The Best One Yet - 🏒 “Booty Check” — Heated Rivalry’s $$$ surge. Apple’s AI “iPin”. Dimon vs. Trump. +Soft Partying

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Heated Rivalry is HBO Max’s gay romance hit… and it’s boosting NHL ticket sales.Apple’s AI wearable device is reportedly… an always watching, always listening iPin. President Trump sued Jamie Dimon for $5B… because they disagree about your credit credit.2026 is the year of “soft partying”. Van Wilder is now Van Milder.$AAPL $JPM $WMDBuy tickets to The IPO Tour (our In-Person Offering) TODAYAustin, TX (2/25): SOLD OUTArlington, VA (3/11): https://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/shows/341317 New York, NY (4/8): https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0000637AE43ED0C2Los Angeles, CA (6/3): SOLD OUTGet your TBOY Yeti Doll gift here: https://tboypod.com/shop/product/economic-support-yeti-doll NEWSLETTER: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 Friday the real Friday. January 23rd, 1, 2, 3. 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. Jack, I got two out of my four birthday wishes so far.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, okay. Well, stocks rose. We're almost at a record high. Okay, good. And guac was not extra. Yes, it was. Okay.

I know you're a Chipotle shareholder. Trisha and Daniel. Yeties from Boulder, Colorado sent me a Chipotle gift certificate. So the guac... No way. ...was an extra. First time in economic history. That is a legendary move.

Yeah. Dan from Denver? Dan from Denver with the extra guac. That's awesome. But three stories for today's team boy. What have we got on the pod? For our first story, we just got a leak on Apple's first AI hardware device. And it's not glasses or a bracelet.

It's a wearable pin. Boom, Apple's iPin. That is your next iPhone. For our second story, HBO's heated rivalry is boosting ticket sales for real-life hockey by 75%. The hit gay romance is causing a Taylor Swift effect on ice. But for hockey.

And our third and final story. It's the biggest showdown in the world right now. It's not the United States versus Greenland or Europe. It's Donald Trump versus Jamie Diamond. JP Morgan's legendary CEO just got sued by the president. And this lawsuit might actually affect your credit card. But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories.

I mean, what a mix of stories before the weekend. Jack, the best mix. 2026 is the year of soft partying. Soft partying. That's the headline over at The Business Insider. I've got a little soft with my partying, to be honest. So I wanted to jump in T-Boy style and see that I'm actually on trend here.

Yeah, we poured a couple of whiskeys and got curious about this one. Get this, millennials are still going out together this weekend. That's a fact. But instead of going hard and then having a hangover, you're going soft. We're talking meaningful, out-free, in real-life connections, baby. The kind of thing you would have found super lame in college, but that sound amazing today. Okay, listen to the events we discovered. There are book clubs doing takeovers of entire bars this Friday night.

Instead of dance clubs, young people are doing dance classes together. Instead of pulsing at the club until 2 a.m. You're plunging with friends at 2 p.m. Saturday morning, not Saturday night. There's actually a social club that does cold brew, cold plunges. True story. It's called coffee and chill club. Sip an ice lattes with your friends while sitting in ice with your friends.

You're going to want to bring an extra towel and an extra napkin. Get this. New York City's biggest sauna? Other ship? They're open until midnight. Because that's the new nightlife. You're not schvitzing to cure your hangover. You're just schvitzing never had a hangover.

The steam room. It's the new happy hour. And it's not work hard, play hard. This is work hard party soft. 2026 is the year Van Wilder became Van Wilder. If you know, you know, I said decap. I just need it. Decaf. Let's in 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, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 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. Our first story, Jack, call a plumber because we got a leak. Apple is reportedly building an AI wearable next year. We call it the I-pin.

Because in 2027, everyone will be wearing devices with cameras and microphones that see and hear everything. But first, congratulations to our buddies over at Apple, just voted by Fortune Magazine, the most admired company in America. For the 19th year in a row, this is the most boring list ever. But Nick, the last successful product Apple actually launched was AirPods 10 years ago. 2016. So to remain admired Jack, Apple needs something good. I need something new. I'm going to need something A.I.

And the answer, according to reporting from the information, is a wearable pin that Apple's working on. It's the size of an air tag. Nick and I call it the eye pin. Ah, the eye pin. This thing will have a microphone and two cameras, and those will feed Siri with information. about you all the time. The result? A personal assistant, Siri,

who knows what you've heard and seen all day because it's pinned right there on your cute top and it sees and hears everything. For example, like Jack, you could say, Hey, Siri, where is my car parked in the airport garage? She knows the answer because she saw it. She was there when he parked it. Or hey, Siri, when did my boss say that report was due again?

Siri knows the answer because she heard it. She was there in the room. Or hey, Siri, did these caprees make my butt look big? what do you think? She's going to give you an honest answer on that one, Jack, if I know Siri, and if I know her looking at you. Well, this whole story reveals the next era of tech hardware. Wearables as witnesses. Wearables as witnesses. Yeties, the future will be recorded with microphones and cameras on your clothing. Now, that sounds kind of freaky, like a surveillance world we're entering, but it also offers you some really nice benefits as a consumer. Yeah, you don't have you

wearing those capris maybe. Or we're already kind of seeing this, Jack, right? Like Meta shipped 4 million rayband glasses last year with built-in cameras recording everything. Google invested in Warby Parker last year to build out the same thing, AI smart glasses. Amazon acquired B last summer, a clip on pin or bracelet that is always listening to you. And Open AI poached Apple's top designer, Johnny Ive, to create the same thing that Apple's working on, always-listing AI wearable. And now there are reports that Open AIs building AirPods that have front-facing cameras that see what you see. Yet is the shift that's going to happen in tech hardware.

Here's one way to think of it. Today, the iPhone you have in your pocket is passive. It's like a squatter. It only does something if you summon it. But tomorrow, the iPin will be active, absorbing your life 24-7 like some kind of digital unblinking owl. Or Nick, not just like an unblinking owl, like Gary from Veep.

Selina Meyer, we know you're listening, and we know you approve of this message. So, Jack, what's the take? away for our buddies over at Apple making the eye pin. In AI assistance, context beats coding. The context is actually the moat. So Jack and I were thinking, Eddie's, like, if there was a Mount Rushmore for assistants in movies, who are you going to put on it, Jack? Who are you putting on it? Jarvis from Iron Man, Gary from Veep, Alfred from Batman, and Andy Sacks, which is Anne Hathaway's character in Devil Wears Prada. By the end of the movie, she'd earn that role. The commonality here,

besties, is that all of these assistants know their bosses incredibly well so they can serve their bosses incredibly well. That's why the tech you already have and use every day, they're going to win in the market for AI assistance in the future. What Jack's saying is basically the big tech already has the 15 years of context about your life. For example, Google's Gemini, it can plan your best vacation because Google has access to 15 years of your emails, your calendar, your search history and your YouTube viewing. Or Jack, Apple, Siri could become your best AI therapist because it has 15 years of your photos, your eye messages, your fitness activity from the Apple Watch. And soon, both Apple and Google will see and hear what you see and here because of these

always-on AI wearables. And because the more context about you, the better AI can work for you. Since context is the moat, the big tech incumbents have a huge advantage in AI. For our second story, the show Heated Rivalry has officially affected the economy. Hockey tickets sales are surging because of this hit gay hockey show. What's really happening here, though? It's the Taylor Swift effect on ice. All right, Jack, I'm checking the calendars here. We got exactly two weeks until the Winter Olympics begin in Milan.

That's it. America's pregame for the Winter Olympics is Canada's top show. Because the number two show on HBO Max right now, is Heated Rivalry. It's the biggest moment for hockey since the Zamboni. Yes, we know what you're thinking, Yetis. We did highlight Heated Rivalry earlier this month with a little bit of business analysis. We pointed out that NHL is extremely dependent on hockey movies for mainstream. Yeah, hockey has strong ROI at the box office. But today, we've got an update because we just got more data, didn't we, Jack? The gay hockey romance, Heated Rivalry, is now driving ticket sales of actual hockey. Get this, on

On Stubhubhub, ticket searches for hockey games are up 75%. On Seatgeek, revenue on hockey tickets rose 30% since the show's first episodes were aired. Google searches for hockey players, hockey books, they're at all-time highs, and not just because Hendrik Lundquist is a beautiful man. It's because of the heated rivalry. Off the ice, concert venues are hosting heated rivalry-themed raves. Uh-huh. Two in Burlington, right near me, are sold out.

It's just LGBTQ-friendly rave. with like a vague hockey theme. But besties, this is what Jack and I find fascinating. Yes, we are fans of hockey and Shane and Ilya, but we are most fascinated about the strategy here. Oh, I think we're going to say about the cottage. More on the cottage and a sec. But there are a lot of X's and O's that went into the business of making the show

that made it a success. Yes, some strategic planning helped make Heated Robbery a streaming hit that would make Coach Bombay proud. Now, interestingly, HBO distributes the show in America, but it was produced by a Canadian company. called Bell Media, which doesn't have other big shows in the country right now. But people at Bell Media saw what happened at Bridgeton, and they said, we can copy that formula, but for hockey. They copied Netflix's Bridgeton formula and broke it down like this,

a racy script, an unknown cast, plus a surprise setting. Heated robbery has all those things. Plus, great storytelling has to have stakes. For Bridgeton, it was lust within a formal monarchy. For Heeded Rivalry, the stakes are the tension of gay lovers in a sport without any openly gay pro players. The other strategic move that led to Heated Ravory's success was the timing of its launch. The timing, because Heated Rivalry was originally planned to launch in February after the Winter Olympics, basically like a month from now. Instead, they took a riskier approach that had a higher reward. They built momentum up before the Olympics. So they moved the Heated rivalry release date to Thanksgiving instead. And Jack,

Why is Thanksgiving a strategic choice? The six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's are when consumers hunt for new shows and share the new stuff they're watching. I mean, is there any better conversation starter at a holiday party than... Dude, I heard about the heat of robbery on a chairlift over the holidays. Classic, Jack. And that's what drives the industry. And now Heated Ravery is doing streaming numbers for HBO Max that would make Logan Roy jealous. Get this.

This may be one of the wildest hero stats we've ever come across. One out of seven Heated Robbins. Vivalry viewers rewatched an episode five times or more. We got to repeat that. I don't think I've ever done that for anything, Jack. One out of seven viewers rewatched an episode of Heed Rivalry five times. You know why, Nick? Why, Jack?

The extremely explicit sex scenes. People watched it and then rewatched it four more times. I thought you were going to say it was because they were curled up at the cottage binging on hockey pros. But Jack, before Sidney Crosby interrupts the pod, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Heeded Rivalry in HBO? The Taylor Swift effect just jumped sports from football to hockey. Now, yeah, it is as a lifelong hockey player, I can tell you, this is arguably hockey's biggest

moment ever. Like Google searches for hockey players, they're in an all-time high, and we're down with it. And it's because of heat of robbery, which has had dance raves sell out venues with 6,000 people from New York to California. But here's the surprise when you dig further into the data. It's not gay men who are driving the viewership. Of the 8 million streaming viewers, two-thirds are female.

according to HBO and Jack's wife Alex. She pulled me into a few episodes. I gotta say it is a great storyline. But we have seen this before, have we not, Jack? Taylor Swift in the NFL. She got football into the female gaze. Her relationship with Travis Kelsey drove NFL viewership among women under 35, up by 35%.

And according to a Harris poll, 79% of millennial women now identify as NFL fans. Those women, they are who's driving NFL merch growth right now. Well, heated rivalry could be sparking. interest among women in the NHL. While hockey is having its Taylor Swift effect, but with Shane Hollander instead. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story before the weekend, President Trump just sued Jamie Diamond,

CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase for $5 billion for closing his accounts after January 6th. Here's how Jamie Diamond became an accidental leader of the business world's Trump resistance. Oh, yet he's America's president versus America's CEO. Forget Elon and Altman. This is the big battle of the business year. Yesterday, the president of the United States filed a lawsuit in federal court against J.P. Morgan Chase and their CEO, Jamie Diamond, personally. Jack, let's dive in T-boy style to the litigation. What are we seeing in the red line there?

According to the lawsuit, J.P. Morgan Chase told Donald Trump in February of 2021 that his personal and business his bank accounts would be closed in two months, so he better transfer that money somewhere else. Now we should sprinkle on some context here. That was weeks after the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, Biden had just become president. Trump says that the account closures were due to, quote-unquote, unsubstantiated woke beliefs and to follow political tides. The lawsuit then claims that Jamie Diamond in particular put Trump's name on a blacklist of people the industry should refuse to open bank accounts with. J.P. Morgan has responded to the lawsuit by saying they do not close accounts for political or religious reasons. They do close accounts because they create

legal or regulatory risk for the company. Now, Jack and I, we did work at banks and we can tell you that federal law requires your review accounts for legal and regulatory risk. You watch a whole lot of office compliance videos every year to make sure you know your customer. True. So JP Morgan could have decided Donald Trump would be charged with crimes, which he was in three jurisdictions. But now here's the situation. The president is demanding $5 billion from Jamie Dine. and America's biggest bank. So, what's going to happen next? Will Chase settle and donate to Trump's presidential library,

as Disney's CBS, a bunch of law firms and a bunch of universities have? Or will Jamie and JPM stand up for their rights and defend themselves in court? We'll see. But one fascinating trend, Nick and I have noticed. In 2025, just about zero CEOs said anything publicly that might upset the president. Even like the Heinz ketchup CEO was dancing on eggshells for a whole year there. But so far in 2020, We're seeing a change.

Just in one month, Jamie Diamond has said at least three things that have upset President Trump. All right, we got the list here. Whip out the whiteboard. First, Jamie Diamond defended Jerry Powell. He said political pressure on the Fed would backfire on America. Then Jamie Diamond said that President Trump's proposed 10% interest rate cap on credit cards would be, quote, unquote, an economic disaster. And then just this week, he condemned Trump's immigration policy, saying,

I don't like what I'm seeing with five grown men beating up little. women. That last one, Jamie Diamond said on Wednesday at Davos. And the very next day, Donald Trump sued him for $5 billion. The message to other CEOs, speak negative about me in public, and you get sued. Which is ironically what Trump is suing Jamie Diamond for basically right now. And there's still a 40% chance. Jamie Diamond runs for president in 2028. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in President Trump versus Jamie? If credit card interest rates do get capped, they'll get canceled. Yeties, Jack and I want to focus on that credit card cap idea, we mentioned earlier,

which caused Jamie Diamond to actually mention Jack's home state of Vermont in this whole situation. I don't think Jamie Diamond's ever publicly said Vermont. Yeah, he actually needed help pronouncing it. I heard Jack. On Monday, President Trump called on Congress to cap credit card interest rates for one year at 10%. Now, Jamie Diamond says that if that happens, banks will close 80% of credit cards out there. Basically, there's no margin. There's no model here. And the reason is explained by Finance 101. With higher risk, must clumb higher reward. If banks can't collect the higher reward of 20% interest,

they simply won't offer credit cards in the first place. So Jamie Diamond's interesting idea, he wants to test Trump's plan in Vermont and Massachusetts. Basically, cap credit cards in progressive states where senators agree with the interest rate cap. And his prediction is that without the reward of high interest, banks will stop offering credit cards to the bottom 80% of credit scores in those states. I mean, Jack, if you think about it, it's kind of like rent control in the real estate industry. Without a financial incentive, banks just won't do it. We think a better idea to help people financially would be to ban overdraft fees. There's no negative consequences to that. Because add it all up, and if credit cards get capped, credit cards get canceled. Jack, could you'll whip

up the takeaways for us for the real Friday? Apple is developing an eye pin you'll put on your shirt that will see and hear everything you do. All that context is a moat. It turns Siri into your super Siri personal assistant, wearables as witnesses. For our second story, heated robbery is Canada's gay hockey romance, and it's driving ticket sale demand up 75%. American women specifically, it's the Taylor Swift effect on ice. And finally, the president sued Jamie Diamond and JPMorgan Chase for $5 billion for

allegedly unfairly closing his accounts. And if credit cards get capped, they get canceled. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, the envelope, please, Jack. Oscar nominations came in yesterday. And Sinners, the genre-bending vampire movie, got a record 16 noms.

Yeah, 16 noms beats the previous record of 14, which was set by Titanic, La La Land, and a movie from way back in the day, all about Eve. Yeah, we should point out Sinners is much more critically acclaimed than Twilight. I feel like that should be out there, Jack, yeah. In terms of vampire lore, sinners gets the win. By the way, Warner Brothers led all studios with 30 nominations. Seems like Netflix may have to off the price jack.

And second, Capital One is buying Brex for $5.5 billion $9 years after Brex was founded by a couple of Brazilian entrepreneurs. Brex started as the credit card for startups, but it's expanded into an entire financial platform for startups. A reminder, Capital One also acquired rival credit card company Discover last year for $35 billion. bucks. What's in your wallet, Capital One? Brex and Discover. And a couple of Stanford grad dropouts. And finally, put Diamond versus Trump on hold. Ryanair and Elon are fighting online, and it's driving ticket sales for Ryanair. Elon is mad that Ryanair won't add Starlink Wi-Fi to their

airplanes. So he called the CEO stupid on Twitter. And then he pulled Twitter about whether he should buy Ryanair, which, as you know from studying abroad, is the super cheap budget European airline. So Ryanair's CEO turned his bat with Elon into a sales promo. And guess what? Bookings are up 2 to 3%. Yeah, if you get into a fight with Elon, profit puppy. Now time for the best fact yet,

which today is actually a correction to the pod. Yeah, we're cleaning things up at the end of the week. You got to do that before the weekend. It's like in box zero. All right, so this one's from Laura Williams. We accidentally said Mark Carney was the Canadian president. We, of course, meant he was the prime minister. And this next correction comes from Tom Sexton.

Jack and I used an analogy about Aldi, the grocery store, and inflation, saying it was born in the darkness like Batman was. Of course, Bain was born in the darkness, not Batman. Besties, we rigorously fact-checked the pod, but sometimes something slips in. You think darkness is your ally? No, actually, I thought the fact-checkers were our ally, Jack. Yeties, you look fantastic today. Whether you're out till 2 a.m. hard partying or you're out till 8 p.m., soft partying and a soft partying. Oh man, dude. I need some softbiting this weekend.

Well, like half the country is going to be covered in snow this weekend from what I saw, Jacks. Although it could be like just a ton of rain or a ton of snow, depending on like 32 or 33. Did you pick up anything I just put down? Yeah, it was pretty rudimentary physics lesson you just gave us. Thank you, Jack. Well, yeah, it is. If it's rain, put out a rain car.

If it's snow, stay safe and do some snow angels. And whoever you're hanging out within that sauna at 8 p.m., tell them H-Y-H-T-B-O-I. That helps us grow the pod. Have you had the best one yet? Celebrate the wins, and Jack and I will see you Monday. Before we go, a happy one, two, three birthday to Mila, celebrating on the way to Tahoe with Akshay, legendary longtime Yeti's Jack.

Happy birthday to Sarah Warren in Harlem, Georgia, who's listening with her kids, Allison and Isaac. What's up, guys? And Jessica Haggerty has the best birthday yet down in Austin. Hope to see it the live show, Jessica. Happy birthday to Emily from Beaumont, Texas. And Rocky Wanderson, down in Columbus, Ohio is celebrating a fantastic birthday.

Happy birthday to Sarah Jorgensen in Seattle, Washington. And Juneau, you, happy first birthday. This is your best one yet over in Los Angeles. And happy four-year wedding anniversary to Weish and Maddie up in Washington. And to anyone else celebrate something today. Make it a T-Bahawk. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack.

I own stock of Netflix, Amazon, and Warby Parker, and Nick and I both own stock in Chipotle and Apple. That was a good Bain impression. And you know. That was really good. That was really good. Honestly, I thought you had a device. I thought you had the device on you.

I don't know how you did that because you stepped away from the microphone.