💳 “America’s Fave Gift” — Gift Cards’ surge. White House’s Tech Force. Zillow’s Name-Yo-Price. +Uber Eats Wrapped.

0:28This is Nick. 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 in the T-boy? 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.

1:06Tech 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. 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.

1:43Like 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. And according to Nick's Uber Wrapped, he ate 13 banh mi sandwiches this year. I'm more of a DoorDash guy. I'm a banh mi guy. I'm a banh mi 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. Jack, kick us off. I'd love to see a Gmail Wrapped.

2:16Yeah, 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? 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. Yeah, could you just do the thing you promised me you'd do? I will just circle back next year. Besties, happy wrap season to all those who celebrate. Let's hit our three stories.

3:15First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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5:16That's bill.com slash proven. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details. 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. Because the Starbucks gift card may be the most popular gift in America, and we got the data.

5:53Get 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 bucks. 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.

6:35Pretty much every brand sells a gift card or gift certificate these days. This 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 by gift cards.

7:12This 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.

7:55But 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.

8:30You 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.

9:01Should you buy a gift card in the first place as a gift? Is this the right financial decision? Spoiler, no. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies buying gift cards in this economy? The gift card is the rare triple profit puppy for the company that issued it. And here's why, Yetis. First, the company gets cash up front. And second, the unused balance becomes pure profit. But the wildest profit source for gift cards is the third. because when you do spend a gift card as a consumer, you tend to overspend on that gift card by a lot, actually. That's right. In order to use up all of the card, you typically have to pay more than the actual gift card is worth.

9:41By 30 to 40 % on average. That's the average. We call it top-off tension. Let's say you get a$100 Birkenstock gift card. You buy sandals for 80 bucks. To redeem the extra 20, you gotta buy another$80 thing. So suddenly you're 160 bucks in the hole. Next thing you know, Jack's bought his whole family Birkenstock shoes. That's why for companies, gift cards are Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah all in one. It's the rare triple profit puppy. Yetis, it's not romantic and it can feel cold, but cash is always king. You're better off giving a hundred bucks in cash. Let us know what you think in the comments.

10:15For our second story, Zillow is getting zucked with new competition from the 1 ,100 pound internet gorilla named Google. This is the perfect excuse for Zillow to take a risk and launch something new. Come on, Zillow. And we have a great idea. Oh, Jack, one sec. Sorry, I'm just sexting with Molly about a five-bedroom beachside condo we have no intention of ever buying. Yeah, it is. Turns out Zillow isn't just Zillow. In 2013, it acquired Street Easy, and in 2014, it acquired Trulia. And Jack, what was the result of those acquisitions? A 50 % market share of the huge real estate listing industry.

10:51Zillow's got a Zillopoly. Redfin, they're a distant number two, which is 15 % of the industry. So for a decade, Zillow has enjoyed dominant market share and can charge real estate agents whatever fees they like. But here's the news. On Monday, Zillow stock fell 10 % on Word. Google is dipping its toes into real estate. Google, getting a real estate license. Now, it's just a test, but screenshots show that if you search homes for sale in Denver, you might get a Google real estate listing at the top of the Google results. That's a new thing. Right. Google is zucking Zillow. Imagine this. Google could add a layer on Google Maps showing price and values of each home on any street in the world.

11:31That would be brutal for Zillow. Boom. Zillow would lose market share to Google. It would have to drop its fees. Basically, the new kid on the real estate block is a big kid. Again, this is just a test, but it would be bad for Zillow. The besties Jack and I got a couple ideas to renovate Zillow to help them stay ahead of whatever Google launches or doesn't launch. One that we'll share today is inspired by the marketing guru, Rory Sutherland, and it's called Name Your Price. Yeah, we call it Name Your Price because to quote the wrestler Ted DiBiase, aka the million dollar man, everyone has a price.

12:06Right now, Zillow only shows the prices of houses that are on the market, aka the seller wants to sell this house, so they've listed it. Okay, but Jack, what if Zillow also showed the prices of the houses not on the market. We're not talking about Zestimates, but an actual price the owner could list that they would be willing to sell for. You'd move for it. Even though they're not actively trying to sell the house right now. Yeah, you're not moving right now, but if I got, say, I don't know, a million buck offer, you would move. No one knows it, but that's your price. We call this the name your price price.

12:37And Zillow should let homeowners toss it on their home's page. Basically, I'm happy here living on West End Avenue, but yeah, I would move out for a million dollars. Deal. Right now as a homeowner, to test the market, you face the friction of listing. Staging, prepping, getting an agent, dropping 15 ,000 bucks on fig trees to decorate the house. But if Zillow let homeowners name your price, that would solve that. It'd be transparency about the market beyond just the listed houses, and that could drive more transactions. Jack, I got a real life example here. Over the summer, Molly and I wrote a letter about a house we loved and left it in their mailbox and said, if you guys are ever going to move, hit us up, let us know, we would do a deal.

13:16And based on your letter, they said, yeah, maybe we are open to moving and you had a conversation. Yeah, they were like on the fence about moving and this like got them off the fence. You almost sealed the deal. Didn't work out. It didn't work out. But it shows that transparency about more willingness to maybe move if the right price is offered could heat up this frozen housing market where it is. That's what we're thinking. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Zillow? The secret ingredient to getting better is a competitor. Yeti, Zillow's CEO felt something this week he hasn't felt in 11 years.

13:48What he felt was urgency. Zillow probably declared code red. All hands on deck. Google is attacking us. We got to get better. It's a wood panel deck, by the way, Jack. Like, how do we make Zillow better? What can we do that Google can't? I need ideas, people. That mentality of what can we do better, that should be the default for any company in the market. But it's not the default if your company has no competition. And exhibit A of that is Google. Google search didn't change for 10 years. It just got jacked up with more links jammed into it and made it a worse experience. But with new competition, finally, from OpenAI, Google is adding all sorts of new features to Chrome and search that are really useful.

14:28Finally. Well, besties, now that Zillow faces competition, ironically from Google, it's finally facing pressure to improve, to renovate itself. If there's competition, products get better. Without competition, they get worse. Now, a quick word from our sponsor. Top hats, baseball hats, Von Dutch hats. We wear so many hats on this podcast. Honestly, we're not great at all of them. No, we've been avoiding hiring someone to wear those hats instead of us, especially the Von Dutch one, because hiring and training can take forever. Well, proud to say that we are hiring right now at T-Boy, and this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

15:03Because sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. So besties spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. And listeners of the show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. So just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

15:35That's indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. Monarch. When I had student debt, I tracked my progress on an Excel spreadsheet I manually updated each month. Oh, I was Jack a spreadsheet jockey because when he was paying off his student debt, Monarch didn't exist yet. Well, one year ago, I proudly killed that spreadsheet I'd been building for 12 years. RIP spreadsheet. because Monarch is a way better solution. All your financial accounts are linked to Monarch. Every credit card, checking account, brokerage account, even our mortgages, live balances updated in real time.

16:13I'm still paying down my mortgage and Monarch gives me the visibility and tools to do it. You can use it too. Create savings buckets and financial goals in Monarch. Set yourself up for financial success this year. Are you familiar with the Sankey diagram? I had no idea what it was, Jack. Well, once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's brilliant and Monarch visually shows you what you're spending. And we did not make up that term. Your investment portfolio, Monarch compares it to the S &P 500 for you. Set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long.

16:43Use code TBOY at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code TBOY. For our third and final story, the White House just announced the tech force. It's like the Peace Corps, but for programmers. For two years and for pretty good pay, You can leave your private sector job in the tech industry to serve your country. Really good pay. We think it's a great idea and we hope it works. Yetis, Uncle Sam famously told civilians, I want you for the U.S. Army. But here's our question. What about U.S. apps? It's no secret that government websites and government online workflows, they don't always work, do they?

17:22Yeah, Silicon Valley apps have ingenious design. Government apps can have infuriating design. I'm refreshing the page. Representative. Oh, wait, there is no representative. The DMV is full of friction. So to alleviate this national problem, the White House just announced and just launched the U.S. Tech Force. A two-year service opportunity for American tech workers to leave the private sector and come to Washington, D.C. to fix systems across the federal government. And Jack, jumping into the numbers here, the pay, pretty, pretty, pretty good. $150 ,000 to$200 ,000 salary plus benefits and a possible bonus for a government worker.

18:00And unlike those, which had partisan motivation, the tech force will do non-political work. As the White House said yesterday, if you want to help your country lead in the age of rapid technological advancement, we need you. Or if Jack and I were running things, we would have said, make the DMV run like Airbnb. But the key to the mission of this tech force is branding. Because tech force is being positioned not as a job, but as a service to your country. Up to$200 ,000, that is a high income. But relative to what tech companies pay, it's actually not. However, a job at TechForce should not be compared to a job at Meta, in our opinion.

18:35It should be compared to military service or the Peace Corps or Teach for America. It should be compared to a service, something you're proud that you're doing as a duty, and that companies should be impressed by too. And here's the value add. Just like military service looks good on a resume, so should the TechForce service on a resume. And yet he's unlike the$2 ,000 tariff dividend checks and other Trump announcements that have gone nowhere, this tech force appears on track and like it will actually happen. Yeah, this was not just a truth social post. There is a website, an app page, commitments from 29 companies.

19:08We dove in T-boy style to double check all of this. 29 A-list tech companies have pledged to support their employees to leave the company and join the tech force. Basically like a sabbatical, right, man? Yeah, take two years off from your job here at Zoom, do your duty at the tech force. You've got a job here at Zoom whenever you're coming back. And there'll probably be cupcakes waiting for you. Yetis, the government's hoping for 1 ,000 techies to enlist in the tech force who will take government systems from dial-up to the AI era. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at TechForce?

19:39One reason our government websites are terrible is fairness. Instead, let's measure effectiveness. Yetis, there's an interesting case study on how not to launch a government initiative. Healthcare.gov, the Obamacare health insurance marketplace. In 2013, healthcare.gov's launch was a disaster. But ironically, it was doomed by good intentions. You see, back then, the Obama administration's priority was fairness. Let everyone access the website at the same time. Makes sense. Techies knew, though, that that was a bad idea. Engineers wanted a phased rollout of healthcare.gov so the website wouldn't be overwhelmed with traffic all at once on the day that it launched.

20:19But unfortunately, those tech-oriented people got overruled. And the result? A broken site that didn't work for anyone for weeks. Nick, I'm an Enneagram one. Fairness is a cardinal principle that I care about. I know it is yours, Jack. But if the thing you built, it doesn't matter how fair it is if it doesn't even work. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Ceviche Wednesday? Gift cards are the most popular holiday gift every year, and it's not even close. They're the rare triple profit puppy because gift cards are really gifts for the company that issued them. For our second story, Zillow is under pressure as Google is dipping its toes in the real estate listing market.

20:58This ain't just new competition. It's an opportunity to make Zillow better. Zillow, launch name your price. And finally, the Trump White House just launched a U.S. tech force. 1 ,000 techies can leave their private businesses and fix government systems. The laws should be fair. The implementation of the laws must actually work. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, welcome back to the jobs report. We just got our first jobs report in two months. And Jack, it's a slowdown. Why don't you whip up the numbers for us? The unemployment rate rose to 4.6 % in November, which is a four-year high.

21:34We've lost jobs, actually, net-net, since September. But it is not as bad as it looks, because 130 ,000 lost jobs were voluntary buyouts of government workers. So all in all, it's a continued cool down of the labor market, that's been going on for a year or two. And second, Tesla stock has rallied more than doubling this year and just closed at an all-time high. Elon Musk's net worth has ballooned to over$600 billion, which is 77 lifts, not too shabby, and more than Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos combined. That's just huge. Tesla is betting on humanoid robots and robo-taxis, not car sales anymore. And so are its investors.

22:11And finally, remember Jack and I did that story on the bankruptcy of Hooters restaurant and like the Hooters founders were trying to buy back the brand? Well, pretty randomly, four shut down Hooters locations have been taken over by Duolingo, the language learning app whose mascot is an owl. Yeah, this week, Duo put his logo across four shuttered Hooters locations, but no word on why he's doing it. I don't know what Duo the owl's up to. I think he's just doing this for the clicks. Spanish language restaurant, me gusta tres tacos, Jack. Now time for the best fact yet, this one sent in by Brent Hendricks from lovely New York City.

22:46Push and play. So you know All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey, but did you know that Mariah's talent is also behind the holiday hit Where Are You Christmas that's sung by Faith Hill? It was originally written for the 2000 film How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but Mariah added additional lyrics to turn it into an uplifting holiday power ballad. However, the recording took place during her separation from Sony CEO Tommy Mottola, so the song was given to Faith Hill to record. Not to fear if you're a Mariah fan, the artist has two entire Christmas albums to get you through this year's holiday season.

23:20Uh-oh, uh-oh, trigger warning for all the Buble fans out there, Jack. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we had to bring Buble back into the pod again. Have you recovered from yesterday's show? You just mentioned him twice, dude. No, dude, I agree. I agree with you. His tie is too thin. I don't know what he's hiding there. In the meantime, though, congratulations to Mariah Carey, who just set a record of longest streak of one song as number one in the singles charts. All I want for Christmas is you. That is, you look fantastic out there. And if you also bought 13 Bon Mii sandwiches and dropped 24 grand on Uber Eats over the last year, we want to hear from you about what company should launch a Wrapped.

24:00I know there's a lot of Costco fans out there that want their Costco Wrapped. You were wrapped in Kirkland. toilet paper raft courtesy of Kirkland. Drop your pic in the comments and Nick and I will see you tomorrow. H-Y-H-T-P-O-Y if you know. You know.

24:17And before we go, a shout out to Yeti Fernando R. Marea, a Yeti on Spotify who is at our Chicago show and just bought tickets to our live show in Washington, D.C. Can't wait to see you there, Fernando. And a big shout out to Ajay Hira who's listening all year over in Hong Kong. And Kerry, the newest Yeti bestie out there. Welcome. We saw you on Spotify. Thanks for joining the pod. A shout out to Ryan, who sent us a cool story on Flock, the license plate scanner company. Nick and I are interested. And a congrats to Emily Joy Ashmead, who ran the Phoenix Marathon and made it a T-Boy 2 with the best sign in the race.

24:51And a big shout out to Christian Gonzalez, who ran the Dallas Half Marathon and his wife, Kimber, had the best sign yet. And to Shar Gupta, congrats on launching your fitness app, fitness-wrapped, perfect timing. Happy 33rd birthday to Prasanthi in Frisco, Texas. And happy birthday to Sofia Aguirre turning 45 years old down in Hotland, Georgia. And happy 18th birthday to Maddie Sussman in Woodbridge, Connecticut, who just got into her dream school, Tulane. Ride that green wave to the birthday party. And Joaquin Valenzuela is turning 14 years old over in Des Moines, Iowa. Happy birthday, Joaquin.

25:25Happy birthday to Evan Thomas in Austin, Texas. We'll see you at the live show. And Maureen Sanchez has the best birthday yet in New York City calling the show the Teddy instead of the T-boy. Okay, I'll take that. I have a brother named Teddy. We'll take it. We'll take it.

25:40This is Jack. I own stock of Lyft, Nick own stock in Zillow, and we both own stock in Airbnb and Spotify.

25:49Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right? And the best part? They accept Discover. Accept Discover? In a little place like this? I don't think so, Oh yeah, huh? Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times. Right, so we shouldn't get the parachute pants? These are making a comeback. I think. Discover is accepted at 99 % of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen Report.