The Best One Yet - 🤔 “China’s Factory Revolt” — Trade war moves to TikTok. Moleskine’s Gen Z board. Zuck's FTC lawsuit.

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Chinese factories are retaliating in the trade war… with TikTok videos exposing $5 Lulu pants.Moleskine’s journals are thriving despite the digital age… because they created a Gen Z Board.Will Instagram get split from Meta?... Zuckerberg testifies this week in FTC vs. Meta.Plus, the untold origin story of… The Super Soaker.$LULU $META $SPYWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Super Soaker 🔫Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Susper Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.—-----------------------------------------------------Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy. Tuesday, April 15th. And today's pod, it's the best one yet. This is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Yetis don't withhold any longer. Your taxes are due today. Pause the pod. Yep. File that W-2 like you're writing off your soul. But today's pot is so good. It should be an exemption. So, Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got on the T-boy? Four are first stories. There's a brand-new front-end-end. in the trade war that nobody is talking about. True story. Chinese factories are exposing American brands on TikTok. Do your $100 Lulu Lemon Leggans actually cost just five bucks to make?

We'll tell you in our first story. There's a revolution brewing. For our second story, how is Moleskin? A brand that makes journals, books, and diaries thriving right now. Moleskin is winning because it's got a board of Gen Z's. That's right. It's got a Gen Z board of directors. And our third and final story.

The epic antitrust lawsuit against Meta began on Monday. And here's what's at stake. Zuck could actually lose Instagram. But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories! Love the T-Boy Tuesday Mixed. Yesterday we asked you a trivia question. What famous toy was invented by a NASA rocket scientist?

And the answer is the Super Soaker. The billion-dollar toy that was created by accident in a man's bathroom. The Super Soaker. It's destroyed more. more sibling relationships than any other toy in the world. Mom, he shot me first! Mom, she shot me in the eye! It also became the top-selling toy in America in the 1990s,

right after it debuted. Basically, where there was water, there was a Super Soaker. But few know the story of the Super Soakers, legendary founder. A black man who grew up in the segregated South. Lonnie Johnson was a NASA engineer who worked on spaceships, but side hustled with water guns. And even after selling that brand to a big toy company, he had to sue to get paid what he was owed.

We actually mentioned him during Black History Month. And we turned that fact into this entire new episode. So Yetis, check out the latest episode of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet. Because this week, we'll tell you the true origin story of The Super Soaker. Tap the link in the episode description to listen to our other show, TBIY. The Best Idea Yet. Oh, also, we're going to tell you the secret to a successful side hustle. You're going to love it.

But today's show is fantastic. Today's show, Jack, they should deserve a deduction. Jack, let's hit our three stories for me. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is a 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. For our first story, we've noticed a strange, shocking new battle in the trade war that no one is covering.

Chinese factories are exposing American brands to influence how you buy. What we're saying is the trade war is now moving to TikTok. Now, yeties, Jack and I use social media for a bunch of research. We like to find trending stuff before it's in the news, before it's even trending. And this one has not been covered by the Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg, CNBC, or anyone else. And here it is. TikTok videos from Chinese factories

are exposing the real price of your clothes. They claim to spill the beans that you're made in America brands are actually made in China. And that the American brands you love are actually charging you 10 times more than they pay for those clothes. Here's a few examples of the videos we found on TikTok.

These are wild. Let's hit him, Trey. Who's the Chinese supplier behind Under Armour? Shenzhou International, which is one of the largest clothing factory, in China. It also supplies for many other big, famous brands, such as Adidas, Nike, Uniclo, Blue Lemon, and so on. Interesting. One company produces for all of those brands. Oh, and get this, Jack. That video got 1.7 million views. Here's another one. All right, let's hit it. While people are out here clowning Shane and Tamu for being cheap and low quality, the expensive stuff you think

is handcrafted in Paris or Milan. Yeah, that's made in China too. So that one you can tell is a voiceover with AI because they mispronounced Chi him. Still, Jack, I'm looking at the numbers. 2.6 million views on that video. All right, our last one. Oh, let's hit it. I guess most of you know the price of Lulu Lemon or other big brands. They sell you a leggings pants for $100. And guess what? Here in these two factors, you can get them for around five to six bucks. Crazy. One hundred dollar leggings from Lulu Lemon only cost $5 in China. I'm taking my pants off right now, Jack. I am insulted by those prices.

That video got 9.4 million views on TikTok. Okay, pause the pie. Jack, what did we just watch? It looks like Chinese factories are doing a disc track on American capital. I feel like we're in the middle of a capitalism rap battle right now. That's what these videos are. So Nick and I tried to dissect these videos,

and we realize they're making two distinct points. First point is respect made in China. Made in China is where high-end products are actually created, according to these videos. Their second point is really about the price. Lulu, yeah, they're ripping you off. Because Lulu Lemon is charging us 20x markups. They're taking a $5 pair of pants and charging us $100 in the stores. If you're a line leggings cost $100 a Lulu and $5 in China,

like at that point you're not going to the Westfield Mall, you would book a flight to China and buy them direct from the factory. But Nick and I heard those 20x markup numbers, and they sounded off to. us. Like, Jack and I are studying profit margins all the time. We have not seen retail profit margins of physical goods at like 90%. So we fact-checked those numbers by looking at Lulu Lemons audited financials. Because, Jack, what's the one thing we happen to love in particular about the United States stock market? It's a bastion of truth. Yes, it is. Legally. If Lulu Lemon lies in their earnings report, they can go to jail. All right. So Jack, let's whip out the latest copy of Lulu Lemon's

Quarterly earnings. What kind of numbers are we seeing? They pay 40% of the revenue in cogs, which are their costs of goods sold. So based on those cogs, that cost of goods sold, Lulu is saying the $100 pair of leggings that they sold you cost them $40 to produce. So Lulu says their leggings cost $40 to produce. TikTok says they're $5 to produce. Again, Lulu says it costs them $40 to make those aligned leggings. TikTok says you can buy them for $5.

straight from the factory in China. That's a huge difference. Which leads us to the even bigger story that's in our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies watching these viral Chinese factory exposure videos? China just weaponized TikTok in the trade war. Uh, yet he's full disclosure. We don't have proof of China's government being behind these factory exposure videos, and we're not saying that China's government is behind them. But TikTok's algorithm did push those three videos to 13.7 million users, even though each of the videos was posted from an anonymous TikTok account. And that's a reminder about a reality about TikTok. The algorithm is a black box. The concern with TikTok has always been that the Chinese government could demand an algorithm

tweak to so distrust and misinformation on Americans. Well, Jack, that's kind of what's happening here, right? These videos have made people very angry at U.S. brands we can tell from the comments. And during the trade war, they're right now helping build empathy for Chinese factories. Even though they're saying numbers, five bucks per leggings, that Nick and I didn't pass our fact check. It is good to know where your clothes actually come from that was interesting and important to see. But like you said, it's clear to us that much of the numbers and stats from these videos are hugely exaggerated. So Basties added all up, and for the first time, we were seeing the trade war reach a new battleground, TikTok. When you've heard politicians call for TikTok bands, something like this,

was their concern. And that is what is so important about these $5 Lleu Lemon leggings videos. They show how China can weaponize TikTok in the trade war. For our second story, Moleskin, the Italian notebook, is 200 years old, but living its best life. Mulskin doesn't have age serum. They do have a Gen Z board of directors. True story. But Jack, let's talk art history here for a second. Pablo Picasso, he sketched in it. Vincent Van Gogh. go, drew in it. Ernest Hemingway, he took a shot of whiskey, a second shot of whiskey, and then he wrote, for whom the belt holds, in it.

Since the 1800s, Western artists have written and drawn in a book bound by moleskin. But it wasn't until 1997 that an entrepreneur turned that mole skin concept into a brand. Moleskin with an E at the end, because that differentiated it. Now, to clarify, is there the skin of the mole bounding these books? That's a fair question. I'm sure Pete is asking it, too. but technically no moles were harmed in the making of these diaries, Jack. It just appears to look like the skin of a mole. So, moleskin IPOed on the Milan stock market.

They were a publicly traded notebook stock, but they're now privately owned, still based in Italy. And you probably got three of them as a graduation gift. It's the default diary. The only question is, are you getting lined pages or dotted pages? You've probably seen someone at a Starbucks scribble in their next great American novel on one of these. Or if you're like me, you were gifted one, and now it just sits in your man bag

because you use your computer. But besties, this is what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. Despite the obvious digital threat, in a world where everything is on screens, Molskine is in growth mode. Moleskin is sold at 29,000 stores globally today. Got them at your Barnes & Noble, your campus bookstore, your airport gift shop.

But it's also got its own Moleskin stores, and they're planning to triple the number in the United States to 30. They even own a handful of cafes. Yeah. Because a majority of moleskin journaling is done with a macchiato on the table. But the profit puppy of moleskin, what is it, Jack? Branded notebooks. Whatever corporate event you went to recently, you probably got a moleskin corporate branded notebook in your gift bag. That's what's driving sales. In fact, 50% of moleskin's revenues come from these corporate gifting events. Whatever college you went to, there is a moleskin version of your college notebook. I mean, Jack, Moleskin has basically become the intellectual equivalent of the

Patagonia Fleece. But we were still curious. How is an analog notebook thriving in a digital world? Part of it is the backlash against screens that you're seeing in a lot of places these days. People want to respite from the blue light. But we noticed it's also something else, something more specific. Moleskins board of directors. Sorry, they're bored of Gen Ziers. Yeah, that's our takeaway. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Moleskin? Moleskin is a textbook case. of age diversity. Get this, Yetis. Moleskin has a Gen Z board.

That's right, an advisory board of people who never even learn to write cursive. Yes, they do have a regular corporate board, but they have another board. 18 people all under the age of 30. Basically, the chief of cringe control. That's this Gen Z board. They started this Gen Z board three years ago,

and they meet periodically with the CEO to suggest trends. So with this age-specific board, the CEO is accountable to the customer who they're targeting. The Gen Z board is why Molskin has doubled down on strategic branded partnerships. Molskine for Wicked,

moleskin for Saturday Night Live, moleskin for NASA, all those notebooks, they were driven by ideas from the Gen Z board. Molskine is more relevant than ever today. 200 years after the first one was made because they've made generational perspective a top priority.

It's a textbook case of age diversity. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, story. On Monday, the most epic antitrust trial of all time began. Meta versus the United States. We're about to get the dirt, though, on everyone in tech. Not just Zuckerberg, because of the subpoena. Ooh, the secrets are in the subpoena. But Jack, let's travel back to 2012 and 2014. When the Obama government made two big mistakes and what were they, Jack. They let Mark Zuckerberg acquire Instagram and they let him acquire WhatsApp. Or is Jack and I call it?

the two original sins of social media. Because a decade later, meta dominates social media thanks to those acquisitions. And the U.S. government is trying to undo both of those deals that it approved. Basically, the government is trying to control Z their approvals of the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions.

Here's what's at stake. Should Instagram and WhatsApp be split from meta? Well, that trial began on Monday, and all of tech is tuning in. But the lawsuit for this trial was actually filed in 2020. during Trump's first term. Nick, why did it take a whole administration

for it to go from lawsuit to trial? Well, Jack, because the commerce cops known as the FTC Federal Trade Commission took five years collecting evidence. Here's the news that Nick and I discovered. The FTC dropped the S-Bomb on just about everybody in Silicon Valley. And by S-bomb, we mean subpoena.

Subpoena. To figure out if meta is a rule-breaking social media monopoly, the court is requiring others to provide testimony or documents in this trial. And in some of these cases, MEDA is subpoenaing the competition that hates Zuck and META. If we ever got subpoenaed, we must respond truthfully under oath to whatever questions get asked. Basically, if someone did something bad, it is illegal not to tattletail on them if you're subpoenaed, right? It's illegal to not tattletail if you know they did something wrong. Yeah, like, Jack, you know what Mean Girls, Regina George has that burn book,

she rips on everyone. Yeah. A subpoena's like the opposite. It's like instead of one ripping on all, all gets her rip on one. I think that holds legal water, Jack. I believe it does. So, Bessie's Jack and I found this fascinating because we jumped into the court filings

and saw all the parties who have been subpoenaed. And the list is wild. It's huge. Alphabet, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, next door. They've all been subpoenaed in this big meta trial. Honestly, we're most excited to see what Snapchat says in the subpoenaed. Oh, because Zuck ruthlessly has copied Snapchat's innovation in the past decade. Oh, and it's not just tech companies that got subpoenaed in this deal.

Walmart was subpoenaed. Match Group was subpoenaed. The New York Times. They're all parties to this epic trial. And they may tell the government that when it comes to online ads, there was only one place they could go. They had to buy ads from meta. Or who knows? Maybe they'll say something that's favorable to meta in the trial. We won't know until it happened. Okay, but then here's another wrinkle in this whole Zuck drama. All those companies, that got subpoenaed, they asked the judge to seal the evidence of their testimony so nobody would see it. But the judge said, no, I'm going to let it all out in the open. That's why this trial is so exciting for guys like Nick and me.

The juice of this trial isn't just going to come from like a cross-examination with Zuckerberg straight out of a movie. It's going to come from all those subpoenas. We're going to learn a whole bunch of company secrets about meta and Walmart and Snapchat and Alphabet and TikTok. This is the kind of thing you only learn in a trial. To quote Jack Nicholson, yeah, you can't handle the truth, but we'll grab some popcorn. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Meta? Zuckerberg's suck-up strategy has failed. Yet is, after Trump was elected, Zuck pivoted hard to Maga.

He started the lobbying equivalent of Facebook stocking. He's probably bought like a dozen cyber trucks just to try to get into Trump's inner circle. Yeah, and he bought a third house for his fourth yacht in Washington. DC. And now with this trial, it's clear what his goal was all along. Zuck's goal was to get this lawsuit dismissed. Because Trump has dropped cases against white-collar criminals and pardoned other corporate fraudsters before. But he has not dropped his antitrust lawsuit against Zuckerberg's meta. Again, the stakes are huge. If meta loses, the government will ask a judge to force meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp. First of all, that'd be kind of cool. Like, imagine a publicly

traded Graham, which is a company that competes with Facebook instead of collaborates against it. It publicly traded Instagram stock, not too shabby. And by the way, Zuck would make a bunch of money if he was forced to sell Instagram. He could probably sell it for like a trillion dollars. But Zuck would lose a bunch of power for all that. And the fact that this trial has not been dismissed is a sign of the limits to lobbying Trump. Basically, Zuck's suckup strategy failed. Jack, he'll whip up the takeways for us for T-Boy Tuesday.

Videos are going viral on TikTok, showing where American brands are really made and what they really cost to produce. $5 Lulu leggings to us? It looks like China's weaponize and TikTok in the trade war. For our second story, Moleskin, the 200-year-old notebook, is tripling their U.S. stores in 2025. Their Gen Z board of directors shows the value of age diversity. And our third and final story, meta is on trial. Their acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were a less. allegedly illegal. And it shows that Zuck's sucking up strategy failed. But Yettees, this pod's not over yet.

Here's what else you need to know today. The first all-female space crew in decades successfully returned back from orbit. The six-woman crew included the musical artist Katie Perry, the journalist Gail King, and of course, Jeff Bezos' fiancee, Lauren Sanchez. It was the first all-female spaceflight since 1963, and Katie Perry's probably working on a song about it, now that she's back down for more. Second, guess who's ironically loving all the stock market volatility right now?

Who's into it, Jack? The big banks. Oh, yeah, Goldman Sachs just announced its best quarter ever. Stock trading revenue jumped 27% in the first quarter because they're making money on market moves, whether it's up or down. Or you're buying or selling. Banks are taking trade and fees, fee fees, and fees on those fees. And finally, Trade War Almanac Day 15. How tariffs are messing with the economy, Nick and I are keeping track.

All right, iPhone, how are we looking? Now we're going to pay five grand for one of these puppies, Jack? You're probably wondering how iPhones are being affected by tariffs. We are, too. Yeah. On Friday, Trump announced he's exempting iPhones and electronics from the China tariffs. But on Sunday, he walked that back, saying there were, and I quote, no exceptions announced on Friday. And Wall Street, they have no idea what's going on.

We're all confused. Apple stock jumped 3% Monday because no one's really sure. Hey, Siri, you know what, I'm not even going to ask her. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Uncle Sam in D.C. Jack, what do we got for the fact? Last year, Berkshire Hathaway paid more in corporate income taxes than any American company ever by far. Get this, Warren Buffett's company paid $26.8 billion to the feds. We know because we read the Warren Buffett-Berthaway shareholder letter.

And Nick, can you read the final sentence in that letter? So thank you, Uncle Sam. Someday your nieces and nephews at Berkshire hope to send you an even large. your payment than we did in 2024. Spend it wisely. Happy tax day, everybody. Yetties, you look fantastic over there. Jack, have you ever

seen a C-P-T-S-2000? Don't know what that is. It's the only Super Soaker that was banned because it was too powerful. It was shooting people's eyes out. Yeah, apparently someone lost an eye. No one knows who. You're going to poke somebody's eye out with that thing. Mom, she's hit me first.

Yeties, listen to the untold origin story of the Super Soaker. point the best-selling toy in America. We got a link in the episode description. It's a wild story. It's also an inspiring story, incredible tale of the founder who just pushed and pushed and pushed and side hustled his way to success. Check it out, and Nick and I will be back with another T-boy tomorrow.

If you know. And before we go, a happy birthday to a couple legendary two-year-old twins, Henry and Arthur, born in San Francisco, but living it up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Happy birthday to Aidan Paxoy in San Francisco. And a happy birthday to M. Matt Dwyer from Nantucket, who played lacrosse at a small, unranked college in New Hampshire. But statistically speaking, this fantastic father-in-law is still the top attackman in Long Island history.

Happy birthday, Matt. And Jack, Patrick from Bedford, New Hampshire, get this. He's an accountant born on Tax Day. Soaprint today on his busiest day of the year. Congratulations to Nisha for publishing that new single, Midnight Crisis. And a shout out to Riley Sang Bush, Allison Levine, and Storymaker 1316. for guessing right on our TBI Twirvia yesterday. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-boy.

And Kenny Penny, thanks for trying. You were so close. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. Nick owned stock of Lulu Lemon. I own stock in Berkshire Hathaway, and we both own stock in Apple.