The Best One Yet - 🐊 “4th-and-Pickle” — Gatorade’s picklejuice plan. ChatGPT’s chief-of-app. Spunge’s sneaker disruption. +150 Friend Rule.

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

It’s the LAST DAY to Vote for The Best Idea Yet to win “Best Business Podcast”: ​​https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2025/shows/genre/businessNFL players are pounding pickle juice to kill cramps… It’s an opportunity for GatoradeYou can now order DoorDash or search Zillow in ChatGPT… AI just killed the app.Spunge is the first major sneaker company since AllBirds… They’re Salehe Bembury’s shoes.Plus, you should never have more than 150 friends. Your brain can’t handle it.$Z $DASH $PEPNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, October 9th. And today's pod, out of all the pods, this pod is the best one yet. It's a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Yeah, it is big news tomorrow. After the show, Jack and I are interviewing the iconic founder of Outdoor Voices, Ty Haney. The Ty Haney. We're going to publish that interview next week. So DM us today, the questions that you think we should ask her. She basically invented athleisure. So, you know, we got a lot of questions going. But if you got a question, hit us up, send us a voicemail. We'll get it on the pot. Also, sorry to those we couldn't give SORA invites to.

We got in dating. By 601 a.m. yesterday. We had like 20 requests for our Sora codes. We only had like two invites each, so we were sorry we couldn't get them to everyone. But in the meantime, Jack, we got three fantastic stories for today's tea boy. What do we got on the pot? For our first story, runners, bikers, and NFL players are all drinking pickle juice. Picklejuice is becoming the unofficial drink of athletics.

And that is a threat to Gatorade, which needs to get out of the lab and look at real life. For our second story, it's the latest big thing from OpenAI. You can now order DoorDash or search Zillow within ChatGPT. First, we said chat would kill the website, but now Chat is killing the app. And our third and final story. For the first time since Allbirds, we're covering the launch of a brand new sneaker company. If you want to see the future of sneakers, Basties, then you need to know about sponge. But yet is, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, what? T's what a mix?

I love the pod today, Jack. What's the real number of friends you can actually squeeze into your life? It's 150. 150. Because unlike in calculus, the limited friendship does exist. 150 friends is the maximum number of friends the human being can handle. Call up the friendship frontier. Do not venture beyond it. And it's all according to a new study from Brigham Young University. And the limiting factor, it's our brain. Yeah, the brain. It's just 2% of our body weight but uses 20% of our energy. Our bodies can handle more bodies. But our brains can't take another Jane or another blame, my friend. Now, 150 people, that's a lot of people. You're not calling that many people to see what they're up to this weekend. I can't even make up 150 names on the spot, Jack. So within the 150, there's actually 10 friends with whom you spend 60% of your friend time.

Jack and I call these 10 the tenacious 10, if you will. And odds are you're texting today's podcast to one of those. Tenacious 10. About this story. Oh, you definitely got a fantastic Tenacious 10 text change act act. But Yetis, remember the rule of friendship. The max capacity is 150. So, Basties, if someone's trying to be your buddy today, and you're just not vibing with him, you can just say, hey, I'm sorry. The fire department says I can't handle one more person. By the way, our buddy Timmy, he was friend number 63 for us. Is he dropping in the rankings or is he climbing, dude? No, I'd be keeping track the whole time, man. Yetis, 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 an norm Jack Nick Tis 50% that's a fat tip T-boy City on your at list If you know you know because we're ready to go We can't wait no more

So just start the show Start the show First a quick word from our sponsor For our first story Gatorade is losing market share But we think we've got the solution And the solution is pickle juice. The best way for Gatorade to innovate right now

is to look at what people are already doing. Now, yeah, it is. When Jack and I were back in college, there was a cool new drink order you could throw out at the bar and Jack, what was that drink order? Not nickel back, pickleback. They served you two shots. One had whiskey, the other had pickle brine.

You drink the whiskey first, you follow it with the pickle. That was back when Jack and I are roommates, but today, athletic Gen Ziers are pounding entire glasses of pickle juice straight up. And they're not doing it to get tipsy. Ironically, pickle juice is now a health drink, not a Hennessy Chaser.

Besties, runners, bikers, berries, boot campers, they are all swigging their own pickle juice as a salty solution to stop cramps. In fact, pickle juice just had a mainstream moment. It did. On the gridiron on Sunday. Okay, Jack, watching the 49ers game in San Francisco last Sunday, 90 degrees,

but the sideline was stocked with pickle juice. It was overflowing. The athletic trainers on the 49ers, serve the quarterback Mack Jones a bunch of pickle juice shooters while the cameras were running. Pound three shots at pickle juice and a banana, and that Charlie horse is going to go away. Ah, nature's electrolytes. So, Basties, this is what Jack and I found fascinating about the story. Pickle juice is not just trending among hardcore athletes, it's now the unofficial sports drink of the NFL.

Which is awkward for the official sports drink of the NFL. Gay-raid. Totally. Gay-to-rayed, as it's also pronounced, which is celebrating at 16. birthday this year, as we've mentioned before on this pod. It was invented on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, hence the name Gatorade. These professors created Gatorade to aid the football team, and then NFL teams started ordering it up nationwide. But Gatorade's not independent. They got acquired by Quaker Oates in 1983, which got acquired by PepsiCo in 2001.

For a not-too-shabby $13 billion, but I'm sorry, Jack paused the pod, flag on the field. Gatorade's market chair in the sports beverage category has fallen from 80% at its peak to 60% today. And the problem for Gatorade isn't Powerade, Body Armor, or all those rumors about yellow five ingredients. Yeah, don't get the lemon live. No, no, no, no, no, no. The risk and threat to Gatorade is salty electrolyte powders that are disrupting the sports drink market. It's not Gatorade Frost you're drinking after Pilates. You're sipping liquid IV or element in your enormous Stanley mug.

And therein lies the opportunity that we think Gatorade can seize on. Pickle juice. Pickle juice. There it is. Yeah, sure. You know, it's the 60th birthday of Gatorade, Jack. Like, you could make the case Gatorade should lean into nostalgia right now, right? But we think Gatorade should lean into novelty.

Exactly. With pickle juice. Make the unofficial drink the official. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Gatorade? The real world is your lab. You don't need R&D. You simply need observation. Or another way we put this,

you need the research lab of hard knocks. Okay. Is that work? You think about it? Ballingo there. Besties, you see, Jack and I have been covering business news for decades now,

and there are a variety of successful products we've seen not born at a company. The company didn't invent the idea. They simply productized what consumers were already doing. For example, Gillette heard that women borrowed their husband's razor in the shower, so they created a new brand for women,

and that became Venus. Uncrustable, noticed that parents had to cut the crust off the PBNJ or the kids would go crazy, so they invented crustless peanut butter and jelly, aka the uncrustable. Jack, you've got a 43-step skincare routine. What did the Skinny Confidential do? That's kind of like this. Well, every grandma tells you that putting ice on your face in the morning, it's the oldest trick to reduce puffiness.

So Lauren Bostic at Skinny Confidential productized it into an ice roller. Yeah, these aren't accidental inventions. These are observational inventions. And now Gatorade, we think, should respond to the pickle juice trend by putting it in a bottle. And slapping the Gatorade logo on it. That is the real world acting like an R&D lab. And you know what? It's already got product market fit.

For our second story, DoorDash burritos, Zillow Homes, and Spotify music all in chat GPT. Yet he's open AI just killed the app by putting them inside your chatbot. Chatbots will soon be the gatekeeper to your entire. internet. Now, Eddie's first, some breaking news. Apple is reportedly building a chat GPT-like app to overhaul Siri coming next year. That's an eternity in artificial intelligence. Oh, yeah, it is. Chat-GPT is going to answer a thousand things before next year. I mean, for example, on Monday, we covered OpenAI launching the SORA app, a new AI-only social media video app unprecedented. The next day, Open AI acted like Kingmaker, again.

Ann announcing a deal with AMD that sent AMD stock up 28%. I'm sorry, Jack. Bloomberg just calculated that OpenAI has announced a trillion dollars of data center deals. Nicholas, one Harvard economist who used to work at the White House says that 92% of America's GDP growth this year is AI data centers and infrastructure. Sit down, stand up and plug me in again, Jack. ChatGPT is leading all of it. It's me. Hi, I'm the economy. It's me. But besties, one of Open AIs, but jillion announcements that we thought worthy of full coverage on T-Boy this week is this story. And what is it, Jack? On Monday, Open AI had their annual developer event in San Francisco, and they announced apps in chat GPT. Now, what this means is that without leaving your chatbot, you can order from DoorDash, check real estate listings on Zillow, or even listen to songs on Spotify, inside chat.

Catchy P.T. Get this, Yiddies. Nick thinks this was his idea. I'm not saying that, and I'm kind of saying that. You know, like last week, we were ordering pizza, a little Friday tradition since we had the baby. And I was like, Molly, you know, it took me like 12 steps in three and a half minutes just to execute a simple pizza order on Uber Eats. Nothing upsets a San Francisco resident, like too much friction to getting your pizza to your door. All I want is the pepperoni.

Well, now you could tell Chachy Pt, order me three margarita pies from A16 and get a little. him to my home, ASAP, boom, done in 10 seconds. Like a good assistant, chat will place the order for Nick through DoorDash without Nick ever having to open the DoorDash app. That is big and Jack, how is that happening? Open AI launched a public developers kit so that any app company can integrate their app directly into chat chipt. Or as tech reporter Casey Newton put it, he compared this to what Facebook did back in 2007. This is OpenAI's platform play. Remember words with friends and Farmville? Two games you could only play within Facebook.

Well, similarly, you can now get dozens of app-like services within chat GPT. Now, why would an app like DoorDash surrender their consumer relationship with Nick and let OpenAI be the gatekeeper to access Nick's pizza orders? DoorDash wants those burritos and those pizza orders. Why are they doing it, Jack? The reason is that OpenAI has 800 million weekly users and it's growing every day. Apps have no choice. Basically no choice.

Chat GPT is simply where the customer is. And you've got to be where the customer be. So Jack, what's the takeaway, despite my grammar for our buddies, over at ChatGEPT? Your chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff. Yeties, earlier this year, Jack and I noticed websites

were changing their content to appeal to chatbots. We coined the phrase AEO, answer engine optimization. And last month, we covered OpenAI's new direct show. shopping feature so you could like buy candles from Etsy directly within chat GPT. So we coined another phrase. Not B to B to B, not B to C, B to A, business to AI. That story was another reason to design your website not to appeal to consumers, but to appeal to chatbots. Well, Open AI was already cutting out websites from the human equation and now they're cutting out

apps. So we're escalating our freeze coinage. Your chatbot is becoming your chief of staff. Besties, human experts in Google search, they used to be the gatekeepers of information. But soon your chatbot will be the ultimate gatekeeper. It'll be your chief of staff. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, there's a brand new running sneaker challenging Nike. In fact, the man behind this shoe turned down a job at Nike. Introducing Sponge, the one-man sneaker company. Now, yeah, it is. When you're covering fast,

fashion as an industry, you notice that it's led by big creative people with big personalities and big philosophies. Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Miranda Priestley, Mugatu. Well, one fashion designer, Salehi Bembury is known as the Sultan of Sneakers. This guy has collab sneakers with crocs, with New Balance, with Versace, it's across the entire spending spectrum. And last year, Nike tried to hire him, but he said no. I'm starting my own sneaker company. And on Wednesday, it launched. It's called Sponge, and 39-year-old Bemberry is the founder-designer and co-owner of the startup. It's not backed by a big sneaker company.

He's partnering with a boutique fashion company to turn his shoe designs into shoe drops. And his first wild sneaker dropped yesterday. You're going to start seeing this thing around. We'll post a pick of it on our story on Instagram. More on that in a second. First, Nick, let's go back to business school and talk barriers to entry. Ah, barriers to entry when you're banging on that door, but you cannot. get into that industry, Jack. Sneakers have a lot of barriers to entry. You see, besties,

anybody can launch a functional beverage or a makeup brand or a podcast. It's a pretty low startup equipment cost over here. But try launching a new car or a new sneaker brand. That requires way more time and way more money to invest. High barriers to entry is why you don't see many car startups or many sneaker startups out in the world. The upfront cost is huge just to get your first product off the assembly line, and the risk of failure is even huger. So most entrepreneurs avoid those industries. In fact, the shoe is often cited as the most complex part of the entire fashion industry, because it is more engineering than it is style. For a shirt, for a dress, for pants, you only need a few sizes. But foot? I mean, there's dozens of different shapes of feet.

Okay, and it's supporting your whole body and you need two dozen different sizes. It is a completely different challenge. It's engineering. But Benbury, is going for it. He's taken the risk and he's actually going for it alone like Phil Knight did launching Nike 61 years ago. And the first new sneaker of the new sponge brand just dropped yesterday. The shoe is called osmosis and it's a trail ready running sneaker. The inner soul kind of looks like a coral reef. The outer soul is like molten lava. We never really have seen anything quite like this thing. It's giving nature. The four color choices are basically Mother Nature's color palette. Although it also kind of looks like a cartoon spaceship as a shoe.

Like if SpongeBob SquarePants was going on a hike, you would wear this. It stands out. But Bessie's, this is what we found fascinating. We just don't get many new shoe brand startups, do we, Jack? No, we don't. Hoka and On, they launched in 2009 and 2010. Allbirds, they came in 2016. And now, nine years later, we're finally getting another.

Sponge launching in 2025. So, Jack, what's the takeaway facing these barriers to entry over at Sponge? Salehi Benbury climbed the career ladder in other people's sneakers. Now he's at the top, wearing his own. Yeti's Salahehy's story is wild. Born in New York City, he went to Syracuse University and then took a job at Payless Shoes after college. Payless shoes, no offense. It's the bottom of the rung when it comes to the sneaker ladder. It's called Payless. Now he moved over to Cole Hahn eventually, and then he got a job at Adidas's brand easy, which is Kanye's brand, and things started going up. And by that time, he had the credibility to carve out permission in his contract to do

collabs. That's when Salehi started doing collabs with crocs and new balance. And that's when his name became known. Along the way, he built up a million followers on Instagram and just published a coffee table book about the sneakers he's designed. Besties, Salahey is a case study and climbing the career ladder in other people's sneakers. Now he's at the top, finally wearing his own. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Gatorade should productize what hardcore athletes are already drinking. Pickle juice. Pickle juice aid, because sometimes you don't need an R&D lab, you just need observation.

For our second story, now the apps are integrating directly into chat cheptie, it's becoming the complete gatekeeper to your internet. Your chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff. And finally, Sponge is the new sneaker brand launched by a guy who not, Nike tried to hire. Salahey climbed the career ladder and other people sneakers, but now he's at the top wearing his own. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First government shutdown day eight. Here is how you're going to start feeling it and you're going to start feeling it in the air. Actually in the airport. Yeah, before the air. Because the latest update

is that air traffic controllers are calling in sick rather than work without pay and without guaranteed back pay either. So flight cancellations and delays are starting to add up nationwide. And honestly, this is how federal government shutdowns tend to end when air travel gets sufficiently disrupted and it's frustrating to anyone flying. And second, Amazon's next big move, prescription medicine vending machines. Amazon is installing digital kiosks to fulfill prescriptions without a person involved at their one medical health clinics. You can walk up to a vending machine tap for thytastrosol and then boom, that thing drops down like a soda can. We assume the side effect disclosures get printed out as a receipt. Oh, that would be nice. And finally, Cheetos

just launched pants specifically designed for you to wipe your fingers on. Yeah, the pants are orange. So they blend in with the Cheetos crumbs. And they have Velcro spots on the hips where you rub your hands when they're dirty. So they can hold the crumbs that you are rubbing on your legs. But why would you want to hold the crumbs? I don't get the Velcro part. No, no, no, you don't want them to fall on the ground jacks. You would let the pants absorb them. Absorb. I don't think they're absorbing. Honestly, the biggest shock here is that Kenneth Cole, the fashion designer, collabed with Cheetos to make this halfkin. In the meantime, the napkin has been disrupted. Now, time for the best fact yet this one's a voicemail sent in by legendary Yetty Dylan Steinfeld from lovely Atlanta, Georgia.

Nick and Jack, following up on the story about Sharpie, which, as you mentioned on the pod, is owned by Newell brands. Newell is headquartered in a suburb of lovely Atlanta, Georgia called Sandy Springs. sits in the queen of the king and queen towers, which at 570 and 553 feet high, are the two tallest suburban buildings in the entire United States. Shout out my Atlanta Yeties and besties. Now I understand why they always say Georgia doesn't do peaches. It does Sharpies. That's why, Jack. 570 feet, that's a skyscraper. And isn't having skyscrapers the definition of being a city? I think the suburb just became the herb, Jack. Yetis, you look fantastic today.

And Jack and I got one request for you. You see, we are now in the final day to vote to win Best Business Podcast. And the voting is 27% to 27% between the best idea yet and the morning brew daily. Oh, we are tied right now. So besties, go and vote. We got a link in the episode description. We'd love to pull ahead in the final minutes. You got this.

If you ignored our previous CTAs to vote, this is the one not to ignore. Oh yeah, this is the one we really mean. It was such a special first season. Nick and I are really proud of this series, and if we won the award, it'd be friggin' awesome. We all kind of win it. Thanks so much, Yetis. Jack and I, appreciate the ballots,

and we'll see you more. And before we go, a happy 12th birthday to legendary Yeti, Liam DeVine from lovely Savannah, Georgia. Making Sharpies. And happy birthday to Valeria in Seattle, Washington, who converted her dad to become a Yeti. Welcome to the pod,

and Kylie Ho from Lovely Love. Los Angeles, California, introduced their buddy Matt to snacks five years ago. And now both of them are snacking and tea-boying and a happy birthday to you, Kylie. And finally, a big shout out to Diane Prince, who corrected us that when we said dry bar costs about 40 bucks, it's actually up to 55 bucks these days. Full disclosure, Jack and I haven't got a blow out in a couple of years now, so we didn't realize the inflation situation. Although I'm due for a perk.

This is Jack, Nick on stock of Zillow and Nike, and we both on stock of Apple and Spotify.