The Best One Yet - 🎹 “Beethoven on shuffle” — Apple’s classical music app. Women’s college basketball record. Jamie Dimon’s legendary letter.

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Apple’s newest product is shockingly basic: A music streaming app just for classical music… but it could turn customers into fans. The real winner of March Madness was the NCAA women — They smashed viewership records because story is king. And JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon just shared his economic wisdom in an annual letter, but we’re focused on the less he taught his daughter.$AAPL $JPM $BACFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, April 5th, and today's pod is the best one yet. It's just such a T-boy, Jack. Big news for the pod. Nick is moving. Yes, I'm moving. From San Francisco to San Francisco.

We're going down the street yetis. If you're walking through Pacific Heights and you see someone pushing something, that's me and my wife. His proximity to the Presidio is prestigious. It's fantastic. Jack, first story for the pod. What do we got, man? NCAA Women's Basketball Championship nearly doubled its previous ratings record. Because finding viewers is like finding Nemo.

It's all about storytelling. For our second story, Apple just launched a classical music app. Jack, can you repeat that one for us, please? Apple just launched an app for classical music. Because you can't get a handle on your handle. And our third and final story is Jamie Diamond. Jamie! He just published his annual shareholder letter.

All about the economy. So Jack and I whipped up a takeaway on Jamie Diamond's takeaways. But before we hit that fantastic mix. A wonderful mix of stories, man. No one else is doing this mix. Wait, quiet for one second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you hear that?

Wait, Jack, I think, is that what I think it is? Is that my house plant talking to me? That's your house plant, man. It's talking to you. Yeties get this. A new study published by Cell Journal says that plants make noises, especially when they're stressed. We repeat, when you clip a leaf, that stem shrieks.

Your succulents can scream. Your snake plant, it is squawking right now. The study found that plants emit high-pitched ultrasonic sounds when they're stressed out. What we're saying here is not enough water, your cactus starts crying. Too much sun, your sunflower starts hollering. Here's what scientists discovered. A stressed plant may be warning other stressed plants nearby. It's like a 911 phone call, but for flora.

This is the emergency line, but for photosynthesis. These plants, they actually make noises that are the same volume as human conversation. This was kind of the shocking thing for Jack and me. But the plant's noises are so high-pitched, we humans can't hear them. So, Jack, can you sprinkle on, I'm sorry, can you water on the bad news for us here? When you forget to water your fiddly leaf plant, the figs start freaking out. Yiddies, if you just chomped on arugula, that arugula let out an ultrasonic, ouch. But there's good implications of this study, too.

Yeah, because we can use this knowledge to better care for our crops. We can literally hear watermelon plants ask to be watered. And you can water that watermelon and then ipso facto you get more watermelon. So, Nick, this brings to bear the age-old question. Yes, Jack, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, did that tree make a noise? No, it didn't make a noise. It shouted. Ouch.

I just hit the ground. Jack! Wait, one second. Did your plant just pull a hammock? It just said, Let's in our three stories. Fifteen 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 a norm. 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. For our first story, The real winner of March Madness, who was it, Jack? It was the women's college basketball world. Yes, it was because the recipe for high ratings is storytelling. Now, yetis, when something breaks a record, it usually breaks the record by just a smidge.

Like the next time you see a record broken, look how much it broke that record by, and you're going to be like, well, it was like a marginal amount. For instance, Barry Bond set the single season home run record by hitting just 4% more dingers than Mark McGuire had done. That's it. just 4%. But women's college basketball just hit record viewership. And how do they do a check? They didn't break the record by 4%. They broke their record by 74%. Get this, Yeties. On average,

9.9 million people were watching the LSU versus Iowa final of the Women's NCAA tournament. That is 4 million more people than the previous record women's basketball set in 2002. Ipso facto, that is nearly double the previous record that college women's. had set. This women's NCAA basketball final was 74% more watched than any final before it. Now, Jack, we got to whip out the whiteboard here. When you and I, when we see numbers like this, what is the first thing we're sinking, man? That is some market proof right there. Yes, it is. That is market proof that the demand for women's basketball is growing fast. Honestly, we're looking at the shot clock here and the timing couldn't have been better. No, it couldn't. Yeah, because the

NCAA women happened to be negotiating their next television deal right now. That's right. The NCAA women's basketball has been broadcast by ESPN since 1996. So when we look at the numbers that ESPN pays for women's college basketball, those numbers are stuck back in 1996. ESPN pays just six million dollars a year for the rights to broadcast women's Division One basketball. Jack, what's the price paid to broadcast men's college basketball? For men's Division One basketball, the NCAA gets a billion dollars a year compared to six million for women. Now, Jack, a key reason why men's college basketball is getting paid so much more than women's college basketball? Viewership. A lot of it's the viewership. More people watch men's games than women's games.

But now the NCAA has leverage to negotiate a much better deal for the women. The women just got twice as many eyeballs, twice as many watchers, record viewers of the NCAA tournament. Experts expect that the next TV deal for Women's Division I basketball will be at least 10 times more lucrative than the current deal. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in March Madness? Storytelling is king. Now, Jack, I believe you just finished that Brooklyn Bridge book, but you've begun another book that you've been dying to tell us about.

You want to tell us about it? Yes, it's called Creativity, Inc. And it's about the founding of the company Pixar, the animation studio. And Jack, do you want to share that really interesting challenge? after you just read in that Pixar book? A defining principle at Pixar, the number one defining principle, is story is king.

Yet he's not content as king, story is king. And critical to any good story is a good protagonist. Yes, it is. And this year, both women's finalists in the tournament had a protagonist.

Iowa had Caitlin Clark, who did something no man has ever done in the tournament. She scored a triple double with 40 points. And then you had LSU's Angel Reese who set her own record

in the women's tournament. She had 34 double doubles over the course of the season. Yeties on Sunday, the college women's basketball players demanded record attention. Because story is king. Story is queen. For our second story, Apple's newest product is a total surprise. We did not see this coming. What is it, Jack?

Apple's newest product is a classical music app. Because you can't build for customers, you got to build for fans. Let's scoot over to the Googleplex. They're building an AI chatbot at Google right now. Jack, let's talk about Tesla. Tesla is building a self-driving truck. Oh, and Zuck? He's building some kind of a fake meta world for the Metaverse.

I'm sorry, I got to do a double take on this man. Apple's newest product. Is it the Apple car? It better be an Apple car. It's a little less ambitious. Yeah. A classical music app. Apple just launched a classical music app from Vivaldi to Jikovsky.

They're bringing Beethoven back. Yeah, a little less Billy Elish, a little less Beyonce, a little more Bach. This app has 117,000 tracks composed by 20,000 people across four centuries. Jack, this is Spotify, but it's for symphonies and only symphonies. We got to ask, why did Apple acquire a classical music app, rebuild that app, and then relaunch it as Apple classical music? Why is Apple's newest product? Literally a niche classical music focused instrumental app. Jack. Because classical music has a metadata problem. Classical music has an organizational issue.

Yeah, it is, in the digital age, if you can't search for something, then that something doesn't exist. If you can't search for it, it doesn't matter, doesn't exist. Fact of digital life. And in streaming apps, classical music is so hard to search for. Yeah, don't believe us. Check this out. Search for Taylor Swift's bad blood. You're going to see what, Jack, like one example of Taylor Swift's Bad blood? You're going to see one option, maybe a second variation. On the other hand, let's say you want to enjoy a little bit of Swan Lake. How about that? Search for Swan Lake on Spotify. There's going to be 30 results that show up and you have no idea which one to pick. Try to enjoy some Puccini with your peanut butter. 30 different options. Jack, you want to do Gershwin? Good luck with that. The root of the

problem is that music is organized by three simple variables. Artist, title, and album. That's it. Easy for Taylor Swift. Every song you listen to has an artist. has a title and it has an album. On the other hand, classical music has a, it has a few different variables, doesn't it, Jack? For classical music, there's a bunch of other variables, like who's the composer, who's the ensemble, who's the conductor? What's the nickname to the song you're interested in? That's not even the entire thing.

There's even more of them. So, let Jack, let's jump in T-boy style here. Adam, could you play, um, Beethoven's Nine? Can we play Beethoven's Nine? No, no, no. Oh, wait. That's not Beethoven's Nine. That's Beethoven's fifth.

Adam, can we play Beethoven's 9th? Let's try again. That's the one. It's the only song I can play on the piano. That's the one. And Jack, what's the common name for that song? My nana told me that the common name for that song is Ode to Joy. Jack, what's the instrumental name for that song?

Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I'm sorry, but Jack, which musical key are you listening to that song in? Because there are different options. You can do A minor or C major. Concerto or Sonata, which version? Also, which symphony is. playing that song. Are you listening to the track by the Berlin Philharmonic? Or the London Symphony Orchestra. Or the Cleveland Lakeside Volunteer Symphony Orchestra. Or the Benevolent Police Association of the

2nd District. Don't even get us started on operas people. Yeah. Is it a matinee that this was recorded? Or is it an evening event? There's a whole different set of variables and a whole different bunch of track options. If you're a classical music fan, it is so hard to find the music you want on the streaming apps. You just can't search for it. So Apple made a new app. So Maestro, what's the takeaway for all our buddies

who build products? Apple isn't building for customers. It's building for fans. Now look, Yetis, Jack and I got to have a little confession with you here. Jack, you want to share it? We hate the word customers. We do.

We hate when people describe their buyers as customers. It's like so transactional, so emotionless, so cold, so clinical. The goal is for people who use your product to love your product. The goal isn't to create customers, it's to create fans.

Well, what Apple is doing with classical music is reaching fans, not customers. Apple could have put those resources into Apple Music, where it already has a lot of customers. Instead, Apple focused on a way smaller audience, classical music fans. If Apple can deliver for classical music fans, then those fans will become Apple fans. And that means Apple just turned one community from a customer base into a business. into a fan base. And now, a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The beauty of American finance, it's that your money works for you.

If you have cash sitting in an account, the financial institutions should pay you for it. Yeah, but not all due. Like, some accounts won't pay you anything for your cash. Robin Hood will pay you for your uninvested cash. In fact, with Robin Hood Gold, your money will work hard for you, generating 4.4% APY, one of the highest rates. For $5 a month, Robin Hood Gold sets no limit on how much cash you can put in. and you can invest or draw anytime. Terms apply.

To get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and get your first free stock. That's robinood.com slash TBOI. Certain limitations apply. Rate is subject to change. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Robin Hood is not a bank. For our third and final story, Jamie Diamond just published his annual shareholder letter about

everything in the economy. So Jack and I whipped up our highlights. And Nick and I, learned the same lesson that Jamie's daughter learned 14 years ago. Okay, Jack, can we toss on the suits and just call it like we see it? Can we just say this, man? There's only one bank that matters in America right now, and it's J.P. Morgan Chase. J.P. Morgan Chase.

J.P. Morgan Chase, it was always the biggest American bank, but now it is the extra biggest. It's nearly twice as big as Bank of America. It is nearly three times the size of Wells Fargo. It is more than four times bigger. Then Citibank. Don't even get us started on the lifts. We broke the calculator on that one. Goldman Sachs?

Goldman Snacks. J.P. Morgan Chase is eating spreadsheets like a sack lunch. JP Morgan Chase is led by Jamie Diamond since 18 years ago. Can you share that other context you wanted to sprinkle on, Jack? He's the only big bank CEO who's been through both the 2008 financial crisis and the current Silicon Valley Bank crisis. Great head of hair. He is the Warren Buffet of Bank. He's the Zygman Freud of Finance. He is the Beyonce of the leveraged buyouts.

And he writes a letter for us to read once a year, so we read it. We read the J.P. Morgan shareholder letter for you. And here are our top four observations from J.P. Morgan's annual shareholder letter. First observation, it's all about the data. It's the data. Data. That was the number one most frequently used word in the letter. 27 times we control after. Data, it's the oil of the digital economy. And Jamie said that JPMorgan has identified 300 use cases for artificial intelligence that are in practice already at his bank.

Okay, observation number two. Jamie thinks that Silicon Valley Bank was avoidable. He said the problems with Silicon Valley Bank were hiding in plain sight for all of us to see. Basically, SVB's management blew it. But regulators should have stopped them sooner. The third observation about Jamie's letter, they're worried about Walmart. Jamie Diamond noticed that Walmart has 200 million customers in their stores every single week. Forget Wells Fargo.

J.P. Morgan sees Walmart as a potential competitor in banking. And the fourth and final observation from the Jamie Diamond letter, the weather has improved. Remember in last year's letter, Jamie forecast an economic hurricane? It's really kind of nerve-wracking. It was a kind of dark letter last year. I remember it while. Well, he was kind of wrong about that forecast. So this year he says the weather's pretty good for the economy, but there's storm clouds ahead. You can wear shorts, but grab an umbrella just in case.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy, Jamie? Over at JP Morgan Chase. What is a financial crisis? It's something that happens every seven years. Yet he's back in 2009, Jamie Diamond's daughter came up to him and asked this question. Dad, what's a financial crisis? And Jack, what was Jamie Diamond's answer? It's something that happens every seven years.

That's what he said. It's something that happens every seven years. What Jamie was saying is that in America, a major economic decline is inevitable. The U.S. economy, it has long booms and short, painful busts. If you zoom out, it's an upward line. Our economy and stock markets have always grown. But downturns inevitably happen. And that pain is often most felt in the financial sector. It's a helpful reminder from America's wisest banker. We don't know exactly what will happen with the economy, but also we kind of do. We kind of do.

Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us in C minor and try not to be flat on this one? You were a little sharp on that last takeaway. Dun, done, done, done. The women's basketball tournament nearly doubled its previous viewership record. Because story is king. For our second story, Apple is playing maestro. It just launched a classical music app. Apple didn't make it for customers.

It made it for fans. And our third and final story is J.P. Morgan's shareholder letter. They focused on data, Silicon Valley Bank, Walmart, and the economic weather. What is a financial crisis? It's something that happens every seven years. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by John Killen Jr. from lovely Tampa, Florida. Push and play.

Here we go. Phil Knight, Sunny Vicaro, and Michael Jordan are three legends who changed the game of sports and fashion. Nearly 40 years ago, they created Jordan's first shoe deal worth $2.5 million. over five years. Yeties. This led to the birth of the iconic Air Jordan Sneaker line. Fast forward to 2022,

and the Jordan brand generated a whopping $5.1 billion U.S. in revenue. Their work revolutionized the sneaker industry and paved the way for the athlete brand partnerships we see today. If that interests you,

the new Nike movie Air is in theaters today. He just whipped up a good takeaway. Are you trying to take our job, John? I think he's whipping up takeaways here, Not too shabby, John. Not too shabby. Also, if you like the movie and you like that fact,

then you should read the book, Shudog by Phil Knight. Once I'm done with the Brooklyn Bridge and the book about Pixar, I will. Story is king. Three stories is a little too much. Yeties, you look fantastic today. And wherever you are,

walk over to that succulent next to you and say, H-Y-H-T-B-O-I. And then say it's going to be okay. Have you heard the best one yet? If you know, you know. If your plant knows, it knows. Nick and I, see you tomorrow. Can't wait.

And before we go, congratulations to Yeti's Nate and Vanilla, who just moved from San Diego to Chicago to do logistics. Happy five-year anniversary to Chelsea and Eric in Berlin, New Jersey. And Lizzie Dolan is celebrating the 30th birthday in Palm Spring, with a 13 going on 30 party. Happy birthday to Sophie Kempit, who's all. on the way to school in Shreveport, Louisiana. And Daniel Day is turning 20 from Edmonton Oilers, Alberta.

An happy 30th birthday to Samuel Sherman in St. Augustine, Florida. Do not celebrating with lemonade, you're celebrating with lemonade. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a tea bar. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Apple, Spotify, and Robin Hood. And now, a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The pizza from that new spot down the street, it's twice as good as the old spot. in Tokyo was three times as good as pizza in the U.S., right, Nick?

It really was. Now, Jack, it is hard for something to be four times as good as something else, though. What about 18 times as good? Okay, Robin Hood now offers 4.4% APY on your uninvested cash with Robin Hood Gold. For $5 a month, Robin of Gold will offer you interest that is 18 times the national savings account average. That's according to bank rate as of January 25th, 2023. No pizza is 18 times better than other pizza, but this account is 18 times.

better. Terms apply. To get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and get your first stock for free. That's robin hood.com slash T-B-O-I. Certain limitations apply. Rate is subject to change. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Robin Hood is not a bank. Sorry, I just got gas. Hold on one second. I'm burping myself like a baby. You got to burp you. A little thing people don't know about podcasters. We got to be burped. We got to be burped to hit the microphones well. Before every takeaway, I got to burp Jack, you know, I got to make sure he's hidden the right notes. Hey, Jack, what's the takeaway?

One sec. Jack, what's the takeaway? Jack, what's the takeaway?