The Best One Yet - 📀 “DJ VC” — The Chainsmokers’ VC fund. Uber’s robo-chauffeur. The Fed’s situationship.

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

TBOY Live Chicago, July 23rd - tickets on sale here: https://www.axs.com/events/949346/the-best-one-yet-podcast-ticketsThe Chainsmokers’ music duo launched a VC fund… but their investing secret is their schedule.Uber is spending $2B on Lucid’s luxe electric cars to deliver its founder’s original dream… robo-chauffeurs. The Fed & President Trump are in a situationship… and it's Wall Street’s biggest soap opera.Plus, the new Super Man movie is driving dog adoption interest… up 513%.$UBER $LCID $COINWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.About 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 Friday the real Friday. July 18th and today's pod. Out of all the pods is the best one yet. It's a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Yiddies, if you're coming to our live show in Chicago, we're doing our first ever T-boy earnings call. Yes, we are. And just like Wall Street publicly traded firms, we're doing a Q&A and taking analyst questions. Your questions. So DM us or leave a comment wherever you're listening. but we're also taking live questions from the audience in Chicago. That's right. First ever podcast to do a quarterly earnings.

Hey, SCC, you're welcome. Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got in the team boy? For our first story, Uber is investing $2 billion into Lucid, the luxury soon to be self-driving electric car. But this Uber lucid deal is really about robo chauffeurs. For our second story, President Trump and the Federal Reserve are in a situation. ship, and Wall Street is watching this soap opera. So Jack and I will tell you why an independent

Fed is the ballast of our economy's boat. And our third and final story is the chain smokers. They're not just an EDM music duo. They just closed a $100 million venture capital fund. And the chain smoker's secret to making music and making investments, it's all about the schedule. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix. Perfect mix to go into a weekend with. Superman's greatest skill. skill isn't X-ray vision super strength or the ability to fly? No, no, no, no, no, no.

Superman's greatest skill is puppies. Adopting puppies. Because the latest Superman movie has caused a surge in pet adoption nationwide. That's right. Superman is saving strays out there. Here's the context. The film in theaters right now is the eighth Superman. And it's already set an opening weekend record for the Man of Steel. But Jack and I noticed the real star of the film ain't Clark Kent.

It's crypto. Crypto with a K, like Cryptonite. This is Superman's powerfully cute puppy. I mean, Jack, not many pooches can take down a supervillain and save the world. But crypto basically is, because get this. Since the film's debut, Google searches for adopt a dog near me are up 513%. We repeat, rescue dog requests online are up 6x in the last week. And it's all because of Superman's cute little rescue puppy.

Oh, you go boy, he's a good boy. Now, it's unclear what planet crypto is from, but it looks like some kind of a terrier schnauzer mix. We always said it would take a mutt to save the world man. Although we should point out, Crypto's not a real dog. Right. He's a CGI dog.

A computer animated canine. But he's still brave. And I think somewhere in the plot, he saves the day. So besties, add it all up, and you walked in for a popcorn, but you're walking out looking for a poodle. It's the Super Pup Adopt adoption pop. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a rescue. We know, we know.

Superman didn't rescue the dog. The dog rescued Superman. Jack, let's in our three stories. Fifteen 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 Tis. 50% that's a fat tip. T-boy City on your at list.

If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, Uber just announced a $2 billion investment into Lucid, the most luxurious electric car brand. What they plan to do with Lucid goes back to Uber's first ever pitch deck, not RoboTaxies, Robo-shoferes.

All right, hey, chat, GP Jack. What exactly is a Lucid to find it for us? Founded in California, Lucid is the Rolex of electric vehicles. It's about $100,000 bucks per car, but the Lucid drives 450 miles on one charge. That is top in the industry. That is a long enough range to go from your beach house all the way to your ski house. Founded by a Tesla executive who kept arguing with Elon, this guy decided, you know what, I'm just going to do my own thing. And he got bankrolled by Saudi Arabia to launch Lucid.

Now, Bestie's Lucid stock was down 95% from its SPAC four years ago, but, On Thursday, the stock jumped 38% on news that Uber is putting $2 billion into the company. Here are the details. Uber pledged to buy 20,000 lucid cars over six years and invest $300 million to get equity into the company. By our math, that's $2 billion. Oh, and by the way, those lucids are going to be self-driving cars thanks to a software company named Neuro. So there's three players hooking up in this deal. It's basically a self-driving EV Thruple. Yeah, Jack, it's a monage. Torque.

A minaja torque. And the CEO of Uber, Darikosa Shahi, he said that starting next year, one lucky U.S. city will be able to hail these self-driving luxury lucids using the Uber app. He even teased a picture of this new self-driving Uber lucid gravity car. Jack, what would you say this thing that looks like? It's not an SUV. It's an FUV. Looks like a future utility vehicle.

It's got sensors all over. It's black. It's pretty steamy. But besties, Jack and I found this to be fascinating because it represents a major. pivot in Uber's self-driving strategy. Back in April, we covered that Uber's self-driving strategy was to be Switzerland. Yeah, we call it the Switzerland strategy. Because like Switzerland during both world wars, Uber is now the neutral party happy to work with any self-driving car company. Now remember, Uber quit trying to build its own self-driving car back in 2018. Instead,

its app is the asset light tool for other car companies to use. So now, Uber has arrangements with Waymo, Volkswagen, General Motors, Mitsubishi, Aurora, and like a half a dozen other car brands. Uber has partnered with every self-driving car company except Tesla. And so to continue our Swiss strategy analogy here, Jack, basically what Uber is doing is non-aggression packs. Uber's telling every car company, if you create a self-driving car, you can put it on the Uber app and find riders because we have so many riders on our app. And here's why that's clever.

That way, whoever wins the self-driving race, Uber won't. wins too, because they're going to list any one of those vehicles on their app. Everyone's welcome, which means Uber will win no matter who wins. But now, this is an interesting plot twist, because Uber's kind of picking a favorite here, right, with Lucid? Yeah, Uber's still mostly neutral, but not purely neutral because they have skin in the game with Lucid. It'd be like if the Swiss discovered some code about the Germans and shared it with a couple

CIA spies in America. I think it'd be like if the Swiss allied with Saudi Arabia, who was like barely, you know, not really in the World Wars. Or just made some American soldiers some hot chimes. Chocolate. Either way, Yetis, Uber is now the number two shareholder of the luxury EV brand lucid, right behind the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our Swiss strategy buddies over at Uber? Uber can finally achieve its founder's original vision. Uber chauffeur. Yeties, ah, a chauffeur. The ultimate status symbol, a butler for your Buick.

Was Richy Rich a good driver? Nobody knows because he had a chauffeur. Well, this actually reminds you reminds us of something Travis Kowlinik, Uber's Move Fast and Break Things founder, said a decade ago. His dream was that Uber would become your personal chauffeur someday. Exactly. Well, new technologies often start high-end before they go mainstream, like robotaxies. And with 20,000 luxury lucids spread across the top 20 cities in the world, Uber can offer just that. The most premium, most expensive option in the Uber app, it's not Uber Black. It'll be Uber Shofer. A self-driving lucid that will come pick you up. For our second story, the biggest drama on Wall Street this week,

well, it's the independence of the Fed. The Federal Reserve's situation ship with President Trump reveals the ballast that keeps our economy from tipping over. All right, Jack, if we're going to talk economics, let's go back to a 2017 Cosmo Magazine, if you please. Yeah, Cosmopolitan Magazine coined a new phrase called the situation ship. Hopefully you've never been in one. And if you haven't, Jack, how would you define it? An ambiguous hookup relationship with no labels, but one side wants labels, the other side

doesn't want the label. Well, the way Jack and I see it, our nation's central bank, the Fed, and our president, Trump, are in a situationhip right now. It's defined, but it's also undefined. First, let's sprinkle on some context. What is the purpose of the Fed to keep unemployment low and keep inflation low too. And what is the policy tool the Fed uses? Its interest rates. Raising rates lowers inflation, while cutting rates lowers unemployment. Legally, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency of the government. Yes, it is. It operates with autonomy from the rest of the government. But technically, the president appoints the chair of the Fed and the Senate confirms them. Legally, the Fed chairman cannot be fired, but he can be fired for cause. More on that in a second.

Hence the situation ship. The Federal Reserve and the president are involved together, but they're also independent. It's complicated. Yeah, it's complicated. Which makes the latest news so soap opera awkward. Donald Trump has been threatening to fire the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell. Like we said, awkward. For years, President Trump has insulted Jerry Powell, the Fed chair, calling him a major loser, a numskull, and clueless Jay.

In 2019, in his first term, he even went as far to say as Jerome. Paul being a bigger threat to the United States than China. And this week, we had the biggest escalation in this drama yet, right, Jack? According to New York Times reporting, Donald Trump wrote a letter firing Jerome Powell and asked his allies if he should send it to him. Now, we should point out because firing the Fed chair would be against the law, the Fed chair has never been fired in history. And no president before has threatened to or even mused about firing the Fed until Trump has.

But since Trump wants to fire his chair of the Fed, the Fed. If he had to do it, he thinks he could find cause to do it. What qualifies as cause to be fired? Well, a major renovation on the Fed's headquarters in Washington, D.C. has gone way over budget, and I guess it's Powell's fault. But besties, we save the best for last. Here's the plot twist in the whole situation ship. Donald Trump may hate Jerome Powell right now, but he used to love him. It's right, because get this, President Trump is the man who appointed Jerry Powell to lead the Fed in the first. first place in 2018. So why has Trump gone so sour on the man he handpicked himself for this job?

Well, because President Trump wants interest rates to be cut and Jay Powell hasn't done it yet. We should point out, every president always wants interest rates to be cut, because low interest rates juice the economy and boost the president's approval rating. And that is exactly why the Fed is independent and exactly why we whipped up this takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies staring at the Fed's? situation ship. An independent Fed is the ballast of our economy. Without it, we will tip over. Yeti's politics is driven by two to four year election cycles. And if the president controlled our central bank, it would be very short-term motivated. But free of politics, the Fed focuses on the

long-term health of the economy, not midterm elections. Now, there are many reasons why our markets and economy in the United States are the envy of the world. We have strong rule of law, our capital markets fund innovation and we just have the top universities. Just to name a few reasons. But underlying it all is the Fed. The Fed. The watchful guardian that's not trying to get elected, they're just trying to keep our economy balanced and strong. Now, President Trump has never acted on his threats to fire the Fed chair, probably because he knows the markets would freak out if he did. We think his insulting and critiquing of Jerome Powell is probably to set up a scapegoat. So if there's any future economic weakness, Trump can blame it on Powell. Now, in the meantime,

Chairman Powell's term ends next year running the Fed. And we hope President Trump picks a replacement who won't simply take the president's orders. Because an independent Fed is the ballast of our economy. Without it, we'll tip. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story before the weekend. The chain smokers. They just raised their third venture capital fund.

This time, they raised $100 million. This musical duo has created a whole new form. of entrepreneurship. But their secret is their schedule. Yeties, Mike Posner took a pill in Abiza, but the chain smokers, they took a pitch deck to Abiza. Very true. Alex Paul and Drew Taggart. They began making music together in New York City in 2012, and they chose the name the chain smokers, even though neither of them smokes. But today, they're the most financially innovative music group, in our opinion, since Beethoven's ninth IPO. They chose the chain smokers because it was a cool name, and it had good SEO. That's right. And that's why you're listening to them. After eight years of getting famous

with EDM beats, they raised their first venture capital fund in 2020. But they just closed their third venture capital fund this week. They now have $225 million under management as VCs. All right, Jack, let's jump in T-boy style to the portfolio. They've done 170 deals so far. The chain smokers invested in liquid death and Coinbase before Coinbase went public. And now the founders of these companies love the chain smokers because they're, They host parties with VIPs and can distribute the products. We read in TechCrunch that the chain smokers have played private shows for the majority of the Fortune 500 companies. They've played private gigs at 250 companies, at least.

Yeties, if you did your holiday party and the chain smokers perform live, let us know in the comments. To quote the chain smokers, Jack, I want something just like this. But each of those corporate shows. is a networking opportunity for fundraising and deal flow. They're raising millions off the gigs. In fact, you want to know how deep into venture capital the chain smoker's music group is?

How deep jack? Their last concert in San Francisco, Drew, one of the chain smokers, held up a big sign to the audience, telling everyone to follow Alex on LinkedIn. They're LinkedIn VC thought leaders. So you can listen to their songs on Spotify, but then get their hot takes on product market fit on LinkedIn.

But here's why we wanted to cover this story. the chain smokers are pioneering a new form of entrepreneurship. Now, Yetis, Jack and I have told you about the celebrpreneurship industry before, but we see it as having two different models. The founder model and the funder model. The funder model is what Ashton Couther does. He's an angel investor, an Uber, an Airbnb,

but he's passive in those investments. The founder model is more active, like Kim Kardashian. She's not just an investor and owner in Skim's, she's an active creator in the Skim's brand. But the chain smokers have found. a third type. They have institutionalized their celebrity for entrepreneurship. Like, they're not founders, but they're not angel investors. What they've done is create a bona fide venture capital firm, and it's named Mantis. Mantis has a team of analysts, an office in San Francisco,

just like every other VC. And they've built their own proprietary technology for assessing companies that they're going to invest in. Kim Kardashian and Ashton, they put up their own money to launch and fund startups. But here's the distinction. The chain smokers venture capital firm invest other people's money as VCs. And they still have time to drop a beat at PepsiCo's Christmas party this year. So, Jack, what's the takeaway? And I don't mean the song takeaway that the chain smokers dropped in 2019. What's the business takeaway for our buddies over at the chain smokers?

Your scale is limited by your schedule. Yeties, when Jack and I study successful people, we're always curious about seemingly mundane details and how they do their days. seemingly mundane details like their schedule, because often those details can be key to success. Well, the chain smokers had a great interview with Bloomberg, and in the interview, Alex talked about how he approaches his day, and how does he do it, Jack? The first half of the day, he focuses completely on VC. He meets companies, he reviews decks, he goes through startup strategies.

Then in the afternoon, that's when he shifts to his music gear, when he writes songs, prep shows, and actually does performances. It's called timeboxing. We do it for our daily show, too. We do. We only take meetings from 9 to 11, because we have to find. focus on this show from 11 to 6. We also only take meetings on certain days. Like, we'll only do business meetings on Wednesdays and Thursdays because we box the time we spend on different things.

When do we do our second show? The best idea yet? On Tuesdays. We are timeboxing extraordinary. Everything. And time boxing. Time boxing is how the chain smokers can run a Grammy award winning band and a VC. Jack, could you whip up the takeaway for the real Friday? Uber made a big investment in Lucid, the luxury EV company to bring self-driving lucids to the Uber app next year. And if they succeed, they'll be delivering what Travis Kalanick first dreamed of, Uber chauffeur. For our second story, Donald J. Trump reportedly had a letter to fire the Fed chairman this week. Although he did say Wednesday, he wasn't going to do it.

It's a situation ship. But an independent Fed is the ballast of our economy. Without it, we'll tip. And our third and final story is the chain smokers. They're not just a DJ duo. They're the heads of a bona fide VC too. So how do they do it all? Time boxing, because your schedule limits your scale. But yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, happy end of crypto week to all those who celebrate, including our buddy Timmy.

The House just passed a major crypto bill yesterday in celebration of the week, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. The House also passed a second crypto bill yesterday, the Genius Act, which is focused on stable coins. it is the Senate's turn to vote on each of those much-hyped crypto-week legislations. If they do, we predict a new Bitcoin all-time high. And second, wild story from the latest Coldplay concert over in Boston. The CEO of a tech company and his head of HR were caught on the kiss cam during the concert.

But here's the key. They're both married and not to each other. The video went viral as both of them quickly stopped holding each other and Chris Martin commented that they're probably having an affair. So not only were they caught in an affair, it was definitely a violation of the company's HR policy. It's going to end up being a case study in some kind of crisis management. And finally, the NBA confirmed they're looking to expand for the first time in 20 years. The commissioner says nothing's been determined, but he's going to be adding a couple basketball teams. One of the teams could go to Vegas, which recently got a baseball football and hockey team in last five years. Or could go to Seattle, which famously lost the

Supersonics and Gary Payton has been crying ever since. Last year, we said that the NBA should go intercontinental. Yeah. Give us a European team. It'd be exciting. Would it kill you to add a London team? Maybe a Shanghai team? The London Towers. The story writes itself. You know what? The Berlin Walls? Buenos Aires Ballers? We could go all day. Yeah, let's drop some comments for some names idea below. Now time for the best fact. Yeah, this one sent in by Dan Spangaman from lovely Oceanport, New Jersey.

This week, we talked about the cup holder effect. Remember that? Yeah, and we told you how the Toyota Sienna minivan was the queen of the cup holders with 18 in one car. But who's the king of the cup holder? Oh, fun fact, according to Dan, it's the Subaru Ascent. Not only does this Subaru have 19 cup holders. A sneaky one right in the very back seat. I think the engineers were like, we need the record, so put one more in the trunk.

But four of those cup holders can successfully hold a large Stanley Tumblr. Which means they're not cup holders. They're jug holders. Yiddies, you look fantastic today. Jack, celebrate the wins. We've got a live show in less than a week, man. I'll see you next time we've recorded. I know.

I'll see them Monday in Chicago. Can we see a Monday in Chicago? And in the meantime, if you adopt another puppy, I'll know you just saw Superman. I heard the next Batman movie has an adopted iguana. Or adopted bat, Jack. Where's my puppy?

By the way, Yiddies, check out our weekly show, the best idea yet. this weekend on the Michelin Star. You're going to love it. Nick and I, we'll see you next week from Chicago. Can't wait. And before we go, a happy birthday to Taco Bell's CrunchRap Supreme,

which turns 20 years old today. And happy belated birthday to Disneyland, which turned 70 yesterday. Sorry, Wall. I can't believe we forgot it. And Wyatt Hicks, happy first birthday down in Marietta, Georgia. You're looking fantastic,

and you sound fantastic, too. And congrats to the parents. Happy 30th birthday to Caroline, Giles McLaughlin, who's turning 30 on the Upper East Side of NYC. And Kaylee Anderson over in Denver, Colorado is celebrating the best birthday in the mountains yet. Happy birthday to Hemanshew Aurora in the Bay Area of California. And Nathan Wu, happy birthday celebrating on Long Island. Happy birthday to Cronthi Enum Pudi in Atlanta, Georgia.

And LERE over in Englewood, New Jersey, happy birthday. Make it the best one yet. Congratulations to Joy from Washington, D.C. for leaving their job at starting a fellowship over in Taiwan. Congratulations to Stephen Chalewski, who's not only leaving his job to move to the Big Apple, he's going to do it to become an actor. Can't wait to see you on Broadway, Stephen. Congratulations to Adam Goldblum for getting a promotion in White Plains, New York. And Cordell Zelensky over in Noel, Missouri, is the bacon merchant at Sam's Club and is winning the most bacon. Happy birthday to Leah Evans in the Bay Area of California. And Brian and Gemma from Montclair, California,

they just completed their first trail run 5K at the Mount Baldy 5,000 guys. Ice those hammies and we'll see you Monday. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the win. This is Jack. Nick and I both own some Bitcoin and I have a rescue dog. Sorry, the rescue dog has me.