🌹 “Zuck-dashian” — Kylie Jenner’s smartglasses. Kraft Ranch’s meme-dressing. Cadillac’s Iran Pivot. +Back To School?

0:28This is Nick. can't explain the stock market. In the meantime, we got three fantastic stories for today's T-Boy. Jack, what do we got for the most interesting show in business? For our first story, Kylie Jenner just launched smart glasses made by Meta, and they could make Zuck the world's second trillionaire. For our second story, World Cup fans visiting the U.S. just discovered ranch dressing for the first time. So Kraft created a TSA-approved ranch in one week. That is moving at the speed of meme. And our third and final story. As the Iran war winds down, the biggest change has been to one car company.

1:03General Motors. GM is pivoting from Corvettes to cruise missiles. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, what a mix. Love the mix. No one else doing that mix. On Sunday, that was the first day of the summer. School's out, baby. I'm sorry, Jack. Pause the pot. I think you mean school is in. Because back to school season is already here, according to the Wall Street Journal. Get this, the first back-to-school ads have already hit TVs this week. And Amazon Prime Week is promoting back-to-school supply deals. Okay, besties, the average school year in America, it ends on the first Friday of June.

1:37But back-to-school just began on the third Friday in June? Okay, to kids, the summer break is supposed to be three months long. But to marketers, summer break is two weeks long. Class dismissed, I'm sorry, I mean welcome back, sophomores. So why is this happening? while it's the same reason that Christmas sales are starting in September. In this economy, back-to-school buyers want an early bird discount on that Jansport backpack. We're always looking for deals. But besties Jack and I have seen this before, and we call it calendar creep. When businesses expand the holiday season to sell more stuff.

2:09Think about it. Christmas now starts in August. Halloween now starts in July. New Year's started last year's. And for the first time ever, back-to-school season begins in June, apparently. The same month school ends. So if you're headed to the beach this weekend, don't forget a towel, some sunscreen, and that TI-83 calculator. Jack, happy Thanksgiving. Let's hit 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. 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.

2:4550%, 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.

2:57Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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4:10That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code T-Boy. Bureau Premium Non-Alcoholic Beer. All right, Yetis, 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. Yeah, I actually first saw it at my grocery store.

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5:18So, Basties, if there's a win you're celebrating every day, Bureau is the non-alcoholic brew brand you gotta bring. So use code T-Boy for 20 % off your first order at BureauBrewing.com.

5:31For our first story, Ray-Bans are out. Kylie Jenner is in. Zuck asked a Kardashian to design his latest meta-sunglasses, and it could make him the world's second trillionaire. Oh, didn't see that headline coming, did you, Eddie? You see, Meta, they just dropped their biggest glasses lineup of the year. But one brand was missing, the Ray-Bans. The Ray-Bans were gone, like Meta Ray-Bans, the collab that made smart glasses cool, it was missing the Ray-Bans. At least nine million pairs of Meta Ray-Bans have been sold so far. I saw them all over Italy, by the way. But yesterday, Zuck launched Meta Glasses.

6:10No Ray-Ban included. No Ray-Ban, no Oakley, none of the traditional sunglasses brands that they've been collabing with so far. Now, we should point out the owner of Ray-Bans, Luxottica, is still involved behind the scenes in making these new meta smart glasses. Yes, they're designing, manufacturing, and distributing the meta glasses. But their brands are nowhere to be seen. Instead, these new meta glasses say Kylie Jenner? To sprinkle on some context, Kylie is the youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Now, these new Kylie Jenner smart glasses, Jack, what kind of a shape are they reminding us of exactly?

6:43The ones that my wife is wearing currently. I noticed that in your Italy pics. The CBK glasses that were inspired by that new show on JFK Jr. Yes. Meta did unveil two other new smart glasses frames. They're called the Fury and the Adventurer. But it's the Kylies that have that distinctive Spitfire frame shape. As Zuck put it, he wants to be fashion first, tech second when it comes to smart glasses these days. Zuck so badly wants his smart glasses to look cool that he actually called up Kris Jenner and ceded to all of her contract demands, I'm sure. That's right. Kris Jenner now owns like one third of Facebook.

7:18But Zuck is doing a little bit of taste washing here, isn't he, Jack? He's paying a tastemaker, Kylie Jenner, to wash away his tech ick. But besties, this is what Jack and I find even more fascinating about this story. Zuck is treating smart glasses like a car company. He has a different option for every price point. Because remember, last week we covered Snapchat's new computer-on-your-face smart glasses. Yeah, they're called Specs, and they're priced at an insane$2 ,100 each. Basically the price of a Honda Civic. Well, classic Zuck, he's now trolling Snapchat's Evan Spiegel by offering something more scalable and probably more profitable.

7:55Because these three new frames announced yesterday, they come in eight colors each, and all of them are just$299 a pair. Because by dropping the Ray-Bans brand from the branding, it let Zuck cut the price of the smart glasses by 80 bucks. Not too shabby. And according to reports, Zuck wants to drop prices even lower with the next version by removing the cameras from the frames. What we are saying is that the simplest, cheapest Meta smart glasses will be audio-only smart glasses. But there's a lot you can do with audio-only smart glasses. You can play music, listen to podcasts, talk to somebody on the phone, and talk to Meta's AI assistant.

8:30Which sound less like smart glasses, more like AirPods, Jack? By dropping cameras and the potential for video to show up on the lens, it's a much simpler product, like AirPods, that could be priced at like$100. So besties,$100 smart glasses or$100 AirPods, which ones would you actually end up buying? I'm guessing iPhone users buy the AirPods and everyone else buys meta smart glasses. But Jack, what about this? Maybe, like Instagram itself, Zuck could make these smart glasses ad-supported and then they would be free. He makes like 40 bucks a quarter on every Instagram user through ads. Yeah. I'm sure he'd love to put those ads right in front of your eyeballs with smart glasses.

9:10Ad supported smart glasses, we're predicting it. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies, Kylie Jenner and Zuck? The world's second trillionaire after Elon Musk, it's probably gonna be Zuck. Now bestie, Zuck is a capitalist chameleon. He will transform completely to maximize a profit puppy. And these frames reveal in three distinctive ways that his ambition is to replace the iPhone. First, Zuck wants metaglasses to be global. They'll be available in 15 languages the majority of the world's population. Second, he's pricing them to be global. Like Instagram and Facebook, the goal is that they'll eventually be free and ad-supported.

9:48And third, Zuck's reportedly even adding facial recognition, so these smart glasses could tell you who you're actually staring at. That's a privacy nightmare, by the way, but a profit dream, so you know Zuck is going to pursue it. Is that our buddy Timmy or is that just a regular old Timmy? So an iPhone replacing AI-powered free wearable that all global human beings wear 18 hours a day? Besties add it all up and if Zuck's glasses succeed, then Meta could be a$10 trillion company easily. And that's why, according to Kalshi Prediction Markets, as of Monday, Zuck is the most likely human to become the world's second trillionaire.

10:22For our second story The MVP of this World Cup It's either lean or messy Erland Holland or Kraft Heinz's ranch dressing? TSA approved souvenir sized ranch Is the power of moving at meme speed Oh besties The never ending free breadsticks Ice served in every drink you order in a restaurant A gas station bathroom at Bucky's with 127 urinals. The European mind cannot comprehend the America they're experiencing at this World Cup. I mean, who would have thought that first-time visitors from France have fallen in love with our Bass Pro Shops, Jack? But one surprise thing that's actually not a thing abroad.

11:08Yeah, Jack? Ranch dressing. Uh, not possible. This is a mass conversion moment for ranch. America's World Cup has foreigners that are hot for hidden doubt. Senegalese, Argentines, Scotsmen visiting for the very first time. They're enemies on the field, but they're united in their newfound love for ranch dressing. But Jack, could you sprinkle on, I'm sorry, could you take the cap off and pour on some context for us on ranch dressing? It's more American. Yes. According to one study we found, nearly 100 % of Americans aged 18 to 40 have dipped a pizza slice into ranch dressing before. I personally prefer Italian dressing for dipping my pizza slices.

11:48I personally prefer Russian dressing for dipping my pizza slices, but apparently we're the outliers here, Jack. But$1.3 billion of sales happened for ranch dressing in 2023, which was a ranch record. Yeah, it's the first time it passed ketchup and barbecue in sales. And Jack, who is the biggest profit puppy in that ranch industry? Hidden Valley. They do 51 % of the ranch market because Hidden Valley invented the ranch market. Let's go back to 1954. Steve and Gail Henson moved to Santa Barbara, start selling sour cream, buttermilk, garlic, mayo, and herbs that they've mixed together. And they called it Ranch because they made it on their ranch, which was called Hidden Valley Ranch.

12:25And they sold that Hidden Valley Ranch in 1972 to Clorox for$8 million. And since ranch isn't a thing abroad, apparently Clorox decided not to take this product international, which shocks us. To quote Julia Roberts, huge mistake. Because in today's World Cup, Kraft Heinz is beating Hidden Valley Ranch. One week into the games, Kraft Heinz announced they're launching a TSA 311 compliant package of ranch dressing. Kraft announced it on Instagram. It should arrive by the end of the tournament. Here's the idea. A regular ranch bottle is going to get confiscated at the airport as all these travelers go home.

13:01You need something less than 3.4 ounces. So with this new Kraft product and whose Bekistani soccer fan could fly back to Tashkent with a carry-on of ranch, fill the whole bag. So that's a nice marketing stunt by Kraft Heinz. But here's what's bigger. After they announced their TSA-approved ranch packages, TSA put out an official warning. But a warning in a good way for Kraft Heinz. They say, if you forget to check your ranch bottle, avoid chugging it before airport security. TSA is saying, we're going to check your ranch for you because we don't want you to chug it. You'll choke or get sick. It's a bottle of dressing, not a bottle of Dasani.

13:36But now it sounds like a lifestyle. Besties, the stock market, it fell yesterday. But Kraft Heinz's stock, it was up 2%. Sounds like investors were buying the dip. The ranch dip. Is that okay? Not really, but we're going to roll with it, Jack. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our Kraft Heinz buddies making ranch? This is meme speed moving at mock meme. Yetis, in one week, a$27 billion food giant noticed an internet trend and then turned it into a real-life product. That'd be impressive for a startup. It's shocking for a huge consumer packaged goods company like Kraft Heinz. It's almost like Kraft Heinz called it Code Red, but like not to mitigate a crisis, to capitalize on an opportunity.

14:17Code meme, code meme. They didn't need all hands on deck. They just needed a few, enough to launch this little product. Because besties, to be relevant today, brands need to move at the speed of culture. You can't set up a meeting with legal for next week or wait till the chief operating officer returns from vacation. Can I get a sign-off by end of quarter on that? Okay, I'll wait till next quarter. Kraft Heinz operated at meme speed. Call it mock meme. They cut bureaucracy, put a few hands on deck, and will always be launching everything. A-B-L-E. Now, a quick word from our sponsor. Top hats, baseball hats, Von Dutch hats.

14:53We 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, I'm 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.

15:26And 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. So 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. Upwork. Yeah, it is. Before we had a podcast, we had a newsletter. And the moment that newsletter began growing, it's not when we came up with the clever subject lines with the emojis. It's when we found the right freelancer.

16:00Freelancer built a referral program that grew our newsletter, which helped launch this podcast, which helped us sell our company, which we eventually spun out, and which eventually got us to where we are today. Yeah, that's the story. Having the right expertise at the right time, that can make or break your business. So Upwork is a one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. If you need a freelancer, Upwork is where you get it. Thousands of growing businesses already trust Upwork to hire flexible, high-quality freelance talent for everything from one-off projects to ongoing support.

16:30With Business Plus, you can access the top 1 % of talent on Upwork. And with AI-powered shortlisting, you'll get matched with the right freelancer in under six hours. No endless searching required. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. So visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com. For our third and final story One business has been forever changed By the war in Iran It's GM Cadillac is now a defense company Because the biggest upside for the car industry Is not cars But yeah, here's the deal Look, MOUs Plans to discuss a plan And ceasefires that are still in place Until the Love Island premiere That's the situation with America's war in Iran Kind of like Marco and Hannah it's kind of an ongoing situation.

17:22The U.S. says that Iran has agreed to nuclear inspections. Iran says they have not agreed to that. But one thing both sides have agreed on is opening up the Strait of Hormuz, the oil bottleneck of the world. In exchange for Iran opening the straight back up, America is unsanctioning Iran's oil industry. Now, besties, it's going to take time and there's plenty of risk of a re-escalation, but markets right now, they're thinking the oil crisis is over, baby. The price of oil is now$73 a barrel, down 35 % from the high setback in April. And Jack, the price of gasoline is now down under$4 a gallon again.

17:55You know what that means? Fourth of July road trip is back on again? Yeah, you're going down to Cape Cod and you ain't gonna have to bust the Birkenstocks on that trip. But one industry is not back to normal. That's the car industry. Ah, the car industry. Because besties last week, General Motors announced a collab with Lockheed Martin to build missiles? So sprinkle on some context, Nick. Remember Iran's Shahad drones that we covered back in March? Couldn't forget, and what a story. They cost just 35 grand for the Iranians to build, and then they can autonomously fly them into military targets where they explode.

18:27In the meantime, we Americans were using Patriot interceptor missiles to shoot those Shahad missiles down. Here's the problem. We were spending$4 million for each Patriot missile to shoot down a$35 ,000 drone. The technical term for all this, asymmetric warfare. It's the reason that Iran and Ukraine have been so resilient against the much bigger military powers, the US and Russia. Now besties, Lockheed Martin, the national defense company, they make those Patriot missiles, but we're running out of those Patriot missiles. So they planned a triple annual production of Patriot missiles from 650 a year today to 2000 by 2030.

19:03Okay, but pause the pod chat, because I got to ask, how are you going to do that? You can't hire a task rabbit to build a couple more missiles for you. Instead, they're going to hire General Motors' car factories, which are available. That's right, Chevy Tahoe. It's got a chassis and so does a drone. So Buick is now in the weapons business. That's right. They're switching it up from pistons to weapons, basically. At a Tuesday press conference, General Motors and Lockheed Martin CEOs, they provided few details. Ironically, they've only signed an MOU so far. Okay, but can you paint the scene for us of what this could look like, Jack?

19:35Let's say GM builds a new factory for a particular model of car that ends up not selling well. Well, then they could convert that car production line from SUVs to RPGs. GM's stock is up 65 % in the last 12 months, and Ford is up 31%. The reason? Well, it's our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies up in Detroit? The biggest upside for the car industry is not cars. Yetis, in the last 12 months, military engagement is up globally, And car companies, they're starting to think back to World War II. The arsenal of democracy, that was America's car factories that got repurposed to supply the war.

20:13That was World War II, but it's happening again right now. VW is in talks to build components for Israel's Iron Dome system. Mercedes is another German car company considering military applications again, given Germany and NATO's geopolitical situation. And now GM will help rebuild missile inventory, and Ford is probably going to do the same thing pretty soon. Ford, by the way, their stock has soared this spring on news they're selling batteries to the AI industry. Sebasti's car factories, they're quite fungible to different applications, and we've known that since World War II. That's why the biggest upside for the car industry, it's not cars.

20:46Not cars. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Ceviche Wednesday? Meta Smart Glasses dropped the Ray-Ban to get cheaper. We bet he launches ad-supported Smart Glasses someday. Kylie Jenner's smart glasses. They could make Zuck the world's second trillionaire, according to prediction markets. For our second story, Kraft Heinz launched travel-sized, TSA-compliant ranch for the World Cup visitors. Because they moved at the speed of meme. And our third and final story, GM signed an MOU with Lockheed Martin to help make more missiles. Because the biggest upside for the car industry? Not cars.

21:22But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Bed Bath & Beyond's got a wild turnaround plan. Here it is. Really old coupons. Bed Bath & Beyond basically invented the coupon. They're famous for those blue 20 % giant coupons that never expire. But now Bed Bath & Beyond is offering$100 ,000 to the person who brings in the oldest Bed Bath & Beyond coupon in history to a store. In this economy, a coupon-based game show could save this ancient chain. So they can live well beyond. And second, Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy has launched a microdrama, but it co-stars Google's AI.

22:03We're in a microdrama moment. 90-second addictive mini soap opera episodes. Where the cousin has an affair with a werewolf who's also a billionaire on the side, right? But the unwell microdrama is also an ad for AI. Because in the episode, Alex solves relationship problems by asking Google's Gemini for some love advice. Alex, she's in her commercialization era. And finally, if you miss Red Lobster's endless shrimp deal, well, the White House has a solution. The White House's chair of Arctic Research said this week that taking Greenland would boost America's seafood supply. But we should point out, the Red Lobster did not comment on the prospect of invading a sovereign country to support their marketing gimmick.

22:43And we won't either. Now time for the best fact yet. This one is a correction sent in by Jack all the way down in Georgia. A couple of weeks ago, we did a story on trending water startups, and we mentioned Mountain Valley Water from West Virginia. Like the big green glass bottles you see in your yoga class, like$5 each? The correction is that Mountain Valley is actually Hot Springs, Arkansas, not West Virginia. It's not, but interestingly, that location is critical because they accidentally supported the mobster Al Capone by being in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Al Capone loved visiting Mountain Valley's Hot Springs to relax.

23:17But then Al Capone would ship back his illegal moonshine hidden in Mountain Valley bottles. Mountain Valley. Hot springs. Hot product. How has Mountain Valley not launched a moonshine, by the way? Like, what a moment. What an opportunity, Jack. Yeah, I do think illegal water is a marketing opportunity. There's something there, guys. There's something there. There's something there. Move at the speed of me. Yeti, you look fantastic for Ceviche Wednesday. day. Jack, you're getting on another flight. You're flying down to New York. We got an interview tomorrow. We're going to record our 4th of July episode together at NYC.

23:52Oh, you guys are going to like this besties. But in the meantime, if you haven't yet, grab your tickets to see T-Boy live. We just announced our next three shows. San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle. By the way, I'm giving a hint right now who we're interviewing. Do you see what I'm doing? I see what you're doing. What am I doing? Is that collar going up? I just popped my collar. Oh, that collar's going up. That's the hint for who we're interviewing for our 4th of July episode. If you know, you know. Now I'm going to put my collar down.

24:21And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Eddie Daniela from Rutherford, New Jersey. She's expecting a little girl, baby number two in August and celebrating the birthday. Happy birthday to G. Rogiero, turning 39 in San Francisco, the same birthday as Lionel Messi. Well, funny timing, Jack, because a happy birthday to Lionel Messi from Argentina. And happy 30th birthday to Rabab in Orange County. And Tom Lonkey, we see your birthday up in Naples, New York, just outside the Finger Lakes. And happy birthday to David Tripp in Scottsdale, Arizona. And Isabella Navarro from Panama City, Panama is celebrating at Orange Theory for the fantastic birthday.

24:57Splat points, baby. And Daniel Hoff went to You Mish Ross and is now living in lovely Los Angeles, was at our live show with Sister Kylie. Fantastic to see you guys there. Go Blue. And congratulations to Ashley Vo, graduating from nursing school over in California. And happy two-year anniversary to Kendra and Jumeria in Pensacola, Florida. Celebrate with some oysters. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Ford.

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