🍦 “Fo-Sho” — 16 Handles’ return. Paramount’s hostile takeover. Sephora’s football strategy. +Bieber’s iPhone diss.

0:28This is Nick. Second story, Sephora's makeup sales are at an all-time high right now, thanks to the same strategy that works in football. And it's the only strategy that works if you're trying to sell something. And our third and final story, Pinkberry TCBY 16 handles. Delicious. Nick, you notice more Froyo chains popping up around you? I kind of want to lick the podcast right now. Oh, boy. We'll explain why frozen yogurt is the hottest food of this winter, and it's not just nostalgia. Don't make a lick sound right now. I was going so close. But yet is before we hit that wonderful mix of stories.

1:03Fantastic mix of stories. Love the mix of stories for T-Boy Tuesday, Jack. They've got some awkward times going on over at Apple. Yeah, you see, Apple stock is at an all time high, but everybody is leaving. Last week, Apple's chief lawyer announced they're retiring. And their chief designer said he's ditching for Meta. And Apple's AI business is still MIA. But the worst business story for Apple of the year so far is Justin Bieber? The Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Bieber just dropped a diss track on Apple. All right, Jack, pause the pod. You got to sprinkle on some context for us, please. Over the weekend, Bieber complained on social media of his most hated iPhone feature, that little dictation button.

1:43Ah, the dictation button. In iMessage, why is the talk to text button right next to the send button? No, it's on top of the send button. If you first push talk to text, it becomes the send button. And so apparently every time Bieber goes to send a text message, he accidentally records himself in a very unscripted moment. So as he posted on Instagram and X yesterday, Jack, if I hit this dictation button after sending a text and it beeps and stops my music one more time, I'm going to find everyone at Apple and put them in a rear naked chokehold. Translation, if Apple doesn't issue a software fix, Bieber is going to start wrestling them.

2:17It sounds like he's going to spank them. I don't know what a naked chokehold is, Jack. Me neither. But why did Apple stock fall 1 % yesterday, Nick? Well, Jack, blame it on the Bieber bash. We have never seen Bieber more bitter, baby. So to quote Bieber himself, Hey, Steve Jobs, where are you now that I need you? Jack, it reminds me of that Bieber song, Beauty and an Apple Beat. He was like, baby, baby, baby, oh. Baby, baby, baby, oh. Baby, baby, baby, oh. I thought you'd always fix your uniter interface. Jack, let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm.

2:50They 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. 50%, 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.

3:11Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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4:30So use code T-Boy for 20 % off your first order at BureauBrewing.com. Monarch. All right, yeah, these one lobster roll, no joke, 50 bucks on Nantucket. And why is that a problem, Jack? Because we're going to Nantucket this summer on a joint family T-Boy trip. It's a write-off. It is expensive, but we will travel with peace of mind because our finances are organized in Monarch, despite the lobster rolls. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything. Accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending. Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off, just$50 with promo code T-Boy. Monarch shows visually how much you're spending this month compared to the average month, which is really useful.

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5:44For our first story, in a dramatic escalation to yesterday's Netflix story, Paramount is now attempting a hostile takeover of the Warner Brothers. The empire strikes back, Nick. Dun-dun-dun. And that empire is funded by Trump's closest friends. Yetis, this is page six news meets the Wall Street Journal. Just yesterday morning, the bombshell report was that Netflix was eating Hollywood. But immediately after Netflix announced they're acquiring Warner Brothers on Friday, Paramount's investment makers and lawyers must have pulled three straight all-nighters. Because on Monday morning, Paramount announced a$108 billion hostile takeover attempt of Hollywood.

6:29Netflix offered$27.75 per share to acquire Warner Brothers. But now Paramount is offering$30 per share to buy the same company. But Nick, you used the word hostile earlier, and we want to point out hostile is a real finance term. Yeah, Jack, why don't we sprinkle in some context over there, please? Paramount's offer bypasses Warner Brothers' board of directors, which voted on Friday to sell the company to Netflix. Instead, Paramount is aggressively going directly to Warner Brothers shareholders to vote on which deal is better. And that is the definition of a hostile takeover. The result is an epic vote for shareholders of Warner Brothers.

7:08By January 8th, they have to decide, do we want to sell to Netflix or do we want to sell to Paramount? Yes, which one are you going to give your rose to? Now, Paramount's pitch is not only are we offering more money than Netflix, but we're also more likely to be approved by regulators. But add all up, and it feels like we are in the middle of Warner Brothers Bachelorette. Episode two is already meatier and spicier than episode one, Jack. But yet, here's what we find most fascinating about this story. Why would Paramount get approved by regulators? Why, Jack? Because all of the buyers have done sleepovers at Mar-a-Lago.

7:44Yeah, let's kick it off with our buddy Larry Ellison, second richest man in the world. He actually bought Paramount for his son as a gift. Must be nice. And the Ellisons have been saying for months that they're the only ones President Trump would allow to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. And interestingly, it's not just because Ellison is a Trump super donor, right, Jack? It's also because he's tapping President Trump's inner circle to help pay for this huge deal. All right, let's look at the tab. Three Trump-allied sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East are gonna write checks because they are part of the Paramount ownership group.

8:16Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, President Trump has visited each of his allied countries this summer, and they're all gonna be buying Paramount. Plus, Jack, you've got Affinity Partners, the private equity firm run by Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law. There you go. He's funding Paramount too. Add it all up, and that's why they think regulators will be on board. So how can Paramount, worth$15 billion, afford to outspend Netflix, which is worth$400 billion? Well, by opening up a Splitwise account that includes everyone the president sent Christmas cards to. Or did he open an Evite account?

8:50It may have been a Venmo account. Either way, though, Jack, if you know your name, so Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Warner Bros.? Whoever wins, David Zaslav wins. The failed CEO who is now winning. Yet he's back in April, David Zaslav's strategy as the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery had utterly failed. The guy who merged Warner Brothers with Discovery and changed HBO Max to Max decided it was time to unmerge Warner Brothers from Discovery and rename Max to HBO Max. Yeah, that was back when Warner Brothers Discovery stock was just eight bucks a share. It was low. But then the Ellison family decided to acquire Paramount.

9:29And then the Ellisons got interested in acquiring Warner Brothers too. So they offered Warner Brothers 19 bucks a share in September, and then 22 bucks a share after that, and then 24 bucks a share after that. David Zaslav said no to all three of those Paramount offers, and that's when he got$27.27 from Netflix. And now that has driven the Ellisons crazy, so they're offering 30 bucks a share in this hostile takeover. 30 bucks a share for something that six months ago cost 8 bucks a share. Best is at this price, David Zasloff is going to become a billionaire no matter what, whether he sells to Netflix or sells to Paramount.

10:06Warner Bros. Discovery was much more valuable as a pawn in the streaming wars than as a standalone media company. That's what Zas has discovered in the last six months. And now whoever wins, the real winner is David Zasloff, CEO of Warner Bros. For our second story, Sephora, the biggest cosmetics chain in the West, is celebrating sales that are all-time high-ing. Because Sephora knows that beauty, like football, is a game of inches. That's right. We are connecting lip liner to John Madden. You should have said linebackers. I should have said linebackers, Jack. Besties, it is the Disney World of moisturizers, the Olympics of impulse buys.

10:47You walk in for a$12 lip balm, you walk out with a new 12-step beauty identity. Sephora, they were bought by Louis Vuitton back in 1997 in a deal that at the time was called crazy. But not today, because Sephora is a 56-year-old company. It's middle-aged. True. But its financials must have anti-aging cream. We say that because Sephora's numbers have never looked better, baby. Jack, what are we seeing? $18.5 billion of revenue last year is more than Dick's Sporting Goods, half as much as Best Buy. But this beauty chain with the black and white bags is more profitable than both of those big box stores.

11:22And last week in the Louis Vuitton earnings call, The CEO joked that he can't share the all-time Sephora profits because you wouldn't believe how big they are. Jack, did you see that the Sephora store in Paris gets more visitors than the Eiffel Tower in Paris? Is that true? It's true. More people are lining up to buy Mac lip liner than see the seventh wonder of the world. It is possible. I know it's possible. But yet, this is what Jack and I find fascinating. Sephora has faced more competition than ever before, and yet Sephora is thriving more than ever before. Ulta Beauty is gaining market share.

11:56Amazon started selling subscription makeup online. Jack, TikTok shop? Beauty influencers are selling serums directly through Get Ready With Me videos. And yet Sephora's 3 ,400 global stores are in their all-time high era, and Nick and I found a few reasons why. Well, the first, Jack, is exclusivity. Of the 300 upscale beauty brands that Sephora sells, half you can only buy at Sephora. Yeah, we noticed that Sephora basically signs makeup brands like team science athletes. If you want the new road blush, you can only buy it at Sephora. And the second reason for the Sephora surge is economic. We've told you before about the lipstick index.

12:35If you feel bad about the economy, you'll still buy a lipstick as a little treat for yourself. And if you're feeling good about the economy, you'll also still buy a lipstick. You'll just buy a more expensive lipstick. So no matter the economic situation, somebody splurging on Glossier at Sephora, or maybe Christian Dior, if they're feeling good about the economy. And the third reason Sephora is in its all-time high era is our takeaway. But Jack, since you have a 42-step skincare routine and were once a backup D3 college high school quarterback, I feel like this Sephora takeaway was made for you.

13:08Are you ready for this? Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Sephora? In the competition of retail, you have to fight for every inch. Yeti's, last month, Jack and I got to interview the CEO of Lyft, David Risher, who has this great rule from his days of Amazon. Here it is. Every page must sell. The idea is that every part of the customer experience must add value. Every moment is a selling opportunity. Well, that's how Sephora thinks about their stores. As their CMO put it, every square inch must be productive. Every inch is like a little jewel. You'll notice it if you go there. Teens linger by the Tom Ford fragrances that have naughty names.

13:46And while the mini makeup section is strategically placed in the checkout line where you're going to wait for five minutes. The giant table over there, it's for everything that's trending on TikTok right now. There is no wasted space, no shelf for things that don't sell. There is no generic aisle six at Sephora. Like football, retail is a relentless game of inches, and Sephora has become a hall of famer. Now, a quick word from our sponsor. Top hats, baseball hats, Von Dutch hats. We wear so many hats on this podcast. Honestly, we're not great at all of them. No, we've been avoiding hiring someone to wear those hats instead of us, especially the Von Dutch one, because hiring and training can take forever.

14:23Well, proud to say that we are hiring right now at T-Boy, and this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Because sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. So besties spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of the show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast.

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15:48revival led by the legendary DIY Froyo chain, 16 Handles. But the reason Froyo went away in the first place is not the reason you think. Oh, Yetis. Every generation has its soft serve brand that it loves. Boomers had Mr. Softy and Carvel. Gen X had Tasty Delight and Cold Stone Creamery. And Millennials had Pinkberry and 16 Handles. Pro tip, you're going to want to put the mochi on those. If you don't put the mochi on, it's not really a soft serve, is it, Jack? When we Millennials had just graduated from college. It was the Obama era Froyo frenzy in New York City. DIY serve yourself chains with all you can eat toppings.

16:26That was the trend. And how do you pay for it, Jack? It was literally a soft serve frozen yogurt buffet and you built your own cone and topped it with whatever you wanted. You pay what you weigh. Like the 16 handles located on 2nd Avenue in the East Village we used to go to all the time, right Jack? Peanut butter and chocolate swirl topped with Oreo crumbles and gummy bears. And of course, a side of the Vici soundtrack. I would go three times a week. I went so often alone that I once went with Molly Jack and they knew me by name and she did know how they knew me by name. I think she put two and two together.

16:59Kamara, I miss seeing you every day. But what was once a growing industry has lost a third of its business in the last eight years. For Oreo sales are down 28 % since 2017, according to the New York Times. And the number of stores across America are down by 35 % in that period. Couple key reasons for this, right, Jack? First, Froyo fits into the three Fs of fads that we've discovered, fashion, fitness, and food. Something's cool today, but it's cringe tomorrow. But then the pandemic killed self-serve frozen yogurt because it was literally a health hazard. Shocker, when Jack clamps down on that peanut butter chocolate swirl handle, yeah, it's a super spreader event.

17:37I might've put my mouth directly underneath it before. I know you wanna say lick on the pod there, Jack. But besties, here we are years after the pandemic, and there are signs of life in that poorly built fro-yo swirl that just toppled over in your dish. Yeah, pro tip, even if you want a cone, get a dish, because you're not building that thing right. Always get the dish. We jumped in T-boy style, and the New York Times just did a deep dive on 16 Handles, the East Coast chain almost in bankruptcy. And it's a wild story about a young man who has saved the brand 16 Handles and the industry of self-serve frozen yogurt.

18:11This is wild. His name is Noah Cuney Lichtman, and he made a bet that the problem wasn't with Froyo demand, it was with Froyo supply. So he took out a$500 ,000 loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration when he was only 23 years old. And Jack, he didn't just pray for millennial nostalgia, he reformatted the stores to adapt to 2020 trends, like... Protein maxing. Protein maxing, what did he do with that? He introduced a high-protein chocolate peanut butter banana flavor that has more grams of whey than a burger. Okay, what about date night at the new 16 Handles? He turns the lights down and the music up after eight o 'clock and pulls out some high top tables.

18:50Boom! It's a zero-proof nightlife option for people not interested in alcohol. Now, to scale this remixed concept, he started granting franchises to other young, ambitious believers, even students. Noah sold a 16 Handles franchise to an MBA student at Columbia to open a location on the Upper West Side that's doing very well. This business school student is literally running a business. Add it all up, besties, and this man has sparked a fro-yo renaissance. If you Google frozen yogurt right now, you'll see dozens of stores are opening up across the country, probably near you. By the way, 16 Handles, already profitable with plans to add 200 more stores.

19:28We're going to have to change the name to 200 Handles. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our - But why is it called 16 Handles? Are there 16 flavors of Froyo? It's a story for another pod, Jackson Jack. What's the takeaway for our buddies in the Froyo revival? Why did frozen yogurt ever fall? Well, it was a victim of its own success. Yeti's today, Froyopreneurs are betting this isn't a fad. They're betting that this is a multi-generational trend. They would argue the reason 16 Handles got into trouble was its business model. Froyo was so successful that it got simply too big. This is fascinating, but it turns out self-serve machines are not expensive.

20:05And since customers can pour and build their own fro-yo bowls, these stores require fewer employees and they can handle higher traffic. It's like a buffet. It has low capital needs, low labor costs that attracted people to open up new fro-yo locations. Too many locations, in fact. And kind of like craft breweries, the industry was just oversaturated with supply. That's why the industry fell apart. It wasn't a demand deficit, it. It was a supply surplus. So besties, add it all up and this latest Froyo wave, or Ice Age, if you will, and we will, Jack, should learn from the last one. Don't let Froyo fail because of its own success.

20:45Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? Paramount is going directly to Warner Brothers shareholders, telling them to accept Paramount's offer, not Netflix's. And it's the latest episode of Warner Brothers Bachelorette. Whoever buys Warner Brothers, The real winner, though, is David Zasloff, who's going to become a billionaire. For our second story, Sephora faces intense physical and online competition in beauty, but it's all-time high-ing anyway. Because retail is a relentless game of inches, and Sephora sells lipstick like a linebacker. And our third and final story, the hot treat of this winter is frozen yogurt bowls, self-serve and priced by the pound.

21:22Ah, the biggest risk to Froyo isn't ice cream. It's that the business model is just too darn good. But yet is this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, according to some PFWTMs, people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is planning to IPO next year at a$1 trillion valuation. If it does, Elon Musk's space business will have the biggest IPO valuation of any company. But in the meantime, SpaceX is still what Jack and I call a sumo stock. And what does that stand for, Jack? If you want to invest, you're straight up missing out until they IPO. S-U-M-O. And second, for the first time ever, for any country ever, China's trade surplus just passed$1 trillion, and 2025 isn't even over yet.

22:06What's that mean? It means China exported$1 trillion more to foreign countries than it imported from foreign countries. That's actually the biggest trade difference of any country, any time in the history of the world. It's also a sign that with Americans buying less Chinese-made goods, China has found other buyers all over the world. And finally, Sweetgreen just became the first fast casual chain with the value meal. Sweetgreen stock is down 80 % this year. Consumers are cutting back on$20 salads and double-digit lattes. By now, Sweetgreen is offering a$10 bowl of veggies their lowest price yet by far.

22:41The$10 harvest bowl. Sweetgreen's questionable profits. Your move, Chipotle. Your move. Now time for the best fact yet. At this one, an answer to yesterday's T-Boy trivia question. We asked you, what color is a subliminal message trying to touch your hunger buttons? Like, blue is a subliminal message about safety. That's why banks have blue logos. But what color makes you hungry? Well, a lot of folks said yellow in the comment section. Even more people said orange, Jack. Because Burger King? Okay, but Jack doesn't even know the answer to this, but you know what the answer is, man? Uh, brown? It's red.

23:20It's red. If you think about all the fast food chains now, think about this, right? Like McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Wendy's, In-N-Out, Panda Express, Chipotle, Pizza Hut. Jack, Red Lobster. It's called Red Lobster, man. True, but Red Lobster went bankrupt, right? But they're back, baby. Jack, look at your food delivery apps. DoorDash, Rezzy, OpenTable. You're right. I'm salivating just thinking about it. Dang. Coca-Cola. Dude, there's no blue food delivery apps. Red Baron Pizza. Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Okay, we could go on, but we got to pause the pod. Yetis, you look fantastic to T-Boy Tuesday.

24:01And just a thank you to all of you have already started buying your tickets to our live shows for next year. We got the links in the episode description if you want to see us. And it means the world that you do. So join us on the T-Boy IPO tour for 2026. We can't wait to see you there. And Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

24:21And before we go, congrats on surviving to Yeti Neil DeVay from his bachelor party in Tulum this past weekend. He's all in one piece and all he did was a whole lot of yoga. I was going to say, isn't Tulum where you go for like yoga cleanses and like - That's all he did there, Jack. That's all he did there. And congratulations to Courtney and Lucas Weatherby, who are getting married after eight years. They met at Cal Poly in beautiful San Luis Obispo. SLO, congratulations guys. And And Danny Regalado has got the best birthday yet. Just moved to San Francisco. Danny, you're going to have a blast.

24:53And happy birthday to Selvin Dubois in Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala. And Addy Gilbert is a legendary Yeti who made us a Profit Puffy graphic. Literally the design of a Profit Puppy and sent it to us. Addy, thank you so much for your art. Addy, just send us over the royalty-free license in perpetuity. And then we'll talk business. We're putting it up in the T-Boy studio.

25:16This is Jack. I own stock of Disney and Netflix, and Nick and I both own stock in Apple and Chipotle. This episode is brought to you by Bill, the intelligent finance platform that helps businesses scale with proven results. Yet he's paying and getting paid? That is a pain for small and medium sized businesses. Jack, did you send the invoice? Did they see the invoice? Did you remember to remind them to see to pay to remember to pay the invoice? If you drop the ball in any one of those steps, you don't get paid. Nope. And you're missing out on cashflow. You should not have to chase your customers.

25:46This isn't tags. So powered by AI, Build does all that simply and automated so that you don't have to. ACH, credit card, check, international wire transfers. They probably do carrier pigeon Bill Pay if that's how you want to get paid. Bill is the intelligent finance platform trusted by nearly half a million businesses and 98 of the top 100 US accounting firms to manage, move, and maximize your money. They have securely processed over a trillion dollars in real transactions. That is proven infrastructure you can actually trust. So besties, talk to an expert at bill.com slash proven and get$150 gift card as a thank you.

26:18That's bill.com slash proven. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details.