🚕🏠 “UberBnB?” — Airbnb’s ride surprise. Adidas’ mom pants. Harvard’s A-flation cap. +iPhone Birth Rates

0:28This is Nick. And this will be the first story in tomorrow's pod. So you'll have all Memorial Day weekend to listen to it. In the meantime, Jack and I are taking all of tonight to read in T-boy style to the SpaceX IPO paperwork. But Jack, we got three fantastic stories for today's show. What do we got on the T-boy? For our first story, Airbnb just got into the car industry. Just after Uber got into the hotel industry? Airbnb is becoming Uber. Uber is becoming Airbnb? Worlds collide. For our second story, Adidas apparel business is beating their shoe business. and we see it in their satin leopard pants because Facebook mom groups made it happen.

1:04And our third and final story, Harvard professors finally voted to end gradeflation and capped the number of A's they hand out to 20%. But Harvard's grade cap will fail if it doesn't learn a lesson from Princeton. But yet he's before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Oh, the Harvard crowd not happy about that takeaway, Jack. The dinkwad, double income, no kids with a dog. Gen X and millennials, the first generation in U.S. history to embrace the dink-wad lifestyle. The reason? It's because Americans aren't having kids like they used to. And it ain't just us. Two-thirds of the world's countries are facing the same problemo.

1:38Financial Times is blaming one thing for this global baby bust. Get this. They're blaming the iPhone. Wild story from the FT. They noticed the 20-year fall in birth rates correlates with the 20-year rise in phones. Jack, the decline in birth rate started in 2007. The iPhone also started in 2007. That's right. We brought the receipts. It turns out the population problem has been in our pocket the whole time. The iPhone killed the mood. And get this, areas with the most internet use have the biggest decline in childbirth. More Wi-Fi, less wah-wahs. Oh, the smartphone, it simply changed how we hang out.

2:12Fewer happy hours, more door dashes. How I met your mother? I didn't. I was scrolling instead, Nick. Now, besties, the iPhone isn't the only reason for the declining birth rate we should point out. No, it's not. Gender norms have changed, the cost of living crisis, those are huge factors as well. But Jack, add it all up, and it all correlates to the birthday of the iPhone. Hey, Steve Jobs, you accidentally created a global turnoff. Honestly, we didn't realize Do Not Disturb mode went that far. Not even Tinder can offset that mega trick. iPhone, what a form of birth control. Jack, let's hit our three story.

2:57I 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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5:29For our first story, Airbnb is adding hotels and car rentals and grocery deliveries and rides to and from the airport. But guess who offers literally all of those features already? Uber. Now, besties, when Jack and I worked at Robinhood, the co-founders liked to say that the goal was to become the Amazon for banking. That's a common goal, actually. Become Amazon's everything store, but instead of for retail, do it for another industry. And Jack, the latest to use the classic Amazon analogy of business, who is it? Airbnb's Brian Chesky. He told CNBC yesterday that Airbnb can become Amazon for services, at least for traveling and living.

6:07And here's the news. Airbnb is launching four travel-related services beyond that bed you sleep in. The first one is hotels, and we actually covered this in our New York City live show in April. We did. We told you that Airbnb was testing it. We said you got to look out when they make it official. We told you that in four cities where Airbnb had been banned or restricted, Airbnb showed you hotels instead. But now Airbnb is expanding that to the whole world. It's live right now in 20 cities, Airbnb hotels. Why only 20 cities? Well, Airbnb has to hand select the hotels, only the ones that feel like Airbnb.

6:37Like we said, it's curation. Airbnb's You got to act like a music DJ, only curate the best stuff. Okay, hotels. But Nick, hotels are similar to Airbnbs. It's the place that you sleep. The other three big new announcements were majorly new news. New news. Basically, Airbnb is trying to become like a digital bellboy when you think of it. Jack, why don't you dive in T-boy style, please? Airbnb launched car rentals yesterday. Like if you're booking an Airbnb to ski and stow, well, you can add a Chevy Suburban now at checkout within Airbnb. We're curious who Airbnb is partnering with. They didn't say.

7:08but you can now put junk in Airbnb's trunk. Which leads to the second surprise, Airbnb airport drop-off. Let's say you don't need a rental car. You definitely need a ride from your airport to your Airbnb. So Airbnb's partnering with a private car service called Welcome Pickups. It's Airbnb on wheels. But that's not all. They announced grocery delivery through Airbnb. So you get an Airbnb instead of a hotel because you want a kitchen to cook in, right, Jack? Like I know when we're together, you like making the pancakes every morning. So now you can get all those taco ingredients for your trip to Tahoe delivered to the door at your check-in time through the Airbnb app in partnership with Instacart.

7:44But to quote Stevie Jobs, one more thing. This is our favorite one, actually, luggage storage. You can now store your suitcase somewhere after your 10 a.m. checkouts. You don't lug that luggage all the way through the subway system. Because you're not going to the airport till like six o 'clock. So what are you gonna do with your suitcase? So they partnered with Bounce, which is the Airbnb of storage spots. My mom recently took Amtrak from Vermont all the way to Florida. Not a great decision by her. But she had like a three-hour layover in New York City, and she used balance to store her luggage.

8:14I wonder if you could hire a TaskRabbit to just like wheel the luggage around. Look, we think these are great additions to Airbnb, but as we were reading this news update, Nick and I couldn't help thinking to ourselves. Did Airbnb just declare war against Uber? Or did Uber already declare war against Airbnb? And DoorDash and Postmates. Again, the Spider-Man meme. everyone's firing at each other and things are about to get awkward. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over in the app world? Prepare for gigageddon. Ah, gigageddon. Yeti, Jack and I can't help but notice here that all the gig apps are converging on each other.

8:52Airbnb just launched cars like Uber, but last month Uber launched hotels like Airbnb. And Jack, DoorDash launched restaurant reservations in case you want to go out instead of ordering in. But Uber now does restaurant reservations too. And guess what? Airbnb does restaurant reservations through Resi. I'm sorry, what's next? Instacart letting you run out your fridge on Airbnb through a Grubhub API? All the gig apps, they have great brands, but the platforms and the business model, it's become one big commodity. And we saw the same thing happen with social media apps, didn't we, Jack? Every social media app now has all the same features.

9:25Stories, reels, direct messages, live, static posts. From TikTok to Instagram to Pinterest to LinkedIn, in. They all have that same feature. So we're heading down the road of an inevitable convergence of all these gig apps offering the same features. Call it a platform pileup or gig again, besties, or call it that Spider-Man meme because Uber's becoming Airbnb or is Airbnb becoming Uber? For our second story, Adidas's new hero product is a total surprise. Get this, it sat in mom pants with their trademark three stripes down the side because Adidas didn't target the nine follower moms. It targeted the one trendsetter mom.

10:05Big headline for Adidas last quarter. It was actually Adidas sneakers. Adidas sneakers, not Nike, ran the first ever sub two hour marathon. Now, Bessies, that's what you saw. But what you didn't see that fascinates Jack and I was Adidas' satin pants. Unless, of course, you're a trendy mom. Then you saw them for sure. More than that in a second. But pants, it turns out, are actually beating sneakers when it comes to Adidas' earnings reports. Footwear sales rose 5 % for Adidas last quarter, while apparel sales rose 20%. Jack and I got curious about that. We jumped to T-boy style. Turns out one apparel in particular is popping off right now.

10:36Wide leg satin pants. These are shiny. These are silky. These are party pants with a leopard print polka dot pattern. But still, these loungy leopard pants, they are all leisure, no ass, baby. Don't wear these things to Pilates. You'll get laughed out of Pilates, plus I've been there. So these pants are Adidas' surprise star player. They've got rave reviews. They've got traction on social media. They just got a whole puff piece written about them on Business Insider. But they are totally sold out already. So popular that Amazon and Shein are dropping$24 dupe versions just without the trademark three stripes.

11:09Well played by the lawyer. So besties, Adidas is winning on clothes, not sneakers, that's interesting, and not athletic clothes, but social clothes. Extra interesting. Why is Adidas being driven by silky party pants? It's because of moms. That's right. These wide legs satin pants became the visible status symbol of mom Facebook groups. The Business Insider reporter noticed that they were the most commonly dropped clothing in her chat. And Jack and I did our own review of public Facebook groups, and we saw dozens of Outfit of the Day videos featuring these pants. And the top model in those videos were women in their 30s and 40s, tick-tocking the look on the way to work.

11:43That's right. Adidas' hero product is powered by chatter at school pickup. Drop-off is the new fashion runway, we should point out. Oh, millennial parents, you got to dress up for it these days. It's a thing. It is a thing. Then after drop-off, these working moms are coming to the office with me in my cheetah-dotted satin Adidas pants. You wonder why Jack's wearing a nice crewneck sweater today? Well, it's because he was doing drop-off earlier. Tap the link in bio for my affiliate link. Now, besties, Adidas hasn't said whether they specifically targeted American moms who are making this take off.

12:12But it's been a bullseye, and investors are loving every minute of it. And Jack, pause the pod. What's the reason Adidas' profits popped 54 % last quarter? These apparel sales have better profit margins than sneaker sales. See, Eddie's Nike does have twice the market share of Adidas when it comes to the apparel category. But these polka-dotted fancy mom pants may be closing the gap. Not a regular mom in Lululemon. I'm a cool mom. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Adidas? Influence the influencers. There's one Shark Tank host who we've been in touch with and we plan to get him on the show.

12:47He's Rohan Oza. You've seen him on TV. He invested in poppy, vitamin water, Sir Kensington's mustard, huge food and beverage guy. Big exit. Now, he noticed that one in 10 Americans influence the other nine Americans they hang out with. Basically, there's always a tastemaker in your crew. Think of your group chat. One buddy ordered bubble tea that one time. Now everyone's ordering bubble tea. Our buddy Timmy's on to something here, guys. Therein reveals Rohan's financial trick shot. Instead of spending to market to 10 people, which is expensive, Market to the one person who influences the other nine for free.

13:20And accidentally or on purpose, that's what Adidas has pulled off by getting these trendy moms to wear these satin pants. Besties, Adidas is being driven by satin fancy mom pants because it influenced the influencer. 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. Well, proud to say that we are hiring right now at T-Boy, and this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

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14:27That's indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Upwork. Yet he's scaling a business fast, requires the right people at the right time, including at Superhero Inc. Can we talk about how good Batman was at delegating, Nick? I mean, Jack, Robin was basically his chief of staff. Lucius was handling the R &D. And Alfred? He made sure the pasta was cooked al dente when they got home from fighting the bad guys. Yeah, that is the art of delegating. And Batman must have been using Upwork to pull it off. Because hiring is slow. Upworking freelancers is fast.

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15:37That's you, P-W-O-R-K dot com, Upwork dot com. For our third and final story, pencils down. Harvard is capping and reducing the number of A's professors can hand out by two-thirds. The era of grade inflation at Harvard is over. Half finished. But Nick, it will fail unless it learns a lesson from Princeton. Now, Yetis, you're with us every day. So yesterday, we covered a wild story about Stanford. And today, we're going to head to the East Coast instead. It's like we're 17 and we're going on college tours. It does feel like that. Everyone walk over here. You'll see the dining cafeteria. It's lovely.

16:16An A grade, according to Harvard's official guidelines for professors, is a mark of extraordinary distinction. Well, here's our hero stat. Back in 2006, 25 % of grades at Harvard were A's. 25 % were marks of extraordinary distinction. But 20 years later, 60 % of Harvard grades are A's. I'm sorry, the average grade at Harvard is extraordinary. Jack, as long as you paginated and double-spaced that term paper, odds are you got an A at Harvard. Don't know what the word paginated means, but I still probably got an A. And for that reason, you're getting a B actually, Jack. Yeah, it is. This is known as gradeflation.

16:51And it has hurt the value of a Harvard transcript and made a Harvard GPA basically meaningless. Harvard's trying to create leaders of tomorrow, and yet the university can't even solve a basic issue of today. The dean did ask faculty last year to reduce the number of A's on a voluntary basis. How did that go, Jack? Not well. It only fell by seven percentage points. Still a comically high 53 % of Harvard students received A's. Now, of course we could tell you voluntary caps didn't work. Professors are under pressure to award A's. You can just follow the money on this thing. Student evaluations help determine if a professor gets tenure.

17:24And that one professor who limits the number of A's will get a terrible student evaluation. Ipso facto, if you give out a C, you're going to get demoted to Bunker Hill Community College. Now, besties, inflation. Greedflation, shrinkflation. We've covered every type of inflation, and we haven't been able to stop any of them. But the dean of Harvard University took a courageous move to try to end grade inflation. That's right. Amanda Klebaugh took the move to set up a vote. Here was the question all Harvard professors had to answer yes or no for. Should we limit the number of A's professors can award to 20 % of students plus four?

17:58So like for a class of 100 students, the maximum number of A's would be 24. Sorry, Timmy. Yeah. That note from your mom, who's also a donor, isn't going to get you an A because I've already maxed that number out. Besties, the vote was two weeks ago, but the results just came in yesterday. The faculty passed the measure with overwhelming 70 % approval. We repeat, Harvard is adopting the 20 % plus four rule about grades. And this is a huge deal because it means the number of A's at Harvard will fall by about two-thirds, from 60 % to just over 20%. To quote Gen Z, there is now a cap on that no cap, or there's no cap on that cap.

18:36Now, this is an earthquake for recruiters, we should point out. Like, you got to ask yourself, is this Harvard GPA from the great inflation era or from the post-great inflation era? Jack, it's like baseball fans looking back on the record books from a couple decades ago, you know what I mean? Did he hit 60 home runs with steroids or did he do it clean? Back when everyone was juicing, what's going on here? But the even bigger question here is will other universities follow Harvard's lead? Because Yale's dean has indicated that they would follow Harvard's lead if they voted right on this. Yeah, the Eli's, they don't want their A's being perceived as less earned than Harvard's A's are.

19:09Otherwise, the tailgate of the Harvard-Yale game, it could get ugly next year. We hope it's not just Harvard and it's not just Yale. We hope this trickles down to all universities and colleges. Yeah, because right now, everyone seems to be dishing out A's like Oprah, right? You get an A. Look under your seat. You got an A. Yeah, but you and I, I earned my 3.56 GPA. No chat GPT, just long hours in that freaking library. Besties, higher education isn't supposed to feel like a participation trophy. And once the snow melts up at Dartmouth, maybe they'll consider a vote on this too. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies wondering about how this connects to business?

19:45It's the prisoner's dilemma. If other schools don't follow, Harvard's move will fail. Besties, the wild irony of this story. I love how you found this, Jack. It's that Princeton did this 20 years ago and then had to end it after 10 years. When Princeton capped the number of A pluses, A's, and A minuses to 35%, it ended up backfiring royally. The main reason? Harvard was doing the opposite at the time. They were handing out more A's while Princeton was handing out fewer A's. Recruiters didn't realize there was a difference in the grading policy, so recruiters just figured Harvard students were smarter than the Princeton students who were applying to the jobs.

20:21So students at Princeton competed intensely for those few coveted A's and it created this whole toxic environment for a few years. Yeah, on group projects, you were just trying to sabotage the kid next to you because you needed the A and you couldn't let that kid get the A. It wasn't pretty in the eating club. So 10 years later, Princeton abandoned the policy. But economists could have predicted that. Because without coordination, each pursues what is in their own best interest. And that outcome becomes bad for everyone, actually. What Jack just described is known in economics as the prisoner's dilemma.

20:52Coordination is how everyone gets the best outcome. And in this case, coordination would be all schools agreeing to restore sanity when it comes to grading. Because besties of other schools don't follow, Harvard's grade cap will get an F. It'll fail. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Airbnb launched car rentals, airport drop-offs, grocery deliveries, and more. All things that Uber does as well. Giga get in. The gig apps are all competing in and converging on the same features. For our second story, Adidas struck gold with leopard print satin pants. First the trendy moms, then the follower moms.

21:30Because they influenced the influencers. And finally, Harvard is capping the number of A's from 60 % today to just over 20 % starting in the fall of 2027. But without coordination from other universities, this'll fail. That is the prisoner's dilemma. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, just as we were hitting the mic, SpaceX indeed published their IPO paperwork yesterday, as expected. Jack and I will jump in T-boy style cover tomorrow. But earlier in the day, OpenAI leaked that they're going to file for their IPO, possibly as soon as tomorrow. Oh, and they did all of this at the same moment that NVIDIA announced earnings.

22:08And NVIDIA sold so many GPUs for such a high price last quarter. The most valuable company on earth grew revenues by 85 % compared to last year, but the stock's flat because expectations were so high. Second, Vox Media is selling their podcast division and New York Magazine to a Murdoch son for$300 million. I'm sorry, Jack, pause the pot. Isn't this the same plot as season two of HBO's Succession? Season three, I think, but it's not the Murdoch son. That would be the father's chosen heir who's continuing to run Fox News today. I guess it's the other Murdoch son, the Roman Roy of the story, who's buying the company.

22:46This is actually Shiv of the family because it's the liberal kid. Well put, Jack. Well put. Life imitates art, which imitates life, which imitates HBO. And finally, new airport thing. You could go through TSA way outside the airport in order to save time. Get this. TSA has been testing it in Boston and they may expand it nationwide soon. It's wild. Logan Airport has set up a TSA security checkpoint in Framingham, 25 miles outside of Boston. Just outside Boston. That's pretty far outside Boston, Jack. And then they'll let you jump on a bus and go directly to your gate. I guess the idea is you could park way outside of Boston to save money and avoid the lines to save time.

23:24Makes sense if you're passing through Framingham. I think the point is that everything in Massachusetts is just outside Boston. Now time for the best fact yet. This one, which we were hoping we would get, was sent in by Logan Miller from St. Petersburg, Florida. The Phillips Head Screwdriver. It was developed by Henry F. Phillips, an American businessman from Portland, Oregon. Yesterday's show, Jack and I were wondering who did the Phillips head, because no one really knows what a Phillips head is. Well, yeah, everyone knew, Nick. You were the only one who didn't. That's good fun. It was just me.

23:54But what Mr. Phillips did was buy the concept from the real inventor of the Phillips head, whose name was John P. Thompson in the early 1930s. Mr. Phillips put his own name on it. And then he licensed the design, a little plus symbol, to a whole bunch of screw manufacturers. Oh, his first big buyer was General Motors because it was faster to use a Phillips head than whatever that other one is. Yetis, you're looking fantastic out there, whether you're a cool mom or an almost cool mom. Jack, you were glowing in that sweater, by the way. Something we forgot to ask the Yetis for. Make sure to auto-download the episodes.

24:27It's great for the business. It's great for the show. And it'll make us do this for the rest of our lives. Oh, totally. Tap to follow us. Auto-download the pod. Give us five stars. Rating and review. We love reading them. We love being auto-downloaded. Because you're not like other podcast listeners. You're a cool podcast listener.

24:47And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti, U.S. Marine Captain John Demo Demitrazek over in Salisbury, North Carolina, but stationed in Japan. Thank you, Captain. And happy birthday to Marcus, celebrating out in the Hamptons this weekend. And Carter Scott's turning 10 years old down in Las Vegas. Happy birthday, Carter. Happy birthday to David Platt, a seven-year Yeti in Orlando, Florida. Thank you, David. And all of our songs have a fantastic birthday in Sin City, Cincinnati. Happy 38th birthday to Sidesh Jodhav in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And Russell Yaidi in Temecula. Is it Temecula or Temecula?

25:19We got this wrong last time. I know. We'll make a correction tomorrow. Happy birthday. Celebrate boys. Just don't say Willamette. It's Willamette, dammit. And Darshan Soni's got a 40th birthday in St. Pete's, Florida. Getting married next month. Congratulations, Darshan. And happy birthday to Nabiya Jowani, turning 30 years old and graduating from NYU Stern with an MBA. And congrats to legendary Eddie, Maddie Deary, who just graduated from Georgetown with the best parents yet. And a big shout out to Cheryl Lau, who gave the best idea yet, our other show, a huge and awesome shout out on LinkedIn.

25:50Love the way she analyzed the pod on LinkedIn. Oh, and finally, a special shout out to the pod son, Mr. Wilder himself, who just went through his first surgery as a kid. He was so tough. He was so brave. And we are so proud of you, Wilder. This was a lot for me as his parent to witness it. It was a dental thing. So here's the advice to parents who are thinking about their kid's teeth. The two Fs, floss and frequency. You really got to floss your kid's teeth. My son's five, but we really got to floss and to kill those cavities and be mindful of frequency. They could snack, but frequency matters.

26:25Don't make it all day. Doctor's orders. Pod son, you did fantastic.

26:31This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon. Nick owns stock of Airbnb. And we both own stock of Apple and Robinhood.

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