🥊 “Stock Fight Club” — Underground trading league. Wardrobe investing & cataloguing. Lime’s pothole IPO. +MBA 50% Off

0:28This is Nick. Oh, yeah, there is, Jack. But three fantastic stories for today's T-Boy Jack. What do we got on the best show in biz? For our first story, new apps are cataloging your closet to save you money or make you money with your wardrobe. Price alert, that cashmere sweater you own, it has doubled in value. Sell now. For our second story, Lime. The network of shared e-scooters just filed to IPO, but they say they face one huge risk. Potholes, no joke. And our third and final story, there's an underground stock trading league secretly streaming all the content from a boxing gym in lower Manhattan.

1:05Besties, you have 30 minutes to make a profit or you're knocked out. And the winner gets a samurai sword. This is a true story as well, and it's wild. It's a real samurai sword. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Wonderful mix. No one else doing the mix. Love it, Jack. This week, faculty at Harvard University voted on whether or not to cap the number of A's professors can award to 25%. Because get this, currently 60 % of Harvard students are getting A's. We'll know the results of that vote on May 20th. But there's a funny situation in higher education. And it's the opposite of all that grade inflation.

1:42It's business school deflation. That's right, according to the journal, business schools are giving huge discounts right now, up to 50 % off. Business schools are treating MBAs like TJ Maxx right now. Follow us on this. UC Irvine's business school, they dropped the price of their MBA program 38 % for out-of-staters. That's an$18 ,000 off sale. Or Jack, how about Purdue's business school? They're 40 % off next fall. That is a$24 ,000 tuition discount. Oh, you gotta love this one. Johns Hopkins Business School, they launched a 50 % off master's deal if you're from the state of Maryland. Is Booth gonna offer a BOGO deal?

2:17What's next? You and your buddy Timmy apply together and you enroll for the price of one? Buy one year, get the second year free. Now, besties, Jack, and I should point out, the top 10 business schools are still charging Porsche prices. Stanford's not on the sale rack yet. No, it is not. But in this economy, people don't want to quit their jobs. With artificial intelligence, people are job hugging. So you're not switching from earning money to spending money. Anxiety is up. Demand for two years to take an MBA is down. And that's why deans are acting like car dealers right now. What do I got to do to get you down to Harvard Business School?

2:50Besties tuition deflation. Never thought we'd see the day.

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

3:29Monarch. All right, Yetis, you're never going to be able to guess how many accounts Jack has linked to Monarch. 31. Are there even that many financial products out there? Hey, Yetis, he's got credit cards, checking accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement accounts. 529 college savings accounts for each kid and my nieces and nephews, Nick. Okay, I'm rounding up. Does that get us to 31? Where are we? Don't forget my mortgage, my house, the car I own. They're all linked and all their values in Monarch. You see, besties, Jack actually linked everything to Monarch one year ago during a little bit of spring cleaning.

4:00Until I used Monarch, I had a very messy, very chaotic spreadsheet, but now they're clean, synced, and automatic. Basically, Jack went full Marie Kondo on his finances, and he did it with Monarch, which can do your financial spring cleaning for you. One dashboard that gets your entire financial life organized. No more clutter, no more mess, no more scattered logins. Just logins, investments, property, and more all in one place. Get your first year at Monarch for half off just 50 bucks with promo code T-Boy. Use code T-B-O-Y at monarch.com to get your first year half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code T-Boy.

4:35NetSuite by Oracle. Yetis, this is AI Nick. Nick. That's kind of my R2D2 voice. Just kidding. It's you and Nick and you and Jack, but you probably want to know how to make AI work for you. And have the output not feel like R2D2 just malfunctioned on you. Well, check out NetSuite by Oracle and you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP. It's trusted by over 43 ,000 businesses. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. And now with NetSuite AI Connector, you can use the AI of your choice that you're already using to connect to your actual business data.

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5:40For our first story, The RealReal just launched a real-time price tracker for the clothing in your wardrobe. Bigger trend though, closet cataloging. You can save money and time in your closet, but only if you can climb the hump. Oh, yetis. Imagine you're walking through your house and suddenly you get this ping. Your phone vibrates and it says, the Chloe Paddington bag that you own is surging in price. You can sell it right now for double what you paid. Profit puffy besties, we track the markets minute by minute to the penny, but we have no idea about what's in our closets. Why not treat stilettos like stocks?

6:16Why not? Clothing is an asset that you interact with daily, but we're all clueless to the value of the stuff in our closet. That's right, Miranda Priestly. And with secondhand online markets, that dress don't just fall in value, it can climb in value. Which is why the online reseller, The RealReal, just launched My Closet. It's basically portfolio management for fashionistas. Here's the strategy. Basically, treat your pants like a portfolio. You upload your closet's inventory. You get AI alerts if something on that hanger spikes in value. So you can end up long Gucci, sell Prada, and hold Tory Burch.

6:46Oh, Bottega Veneta handbags popping off like meme stocks right now, Jack. However, most of the clothing we own doesn't go up in value ever. It only goes down, doesn't it, Mick? I want to call you out on this visual podcast, Jack. Was that a hole on the lower left side of that cashmere sweater right there, my friend? Looking at you, ripped elbow in my favorite crew neck. But there's now also a portfolio app for your rags. In fact, the New York Times Wirecutter just reviewed it. Here's how to think of this new concept, Yetis. The real real is for tracking your clothes resale value. But Index is a new app for tracking your clothes, period, so that you can plan what to wear and optimize your wardrobe.

7:25But yet he's here's the difference in the value props between these new concepts. The real real can make you money on your wardrobe as we saw with those handbag price surges. But index can save you money and save you time with your wardrobe. Yeah, let's dive in T-boy style yeties. You may have heard of the concept of having a work uniform, full disclosure, already do this kind of, you know, just switch the color, but it's the same Oxford shirt every day. A lot of people who are extreme optimizers try to save their time in the morning by not having to decide what to wear. so they wear the same thing to work every day.

7:57I'll take it as a compliment, Jack. But instead, this app can tell you what to wear, saving you time but still mixing up your lately look. You can get the benefits of a work uniform but diversify what you wear every day because the app tells you. Jack and I call this strategy closet cataloging. And apps like this won't just tell you what to wear each morning, they'll track your usage. Because you have manually uploaded a picture of everything in your wardrobe. The tops, the bottoms, the hats, the accessories. So you'll open up the app and it'll say, Hey Jack, you haven't worn that Henley in 18 months.

8:26Time to say goodbye to that thing, my friend. Condo style. I was actually sweater heavy, Nick. So I rebalanced my portfolio by buying three linen button-ups. Or besties, this app will tell you the World Cup starts next month. Maybe you should wear that soccer kit that you bought four years ago and forgot about. We all have a bunch of things in our closet we forgot we even had. This index app will be like, yo, maybe you should try that thing. Freshen up your look once in a while. Everyone has that bottom drawer graveyard. But the app can also tell you what to pack for your Italy vacation and plan what you're going to wear each day.

8:58So besties, what we're describing here is a new phenomenon. Like a stock portfolio. Your wardrobe has thousands of dollars of value, but you don't even know what is in it. Which is the opportunity for closet cataloging. Saving you time and money by taking your wardrobe further. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are doing closet cataloging? Get over the hump. Hard up front, major potential. You see, Yetis, Jack and I think cataloging your closet is a financial trick shot, as we call it. Very little cost, but hugely improves your overall life. But we're deterred from doing projects like cataloging our closet because of the high setup cost.

9:34It's going to take a few hours, and we call this the hump. The hump. So besties, if you can get over the hump, then it's all downhill after that. A never-ending economic and mental health benefits cycle. For example, creating a will. That's a hump. You have to do it once, and that takes time and money. You do it once, but then you stop being that person who technically has nothing to leave their kids. Or setting up a password banter. That can feel like a hump. One afternoon of pain, but then you never get locked out of a website again. We call these humps. Things with a huge upfront setup cost, but then if you can get over that, long-term benefits for the rest of your life.

10:07It's the hump. Hard upfront. Major potential. For our second story, grab a helmet and knee pads, Yetis. Lime, the scooter company, is finally going public. The question isn't whether micromobility works, it's whether it'll be stopped by potholes. Oh, but Jack, remember back in the day when we first started this podcast and unicorns were rare? It was a big deal if a company hit a$1 billion private valuation. Well, back in 2018, Lime hit a$1 billion valuation. It became a unicorn just 18 months after launching in San Francisco. I think that was a record at the time. See, Silicon Valley thought that e-scooters, shared e-scooters, were the future of transportation.

10:50So Google, Uber, and Andreessen Horowitz all invested in Lime. There's a whole new category called community electric micromobility, if you want to be technical about it. MBAs who wanted to get rich while also saving the world loved this concept. One less taxi ride at a time. Yeah, there's no better flex than rolling up to a date night at Dorcia on a two-wheeler of a scooter. But after a pre-pandemic boom for Lime and then a COVID bust for Lime, Lime is now IPO-ing, targeting a$2 billion valuation. They just filed their paperwork on the NASDAQ. Now, their arch-rival Bird went public back in 2021 at a$2.3 billion valuation.

11:25And Jack, what happened to our buddies over at Bird? I was going to say like two birds with one stone, but there's only one bird with one stone. And they went bankrupt two years later, sold the scooter biz for scraps. Lime watched all of that with Bird, waited four more years, and is now going public the right way with a traditional IPO, not a SPAC. And so far, Lime has traction. It's CEO'd by an ex-Uber guy, and one out of seven Lime rides is booked in the Uber app thanks to a partnership. So where's their growth coming from? Well, they've been studying abroad in Europe, and it's been paying off for Lime.

11:56The United States, the UK, and France represent over half of the company's revenue, but they're in 29 countries. And revenues have grown three years straight. Now, Lime is still losing money, but the cash flow is positive and they're growing faster than 15 miles per hour. Nick and I were excited to cover this IPO because we're really interested in the unit economics of Lime. We've been covering an IPO in so long. So the unit economics are when you break down the business into its simplest form. And Jack, what's the simplest form here? In this case, it's a scooter. How much revenue, cost, and profit is associated with the average Lime scooter?

12:28Okay, so Jack, let's focus on the RVD, the revenue per vehicle per day. It's risen from$6.23 over the last three years. Now, besties, that is a sign that the average scooter is handling more rides per day. They're putting more junk on that trunk. $7.47 of revenue per scooter per day. But in their top two cities, it's three times as much money made,$22 per vehicle per day. Okay, so that's on the revenue side. But on the cost side, it costs them$3.51 to operate each vehicle every day. So on average, a Lime bike or e-scooter makes a 50 % profit margin for each ride that it takes. But Jack, we got to add in the cost of getting that scooter.

13:07And each Lime vehicle costs$1 ,300 all in. So at the current rates, the break even on a Lime e-scooter or an e-bike is 12 months. That's how long it takes to pay for the cost of the vehicle. Sit down, stand up, and stay standing on that scooter, Jack. That's not too shabby for these guys. That sounds really good. So why has Lime never had a single year of profitability? That's because of the overhead. Employees, facilities, insurance, legal, marketing, all those fixed costs. So if Lime can keep scaling, spread those fixed costs Nick just mentioned over more and more rides, then it will reach its final destination of profitability.

13:43Give me that cha-ching button. You have arrived at profitability, my friend. So Lime needs more scooters in more cities generating more rides per day. And the key to making that happen is the Lime Pass. That is their KPI. People who pay for that Lime subscription take six times as many trips as people who don't pay for the subscription. And if Lime can hit$22 in revenue per vehicle per day in all of its cities, then Lime would finally be a profit puppy. So converting casual riders to Lime subscribers, or key Limes, if you will, is key to Lime's stock's future. Otherwise, could become a lemon. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Lime?

14:26Potholes will make or break the scooter business. Oh, Yaddies, you know Jack and I. We love to do a control F in the IPO paperwork to see what unusual words pop up. And this time we noticed a funny one. Potholes. Lime listed physical potholes on the streets as a material risk to the business. True story. First time I've seen IPO paperwork complain about potholes. Yes, actual potholes make the scooter, bike, and riding less useful. but metaphorical potholes are also a risk to this business. Theft, vandalism, and public disrespect of the scooters themselves is a huge issue for Lime. You know what we were talking about?

15:03We treat things we own very well, but many Americans treat public or shared property like, well, like scooters. So Lime's other risk is not the business itself, but human behavior and disrespect for their products that are left on the sidewalks. This was also wild. Lime's IPO paperwork explicitly cites vehicles being thrown into bodies of water as a sign of public resistance to their scooters and bikes on the streets. So the key for Lime to hit profitability is more scooters in more cities and more rides per day. But the enemy of that mission ain't competition, it's potholes. Will Limestock rise after the IPO?

15:35It depends on potholes, both literal and metaphorical. Now a quick word from our sponsor. Lisa Sleep. Hi, Eddies. You may not notice this from Jack's voice, but he's become I'm a nocturnal foam roller, haven't you, Jack? Definitely don't notice that from my voice, but I will tell you that every morning, I wake up with an uncomfortable back of my neck situation, so I preemptively foam roll to try to fix my bad neck I know I'm gonna have. Yeah, we record this podcast standing up. It's a standing pod. We can't afford like a nasty neck situation, Jack. But there's definitely a better solution to my preemptive foam rolling.

16:11How about a Lisa mattress? Yeah, spring is the time to upgrade, and how about that thing that you spend a third of your life on? So with my new Lisa mattress, I sleep on my back, and my neck crankiness is gone. Yeah, we both got these things, but first we picked it out after completing a short survey on lisa.com. Because each Lisa mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. You take the sleep quiz from Lisa and you get recommended a mattress in two minutes. It's like talking to your therapist. But Nick, can we talk about how fun the unboxing experience is? Oh, it's a joy.

16:38It's a joy, Jack. The mattress expands like a Michelin, man. So go to lisa.com for 30 % off your select mattresses, plus get an extra 50 bucks off with promo code T-Boy exclusive to our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com. Promo code T-Boy for 30 % off select mattresses plus an extra 50 bucks off. Support the T-Boy show and let them know that we sent you after checkout. Lisa.com, promo code T-B-O-Y. 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.

17:14Well, 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.

17:45So just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs.

18:02For our third and final story, there is an underground stock trading fight club with drone cameras, live streaming, and samurai swords. Investing is now a spectator live streamed sport that you can bet on. And so is our entire economy. Oh, Yetis, let's go to Google Maps. Lower Manhattan, just outside Wall Street, is a boxing studio where actually my sister once trained. The Church Street Boxing Gym. But on Thursday nights, instead of two boxers in the ring, there are eight computers. That's right. And next to the dumbbells in the squat rack are VCs and finance bros trading stocks and cryptos. This story is like if Fight Club and Twitch had a baby, but raised by GameStop and Gladiator.

18:44Oh, that's right, because there is a cheering audience in the balcony and drones flying overhead to stream the action live. There's a play-by-play commentator, like on ESPN. Julia buys Ethereum. She sells Carvana. She dunks the Coca-Cola meme coin call options. And while the players are invested in the ring, spectators are bending on the polymarket. It does seem like the scene from the Coliseum and the Gladiator. But instead of Maximus Decimus Meridius, it's Roaring Kitty. Are you not entertained, besties? The Wall Street Journal got inside this underground Wall Street trading rave, and it is the frontier of esports and finance.

19:19And besties, this is where players don't use their real name from LinkedIn. They use nicknames. They use pseudonyms when they're playing. The number one player at this competition is named Velvet Milkman. It's the kind of place where the equivalent of a jab uppercut punch is using 40x leverage to buy in and out of Bitcoin in seconds and score thousands of dollars in gains and losses. Rule number one of Stock Club, don't talk about secret underground investing Stock Club. Okay, but Jack, what's the second rule of this Stock Club? Well, the rules are that eight players compete. They're each given$25 ,000 of fake money.

19:49And at the end of three 30-minute rounds of trading, the person who grew their fake money the most wins the competition. And that is, after all the Gatorade sweat and Zin pouches, the winner gets 10 ,000 bucks in prize money and an ornate Japanese samurai sword. But you also get some bragging rights that you turned$25 ,000 of Monopoly money into 50 ,000 on that slick doge move as the audience roared with approval. You see what Marky Mark from Morgan Stanley pulled off? Not too shabby, Milkman. The competition is run by a venture capital-backed startup called Legend, which does social trading. And based on what the investors have said, it's basically capitalizing on a tidal wave of trends.

20:26Gen Z loves the internet, social media, live streaming, and finance. That's what this is. So yes, this is a 25-year-old's gamification of finance with the vibes of ESPN, the Ocha. But it's also giving Hunger Games. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the wild secret underground stock trading fight club? It's the 50 Cent economy. As in, the rapper 50 Cent. Yeti's 50 Cent's debut rap album, it was Get Rich or Die Trying. He also made a movie with that same name. And 20 years later, that lyric defines today's broader culture. You see, with the conventional American dream of getting a house, feeling out of reach, the alternative is get rich quick, and that's more popular than ever.

21:04In an article this week, Axios noticed things that we used to call sin, like gambling, is now everywhere, available on phones instantly. Axios summed it up as sin nation. But they also pointed out a really interesting survey result that Jack and I want to share with you. While patriotism, religion, family, and community have fallen in importance to most Americans, money has risen massively in importance. Well, the way we see it, Yetis, nothing captures that shift in American values and pursuits quite like this story. Live stream underground betting competition inside a boxing ring with people betting on the betting with drones flying overhead to capture it all.

21:41We'd call this, ironically, the 50 cent economy. As in 50 cents, get rich or die trying. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? The RealReal now treats your wardrobe like a portfolio, while Index is your closet's personal style guide. It's all about the hump. High upfront cost, major potential after. These financial trick shots are humps. Second, Lime is IPO-ing its e-scooter business at a$2 billion valuation, which is still below their pre-pandemic peak. But it all comes down to potholes, literal and metaphorical, that are slow in the e-scooter dream. And Stock Fight Club, a weekly live trading competition with betting and alcohol for the spectators.

22:21It reflects the 50-cent economy that we're living in. Get rich or die trying. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. I'm sorry, Jack, is that white smoke coming up from the Capitol? Because we got a new chair of the old Federal Reserve. Kevin Warsh was approved Wednesday by the Senate in a 54 to 45 vote to lead our central bank. Kevin is going to succeed Jerry Powell, whose last day as Fed chair is tomorrow. But after Friday, Powell's going to stick around. He's going to remain on the board of governors to try to protect the Fed's independence. Bring him some cupcakes on Friday.

22:54And second, did you notice Spotify go down for you yesterday? Was it just us? Because we found out what was going on. Spotify launched Party of the Years, a celebration of their 20-year anniversary. Basically wrapped, but for all the music you have ever listened to in your whole Spotify life. It tells you actually the first song that you ever streamed. Do you want to know what it is for me? Talk to me. What do we got? I don't know, because I got a joint account with Alex, and it's really been a challenge for our relationship. And finally, American Express just tossed a new perk in their credit card, and it's artificial intelligence.

23:27Ah, the credit card perk wars. MX is adding$300 in Chachi PT credit to the platinum card. We assume Chase Sapphire is going to add$300 of Claude to their credit card. I mean, your move, Jamie Dimon, your move. Besties, when it comes to millennial metal cards, it is a perk tit for tat. Now time for the best fact yet, which today is some T-boy midweek trivia wrapped up, whipped up by Jack and me. Spirit Airlines sadly went bankrupt last week, as we told you. But do you know what happened to Spirit Airlines' 124 airplanes? Most of them flew to one state. Here's a hint. It's sunny 300 days a year.

24:01And here's another hint. It has the lowest humidity of any state in the United States. Where is the airplane graveyard? The answer is Arizona. It's Arizona! up. So almost every spirit airline right now is already hanging out in a carrier in Arizona until some other airline buys it and hopefully spreads the rose out just a little bit to give us a tiny bit more leg room. Yetis, you'll look fantastic for the new Friday. Jack, you are glowing over there. No one's going to notice that hole. I promise you, no one's going to notice that hole. Yetis, if you want to help grow the show, spread the word with HYHTVOY.

24:35Tell a buddy wearing that same sweater as you today, have you heard the best one yet? Nick and I, see you tomorrow. Can't wait.

24:46And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti Maria Luisa Shikovsky down in lovely court at Chiba, Brazil. And happy birthday to Sue Loringer, the prophet puppy mom of North Carolina. And Michael Haslam, a belated birthday shout out. Sorry we missed it yesterday. We got your back today. Happy birthday to Tiki, Carolina, turning eight in Atlanta, Georgia. This kid loves Pokemon and the best one yet. And JJ Change turning 12 years old on the way to hockey practice in California. Keep your eyes on the puck, stick on the ice. Happy birthday to Caitlin Lee Thompson in Chicago. And Joshua Sui over in New Jersey.

25:19Happy birthday to Sawyer Garside, been a Yeti since the Snacks days over in Utah. Sawyer, thanks for being with us. And Neil Jobb from Mumbai, India, was also given some advice by us last year after he sent us an email, Jack. This Arsenal fan has been putting it to use. And a big shout out to Pablo Valencia, who started a new finance job in the entertainment industry down in Mexico City. And Keelan Sey is graduating from Dr. Joaquin Garcia High School. Congrats, Keelan. Congratulations to Victor Maizano, graduating from San Diego State University with that master's degree. And a thank you to Roberto Adrian Fierro, who created a priceocracy sheet based on our pricing gouging stories from the last few months.

26:00I mean, This has been a while. If you see pricing, say pricing. And to anyone else who celebrated something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

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