🏴‍☠️ “The Day the Internet Broke” — AWS’ outage. Canyon Ranch’s menopause resort. TiVo’s last day. +FBI’s art crime team

0:28This is Nick. anything yesterday, that's because the internet was broken down. What's going on, Alexa? Amazon Web Services had an outage that broke one third of the internet. So Jack and I want to talk about a solution. For our second story, Canyon Ranch. It's the luxury wellness brand that's opening a $500 million resort in Austin, Texas. But this half a billion dollar hotel is just for women, and specifically, over 30. And our third and final story is TiVo. TiVo basically invented the pause button for television, and they patented that DVR technology. But now TiVo is dead, and it's a case study in when moats become islands.

1:10But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Oh, thank God we found some internet, Jack. I love the mix of stories. We got lucky, we got lucky. I didn't know there was a scarcity of internet. Until today. We're gonna need more internet. More internet, please. Yeti's art imitates life, but sometimes life imitates art, right? So you probably have heard about the wild robbery straight out of Ocean's Eleven that just happened at the Louvre. Thieves stole priceless jewelry from that famous museum in Paris over the weekend. Not possible or possible. They were in and out in seven minutes and left with a crown that held 3 ,000 diamonds.

1:45It was actually a diadem from the 18th century, Nick. It's like a fancy tiara, if you know, you know. But Yeti's the most visited museum in the world. This happened in broad daylight. We're talking the home of the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa, my friend. And yet, these guys pulled it off. But it turns out stealing art is a booming global industry. Jack and I jumped in T-boy style and it all begins in the year 2020. In 2020, we were all stuck at home. Except thieves who liked Pablo Picasso. They got outside. If you had a thing for impressionists, you got some sticky fingers. More robbers hit up museums, dug up historic sites, and raided old mansions than ever starting in 2020.

2:24In fact, in the first year of the pandemic, illegal excavations jumped 3x over in Africa. Kind of makes sense. It does. Finance has gone all digital, so it's hard for, like, low-tech fees to steal stuff. The vaults are empty. So bad guys pivoted from banks to Baroque period paintings. The FBI actually has an art crime division to stop these criminals who didn't get into RISD and still are really hurt about it. It's like Law & Order SVU, but for Rembrandt's and Botticelli's. So in the last 20 years, this FBI division has recovered 20 ,000 pieces of stolen artifacts worth over a billion dollars.

2:58And the New York Times did an interview with that FBI arts team last year. And Jack, how do they think things are going? Business is booming. Not too shabby. Besties, experts are saying that France has just one week to find those stolen jewels or they'll be gone likely forever. So if your buddy got engaged last weekend, double check the stones. Hey, Cara, how many carrots you say that thing was? I'm sorry, 3 ,000 diamonds? I'm going to have to zoom in on that picture. Jack, let's sit on 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.

3:31It'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're here to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show.

3:50Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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5:10Oh yeah. And then we have to track down each employee and make sure they know their health insurance options. Oh, right. Did everyone know open enrollment ends tomorrow? Nope. No one did. Yetis, we are just podcast hosts. We also run a media company here and full-time employees mean full-time benefits too. Which means roughly 46 ,000 forms, documents, and tasks to process for each team member. Oh boy. If you're a small business, you'll want outs or as all that to Gusto. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small businesses. It's all in one, remote friendly, and incredibly easy to use.

5:42So you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Gusto handles payroll automatically, handles taxes associated with payroll, health benefits, commuter benefits, 401ks. You get unlimited payroll for one monthly price and direct access to certified HR experts. That's how they got G2's highest satisfaction products list this year and trusted by over 400 ,000 small businesses. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash tboy and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months free payroll at gusto.com slash tboy. One more time, gusto.com slash tboy. For our first story, websites, apps, emails, they all stopped working yesterday.

6:23It felt like a third of the internet called in sick. The reason was an outage from Amazon Web Services, because some tech is too connected to fail. Oh, yeah, it is. You felt it. We felt it. Even your mom, who's barely online, felt it. The internet broke yesterday. Not because something awesome happened. Yeah, good point, Jack. But because something extremely lame did. The technical term is DNS issues at AWS Amazon Web Services. Specifically, DNS issues at US East 1, which is the availability region of Amazon's cloud computing that covers the Eastern time zone. Okay, first trigger warning. If you hear DNS issues, it's going to give PTSD to anyone who works in DevOps over at a tech company.

7:06There's a, what's it called? Like a code red room that you got to get to ASAP right now. Oh yeah, we got a code red. So naturally, Amazon explained this huge issue using language that nobody could really understand. But what we could all understand is that one-third of the internet stopped working yesterday morning. Literally. How many things stopped working exactly, Jack? We'll provide a list that's just the very tip of the iceberg. Okay, get this, besties. Among the world's top 100 ,000 websites, Amazon Web Services powers 34 % of them. So basically, one-third of the world's internet had an error 553 message yesterday.

7:44Sit down, stand up, and unplug us again. Yetis, with Amazon Web Services not working, Amazon services were not working. Ring security cameras, Alexa's voice assistant, Amazon.com, all nada. Okay, but also popular apps, nothing to do with Amazon, were not working. Roblox, Fortnite, Snapchat, Reddit, Duolingo, none of them worked. Finance industry, you wanna buy some stock on Robinhood or trade some Bitcoin over on Coinbase? Not working. Canva, DoorDash, Starbucks, Spotify, down, down, down, down. If you wanted to buy Bitcoin while ordering burritos listening to a Beyonce album. Yesterday was the worst day ever for you.

8:18And you couldn't get a pumpkin spice latte either. Even the decentralized blockchain was down for many yesterday. Good point, Jack. Because you need the internet to see what's going on on the blockchain. And it wasn't just America either, was it, Jack? The United Kingdom's government websites were down. And they're an ocean away from U.S. East 1. Now, Bessie, Jack and I did our best to jump in T-boy style. We actually had to put the podcast on pause because we couldn't send the files to our editors. It was wild. Now, officially, the outage lasted for three hours and 25 minutes, starting at 3.11 a.m.

8:52Eastern time yesterday. But it lingered all day. We couldn't send these files. We could barely do the recording. It was way longer than that. Get this. Even Gmail and Google.com had huge spikes in reports on downdetector.com. And how could that be, man? Like Google and Microsoft, they have their own cloud computing businesses, right? They don't use AWS, but the internet's invisible tubes are so tied up right now that if one fails, the others fall too like a game of Twister. Or is it a game of Jenga? Are you touching my leg? I think it's Connect 4 while playing Jenga on a Twister board. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone who couldn't do anything online yesterday?

9:33Cloud computing isn't too big to fail. It's too connected to fail. Now, Yetis. The Fed regulates our banks. Our states regulate our electric companies, but who regulates cloud computing? The three cloud computing giants act as critical, invisible infrastructure to the world's economy. Now, typically that kind of designation, critical infrastructure, it comes with some heavy regulation. Because of their systemic importance, we regulate the hell out of banks. They must have redundancies and extra safety and security measures in place. And for the same reason, states regulate our electricity companies.

10:09But our legislators haven't set up similar oversight for cloud computing. Now, Nick, is the market regulating itself in the absence of regulation? Now, Jack, I'd say no, because this has happened to Amazon Web Services in 2020, 2021, 2023, and now 2025. But with only two competitors, none of the outages have affected AWS's huge market share. Besties, Amazon Web Services is the backbone of the internet. When it stops working, the internet calls in sick. Sick days are awesome. I mean, I love a sick day. It was actually kind of nice picking up a book yesterday. I'll see you in two days. But Nick, we're lucky this one only lasted a day or less for our economy's sake.

10:47Yet it is time to regulate cloud computing. They're simply too connected to fail. For our second story, Canyon Ranch is opening a$500 million resort down in Austin, Texas, targeting one specific customer, women over 30. Because the biggest opportunity in hospitality is milestones. Oh, yeah, it is. Jack and I have been looking at the numbers, and alcohol consumption is at all-time lows. Massage prices are at all-time highs. Wellness is the new nightlife. Nick, I went to a sound bath a couple months ago. I just sit on the floor with my legs up against the wall, listening to, like, vibrating noises for, like, an hour.

11:31Jack did that at 9 p.m. on a Saturday to sprinkle on more context. So it makes sense that Canyon Ranch has raised$300 million in venture capital money for its fourth wellness resort. Founded in 1979, Canyon Ranch is the OG when it comes to wellness retreats. Yeah, they got one in Lenox, Massachusetts, one in Tucson, Arizona, and one they had in Santa Cruz, California. Now, Yetis, for 20-somethings, a wellness retreat means going to Tulum for a yoga thing. Okay, but what does it mean for 30-somethings these days, Jack? spending two grand a night at this all-inclusive extreme spa. I'm sorry, sir.

12:05Would you like your Botox during, after, or before your deep tissue Swedish mud massage? I don't know, Nick, but the website shows a bunch of women doing shavasana on air mattresses that are floating in a pool. Yeah, Molly got invited down there once. I tried to be her plus one. Didn't work, and there was an argument. So here's the news, besties. Canyon Ranch is now building a$500 million resort just outside Austin, Texas, with the largest spa in the state. 40 ,000 square feet, or in Texas terms, one football field. That's the size of the spa. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the facial injections.

12:42Now, Basties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this half a billion dollar resort. Jack, why don't you tell them? It's actually part hotel, part hospital. You see, Yetis, for the last 46 years, Canyon Ranch customers were two-thirds women. Yeah, like your typical girls' trip, looking to splurge like White Lotus Season 3 if you know, you know. So this new fourth resort in Texas, it's focused just on women. Yeah, they recognized who the power user actually is and they made something just for them. But it's not just for them to meditate, it's for them to medicate this time too. That's right, because when you go to this new Canyon Ranch Resort, you would be getting blood work, bone density scans, and sleep screenings.

13:22The spa menu? Yeah. It's like something out of Grey's Anatomy. Yeah, I mean, we're talking prescription-based therapies they're giving Anyway, you got to bring your health insurance card over to the hot tub, man. The differentiator here is they're focused on specific women's health needs. It's kind of first of its kind. Fertility, postpartum, and menopause. That's the focus. And they're catering to a wealthy customer who's willing to fly to a specific Canyon Ranch for their specific needs. That's right, because they've rebranded each location. Tucson is for longevity. The Lenox Mass location is for burnout.

13:54And the New Austin location, overall women's health. But what Canyon Ranch is showing us is the blurring of the line between the wellness industry and medical treatments. Like trends have hopped back and forth between the two. Mental health evolved from antidepressant pills to meditation apps. But weight loss has evolved from gym memberships to Ozempic treatments. And now Canyon Ranch's challenge is to merge both of these industries into one single service. Can it coexist in one business? We don't know. Side note, by the way, Canyon Ranch is selling$3 million condos on the new property to help pay the upfront costs for the half a billion dollar resort.

14:30Which means there's probably going to be a golf course. And no, we don't have any coupon codes. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Canyon Ranch? Milestone moments mean willingness to pay. Now Yetis, a reality that Jack and I know is two guys who are also married, women just have more physical milestones than we do. In a 20-year period, a woman may go through fertility changes, pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause. What do we go through, Jack, in that period? The biggest change we see is some gray facial hair. Don't look. Maybe some dance floor injuries too because you're denying the fact that you're getting older.

15:03In fact, the world population of menopausal women is expected to jump 9 % in the next five years. And finally, the market and capital is paying attention to that. Because, Jack, people tend to pay a premium when approaching life's milestones, right? And Canyon Ranch has found a way to target multiple milestone moments for women. Besties, you can only go through milestones once, but people will pay to go through them the right way. And you know what that means, Jack? It's a profit puppy. Dude, I know it's coming now when you say you know it. You knew it was coming. You always know it's coming. We can only use it once.

15:37And that was the cha-ching button. Now, a quick word from our sponsor. Walmart business. Yeah, it is. We cover business trends on our show, and they move faster than you can spell GPU. One minute it's vibe coding, the next it's agentic. Tomorrow it's probably gonna be in-person old school again. Yeah, well, while you're managing this to stay ahead, the last thing you need to worry about is supplies for your company. Carol, do we have the cogs needed to meet our Q1 sales commitments? Carol! Outsource that mental load instead to Walmart business. Walmart business lets you buy the bulk supplies your business needs.

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17:43Check Decagon out at Decagon.ai slash T-Boy. That's Decagon.ai slash T-B-O-Y. For our third and final story, it's TiVo. The pioneer of on-demand television and DVR has sold their very last TiVo. TiVo is a warning that if all you do is protect your technological moat, you'll end up alone on an island. Yeah, it is. Jack and I should sprinkle on some technological historical context here, shouldn't we, Jack? As mid-range millennials, yeah, let's do that, Nick. TiVo, it became a verb around the same time like Googling did, right, man? Years before Uber, people were like, oh, don't worry, I TiVo'd the Yankees, so we don't have to rush to get home.

18:29Venmo, schmenmo, it was all about the TiVo. TiVo, the original television recording innovation. Founded in 1997, IPO'd in 1999, TiVo was a publicly traded company worth a billion dollars. How about we just have Matthew McConaughey prove the cultural impact of TiVo to our Yeti listeners out there? Push and play. They hook up the TiVo yet? Good gosh. What? The TiVo, they hook it up? No, the guy didn't come. What? TiVo is a business that is all but dead. Pretty much the only thing TiVo still does is defend their old patents. But yet is here's the patent in question. U.S. patent number 6233389. It was both TiVo's greatest accomplishment and its eventual undoing.

19:12Known as the Time Warp patent, this was the patent that let people pause, rewind, and record TV. Up until this patent, TV was just a fixed schedule. You could not pause it. Well, we repeat to Gen Z Jenny out there. In the pre-streaming era, this was the first time you could pee on your own schedule. Yeah, you didn't have to time up your bodily functions with the commercials that occurred every nine minutes. That was the innovation of TiVo. Great technology, but from 2004 until literally today, they've just been suing for patent infringement. Meanwhile, while TiVo is in court defending that one precious patent, streaming became a massive industry starting with Netflix.

19:54And Jack, you don't need a TiVo if you're enjoying Stranger Things on Netflix, do you, man? And that's when the cable TV-using customer that TiVo relied on began cutting the cord. TiVo was so busy defending its patent in court, it missed the whole streaming revolution pivot. TiVo was in prime position to become like Roku. Yeah, Jack, they could have been turning dumb TVs into internet-connected smart TVs. That was an option. But it didn't. Instead, it kept on selling these DVR recording boxes and defending their patent in court. And now TiVo is no mom. It's owned today by a patent troll who makes money only through lawsuits.

20:31Yeah, the mistake, well, Jack, at the end of the day, what was the mistake? All the resources that should have been going to research and development instead went to legal defense. Yeah, legal and no offense to lawyers out there. Jack and I are both the sons of lawyers, but they're not exactly growth hackers, are they, Jack? They're not thinking about upside. Don't sue us for that one, by the way. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Tevo? Defend your moat, but don't become an island. Yetis, U.S. patent number 6233389. Great technology. It provided convenience to customers and profits to Tevo.

21:06It was Tevo's place. Yes. And it made sense to defend that great patent in court, but you have to look beyond your technology to see what the rest of the market is doing. In the early 2000s, every traditional cable company was trying to cross that moat and steal TiVo's technology. But the disruptors, like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, they weren't interested in TiVo's moat whatsoever. It was irrelevant to streaming. So besties added up, and patents are a powerful advantage. But they can distract you from bigger market forces outside of your moat. Don't let your moat turn you into an island.

21:44Jack, it's T-Boy Tuesday. could you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Side note, Nick and I had to switch from our normal recording software to a different one. Yeah. Because halfway through the story, the website crashed because of this AWS thing. AWS caused huge internet issues across the world yesterday. One third of the web was down. Cloud computing. It's not too big to fail. It's too connected to fail. For our second story, Canyon Ranch is opening its fourth location in Texas. It's wellness meets medicine. And they're catering to women's milestone moments because milestones mean willingness to pay.

22:20And our third and final story, TiVo has sold their last TiVo. Its DVR patent was its greatest invention, but also its eventual undoing. Besties, defend your technology, yes, but don't let it distract you from the bigger things happening in the market. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Apple stock shockingly closed at an all-time high yesterday. day. You know, we've been joking about how like every year the Apple iPhone event is like very marginal, right, Jack? We've also been joking about their non-existent AI strategy and their headsets that, yeah, I've only seen one in the wild.

22:55What headsets? But apparently the iPhone 17 is their best launch in years according to early sales numbers. Full disclosure, I just got one. The iPhone 17, their sales are outpacing the 16 by 14 % so far. Full disclosure, I'm recording this podcast on my end with an iPhone 17. Apparently, this is a super upgrade cycle. And second, forget gold. The real metal everyone cares about these days are rare earth metals. And yesterday, the United States signed a deal with Australia for a rare earth metals deal worth $8.5 billion. And now, besties, remember last week, we told you about how China has 90 % of the rare earth metal market, and they are now restricting exports to the United States next month.

23:36We said we need Operation Warp Speed 2.0 to start mining and processing them here in the States. But Trump signed a deal with Australia in the meantime, which is a good short-term win. And finally, 10 days to Halloween, and we just found the most surprising business story yet. An engineer at Rivian has a wild side hustle. This is great. He engineers pumpkins to be gigantic. Yeah. Brandon Dawson designs electric trucks at Rivian on his day job, but he also grew a 2 ,300 pound pumpkin over the weekends. Which is record setting. It is. It won the top prize at the World Championship Pumpkin Competition, which is right at Half Moon Bay.

24:14Apparently I missed it last weekend, Jack. I'm shocked they didn't Instagram target you with giant pumpkin tournament ads. I'm just not an agriculture guy. Now time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by Jack and me because we thought you got to know this today. Right now, as we record this show, game seven of the American League Championship Series is happening in baseball. Now, we don't have a winner yet, but here is a wild fact about the Seattle Mariners who are playing in that game. Seattle is the only active Major League Baseball team to never make the World Series. We repeat, every other of the 29 teams have made it to at least one World Series.

24:51The Yankees have made it to like a billion of them. Even the Rockies made it once. The Dodgers made it once. The Marlins have made it twice, but Seattle has never gone to the World Series until maybe right now. Despite being the most caffeinated team in the league, they have just not made it all the way. Yetis, you look fantastic today. And if you have got the best fact yet, we want to get that fact, maybe even your voicemail on this podcast. How do you do it, Jack? Scroll down to the show notes and tap the link. We have a Google form. It's easy to fill out. Yeah, submit your facts, submit your voice recording.

25:26We love getting those on the show. The only thing we don't want you to send us is stolen artwork. We don't want any stolen artwork. I don't want to be a part of that laundering situation. We can't be involved. I love doing laundry, but not this laundry. Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

25:45And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti Sushi Suda Siri Sop in lovely Los Angeles, the Meta Product Designer of the Year. And happy 34th birthday to Devin in San Diego, California, crushing this busy season. And Chloe Gandolfi's turning 13 years old, celebrating the big one in Covington, Louisiana. You shall pass, Chloe. You shall. And a shout out to my legendary professor from business school, Professor Judd Kessler, who just wrote a book, Lucky by Design. It's about the hidden markets that determine who gets what in everyday life. And to anyone else who celebrated something today, make it a T-boy.

26:22Including Professor Judd Kessler, even though that was the hardest class in business school, Jack. It's called magic. What grade did you get? And it's a story for another time.

26:33This is Jack. I own stock in Netflix and Reddit. Nick and I both own stock in Apple, Robinhood, Spotify, and we own some Bitcoin. Bitcoin named Ben. Bureau Premium Non-Alcoholic Beer. All right, yeah, he's a little behind the scenes here. Before our New York City live show back in April, Jack and I went sober for two weeks. True story. Couldn't risk getting sick. I didn't want to be groggy. I couldn't afford a hangover. It was New York, baby. Okay, but Jack, celebrating the wins is what we do. And so for our live shows, we crack open something special. So we drank Biro, the premium non-alcoholic beer brand co-founded by Tom Holland.

27:10Yeah, I actually first saw it at my grocery store. Delicious tastes like a celebration. Feels fantastic and looks legit. More on the looks in a sec. And if it's good enough for the actor who played Spider-Man, it's good enough for us. You see, it pairs well with a pickleball game, a profitable earnings report, or with the best podcast. So, Yetis, if you want to celebrate the wins with all the taste of a premium lager or IPA, but none of the alcohol, there's no better choice than Bureau. Okay, pause the pod. Did we mention the can is straight up gold? This thing will stand out at every one of your next parties.

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