The Best One Yet - 🐝 “BeyTok” — Beyonce’s TikTok. Wordle’s board game. Big Tech’s fear managers.

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

Beyonce has finally joined TikTok, but the real story here is how TikTok’s beating Google. The NYTimes and Hasbro are turning Wordle into a physical board game, because they’re playing chess while their copycats play checkers. And Big Tech’s management style is taking a page from old school Jack Welch: Less “Cool Mom,” more “Hunger Games.”$HAS $NYT $GOOG $METAFollow 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. Welcome back. It is Monday, July 18th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. It's a T-boy. Stocks, they pop before the weekend, not too shabby.

I popped a red-eye flight back to Vermont before the weekend, too. Okay, let me add this up, Jack. You now have a twisted ankle, a red eye, and you got sunscreen in your eye. Damn you, SBF. It gets us every time. Jack, what's our first story to kick off the week? The newest account on TikTok is Beyonce. Finally.

Because she dominates millennial tech, but she kind of forgot about Gen Z tech. For our second story, Tesla, Google, and Facebook have a new management strategy, discomfort. Goodbye, cool mom. Hello, Hunger Games. Our third and final story is that the New York Times just partnered up with Hasbro to make Wordle a physical board game. Okay, Jack, I think I got the word. I think I got the word. Here it is, here it is.

T-O-U-C-H? All green. Green tiles all the way. Right away, one and done. Before we hit that wonderful mix, though, Nick. I miss seeing it. That was really fun in LA, but today's pod really is a fantastic mix. This isn't your regular Monday. We're not turning the page to hoarder's almanac week 121.

Because yet is we're not running out of something this week. We actually have too much of something. We have a brand new surplus of emoji. Yeah, Jack and I are looking at the situation. We got extra emoji. We got 31 new emoji rolling in over the weekend. We just got the list before anyone else of new. emoji for 2022.

We should point out that little list, the new little icons is out, but it's up to Apple and Android to update their software. You better hurry up Apple and Android, because I want to be texting Maracas to millions before Christmas time. Boiler, Maraca emojis, they are coming. Now, Nick and I are going to do our best here,

but it's not easy for an audio product to describe little visual text characters. We are a podcast describing something you visually see on your phone. It's not easy. But here you go. The rookie class of new emoji for 2022. First up, we're getting a moose emoji. There you go.

Wisdom, the wisest animal. And it's not just a moose. We're getting a goose emoji, too. Big day for Canada. Moose is gooses. And we're getting a ginger emoji. Not the redhead, the root vegetable. You can spice things up with a literal spice.

But the biggest surprise emoji in this rookie class, we heard about from Yeti Justin Cramm. Yeah, besties, get this. Open up your phone and check out the calendar emoji. This actually is a little. a rookie emoji. This one's been on your phone for a while. Now, the date on that calendar emoji happens to be July 17th. July 17th. That's the date that's on everyone's calendar emoji.

And July 17th isn't just a calendar emoji. July 17th was yesterday. Because yesterday wasn't just July 17th. It was World Emoji Day. And because it was World Emoji Day, we got those 31 new emoji. Whip out the Maracas. Whip out your iPhone, do them both at the same time. Jack, we got ourselves an emoji miracle. Let's hit 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 an norm. 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, Beyonce, just finally set up her very first TikTok account. Why? Because TikTok's bigger than Google. You've been saving that one up for a while. You've been just wanting to just let that one out there. It was cathartic. It was. It was a good feeling.

In the meantime, Yetis, you know, Beyonce, she's in your head. But she's not really in your social media as much as you think. How's her activity on Facebook and YouTube, Nick? All right. Checking out right now. She drops music videos there, but like that's it. What about Twitter? Okay, Twitter.

Her last tweet, get this? 2020. Instagram? She's only posting like once a month, maybe twice a month. Let's be honest. It's her publicist. Despite that lack of activity, too. 268 million people follow Beyonce on Instagram to see those couple post month.

The fourth biggest country in the world is Beyonce's follower. Okay, so she's crushing Instagram without even trying. But now she's pivoting to TikTok. That's the news. Beyonce just joined TikTok. In fact, Beyonce just dropped her entire music catalog on TikTok. Finally, you can create a TikTok video and use Beyonce's tracks in the background. And not worry about getting sued by Jay-Z.

That's right. That's right. Now, if you like it, then you better put everything on it. Is that a trending dance yet on TikTok? I don't know, Jack. What I do know is that in 24 hours, she got three and a half million followers must be nice. Here's the thing, though, Yetis. Beyonce joining TikTok wasn't the biggest TikTok news last week. No, get information and get this. The one statistic that fascinated us came from a tech conference where a Google engineer mentioned this. Not mentioned, confessed this. True. It was a confession. Google confessed that 40% of Gen Z doesn't use Google for their internet search. They use TikTok first.

All right, sit down, stand up, sit back down again. Yeties, if you are under the age of 24, 40% of you don't Google where to eat lunch. You TikTok. I would never would. I would never do that. I honestly don't even know how to do that. I used to do that. So TikTok didn't just get the beehive on its platform this last week.

TikTok also just heard that it's beating Google. at Google's number one thing, search. For young people, TikTok isn't just a social media or video app. It's their internet app. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over TikTok? There's now a tech age gap. There's millennial tech and there's Gen Z tech. Yeties, we have always just bundled big tech into one category,

which is a digital playground that all young people use. But the generational divide for which tech you're using is clearer than ever before. For example, millennials prefer Netflix content. Gen Z prefers TikTok content. Millennials prefer keeping up with friends on Instagram. Gen Z messages them on Snapchat. And millennials prefer Google search. Apparently, Gen Z prefers TikTok search. The generational tech gap is clearer than ever.

For our second story, three major tech CEOs just said, hey, you got to work harder or we're going to fire you. The new management strategy we're seeing is less cool mom. More hunger games. Okay, just the reality right now, Jack. All right. Morale at tech companies. It's at a brutal love. The whole stock market is down, but stocks of tech companies are down way more.

And while the jobs market still feels strong overall, it's abysmal for tech workers in all bird's shoes. And it's not just that. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that perks are getting punctured at tech companies. Remote work. You're getting served up a little less of it. Join us in the office. Join us in the office where you're not even going to get kombucha.

Oh, and that's it. free Patagonia vest for the ops team. It's been canceled. This is a mass round of cost cutting, and it's the first time this generation of PMs has ever experienced it. You got rid of the soft surf machine? They got rid of the soft serve machine. Are you kidding me, man? But it's not just those physical perks, Nick. No, it is not, Jack. Tech CEOs are also stripping away psychological comforts too. Okay, Jack, this began just a couple weeks ago with Elon, right? Last month, Elon said he wanted to reduce the Tesla-saried workforce by 10%. And then Zuck wrote a sad email to his fellow Metamates that went a little something like

this. Zuck said, moving forward, we need to work with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger. But not for the free food we're going to give you because we're cutting back on that. Maybe you give us the Greek yogurt back and we can talk. Oh, and then finally, last week, Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, zucked what Zuck said and whip that up for all hands. Sundar Pichai said, we need greater urgency, sharper focus, and

more hunger. And by the way, Nick, all of these statements by these three companies, they're very similar. There's like a silent or else at the end, you know? It's a dot, dot, dot, dot situation. And you don't want to ask about the dot, dot, dot. Each of these three huge companies is lay and off workers, but they're also telling their existing workers that they better work harder. So, Jack, what is the implicit threat here? If you don't work harder, you're going to get fired. Miguel, hustle harder. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies, Everyone working in tech. Goodbye, cool mom. Hello, Hunger Games.

Okay, besties. A book actually just came out about Jack Welch. The first thing Jack and I thought of, he's the 80s, 90s prototype of an American CEO. Jack Welch ruthlessly transformed GE from mass employer and industrial Titan to like super lean finance profit machine. And part of that was changing the rules of how you treat employees. He had a very specific idea. Yeah, those three things the tech CEOs did, that's good. classic Jack Welch. He's keeping all the workers in the workforce on edge. Yeah, and now that

on edge discomfort is being brought back by tech CEOs. For a long time, though, it wasn't that way. Managers at tech companies were like the cool mom that hooked you up with like the dunkeroo's instead of like the broccoli you were getting at home. This isn't a performance review. It's a pizza party. Jack Welch's old school style never would have given pizza or perks like we're seeing today. He used fear and discomfort to motivate. his workers. That sounds a lot like the hunger games, which is no way to live, no way to run a company. During the tech downturn, we are seeing the return of Jack Welch's style of keeping workers on edge. It used to be cool, mom. Now you're a tribute in hunger games.

And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Nick, you got introduced to the Robin Hood app the old-fashioned way, right? Yeah, I did. My girlfriend now wife's older brother, who was that guy who worked in tech and knew about the next iPhone before Apple did. He told you about the Robin Hood app. You told me about the Robin Hood app. All right. So you signed up because you wanted to buy a stock. Because like it was hard to figure out how to buy a stock when you're 25 and it's 2014. Yeah, back then you had to find a broker.

Call a broker on the phone. Call them pay a commission to that broker. Instead of calling, suddenly there's his app. You just swipe and you could buy the stock. Robin Hood's interface felt as easy as ordering an Uber or snagging a sandwich on CEMS. And it still is. So if you're not a Robin Hood user yet and you want to get started, you can go to robin hood. com slash T-boy.

and you can choose, get this, a free stock. That's robinode.com slash TBOY. Certain limitations apply and all investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Robin Hood, by the way, no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, the online game wordle is now being turned into a physical game. The best game in innovation isn't checkers, it's chess. We're talking on like multiple levels there.

By the way, Jack, this is just, this is. is not a couple that we would see coming. Like, we did not see these two hooking up. The New York Times and Hasbro, the game company, just issued a joint press release. They knew each other in college. How did they even mean? Here's the opening sentence of the press release. The word is party. P-A-R-T-Y. And that's because the New York Times has turned to Hasbro to turn their digital word game that they acquired into a physical board game. And the physical board game version of Wordle is going to use dry race boards. Everyone gets one and the one who gets the word with a fewest guesses wins. So it's like your usual

Wordle, but instead of, you know, playing alone when you're on the toilet, you now are going to play against other people in public. That's right. It comes with green and yellow tiles that you can hand out as you get the letters correct. Okay, as soon as we heard this, we're like, uh, scrap the Scrabble, kill the cards against humanity. This year's holiday party, it's going to include a

rousing game of Wardle in the parlor after dessert. I'm sorry, honey, I burned the pictures but yet he's here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this wordal development. Wurdle is actually a very particular case study. Because Wirtle is one of the most zucked things of all time. Like literally, there is a litter of copycats of Wurdle.

It's only existed for seven months, and we found like five off the top of our heads. More Wurdle spinoffs than a Bravo series. For example, Jack, how about NERDL? Six guesses to guess a math question. All right, Jack, how about cloud? Six guesses to guess the city's weather forecast. Jack, how about Subway-Dle? Six guesses to figure out the subway route in New York.

City. Oh, and then there's not Wirtle, but absurdal. This is wild. This is really crazy. It's like Wirtle, but you guess, and then the word changes. That's absurd. And just last week, we told you about Hurtle, which is Wordle, but for guessing a musical track. Remember, you caught that one on the first try. That was

very impressive, Jack. Bohemian Rhapson. Exactly. Well, Hurtle just had their own startup exit. They were just acquired by Spotify. So should Wirtle be worried that all these entrepreneurs are making knockoffs at their products? You'd think Wirtle would be upset that every terrain they could go in is now being copied by someone who's knocking off their game and their

name. We don't think they should be upset, though, because every knockoff and every article about a knockoff references Wordle, right in the headline. That is some earned media. And let's talk about a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Wordle? Whatever one's playing checkers, you should play some chess. Okay, Besties. Also, we should point out there's now a game called Flago, which is like Wordle, but for guessing flag design. So unfortunately for Whirdle, they're not going to be able to launch a spin-off game where you guess a flag with stripes and colors. But you know what? If they did, that would just be playing checkers. That is not what Wordle or the New York Times are doing right now with Hasbro.

No, no, no. Wirtle is playing chess. They're thinking three steps ahead. Yeah, Wirtle is not racing to launch the next Wurdle of Blank. Instead, they launched a physical board game, the first one of theirs. Wirtle shouldn't be worried about the checker pieces that are moving around it. because Wordle just moved a rook over all those pawns. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to kick off the week? Beyonce finally joined TikTok, which is Gen Z's internet app.

Really, there are two big techs, millennial tech and Gen Z tech. For our second story, big tech CEOs are making it clear. We all have to work harder, and those who don't might get fired. Cool mom managers are out. Now it's Hunger Games. Our third and final story is that Hasbro is turning Wordle into a board game for the New York Times, chipping in October. Because Whartle's not playing checkers.

Wordle is playing chess. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Emmett McKay over in Tennessee. In middle school, I wrote a paper about the blue whale. So, okay. Let me take this one over, Nick. All right. You got this.

You were born to do that. It is the biggest animal on earth by far. Talk to us. You're on a roll. What else you got? 300,000 pounds, this thing is. Can you talk anatomy, Jack? How's that tongue looking?

Its heart is the size of. of a Volkswagen Beetle. This is wild. I'm just showing off now. But its tongue, Nick, its tongue is freaking enormous. Okay, it's so enormous that the blue whale tongue turns out to be 5,000 pounds. That means the blue whale's tongue, just the tongue, weighs more than an entire elephant. Which means the tongue of the biggest animal on earth weighs more than the biggest land animal on earth.

Its arteries are so big, a human being could crawl through them. Okay. Extra credit. You got an A on the paper, Jack. Honestly, impressive. Impressive you got all that after the red eye. I got an A plus in middle school and it burned into my memories. Yeties, you look fantastic to start the week. And if you haven't yet, to grow this pod, the big thing you can do is H-Y-H-T-B-O-I. Post us right on your Instagram story.

We'd love to get some likes. Have you had the best one yet? And before we go, Jack, remember Luke and Amelia, the two Yeties who got engaged in September? We gave him a shout-out. Sure do. Well, now they got married. and they're headed off to their honeymoon in St. Lucia. There we go. And bestie, Stuart Lundberg,

just had his reaching financial success book published on Amazon. Congrats to Jack N., who's starting his first year of medical school in Knoxville, Tennessee. And David Lewis Jr. starting a new job at an oil and gas company in where else but Houston. Happy birthday to Janet Tyler in Northville, Michigan. And Charlie Oswald, birthday over in Memphis, Tennessee.

Happy birthday to Leonardo Strait A. Rendon in Adelanto, California. And Lance Walters, a diehard Yeti, is turning 37 in the Outer Banks. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix. And Nick and I both on stock of Apple, Spotify, and Robin Hood. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time I tried to buy a stock, I got burned badly.

Is this when you wanted to buy a share of Ford? Because you like the chassis over in Detroit? Yes, I had 200 bucks, so I bought $200 of Ford stock. I didn't get $200 of Ford stock, though. I got $192. Ah, the commission fees. By the time the stock climbed back to $200, I sold it, but again, I didn't get $200. I got $192 again.

Another commission fee. The stock grows 8%, but I was down on my investment. Because commission fees made small money investing impossible. So Robin Hood came in and killed commission fees. And commissions are still dead in stock and crypto trading, thanks to our sponsor. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet to get started, go to robin hood.com slash t-boy and choose a free stock that's robinhood.com slash t-b-o-y certain limitations apply for a list of other fees view their fee schedule at rbnhd.cd.

c o's all investments involve risk robinood financial LLC member sipc oh and by the way robinid is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast and the stocks jack just said are for illustrated purposes only and are not recommendations let me tell you about that dorsal fit This thing could cut a steak in half, all right? It's a blue whale fin. Blow haul, more like more hall. Did someone say blue whale? No, I was just ordering some sushi.

Well, let me tell you about this thing.