🧈 “Costco Gold Digger” — Gold’s all-time-high. OpenAI’s 1st Cannes film. Black Rock Coffee’s IPO. +NYYankee $$$.

0:28This is Nick. today's team boy. What do we got on the pod? For our first story, OpenAI is spending$30 million to beat Hollywood at their own game. Critters, it's Sam Altman's AI-generated blockbuster movie, and it's coming to theaters next year. For our second story, Newmont Mining is one of three S &P 500 companies that has doubled its stock this year because of gold. Gold. We hope you bought some Costco gold bars, Yetis, because gold just hit an all-time high. And we found the one gold company that's ironically beating gold. And our third and final story, it's IPO week. It is. Six different big companies are going public, and the first is Black Rock Coffee.

1:11Black Rock Coffee isn't beating Starbucks with disruption. It's beating them with erosion. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Whoa! Fantastic mix. No one else is doing that mix. Love the mix, Jack. I love trivia, but I love sports trivia even more and Yankees trivia the most. Yesterday, we asked you this trivia question. Yes, we did. Who designed the famous New York Yankees logo? Was it A, Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, B, Albert Lasker, the famous ad man, C, Louis Tiffany, the famous jeweler, or D, Babe Ruth himself? And Jack, the answer to that formidable T-boy trivia question.

1:52What is it? Lewis Tiffany. The famous Tiffany jeweler company designed the New York Yankees logo. Yeah, like that interlocking NNY we all know today, that was Tiffany's jewelry. And that logo became a symbol of the winningest team in all of sports. But also the most valuable sports brand worldwide. Because the Yankees aren't just a sports team, they're also a media empire and a global fashion statement. The$8 billion Bronx Bombers are the ultimate expression of capitalism. And how that all came to be is the latest episode of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet. The untold origin stories of the most viral products of all time.

2:30And since the late 90s Yankees dynasty was the greatest period of my childhood, Mattingly over here, yeah, I do my best John Sterling impression. The Yankees win! Bernie Williams, you're welcome. Yeti's Jack and I dropped a link to that episode in this episode's description. It's the best idea yet, but today's episode is a T-boy and it's fantastic. Oh, today's T-boy is so good. Jack, let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm that 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.

3:0850%, 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.

3:19Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

3:30Monarch. Yeah, it is. You know my first money lesson? It was where to put our lemonade stand. I was wondering, it was on the Upper East Side. Do we do it on Lexington Avenue or Park Avenue? Wait a second. New York City has lemonade stands on the sidewalk? They didn't. We were pioneers, Jack. Lexington Avenue is more commercial. Park is more residential. So what did we learn, Jack? Families are willing to pay more for lemonade. So you set it up on Park. Yeah, we did it on Park. Besties, no one gives you financial lessons in life. You end up figuring most of it out as you grow up. But we love Monarch because it's like a financial advisor in your pocket.

3:59Because every minute, it's tracking your savings, spending, investments, and more. For instance, Monarch's goal tracking feature shows if you're on track for that summer trip to Santa Fe. And it tells you what percent of your income is going somewhere that's a surprise. I open Monarch all the time because it takes the mental load off tracking my finances. And whether you're single, you're in a family, or you're dinking it up, Monarch's the way. Our personal fave, the AI Weekly Recap, a once-per-week gut check on what you did with your money. Hey, Nick, you've spent 96 bucks at kids' lemonade stands since July.

4:24Because we pioneered it for him, Jack Restes. Write your own story with Monarch. Use code T-Boy at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just 50 bucks. It's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code T-Boy. Decagon. Yetis, someone needs to make a rom-com about falling in love with your customer support agent. Do they, Nick? It's probably going to start Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, and Decagon. I think what Nick is getting at is that Decagon helps companies create personalized, concierge-style customer experiences with AI agents across chat, email, voice, and SMS.

5:00They're available 24-7, feel natural to talk to, and can resolve customer requests on their own so businesses can keep up with the requests without losing their personal touch. And because workflows can be updated using natural language, teams can make changes themselves. Also, Decagon gives your team full visibility into why agents make decisions and what's happening across every conversation. Decagon helps power millions of conversations every day for brands you know and love, including Avis, Affirm, Fanatics, and Aura. And Decagon plugs directly into your existing system so you can launch them quickly.

5:25So Decagon solving customer problems, it's like living happily ever after in a Hallmark. Yeah, rated R for really good customer service. Ready to transform your customer support? Go to decagon.ai slash tboy to get a personalized demo and see what Decagon can do for your team. Check Decagon out at decagon.ai slash tboy. That's decagon.ai slash tboy. Nick, did you see Liquid IV teamed up with Ring Pop? I did, Jack. And honestly, it's one of those collabs where you immediately think, how has nobody done this before? I mean, Ring Pop cherry is already iconic. My sons love Ring Pops, by the way. I give it to them at the beach.

6:02It occupies them for about an hour. But now it's a sugar-free Liquid IV flavor, too. Ah, it's not just a fun flavor. It's still the same liquid IV hydration formula that hydrates faster than water alone, has three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink, plus eight vitamins and nutrients. I've been throwing one of these in my water before the gym and before bed pretty much every night if I sweated that day. Way more fun than drinking plain water. Probably for workouts, travel days, hot days. Honestly, anytime you know, you're probably just not drinking enough water. So if you're looking for an excuse to actually stay hydrated, this is a pretty good one.

6:34Check out the new liquid IV sugar-free ringpopcherry at liquidivy.com. For our first story, this is wild. Open AI is producing a movie to prove that AI can make films faster and cheaper than Hollywood. Because sometimes to convince a skeptical public, you need a public spectacle and a little bit of cuteness. Yeti's Open AI, the company behind chat. We're done calling it ChatGPT. It's just chat. The The GPT, are you kidding me? It feels like we're on a first name basis now, right, Jack? We're dropping the the. And according to Axios, OpenAI's chat is the number one chatbot in the world, used eight times more than the number two, Google's Gemini.

7:18But Jack, can you please share with the besties the problem facing OpenAI right now? Despite that powerfully large user base, the world still isn't convinced that artificial intelligence can create art. So instead of telling us otherwise, wise, OpenAI is investing$30 million to show us otherwise. On the big screen. Because OpenAI is producing a movie that will hit theaters globally next year. Sam Altman's making a movie, man. This is straight out of honorage, Jack. It's called Critters, Critters with a Z. It's an animated film generated with OpenAI's large language model. Visually, what is this Sam Altman movie going to look like, Jack?

7:57What do you think? Picture woodland creatures, Like if Minions did a gap year in Patagonia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can picture this now. That's the movie. It's Pixar style, but it's all AI generated. Now, Yeti's Jack and I, when we heard this news, first thought about Netflix back in 2013. Their goal back then was to win an Emmy and Oscar award to prove to Hollywood that they were a legit studio with legit original content. Well, it's similar to OpenAI today, whose goal in producing this movie is to prove to the world that AI can do what Hollywood does. Their goal is to make in just nine months what Hollywood takes three years to produce and to pay just$30 million where Hollywood usually spends$100 million.

8:35They basically want to do this at half the price of Shrek in a third the time of Shrek. No, like a third and a third, I think. And then to cap it all off, Sam Altman will debut this AI movie at the fanciest movie festival of all. Cannes Film Festival. The Cannes Film Fest. And Jack, you know what the judges at Cannes are going to say when they hear about this AI movie? not possible. Now, these critters, they're trying to walk before their AI can run, because humans will still be very involved in the making of this film. Well put, Jack. Open AI is partnering with real human beings to write the script and to voice the actors for the film.

9:11Human artists are also going to draw the main characters, but they're only going to draw them once and then feed those drawings into the open AI models. So like with those few human-drawn sketches, the AI will then extrapolate it into an entire 90-minute film. So what they're not doing is just writing one prompt and pushing enter on ChatGPT. They're not saying, produce me a 90-minute film better than Pixar can. Go. If you can't do a ChatGPT, I'm going to ask Claude to do it. The goal here is to use AI to scale existing human creativity and to massively reduce the cost and the time to making a film.

9:44And if it works, moviegoers will laugh, cheer, and cry for 90 minutes, and then buy a Critter's Lunchbox. Hopefully, that's a goal. And every Hollywood studio is going to say, I want what they're having, and become a$1 billion a year enterprise customer of OpenAI. But also, a full-on blockbuster movie? That could change how we all view AI creativity, right, Jack? Yeah, instead of thinking of AI-created content as slop, we'll think of it as potentially legitimate artwork. Besties, add it all up, and LLM doesn't stand for large language model, it stands for limitless little Michelangelo. If the critters are truly cute, then yes, maybe I'll agree with that.

10:22You gotta be cute. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at OpenAI? To convince a skeptical public, you need a public spectacle. Yetis, this film is a$30 million investment in showing, not telling. And you know what? It actually reminds us of the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1883, New Yorkers were skeptical that this enormous new bridge over the East River could bear the weight of the city. Today, the public is similarly skeptical that AI can compete in our most creative industries. In 1884, New York City paid a circus to send 21 elephants across the new Brooklyn Bridge in broad daylight for all to see.

11:01And today, OpenAI is now paying 30 million bucks to make an AI movie for all to see. Elephants convinced New Yorkers to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and an award-winning movie may convince you to respect AI-created art. Because besties, to convince a skeptical public, you need a public spectacle. For our second story, the price of gold has risen 38 % this year. It just hit an all-time high. But stock in one gold company has grown nearly three times as fast as gold has. It's a golden gold. And we'll tell you how. Yetis, exactly two years ago, in September of 2023, Jack and I did a story on Costco's brand new product, Gold Bars.

11:47Costco was selling one ounce bars of gold for$1 ,900 each. Well, besties, we hope you heard our story and bought a couple of those puppies. Unlike us, because today gold is worth two times that much,$3 ,600 per ounce. Yetis, the price of gold is rising faster than the stock market this year. It's even going up faster than Bitcoin. Actual gold is beating digital gold. Gold is having its best year since King Tut got buried in the stuff. Goldfinger, I hope he held on to that stock. Flavor Flavjack, his mouth is now insured at$12 billion. Now, we'll explain why gold is more valuable than ever in our takeaway, but first, a plot twist.

12:29Let's follow the road to El Dorado here. You see, there is one company doing nearly three times better than gold, but ironically, it's a gold company. Newmont Mining is one of just three stocks in the S &P 500 that has doubled in 2025 so far this year. Newmont Mining, the world's largest gold mining company. Jack, could you sprinkle on some very valuable context for us, please? This business, which mines gold and sells gold, is worth$83 billion. That's more than Coinbase, Dell, or Airbnb. It's like 12 lifts. Now we know what you're wondering. do they go back to the 1849 California gold rush? We wish they did, but they don't.

13:07They don't. But they do go back to 1921, which is something. And they've done some clever strategic moves. Like in the last 100 years, they merged with a train business, the Santa Fe Railroad. Because gold is heavy and it's more profitable to run a gold business if you control the trains that you have to ship it in. And over the course of this century, their business model has basically remained the same simple concept. Acquire land that is rich with gold, mine that gold, and sell that gold for more than it costs to extract that gold. Well, today, Newmont owns 11 different mines worldwide, but Newmont Gold is now beating the price of the underlying gold that they own.

13:44How are they doing it? Well, while the price of gold is going up, Newmont's costs are shockingly going down. Get this, besties. Over in Australia, Newmont opened their first mine with autonomous vehicles. Gold carting robo trucks. In case you're trying to visualize this, it is like sending a Waymo robo taxi deep into a gold mine. And robo taxis don't need pee breaks. So you can operate a more efficient mine that way. We jumped into their earnings and the result, last quarter, Newmont Mining had a 40 % profit margin for a mining business. That's a better profit margin than Meta. It costs$2 ,000 for them to mine one ounce of gold and then they sell it for$3 ,600.

14:27Boom. And that is why Newmont stock is up nearly three times as much as gold. Silver and gold. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in gold? Gold is like the security blanket for global investors. Yetis, there is no asset that better reflects the financial and psychological state of the world right now than gold. Because we've told you that gold does well in times of uncertainty. Like today's trade war, which is shaking confidence in global trade and hurt the world's GDP. Trump's attacks on the Fed bring central bank independence into question. And China, Russia, North Korea, they all just held hands for a giant scary military parade.

15:09Add in a giant scoop of AI uncertainty to the mix. Oh boy. And we are all searching for our financial blankets to cling at night. So besties, when you're not sure what will happen to the U.S. dollar, global trade, interest rates, or unemployment, you'll reach for your security blanket. The timeless and durable store of value that is gold. There is simply no asset that better reflects the financial stress of the world than gold bars. So if you want to understand the 2025 economy, just look at gold. Silver and gold. Now a quick word from our sponsor.

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16:43Cash App green features, savings, direct deposit, roundups, overdraft coverage, and discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Scribe. Yetis, one thing we've noticed is that companies rarely hit a wall because they don't have enough people or budget. More often, it's because the way work actually gets done lives in someone's head. People end up doing things differently, and when someone leaves, that knowledge, it goes with them. That's exactly the problem today's sponsor, Scribe, wants to solve. Scribe is a workflow AI platform trusted by 94 % of the Fortune 500.

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17:43So besties, to see Scribe in action, head to scribe.how slash tboy and mention tboy for your first month of Scribe capture free on select plans. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot H-O-W slash T-B-O-Y. For our third and final story, the first big IPO of this big IPO week, it's BlackRock Coffee Bar. Black Rock is another viral West Coast coffee chain, and that reveals the real risk facing Starbucks. Yetis, now that Wall Street has closed out their tabs at the Surf Lodge and made it back from the Hamptons traffic, there are six big IPOs scheduled for this week and next week. Gemini, StubHub, Klarna, they're all going public.

18:26But the first one we wanted to cover is Black Rock Coffee Bar. Black Rock Coffee Bar. No association with the Wall Street investment company, BlackRock, we should point out. No, BlackRock, the coffee bar, is the buzzy, not Starbucks coffee chain that's kind of a copy-and-paste business model of Dutch Bros. Yeah, it's kind of like if Pete's and Dutch Bros had a pumpkin-spiced baby raised by Duncan. The baristas are more chill. They don't wear khakis. They wear ripped jeans. When they hand you that caramel macchiato, there's going to be Metallica playing in the background. Now, this brand was founded in Beaverton, Oregon in 2008 because the Pacific Northwest is apparently where all of our coffee chains begin.

19:04Yeah, the Silicon Valley of espresso, apparently. BlackRock has 158 locations so far in seven Western states. They're adding 20 % more locations each year, and each location is growing sales by 10 % year over year. And with all of that caffeinated growth, they are now IPO-ing, hoping for a valuation of BlackRock coffee at about a billion dollars. So Nick and I dove into the IPO paperwork while sipping one of their signature Rocky Road chillers. And we found one hero stat. Oh, we couldn't wait to share this with you. Yetis, we found a way to calculate the level of cultiness of this company's cult following.

19:42Yo, what are we calling this stat, by the way? We have to come up with a name for this stat. Let's let the besties come up with a name for this one. It's a good stat. I like the stat. Well, here's the stat. BlackRock Coffee lists 1.8 million loyalty members. Yes. 1.8 million people so dedicated to their local BlackRock Coffee that they downloaded an app and set up an account. And now, Jack, you know I'm a decaffeinated diva. I don't drink that much coffee. So that number sounds tiny to me compared to Starbucks' 33 million loyalty members. But Starbucks has way more locations. It's a way bigger company.

20:12It's not apples to apples. So here's what we did, besties. What if instead we measure loyalty members on a per-store basis? What happens then? Starbucks has 2 ,000 loyalty members per store. BlackRock has 11 ,000 per store. Okay, so by that measure, then the customer love for BlackRock coffee is five times more intense than for Starbucks coffee. 158 locations, and each one has 11 ,000 loyalty members? That is a fantastic sign that this business has traction. I'm no Cupid, but that looks like a love signal to me, man. BlackRock may be small, but based on those numbers, every town that BlackRock expands to, the entire local population becomes loyalty members.

20:53Sorry, Jack, I gotta pause the pot. I just became best friends with my BlackRock barista over here, apparently. And all that customer love from that one hero stat is making Starbucks jealous. Oh, the Frappuccinos are freaking out. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the coffee industry? Starbucks isn't facing disruption. They're facing erosion. Yetis, everyone obsesses over disruption. Fast-moving innovators overtaking a legacy company. There's 35 podcasts, business podcasts about disruption. But Jack and I are equally interested in erosion, the slow overtaking of a legacy company.

21:33For example, right now, Nike isn't getting disrupted by other shoe companies, but its dominance is being eroded. Hoka, New Balance, On Running, these smaller brands are slowly eating away at the leader Nike. And Starbucks is facing the same erosion of its number one position in coffee. Dutch Bros, Blank Street, and now Black Rock Coffee are slowly sipping away at Starbucks' number one status. We see something similar happening to Lululemon, Budweiser, and other legacy brands. Besties, everyone these days is afraid of disruption. Or excited about disruption. But don't forget about its scary, slower cousin, erosion.

22:12Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? OpenAI is creating a movie using their AI-generated video tools. The movie is called Critters. It's coming to Cannes because to convince a skeptical public, you need a public spectacle. For our second story, Newmont Mining Company is one of just three S &P 500 stocks that is up 100 % so far this year. Because gold is the security blanket of global investors. And our third and final story is BlackRock Coffee Bar. They're IPO-ing and shares begin trading this Friday. Starbucks isn't getting disrupted Starbucks is getting eroded But besties This pod's not over yet Here's what else you need to know today First, happy Apple Day It is Apple's favorite day of the year Because today, Apple releases Its annual iPhone unveil That was very wordy Yeah, there's a new iPhone coming out today There's a new iPhone coming out today And the invitation had awe-dropping on it And the subject is probably The iPhone 17 Air Spoiler, it'll be thinner, lighter, and have a marginally better camera than the iPhone 16.

23:18One more megapixel. I've been waiting years for one more megapixel. And second, Lego just unveiled their most expensive set ever. A$1 ,000 Star Wars Death Star Lego kit. Lego is now a luxury company? This is so expensive, Darth Vader had to get a loan from the Empire for it. He probably gave his son as collateral. It's a write-off. I said it's a write-off. And we all know who this is targeting. Kid Alts, the one out of four Lego users who are over 18 years old. And finally, Mark Zuckerberg is getting sued by another Mark Zuckerberg for messing with the name Mark Zuckerberg. A wild new court case was brought by a lawyer in Indiana whose name happens to be Mark Zuckerberg.

24:01And apparently Facebook keeps shutting down his Facebook page thinking that this Mark Zuckerberg is knocking off CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But the lawyer Mark Zuckerberg is just trying to promote his real legal business, his law firm, which is the law offices of Mark Zuckerberg. He's getting sucked. He is getting sucked on this one. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by us about our new pod daughter, Selena. S-A-L-I-N-A. What does Molly think about you giving me first person plural pronoun ownership of this new daughter? Yeah, I'll give Molly credit for this fact. Yetis, we named our daughter who was born last week, Salina.

24:39S-A-L-I-N-A. After the island where Molly's family is from off of Sicily. And because Molly and I did a great dinkification there once. It's a great story, Nick. But did you know that that island, just off the tip of Sicily, is known for capers? More than any other place on earth, Salina is known for capers, which are... Jack, how would you describe them? Salty peas that are sold in liquidy bottles for some reason. A very, very divisive food product. They're actually, the caper was once used as a form of currency during Roman times, and they now grow wild on Selina's island walls. You probably find them on a bagel with locks.

25:16But you may not know that they are actually flower buds, and the island of Selina hosts an annual caper festival every summer. And I think we already know who the queen of that will be in 20 years. Yeah, she's going to want us to pay for a vacation there. Yetis, you look fantastic over there. And if you are curious how the New York Yankees became the coolest, biggest, most fashionable brand of sports in the world, Jack and I got the answer for you. I love this episode because we kind of step out of our lane of like traditional business products. But if you think about it, the New York Yankees are a product.

25:48Yes, they are a viral business product. And the business of the Yankees, oh, it is a business. And Babe Ruth, wow. Not to mention George Steinbrenner. Did you know he got charged with like political fraud? Oh, there's drama in this one. And we may get sued, Yeti. So check out The Best Idea Yet, our weekly deep dive show, this week on the New York Yanks. Links in the episode description. Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Can't wait.

26:17And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti, Emma Tattinger, Gardner, Briscoe, the legend of Louisville, popping bottles for her birthday. Happy 11th birthday to Cassie Cannavaggio in Panama City, Panama. And a happy 101st birthday to President Russell M. Nelson over in Utah. Specifically, the Mormon Church in Utah. Yeah, apparently a huge Yeti. And Saurav Benia, Jack. He is a Yeti I ran into in the Ferry Building over the weekend. Future CEO of McKinsey right here. Saurav, thanks for being a bestie. If I could buy stock in Saurav, I would. And a shout out to Devaney Williams and Jonathan Garcia, two Yetis who share T-Boy on LinkedIn.

26:55H-Y-H-T-B-O-Y. Thanks, guys. And finally, a big shout out to Nick and Haley Falcone in St. Louis, Missouri, who are due for their baby girl in just a couple of weeks. We can't wait to meet her. Celebrate the wins. She'll be the best girl yet.

27:11This is Jack. I own stock in Netflix, nickel in stock in Nike and Lululemon, and we both own stock of Apple and Airbnb, as well as ETFs of the S &P 500 and some Bitcoin. A Bitcoin named Ben. Backmarket is the best place to get the tech you need for the school year, for less. Like professionally refurbished smartphones, to take those first day pics. Mom, your finger's blocking the camera. Or laptops, to write that essay. How many M-dashes would you like? No matter what you need it for, the premium refurbished tech on Backmarket is guaranteed by the Backmarket Promise. Professionally refurbished, with a one-year warranty and free 30-day returns.

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