The Best One Yet - 💳 “America’s Fave Gift” — Gift Cards’ surge. White House’s Tech Force. Zillow’s Name-Yo-Price. +Uber Eats Wrapped.

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, Cevici, Wednesday, December 17th. And today's pod is the best one yet this is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Whoa, Jack, the dreidel rally? Not looking good. We're halfway through Hanukkah.

Starting point is 00:00:19 Stocks are down, man. Yeah, I think we're jinxed it. I think we shouldn't have mentioned the dreidel rally at all. Yeah, stocks been down for two straight days while you've been lighting those candles. But we are still close to an all-time stock market high. Market top. See what I did there? I do see what you did there.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got in the deep? For our first story, the most popular gift in America for the holidays, a gift card. Gift cards, even though 20% of that gift card is going straight to Starbucks's profits. For our second story, Zillow is being zucked by Google, so the stock dropped by 10% on Monday. But Jack and I have a wild idea to renovate Zillow's business, inspired by a pro wrestler. Name your price. What pro wrestler is that?

Starting point is 00:01:00 You're going to hear about the pro wrestling. And our third and final story, the White House just launched the U.S. Tech Force. 1,000 techies will get paid up to 200 grand a year to work for the government. And we think this tech force is the new resume flex. Yes, we do. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What?

Starting point is 00:01:19 A mix of stories for Cevice Wednesday, Jack? No one else are doing this mix. To quote the legendary British Yeti, Oscar Wilde, Life imitates art. Like how Saturday Night Live did a skit. about Uber Eats Rapped over the weekend. And then Uber actually launched Uber Eats Rapped this week. No joke, the comedy show,

Starting point is 00:01:38 joke that Uber should give a year in review on food delivery, Spotify style. Like, you're in the top 99% of chicken nugget eaters worldwide. Like, your culinary taste is like a 50-year-old couch potato. Or even worse, you spent 24 grand this year on Uber Eats. But 48 hours after that SNL skit, Uber launched that joke, but for real. It's called Uber. Uber. And according to Nick's Uber-Rapped, he ate 13 Bond Me sandwiches this year. I'm more of a DoorDash guy. I'm a Bun-Me guy. I'm a Bun-Me guy. What can I say? So, Jack and I decided to whip up some other surprise companies that we think should do a year in review. Jack, kick us off.

Starting point is 00:02:15 I'd love to see a Gmail wrapped. Yeah, like you forgot to attach 26 attachments, Jack. Or Tinder wrapped. Three quarters of your dates are holding a trout in their profile pick. That's a huge fish. How about therapy wrapped Nick? You brought up your mother 4663 times this year, my friend. That's some little T trauma right there. But Jack, what about a Microsoft team's rap? 90% of your pings were passive-aggressive. No, you don't have to do it. It's fine.

Starting point is 00:02:38 Yeah, could you just do the thing you promised me you do? I will just circle back next year. Festi's happy rap season to all those who celebrate. Let's enter 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.

Starting point is 00:02:57 That's it is. 50% that's a fat tip. Tea 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, the most popular gift in America this year, the same gift as every year. That's right. It's the gift card. The gift card is thriving in this economy. But the biggest winner is not the person who gets it. All right, Jack, we got a whole white elephant strategy going on here. What are you going to do? You're going to give socks, chocolate, cash. What are you thinking, man? Odds are you giving somebody a $20 Starbucks gift card? Because the Starbucks gift card may be the most popular gift in America and we got the data. Get this. Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks said in 2015 that that year, one out of seven Americans received a Starbucks gift card for the holidays. $25 for two double digit lottes. Last year, Starbucks said they were the number of two gift card in the country behind the visa gift card. In fact, just last Christmas, the revenue booked by Starbucks for gift cards was $3.5 billion. Jack, can you sprinkle on some context? That Christmas gift card revenue from Starbucks is bigger than the entire annual revenues of

Starting point is 00:04:26 Instacart, SoFi, or Burberry. Not combined, but still impressive. And in this economy, inflation has made the gift card the socially acceptable gift. Pretty much every brand sells a gift card or gift certificate these days. This is wild. Including TSA precheck. Yeah, that TSA precheck. While we were preparing this podcast, I got an email from Waymo Jack

Starting point is 00:04:46 offering me a Robo taxi gift card. Really? Yeah, even they're doing it. Now, besties, we should point out we would not suggest a gift card for like a five-year anniversary present, right? Unless it's a Gucci gift card. Nick and I just found out

Starting point is 00:05:01 that Gucci does gift cards up to 50,000 euros. Yeah, sit down, stand up, and we'll take two, please. But yet he's here. Here is the problem. Consumers are held captive by gift cards. This is wild. Capital One research found that Americans buy $500 billion of gift cards each year. Yeah?

Starting point is 00:05:21 Which is a shocking 1.6% of our nation's GDP. I'm sorry, our economy is held captive by gift cards. But Nick, that half a trillion dollars we spend is not well spent for two big reasons. First, gift cards are like cash, but they're not cash. An unused gift card is like cash without benefits. You don't collect interest. Also, unlike cash, we lose gift cards. We forget we had them or we let them expire by accident.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Forever 21, you owe me like 200 bucks at this point, bro. Now, estimates vary, but somewhere between 10 and 20% of gift cards are never redeemed. But, Jack, back to those Starbucks gift cards, they never expire. And yet Starbucks books the cards not used within 12 months as profit because the chances they actually get used are basically nil. Starbucks booked $1.8 billion of pure 100% profit just from unused gift cards last year. Now, really frustrated Forever 21. Now, 12 states have introduced laws to help us consumers capture the gift card value that we're entitled to.

Starting point is 00:06:23 It's a new thing. They're called the demand the change laws. And Jack, how do these things work? If a gift card is down to its last 10% of value, you can ask for the rest in cash. You can demand change, basically. But in the meantime, besties, we all have a gift card. the library of plastic sitting somewhere in a drawer in our homes. And since they're unlabeled, you have no idea if there's only three cents left on that card or like 30 bucks or 300 bucks. You show up to the cash register at Sephora and you're like, can I afford this? We're playing gift card roulette today, aren't we, baby? But still, despite all the issues, we just said about gift cards, a lot of issues. I bet you bought your buddy Timmy, a $50

Starting point is 00:06:57 Starbucks gift card for Kwanza this year. Guilty, which leads to our big question, should you buy a gift card in the first place as a gift? Is this the right? financial decision. Spoiler? No. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies buying gift cards in this economy? The gift card is the rare triple profit puppy for the company that issued it. And here's why, Yetis. First, the company gets cash up front. And second, the unused balance becomes pure profit. But the wildest profit source for gift cards is the third, because when you do spend a gift card as a consumer, you tend to overspend on that gift card, buy a lot, actually. That's right. In order to use up all of the cart, you typically have to pay more than the actual gift card is worth.

Starting point is 00:07:41 By 30 to 40% on average. That's the average. We call it top off tension. Let's see you get $100 Birkenstock gift card. You buy sandals for $80. To redeem the extra 20, you got to buy another $80 thing. So suddenly you're $160 in the hole. Next thing you know, Jack's bought his whole family Birkenstocks use.

Starting point is 00:07:59 That's why for companies, gift cards are Christmas, Kwanza, and Hanukkah all in one. It's the rare triple profit puppy. Yeties, it's not romantic and it can feel cold, but cash is always king. You're better off, giving $100 bucks in cash. Let us know what you think in the comments. For our second story, Zillow is getting zucked with new competition from the 1,100-pound internet gorilla named Google. This is the perfect excuse for Zillow to take a risk and launch something new.

Starting point is 00:08:29 Come on, Zillow. And we have a great idea. Oh, Jack, one sec, sorry, I'm just zaxing with Molly about a five-bedroom beachside condo. We have no intention of ever buying. Yet it is, turns out, Zillow isn't just Zillow. In 2013, it acquired Street Easy. And in 2014, it acquired Trulia. And Jack, what was the result of those acquisitions? A 50% market share of the huge real estate listing industry. Zillow's got a Zilloply. Redfin, they're a distant number two, which is 15% of the industry. So for a decade, Zillow has enjoyed dominant market share

Starting point is 00:09:00 and can charge real estate agents whatever fees they like. But here's the news. On Monday, Zillow stock fell 10% on Word. Google is dipping its toes into real estate. Google getting a real estate license. Now, it's just a test, but screenshots show that if you search homes for sale in Denver, you might get a Google real estate listing at the top of the Google results. That's a new thing. Right. Google is Zuck and Zillow. Imagine this. Google could add a layer on Google Maps showing price and values of each home on any street in the world. That would be brutal for Zillow. Boom. Zill would lose market share to Google. It would have to drop its fees.

Starting point is 00:09:37 Basically, the new kid on the real estate block is a big kid. Again, this is just a test, but it would be bad for Zillow. But besties, Jack and I got a couple ideas to renovate Zillow to help them stay ahead of whatever Google launches or doesn't launch. One that we'll share today is inspired by the marketing guru Rory Sutherland, and it's called Name Your Price. Yeah, we call it Name Your Price. Because to quote the wrestler Ted DiBiasey, aka the million dollar man,

Starting point is 00:10:04 everyone has a price. Right now, Zillow only shows the prices of houses that are on the market. Right. AKA, the seller wants to sell this house, so they've listed it. Okay, but Jack, what if Zillow also showed the prices of the houses not on the market? We're not talking about Zestimates, but an actual price the owner could list that they would be willing to sell for. You'd move for it. Even though they're not actively trying to sell the house right now.

Starting point is 00:10:28 Yeah, you're not moving right now, but if I got, say, I don't know, a million buck offer, you would move. No one knows it, but that's your price. We call this the name your price price, and Zillow should let homeowners toss it on their homes page. Basically, I'm happy here living on West End Avenue, but yeah, I would move out for a million dollars. Deal. Right now, as a homeowner, to test the market, you face the friction of listing. Staging, prepping, getting an agent, dropping $15,000 on fig trees to decorate the house. But if Zillow let homeowners name your price, that would solve that.

Starting point is 00:11:00 It'd be transparency about the market beyond just the listed houses, and that could drive more transactions. Jack, I got a real-life example here. Over the summer, Molly and I wrote a letter about a house we loved and left it in their mailbox and said, if you guys are ever going to move, hit us up, let us know we would do a deal. And based on your letter, they said, yeah, maybe we are open to moving and you had a conversation. Yeah, they were like on the fence about moving and this like got them off the fence. You almost sealed the deal. Didn't work out. It didn't work out. But it shows that transparency about more willingness to maybe move if the right prices offered could heat up this frozen housing market where it.

Starting point is 00:11:36 That's what we're thinking. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Zillow? The secret ingredient to getting better is a competitor. Gettys, Zillow's CEO felt something this week. He hasn't felt in 11 years. What he felt was urgency. Zillow probably declared Code Red. All hands on deck.

Starting point is 00:11:54 Google is attacking us. We got to get better. It's a wood panel deck, by the way, Jack. Like, how do we make Zillow better? What can we do that? Google? I can't. I need ideas, people. That mentality of what can we do better, that should be the default for any company in the market. But it's not the default if your company has no competition.

Starting point is 00:12:13 An exhibit A of that is Google. Google search didn't change for 10 years. It just got jacked up with more links jammed into it and made it a worse experience. But with new competition, finally, from OpenAI, Google is adding all sorts of new features to Chrome and search that are really useful. Finally. Well, besties, now that Zillow faces competition, Ironically from Google, it's finally facing pressure to improve to renovate itself. If there's competition, products get better. Without competition, they get worse. Now a quick word from our sponsor.

Starting point is 00:12:48 For our third and final story, the White House just announced the tech force. It's like the Peace Corps, but for programmers. For two years and for pretty good pay, you can leave your private sector job in the tech industry to serve your country. Really good pay. We think it's a great idea and we hope it works. Yeti's Uncle Sam famously told civilians, I want you for the U.S. Army. But here's our question. What about U.S. apps?

Starting point is 00:13:13 It's no secret that government websites and government online workflows, they don't always work, do they? Yeah, Silicon Valley apps have ingenious design. Government apps can have infuriating design. I'm refreshing the page. Representative! Oh, wait, there is no representative. The DMV is full of friction. So, to alleviate this national problem,

Starting point is 00:13:31 the White House just announced and just launched the U.S. Tech Force. A two-year service opportunity for American tech workers to leave the private sector and come to Washington, D.C. To fix systems across the federal government. And Jack, jumping into the numbers here, the pay? Pretty, pretty good. 150 to $200,000 salary plus benefits and a possible bonus for a government worker. And unlike Doge, which had partisan motivation, the tech force will do non-political work. As the White House said yesterday, if you want to help your country lead in the age of rapid technological advancement, we need you.

Starting point is 00:14:08 Or if Jack and I are running things, we would have said, make the DMV run like Airbnb. But the key to the mission of this Tech Force is branding. Because Tech Force is being positioned not as a job, but as a service to your country. Up to $200,000, that is a high income. But relative to what tech companies pay, it's actually not. However, a job at Tech Force should not be compared to a job at Meta, in our opinion.

Starting point is 00:14:32 It should be compared to military service or the Peace Corps, for America. It should be compared to a service, something you're proud that you're doing as a duty, and that company should be impressed by two. And here's the value at. Just like military service looks good in a resume, so should the Tech Force service on a resume. And yet he's unlike the $2,000 tariff dividend checks and other Trump announcements that have gone nowhere, this tech force appears on track and like it will actually happen. Yeah, this was not just a truth social post. There is a website, an app page, commitments from 29 companies. We don't have a T-boy style double-check all of this.

Starting point is 00:15:07 29 A-list tech companies have pledged to support their employees to leave the company and join the tech force. Basically like a sabbatical, right, man? Yeah, take two years off from your job here at Zoom. Do your duty at the tech force. You've got a job here at Zoom whenever you're coming back. And there'll probably be cupcakes waiting for you. Yeties, the government's hoping for 1,000 techies to enlist in the tech force who will take government systems from dial-up to the AI era. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at tech force. One reason our government websites are terrible is fairness. Instead, let's measure effectiveness. Yeti's, there's an interesting case study on how not to launch a government initiative.

Starting point is 00:15:47 Healthcare.gov, the Obamacare health insurance marketplace. In 2013, health care.gov's launch was a disaster. But ironically, it was doomed by good intentions. You see, back then, the Obama administration's priority was fairness. Let everyone access the website at the same time makes sense. Beckies knew, though, that that was a bad idea. Engineers wanted a phased rollout of healthcare.gov so the website wouldn't be overwhelmed with traffic all at once on the day that it launched. But unfortunately, those tech-oriented people got overruled, and the result? A broken site that didn't work for anyone for weeks. Nick, I'm an aneogram one. Fairness is a cardinal principle that I care about.

Starting point is 00:16:28 I know it is yours, Jack. But if the thing you built, it doesn't matter how fair it is if it doesn't even work. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Saviche Wednesday? Gift cards are the most popular holiday gift every year, and it's not even close. They're the rare triple profit puppy, because gift cards are really gifts for the company that issued them. For our second story, Zillow is under pressure as Google is dipping its toes in the real estate listing market. This ain't just new competition, it's an opportunity to make Zillow better. Zillow, launch name your price. And finally, the Trump White House just launched a U.S. Tech Force. 1,000 techies can leave their private businesses and fix government systems.

Starting point is 00:17:09 The laws should be fair. The implementation of the laws must actually work. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, welcome back to the jobs report. We just got our first jobs report in two months. And Jack, it's a slowdown. Why don't you whip up the numbers for us?

Starting point is 00:17:25 The unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November, which is a four-year high. We've lost jobs, actually, net net, since September. But it is not as bad as it looks because 130,000 lost jobs were voluntary buyouts of government workers. So all in all, it's a continued cooldown of the labor market that's been going on for a year or two. And second, Tesla stock has rallied more than doubling this year and just closed at an all-time high. Elon Musk's net worth has ballooned to over $600 billion, which is 77 lifts, not too shabby. And more than Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos combined. That's just huge. Tesla is bending on humanoid robots and robotaxies, not car sales anymore. And so are its investors.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And finally, remember Jack and I did that story on the bankruptcy of Hooters restaurant and like the Hooters founders were trying to buy back the brand? Well, pretty randomly, four shut down Hooters locations have been taken over by Duo Lingo, the language learning app whose mascot is an owl. Yeah, this week, duo put his logo across four shuttered Hooters locations, but no word on why he's doing it. I don't know what duo the Owls up to. I think he's just doing this for the clicks. Spanish language restaurant. Meegu's to Trace Tacos, Jack. Now time for the best fact yet.

Starting point is 00:18:39 This one sent in by Brent Hendrix from lovely New York City. Push and play. So you know all I want for Christmas is you by Mariah Carey. But did you know that Mariah's talent is also behind the holiday hit, Where Are You Christmas? That's sung by Faith Hill. It was originally written for the 2000 film How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But Mariah added additional lyrics to turn it into an uplifting holiday power

Starting point is 00:19:00 about it. However, the recording took place during her separation from Sony CEO Tommy Motola, so the song was given to Faith Hill to record. Not to fear if you're a Mariah fan, the artist has two entire Christmas albums to get you through this year's holiday season. Uh-oh, uh-oh, trigger warning for all the B'bley fans out there, Jack. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we had to bring Bouget back into the pot again. Have you recovered from yesterday's show? You just mentioned him twice, dude. No, dude, I agree. I agree. I agree. agree with you. His tie is too thin. I don't know what he's hiding there. In the meantime, though, congratulations to Mariah Carey, who just set a record of longest streak of

Starting point is 00:19:40 one song as number one in the singles charts. All I want for Christmas is you. That is, you look fantastic out there. And if you also bought 13 Bond Me sandwiches and dropped $24 grand on Uber Eats over the last year, we want to hear from you about what company should launch a rat. I know there's a lot of Costco fans out there that want the Costco You were wrapped in Kirkland. Toilip paper wrapped, courtesy of Kirkland. Drop your pick in the comments, and Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. H. Y.H. TV OI. If you know. You know.

Starting point is 00:20:09 Go, a shout out to Yeti Fernando R. Morea, a Yeti on Spotify, who is at our Chicago show and just bought tickets to our live show in Washington, D.C. Can't wait to see you there, Fernando. And a big shout out to Ajay Hira, who's listing all year over in Hong Kong. And Carrie, the newest Yeti Bessie out there. Welcome. We saw you on Spotify. Thanks for joining the pod. A shout out to Ryan, who sent us a cool story on Flock, the license plate scanner company. Nick and I are interested. And a congrats to Emily Joy Ashmeet who ran the Phoenix Marathon and made it a T-Boy 2 with the best sign in the race. And a big shout out to Christian Gonzalez, who ran the Dallas half marathon and his wife Kimber had the best sign yet. And to Char

Starting point is 00:20:55 Gupta, congrats on launching your fitness app, fitness wrapped, perfect timing. Happy 33rd birthday to Prasanti in Frisco, Texas. And happy birthday to Sophia Aguirre turning 45 years old down in Hotland of Georgia. And happy 18th birthday to Maddie Sussman in Woodbridge, Connecticut, who just got into her dream school, Tulane. Provide that green wave to the birthday party. And Joaquin Valenzuela is turning 14 years old over in Des Moines, Iowa. Happy birthday, Joaquin. Happy birthday to Evan Thomas in Austin, Texas.

Starting point is 00:21:23 We'll see it the live show. And Maureen Sanchez has the best birthday yet in New York City calling the show The Teddy instead of the Tea Boy. Okay, I'll take that. I have a brother named Teddy. We'll take it. We'll take it. This is Jack. I own stock of Lyft, Nick own stock in Zillow, and we both on stock in Airbnb and Spotify.

The Best One Yet - 💳 “America’s Fave Gift” — Gift Cards’ surge. White House’s Tech Force. Zillow’s Name-Yo-Price. +Uber Eats Wrapped.

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