is the best one. Yeah, this is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Last live show of the year, one week from today in Seattle, November 4th. So beast mode your way to the link that's in the episode description to snag your tickets. We actually increased Jack's hug quota for this show because our last one of the year. Are you ready for this, Jack? You're going to feel like each row by the time I'm done squeezing you. It's going to be a hug bubble and it's going to pop next Wednesday.

0:30So grab your tickets in the link in the description or at tboypod.com. But in the meantime, Jack, we got three fantastic stories of the coolest place in capitalism. What do we got in today's pod? For our first story, DoorDash is in advanced talks to acquire Instacart for$17 billion. It could happen this week. The data shows they're number one and number two in food delivery, but they're actually number three and number four. For our second story, Royal Caribbean stock is worth more than GM, Ferrari, or any of the airlines. Combine. Actually, not combined, not combined. But Royal has had the same CEO for 45 years.

1:02He's a man with a plan involving a canal, Panama. And tech billionaire Marissa Meyer just launched an AI chatbot designed for women. It's FUBU, but for women, for us, by us. And by us, we mean women. Personally. Not as personally. But yet he's before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. It was the collective we, but fantastic mix. Love the mix today. Happy Oktober to all those who celebrate. October as in October 28th, the best day of the year for stocks. Get this. Going back to the 1950s, the S &P 500 rises 0.54 % on average on October 28th. I mean, Jack, the average trading day has a 0.03 % gain.

1:40This, that's 18 times better. 18 times better than the average. If stocks rose this much every trading day of the year, then they would rise 288 % for the year. They would almost quadruple if every day was as good as this day. And we should point out, Jack, last year on October 28th had stocks due. They rose 0.23%, another win. The year before that, Jack, 0.27%, another win. The two years before that on October 28th, it was a Sunday and a Saturday. But the year before that, 2022, when 1028 was a Friday, a 2.46 % gain, Nick. Add it all up and October 28th should be a national holiday. Except then there'd be no stock trading that day, so never mind.

2:20Guys, cancel the holiday plans. But plot twist. You know what else happened on 10-28? The worst day in stock market history. Black Monday, 10-28-29. The day that kicked off the Great Depression. How spooky is that? Three days before Halloween. Although the S &P 500 wasn't around back then, so the huge stock drop that day doesn't bring down our average. But either way, you may as well turn 10-28 into a couple's Halloween costume. One of you dresses up as the best day ever. one of you dresses up as the worst day ever. October 28th, you keep being you. But we're going to call you October. Except that one time when you were a huge October.

2:55This is not investment advice. Nope. This is pseudo-mathematic portfolio horoscope advice. Past performance does not guarantee Mercury is in retrograde. Jack, let's hit our three stories.

3:17Tits, 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.

3:29Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

3:40Monarch. In 2015, after my third banking bonus, I finally paid off my student debt. Then in 2019, after we sold our startup, I finally paid off my graduate student debt. Yeah, is everyone throwing random parties these days? Well, Jack threw a long overdue debt payoff party. Gotta love that party. Because for 10 years, I kept a manual Excel spreadsheet tracking my debt payoff progress. And it was very satisfying watching the bad numbers get smaller and the good numbers get bigger. You see, when you're paying down your debt, it helps to have a target date to plan your celebration around. Perfect timing because Monarch has a debt pay down simulator to help you visualize and track your progress.

4:16Monarch helps you break down the debt cycle so you can avoid the endless gloom. No Excel spreadsheets needed. I've ditched my spreadsheet, by the way, and moved all my accounts to Monarch, and it still helps me visualize all my money moves. Because ain't no party like I just paid off my mortgage party. Write your own money story with Monarch. And use code TBOY at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just 50 bucks. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code TBOY. Scribe. Yetis, ever start a new job and realize the most important instructions aren't written down anywhere?

4:46One person knows the process, everyone else is guessing, and suddenly a simple task takes three times as long. Well, today's sponsor, Scribe, is changing that. Scribe is a specialized intelligence platform, trusted by 94 % of the Fortune 500, that captures your team's workflows as work happens and automatically turns them into easy-to-follow step-by-step guides with screenshots and instructions, ready for your team to review and edit and share. No manual documentation needed. And here's the best part. Scribe automatically redacts sensitive information like names and account numbers with admin controls and human review before anything gets published.

5:15Plus, its guide me feature shows you exactly where to click in real time right inside the actual tool so no one has to guess what they do next. And those captured workflows can even give your AI agents a playbook built from how work actually gets done, not guesswork. Want to make your work easier? Head to scribe.how slash tboy and mention the best one yet for your first month of Scribe capture free on select plans. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot how slash T-B-L-Y. For our first story, according to multiple reports, DoorDash might acquire Instacart as soon as this week. Because for grocery delivery, winter isn't coming.

5:51It's already here. All right, Yadies, Jack and I got a flashback for you. Because on our September 11th podcast, we made a prediction that eligible millennial brands would get acquired this year. We called it cuffing season, basically corporate cuffing season, right, Jack? Cuffing season is the time that guys and gals feel pressure to find a girlfriend or a boyfriend before the holidays. We thought companies are going to start feeling it too. Companies want to merge to survive the interest rate winter. And we listed some eligible millennial brands for acquisitions. Here's what we said then back on September 11th.

6:19Let's hit the tape. We're talking about Bumble, Snap, Pinterest, Lyft, all great brands. Companies founded 10 to 15 years ago. They've all IPO'd and they all have big user bases. Ah, but financially they've all stagnated. They're all now worth under$10 billion. Their stocks, they're way off their all-time highs. So last week, Bumble was acquired by private equity. This week, Nick, it's Instacart, which fits our millennial eligible bachelor brand criteria, Jack. Instacart was founded 14 years ago. It's got a huge loyal user base, but its valuation is one third what it was during its peak during the pandemic.

6:55Well, according to the information, Sem4 and the Wall Street Journal, each separately reporting that Instacart's about to get bought by DoorDash. Instacart, once worth$39 billion, last week it was worth$12 billion, but the journal says the deal price will be$17 billion. DoorDash is doing an Instacart haul, literally happily ever after. But Nick and I have been covering the food delivery industry for at least 10 years, and boy has it changed. Jack, five years ago delivery apps, they were looking, as we said, like the mafia. Everyone had their territory. Seamless dominated New York City, Postmates dominated Los Angeles, and Grubhub had the Midwest.

7:32Then you had DoorDash on the West Coast, and Uber was controlling the South. Just like the five mafia families of New York City, the Corleones had the Bronx, the Barzinis had Brooklyn. Hey, what are you doing over here? Hands off the cannoli spice. But those boundaries were never going to hold. No, they weren't. Because capitalism is a doggy hot dog world, isn't it, man? So to satisfy insatiable investors, the delivery apps have been emerging. Uber acquired Postmates, DoorDash acquired Caviar, and then Uber acquired Delivery Hero in Europe, so DoorDash acquired Deliveroo, also over in Europe. Uber then tried to buy Grubhub, but then Amazon bought part of Grubhub, and then a European company tried to buy the rest of Grubhub.

8:07And then that European company sold Grubhub to Mark Lorre's Wonder, who sold part of Grubhub to DoorDash. And apparently we get Grubhub Plus as part of our Prime subscription, sort of, kind of, maybe. I said, where are the callies, Jack? How you doing over there? Yetis, all these gig-style delivery apps, they hooked us up with venture capital subsidized pricing at first, but now they all need to show profits. That's why they're charging super fees, delivery fees, and fee fees. Now, Instacart, it is profitable, and it is still growing. Instacart is iconic, but DoorDash and Uber are bigger and growing faster.

8:36So, like Michael Corleone and Mo Green, both have slapped a couple of guys around and decided to make their move. DoorDash appears to be the winner. But also, like the mafia, these apps are worried about the feds busting in and breaking everything up. So if this deal becomes official, the big question is this. Will the government let the number one and number two grocery delivery apps merge? I'm sorry, Jack. Actually, Instacart and DoorDash weren't number one and number two. And neither is Uber, actually. It's our takeaway. Hey, so Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at DoorDash and Instacart?

9:11It's not winter is coming. Walmart is coming. Yet is the way we see it, the biggest threats to DoorDash and Instacart, they aren't Uber anymore. It's Walmart and Amazon. Walmart and Amazon are simply in a different weight class. They're not digital-only gig acts. They have huge physical footprints and retail. Remember our favorite stat? 90 % of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart, and their stock's at all-time highs as they've digitized shockingly well. What about Amazon? Well, they've turned their Whole Foods into fulfillment centers and launched 30-minute grocery delivery this year. According to the Capital One research, Walmart is number one in grocery delivery by far with 31 % of the market.

9:47Amazon is number two with 24 % of grocery delivery and Instacart is number three with 16%. And DoorDash, not even included in the report. Just like how Netflix isn't really competing with HBO, Netflix is competing with YouTube. Instacart isn't really competing with DoorDash, Instacart is competing with Amazon. And besties, that is why this merger, if finalized, probably will get approved. Because for grocery delivery, winter isn't coming. It's already here. It's Walmart and Amazon and the Barzinis.

10:17For our second story, Royal Caribbean CEO has been at the company, forget this, 45 years. And with the stock booming, he's targeting boomers with a bucket list and with the Panama Canal. Ah, the cruise industry. It was ground zero of the COVID-19 pandemic yet. Revenue hit zero for Royal Caribbean because the conga line, it's not as much fun with social distancing. The shrimp buffet, huge super spreader. Do not recommend it. But Royal Caribbean stock today is 10 times higher than it was during its pandemic lows. Why is that, Jack? Because Americans are acting French. We covered it on the pod last month.

10:54The Carnival Cruise CEO said that for Americans, vacations have become sacrosanct. But now we're covering Royal Caribbean CEO because he started his career on the poop deck. Literally, 45 years ago, 1981. Michael Bailey was customer relations on Royal Caribbean ship number one. If the self-serve ice cream machine broke, you asked Michael Bailey how to fix it. Yeah, little did you know he'd be running the ship someday. Also literally. Because now he's in charge of Royal Caribbean International, and he just announced record earnings, and the stock jumped 18 % yesterday. Yeah, cruises use a ton of diesel, but stock in Royal Caribbean is now at its highest point since the war in Iran began.

11:30But here's what we find fascinating. Despite it being a huge market, Royal Caribbean just ordered two new vessels that are small. Relatively speaking, small. Relatively speaking, because Royal Caribbean wants ships that can actually fit through the Panama Canal. Panama Canal, the 1914 wonder of the world. I think that's the same year the Titanic sank. Yeah, awkward. But it's the same year we opened up our 50-mile water highway that we cut through, Nick, am I saying this right, the Isthmus of Panama? No, you aren't saying that right, Jack. I believe back then we also could build stuff in like three days.

12:01Did we build this in three days, Jack? That's true. There was no OSHA in 1914. But ifmus or ismus, ironically, that canal is too darn small today. Yeah, because all but two of Royal Caribbean's 30 vessels are too big to squeeze into the Panama Canal. That's right. Like Americans' waistbands, our ships have also gotten bigger in the last century. Which is why earlier this year, Royal Caribbean ordered two new ships, Panama-sized, but again, they're relatively small. They can still carry 4 ,300 passengers each. It's like the J.Crew slim fit of cruise ships at this point. It's called the Discovery Class, and they'll be built in a French shipyard for a cost of$1 billion per ship.

12:40Starting in 2029, these smaller ships, but still huge ships, are going to specialize in long voyages through the canal. Picture Miami to Los Angeles through the Panama Canal with stops in Panama City, Colombia, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Or Jack, I interest you in New Orleans to San Francisco through the Panama Canal with stops in Aruba, Cabo San Lucas, and San Diego. With these Panama-sized ships, they'll also be able to shift vessels from doing Alaskan summer cruises to the Caribbean for the winter, thanks to the canal. Now, given these are 14 to 21 day cruises, you might be asking yourself, who has time for 14 to 21 day cruises, Jack?

13:16Unemployed people? I mean, the last time I had 14 to 21 days to do anything, I was like seven. I don't have hyphenated days at all, Jack. I have a specific number of days. Like, all the dinks are going on three-day bachelorettes right now. And millennial parents have a school schedule to worry about, so they're doing one week max with the kids on a cruise ship. But the answer is Jack's Nana down in Del Boca Vista, Florida. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's Wilder's Nana, my mom. It's Boomers. It's retired people, Nick. True. Because 45-year veteran CEO Michael Bailey, he is a man with a plan involving a canal.

13:53Panama. Cue the Van Halen, Jack. So what's the takeaway for our buddies over in this economy? The Silver Tsunami is a 20-year gravy train, and Royal Caribbean is investing in it. Yeti's, every year, 4 million boomers are hitting retirement age. These years, they're known as Peak 65. And they're wealthy 65-year-olds. They got their star homes when you could buy one for$40 ,000, and they bought Microsoft when you could buy it for$4 a share. Hang on a second, Jack. The average cruise customer is 42 years old. Most are traveling with kids. We covered that on the pod last month. And most of those millennial families, they want a short cruise, 5 to 7 days max.

14:29Aha, but the brilliance of this strategy is that Caribbean continues serving the core millennial customer with cruises no longer than seven days. But at the same time, they're targeting boomers who are going to tell their postal service, hold my mail for at least three weeks. I'm going cruising. Royal Caribbean's Panama strategy is to target the boomers with the bucket list and the big budgets. Because the silver tsunami is a giant demographic of deep-pocketed customers with a lot of time and a big old TD Ameritrade retirement account. And that is a 20-year gravy train that the Podsons Nana can get behind.

15:26companion. The written word, spoken. So besties, you can create a habit of enjoying audiobooks while you multitask. Which I believe is chapter three of Atomic Habits. That's right, Jack. Wash pots and pans, awkwardly fold those fitted bedsheets, floss your teeth while you're winding down listening on Audible. If your hands are full while listening to Audible, then you're doing it right. So summer's not over. Replace doom scrolling by listening to an audiobook that a human put all their thought and effort into. Audible, it's stories that speak to you. And new members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at audible.com slash tboy.

15:55That's a 30-day free trial at audible.com slash tboy. Take it from a couple guys with a lot of habits who have become your habit. This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants.

16:29And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. For our third and final story, the big internet controversy right now is from an interview about a new AI. It's Dazzle. It's the AI agent for moms, for women, by women. This is FUBU AI.

17:06But yetis, we got to introduce you to Marissa Meyer, former CEO of Yahoo, employee number 20 at Google, actually the very first female engineer at Google. She's on the boards of Walmart, Hilton, and Starbucks. She is a corporate heavyweight. And as a result, she's worth 1.4 billion bucks. But when her daughter turned 10, she got a request from the local school. As Marissa Meyer told the New York Times, the teacher wanted three bullets on what made her daughter special. So Marissa did what any parent would do. She started thinking about her daughter. But then she asked AI. AI scanned her family photos and said, your daughter is empathetic, creative, and an animal lover.

17:41And Marissa was into it. She thought that was perfect, but the internet did not. Boom. The comments were as divided as the blue gold dress debacle of 2015. Busy parent, you come home, you're mentally spent. It is tempting to use tech instead of think. But it's also your kid. Yeah. And the question, why is your kid special? I think you know that answer better than an LLM. I mean, Jack, I don't live with your son Wilder, but I feel like I could have come up with a much more specific three descriptions of Wilder for this one. I mean, isn't every child in the world an animal lover? Maybe one child that doesn't love animals.

18:14But the bigger story here, besties, and what we really find fascinating, is that Marissa Meyer launched an AI chatbot specifically for women. It's called Dazzle, and at first the description sounds unisex. Harness AI for mundane tasks. You see, Marissa believes that most people are not tech obsessives. You don't need a frontier model to code an app with a bunch of tokens on a Tuesday. But Marissa believes that women in particular want a different kind of AI assistant than what the market currently offers. According to her New York Times interview about what women want, she says women want an AI assistant that is trained on their visual aesthetic.

18:46As Marissa puts it, women tend to take more photos and are more visual in general. So they're more likely to want and work with an AI that visually gets them. And honestly, that is the most different AI target audience that we have heard of yet. We've seen chatbots designed for lawyers, doctors, coders. Ah, but Dazzle is the AI agent for quote, overextended professional women. Very specific target customer. And this is the first chatbot for a mom, by a mom, ladies' first AI. Marissa describes Dazzle as the bot designed for the emotional labor that moms do. My friends refer to this as the mental load.

19:21Like, who's bearing the mental load? The guy or the girl in the relationship? It's a big thing my friend couples are talking about. You don't see it, but we know who's planning the vacation in most relationships. It's usually the women. So this bot helps plan spirit week. because on Monday, your kid better go to school with crazy socks or else he's going to feel bad. So the Dazzle AI scans the photo of the teacher's flyer that came home crumpled up in the kid's backpack. See, it's visual first, and that can be helpful. And if you shoulder the load of household management like the majority of American moms do, why not an AI bot that understands the family through photos and saves her time?

19:55Uh, hey, Dazzle, find three kid activities in Venice, the best Adidas walking shoes for the trip, and then a restaurant that actually serves my son's pasta. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at Dazzle. This is FUBU, but for AI. FUBU. Yetis, remember FUBU, the 90s clothing brand founded by Shark Tank's Dame and John? It stands for for us, by us, because the black community was overlooked by fashion. Well, the engineers and entrepreneurs building AI are mostly dudes. So are the venture capitalists funding those engineers and those entrepreneurs. Of OpenAI's 11 co-founders, just two were women.

20:26Of Anthropics, seven co-founders, just one's a woman. There's an AI gender gap. And when it comes to using AI, men outnumber women sometimes two to one with some platforms. We've said before that AI is like food. What you put in is what you get out. Well, besties, if the AI design, the creation, and the leadership is majority male, it probably has a Y chromosome too. So there's a huge commercial opportunity, an AI that's FUBU. That's for us, by us. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Saviche Wednesday? Jordache might buy Instacart for$17 billion because there's a much bigger threat.

20:59Winter is coming. It's actually already here, and its name is Walmart. For our second story, Royal Caribbean purchased two Panama-friendly cruise ships for 14 to 21-day voyages. Because the silver tsunami is a 20-year-long gravy train. And our third and final story, Dazzle, is Marissa Meyer's chatbot that uses pictures, not prompts. It's a fembot, a chatbot designed by a mom for a mom. It's FUBU AI. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, we dug up a few more gems from that 300-page Anthropic IPO paperwork for you. What do we got, Jack? Yeah, because anyone who says they've read it already is a speed reader.

21:36No, no, no, no. They're still reading it. Anthropic said that they have no plan to do advertisements. Unlike ChatGPT. And Anthropic said no video, no images either. Despite the big market for Gen. AI movies, Anthropic does not want to even go there. And Anthropic also gave no firm date for an IPO, but they're reportedly targeting to go public the week of November 16th. Who bought the stock? That's the big Thanksgiving question. And second, Hong Kong is killing the stock market lunch break. Hong Kong stock market famously takes a one-hour midday break, just like the Tokyo stock market. But Hong Kong says the practice is outdated, so they are now moving to end it.

22:13What's next? Are we cutting the seventh inning stretch from baseball market? Either way, Hong Kong stock traders are going to have to start eating their sweet green salads at a desk like American traders. And finally, the Oscar for Best Brand collab goes to Cheerios and Ziploc. Cheerios and Ziploc, come on down, guys! General Mills and S.E. Johnson, the parent companies, created a cereal bag inside a cereal box that fully seals. Sure, Nike and Skims, Crocs and the NBA, Elf and Chipotle, those were some fun brand collabs in the last year. If you think collabs have gotten stale, this collab literally prevents staleness, Nick.

22:47The synergies, you can taste them. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Sean over in Brooklyn. The Super Bowl halftime show this year is officially going to be Jay-Z. Jay-Z, he owns the agency that picks who gets to do the Super Bowl halftime show. So this time, shows himself. And as I've said like seven times already, this is the first Super Bowl ever on President's Day weekend. So we get to sleep in the next morning and it's on Valentine's Day. We're very bullish on this year's Super Bowl calendar. But the wild fact about Jay-Z, his biggest financial ROI was actually Uber stock.

23:20Because Jay-Z invested$2 million in Uber at its seed stage. At Uber's IPO, that$2 million had ballooned to$70 million. Held on to it since then. It's worth over$112 million today. And the year that Uber IPO'd is the same year that Jay-Z became a billionaire. Yetis, you look fantastic today. And Jack, you are glowing one week before we hit the hair and makeup. Grab tickets if you're going to be in Seattle next Wednesday. And Nick and I will see you there. Oh, and if you've got an idea for the best pop biz Halloween costume, we're choosing winners tomorrow. Drop it in the comments. If you know, you know.

23:58And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Eddie Crystal Mendoza from San Diego, celebrating her 40th in Germany. This is her fifth shout out on the pod. Happy birthday to Vincent Icardi Jr. turning 60 in Albuquerque. And Luang Lac in Honolulu, Hawaii. Also, their son Jaden is now turning one. It's the best birthday yet. Happy birthday to Adeline Munguia, turning one-year-old in Los Angeles. And Grant Smith down in Scottsdale has got the two-year anniversary of getting his skydiving license. Happy seven-year wedding anniversary to Cassandra and Mike in St. Louis. And Sergey Nicole Poletsky just got married in Ventura, California.

24:31Now they're flying out for that honeymoon in the Maldives. Have fun. Send us the pics, guys. And a big shout-out to Tania Kumar at UCLA's Anderson School of Business, a big listener of our show since 2019. Thanks for everything you do for us. Thanks for the HYHTBOI, Tania. Can't wait to see you on the commute tomorrow.

24:49This is Jack. I own stock of Lyft and Netflix, and Nick and I both own ETFs of the S &P 500. And Nick owns stock in Nike. And we both own some stock of Chipotle. This intelligence podcast is sponsored by Business Travel on Hotels.com. Does booking business travel feel like another job? Hotels.com makes booking work trips easy and rewarding. It's easy because you can set your preferences once and get results tailored to your business travel needs every time. It's rewarding because with Hotels.com's free rewards program, you can save instantly on your next work trip and earn rewards for future travel.

25:23Book faster with confidence at Hotels.com. Loyalty members 18 plus.