The Best One Yet - 👗 “Dressed to Party… at Work” — Rent The Runway’s bleisure. Crypto’s merge madness. Facebook’s #FaceFail

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Noticed that Bitcoin and Crypto buzz? It’s because this week is Crypto’s biggest day of the year: We explain The Ethereum Merge. Rent The Runway’s is hopeful because you’re going back to the office… with a fabulous new wardrobe. And over the weekend, a Meta employee accidentally left a top-secret VR headset in a hotel room… we break down what it means.$ETH $BTC $RENT $META $AAPLFollow 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 is Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, September 13th, and today's pod is the best one. Yeah, Jack. It's a T-boy. It's a total T-boy, Jack. What do we got for the first story today? Rent the runway, just confirmed that when you go back to the office, you go back one way and one way only.

Looking fabulous. For our second story, if you notice crypto prices are experiencing a bump, it's because tomorrow's the biggest day for crypto of the year. Because tomorrow, Ethereum performs. the merge. The merge. For our third and final story, over the weekend, one meta employee accidentally left a secret,

not yet unveiled product in the hotel. Jack, we got to talk about Operation Facebook Face Fail. But before we hit that wonderful mix, Yetis. Just a fantastic mix for a T-Boy Tuesday, man. Happy birthday to everyone. Everyone, honestly, Yeties, odds are that it's your birthday today. Get this. Nine of the ten most popular birthdays in America are in the middle of September.

They're right now. Just to be clear, you headies, more Americans are born this week of this month than any other week of any other month. This week in particular has the highest number of birthdays of all the year. Yeah, check your calendar. It is birthday season. Did you get a triple invite to three birthday parties tonight? Yeah, it's because of that reason, September. You got double booked for a bot mitts for this weekend, Nick?

Blame September. You have 16. Sweet 16s on September 16th? We are not shocked. Now, Yetis, we're not going to do the nine-month birthday love math for you. Because apparently December is a lot hotter than we all realized. So the way we see it, we should see the September birthday bash in the stock market, too. Yeah, September babies should mean a boom in buying, right, Jack?

Think about a party city. They should see a third quarter burst in balloon sales. Jackie Cheese should see a pizza pop right now. If a mid-September birthday doesn't get you into the cheesecake factory, then what will? I'll take the Oreo for everyone. So if today's pot is really long because of birthday shout-outs at the end, don't blame us. Blame the birthday girl. Actually, blame her parents. Actually, blame December.

Yeah, blame December. Let's hit our three 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. 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. For our first story, rent the runway lost tons of members during the pandemic. But get this. Revenues that rent the runway just past their pre-pandemic levels. Because returning to work is the new catwalk.

All right, Jack. Let's play the alphabet game here. What are the three Ws that didn't happen during the? pandemic. Weddings didn't happen. Work didn't happen and no wild parties. And Jack, what are the three things that a fashion rental business completely depends on? They need weddings, work, and wild parties, Nick. Oh, they need those three Ws. Yeties. Rent the runway. Its stock has fallen 75, 80% since its IPO because of everything Jack and I just said about the alphabet. Rent the runway's profit puppy is the membership. Exactly. You're paying 100 bucks a month for a rotating wardrobe of eight

designer items that you are not buying on your own. You're getting the Fuchis, not the Gucci's. They're too expensive to buy, but you can rent them. So you end up spending like $1,200 a year, but you're constantly looking fresh with a new wardrobe. Well, when the pandemic hit, you had no occasion to rent out a Marquesa cocktail dress, so members of Rent the Runway fell 60%. And the business is still unprofitable. Rent the runway, if you think about it, it's really a glorified gigantic dry cleaning operation. But what shocked Jack and me about about Rent the Runway was a key figure in their earnings report yesterday. After nine pandemic quarters, revenues hit 70 million last quarter.

Which is 15% higher than from before the pandemic. Rent the Run The Runway is back, baby. Yeah, the number of subscribers are Rent the Runway doubled over the summer thanks to those weddings. Thanks to those Marquez addresses, Nick. Now, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. The surprising driver of Rent the Runway's record revenues right now, it isn't weddings. No, wedding season's over. Now, it's work. Because besties, you are going back to

the office. Uh, correction, you're going back as a diva. We reported last week that office occupancy in cities, it's still only 44% full. That's it. But when you go in, Nick, you're getting noticed 100% of the time. Yeah, you are. And the run the runway data, it shows that your work wardrobe, it's like really interestingly shifted. It's different now. Out with the old black and gray Wall Street look in with the bright colors and patterns. Okay, for example, you're still dressing in office attire. Rent-the-runways customers are women who are still busting out blazers. But that blazer, it isn't navy. Instead, women are grabbing the nine-shade chrysanthemum floral pattern. And Jack, whip out the hangers, forget the single-tone pants. What else are we seeing in this closet? It's pink purple plaid,

baby. The kind of thing you can see from outer space. One second while I find this Zimmerman maxi in botanical garden shade. We see the change in styles and the change in fashion in rent the runway's numbers. Yeah, get this. Blazer rentals or rent the runway have tripled, but trouser rentals are down 50% from before the pandemic. When it comes to return to office fashion, on the one hand, formal is out. Right, like you're not seeing any beige Brooks brothers out there. On the other hand, the sweatpants casual you got used to during the pandemic?

Yeah, Jack. That's out too. You return to the office and Jack, you are getting noticed, man. You are returning the office to stand out. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over at Rent the Runway? The lines between work and leisure have blurred. It's Bleasier. Yeah, we've talked before about the blurring of business and leisure.

It's bleisure. We first discussed it in the travel industry, bleisure travel. Like instead of a weekend vacay, you're going to go for a whole week, and you're going to work some days. You're going to play the other days. Marriott and Hilton, they gave you workspace by the beach in order to get you to extend the stay in Quebec. Well, now Jack and I are seeing that bleisure trend jump into the fashion industry. wearing an outfit that's respectable for work, but fun enough for Happy Hour afterwards.

Rent the runway is the new barometer of that wardrope beleisure. For our second story, finally, after melting a couple glaciers and like drowning a bunch of polar bears, Ethereum, the cryptocurrency, is going clean. Yeah, this is the biggest week in crypto because this week, Ethereum is finally merging. Jack, I'm glad you said it's the biggest week in crypto because it's been an awful year for Yes, it has. Prices are way down. A lot of people lost a lot of money. Some crypto companies have gone bankrupt. Bitcoin and Ethereum are a fraction as valuable as they used to be, but they are number one and number two in crypto still. At today's price, there's about $450 billion worth of Bitcoin in the world. And then there's about half as much Ethereum.

Early disclosure, Jack and I own some of both. Extra unnecessary disclosure, we've managed to lose money on both of them. But both of those digital currencies, they run dirty. So Nick and I feel a little guilty about it. Yeah, we do. Environmentalists have some beef with Satoshi. That's right, because to keep transactions flowing on the blockchain, crypto miners purchase and run these huge supercomputers. We're talking giant hardware like the size of farms, Jack.

And they suck more juice, these supercomputers, than some entire countries do just to keep the Bitcoin system running. Bitcoin uses more energy than the country of Argentina. According to Cambridge University, Bitcoin's energy footprint is larger than all the refrigerators in the United States combined. But that's Bitcoin. For Ethereum, the number two cryptocurrency, all of that is changing beginning this week. Beginning with the merging. The merge. Because besties, it turns out there are two ways that a cryptocurrency can run. Jack, can you sprinkle on some context for us?

Yes, the first way is the proof of work system that we just described with Bitcoin. And the other way is the proof of stake system. So Bitcoin uses the proof of work system and hold that working in a proof of work system. Yeah, that's an energy hog. But unlike the proof of work system that both Bitcoin and Ethereum have been running on, proof of stake doesn't require nearly as much energy and it doesn't require any mining whatsoever. And here's the key. With the proof of stake system, the key verb is validating, not mining. Validating keeps the system running, not mining.

So this Ethereum merger, it's honestly, it's a no-brainer-shriner-sworth. switch. It's going to reduce the energy footprint of the Ethereum blockchain by 99.95% of polar bears are going to make it because of this. And it's starting this week. Now, the September merge date that's happening this week, it's been known and anticipated for years. Literally calendar circle. So in theory, news of this shouldn't affect the price because it's been so well known. It is a big step for the most popular crypto platform out there, which is going to make Ethereum much more viable. And the merging is attracting some mainstream attention. We just saw Ethereum's up 7% in the last week.

Bitcoin's up 16% in the last week. Not too shabby because crypto hasn't got much love in quite a while. Jack and I are still down from where we bought it. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in Ethereum? The way we see it, Ethereum's already merged. It's merged to stock prices. All right, yet these cryptocurrencies, they are many things. Like they are digital networks, their virtual currencies, they've led to real life

board api yacht clubs. But Wall Street has mainly seen cryptocurrencies as an alternative investment. Exactly. Like you can invest in crypto because it's unlinked to the U.S. dollar and our government sanctioned economy. So crypto should do something different than the stock market. It should. It could be a nice little portfolio diversify. But if you look at a chart of the NASDAQ stock index and compare it to Ethereum or Bitcoin's prices, you're going to see that when tech stocks go up, crypto goes up too. That's right. And when tech stocks go down, Crypto goes down too. So like example, Ethereum is down 63% from its all-time high for the same reason those stocks are down too. The reasons? Fear of a recession, rising interest rates,

and lack of cash. That's resulted in people selling. So Ethereum, the way we see it, it's already merged. In fact, all of crypto in a way has already merged. Crypto is already merged with stock prices. 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. Yeah, 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. Sweakerian 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 had had has the tools. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-B-Boy to choose your free stock. That's robinood.com slash T-B-O-I. Limitations apply. Stocks offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood 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, happy birthday to everybody. Actually, our third and final story, over the weekend, it looks like a sloppy engineer lost meta's brand new secret product.

The next generation of VR goggles could come out of the basement. Oh, Jack, you know that feeling, like that feeling that we all get when you forget something. And you can't remember what that thing is, but you think in the back of your head. I think I'm forgetting something. Honestly, that's me every day with my AirPods. That thing every day. Yeties, you know that feeling well, this past weekend, an engineer, over at the company Meta accidentally left some glasses in their hotel room.

These weren't just some glasses, Nick. These were top secret Facebook hardware. Yeah, this was not like a folkly situation. This is a situation where they accidentally spilled the beans on Facebook's biggest product of the year. Yet he's last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Instagram that in October, Facebook would unveil their next big product and he teased what that product was. Zucks a teaser and he teased with a picture of some mysterious looking headset.

Well, guess what? That mysterious looking headset, it appears to have been left behind in a random hotel where anyone can find it and take videos of it and put those videos on the internet. I am stressed as you're saying this, man. And it's funny timing too because just last week, Jack and I were telling you about how Apple finished a beautifully choreographed, meticulously planned event to unveil the iPhone 14. Every Apple event is a Tony Award winning experience. Hollywood-level production quality.

Yeah, apparently meta and Facebook's newest product unveil was an amateur video taken in the lobby of a Best Western. Nick and I watched a video of this mysterious meta headset. It's definitely the one Zuck plans to announce next month, and we got to look at these ugly videos. All right, so since this secretive headset is leaked, Jack, why don't we just describe this thing? Let's spoil the details that Zuck's going to announce in a month.

All right. It's called the Meta Quest Pro. And there was no price tag on this secret model, but it's estimated to be about 400 bucks a box. It basically is a big black goggle device. It's going to cover half your face like it's eating your face. And it comes with two hand controllers. Those two hand controllers let you use your hands in a virtual reality so that you can virtually

slash Darth Vader in a virtual lightsaber fight. Well, surprise. Apparently these new Facebooky goggles are going to have an inward facing camera to to capture your facial expressions. That way, when you're fighting Vader, you can make eye contact with him, like eye contact, right before the death blow. And based on the really mediocre leaked video that we saw, meta is also added three external cameras to those new virtual reality goggles.

External cameras. Because with those giant goggles on, you can't see anything. So you have no idea if you're about to run into the wall while you're fighting Vader. So these new goggles will protect you from a little bit of your little. from like knocking over a vase while you're virtually fighting a virtual Darth Vader. Mom, I'm sorry, I broke the vase again. Mom, Jack broke the vase. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Meta?

Virtual reality is stuck in the basement, but it's about to come out. All right, yeties. The reality about virtual reality these days, it's homebound. It only is played in your basement. It's in its nascent phase. So you want to flail around your arms and wear that ugly big headset in the privacy of your own home. Well, the purpose of these new metagoggles is to be ready to take you and them out of the basement. Those cameras that we just mentioned, they protect you from your surroundings.

Also, it's wireless and it doesn't require a connection to a PC to use them. Now, here's the parallel Jack and I are seeing here. Going mobile was huge for the video game industry. Because once you could play Mario Kart on your phone, then you could play it like anywhere, like even getting on an airplane. Well, with this new headset, VR could go mobile. You could play in a park. you could play in Terminal 5 at JFK Airport.

Exactly. So the key threshold for this new meta headset is just this. Virtual reality can now come out of the basement. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us and all the September baby boys and girls out there? Rent the runway showed us that when you return to the office, you're returning to get noticed. Yeah, it's more bleasier, baby. The lines between business and leisure have been blurred. For our second story, the Ethereum merge is happening right now. And if successful, it'll be a huge step.

But Ethereum has already been merged for a year to stock prices. Our third and final story is meta. They plan to unveil their latest headset next month, but an engineer left behind his top secret pair in the hotel. These headsets, yeah, they're ready to take virtual reality out of the real basement. All right. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Legendary Yeti, Amanda Lushore from Chumsford, Massachusetts,

just outside Boston. She's got like a whole T-boy listening group actually, Jack. Let's play. Let's hit it. Alien abduction insurance has been readily available since 1987. A Florida-based UFO abduction insurance company will offer UFO insurance policies that protect against alien abductions. The policy is for $10 million and will only pay out if the claim meets the required standards listed in that policy.

Sounds a little like Volcano Guy insurance from Family Guy. I don't think that's a highly regulated industry. Also, $10 million payout? Yeah, these are some pretty big aliens, Jack. I hope they're abducting my mansion. Yeties, Jack and I got to go, because we have so many birthday shoutouts we got to do. We'll see you tomorrow.

See you next. And before we go, a thank you to Lorenzo, Alessandra, Asia, Justin, Carlos, Roberto, and Martino Pietropoli for all those just hot of recommendations in Milan. And congrats to Joe Mendoza for starting grad school at the University of Michigan. And Case and Brooke just closed on their first home

together in Virginia. And congrats to Michael Boselle for getting his first job out of college at J.P. Morgan Chase. Len and Naomi, they got their fourth anniversary and it's Naomi's birthday. And a big happy birthday to Connor Klaus, who's turning 11 in Canton, Michigan. And Joseph Valencia just pointed out that a Pop-Tart is really a raviola. It's actually not that many birthday shots today. Yeah, we got a lot for tomorrow, though. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

Can't wait. This is Jack. Nick and I both own some Bitcoin and Ethereum, and we both own stock of Apple and Robin, 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, balances, 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 robinood.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.