The Best One Yet - 🎿 “City Skiers vs. Mountain Maniacs” — Vail Resorts’ favorite child. Apple’s Chief Evil Officer. SBF’s criminal charges.

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

More Americans skied last year than ever before — and Vail Resorts’ just told us its favorite kind of skier. Apple’s AirTag is supposed to track products… but they’re being used to stalk people too. Which shows the need for a Chief Evil Officer. And FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas, so we finally know his crimes (allegedly).$MTN $AAPL $BTCFollow 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, December 14th. Then today's pod is the best one yet. It's a T-Boy. We should let you know, Yetis. We're putting together our best of 2022 T-Boy pod episode. Weeping up one episode next week.

Bonus pod. Top stories of the year. Yes, the top three stories from this year in one episode. Have you got a favorite story? Hit us up at T-boy Pod. What are you thinking, Jeff? You can hear your favorite story again in the best of 2022 T-Boy album. We're talking the greatest hits.

Are we going to get a cookie crisp, a darling from Duncan? What are we going to see, Jack? I think we'll get all those things, Nick. If we're going to downturn diva, can we interest you in a double-digit latte? Yet he's hit us up at T-Boy pod to let us know your favorite story in the year. Jack, what's our first story today? Last year set a record for the number of skiers and snowboarders on America's mountains. But Vail Resorts just told us who it prefers,

mountain maniacs, or city skiers. Our second story is about Apple's air tags, because some of Apple's air tags are not, tracking purses or puppies, they're tracking people. You know what Apple needs? They need a chief evil officer. Our third and final story is FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. He was dramatically arrested. Put in handcuffs Monday in the Bahamas. Now we know his true crypto crime. But yet he's before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. A fantastic mix. I love this mix, man. Let's go to the oldest question known to humankind. The oldest question, Jack, how does one live forever? Well, the South Koreans seem to have found an answer. It's not just in a bottle of their anti-aging night cream

moisturizer. Koreans are going back by a year. Yeah, get this. The Korean government is declaring all citizens one year younger. They're pulling a Marty McFly. They're jumping in the back of a DeLorean with a hot tub time machine. Yeties, it turns out a majority of Koreans count their age differently than the rest of the world does. Yeah, to sprinkle on some context here, when we were born, we were zero years old. I'm pretty sure, Jack. And we turned one on our first birthday. But, Jack, if we had been born in South Korea, then we would already have been one year old.

Yeah. Your day of birth, you're one. And you turn two on New Year's Day. That's how it works in South Korea. Your birthday is kind of irrelevant, frankly. Yeah, so everyone turns one year. older on January 1st. So a baby born on December 31st is one years old and the next day they're two years old. That's right. In South Korea, if you're born on December 31st, two days later,

you are two years old. If so facto, everyone in Korea is one year or more older than everyone else on planet Earth. But recently, the people of Korea are like, why are we doing it like this? So Korea just decided to do age like everybody else. That's right. The government is officially giving everyone a year or more back. And making your birthday your actual literal calendar birthday. So yet he's Korea was already tops in terms of anti-aging skin care products. But Jack, apparently now everyone is getting younger without having to apply a nice facial serum. You know what, Nick?

Because the pandemic, don't we all deserve a year back? Jack, are you saying we all subtract a year from our own birthdays just because we're not born in Korea? I'll do it if you do it. We're the same age. I'll do it if you do it. We'll still be the same age, but when you're young. We're going to round down. for the first time in our lives. Let's round down. We'll have what Korea's having.

Yetis, let's subtract one from our three stories. Let's hit our two stories. Fifteen 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 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, Vail Resort. North just gave us the numbers on the upcoming ski season, and what are we seeing, Jack? We learned that ski passes, like ski boots, are not one-size-fits-all. But before we jump into those numbers, can we talk about the number four, four feet, my friend? Four inches?

Four feet? You must be this tall to ride on this roller coaster? Four feet of snow at Lake Tahoe last weekend. What? These are the best ski conditions since the ice age. I would kill for that pow up here in the North East. Okay. A Yeti's listen to these other numbers.

60 million skiers shredded American POW last year. That is an all-time high. Odds are there's a Yeti or two listening to us while bombing the bunny slope right now. Yeah, we got some bestie pop and pal like Picaboo Street out there right now. Pizza pie, you're going to have a good time. French fries, you're not going to have a good time. Just keep your eyes on the ball. In the meantime, these ski numbers were actually kind of perfect timing, right, Jack?

We just got earnings last week from Vail Resorts, the 11th. billion dollar publicly traded company that operates 40 different mountain resorts. We're talking mountains from like Beaver Creek to Breckenridge. And right now, the stock is up 10% this week because of one particular number. They'll just announce they sold 6% more ski passes than last year's record setting season. Pretty simple math. More skiers, more lift tickets sold. There you go. Six percent more epic passes. Six percent more small talk on that chair with some guy you're never going to see again. Well, nice being you.

See you later. You're around here. But yeties, here's what Nick and I find fascinating. Revenues are like snow. Yes, they are. There's always something hidden underneath. And in Vermont, it's ice. For example, the ski pass that Vail Resort sells,

that is a full year pass. We're talking a pass for serious hardcore skiers. Yeah, we're talking mountain maniacs who are catching the first chair, skiing until four, want to get 20,000 avert each Saturday. They're like tasting the snow in the morning. They're like, oh, it's good powder. It's good stuff. And they love that ice under the snow. Makes you tough. But according to Vail Resorts, their full season annual hardcore pass sales to those mountain maniacs actually fell 12% in the last year. What is driving sales at Vail Resorts is the day pass. The day pass.

The pass designed for casual city slickers who are like heading up to Whistler just for the weekend. Yeah, they hit the mountain. What do you say? Like one, two, maybe three times a year. Yeah, they spend most time in the warming hut. Classic. And it's all about the apprae for these city slickers. Do it apprae all if you're a city skier out there. This year, Vail offered not just the season long epic pass, but also day passes designed for four to seven days of ski. Because like ski boots, one size doesn't fit all when it comes to pricing. They segmented their customers and offered different prices for different customers. And that mountain maniac for a city skier difference, that reveals a surprise. That reveals our takeaway.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the ski industry? I'm telling you, every company has a favorite child. Now, Yeties, you would think that Vail Resorts prefer serious, hardcore local skiers who pray for powder every single night. A ski CEO must love the gnar-shredding mountain maniacs who did 100 days of skiing last year. But we'd be wrong. The CEO of Val Resorts just said that it's the low-frequency skiers that are the more attractive, more profitable customers. It turns out city skiers are the profit puppies because less time skiing means more time spending. Yeah, city skiers, they're not interested in the double black diamonds.

They're interested in the dining halls. Yeah, ski resorts actually depend on the ancillary sales to profit, like your hot cocos and your massages. Yeah, city skiers are driving that insular. spending at the ski school, getting rentals for the whole weekend, for the whole family. Yeah, the mountain maniacs buy a full year pass, but they're just shredding as much vert as humanly possible before the ski lift closes and then... They're bringing their own PV&Js to the mountain day. They're not exactly profit puppies.

Those crackers for the chili, they give those out for free. So offering different passes at different prices, let Vail Resorts target different customers. Every company has a favorite child. The earnings often reveal who it is. One of those city skears. Honestly, I'm happy to get hot chocolate at 11 a.m. Negative windchell? Yeah.

I'm cool with that. It doesn't work with me. For our second story, Apple's air tags are being used for the wrong thing. They're being used for stocking, not for tracking your purse. So Apple is getting sued. And this shows why every tech company needs a chief evil officer. But first, Yeties, Jack and I were talking before the pot. And we can like, would you say,

we can just picture, Jack, like the meeting that went down to envision and create the AirPods? Absolutely. We can picture the Apple product brainstorm that led to the air tag getting launched. Few Apple employees are heading up to Napa for the weekend. They're enjoying the offside in Sonoma, popping some penis. Tech companies paying big money on corporate offsets. They do. And Apple, they needed a new product. They needed, as Steve Jobs would say, one more thing. Boom. What did they come up with? While... Softing on those pinos, Jack. Somebody in the product department said,

Hey, find my iPhone is such a popular app. Let's turn it into a physical hardware product. Let's turn it from a software into a hardware, and that hardware product became the air tag. The air tag. It is a tracking dungle the size of a mini Oreo, and it lets you track anything in the Find My iPhone app. Stick it on a dog collar, stick it on a purse.

Honestly, stick it on a cake if you really enjoy cake, and you like that flavor. I have one, and I put it on Rivers Collar. when we go for hikes like in the woods where she might get lost. Jack and I, we should put them on our microphones. We can't afford to lose these things. We need them every day. Yeah, but we've never, they don't run away.

Yet. This is your go-to line. It gets me every time. Now, Yet, he's that air tag that was envisioned in the hills of Napa just two years ago has now become the fastest growing product in the whole Apple suite of products. In the first year on the market, they sold $600. million worth of air tags. In the second year, they crossed the billion dollar sales market. They're going to sell 30 million of these things this year. But here's the problem. The air tag is not

being used just to track persons. Right. It's also being used to track people without their knowledge. Ah, that one hurts. Ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. They're using air tags to stock and track their exes. So Apple got sued last week. In the lawsuit, two women said that the air tag was being used to track them by their ex-partner. Now, the court docs went into a little more color. What do the court documents say, Jack? An air tag was stuck underneath one of the women's cars. Freaky.

And the other air tag was dropped into their child's backpack without their knowledge. The lawyers put it pretty well. This is how they described it. With a price point of only $29, the air tag has become the weapon of choice of stalkers and abusers. It's also got a one-to-two-year battery life, so it could be there for a long time. Now, Apple, of course, condemned in the strongest possible terms using air tags to stock people, not your purse.

But one week after the lawsuit, Apple hasn't announced any updates to solve this problem. There is that one feature. Don't they have, like, one thing they can do to, like, stop the air tag situation? Back in January, they launched a feature that will send you a push notification if they detect that there's a foreign air tag on your person tracking. But besties, that's not really a solution. So Jack and I came up with a solution. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Apple? Every company needs a CEO, a chief evil officer.

That is, tech's biggest weakness is not anticipating how products will be misused for really bad harm. From Apple's air tag stocking to Facebook misinformation care. Well, here's the solution. The solution is actually a management solution. Every tech company needs a role whose sole responsibility is pessimism. Professional devil's advocate, more creative, more diabolical than a lawyer. A twisted product person who will just concoct devious schemes and anticipate like, what is the worst thing I can deal with this product?

It's not a product solution. It's a management solution. A chief evil officer would preemptively suggest safeguards into the products. After hearing the chief evil officer illustrate a nightmare scenario with the product. At a scary meeting. They're going to build in some safeguards to that product. Because every company needs a CEO. EO, a chief evil officer, especially in tech. EX. Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. You know, honestly, your salad, it says so much about you.

Nick, you like to blaze your own trail at the salad bar. I'm ordering a salad. I go off menu, man, like a combo of kale and croutons that has never been made before. Me? I'm not reinventing the wheel. I like to go classic. You're squeakerian thinks it's a good combo. Jack's not going to change that.

Kind of like investing strategies. Someone to build a custom portfolio of stocks, crypto, and options. Others don't want to reinvent. Just give me the most standard ETF. Whether you're tweaking your one-of-a-kind portfolio every day or prefer a more hands-off approach, Robin Hood has the tools. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy to choose your free stock.

That's robinette.com slash T-B-O-I. Limitations apply. Stocks offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood Crypto. All investments. involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story, Sam Bankman-Fried is under arrest and just got charged with pretty much every white-collar crime that there is possible. Now that Sam Bankman-Freet

is in handcuffs, we finally found out the FTX crypto crimes. Allegedly. Oh, Jack. Let's talk spring break here. The Bahamas. Great for fishing, relaxing, margarita is not great for hiding from the law. Goombay smash is the drink of the Bahamas, by the way. But it's not a great place if you're trying to hide from the wall. Yeah, so Sam Bankman-Fried, he chose the Bahamas because it was not the United States. He picked the Bahamas for FTX's headquarters because he thought he was safe from U.S. regulators, U.S. taxes, and U.S. justice.

Yeah, well, turns out that decision was wrong. Yeah, it turns out the Bahamas has an extradition treaty. with the United States. So when the United States authorities charged Sam Bankman-Fried with crimes this week, the Bahamas police came knocking on that penthouse door. Yeah, they arrested him. So soon, the former billionaire will be transported to the United States to put on one of those orange suits and stand trial for crimes, alleged crimes.

Here is the most awkward part of the whole thing. It turns out Sam Bankman-Fried actually had a really important meeting scheduled the day he was arrested. He was supposed to meet with, um, let me check here, the United States House of Representatives. Yeah, they penciled them in for 9 a.m. Jack. He was supposed to testify yesterday to Congress. Instead, he's handcuffed in some holding cell right now. So, Jack, it looks like law enforcement, upstreamed Congress and just cuffed Sam Bankman Fried instead. Yeah, they're like, uh, we don't need to hear you speak on TV anymore, Sam. So yet, he's Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. And we have never seen more acronyms involved in a business story in our life.

You ready for this? Talk to me. The DOJ, the SEC, and the CFTC, all charged him with crimes or filed complaints. FYI ASAP, Jack. We're not even going to write out those acronyms for you. Honestly, it's like a Sesame Street situation. Every agency in the United States government charged Sam Bankman freed with fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.

They said he was lying from the very start. and we shouldn't believe a single word he says. They said he was a criminal. Including the crime of fashion. Have you seen that man's t-shirts? Would he kill you to press and iron a t-shirt, Sam? So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the crypto industry? Sam Bankman Fried was a new school CEO, but he committed the most old-fashioned crime, allegedly.

Now, yet is John Ray is the new CEO of FTX, so he spoke to Congress instead of Sam this week. Here's how he describes Sam Bankman-Fried's massive crime. Old-fashioned embezzlement. Old-fashioned embezzlement. Embezzlement. That is when an insider at a company steals from the company and takes the money. Embezzlement can happen when a company has weak organization, weak systems, and weak oversight. So FTCS, they operated in a sophisticated, cutting-edge industry, the crypto industry.

But the crime that's taking this company and all of its customers' money down was classic old-school embezzlement. There was no organization and no oversight, so the founder stole the company's bags of money. Which was actually the customer's bags of money. So Sam Bankman-Fried, he isn't a mastermind or a wonderkind. He's a great liar who committed the most old-school crime in a new school industry. Allegedly. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Vail resorts just revealed that city skiers are more profitable than Mountain Maniacs.

Every company has a favorite customer. Our second story is Apple. They were sued last week because air tags are being used by stalkers. And every company needs a chief evil officer. Our third and final story is Sam Bankman-Fried. He's locked in a holding cell without bad. New school CEO, old school crimes. Allegedly.

I missed that one. I was off cue. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Laura Israel from lovely Orlando, Florida. My alma mater, the Olive Garden, just turned 40 years old. I am talking to the three-time wine salesman of the month, Jack. I assume you already knew this fact, but let's roll with it either way. The Olive Garden, the most prestigious of all the faux Italian restaurant chains in America.

Good point. Just turned 40, but the breadsticks. Those breadsticks are never ending next. Oh, talk to me. Way more than 40 on the calorie count. Get these numbers, Yeties. The Olive Garden serves 600 million breadsticks per year. Okay, got out the whiteboard check.

And at an average eight inches per breadstick, that's enough bread stick to circle the earth tip to tip three times. Wrap that in your ravioli. And there's enough butter sprinkled on there to fill two oceans. That part's made up. Allegedly. Yeties, you look fantastic today. And if you've got a favorite T-boy story or takeaway from this year, we want to hear it.

Hit us up at T-boy Pod. We want to know what should be in the best of 2022. album. What should we whip up in the bonus pot? Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, happy birthday to Yeti Natalia, who's turning 30 and celebrating in Medellin, Columbia. And happy 29th birthday to Jason Ferris in Nashville, Tennessee. And Isabella Evans and her fractional shares are celebrating a birthday in Alexandria, Virginia. And congratulations to Izzy Zubia, who's graduating from business school. And Jackie Gover is graduating from business school in Boston, just outside Boston.

Big congrats to Jason Goldberg, graduating with his MBA from the Kellogg School of Business. And Jason Dewey got laid off from work in Texas, but is spending great time with his family right now. Jason is a T-boy. This is Jack, Nick and I both on stock of Apple and Robin Hood. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Okay, so Jack and I both worked in finance for a while. And we know the six-monitor Bloomberg jockey, with charts, numbers, balance, and more charts. They got coffees in both hands while they're executing some complex trade on a

soybean future. Well, we're not trying to impress with our mission control trading center. Just give us an app, please. Robin Hood, with its mobile first and intuitive design, it lets you trade with just a few quick taps on their app. And even if things still don't seem easy, Robin Hood has your back 24-7 with its live and robust customer support. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-I. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, all investments involved for us. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood.

Oh, that should be.