👁️ “eyePhone” — Zuck’s screen-in-lens glasses. Kodak’s renaissance moment. Quarterly Earnings psych. +Treadmill trends.

0:28This is Nick. stories for today. Steve, boy, what do we got on the pod? For our first story, Meta Connect begins today. The two-day product unveil and developer conference of Mark Zuckerberg. But we already got the leak on what Zuck's going to reveal. Ray-Bans with a screen on the lens for 800 bucks. For our second story, the president wants to end quarterly earnings and make them an every six-month thing instead. He wants to kill them. So Jack and I will explain the psychology behind long-term thinking. And our third and final story is Kodak. Their cameras are an endangered species, but the Kodak brand is everywhere.

1:06Including on a sold out throwback product. And it's all thanks to La Boo Boo Dolls. But yet is before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Oh, what a mix of stories. No one else is doing that mix today. Nick, one of the takeaways I think is most accurate that we've ever done is the three F's of fads. That's one of our most beloved takeaways, the food, fashion, and fitness three Fs of fads. Those are the three industries most vulnerable to fads. Whatever food, fashion, or fitness is trendy right now, it won't be in five years. But I want to focus on fitness for a second. Oh, Jack, fitness, that is the fattiest of the three Fs of fads.

1:43SoulCycle had its cult moment for like three years in the early 20-aughts. Oh, totally. Barry's had a big badass boom right when I was in California. Jack, remember the great boxing studio binge of 2015? Everyone was boxing for like 18 months. Full disclosure, we still own shares of Peloton because we hope it comes back. Unfortunately, we didn't sell it after 18 months. But besties, Jack and I just got data that one fitness routine defies all fads. The treadmill. The treadmill. It's the only fitness routine that's fad proof. Here's the news. 57 million Americans use a treadmill today, which is the exact same number as six years ago, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.

2:23Every fitness routine has been way up or way down during the pandemic, but treadmills were just constant. It remains the number one best-selling fitness product doing a billion bucks a year in sales. The only fitness activity more popular than treadmills is walking. And guess what? You can walk on a treadmill. The treadmill technology is just so simple. It's simply undisruptible. It's like the email of workouts. Oh, totally. It's a technology that just won't go away. But here's the treadmill plot twist, Yetis. Did you know that the treadmill was actually invented as a torture device? Yeah, 19th century England.

3:00If you committed a crime, they punished you with a few hours on the treadmill. And I think even today we all get it. Because there's nothing more cruel and unusual than a 20 degree incline on the treadmill. The judge just sentenced you, Jack, to a third degree bun burner. Dude, you've fallen down on a treadmill before, right? I'm not proud of it, but it's happened. And besties, the odds are right now you are on a treadmill. So Jack and I will save you the time and hang on to three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm.

3:32It'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. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.

3:51Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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4:32The weekly spending recap, it uses AI to categorize everything you spent organizing them into digestible buckets. Weekly emails are perfect, by the way, because checking finances daily, that's too much. Monthly, that's probably not enough. So Monarch helps you make sure you're on track for seven different destination weddings this summer. Because you don't want to go into debt if you don't even know the groom. Who's Henry? Besties, use code TBOI at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Corps half off at just 50 bucks. Gusto. Yetis, there's nothing more satisfying on a Friday evening than celebrating the wins of our company from that week.

5:05Like how we triumphantly completed payroll paperwork right before the tax deadline. Hey, we're just kidding. That's not a win to celebrate. But it is an annoying thing that we did have to do. Yeah, we did. Because if you're an entrepreneur, you're the HR team, the benefits team, the payroll department, and you have to be all those things before your morning coffee. Double-digit latte. But you could be doing it all with Gusto. Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay higher onboard and support your team from anywhere.

5:32So save time with built-in automated tools like offer letters, onboarding documents, direct deposit, and more. And it's super simple to switch to Gusto. You can just transfer your existing data to get up and running fast and don't even have to pay a penny until you run your first payroll. Because you're not toasting a Negroni on Friday to celebrate that paperwork. Nope. So Basties, try Gusto today at gusto.com slash tboy and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash tboy. One more time, gusto.com slash tboy. Nick, did you see Liquid IV teamed up with Ring Pop?

6:04I 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 son's love Ring Pops, by the way. I give it to him at the beach. It 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.

6:36Way 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. Check out the new Liquid IV sugar-free ring pop cherry at liquidivy.com. For our first story, Zuckerberg's big unveil is coming tonight. Smart glasses with a screen on the lens. Watch out, Apple. Meta's new iPhone killer is a literal real iPhone. As in eyeballs, it's the iPhone and it's being debuted tonight. Oh, Yetis, Jack and I have told you many times that if any device is going to replace the iPhone, it'll be the eyeglass.

7:20Really smart glasses is what we're talking about. And today, Meta hosts Connect, their big product unveil and developer conference, and they're going to unveil the new Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses with a screen on one of the lenses. And Jack and I know that because there was a wild leak yesterday. Meta accidentally uploaded a video to their YouTube page and then really quickly took it down, but the internet does not unsee. We saw it and we could not unsee it, so we turned it into a story for today's show. So here's the product that'll be announced tonight. These new Ray-Ban glasses, you'll be able to get Google Maps turn-by-turn directions in your vision of sight as you're walking from the east side to the west side.

8:01Or Jack, you could have navigation on your sunglasses as you're biking from San Francisco to Sausalito. Or if you're in Barcelona, you can look at a menu in Spanish and the glasses will translate the Spanish letters on the menu to English in front of your eyes on the lens. A mas chorizo, por favor? Si, waiter, si. This isn't the future. They're here tonight. Reportedly, they're going to sell for 800 bucks a piece and Zuck will confirm all the details at five o 'clock Pacific. It's called Meta Ray-Ban Display, because they still are workshopping the name in our opinion, but it is the fourth version of Meta's partnership with Ray-Ban, and it is the biggest one yet.

8:39Now, the keyword is display, because of the screen. But the most important part of this unveil, in our opinion, is your neck. Like, literally, like how you move your neck. Because the groundbreaking technology here is known as HUD, heads-up display. Ah, and to quote Jean Valjean from the musical Les Mis, is ever since iPhones were invented, half of our lives have been look down. We've been looking down at our phones. I mean, because you need to see a chiropractor by the time you turn 30 after a decade of staring at your phone. Yetis, smartphones have literally changed the shape of the human body.

9:15I think in one or two generations, we're going to have an L-shaped spine because we're all looking down at our phones. Your great-great-grandkids are going to be missing two discs. But if the screen is in the lenses of your glasses, then you can keep your head up all the time. Better posture, no neck friction. And there's no friction in using this product. Now let's get back to the product. The screen is tiny, and only small bits of information can be on because it's only on one lens. Yeah, it's like big enough for GPS or text messages or chatting with an AI bot. You could use your voice to engage with the screen, or you can use this new wristband Meta's going to unveil that is sold separately.

9:52Get this, Meta has been working on a wristband since 2019. How does that work, Jack? Hand micro gestures will help you engage with the device, almost like a mouse, but there's no mouse, it's just your hand. It's a mouseless mouse. You swipe a finger on the table, you draw letters, your wristband will understand them as commands. Somehow this wristband knows that you just drew the letter S with your finger. Because great technology feels like magic. But Jack, we should sprinkle on more context about what this is not. And this is not augmented reality. This is not the Orion prototype that Zuck rocked at last year's MetaConnect event.

10:29But these smart glasses do solve the fundamental problem of the smartphone era, neck friction. It's going to improve all of our posture. And they also show what Zuck's reality labs have been working on with those billions of dollars of R &D. Oh, that's what that went to. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Meta? Hardware gets all the attention, but software gets all the profits. Yetis, the big question of any new technology like this is where will the profits go? The operating system, the hardware, will the apps make all the money? With any breakthrough technology, Nick and I have noticed, it's the hardware that gets the looks, but the operating system that caches the checks.

11:10For example, just look at laptops. Gateway, Dell, and Compaq, they had all the commercials we saw, but Windows operating system, that made the billions. Look at the television industry. LG, Vizio, and Samsung, they dazzle us with OLED 4K screens. But it's Amazon's Fire Stick and Roku that controls the screens. And it's the same with smartphones. HTC, Nokia, and Motorola, they all made smartphones, but they all went out of business because Google's Android controlled the phone and took the profits. Nick, Mark Zuckerberg has hated the last 15 years of having to pay app taxes to Google and Apple.

11:46But now Zuck's hoping with these new glasses, the hardware gets the attention. The Ray-Ban sunglasses. But his software makes all the money. The meta money. For our second story, President Trump wants to make the biggest change to Wall Street in decades. Kill quarterly earnings. Should companies report how they're doing four times a year or just two? Yeah. Should they think short-term or long-term? These are philosophical questions and we're jumping into them. And we'll explain it with ice cream. But before we do that, Yetis, imagine, just imagine for a second, if you were to file your taxes, not every year, but every quarter.

12:27I do not want to imagine that. I mean, Jack, can you please gather your W-2s? I'm going to need your 1099s, that mortgage interest document, and a list of all your charitable donations, please. And you got to check your numbers twice because if you're wrong, you could get in trouble. You could get audited. Well, besties, that a hell of administrative paperwork is the reality for people who work at publicly traded companies. There are 4 ,000 publicly traded companies in America. Which are the companies whose stocks you can buy on the stock market. And for all 4 ,000 of those companies, they bear the burden of reporting audited financials to investors every three months.

13:03And that costs time, it costs money, and it costs focus, doesn't it, Jack? Yes, it does, Nick. And the president agrees. He said on Monday it's an inefficient use of resources. Quarterly earnings are like the emotional equivalent of going on a first date all the time. It's a lot. So President Trump called on the SEC to reduce reporting requirements from every three months to every six months. And since it's his SEC, we expect it to happen. Yes, we do. Unless the president gets distracted and forgets about this issue altogether. Now, Jack, as a couple of finance guys, can we please sprinkle on some historical economic context here, please?

13:40Quarterly earnings became required in America in 1970. So we've had 55 years of quarterly earnings calls. And the reason that we make Uber, Nike, and Comcast all publish information to the public every quarter, what is it? Transparency. If companies are asking us to buy their stock, then as part owners of the company, we deserve some information updates. I mean, Jack, I got to say there's something democratic about having a CEO come up to the microphone on a conference call every three months and answer the big questions. And they have to tell the truth by law because they'll get sued if they don't.

14:16So after the Great Depression stock market crash, the SEC required annual reports back in 1933. And then they upped them to every six months in 1955. And in 1970, we upped it again. We made the transparency and reporting requirement be quarterly. Maybe that's too much, though. Well, Jack, nobody wants another Enron scandal, and we are all for corporate transparency over here. Another benefit to quarterly earnings, it's fodder for this podcast. Yeah, when Jack and I dive in T-boy style, we are listening to the earnings calls. We're looking at the transcripts here. We're studying the financials.

14:48It's all good stuff. But sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. Well-intentioned regulations can turn into costly red tape with unintended consequences. Just like ice cream is delicious, but when you eat two pints of ice cream, you vomit it up and swear you'll never have hot fudge again. So if we do end up going from four earnings reports to two, the loss of transparency could be worth the benefits. So that you can enjoy ice cream in a healthy, responsible way. Or the financial benefits in our takeaway. Yeah, they both work. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone watching the stock market?

15:25If you are sitting in the shade today, it's because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Yetis, we wish we could take credit for that, but it's actually a quote from Warren Buffett. The legendary investor, he thinks that quarterly earnings are just too frequent. In fact, he and Jamie Dimon co-authored an op-ed in 2018 titled, Short-termism is Harming the Economy. Because the quarterly treadmill of earnings forces companies to focus on the short term, not built for the long term. And they might sacrifice what could be a great long-term investment to make sure they hit this quarter's profit goals.

15:59You know what? Our biggest entrepreneur in the country agrees. Elon has not IPO'd his company SpaceX because he hates public reporting. And he's constantly threatening to take Tesla private because he hates public reporting. CEOs can only focus on new initiatives for two months before suddenly they got to turn their attention to the next earnings call. And you can see the issue result in the stock market. The number of publicly traded companies is down from 7 ,000 to 4 ,000 in the last 25 years. That's huge. Partly because companies don't want to go public and have to do all those reports. Ringing the bell in the New York Stock Exchange is glorious.

16:33But then the CEO's got to jump on that earnings treadmill in 10 minutes. Oh my God. And in Europe, this is already the reality. European companies report every six months, not every three. So besties, although it is editorially inconvenient for this podcast, ultimately we are for this change. because we think being freed from quarterly reporting, CEOs will build for the long term. And if you are sitting in the shade today, it's because somebody planted a tree a long time ago. Now a quick word from our sponsor.

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18:13for our third and final story which if you're on a treadmill right now means you only have five more minutes by the way kodak the century old camera company just entered its fashion era their latest retro camera is sold out because they borrowed the best marketing stunt of la boo boo dolls now besties when jack and i were in business school some of our favorite case studies that we got to cover were on what not to do as a company. Don't do what Blockbuster, BlackBerry, or Sears did. That's what we paid 80 grand a year for. They didn't see the disruption happening right in front of them. But there is one brand that stands out, and that brand is Kodak.

18:53Founded in 1892 in Rochester, New York, this camera company pioneered pictures, and they wing-manned your vacation to Disney World in 1998. But it wasn't just photos, right, Jack? Like, Kodak was culture. Even Gen Zers today know what a Kodak moment is. Kodak, they reached their peak valuation of$35 billion in 1997. That's like six lifts. 150 ,000 employees helped Kodak control 90 % of the U.S. film market. When you said cheese, they printed cash. Until it all crashed in the late 1990s with the rise of the digital camera. But here is the most tragic part of the entire Kodak story. This is Shakespearean.

19:36Kodak invented the digital camera, but they wanted to protect their film business so they let other companies take away the industry. Kodak invented what ultimately killed them. And the iPhone, that was Kodak's anti-Kodak moment. But besties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this story. Uh, Kodak still exists. It's actually still a publicly traded company with a billion dollars in revenue, and you could buy the stock. The bigger surprise? Kodak has its mojo back, baby. This 137-year-old company is having a renaissance moment. Although, Jack, pause the pod. We do have to sprinkle on one catch here.

20:13Kodak has kind of flipped industries on us, haven't they? From photos to fashion. That's right. Kodak has a booming licensing business. They're collecting fees from licensing their logo. They cut 44 different contracts going right now. They license their brand to everyone. Luggage, apparel, paint. There are Kodak solar panels. There are Kodak televisions, Kodak binoculars. It's insane. In fact, get this. In South Korea, Kodak's brand is particularly cool for some reason. So cool that they've opened 123 brick and mortar locations to sell Kodak branded everything. Okay, we repeat, there are more Kodak physical stores in South Korea than there are J.Crew stores here in America.

20:58Licensing is a small but fast-growing part of Kodak's business because cameras are still number one. And just this week, Kodak launched a new camera that they call the Charmara. It's got 1987 written on the camera, and it reminds you of an old disposable camera. It's tiny. And the kind they'd hand out at the bar mitzvahs when you were younger. This thing's 30 bucks, it's digital, but it gives each picture you snap an old-school filter, so it looks like 1987. It's cute. It's tiny. It's classic. But the key isn't what this camera is. It's how this camera was launched. Because Kodak shockingly borrowed a strategy from the boo-boo dolls.

21:35Blind boxes. You never know which of the seven versions you're going to get until you open the box. The result? Kodak's new camera sold out everywhere. In their 99 days till Christmas, priority number one, restocking Kodak new cameras. They don't want this potential Kodak moment to become a Kodak foment. Let us buy this thing, Kodak. Oh, not again. Let us buy it. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Kodak? Kodak's not retro-ing. They're neutro-ing. Yetis, we've covered the recent rise of vintage tech on this show. Old tech becoming cool again. There's nothing trendier than for Gen Z to grab a Yahoo.com email address.

22:16And Yetis, Jack and I have told you that nostalgia never dies. What's old is sold again. But this, this is something new. This is a new twist on retro. It's a nostalgic brand, but adapted and reformatted for contemporary styles. Because this Kodak camera, it connects to your computer with the USB. It's vintage, but it's compatible with 2025 life. Another example we covered recently, Pan America Airlines. It's back, but different. It's with a business class only modern luxury approach. Besties, this isn't retro, it's neutral. and Kodak is crushing Neutro. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Saviche Wednesday?

22:57Meta's Mark Zuckerberg is expected to launch tonight new glasses with a screen on the lens. But remember, with any new tech, the hardware gets the attention, but the software gets the profits. For our second story, the SEC is prioritizing Trump's request to kill quarterly earnings. We think it will help companies think long-term instead of short-term. Because if you are sitting in the shade today, it's because someone planted a tree a long time ago. And our third and final story, Kodak's got confidence. A new retro camera is sold in blind boxes and it's sold out. It ain't retroing yet, this is neutroing.

23:32But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, today should be a national holiday because the Federal Reserve is announcing whether they'll cut interest rates. Jack, are schools open today? They shouldn't be. And as we said on Monday, our central bank is all but certain to do that, cut interest rates. The only question is how much they will cut interest rates by. We'll also be eager to see how they think inflation compares to unemployment as their biggest concerns. In the meantime, Jack and I are taking our kids out of preschool and we'll be watching intently.

24:04And second, on Monday, Trump teased that a TikTok deal was coming. On Tuesday, Beijing provided some details. Yetis, here's the update from China. Beijing says it'll keep the TikTok algorithm, the most valuable part of TikTok, and then license it to the U.S.-owned TikTok app. If that's true, then the security risk that's always been the problem of TikTok in America will be completely unresolved by this quote-unquote sale. In the meantime, we'll learn more on Friday when the Trump administration meets with Chinese officials to talk trade and TikTok. And finally, warning. Costco just issued an advisory that some of their wine explodes spontaneously.

24:43Okay, specifically, spontaneously combusting Kirkland Prosecco bottles. Prosecco, it's the Italian champagne. See, Jack, see. And during the fermentation process, apparently there was too much carbon dioxide created in this Italian champagne. So Costco is urging you to wrap your Kirkland Prosecco in a blanket so that if it does explode, it won't hurt anybody. but I'm urging you to set a new world record for how far you can blast that cork. Not a good look for Italy on this one, Jack. Not a good look. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent on by Ann W. from lovely Midtown Manhattan. The big winner of New York Fashion Week is a clothing donation non-profit.

25:25Get this, Goodwill will host a show for the first time ever at this New York Fashion Week. All the looks that the models wear on the catwalk are secondhand and donated items. Yeah, Goodwill is partnering with a designer who went viral for doing exactly this on social, using Goodwill stuff for fancy fashion. One man's trash is another man's couture. Yetis, you look fantastic right now. And if you're on a treadmill - Dude, if you're on a treadmill, remember, that was originally a torture device. So honestly, we just respect what you're doing right now. But we're also questioning your decisions. In the meantime, we'll be on a Peloton hoping that thing finally makes a comeback.

26:03Jack and I will see you tomorrow. HYHTV. And before we go, a happy 50th birthday to Yeti Derek Brewer down in lovely Los Angeles. This Gen X bestie has been wondering why we don't make more Gen X references, Jack. Yeah, we mentioned Gen Z, Millennials, Zillennials. I think we've done more Gen Alpha stories than Jet X. And Linus Pegasora has got the 10th Ironman of their career in Nice, France. Remember, Linus, winning this event is possible. And happy anniversary to Ben and Casey Eagleton in Denver, Colorado. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack.

26:49I own stock of Amazon, Disney, and Roku, and Nick and I both own stock of Apple.

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