🛵 “Who is Mamadou?” — Uber’s perfect delivery guy. Nvidia’s OpenAI circularity. Exec Assistants-for-All. +Sorority $$$ Surge.

0:29This is Nick. This is Jack. those Wall Street trading floors. They have a gong for every big sale that got closed. Yeah, I got it off Shein. Yeti, this is either highly, highly endearing or highly, highly annoying. Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, Jack, let's hit our three stories. What do we got on today's T-Boy? For our first story, there is a legendary food delivery driver in New York City named Mamadou. And if you get him delivering your stuff, cherish this moment. Mamadou has become a celebrity with his five-star rating and we think he's Uber's biggest marketing opportunity. For our second story, it's the most unusual venture deal of all time.

1:05NVIDIA paid OpenAI$100 billion, but then OpenAI paid NVIDIA$100 billion. It kind of all cancels out. It's a wild case of circular financing, and it's making us do a gut check on this insane AI boom. And our third and final story is the new flex at work. It's mentioning that you have an executive assistant. Sorry, one sec, Jack. Yeah, you can cancel my 2 p.m. Thank you. Get in touch with my executive assistant. Because besties, it's the EA for all trend, and Jack and I will tell you how it's happening. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, love the mix. Awesome mix of stories, Jack.

1:45Forget college athletes, yeties. Who's the newest surprise moneymaker on campus these days? It's sorority sisters. Because those Rush Talk videos over at Kappa Kappa Delta get way more attention than anything the football team is doing. So right now, sororities are cashing in on TikTok fame like they're D1 quarterbacks. Nick, can I sprinkle on some context? I would love for you to sprinkle it on, please, Jack. This viral TikTok sorority trend began years ago with Bama Rush in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Sorority recruitment dance videos, they first went insane on social media. And like we've said, where there are eyeballs, there will be ads.

2:22So brands are giving the sisters free stuff and hard cash to promote their stuff. According to the Wall Street Journal, Poppy, the soda brand, made 430 ,000 custom cans of free soda for sororities this fall. Poppy filled the Tridel fridge with free Tridel pre-product soda. Shampoo brands are providing free Pantene for entire sorority houses. Your whole bathroom is comped if you live in a sorority right now. One sorority star at the University of Arizona, was actually flown out to New York Fashion Week after going viral. Paid for by the fashion companies, but the dean not happy about it. Forget those big investment bank signing bonuses, Nick.

2:59And Jack, forget the dream of getting drafted to the NFL. There's money in the sorority house. To quote the Bluth guys. Have you been enjoying recruitment week? Well, Jack had paid off my student loans, so sisters for life. If you know, you know. Let's hit our 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. 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.

3:35We can't wait no more, so just start the show.

3:40Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

4:11tasking. But if you're a business owner, you can save time hiring with ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested qualified candidates first, so you save time by meeting the right people faster. And right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash tboy. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in your own work, and candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. So best, do you save time and meet great candidates sooner with ZipRecruiter.

4:43Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. So try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash TBY. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash T-Boy. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Monarch. Happy wedding season to all those who celebrate. Wedding season. That means you just liquidated your 401k to pay for that bridesmaid dress. Yeah, flights, hotel, and a gift. your presents. It was not the only present. Good timing though, because Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything, your accounts, your investments, your savings goals, and your spending.

5:16We use Monarch to keep all our personal finances accounted for and in one place. We're excited that listeners of this show can get your first year of Monarch Core for half off. That's just 50 bucks with promo code TBOI. The weekly spending recap, it uses AI to categorize everything you spent organizing them into digestible buckets. Weekly emails are perfect by the way, because checking finances daily, that's too much. Monthly, that's probably not enough. So Monarch helps you make sure you're on track for seven different destination weddings this summer. Because you don't want to go into debt if you don't even know the groom.

5:45Who's Henry? Besties, use code TBOI at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just 50 bucks. I am eight. Yeah, everyone's got a powder graveyard. That one drawer filled with the tubs and pouches I'm never going to use against supplements. You might even be so overwhelmed by all these supplements that you don't use any anymore? Well, we got rid of the supplement graveyard with IM8. It simplifies your daily routine with 16 supplements in one drink. This is the first daily supplement we've had that actually tastes good. True story. It turns your tall glass of water into an acai and mixed berry buffet breakfast.

6:20And it's co-founded by David Beckham, that Beckham who still has a dozen abs based on what we've seen. It's also co-founded by a bunch of scientists who formulated it in a dozen labs. Yeah, so instead of bending it like Beckham, you can blend it like Beckham. 95 % of people who tried it for 12 weeks felt more energy, according to a trial by the San Francisco Research Institute, including us. So go to im8health.com slash tboy right now, or click on the link in the episode description and use code tboy for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10 % off your order. That's code tboy at im8health.com slash tboy.

6:54Code tboy at im8health.com slash tboy. Disclaimer, these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. For our first story, there is one heroic man named Mamadou with a perfect Uber rating delivering food across New York City. Or is he many men? The mystery of Mamadou is actually a huge market opportunity for both Uber and DoorDash. Yetis, they say he's faster than a peregrine falcon Smarter than a Columbia business school student They say he can lift 50 boxes of pad thai Stacked above his head with one hand All balanced on a moving Vespa going down Broadway And just when you open your door to thank him Whoosh, he's already gone off into the night We're talking about the Zorro of the delivery The Batman of bringing you burritos is a man who goes by the name Mamadou.

7:55Thousands of videos have been posted about this delivery driver. Millions of likes have been racked up by people claiming to have seen him in real life in New York City. Mamadou is the definition of viral. New Yorkers have referred to this mysterious Uber Eats driver as the hardest working guy in America. He saved my day. One customer even wrote a song about this delivery driver, calling him the toast of New York City. Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear a helmet, gloves built into their bicycle, and an insulated pizza bag. Now, besties, Jack and I have been tracking this story for a week now.

8:31The Wall Street Journal just did a whole piece on him. Apparently, references to Mamadou began in early 2025 when two New Yorkers noticed a trend in their delivery dinner habits. Every night, their food was being delivered, according to the app, by someone named Mamadou with a perfect rating. And he was arriving on time. So they shared their observation on X and that observation went viral on the platform. By August, Google searches in New York for the name Mamadou had totally spiked. So it is about time we answer the question, Jack, who is Mamadou? Most likely, Mamadou is actually many people because Mamadou is a very common name for a man in a West African country.

9:12Jack, let's sprinkle on some historical context here, if you please. Islam swept through West Africa in the 11th century. And when the French colonized West Africa in the 19th century, Mamadou became like a local-ish French version of the Islamic name Muhammad. And now Mamadou is the number one most popular boy's name in the country of Senegal in West Africa. And guess what? A lot of people from Senegal have immigrated to the United States. It's the latest immigration wave. So across New York City right now, a lot of Mamadous who are Uber Eats and DoorDash delivery drivers, they're in on the joke.

9:48They're posing for pictures when they drop off a pasta ball to an ecstatic customer who saw Mamadou on their app. For all these Mamadous, the legend of Mamadou has become both an emotional and a financially lucrative moment for them. If your name's Mamadou, you have a statistically significant higher tip rate than all the other food delivery people in New York City. There is one Mamadou who got an $86 tip just because his name is Mamadou. Have you ever had Mamadou deliver your food? If I could only be so lucky. But here's a fascinating detail Nick and I noticed. People interviewed by the Wall Street Journal referenced delight time after time, referencing Mamadou delivering their food.

10:27In fact, one woman said Mamadou dropping off her sesame noodles felt like a gift from Santa. That is an exact quote. Now to us, that's a signal. That kind of intense customer happiness, companies can't pay for that. That is publicity you would literally pay for if you are Uber Eats, Jack. Which is why Nick and I think Mamadou could unlock some serious market cap. To quote our favorite movie, Batman, Jack, you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become Mamadou. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Uber? Uber should stop hiding Mamadou and start highlighting him instead.

11:05Yetis, Jack and I have friends who work at Uber, DoorDash, Handy, other gig apps, and they typically want to keep the gig workers nearly anonymous on those platforms. These companies want you to connect with their brand, not the temporary worker who's not technically even an employee who has no loyalty to their platform. But to us, Mamadou mania is assigned to rethink that strategy. Uber Eats, we believe, should elevate Mamadou, not eliminate him. Feature Mamadou in Uber's next ad campaign. Sign Mamadou to an exclusive deal so he only works for Uber, not Lyft or DoorDash. Now, yes, that would empower Mamadou, which he could hold against Uber for his own personal benefit.

11:45Like demanding a signing bonus or else I'm going to Lyft. But we think the signals of customer delight show it's worth that risk. Stop hiding Mamadou and start highlighting him instead. Stop treating drivers like commodities. Treat the best ones like celebrities. For our second story, NVIDIA just gave OpenAI$100 billion. dollars, but now OpenAI is giving NVIDIA a hundred billion dollars? Yeah, just a casual hundred bill back and forth. It's a strange phenomenon called circular financing, and it should give everyone pause. Yetis, Harry Potter and Dumbledore, Neo and Morpheus, Sonny and Cher, NVIDIA and OpenAI.

12:29They are the power couple of artificial intelligence. And on Monday, we saw an enormous and highly unusual deal between these two AI power brands. Jack, why don't you tell us about part one? Part one is that NVIDIA is giving OpenAI$100 billion in cash in exchange for stock in OpenAI. It's an investment in the owner of ChatGPT. NVIDIA will pay$10 billion increments over the next few years for$100 billion total. Okay, that's part one. Here's part two. OpenAI is going to use all that money they got from NVIDIA to buy NVIDIA chips for their data centers. Okay, Jack, I got to pause the pod for a second here.

13:07So NVIDIA is paying OpenAI money, but then that money's coming directly back to NVIDIA? Yeah, it's like a pizza place giving me money so that I can buy their pizza. Jack, I think the technical financial term is the reverse Uno card. I think they pulled a reverse Uno card on each other. You might see memes online. It's like a snake eating its own tail. But there is an actual real term for this, Yetis. It is called, from our time in finance, circular financing. Now look, circular financing can be legitimate. And we've seen suppliers accept stock in a company instead of cash, like what NVIDIA is doing here with OpenAI.

13:44But here's the problem with circular financing. It can also create the illusion of growth or an illusion of demand that is not actually there because everything's going in a circle. And since this is happening during an incredibly frothy moment in the AI industry, we're going to take a moment of pause and think about this. And we're going to jump in T-boy style. First, Yetis, let's look at the sheer size of this NVIDIA OpenAI deal that happened this week. $100 billion, Jack? We're pretty sure that's the biggest equity investment ever. I mean, Microsoft invested$10 billion into OpenAI just a couple years ago, and that was like a gigantic deal at the time.

14:23This deal is 10 times bigger than that, Nick. Let's go a little further, Jack. $100 billion? Can you sprinkle on some context, please, my friend? That is the size of Nike. It's the GDP of Bulgaria. It's three times the world box office. All movies and theaters? Yeah, this is three times bigger. So this isn't just unprecedented in the size of the investment. It's also coming from a$4.5 trillion company, which is also unprecedented. And the wild other detail here, NVIDIA stock actually jumped after announcing they were going to give OpenAI all this money. And the size of that stock market gain was more than$100 billion.

15:01So it more than paid for the investment in OpenAI that the news was about in the first place. Also, besties, this deal commits OpenAI to build$100 billion of data centers on top of the$500 billion of data centers they were already going to build. So all of this begs these two important questions. Where is all the money going to come from to build out all these data centers? And how high can these valuations in AI go? Venture capital literally doesn't have these kinds of dollars. Because you see, unlike conventional fundraising deals, the money right now isn't coming from customer demand or from new outside investors in these deals.

15:41It's coming from within. The money is flowing back and forth between the same big tech companies trying to win an AI. And it's a whole lot of money, Jack. A lot of money. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in AI? It's the rocking horse analogy. Don't confuse movement with progress. Yetis, this superlative rich deal between OpenAI and NVIDIA caused a whole lot of movement in the stock market this week. But is that movement progress? That's the gut check that we're asking right now. Because this deal looks like circular funding, which reeks of bubble-like behavior, according to Bloomberg.

16:22Think about it. OpenAI is paying Oracle. Who is paying NVIDIA? Who is paying OpenAI? Who is then paying Oracle? Who is paying NVIDIA? Who is paying OpenAI? Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. That goes on and on and on. As long as nobody stops making these payments, we're all going to be good, everybody. So besties, if AI is a bubble that's due for a correction, although we hope it isn't, then this blockbuster circular funding deal between NVIDIA and OpenAI will be looked back at as the early sign. Because of the rocking horse analogy. Don't confuse movement with progress. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.

17:02NetSuite. Yeah, these NetSuite is the corporate control panel for business. Has been since 1998. They probably used this on Star Wars. This pre.com software suite, though, it remains the market leader. But Nick, what is next? I got no idea, Jack. You tell me what's next. Well, they say every day your business is late for AI, you fall two days behind. I didn't know they said that. Now I'm stressed, Jack. That's an incredibly stressful thing. We're all anxiety maxing. So, Bessie, if you're feeling like your business is behind, there is NetSuite Next. NetSuite is a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth.

17:37It's trusted by over 43 ,000 customers. Well, NetSuite Next is the next huge leap. It automatically surfaces custom insights throughout your day. AI agents work alongside you to solve complex problems or handle work you just don't want to do. And NetSuite Next has a chatbot you can converse with in natural language like it was Carol from Accounting. If we needed this product at the best one yet, this is the one we'd use. So for the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in seven figures, go to netsuite.ai.tboi. Build for every industry, ready for every boardroom.

18:06netsuite.ai.tboi. 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 going to 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. AI tools are there for your digital work.

18:39Walmart business is there for your physical work. Like restock your office inventory with low prices, reliable shipping, and fulfillment. Walmart business helps simplify your operations so you can focus on building and selling your product. You see Carol in accounting? She'll be relieved that Walmart business is all over it. Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax-free shopping, both in-store and online with Walmart business, saving you more while getting you everything you need. It's Walmart built for your business. Sign up for a free Walmart business account today at business.walmart.com.

19:10For our third and final story, the big new PowerFlex boss move at work, you know what it is. I'm looping in my EA. Companies are cutting back on executive assistants, but everyone else is hiring more of them. Now, Yetis, a buddy of ours from our Robin Hood days was a guy named LaSalle. LaSalle left a cush job in finance to work at a scrappy startup in California, just like Nick and I did. Now, when he told his wife he was making this big career pivot, she was apprehensive because as she told him, you haven't booked your own travel in 20 years. But LaSalle gave up that EA to take a risk at a rocket ship FinTech startup.

19:51And you know what? He was not the only one who gave up that EA. Thousands of executives are losing their executive assistant every year as companies are cutting perks. No more kombucha, no more swag, and the EA is gone for every manager out there. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, the number of full-time executive assistants in America has fallen from 1.4 million in 2020 to less than 500 ,000 today. Hey, her boss, she ain't looping in her EA to CC you for scheduling that one-on-one ASAP. But here's the crazy contradiction. While fewer bosses at corporations have EAs, the rest of your company is hiring their own EAs.

20:28Who's the boss now, boss? Tell me your management material without telling me your management material. You see, startups are offering part-time remote EAs for hire for like 50 bucks an hour. It's fractional hiring, cuts down the cost. And people are doing it out of their own pocket to perform better at work. These are now a new type of assistant, a multi-company assistant. One EA can now work for 10 hours a week for four different clients at different companies. So it's affordable for all four of those employees. Now, interestingly, the demand for EAs is less about work work and more about them doing your life work.

21:03Right. The people hiring EAs these days are working parents who are desperate to keep some kind of a social life while juggling work and family life as well. You're not hiring an EA for that board meeting. You're hiring them for the preschool planning help. You see, as you get older, you realize time is your most valuable asset. So you'll pay someone out of your own pocket to do the admin work that you don't want to do so you have more time for yourself. Full disclosure, we want to share, Jack. We actually hired through one of the companies mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article. Yeah. It didn't work out though.

21:35It didn't, it didn't. It took more time to train and supervise our EA than time saved. Yeah, so not every EA relationship is necessarily going to work for you. But still, this is part of a bigger trend out there. Fewer EAs for executives, more EAs for millennial parents. That flex of having an EA could also have some benefits for you in your career. Because nothing signals I'm promotion worthy and mature like CCing your EA to your manager who doesn't have one. One sec, Jack, do you have time for a takeaway, by the way? Can we pencil that in? Oh, yep. Yep. My EA, you'll talk it out with them. They'll take care of it.

22:13Okay. Okay. It sounds like this works. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are curious about executive assistants. Virtual assistants are a fraction of the price, but Miranda Priestly would never. Yetis, despite this EA renaissance we've described, there's a cloud lurking over the EA industry, and that cloud is AI virtual assistants. Chat and Gemini can both act like assistants for you already, creating calendar invites based on an email. It's only a matter of time before they know your travel preferences and book your travel too. But besties, as you think about an EA, think about The Devil Wears Prada, the movie with Anne Hathaway, who was Meryl Streep's executive assistant.

22:53Miranda Priestly, as Meryl is known in the movie, valued her time above all else. It was Anne Hathaway's job to protect it. And getting her coffee, running her errands, waiting on hold so she didn't have to, getting those Harry Potter books for her kids. And so far, AI can't do any of those tasks. In fact, the majority of what we could use help with, AI can't actually do, unfortunately. Like breaking down these boxes from Amazon. Soon, besties, you will be tempted by a virtual AI, and they will probably save you time on computer admin at a fraction of the price of a human EA. But Miranda Priestly would never.

23:28Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Delivery drivers in New York named Mamadou do excellent work, and they're becoming viral for doing so. So Uber should stop treating gig workers like commodities and instead treat the best ones like celebrities. For our second story, NVIDIA is paying OpenAI so that OpenAI can pay NVIDIA. It's circular financing, so we're doing a gut check. And remember the rocking horse analogy. Don't confuse movement with progress. And our third and final story is the new flex at work. It's mentioning that you have an executive assistant. My EA has told me that AI virtual assistants could disrupt EAs, but Miranda Priestly would never.

24:13But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Target, with their new CEO, has begun their brand facelift, and they're starting with a renovation of their Soho, New York City location. The store entrance at this Soho Target looks like a venue that Kendall Roy would host his birthday party at. Yeah, yeah, this is channeling Target for the new space. It's not Midwestern America where Target is headquartered. Okay, but here's the plot twist. The point of this fancy new New York City target is not to replicate it across the country, right, Jack? It's to create a gold standard for the rest of the company to aspire to and be inspired by.

24:52And second, Argentina is asking the United States for financial support, and it looks like we're going to pay it. Argentina's radical new leader, Javier Malay, chainsawed his way through the country's inflation problem by boosting their exchange rate. And he did successfully solve the inflation problem. Pretty amazing. But he did so at tremendous cost. It wiped out the country's currency reserves. And now the Trump administration is giving Argentina$20 billion in financial assistance, but we're not calling it a bailout. And finally, George Costanza, the former assistant to the traveling secretary of the New York Yankees, is now a Yankees model.

25:31True story. Jason Alexander, the middle-aged bald man from Seinfeld, was never appreciated for his looks, although we did appreciate him for them. I love his stocky looks. But now the streetwear brand, Kith, famous for cool collaborations, has hired Costanza. So Jason, aka George Costanza, has a new career repping Yankees clothing for a fancy, cool fashion house. Let's just hope they don't switch the uniforms from polyester to cotton. I know it breathes better, but they're not going to play better. Oh, Jack, if that happens, George is getting upset. Now time for the best fact yet, but this one is both a correction and a clarification from our story last week on Amex's really expensive new credit card.

26:12We misdescribed a couple of the rewards. The$75 Lululemon credit, that's actually each quarter. So 300 bucks for the whole year. And the Resi credits to use$400 toward dining, they don't have to be paid using the Resi app. They just have to be paid for restaurants that use Rezzy, which is like 10 ,000 restaurants. So if you're going out to dinner on the new Amex card at a Lululemon store next to a really nice restaurant, you're going to have a fantastic time. By the way, I set quarterly reminders for myself because I have this card. Buy something from Lululemon or else the credit is wasted. Oh, Jack, remember our takeaway, the best hack to optimize your credit card points, ask AI.

26:52Yetis, you look fantastic out there. Jack, can I say you look like a million bucks? Sure. Actually, you know what you look like, Jack? I was wondering why you were flattering me. Besties, the best way we grow the show is when you tell your buddies HYH-TBOY and give us a five-star rating. Happy T-Boy. We'll see you tomorrow.

27:16And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti, Jonathan Allen, celebrating in Morrow, Georgia. Happy birthday to Emma Steinhoff in Dallas, Texas, who is officially now adulting. And a happy birthday to Zach Crow from Portland, who's celebrating right now, kicking up the gears on his motorcycle. Happy birthday to Ben Anabe in Huntington Beach, California, who's celebrating at the Viv Hotel in Anaheim. And Odelia Bayard is turning 40 years old in Jacksonville, Florida. She loves Ben and Jerry. She loves Ben and Jerry is what we're trying to say. And finally, congratulations to Gina B. from New York City, who just landed a new job at Palantir.

27:52Jack, remember, Gina was at our live show in Chicago. She came to the after party and she was talking to us about, should she take the job? Congratulations, Gina. Oh, and if you've got a shout out for the show or the best fact yet, we've got a form for you to fill out in the episode description. We'll catch you on the pod.

28:11This is Jack, I am stock of Amazon. 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 Bureau. the premium non-alcoholic beer brand co-founded by Tom Holland. Yeah, I actually first saw it at my grocery store. Delicious tastes like a celebration, feels fantastic, and looks legit.

28:47More 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 ruins 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. Trust us, we've done it. Only beer we know that actually upgrades the scene like a promotion. So, Basties, if there's a win you're celebrating every day, Bureau is the non-alcoholic brew brand you gotta bring.

29:22So use code T-Boy for 20 % off your first order at BureauBrewing.com.