🎀 “Doll Bills, Y’all” — American Girl Doll’s 40th. Nobel’s economic therapy. Dutch Bros’ walk-thru. +Self-Driving Zambonis

0:28This is Nick. For a live show, drop it in the comments. What do you think, Jack? By the way, you should verify I'm not flying into Boston. I'm taking a Dartmouth coach because I'm so close to Boston. There's no flights. No yelling on the bus. But in the meantime, we got three fantastic stories for the funnest place in finance. Jack, what do we got in today's T-Boy? For our first story, the first American girl doll released 40 years ago this month because nine-year-old girls are the smartest entrepreneurs. For our second story, the Nobel Prize for Economics went to two guys who studied your feelings.

0:58Brene Brown says that clear is kind, and so do these economists. And our third and final story. Dutch Bros Coffee is done with drive-thrus. Done. They're in their walk-through era. Besties, do you want a$3 coffee or a third place? Your call. Wall Street knows the answer. But besties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Wonderful mix of stories. Love the mix for the T-Boy Tuesday check. Happy start of the hockey season to all those who celebrate. Which is mostly me. Yeah, it's mostly me. Yeah, it's mostly just you, Nick. Now, we are in Boston this week for our second to last live show of the year.

1:27We would have performed a TD Garden, but there was a conflict with the Bruins game. But there's a controversial new technology that might be in the TD Garden soon. A self-driving Zamboni. Here's the news. The NHL is testing robo-Zambonis this year for the very first time. Basically a Waymo Zamboni. Or Jack, is it a Zooks of Zambonis? Work it out. Here's the context, Yetis. Zamboni was invented in 1949 in Los Angeles, California. And not Canada. Frank Zamboni used an old army jeep to water cut up some ice and let it freeze smooth. Now, Zambonis have gotten way bigger, way heavier, and probably way more expensive, but that's the only innovation to the Zamboni for the last 76 years.

2:05Zamboni still only goes up to 8 miles per hour like the very first one. Zero to three in 65 seconds. Slow enough to watch the ice freeze. But a job that's surprisingly hard to fill these days, what is it, Nick? Zamboni driver. Even though the coolest job ever possibly is Zamboni driver. So an Italian company just launched the Mammoth Autopilot 3D. First ever self-driving ice resurfacer. And the Colorado Avalanche are one of the first customers. They're using a self-driving Zamboni to resurface their practice rinks. Now we should point out robo-Zamboni doesn't mean no humans at all. They still have a seat on top for one person to ceremoniously sit there and wave at the fans as the rink is getting resurfaced.

2:44Because the only thing better than driving a Zamboni is being a Zamboni passenger princess. Nick, how many intermissions are there in a hockey game, by the way? Two, Jack. Count them two. Now the correct answer was not enough. Yeah, Jack, let's hit our three stories.

3:25First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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4:56Because 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. Yeah, 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.

5:25Write 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, American Girl Doll just had her 40th birthday and she's now a billion dollar brand. Because the founder created an anti-Barbie doll. All right, Jack, we're going to talk about an anti-Barbie doll. Can you please set the scene for us for Christmas 1983? We weren't even born yet. Cabbage Patch kids were born yet, and they were causing parents to riot. My Little Pony was like trying to trademark the rainbow.

6:03And Barbie was going full glam in her pink bathing suit. Yeah. Add it all up, Yetis and toys were in their junk food era. But one middle-aged woman at the time named Pleasant Roland got an idea while her family was on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. I don't know, Jack, what if you had a toy with no rainbows? A doll with no makeup, no style, and no mini skirts. An entire toy company that didn't do a single TV commercial. And what if you treated the nine-year-old girls who were going to become customers like they had 39-year-old brains? So in 1986, Pleasant quits her career as an educator and textbook author, took her 1.2 million bucks in savings, and launches an experiment.

6:39A three-doll experiment. And here's doll number one, Kirsten Larson, from a Swedish immigrant family that settled in Minnesota, 1854. Doll number two was Samantha Parkington, an orphan raised by her fancy grandmother in Westchester, New York in 1904. And doll number three, Molly McIntyre, a patriotic World War II kid planning a victory garden in 1944, Illinois. All of these dolls had biographies with one common element, different from the rest of the toy industry. The dolls were nine-year-old girls themselves. Not babies and not adults like the rest of the dolls out there, these were intended for the age of the kid actually using them.

7:13Yetis, we're not talking about an exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum. We're talking about American Girl dolls. I mean, this was giving Oregon Trail realistic, historically accurate, borderline academic. These dolls even came with a book as part of the purchase. A hardcover book. And the result, what happened after that very first experiment, Jack? Pleasant sold out of the first batch of $15 ,000 and made$1.8 million in that very first Christmas season. Jack, those are numbers that would make Ken jealous. Now, one key to American Girl Doll's success was the timing. Actually, it would make Ken leave Barbie.

7:45That's how good the numbers were. At the time, in the mid-80s, third wave feminism led to baby boomer moms in the workforce. And since the real customer of any kid's toy is really the parent, dual-income homes didn't want another Baywatch Barbie. The second key to that early success was edutainment. Exactly. American Girl Dolls recognized there are universal themes in life that could entertain while teaching American history. You see, a nine-year-old coming of age is understandable in any era, from the pilgrims to the present. Pleasant called this idea chocolate cake with vitamins. From a commercial perspective, Jack, and I noticed there's also chocolate cake without the vitamins.

8:19Because girls could eventually buy human-sized dresses of the dresses that came with the dolls. Hi, I'm Kit, and I helped girls be stylish in the post-war era. That's what you're saying as you look at yourself in the mirror with your American Girl doll dress. And today, millennial women listening probably went to a birthday party at an American Girl doll store. They have restaurants in the store's neck. And those same millennial adult women probably have an open tab on their browser, Buzzfeed article, what your American Girl doll says about you. I'm a Samantha. Not that Samantha though, American Girl doll Samantha.

8:49A different Samantha, a different Samantha. Yeti's American Girl dolls just celebrated their 40th birthday this year. And they're still flexing seven physical stores in America's biggest cities where you can take your doll to tea and she gets a seat at the table. That's a profit puppy, by the way. But one mystery remains about the American Girl doll business story. In 1998, Pleasant sold her company to Mattel for$700 million. And why is that so shocking, Jack? American Girl doll was launched as the anti-Barbie, but then bought by the owner of Barbie. Side note, there's now a 1986 American Girl doll, Jack.

9:23That's how much history has caught up with everybody. Oh, damn, like 1986, the historical period. Yeah, like right before we were born. Her name's Courtney Moore, and her favorite pastime is hitting the mall, watching MTV and wearing a fanny pack. AKA an episode of Stranger Things minus the Demogorgons. Or Clarissa explains it all. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at American Girl Dolls? One way to stand out, the opposite day strategy. Yeti's American Girl Dolls creator wrote handwritten letters to parents about each doll. That doesn't scale. She also put real pennies that came with the toys to give the historical context the real effect.

9:57That doesn't scale either. She didn't do any licensing deals, no retail stores, and never even made a single commercial in their first decade. And the only way to buy an American Girl doll for the first decade was to subscribe to their magazine and place an order through it. Every other toy was 100 % focused on entertainment, while she went 50 % education. But the most visibly contrarian difference of all was the price. The price, because the average Barbie in 1985, 10 bucks, But the average American Girl doll, 82 bucks. She priced her dolls eight times more expensive than Barbie, the most popular doll.

10:30Wow. And also sold accessories that cost twice as much as an entire Barbie. It remains today, doesn't it, Jack, when you check the price tag? An American Girl doll today is 175 bucks. That feels like a graduation present, not some dollar store plastic toy. Besties Pleasant literally listed every strategy that every big toy company was doing at the time. And then she did the opposite of it. It's risky, but a potentially rewarding way to build a billion-dollar brand.

10:55For our second story, the Nobel Prize in Economics was just awarded to two Americans for incorporating your feelings into finance. Clear is kind. It's true in life, and it's true with stimulus checks, too. Oh, Jack, why don't we sprinkle on some context to kick things off? What is the government's role in the economy? Okay, I'm going to put on my teacher's assistant hat from when I taught undergrads at Michigan on this subject. So whip out the whiteboard. What do we got, Jack? One sentence. The government's job is to help when the economy is doing poorly and step back and save money when the economy is doing well.

11:28That's the overall job. And that yet is Jack plagiarized from the world-famous 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes. I studied it. I didn't plagiarize it. Yeah, remix, study, plagiarized all the idea. We'll play with one anything, Jack. Because our economy is a very, very moody beast, is it not, Jack? Animal spirits in our capitalist market go from champagne-soaked record highs to, like, I lost my job depressing lows in the matter of weeks. Our economy sometimes just needs some policy Prozac. Those wild highs and those wild lows, those can be very damaging to the economy and costly to you and me.

12:03But, besties, there are a couple times when Keynes' stabilizing playbook for the economy actually failed. Like in the 1970s, when there was an oil shock from the Middle East. And the government spending afterward resulted in inflation. Something similar happened in 2020 with the pandemic supply shock. Spending and interest rate cuts resulted in prices rising. So sometimes when the government tries to stabilize the economy, it backfires and makes the situation worse. And that's where Robert Hall and Michael Woodford entered the chart. Entered the chat. No, chart, Jack. Because these Stanford and Columbia professors just got Nobel Prizes in economics for sprinkling some micro salt on some macro steak.

12:39And because they're economists, they probably spent their 12 million kroner prize on like a randomized control trial for their universities. Don't spend it all in one data set, boys. So here's how the Nobel committee explained the world's biggest economic prize in one sentence. They've helped to smooth out the economy's peaks and its troughs. Because Yeti's most economists are either macro economists, they look at the economy as a whole, or they're micro. They look at the buy-sell decisions of one person or one company. But these Nobel winners updated macro policy by incorporating micro. Basically, how will an announcement of a national policy make people feel?

13:15That was their big revelation. You must consider feelings. You must consider the vibes. For example, stimulus checks were intended to boost economic demand, but stimulus checks also change our expectations. Because people expect that stimulus checks will grow the stock market, and that raises prices even more in anticipation. So if you want everyone to spend$1 ,000, maybe that's your policy goal. You might only have to issue stimulus checks of$500. So they'll spend that 500 bucks, but also 500 more on expectations that a boom is coming. The result is a new Keynesian paradigm, an economic model that's both macro and micro that incorporates your vibes.

13:53I mean, Jack, this doesn't sound like a model. This sounds like a supermodel. Yeah, call Heidi Klum. This paper was first published in the year 2003, and it's finally been awarded with a Nobel Prize 23 years later. And that Cindy Crawford supermodel of an economics model is now the foundation of how most central banks think. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies who care about the economy's vibes? Understand people's feelings. You can influence their finances. Yeah, the way Jack and I see it, economics, it's more like therapy than it is math. One of the winners of this Nobel Prize actually encouraged our central bank to issue forward guidance, and we started doing that in the 2000s.

14:31Yeah, like to not just announce interest rates today, but tell people where they expect interest rates to be in the future, even though our current Fed chair disagrees with that philosophy. The podcast therapist Brene Brown says clear is kind. Yes, she does. People want to know what to expect, and it's kind to tell them that. So we thought it was funny that the Nobel Committee six-page press release mentioned the word expectations 14 times and optimism and pessimism three times. And because people are emotional, our Fed Chairman's tone is just as important as his words to manage our expectations.

15:03Just like the tone that you speak to the person you love is just as important as the words. Most central bankers think managing expectations of companies and individuals is just as important as setting actual policy like interest rates. Because if you can influence people's feelings, you can influence their finances. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.

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16:51For our third and final story, Dutch Bros Coffee, known for the drive-thru, is now opening their first ever walk-through. Because in this economy, consumers prefer$3 to a third place. Ah, yeah, there's good trivia for you. Third biggest coffee chain in America? Get this. It's now Dutch Bros. But it's not really a coffee chain, because only 10 % of Dutch Bros sales is a cup of hot coffee. It's really an energy chain whose drinks sound like pro wrestlers. One sec, I just placed a, would you like an annihilator for 25 ounces? I think there's actually a drink called the Caramelizer. It's also called the Double Torture.

17:25They also have the Kicker. Still, this Starbucks Challenger IPO'd in 2021. We covered it on IPO day, and the stock is up 50 % since then. Yeah, Jack and I are actually shocked that the ticker symbol Bros was still available, right, man? Given the industry of finance, yeah. And at their IPO, every location of Dutch Bros had a drive-thru that was required. but the drive-through requirement has gone away. Dutch Bros now allows walk-through locations as well. Get this, at the USC campus in Los Angeles, where drive-throughs are not feasible, Dutch Bros opened their first ever urban location in December.

17:56And you can't enter the store. You can't. It's just a window to pick up your coffee. It's a foot-only location, and how did that first walk-through location perform, Jack? It immediately became the best-selling, with most people ordering ahead on their app, and others ordering at the window. Yeah, because instead of a... One iced electric berry, Rabel. One pumpkin pie, double torture latte. That'll be 1041. Please pull up to the next one. You can do all that, but speak it normally, human to human, with no intercom needed. Did you say electric berry or berry, berry, berry? So yet, is this walk through Dutch Bros location?

18:29Yeah. It's the latest chapter in the quest to conquer America's coffee cravings. And smaller is winning. Oh, venti is out, besties. Because incredibly low barriers to entry, That's the coffee business. Like, you pour hot water on ground beans, voila. That's why competition for your cup is intense. You see, Dunkin' and Starbucks own two-thirds of the U.S. coffee market, and a thousand other brands own the final third. There's gas stations, McDonald's, Panera, Blank Street, Black Rifle Coffee. Jack, there's the artisanal Brooklyn coffee shop with the handlebar mustache guy who's a macchiato sommelier by night.

19:01Plus, you got Keurig K-Cups. Plus, you got Mr. Coffee Drip Coffee. Plus, you got French presses. I mean, the competition for coffee is insane. And we didn't even talk about us decaffeinated folks out there. But Besties Dutch Bro, they're trying to become the Waymo to coffee's Uber and Lyft. They're trying to become the third big player in commercial coffee. And here's where things get interesting. Dutch Bros had 471 shops when we covered them in their 2021 IPO. They have 1 ,300 shops today, almost three times as many, and planned to get 2 ,000 by 2029. But now we finally know how they're going to pull off that scale with walk-up locations in cities, smaller footprints, bigger sales.

19:37But pause the pod, Jack, because before you think Dutch Bros is running away with your cafe latte, there's another company that's playing with the same playbook. Luckin. Right. Yetis, what China's BYD has done to the car industry, Luckin Coffee is doing to the coffee industry. Uh, terrify American brands. Luckin launched in 2018 with a tech-first, futuristic, mobile-ordering-only business model over in China. Luckin was the first cappuccino you could order only with a QR code. They're now here in the States, by the way. And after just nine years, they've opened 36 ,000 locations. And how long did it take Starbucks to pull that off, Jack?

20:1352 years before 36 ,000 locations. Now, besties, neither Dutch Bros nor Luckin, the two booming coffee chains offer any seating at all. That's really interesting. It is. The two booming coffee chains you can only order on the app and come and pick up at the window or do drive-thru. It's basically closer to a snack bar than a bar bar. So while Starbucks is known for their spacious cafes where you can linger for hours, both consumers and Wall Street is saying that smaller is better. Basically, coffee's equivalent of driving a Mini Cooper. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies looking at Dutch Bros walkthroughs?

20:45What's the LCD? The lowest cost differentiator. Okay, nobody wants to be selling a commodity. A commodity product, they all look the same and you don't profit off it. So the 145 ,000 coffee shops in America all try to differentiate their cup somehow. Lock in, they differentiate with technology. In-app ordering, their delivery, best in class. McDonald's differentiates by offering you an Egg McMuffin on the side. Gas stations differentiate by offering you gas and cigarettes on the side. Dutch Bros differentiates with wild and crazy shots. And Dunkin' differentiates with a dozen different opportunities to pump some hazelnut.

21:19Darlene is Dunkin's differentiator. Hey, Darlene, make it a double, make it a double. But Starbucks has bet their differentiation on the quote-unquote third place, a living room-like gathering place between work and home. And that differentiator is expensive. A third place requires premium real estate, West Elm furniture, free Wi-Fi, and clean bathrooms anyone can use. And that Starbucks third place, it adds up to about a dollar of cost to each cup, we would estimate. In this economy? Look, Yetis, Nick and I travel a lot. Starbucks is a go-to gathering place while we are. We're grateful that it's a public place that anyone can come to.

21:52We appreciate it, Brian, but it is also weighing on the Starbucks profits and the Starbucks stock. Since cost and convenience are the priorities of just about every American consumer right now, the chains prioritizing low price and tech are the ones growing the fastest. That'd be Dutch Bros, and that'd be Luckin. And that would be your LCD, your lowest cost differentiator. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? American year old dolls for nine year old girls that also teach us history. Pleasant Roland. She looked at what the doll industry was doing and then went full opposite day on it like George Costanza.

22:28For our second story, the Nobel prize went to two economists who updated Keynes to account for expectations. Economics is more like therapy than it is math. It's about feelings. And our third and final story, Dutch Bros is scaling just like Luckin and Blank Street. No tables, all takeout. Biggest challenge to Starbucks' third place is$3 drinks. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, shocker, but the social reckoning movie about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg kind of bombed on its opening weekend. Just five and a half million bucks at the box office.

23:00It barely cracked the top five and it got beaten badly by Jessica Chastain as a horrifying mommy figure. You want a conspiracy theory to explain this, by the way? What do we think, Jack? Promotion of the social reckoning is getting suppressed by the algorithms. We have no evidence of that. Nope. But that's what a good conspiracy is for. If true, huge. And second, diesel is once again on the front page. President Trump is trying hard to lower prices before the midterm election. He announced this weekend he would unsanction Russian diesel to bring it to the US market and try to lower prices. And he declared an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia that Russia has already broken.

23:36He wants Ukraine to stop defending itself by targeting Russian oil refineries, again, to lower prices. The goal, lower prices, but the cost is supporting Russia. So there's been a bipartisan pushback already. And finally, hold the guac. Starbucks just made its decision about whether or not it's buying Chipotle. Well, after 72 hours of exciting speculation, Starbucks publicly responded yesterday with one sentence. Starbucks is not buying Chipotle. I wish they'd explained why they were considering it or like giving us a little more. Toss this in the free marketing budget, Jack. Starbucks investors were relieved.

24:07The stock rose 2 % and Chipotle shareholders were disappointed. The stock fell 4%. We may never actually get that pumpkin spice taco we've always wanted. Although the door is wide open for one crazy entrepreneur. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Jack Heppner on Spotify from lovely Wichita Falls, Texas. Did you know that McDonald's has a unique flavor of Coca-Cola unlike any other restaurant? 1955, McDonald's kind of founder Ray Kroc negotiated special terms with the Coca-Cola company. While most restaurants get their Coca-Cola syrup delivered in plastic bags, McDonald's get theirs delivered in stainless steel tanks.

24:45And unlike plastic, steel locks in freshness like when you see wine stored in a steel vat. Same reason a can of Coke tastes way better than a bottle of Coke. Totally. McDonald's, they also pre-chill both the water and the syrup before it enters the fountain. And they use a wider straw in McDonald's to deliver that flavor to your mouth faster than humanly possible. Add it all up and they've totally manipulated all the dopamine in your body over there. Come to think of it, it does taste better there. Steel transport, pre-chilling, and wide diameter straws. And Ray Kroc, not actual founder, but has a movie called The Founder.

25:19Made it happen. Ladies, you're looking fantastic over there. Jack, are you breaking out because you're too close to Fenway right now? Is that what's happening? Dude, I told you. I respect Fenway. I can't stand the Red Sox, but I love Fenway, actually. We're going to get some cream in the studio, guys. Besties, if you have got a restaurant recommendation for tonight in the Salvan, Jack and I want to hear it. Drop it in the comments. I really hope that City Winery, our venue for Wednesday night, has those big columns that block, obstruct views of some seats like Fenway does. Oh, I know what you mean.

25:49There is a green monster in the back, Jack. So we have to project our voices for the live podcast show over the green monster. And if Sweet Caroline spontaneously breaks out in the audience, I will not be participating. As long as we don't get hazed by Noma again, Jack. The show should go fantastic. Jack and I will see you tomorrow.

26:11And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Eddie Ricky in Santa Rosa, California, listening to us on a walk right now. We see Ricky. Happy birthday to Anna Clayton in Indianapolis, singing our rap song by heart. And Liz Glover, happy birthday over in Denver. Happy birthday to Amanda Gerard-Allen, still 25, in Philadelphia, PA. And Jace Barker, happy eighth birthday in Idaho. We wouldn't forget it. Happy birthday to Maureen Malick in Alberta, Canada. And Oscar Baltazar in Mexicali, Mexico. Happy best birthday yet. And a big shout out to Ariel in New York City, who hooked us up with two incredibly thoughtful gifts when we saw her at our NASDAQ bell ringing.

26:44She came and brought us one book about the boys in the boat and then a second book about the city court building that Jack and I are both going to read in the trade books with each other. Thank you so much, Ariel. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, October 13th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. Here's the top business story you need to know today. Yetis, you'll look fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. If you haven't yet, drop down and give us five stars. Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

27:14This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Chipotle and Nick own stock of Luckin Coffee. 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. Book faster with confidence at Hotels.com. Loyalty members 18 plus.