The Best One Yet - 👔 “Chrome Collar Jobs” — AI Agent workforce. Bachan’s viral BBQ. Urban Outfitters’ all-time-high.

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Anthropic’s CEO says White Collar jobs will disappear in 5 years… so we’ll tell you how to prepare for the Chrome Collar workforce.The best-selling BBQ sauce in America is Japanese…. We got Bachan’s secret biz recipe.Urban Outfitters’ stock just hit an all-time high… because it beat Rent The Runway.Plus, the hot new investing strategy is T.A.C.O… Trump Always Chickens Out (we’ll explain).$URBN $CRM $KHCWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Heinz Ketchup 🍅Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.TBOY Live Show Tickets to Chicago on sale NOW: https://www.axs.com/events/949346/the-best-one-yet-podcast-ticketsAbout Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, TBOY Lite is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Our 2nd show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, May 29th. Then 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. Yet is as professional podcasters here. Wow. Jack and I got to tell you, huge Apple podcast glitch yesterday. To all our Apple listeners, if you ever can't listen to our daily show, check out Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get your pods. Honestly, huge bummer that some of you couldn't listen yesterday. Each episode Jack and I produce, we think of as like our Mona Lisa. Each one's a masterpiece. And we sat there for like six hours yesterday, knowing that Apple podcast listeners couldn't listen to the show. So yesterday's pod was a T-boy. Listen today. But today's pod? It's also a T-Boy.

It's actually even better. So Jack, three stoops for today's show. What do we got? For our first story. Urban Outfitters is defying the trade war. Urban stock just hitting an all-time high on record profits. Because Urban turned a lost llama into a profit puppy. For our second story, the CEO of Anthropic just dropped a scare bomb.

Wild. He said that AI agents will take half of white collar jobs within five years. So Jack and I will tell you how to prepare with a new term. Not blue collar, not white collar, it's chrome collar. And our third and final story is the top-selling barbecue sauce in America right now. What is Jack? It's Japanese. It's called Bichon's Barbecue Sauce, and I have some in my pantry.

Butchon's founder lost his house. making this sauce, but he found his fortune. But yet he's, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories. Love the mix of stories, Jack. The hot new financial concept you need to know, what is it, Nick? Jack, it is the Taco Trade. The Taco Trade is popular among both top hedge funds

and retail Robin Hood traders. But the Taco trade has nothing to do with carnitas, guacamole, or anything you sprinkle on with that caseo. Taco actually stands for Trump always chickens out. TACO. Taco. It's actually a new investing strategy to make money every time Trump escalates the trade war. And so far, it's worked every single time.

And here's how. Whenever Trump announces a new tariff, stocks fall. But then Trump inevitably rolls back the tariffs and stocks surge. And Jack and I are checking the numbers here. We've seen that same pattern repeat itself three times this year. Once is a fluke, twice as a coincidence, three times is a trend. Jack, take us back to February, my friend. Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canelo and Mexico, stocks dropped.

But a couple days later, tariffs were paused and stocks popped. Jack, what happened in April this year? Trump announced tariffs for the whole world and stocks dropped big. But he cut tariffs on everyone except for China and stocks surged. Then Jack, what happened last week? Trump put 50% tariffs on the European Union and stocks dropped. But he just delayed them and stocks popped. Besties, Taco isn't a political statement.

It's a financial one. TACO, Trump always chickens out. And Wall Street is making big money on the taco trade. Now we should point out, Trump actually was asked about the taco trade yesterday, and what did he say, Jack? He said he's not chickening out. It's called negotiation. But honestly, Yeti's, this acronym is just too good to deny.

Yeti's, this isn't financial advice. There's no guarantee the taco trade pans out a fourth time. But in the meantime, the taco trade has been pretty tasty. How's your portfolio, Greg? Spicy Quite spicy Jack let's in our three stories 15 years before this song

Two boys from the Northeast Met in the dawn They had an idea To cause 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, Urban Outfitters, their stock surged 25% to an all-time high after announcing record earnings. Because with newly, the subscription clothing service, Urban created a new thing, a mythical thing. A profitable loss leader. All right, Jack, throwback here. The last time we covered Urban Outfitters, November 2023, do you remember what the story was?

Do you remember? Oh, my God, I'm testing you. I can get it? Oh, you're so good at this. I know, I am good at this. I have an encyclopedic manor. I know, I know. Jack, it was the episode we did on Urban Outfitters selling iPods at their stores.

Oh, the 20-year-old, like, original iPods. Yeah, that was an Urban Outfitters. Well, Yeti's Urban Outfitters is back on the pod. Urban is like Abercrombie, but instead of Cologne, they sell candles. They're Philadelphia-based. They own anthropology and free people. In fact, Urban Outfenders is their smallest brand by sales. And yet, across all the urban stores, you can buy.

vinyl records, incense, and an $120 pair of jeans with holes in it. And here's the surprise news, Jack. Urban just announced record sales. That's right. Urban announced $1.3 billion in revenue last quarter, which is up 11% from last year. Tariffs, shmarriffs. Management thinks that tariffs will shave just 0.2 percentage points from profits this year. That was shocking.

So the edgy apparel company stock soar 25%. they're now at an all-time high. Their $7 billion valuation is nearly as high as the gap and nearly twice as valuable as Abercrombian Fitch. And the newest thing at Urban is pretty interesting. It's a concept called On Rotation. It's basically a new store within a store concept at Urban Outfitters. Okay, so what would that look like, Jack? At some Urban Outfitters, there's going to be a little section dedicated to a different brand. And the inaugural different brand is actually Nike. Yeah, Nike is renting space inside urban stores to get Gen Z to finally care about Air Jordans. But the standout performer for Urban Outfitters wasn't candle, vinyl, or pre-ripped $120 jeans?

No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't even a physical product. No, the standout item at Urban Outfitters was subscription revenue? We're not talking about Urban Plus. No. We're talking about Newly, which Urban Outfitters launched in 2019. It's a clothing rental business. Basically, you get six new items from Urban Outfitters every month for $98. You send the six items back at the end of the month, and then pick six new items for the month ahead. So Newly is Urban's clothing rental service. And Newly has doubled its user base in three straight years. They now have 380,000 active subscribers. But the wild part for Jack and I, Newley is now running away from the competition, literally.

Rent the Runway has only one third as many users. as Newley does. I'm sorry, Jack, pause the pod. We got to repeat this. Rent the runway invented the entire clothing rental concept 16 years ago. But now Newley is the unquestioned leader after just six years. And besties, here's the drama. Unlike rent the runway, Newly is solidly profitable. Wow. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Urban Outfitters? Urban invented a new rare species, the profitable loss leader. Yet he's Unlike rent the runway, which must rent out clothing profitably, because that's its only business, Newly could lose money, and that's okay for Urban.

Like a free sample at Costco, Newly is a $98 a month sample of Urban's brands. So as long as Newley got people to buy more urban outfit or clothing, it didn't matter if Newly itself lost money on the subscriptions. But that's not what happened. Newly was able to raise prices by $12 a month last year, and yet demand only grew. In fact, in 2024, newly achieved a full year of profits while also boosting sales of the other urban Outfitters divisions. So Newly is like a Las Lama in the sense that it drives the sales of the other divisions.

Right, right, right. But it doesn't lose money. It's profitable. What you're saying, Jack, is that Urban Outfitters has invented a new species. The profitable Loss Lama. Like a centaur, it's half man, half horse. It's half profits, half losses. For our second story, the CEO of Anthropic just said AI will take half of all white-collar jobs within five years. If true, unemployment would spike to as high as 20 percent.

So we're unpacking the truth and the timing. And we're introducing a new concept we call Chrome Collar Jobs. But yeties, everyone talks about chat cheap. Which must be really annoying if you're anthropic. So true. So true. Anthropic is a huge and valuable AI company also. They have Claude, which is the number two AI chatbot.

Yeah, basically, Claude is the Luigi to Open AI's Mario. The Garfunkel to its Simon. Jack, the goose, to its maverick, if you will. And this San Francisco-based company, Anthropic, is led by Dario Amadeh. And he said something scary this week. That's right. He said, Dario was blunt in his interview with Axio, saying, AI will take half of all white collar jobs.

He said that the unemployment rate will rise from 4.5% today to 10 to 20% within 1 to 5 years. Yeah, Jack and I heard those words, and it is dark, it is freaky, it is dire, but Amade says it's the truth, and society needs to face it so it can plan for a transition. How would all that happen? How would this mass replacement of human workers happen next? Well, it would happen, Jack, with AI agents, which are basically computer windows that do work. An AI agent is a white-collar worker minus the human form. It's just software. These AI agents take assignments and use various computer applications to get the work done

and they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And as CEOs discover AI agents, they're going to stop hiring human workers and eventually lay human workers off. Because as Dario said, an agent is AI that can do the work of humans, instantly, indefinitely, and explicitly, financially cheaper. That was the scary proclamation this week from Anthropic CEO, Dario Amade. So the way Jack and I see it, agents are like a new form of worker, right, Jack? They're not blue collar, they're not white collar. We call it chrome collar. Chrome collar. White collar work done by bots. Now, as Nick mentioned earlier, Sam Altman and OpenAI is better known than Dario Amade and Anthropic is. Sam Altman, he's a little bit more optimistic in his public statements, isn't he, man?

Although I get a sense that he's just pushing his agenda because it's best for his company. Yeah, Sam points to past tech breakthroughs, and in each case, he does point out that human beings found other forms of work. He gave an example of lamplighters, men who used to walk from lamppost to lamp post lighting the fire so people could see in the dark. And what happened to those lamplighters, Jack? They got replaced by electricity. But you know what? They ended up finding better jobs, and society had better lighting on the streets. Now, AI could be a slightly different analogy.

here. After all, computers pretty much run the world already. And until now, humans have run computers, but that could change soon. And when it does, blue-collar workers will do physical work with their hands. White-collar workers will do managerial work. But Chrome collar workers, which are AI agents, will do the work on computers. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for everybody who just peed their pants a tiny bit? Tech leaders tend to be right about what happens, but wrong about when. Yeties, when the internet started booming in the 1990s, tech leaders predicted it would change the world. And the internet did eventually change the world. It did. Tech leaders were just off by like 10 or 15 years. So we got the dot-com bubble in the meantime.

Another recent example of this, Elon Musk is famously right with his predictions, but he's infamously wrong with the timing of them. So when Anthropic CEO says that AI will replace half of white-collar workers within one to five years, we take that seriously. But we take the timing with a huge grain of salt. And if we have more time, then maybe both Dario and Sam could both be right. Right, good point, Jack. AI could replace half of white-collar jobs, but we'd have enough time that humans would find better jobs. So besties, the way Jack and I see it, tech leaders tend to be right about what happens, but wrong about when it happens. Now a quick word from our sponsor.

For our third and final story. The biggest barbecue sauce in America is a Japanese barbecue sauce, and it's called Bichon's. Bichon's Barbecue Secret Sauce to Success? It was not getting labeled as an international food. Now, Jack, we should point out, full disclosure, you and I have explored a fair variety of barbecue spots together, have we not, my friend? Because you take birthdays very seriously. Yeah, I love doing barbecue.

You had a theme for like a dozen years. I don't think it's still ongoing. It's still ongoing. But every year, every year, we would go to a different barbecue joint for Nick's birthday party. Oh, yeah, we had Fet de Salle in Brooklyn. We had dinosaur barbecue up in Harlem. I think that was your favorite. And Mighty Quins in the East Village, great ones, great ones, great ones.

But the viral barbecue sauce right now that is outselling every sauce is Bichon's. You recognize it because it's got a red flip top, a squeeze bottle, and a smiling octopus logo who's wearing a karate headband. Saracha was the new ketchup, but Bichon's is the new saracha. And the founding story of this sauce is heroic. Okay, we'd never heard anything like this. But Chan actually means granny in Japanese, and it's based on the founder's grandma's homemade barbecue recipe. That founder is Justin Gill,

and he started with $250,000 that he raised from friends and family, but that wasn't enough money. So he maxed out his credit cards. He turned his home into a fulfillment center to ship packages, and he took crazy high-interest loans to make the business work. He put all that money into Facebook ads to drive early sales of his sauce, but it wasn't enough to repay his loans. So the bank seized his house.

It looked like his entrepreneurship was going to be a huge failure for everyone involved. But then, out of nowhere, sales of Bichan's barbecue stalls started rocketing. They jumped 4,000% in 2020 to $1.5 million. And get this. This year, sales of Bichon will reach 100 million bucks, according to Bloomberg. Today, one out of 20 American households now has this $10 Japanese sauce in the pantry, the same $10 sauce that almost put Justin Gill and his whole family out of business. Jack, the quote Ted Lassow.

Fuck you sauce. But Jack, let's get back to the business kitchen here. What are we cooking with? We're cooking with the secret ingredient that made Bichan go viral. Okay, so it turns out there were actually a few bigger megatrends out of Justin's control, but in a good way they helped the business. The first was the pandemic. More people are cooking at home, and they wanted to spice up quarantine with a new flavor.

Okay, the second reason is that sauce is boss right now. Genzi loves a good dip, which is why Chalula, Sieti salsa, both recently sold for billion-dollar exits. And the third reason is a broader trend toward Japanese flavors in America related to health. Macha, Yuzu, miso. To stay fit, we're swapping out Taco Bell for terriaki beef. Jack, I know you like a good Hojicha latte, don't you, my friend? Um, sure. But the real reason this sauce went viral, it was one decision related to location, location, location.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Bichon's barbecue sauce? Category can be destiny. Now, Yeties. When Bichon's first launched, they were only carried in the international aisle at the grocery store. Bichon was placed among Latin, African, Indian, and Asian flavors. But here's the key. strategically, just in pushed for them to be moved to the barbecue aisle. And why is that, Jack?

The market for barbecue sauce in America is way bigger than the market for international sauces. And then, during the pandemic, as millions of people were reaching for a Heinz ketchup, they also saw a bottle of Bichon's decided to mix things up. That's how they were discovered, because they were placed in the aisle where everyone shopped every trip to the grocery store. As Bloomberg put it, getting placed among the domestic barbecue sauces was the tailwind to becoming a mainstream brand. Location isn't just critical in neighborhoods and real estates. It matters all the way down to the aisle in the grocery store. The store shelf is critical

real estate because category can be destiny. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Urban Outfitter stock is at an all-time high, driven by their subscription newly. Move over, Chuckie Darwin. Urban has found a new species, the profitable loss leader, the centaur. of business. For our second story, Anthropic CEO warned us that half of white collar roles will be taken by AI agents within five years. We call them Chrome Collar. And tech leaders tend to be right about the future, but wrong about the timing. And our third and final story is Bashan. It's the buzzy barbecue sauce of the moment. They're due for $100 million of sales this year. Because category is destiny. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need

to note today. First, Nvidia earning sales of the world's trendiest chip business soared despite getting shut out of China. Sales of AI chips jumped 73% last quarter to $40 billion for Nvidia, and that was just the last three months. Here's what investors love about it. Those profit margins on those chips are crunchy. Sixty-one percent of each chip they sell is pure profit. And second, President Trump has approved Japan's nippon steel to acquire U.S. steel, but only with something called a golden share. A golden share is unprecedented. It gives the U.S. government veto power on corporate decisions of this company.

For a free market economy, our government would be getting shockingly involved in the private business sector. And finally, Elf Beauty is buying Haley Bieber's Road Cosmetics for nearly $1 billion. In three years, Haley's brand has gone from zero to over $200 million in revenues. Wow. Time for Haley to take Justin on a celebration. And before they check out from whatever hotel they stay and they should just buy that hotel with a billion dollars, I'm sure they can. Now, time for the best fact yet.

This one whipped up by Jacks and my kids, basically. Well, today is May 29th. 529. So it's National 529 Day. 529, as in the education savings plan that we just think is fantastic. Because when a kid turns 18, they need money for school. Yeah, college, trade school, community college, each one of those is going to cost money. If you save now, put the money in the stock market.

The gains on those stocks are tax-free in a 529. Exactly. So, like, if you put $200 each year into a $529 plan, assuming the market grows 8% a year, which it could or could not, but it could, that account would be worth $6,000 when the kid turns 18. Not too shabby. In fact, Jack and I wrote a rap song about 529 plans that we posted on Instagram at Teaboy Pod. Lovely. It was after Oakley was born. Yeah, it was. Nick did a wrap explaining like Lynn Manuel Miranda-style how a 529 works. 529 don't pay federal or state taxes as long as the proceeds go to qualified school expenses.

Nicely done. We'll leave the rest for the gram. Follow us at T-boy Pot. In the meantime, you look fantastic Yetis and Jack and I, we'll see you there. Before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti Jamunicola in Flowerbound, Texas, Adich's original portfolio manager. aka Adich's mom. And Ethan Smith over in Chicago doing logistics is doing a trip with the besties to see our live show. Ethan, we can't wait to see you there. And happy 28th birthday to Molly Rubin in West Hollywood.

And St. Langerick is turning 16 years old in Nara Japan. Congratulations, Sint. A big shout out to at Ariel Sot on TikTok for making an epic video about why she loves T-boy. You are the goat. Ariel, it's fantastic to have had you. has a Yeti with us for so long. And Jack, didn't you meet Ariel, like, in Madison Square Park or

something? Dude, I still remember. She says Washington Square Park. I'm pretty sure it was Madison Square Park. Well, Ariel, we love having you as a bestie. Thanks so much for supporting the show. And a shout-out to Greg Kusack in Venice, California for being a Strava influencer. And to anyone else who celebrated something today, make it a teammate. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Robin Hood and Apple, and I own stock of Abercrombie and Fitch and Lyft. hopefully when your kid graduates, this thing is worth a milly. If your kid don't get a 529, I probably just feel silly.