🏝️ “Bread, shelter, caribbean” — Carnival’s sacrosanct cruises. Google’s space data center. Carnegie Mellon Miami’s $3B. +No-Phone-Zones

0:28This is Nick. the issue all the way to Apple. And here's what you should do. Update your iOS. I guess that's the solution if you're having trouble listening to us on the Apple podcast app. But in the meantime, welcome to Q4. Jack and I got the coolest show in capitalism for you. Jack, what do we got on today's T-boy? For our first story, Americans are taking so many cruises that it's changing our national psyche. Get this, vacations are no longer wants, their needs. For our second story, Today, Google is launching a data center into orbit on a SpaceX rocket. Because the solution to everything is the sun.

1:02And our third and final story. Carnegie Mellon was just given$3 billion from Ken Griffin to build a new campus in Miami. Yeah, one of the professors, Will Smith. Because colleges are becoming McDonald's. But besties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories. Love the mix for today's T-Boy check. All right, Nick's going to a John Batiste concert this weekend. John Batiste, great pianist, great performer, but I got one big question, Jack. Can I bring my phone? Because the hot new trend in live events is no phones allowed. Sorry, sweetie, we gotta hang up before we go in there.

1:36Grammy winner Phoebe Bridgers has banned phones at her 45-stop concert tour that just launched. No smartwatches, no AirPods, no meta-ray bans either. Gotta check all those devices at the door. Oh, and Phoebe, she ain't the only one, is she, Jack? Alicia Keys, Jack White, Childish Gambino, they were the pioneers of the no-phone zone. I mean, Jack, let's go back in history. Remember the code check? We still have code checks, Nick. That's not a historical thing. Yeah, well, concerts now have a mandatory phone check. To make sure that you're not texting while listening. And you're not posting while dancing.

2:05And to give you the chance to actually clap at the end of the song because there's no phone blocking your clap. Hey, Pixar, it didn't happen. Sorry, I literally couldn't. Usher took my phone. Because some concert fans are going on FaceTiming the concert. And every concert fan is taking a video and blocking the people behind them. Jack, I'm pretty sure my mom bought an iPad to see Olivia Dean play. You know, the bigger device doesn't mean the camera's better. Boomer's got a boom. Boomer's got a boom. Now, side note, T-Boy shows, our live shows, we're fine with your phone. Because we love scrolling your Instagram tags at 2 a.m.

2:36in the morning after the show. Yeah, it feels really good. But warning, without a phone, you can't text your buddy, hey, I'm in line for drinks. What is it you want? And you can't text your buddy, Timmy, where are you? So prepare accordingly. But we want to know, what do you think of concert tech bands? Is it music to your ears? Or is it just annoying? Ma 'am, please put the iPad down. I think she bought two iPads because she always needs a backup. Let's get our three stories down. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm.

3:05It'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. Fifty percent, 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.

3:24Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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4:59Because Monarch is the money app that we'd always wish we'd had. And when I say something awesome, I mean like a bunch of free spots probably. Using Monarch today, we know how much our money was going to taxis or it could have gone to scooters and subways instead. With all your accounts securely linked to Monarch, it's like having a financial advisor in your pocket and on your computer. with weekly AI recaps to update you on your spending spikes that you definitely ignored. And while most apps tell you only what you've already spent, Monarch helps you set future spending goals. It's the kind of money app that your grandma would have loved with all her heart.

5:28Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code tboy at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch or half off at just 50 bucks. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code TBOI. For our first story, Carnival Cruises just announced record everything because vacations are now, quote, sacrosanct. The cruise industry reveals that when it comes to vacations, Americans are now Europeans. Oh, wee-wee, Jack. Wee-wee. But wait, wait, wait. Before we continue on with the pod, Jack, one sec, one sec. What is that off the starboard bow? Not a whale. It's a Sea Monster earnings report. Oh, yes, it is.

6:06Because Carnival Cruise stock jumped 12 % on$8.4 billion in revenue during the summer quarter to an all-time high. The cruise company's profits also hit an all-time high of$1.9 billion for the quarter. That's almost 25 % of their profit margin on the poop deck, Jack. What a phenomenal summer. Next summer, though, is looking even better. Get this, half of Carnival Cruise cabins are already sold for 2027. Because you've already booked the Bahamas. With the boys. Nick batting down the all-you-can-eat buffet. They're gonna run out of shrimp. Oh, and Carnival Cruise, they weren't the only one going full Poseidon on their earnings report last quarter.

6:40Ritz Carlton recently launched five-star yachts you could book, and Restoration Hardware decked out a yacht with their furniture so you could book that too. And Royal Caribbean, Carnival's rival, they just bought half a Sandals, the adults-only all-inclusive resort chain. Across the income spectrum, cruises are in high demand. We're talking your boomer luxury river cruises in Sweden to your roommate's spring break cruise off of Cabo. Record diesel prices be damned, Americans are going cruising. And honestly, I thought the Odyssey was gonna throw off the cruise industry, Jack. I thought people were gonna see the Odyssey and be like, eh, maybe I'll pass on the cruise this year.

7:14I don't think Americans are afraid of being plucked out of the sky by some giant rock creature cyborg. I don't know. Those sirens, that would freak you out from taking one of these Mexico cruises. But yeah, these three words from Carnival's earnings report reveal something even bigger about America. And we're turning these three words into the rest of the entire story. Vacations are sacrosanct. That's right. Sacrosanct. Sacred. Untouchable. thou shall not be interfered with. The CEO said that you're taking vacations whether the economy is good or bad. The inflation situation, it has people trading down from pasta out to eating pizza in.

7:46Seven and a half percent mortgage rates are squeezing middle-aged millennials out of the American dream. Gas prices are up, consumer confidence is down, and you're cutting back on the big buys. You're only doing sweet treats. But you're not cutting back on vacation, according to the data. It's almost, Jack, like vacations are a consumer staple, not a consumer discretionary now. You have a Super Bowl party, you eat Thanksgiving with the family, and once a year, you take vacation, even if you can't afford it. Like we said, like the CEO said, sacrosanct. But that means Americans are acting like Europeans.

8:16It does, Jack. Interesting observation there. I worked at a German bank for five years, and in the months of June, July, and August, there was a 50-50 chance the person you called in Germany was on vacation. Jack would forward us his colleagues' emails. They'd be like, yeah, I'm out of office until September 18th. Your emails will be deleted. Dankeschön, dankeschön. Because for Europeans, vacations have always been sacred. They even have laws to protect your right to take a vacation. Meanwhile, us Americans are famous for not using all our vacation days. So our newest import from Europe, it's not cheese.

8:46It's that out-of-office message that my German colleague flaunted. If you've been to France in August and every restaurant was closed, you know what we're talking about. Not possible. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies booking some PTO? Vacation has shifted from economic splurge to economic stable. Yetis, sometimes the rules of economics get broken, and this is one of those times. In economics, there are discretionary goods, wants, and there are staples. Needs. The staples are medications. You need them, so you buy them regardless of the economy. And the discretionary stuff is like handbags.

9:20You want a handbag, so you only buy it in a good economy. But vacation has moved buckets from a want to a need, and we actually think that's a healthy thing. It's probably productive for our economy. You see, it's important to have something to look forward to, to motivate you to work hard, like a vacation. So the money you spend on a vacation, we think of it as an investment, because it's going to motivate you to work harder when you get back to earn your next vacation. An ROI, return on indulgence. You see, the cruise industry is screaming something that the airlines have been whispering to us for years.

9:49Vacations aren't just sacrosanct, they're an economic staple. All right, let me add it up, Jack. You got bread, shelter, my medicine, and one week in the Barbados with my boys. Besties, we need to update economics. Vacation spending is now staple spending. For our second story, today, SpaceX rockets will launch a Google miniature data center into space. The tech industry is betting everything on this. But will data centers in space actually work? I mean, it sounds like the trailer to a movie, right? I mean, I like to think that our stories are kind of as entertaining as movies, Nick. I mean, Interstellar 2, Chris Nolan, we know you're listening.

10:31Here's the plot, here's the screenplay. Yetis, what factories were in the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s, data centers are to the AI revolution. Get this, Zuck's Hyperion Data Center is one single computer the size of Manhattan Island. And hundreds of data centers that size are in the world. They are. But just about every single one of them is hated by the local community. Get this, one data center developer has offered all 4 ,500 residents in one Pennsylvania town,$10 ,000 each, if they approve a single data center. And the town is saying no. They just don't trust the developer and they think it's a bribe, which it kind of is.

11:07And the reason here, well, data centers, they aren't quite as good neighbors as Mr. Rogers is. They drink up all the water, they raise the local electricity prices, big carbon footprint, and they're noisy. So techies, they know that building 1 ,000 data centers for AI is critical, but it's an uphill battle here in America. So the solution that Elon and everyone else is talking about, If no one wants data centers on Earth, let's put them in space. I mean, Jack, outer space, nobody's backyard, nobody can say NIMBY, and the real estate up there is measured in light years. So let's attach giant computers to solar panels, have them orbit the Earth, and beam the compute down to us.

11:42It'll give new meaning to the term cloud computing, like literally, in this case. But everything we just said, that's insane. That can't possibly work, right? It does sound like a work of fiction, Jack. Well, today, we're going to answer that question. Will computers in space actually function? Well, perfect timing, because today, Google launches Project Suncatcher, a space mission to test a data center up in space. Matt Damon, time to get on the screen. At 11.18 a.m. Pacific today, a SpaceX Rideshare rocket is going to launch, holding 130 different payloads it's bringing up to orbit. And one of those payloads is a cluster of four tensor processing units made by Google.

12:21Tensor processing units, TPUs. It's Google's version of NVIDIA's GPUs. Okay, but Jack, first potential issue here, you've got a 10-minute long rocket trip to get to low Earth orbit. And the vibrations and intense G-forces up to 50 to 100 Gs? That could disrupt the chips on board. Okay, Jack, another problem we should point out here is, uh, the radiation. Solar events and cosmic rays up in outer space can wreak havoc on electronics. Okay, and not to go full rocket scientists, but another problem we got to talk about, cooling. GPUs get really hot when they're computing your chat GPT prompt. They must be cooled.

12:56Here on Earth, we basically blow cold air at the GPUs. Okay, but from watching Sandra Bullock in whatever space movie that was, Jack, I'm pretty sure space has no wind or air. Correct, which is why Google's going to use a combination of heat pipes and radiators to move the heat away from their TPUs. Basties, we should point out, Google did test this for all three of those variables, and they even built a space-like vacuum chamber to do it here on Earth. On Earth, it worked, but it was still theoretical. We need to test these out and practice up in space. And in real world space, they'll also be using laser beams.

13:30Yeah, this is like the final kicker. But once these are up there, there's going to be a bunch of them. And these orbital data centers are going to need lasers to avoid colliding with each other. That's right. Sharks with laser beams strapped to their heads up in Earth. Oh, minus the sharks. And the lasers, according to Google, will require precision, like hitting a coin-sized target from miles away while both points are in motion. Like we said, the stuff of movies. And today is the moment of truth. Starting today, we'll find out if a big slice of SpaceX's valuation will actually work. Data centers in space.

14:04So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies looking up in the sky to answer that dumb prompt they gave to Gemini. Protests aren't the real problem. Power is. And the sun is the ultimate solution. Yetis, the size of data centers are measured not by the number of chips or the amount of compute. They're actually measured by how much electricity they consume. Zuck's Hyperion data center, it uses the electricity equal to five Vermonts. OMG, the data centers we have in the pipeline. They need so much power right now, Jack. In Texas right now, the applications for new grid connections, is electricity equal to five times the peak electricity use ever in Texas.

14:46Okay, even in Texas, extremely pro-AI, pro-business state, they have now put a moratorium on data centers because of the power constraints. They just don't have nearly enough power to power all those data centers in the pipeline. Now, Yaddy's remember, Jack and I visited a next generation nuclear reactor last month, and that is one way we can power the AI revolution. Another way besides nuclear? We could use the sun. The sun. You put solar panels in the right It orbit and it generates five to eight times more electricity than the same solar panel here on Earth. And according to Google, the orbit plan that they have for these data centers will have almost 24-7 365 sun.

15:21Although the word 365 doesn't matter up there. It's a different measurement of time. No shade. Literally. The news headlines, besties. They suggest the problem for the data centers is local protests. But the even bigger problem is actually power. And today, we'll find out if the solution is the sun. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.

16:09Another fun habit, listening to audiobooks about habits. Like Atomic Habits, the legendary piece about building habits that better your life, right? And the Atomic Habits audiobook is on Audible. We're excited to collab with Audible because it's how we find our road trip companion. 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 bed sheets, 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.

16:40So 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. That'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. For our third and final story. Billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin is making the biggest higher education donation ever. $3 billion to Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon. But$2 billion of that donation is to build a new campus in Miami.

17:15Miami. Besties, Ken Griffin, the owner and CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund and high-frequency trading firm. He's a prolific rich guy. He bought an original copy of the U.S. Constitution at auction, of which there are only like 12. Oh, and he bought the most expensive dinosaur skeleton ever for$45 million. Got a stegosaurus downstairs. He bought that also at auction. We buy stuff on Amazon. He buys stuff at Sotheby's. You may remember him when he was played by Nick Offerman in Dumb Money, the movie about the GameStop Robin Hood meme frenzy. Or you may remember him when New York City Mayor Zora Mamdani announced his pied-a-terre tax in front of Ken's$238 million New York City penthouse.

17:55Now, during the pandemic, Ken Griffin became a prominent tax refugee. And ever since, he's been a Miami super booster. Like how Ken took his finance company's talents from Chicago to Miami in 2022 and invested into a$2 billion skyscraper. The only thing he hasn't done in Miami is ride a jet ski with DJ Khaled to one of those F1 races. Let's get a table of carbone after this, guys. Now, his latest Miami move is the biggest donation to higher ed by any one person ever. That's right. $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon, isn't that in Pittsburgh? It is, yeah. I mean, Ken's not from Pittsburgh.

18:28He's not a Carnegie Mellon grad, and far back and tell, he's not an engineer either. Why is he doing this? Well, because the Florida kid negotiated that Carnegie Mellon would expand to Miami, adding another campus there. And$2 billion of that$3 billion donation will go to Miami, just like Will Smith would want. Carnegie Mellon University was founded with a donation from Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University Miami was founded with a donation from Ken Griffin. Now, part of this story simply reflects the extreme Richflation situation. We should check out the whiteboard here, and Ken Griffin's wealth, it's tripled since 2020.

19:01After this biggest donation ever, he's still going to be worth$54 billion. Not too shabby. But this story also reflects something that Miami is missing. And it's best put in Ken Griffin's words himself, right, Jack? What did he say? Ken Griffin told the Financial Times that great American cities are anchored by great universities, with almost no exception. He said that Miami lacked an elite technical university, and so he's buying one for the city. No offense to the U, by the way. No offense to the U. We know you're listening, Ray Lewis. You see, both Miami and Austin have boomed as tax havens and business hubs during the pandemic.

19:33But both Miami and Austin have lost momentum, we think, because they lack lifestyle infrastructure. Lifestyle infrastructure. That's our term for things like schools, beautiful architecture, parks, public transit, the kind of stuff that takes a really long time to build. The kind of stuff that costs a lot of money up front, but pays dividends over the course of decades. Well, Ken Griffin seems to agree and is building some lifestyle infrastructure down in Miami. As he put it, Carnegie Mellon University, Miami, will be the East Coast answer to what happens in Silicon Valley. Okay, Jack, one sec, pause the pod.

20:03I just got an acceptance letter to Carnegie Mellon Miami. You ready for this? Here's what it says. Party in the city where the heat is on. All night on the beach till the break of dawn. Welcome to Miami. Bienvenidos a Miami. That is such a good album, by the way. I'm gonna get that vinyl for my record player. I think we're in, Jack. I think we're in. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies looking at the biggest college donation ever? In a digital world, physical assets get the A. Yetis, for 100 years, colleges stayed small to be exclusive. Well, that is finally changing. But interestingly, universities aren't scaling with digital offerings anymore, like the EMBAs and the online universities of the 20-teens.

20:46And no, no, no, no, no. In the age of AI, higher ed is recognizing the importance of physical. Vanderbilt University, based in Tennessee, is building a campus in New York City. Northeastern, based in Boston, has 13 global campuses now. They just acquired another one. University of Pennsylvania has a San Francisco location, and now Carnegie Mellon is getting a Miami location. See, AI is poised to commodify online education, so physical education, that is the differentiator. And in this K-shaped economy, many more small colleges will sadly go under. But their campuses are a valuable asset, and we predict they'll be scooped up by the rich surviving universities.

21:18Higher ed knows that in a digital world, You gotta scale physically. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Long after the post-pandemic revenge travel, Carnival Cruises is still cruising. Because vacations are sacrosanct. They've jumped in America from a want to a need. For our second story, today, SpaceX launches a Google Mini data center into space. Will it work, though? Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please compute on me. And our third and final story is Ken Griffin, the founding donor of Carnegie Mellon University, Miami. His name's going to be in a lot of buildings.

21:52Yeah, biggest donation ever. Because as AI commodifies online learning, buildings are the differentiator that gets the A. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, President Trump announced a constitution for AI on Tuesday over at the White House. It's a set of moral commitments from the AI companies to self-regulate themselves. Non-binding honor system be safe with this tech that, you know, just could casually 10 % chance destroy the world. It basically doubles down on America's light touch approach when it comes to AI policy. And second, Uber's wildest new service, get this, African Safaris.

22:26In Kenya, you can book a$500 safari trip in the Uber app, and they'll take you like close to the lions. Local safari guides pushed back, though. They were worried that Uber was commodifying the safari industry. But Uber's not standing down. They're moving fast and roaring things. Pumbaa, not happy. And finally, Tesla was supposed to unveil their second-generation Roadster car today, but they postponed it till October 15th. This is at least the eighth delay of the Roadster 2, by the way, which was originally unveiled in 2017. So to compensate for the iconic delays, this new Roadster electric car is rumored to fly.

23:01We're reading reports that for a very short distance, this Roadster has like a propulsion device from SpaceX that will shoot it up into the air and it'll like fly for a second. No word if like TSA has to check it before you get into this thing, but yeah, your next electric car convertible could fly. For a second. Like, literally just a second. It's a party trick. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Yogi from a national park right near you. Fat Bear Week is officially over, and a new fat bear of the United States has been crowned. Congratulations to Backpack, a huge, really big, very adorable brown bear.

23:36But yet his bears are an important part of the economy. They are. Bears are people who think the markets are going down. The economic term bearish. It's a signal for expecting stocks to go down. Or just expecting negativity in general. Okay, but where does the term being bearish on the stock market actually come from? Well, there are a few reasons why. Well, there's a dark explanation about traders who used to sell bear skins before killing their bear, which is basically a short sale. That's a little dark, but we prefer this brighter explanation for the origin of the term bearish. Bulls buck upwards while bears claw downwards.

24:07Bulls go horns up, bears go thumbs down. Yetis, you look fantastic today, Jack. You are glowing over there. Yetis, if you love today's show, the best way that we grow is through word of mouth. So drop a link to today's episode in your group chat. Drop it in the group chat. Unless you're at a concert, expand your phone. In which case, just tell the person next to you, HYH-TV-O-Y. Or if you're my mom, pull out the iPad, turn on the camera flash, make sure the flashlight's on, and everyone can see it. We gotta wrap this up. I love where you're going. But if you know, you know. HYH-TV-O-Y.

24:43And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Eddie Aisha Amarante. Over in London, England, she's been listening since the Snacks days and has the best birthday yet. Happy birthday to Vivian Chen from Chantilly, Virginia, who's going on a long run again. And Oliver Montia is turning 11 years old down in Orlando. Happy birthday to Cillan Ward, turning 11 in Missouri. And Ivan Nichols, happy 40th birthday over in Brooklyn. Have a great one. Happy birthday to Owen Coates down in Texas. And Howie Furtick down in Durham is retiring from full-time work. He sent us the best fact yet about Uber driver experiences, and we know he's going to have a fantastic retirement.

25:18And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate wins.

25:25This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Apple. I own one share of SpaceX, and Nick owns more than one. With the Discover Cash Back Card, It's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5 % cash back at different categories each quarter on up to$1 ,500 in purchases. That's 5 % cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash 5 for details.