The Best One Yet - 🫡 “Future-proof your career” — Corporate Natalie & Ross “Corp” Pomerantz interview Nick & Jack
Episode Date: August 15, 2025Follow the Demoted podcast here: https://direct.me/demoted “Workplace shenanigans with a side of career advice” — that’s the tagline for the Demoted Pod, which Nick and Jack were intervie...wed on this spring. We had an epic time exchanging banter with two of the finest office satirists on the internet.Ross and Natalie shower Nick and Jack with praiseNick & Jack’s biz origin storyTariffs, explained (literally and with analogies)Future proofing your career How to use AI betterThe most valuable skills all humans must flexHow we use AI to produce our podcast How to side hustleHow to turn economic chaos into creationGetting out of your information bubble And our favorite stockFollow @corporatenatalie and @corporate.bro on instagramNick is still resting up, staying positive, and getting better. Thank you for the well wishes! Can’t wait for him to be back on the mics next week.Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Instant Ramen 🍜Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: http://Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Discussion (0)
This is Jack, and it's still just Jack again.
For those who haven't heard from yesterday's pod, Nick has viral meningitis and was hospitalized.
I talked to him yesterday, though, and he was in amazing spirits.
For 15 minutes, he and I were catching up with each other and chuckling about Seinfeld episodes.
It was amazing to hear his voice.
They decided to keep him out the hospital for one more day, but he's in good hands and is getting
the meds he needs.
I just ordered his favorite chicken soup to be delivered to the hospital,
from his favorite restaurant.
And here's some amazing news that I was thrilled about.
His sister is flying in to help take care of Nick's son, Maxie.
As you know, Nick's wife, Molly, is pregnant.
So Katie Flying In is just an MVP performance.
Shout out to her.
Also, Nick told me he was so grateful for the hundreds of comments
you all left for him yesterday.
We are both overwhelmed with appreciation
for how much you care about us
and for the relationship we have.
I mean, this is more than just podcast or listener.
This is something different.
And thank you for showing us that yesterday.
So today, we're going to publish an episode
from the demoted podcast that Nick and I were interviewed on this spring.
You've probably seen corporate Natalie on your socials.
She satirizes office culture,
as well as that Bachelorette weekend
that she's still probably recovering from.
And you've seen corporate bro, too.
His name is Ross Pomerantz.
This man invented the funniest acronym of all time.
You ready for this?
Sadness.
Sales are dope.
Never, ever stop selling.
Sadness.
That actually turned into a movie, by the way.
We interviewed them last year, and they interviewed us.
Clearly, we're huge fans.
And in this episode of the Demoted Podcast,
we talk about how to use AI in the workplace.
We go full Econ 101 on how tariffs actually work,
both literally and through analogy.
And we also share Nix and My Origin Story, which includes near firings of both of us.
And that boyfriend that Natalie mentions in this episode, it's now her fiancé.
Congrats to her.
So when you're done listening, follow the Demoted podcast and Natalie and Ross on social.
We put all their links and handles right here in the show notes.
Nick is extremely funny in this episode, by the way.
I just finished listening to it.
And man, do I miss that guy.
All right, let's hit the show.
This week on the pod, we have the host of The Best One Yet.
What is a tariff?
What does it do?
What's a tariff?
Everyone's talking about tariffs.
What even is a tariff?
How does it impact me and should I stop buying coffees?
We're bringing on two of the smartest minds in news, tech, and pop culture.
They're the host of the T-Boy podcast, The Best One Yet.
And they're going to teach us all how to future-proof your career.
Now, a quick word from our sponsors.
What's up, Motorheads?
It's good to have you all here.
We're back in the stew, back in the beanbags.
We got guests today.
We do.
some of the best guests, the best guests yet. Precisely. If you haven't listened to the best one yet
podcast, why don't you pause this right now and go do it. Go do it. Every single day, they are bringing
you 20 minutes of the three most important news stories that you need to know. Nick and Jack are what
Ross and I aspire to be in podcasting. They release a daily episode. We were joking at the end of the
podcast that they're their own LLM. They take in all sources of information from news, finance, pop culture,
tech news, bring it all into the three headlines you should know every single day.
Yeah, a lot of people are so overwhelmed about what publications, what sources should I read.
Hey, just go listen to these guys. They got you covered.
We wanted to bring them on specifically to talk about future proofing your career.
Everything we're seeing in our dear demotids or corporate confessions is this kind of fear of
AI tariffs, the economy, the recession, what's happening and what should I look out for as
a working professional? And as we mentioned, these two guys are very smart. And they're given that
they are reading the news, they are consuming all this information every single day.
They're some of the most well equipped to answer these questions.
We're recording on April 29th, so a lot can change in the next two weeks before this is released.
But we're hoping to talk about looking ahead in your next year, your next five years of your career event.
What should you be doing?
Yeah.
And using some of the stories that these guys have researched in the past to inform their decisions and our decisions.
So with that, let's welcome Nick and Jack from T-boy to Demoted.
Nick and Jack were so happy to have you here.
And Nick, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our sunrise kayak together in Hawaii.
I mean, it was the vacation of vacations.
Wasn't it Natalie?
What are you guys talking about?
Yeah.
Did you guys just see each other on a beach like one day or what?
There was.
Actually, yes.
It was.
I was with my boyfriend's family doing a sunrise kayak.
And they were like, we need another solo to hop in our, our kayak.
Nick's hand shoots up from the sand.
I'm like, where did he can't come from?
Who is this man in a red speedo?
He jumps in the front of the boat right next to my boyfriend's dad.
They're yapping it up the whole time.
It was a beautiful sunrise that we shared together.
It was literally 5 a.m.
It was.
And I was at the time, my wife and our baby were sleeping.
And I was like, I'm going to go do something existential right now.
Yes.
And then I end up in the party boat at 5 a.m.
Oh, God, Natalie's here.
My friend's family.
Natalie's drinking, of course.
For those who can't picture this, season one of White Lotus.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That was the vibe we were going for.
It was definitely a whodotid vibe.
Someone was overboard at one point on the kayak as the sun was rising.
I'm sure you wanted just a moment, like a break away from this world.
Podcasting, certainly me.
But we all jumped in the boat together.
So that's good.
Nick strikes me as the guy who you bring around your parents because parents just love him.
Oh, they were obsessed.
Just eating it up.
Just right out of his hand.
We were having a great convo with Matt's parents.
That's one of three boys.
It's now four.
Nick's one of them two.
I think I was like high-fiving him in the gym the next day.
Yeah.
Everyone ripped their tarps off.
Jumped in.
Of course.
Anyway.
The category is perfect for parents.
It's good to see you with your shirt on, Nick.
Jack just had his third kid.
Jack,
Jack,
give us your personal update.
Third kid.
Oh boy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just look at Ross's videos about not getting sleep and that's me time three.
I don't know how you do it.
No,
I'm just kidding.
We got,
we got Wather at the top.
He's four. Brooks is two. Oakley is zero. So three under four. Is that how it goes?
Terrifying to me. I'm rounding down. He's eight weeks old at this point. Can I also just give Jack a shout
out for what he's pulling off right now? That's what I'm saying. It was his first son, aka the pod son's
birthday the other day. Jack didn't just throw a, Jack and Alex didn't just throw a dinosaur themed
Easter egg hunting for this thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. Jack bought a wedding cake themed like
dinosaurs, three tears
that he brought to the
birthday party. It was an
anti-recession indicator.
Yeah, what? Tariff.
Tariff and cake, I dare you.
There was some IP issues with
Jurassic Park, but Jack said, what the heck?
We'll let the lawyers deal with that. And he got this
the most epic cake I've ever seen
outside of two people getting married.
Oh, my gosh.
I cannot wait to spoil my kids.
And here I am talking about it. I'm like, do we really
need to do a first birthday? I mean, he's like,
two weeks old, but like, like, who's going to remember that?
Ross is Michael Scott in the office being like, let's just celebrate all three of ours together.
Like, we don't need to do individual ones.
At this point, you know, I'm an efficiency guy.
Yeah.
So I'm sure I'll do it.
I mean, he's two weeks. I mean, he's two weeks old.
He's only two weeks old.
Wow.
Congrats, Ross.
Yeah.
He's just like, go, go, go.
I'm like, dude, what do you?
Get a job.
Please.
Get a job.
I contribute.
All you do is poop and eat.
I'm lecturing him while I'm changing his diet.
It's just, you know.
It's a whole thing.
But, okay, we have you guys on the pod for a reason.
We gave your intros before you join, but can you give us an intro on the best one yet?
Who the hell are you guys?
Who are you guys?
How'd you meet?
Just give us your kind of elevator pitch, dare I say.
Well, the best one yet, the best one yet, T-Boy is the daily business show that we call pop biz,
the mix of pop culture and business that makes you the most interesting, well-read,
fascinating person in whatever room you're in, whether it's a boardroom or whether it's
brunch because every day Jack and I create the three most fascinating stories in the business
world with our takeaways from years and years of studying business finance and everything in
between. It's two best friends talking about business finance and economics, but it does go back
to freshman year. Nick and I were randomly selected as freshman year roommates. Absolutely wild
how that changed both of our lives. After four years of college, we became roommates again in
New York City, lived in a four-person apartment. It was our wild early.
20s and both of us quickly discovered that our desk jobs and finance were not what we had been
romanticizing.
What?
What you mean?
New York?
Big City.
So fulfilling.
Yeah.
The number crunching wasn't cool.
I actually worked at a German investment bank, which had the benefit of like very generous
vacation and like no expectation of 80 hour work weeks, which was really nice, but the negative
of zero fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Nick and I started a side hustle when we were like.
23 years old and fast forward. Fast forward 13 years and we're still doing that side hustle together
today. Well, really what we started doing was we started writing a daily newsletter in secret
outside of our day jobs. At the risk of being fired, we just said what the heck we're going to do it.
We grew that from a newsletter into a podcast. That was called Market Snacks. We then sold it during
this wild summer when we were in business school to Robin Hood, the stock trading app, which was trying
to build out a media arm. So Jack and I flew out to California. Uncertain if we were going to do an
acquisition deal, we end up signing a deal and end up becoming a part of Robin Hood, the stock
trading company for three years, where you probably got to know our podcast as Snacks Daily.
And then after being through Robin Hood during their wildest craze ever, during the meme coins
and all that craziness, Jack and I spun off the show, kept our podcast audience.
And full time went into podcasting with our show, the best one yet,
and this incredible community of Yeties and besties, as we call them,
who love getting business news in a really interesting way.
They love hearing Jack and I talk about how Netflix's earnings report
reminds us of Rihanna song from 10 years ago,
and they're using the same strategy as the Spice Girls over at Netflix.
So since 2018, we've done 1,500 episodes of our daily podcast.
Not that I complain about doing like one every three weeks.
We've done like 10.
We're exhausted.
You've got three kids.
You're doing one every single day.
You really are the experts and that's why we wanted to bring you on.
I think the theme of this podcast is future proofing your career.
We want to use your knowledge on tariffs, the economy, everything that's going on in the world to inform what our listeners should do, how they should approach potential recession, what's happening, what's on the horizon.
Yeah.
And just get your advice on how you see the world transit.
where are we headed? What would you guys do? You know, obviously you built something. It's,
it's funny. You guys talk about building your newsletter and secrets. Similarly, we're filming videos
in secret hoping nobody like eventually catches on and they do. And it becomes a thing. But,
you know, you guys took a risk. And a lot of folks who listen to our pot are similarly asking
themselves, do I want to stay in this corporate job? And, you know, tumultuous, scary time right now.
Everybody's been thrown around this, this word of tariffs. I think it's being just sort of,
it is the pop culture word that nobody knows what it means.
Nobody knows what it's supposed to do.
Nobody knows how it works.
But yeah, yeah, no, no, no tariffs.
How about these tariffs, huh?
Oh, it's like a right off.
People have no idea what actually.
What does that mean?
So, I mean, I think that's where we want to start with you guys.
You guys have talked about it in a recent episode.
Generally, U.S. government announcing wide-ranging tariffs, including high tariffs
on Chinese goods, right?
This is like the basics of what we know.
I guess from YouTube, what the hell are tariffs?
Terrors are sticking a bouncer at the door to the country and saying, I'm checking IDs and I'm charging fees based on where you come from. And you're basically having to pay a different cover charge depending on what state, but in this case, what country is on your ID.
Okay, fantastic analogy, Nick. Now I'm going to take it literal. You got it. U.S. Customs and Border Control. We encountered them when we're coming back. Nat, you encountered them when you were coming back from Cabo. I did.
You needed to pass through them and get your passport stamp to enter the country. It is the same.
with stuff that's made in China.
There's only so many ways to enter the country,
like by land, by air, or by sea,
and each one of them is highly controlled
by customs and border control.
So instead of stamping a passport,
when it comes to a Yeti cooler that's made in China,
there's a giant container ship
that has like a thousand Yeti coolers.
And to get into the United States,
they say, what's in there?
Show me your documentation.
Where is it made?
And when Yeti's like shipping guy says, we have coolers. They're made in China. They say, okay,
what's the value of everything in there? And they say, let's say a million dollars, pay us a
145% tariff before you can enter. So that's $1.45 million of new costs for Yeti coolers,
which are going to find their way into the price that we buy them at at at exporting goods.
Wow. The factories could pay some of it. The company Yeti could absorb some of it,
But most often, because these tariffs are high, they ends up getting passed on to consumers in some way.
What is the true intent?
The intent is to give preferential treatment to stuff that's made in the USA.
Right.
So we're only charging this brand new tax on stuff that's made abroad.
So in theory, tariffs are going to benefit companies that decide to make their products in the United States.
Is an interesting angle here, too, that Jack and I were just talking about on the show that involves you, Ross, because tariffs also affect different industries and
different ways. So cars, you know, are affected because car parts come from all over the world. There
are dozens of countries involved in making that Ford F-150. But when it comes to baby products,
we are particularly vulnerable because 97% of strollers are actually made in China, which is an
extremely high percentage. Nearly 100% of baby monitors made in China. So that's why, actually,
in this first week of May, the price of the up-a-baby strollers going from $900 to $12 to $12,000.
$1,200 because of these tariffs.
Do you think my wife being a Facebook marketplace merchant queen should start charging tariffs
from different neighborhoods?
Yeah.
Because she is out there grinding on Facebook marketplace.
The only two things this trade war is good for is the American made cooler equivalent
of a Yeti and Facebook marketplace because people are going to buy you stuff as a result
of these crazy new fees that are going to trickle down into the products that we buy.
Perhaps more of a nuanced question here.
and it's not in the list of questions.
But the U.S. export that we're talking about a lot of is software.
And the intent here is also to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.,
which will take, in theory, a long period of time.
And then we've got the robots that are probably going to take those jobs.
Yeah, the bots.
I was going to say, how do you guys think about that?
The intent from the administration is that, right, to bring manufacturing jobs back?
We covered this just the other day on our podcast.
The driver of this trade war is our trade deficit.
And the trade deficit is the fact that we import more from Canada
and from China and from Mexico, then they buy from us.
So we have a deficit.
They're producing more than we're producing when it comes to trade.
But the problem is that trade deficit only talks about physical things.
To your point, Ross, if you're just looking at the trade deficit,
you're ignoring all the stuff the United States is best at.
And we are best at a lot of different things.
Think about Hollywood.
If you look at the top 25 highest box office movies of all time,
24 of them are American movies.
If you look at the biggest tech companies and the biggest products being used by everyone across the world and Europe, these are American digital goods.
We were looking at the Spotify Global 50 Top Songs playlist the other day.
36 of them were American artists.
So when it comes to services, finance, technology, entertainment, the United States is the absolute leader of the world and all of these things.
But when we're talking about the trade board, we're ignoring all that. And we're just so focused on the one thing that we are comparatively bad at, which is manufacturing. And we're bad at manufacturing because we pay our people much higher wages. And trickling down to kind of the consumer, the listeners of this podcast, how will tariffs impact our daily lives, our professional lives even? What should we look out for?
really, really interesting example of this. Jack and I were just breaking down, which is Domino's
pizza earnings, because this actually tells a really interesting tale. Domino's pizza,
theoretically, should be tariff-proof because that mozzarella, shocker, they're not importing
that from Italy, exactly. They're getting that from here in the United States. A plastic factory,
of course. Basically, all of the ingredients that go into your dominoes, including the stores themselves,
are American-made. And yet, Domino's just told us, in their earnings,
in the first week of May, that they are suffering during the trade war because consumers are making
decisions about their pizza choices, even though Domino's hasn't increased their prices.
They're downgrading to frozen pizza.
Yeah.
And that gives, that's the big monster in the room, which is the chance of recession.
So they are downgrading to frozen pizza.
They're not just saying, hey, I don't want to order in.
Well, Jack, you want to share your Costco research that you did?
I believe you went into Isle 6 at Costco and we're expensing some research to us.
Boots on the ground.
To tell us more.
Four pack of Costco cheese pizzas, frozen.
Kirkland brand, of course, $13.
Natural.
Dominoes can't compete with that.
No.
So the long story short is everyone's predicting the country's going into a recession.
And if these tariffs would China stay in place, it's an almost certainty, in our opinion,
that we will go into a recession because we depend on them for so much of our stuff.
And at the end of the day, tariffs are taxes.
Politicians love to say they're going to cut taxes to,
grow the economy. Well, this is a new tax, so it's going to shrink the economy. And if that happens,
consumers are going to have to deal with higher prices. They might get laid off. Companies are going to
have to raise prices, which isn't good for those companies. This isn't greedflation. This is companies
raising prices to pay for these new taxes that the U.S. Customs and Border Control is charging.
Company stock prices are going to go down. Their profits are going to go down. They might have to do
It is a very bad story. The reason the United States has not used tariffs in a meaningful way
for a hundred years is because it was kind of an economic understanding that they are a bad policy.
The counterpoint to this is that people have shared this is a negotiating strategy and that the
idea is to come up with a set of individual country-by-country deals that will result in better
trade terms for the United States. And there are costs and benefits to going through all that.
So we still have to see what those actually look like.
But in the meantime, the direction things are heading in is exactly the direction Jack is describing.
Now, on our pod just yesterday, we said like, okay, if the goal of the administration is to bring back manufacturing to the United States, that is a worthy goal.
Like, nobody disagrees that that is a good thing.
But overnight making the products we get from China 145% more expensive.
I mean, that is dramatic.
there are going to potentially be empty shelves come Halloween because all of our Halloween costumes
are made in China. All of our toys, all of our baby strollers, like Nick said, made in China.
An alternative to foreign policy by tweet and executive orders changing tariffs every day,
Nick and I came up with the Made in America Act. Let's say you wanted to bring manufacturing
back to the United States. The Made in America Act passed by Congress. It's permanent. It's not changing
every day. Year one, tariffs on China, 10%. Year 2, 20%. Year 2, 20%. You're
3, 30%, gradual, consistent, and give companies the clarity they need to, you know, move their
factory maybe from Malaysia to Minnesota.
Okay, so we are interviewing two future politicians.
Yeah, of course.
I'm obsessed.
Love it.
Welcome to the pod.
Made an America act.
One thing I want to double click on, Jack, that you mentioned, our potential layoffs and
how we should approach our careers and our professional lives.
We get a lot of questions on the pod is now a good time to start.
switch my career. What would you answer to that? I would say now is a good time to stay with your job if it's a
solid job. There's a third option here, Natalie, that Jack and I've been talking about, which is a new
concept called neppopreneurship. This was our term for a phenomenon that's going on, but the number
of young people in America who have taken a job with a relatives company, like a parent's company,
their mom and dad's firm, basically. That number has doubled since 2018. The number who've done it in just
the last year, it's up 13%. It's still a small portion of the overall population, but a really
interesting direction people are going into if they want to switch careers, but they still want
the security that they crave from their current job, is to join with their parents' company.
And there's this other interesting phenomenon, which is we talked about the silver tsunami,
boomers retiring in the next decade or so, and how they'll hand down, you know, wealth and there's
going to be a transfer of investment assets. But one thing they're going to be handing down is,
is the businesses that they run.
And they'd probably rather have their kid running it maybe
than someone random who they'd sell it to.
So a third option here, and it's not open to everybody,
but you could consider working for your mom and dad.
Knock on dad's door.
See what he's up to.
Bring a resume to dad, sit him down, ask for that job.
That's what they said.
I mean, Ross, you got a baby boy.
This could be the third host on the show.
Even before the risk of recessions came along,
we covered a story in our pod about neppopreneurs.
To next point,
the share of small businesses employing the child of the owner, in other words, like, you know,
the owner's son or the owner's daughter has doubled since 2018. We did another story about
this big boom in boring jobs. The idea is that entrepreneurs aren't pursuing like, you know,
SaaS cloud computing or, you know, our official... Corn disruptors.
Instead, they're pursuing like an electrician job or a plumbing role.
Buy the local laundromat. The trades. The trades.
We have some buddies from business school who have like bought up a bunch of funeral homes.
Yes.
Everyone's running every cup.
Me looking at cash businesses online every day.
Meds spots.
I mean, what business is more reliable than funeral homes?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The undercurrent of all this is that like even before the risk of a session came along, it's been a tough job market, especially for new hires.
For like two years now, Zuckerberg started his year of efficiency.
That's still rippling through Silicon Valley.
You got artificial intelligence, which is causing anxiety.
If you got a solid job, we say keep it.
And keep in mind, like, it's not just tech jobs that are attractive.
There's a serious boom in going back to the trades.
Such good advice, especially for people in Silicon Valley, we're all obsessed with the next tech boom, the wave.
What can we do?
It's like, maybe it's the funeral home down the street.
I mean, honestly, most innovative business we've probably seen in the last two weeks.
Well, there's one we got to tell you about the cheating, the AI cheating company.
Oh, I saw this.
I saw this.
Yeah.
Please share.
Kid got kicked out of school for it.
The other one is these laundromats in Brooklyn that are like nightclubs now.
So like these laundromats?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
These like young guys took over these laundromats in Brooklyn.
You know, by day, it's like a very millennially nice, you know, very smooth, typical laundromat.
By night, they're serving like buffalo wings.
They've got a DJ come in and they've got this whole other source of revenue.
And let me tell you, Jack and I'm talking about, that's an AI proof job right there.
It is.
Running the laundromat disco man.
And supply of DJs in New York City, very high.
A lot of DJs ready to get some good price on DJs these days.
Can you talk about a cheating scandal?
Oh, this is good.
This is really good.
Jack, you want to share what these Columbia guys did?
Yeah, so about a month ago, the Columbia University,
two students at Columbia University created an app on the side of their English degree
or whatever it was they were pursuing as an undergrad at Columbia.
They started this AI app that was explicitly designed to help you cheat in school.
And then they told all their classmates about this app they created, which helps them cheat on everything.
Okay.
Spoiler, they got kicked out a month later.
They did.
Well, as if ChadGBT doesn't allow you to cheat enough.
Yeah.
Like, is anyone writing a paper these days?
Who's written an essay?
Here's the thing about this cheating app.
It was specifically designed to help them get internship offers from all the tech companies.
They were looking for like a summer internship at Meta, at Amazon, at Microsoft.
and they had these coding interviews
where they had to share their screen with the interviewer.
So this app called Cluey now,
it's specifically invisible
so that the person on the other side
somehow can't see that you're using an AI chatbot.
Meanwhile, the AI chat bot is listening and watching
everything that's happening on the screen
and giving you just the information you need
at the right moment to crack the code.
So these two freshmen at Columbia,
they go on to LinkedIn and they go on to X,
bragging about these internship opportunities they got thanks to their cheating app.
And then they get an email from the student disciplinary board saying, yeah, you're suspended.
So what did the kids do, Nick?
They moved to Silicon Valley.
They're here in San Francisco as a month ago.
They've already raised money.
They're doing $3 million in the first month on this AI cheating app.
And they've expanded it to cheat on anything.
So their recent use case, using this AI cheating app to cheat on a date of first.
date.
Yeah.
I'm very slick.
I was as a joke going to say to cheat on your spouse.
What do you mean cheat on your first date?
So here's how it goes down.
Ross, have you seen the video?
I have not seen this video.
No.
No.
Okay.
So in the video, the founder walks into a restaurant and he's wearing virtual reality
glasses.
So he's getting data as they're having this conversation over the meal.
And the woman he's speaking with as she's speaking, the cheating app is feeding him
information through the glasses, which you can do.
now with a set of meta rayban glasses saying she likes flowers. Her birthday was this date. She
majored in physics. Ask her about her favorite book that she posted about from last weekend.
So he is just full on basically cheating the date by knowing all this information about him.
But then that brought up like a really existential question. Jack and I are wondering, which was,
is this cheating or is this just an advantage?
It's like your personal chief of staff. Yeah, it's like Gary from Veep.
kind of whispering you all the things you need to hear right in the moment.
But less creepy.
That was reminding me of when I was dating in San Francisco and guys would have watched all of my
corporate Natalie videos before I met them.
And they're a complete stranger to me.
I'm terrified of them.
And they're like,
I know you because of like your videos.
Yeah, like I saw that video you did.
Who are you?
And they wait to bring it up.
They wait till two glasses of wine.
Now I'm trapped.
And you're like, oh, shit.
That's the perfect time.
Well, what do you guys think about the massive education gap that we're going to have as a
result of this?
Everybody's papers is going to read the same.
everybody's thoughts are going to be the same because they're all being fed the same stuff through
this AI. I guess the AI can get better. Well, this is a creativity analogy. Jack and I have used before,
which is the iPhone, which is the iPhone camera revolutionized how we all became photographers.
Like overnight, by having an iPhone, basically the entire population was capable of photography
at a level that we never could have before. However, to this day, we still have professional photographers.
People still pay millions of dollars for legendary photos. And if you're,
doing the photo shoot with your family, like on Hawaii, and you wanted to do one with Matt's family,
now you'd probably hire a pro photographer. So there is this element that, like, the average
is being brought up by AI. But the question is the perfect, the highest quality, the curated,
the tastemakers, that may still be protected because that's operating at a just different level
that the AI isn't hidden. Funny thing about this cheat on everything app, though, just to,
You know, they're getting kicked out of Columbia, basically, for cheating.
And, like, they brand it cheating because that is a wild cutting to the chase marketing-wise.
We clicked on it.
Like, they're not branding their app as being able to boost your productivity.
They're branding the app as helping you cheat, which has some appeal.
But bear in mind, you know, 40 years ago, using a calculator was considered cheating.
Right.
20 years after that, using automatic spell check was considered cheating.
So what's considered cheating at one point just gets added into the rules.
and it's like actually okay now.
And that's what we think it's important
for everyone working a job right now.
I have to think.
Like using AI, don't consider it cheating.
Yes.
You shouldn't lie.
Like that kid was lying that, you know,
he was a marine biologist,
didn't know anything about marine biology.
Right.
It's like, I'm bilingual.
And then they say something in Spanish
and you're like, okay, working proficiency.
But use artificial intelligence to make you better at the thing
because soon it will not,
just like using a calculator today,
is not feeling like cheating, neither will using AI.
Yeah, until everyone's like, sorry, baby, I can't talk to you.
I'll get my glasses on.
Oh, God.
So scary.
Okay, so that's actually a really good segue.
And so the CEO of Shopify recently said that he'll only hire more headcount of his team,
quote, cannot get what they're, what they want to get done using AI.
So how do you guys see the job market being affected by the proliferation of these AI agents now,
which can do a ton of things?
And one of the most valuable skills that you guys, you know, see in human.
in this age of AI.
Honestly, Jackie,
want to share the takeaway
we had from the
interviewing the Duolingo CEO?
We just interviewed Luis von On
on our show.
He's the co-founder.
There's a huge article about
of duoling.
And he came out with an article
very similar to what you're saying
happened at Shopify.
He said that, you know,
everyone at his company,
they are a tech company.
And so a lot of his engineers
are concerned about AI.
A lot of them ask them,
is AI going to take my job?
And his answer to them,
AI is not going to take your job,
but somebody who uses
AI well or better than you could take your job. So like that's that's point number one. Point
number two, he had this really funny story. It was kind of self-deprecating. So I'm going to like
use his words. Yeah, yeah. Pretend I'm Louis spot on for a second. He said, you know,
math nerds like 50 years ago, we had a hard time. We got like shoved into lockers and we were kind
of the brunt of the joke. But then the tech industry started booming and we had like a really,
really good run. And we started becoming CEOs and founding tech companies and becoming billionaires.
And so math nerds had a really, really good 50-year stretch. I think with artificial intelligence,
that run is coming to an end. His idea is that taste is going to be more important than ever
in the age of artificial intelligence. He specifically said artists will beat nerds in the age of AI.
Interesting. I'm ready to bully both. So, you know, we're honest. You know, it's, you know, it's,
It's a counterintuitive take, and it's like contrary to everything you see out there.
But in a basic level, you see this with like AI's ability to do coding and kind of like core engineering skills.
But the limits on creating something totally new from scratch.
And the example he gave was like the Super Bowl commercial that Duolingo did where there was like an owl, the famous duolingo owl, that had another owl come out of its butt.
And then another owl appear out of that owl's butt.
and it was like increasing owls coming out of each owl's butt.
Genius.
Was it the Russian dolls, those dolls that you keep stacking out?
Yeah, exactly.
And his point was, you know, that's the kind of thing that like chat GPT isn't exactly
coming up with.
You need an artist to kind of come up with that.
I think he was also saying that a lot of quantitative work or sort of process oriented
work is just going to be purely commodified and ultimately automated by artificial intelligence.
Yeah.
And, you know, their content at scale has to be automated.
That's what they talk.
He talked about that too, right?
a lot of their work.
Like their contractors,
they're going to lose a lot of their contractors
because they've got to do content at scale
in all these different languages
and something that AI can do really well
is translate and sort of build curriculum
around the things that they've already built.
So maybe the engineers are okay,
but I don't know,
they're still...
We're curious, but you guys are using AI for,
like, because we're all podcasters here.
And, you know, like, what...
But we all have a,
and we have a process for creating the show.
And it's so funny because a lot of listeners
probably don't know how much work.
And we know how much work
you guys are putting into this show. Like, you're hearing the episode today, if you're a listener,
but like, we know both of you and your entire teams have poured hours and days into preparing for
this. So, like, how are you guys using it as part of, you know, this entertainment industry?
Not enough. I don't think the comedy has been fully matched, but the relatability is, I think
even in the last three months, it's gotten better on prompting for script ideas and bits that we do
outside of the pod, but like more of our filmed content. Yeah, I mean, like, it's great for
idea generation, like on a sort of micro level. You guys mentioned the taste making. It has no genius.
AI has no genius to it. So like that's what differentiates the content that goes crazy versus the ones
that are just kind of fall flat, even if they are quote unquote relatable. You know, you're not allowed
to use AI. So like I'm working on scripts for, you know, TV. I can't use AI for that. Like, I can't really
go near that because if they find out or they can figure it out, then it's like against the writer's
track. Exactly. And same with our branded content on socials. All the contracts include you cannot use
AI to generate any of the concepts that you do in our branded content. Right. But you may have a
script and you're like, okay, I need a good example as I was like trying to figure out what would be a good
gift for a salesperson, right? That would be funny. Right. And it just sort of listed out a few ideas.
I just needed a super small kind of like mini joke inside a much larger skit and it gave me a bunch of good
ideas. That was great. But it doesn't have the cleverness. It doesn't have the wit, doesn't have
the sarcasm. Or the personal history that you guys pull from. Like Jack and I, you know, we go back
to freshman years. So like, you know, we're like, wow, the analogy here for, for this
economic trend is actually, you know, honestly, it's like a Beirut game that we played when we
were in college. And like, you know, this strategy Jack would have. And we're like, that's a personal
thing that you can't touch if you're coming through chat, GPT on. Right. True. And you guys
are talking about the creative side here.
It's interesting, Ross, that you know, ask Chat TPT, what gift should I get this client?
Because I think that's the first step to harnessing the power of AI is just rewiring your muscle memory to stop thinking and stop Googling, even though that's what we've done for our entire professional careers, is think and Google when we need to come up with ideas and find information.
And instead, rewire yourself, can I ask an AI chatbot to save me time here or to come up with better ideas?
or to just brainstorm so that I'm not starting with a clean slate.
Right. That's a clean slate thing.
Yeah, the best way to pick up a new habit, work with an existing habit.
So, you know, like when people want to give up alcohol, they typically don't go cold turkey
because that's really hard.
They typically replace it with something else.
Maybe get a tea instead or, you know, a ginger drink.
Right.
So you still are enjoying the habit, but it's just not alcohol.
Same thing like Jack's saying.
Like instead of Googling something, try chat sheep teaing it and see how that's the same habit,
but different use case.
When we did that story on why the NBA should expand to other countries,
like the whole NBA basketball business model,
we needed to know like how many MVPs in the NBA were born outside the United States.
Googling that, you know,
doesn't really give you an exact answer, but AI does.
So like with research, you know, that's how we've been using it the most.
It gets you over that blank you mentioned, the blank slate.
Like that's the hardest thing for so many creatives.
Just like, give me something to work with.
Show me some clay.
And you're mentioning kind of rewind,
those habits. I guess just more specifically, I want to ask about maybe some of these tools or
just current things you can add. So the CEO of Uber said that most employees do not know how to
properly leverage AI tools in their daily work. How can listeners start leveraging AI tools in their
current work roles? And maybe it's just going from Google to chat, GBT, but any tools or
recommendations you have? Before we answer that question from that, a quick sponsor break.
How can listeners start leveraging AI tools in their current work roles? Stop Googling.
to chat GPT. Anyone I know who has sort of moved their page one of the internet from Google
to chat GPT says they're never going back and it's just a total game changer for their internet
experience. So I do think that's step one because you're going to stop Googling and you're just
going to start using artificial intelligence just by accident due to the nature of going to
look for things on the internet. Yeah. Any tools you've seen in emailing, these like general
like presentations, things that every worker is doing.
Well, here's a risk to be careful about, which is that it's also, and Ross is kind of highlighting
this earlier, you can start to sense now what's, what's got a little chat GPT flavor.
Oh, yeah.
You know, like, Jack and I can, you can suss out right now which emails with like the hyphen or like
the one to punch, like are kind of using a form.
I'm guilty.
I use the hyphen all the time.
And now I'm offended by just like, I'm a huge hyphen guy.
I feel like it, I feel like it, I feel like it played.
It's just us, man.
But that is a key.
And, you know, one art form, Jack and I think that is going to be developed more, is
prompting.
And this kind of gets at the why artists may succeed well with AI, which is actually asking,
and this is a difference with Google.
With Google, you can just kind of like, you can have 12 typos in there and Google will just
like show you the results.
With chat, GBT, you do want to create and spend the time investing in the right prompt,
which is a series of guidelines to get you to the right answer.
And that prompt, that art of prompting, that's a skill we think you can improve on and get better at.
And part of these prompts that Jack and I say will be like, we want this to, you know, what are examples that are not expected from AI?
What are things that are more outside the box?
You can prompt AI to not sound like AI or not do things that are cliche AI like.
The role prompt engineer.
Is that similar to what you're saying?
What is a prompt engineer?
Yeah, similar concept of like being good at prompting.
Yeah.
And it is a skill, we think, just like learning how to write a cover letter was a skill before
or how to craft a thesis statement was a skill, actually having the ability to write a thoughtful
prompt with guidelines of, I want it to be colorful.
I want it to mimic this style of writing.
I don't want it to sound like AI wrote it.
Here's how you become a great prompt engineer.
You act like a boss and you pretend you have an assistant and be like a really,
awful boss who's super
anal about all the details.
So Wilder's fourth
birthday party and the dinosaur
themed Easter egg hunt that Nick mentioned
that idea came from
Chad GPT. I said, I'm having
a birthday party in April, in Vermont.
I wanted to be outdoors. I don't know what
the weather will be, but it's probably going to be wet
and cold. Easter is the day
after the birthday party. I don't
want to get a bounce house because that's cliche
for four-year-old birthday parties. No judgment.
So, Jack. What activity can I
do for the 40 people who have RCPed, 20 which, 20 of whom are toddlers. They came up with that
idea and like six other really good ideas. Act like you have an assistant. Act like your Ari
Gold. Remember Ari Gold? Yeah. Part assistant who was unbelievably productive. And Ari Gold was like
aggressively demanding of that assistant. I think that's how you become a great prompt engineer.
Yes. Like demand absolute excellence and say all of your preferences and all of the things you need
down to a, like, down to the final detail and chat GPT doesn't care about manners.
They're going to produce a better product because you were such a stickler.
I saw that.
Yeah, Sam, yeah, Sam, Alman.
I could say a please and thank you.
Yes.
Yeah, they're losing like, you know, tens of millions of dollars of people being polite.
Yeah.
Well, I saw this video.
I saw this video that's like, how we're cheating chat GBT these days.
And it's like, now make it better.
And the guy was pretending to be chat.
GBT is like sweating.
Like, please let me out.
And when the robots come for us, though, if you did drop the occasional please and thank
I think they keep a record of that.
Yes, I do too.
100%.
Yeah, got to be nice.
Yeah.
Got to be nice.
Your behavior score is just being logged every second now.
Should we shift on to our Deer Demoted?
We had some folks right into us.
And so I'm going to attempt to read this to you guys.
We don't show this that often, but Natalie and I really struggle to read.
Yes.
So I'm going to read this anyway here.
So Deer Demoted and Tebowy.
I was recently laid off from my tech startup job.
They said the decision was due to the, quote,
hesitancy of venture capital firms to invest in the market during economic uncertainty.
Do you think this is a temporary measure?
Or could this be the start of a rough time to be an early stage tech?
Would it be unwise to look for another job at a startup?
Any insight would be very helpful.
Thank you guys.
So taking a job at a startup is always risky, just given the nature that most startups
don't succeed.
There's data out there that businesses that get formed, chances are in five years won't be
there anymore.
So startups are always risky.
You're also probably not going to get paid as much at a startup as you would, a big
company, especially when you consider the benefits that a big company can offer you and the number
of hours a startup demands of you.
So that's like number one.
Startups are always more risky.
And you should only do so if the failure outcome, like the company going under or you're
not making it there, like can you handle that negative outcome?
Do you have some savings or something to fall back on if you lose your job?
if you don't, maybe a startup is not the right room for you because that adverse scenario is just
unacceptable.
Like Ross, you have a kid now.
I have three kids now.
Once you get those kinds of family responsibilities, your risk tolerance just goes down a little bit.
It's just like the nature of life.
Depends on the going rate for a child.
I don't know.
If all that sounds great to you, then there's, with all that risk comes greater reward.
So you get the upside at a startup of being promoted more quickly.
of gaining responsibilities more quickly because there's so few people who work at the company.
Maybe you get stock and equity in the company.
If that company gets acquired or IPOs, that's how you could get rich someday.
And honestly, maybe you have some leverage now.
Like as we're hearing this question, like I'm thinking, Jack, like, yeah, maybe people are
averse to going to startups right now.
And so maybe, you know, the desire to need some people talent kind of works in your favor.
And therefore, if you are pursuing a startup and they're having trouble hiring, it's an
opportunity to ask for more. Like, maybe this is when you ask for equity. We always say equity is
exciting. You know, this, you know, this, there could be some leverage here if you are pursuing
a startup when most people are not. Yeah. Equity is exciting and terrifying. One, one thing I would add to that
is also try to look at when they raised money. If they raised money for five years ago now,
chances are they're not going to achieve their valuation and are at much higher risk.
You know, everybody's trying to fight to meet these valuations that were that were crazy just five
years ago, you know, if you've raised money very recently in the last year, they probably are going to
go lower and slower and have a little bit more, be a little bit more conservative burn, a little slower.
That's my hypothesis, at least with what VCs are telling companies to do now. So you might have a little more
runway to, if you do choose to go there, they might be a little bit safer, but again, still highly
risky. Good advice. Your podcast kind of started as a side hustle. Our content started as a side hustle.
Everyone's like, how do I make ends meet now? Should I get another job? What can I do? Do you have any
advice on side hustling or how to find other sources of income in these uncertain times?
Yeah. I mean, first of all, create an LLC for yourself. If you're going to start side hustling,
make sure you have created a business because all of the expenses related to the work you did,
whether it's your computer, your internet service, that is all part of the product that you're
working on selling. So if you're going to start a side hustle, that is a business. And if your
Even just the thought of starting a side hustle, you think?
You don't, like, even just deciding.
If you're going to commit to some of the way, you should do that.
You know what?
There's like a funny little bit of accountability.
Like, you know the theory that when you share something with someone, you're just more
accountable because now there's like a little bit of reputational risk.
Yes.
Almost similarly, like with the U.S. government, if you file to create that LLC like
Jack's talking about and you're going to get a notification from the government the next year
saying that you like you owe a certain filing fee or something, you're going to feel like,
you know what, I kind of make this 400 bucks worth it. I really should turn this into something.
Yeah, I love it. Speaking of new existence, I've got to put it out there. Accountability.
Now, we recently started a second show, actually, called The Best Idea Yet. We launched it last fall.
Instead of a daily podcast about news, this is a deep dive weekly podcast. So far, we've covered 40 of the most viral products of all time.
and it's basically the untold origin stories of the products we're all obsessed with.
So we did Super Mario Brothers, we did the Birkenstock Sandal, we did the Ferrari, we did the Super Soaker, we did the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
Here's a wild detail about all of those products.
Just about all of them started during economic recessions.
It is wild, but a recurring character in our series, the best idea yet, is that an economic downturn
caused somebody to be in a tough situation,
and with their back against the wall,
they innovated and created something awesome.
People get created.
We basically say recessions are the recurring character
on all the shows.
And then on top of that,
to go even further to tie into Nat's question,
so many of these products began
as some kind of a side project.
The peeps candy, side project.
Rees- Peanut Butter Cups,
invented by a frog salesman.
They were a side project.
A frog salesman?
salesman? Yeah, a frog. You know when you like need a frog? You know when you're like in the market for a frog?
Yep. Got it. This is the guy you call? He was running a little peanut butter business on the side. The Super Soker, NASA engineer side hustle at home created a super soaker. Wow. So many incredible success stories of these that are all began during moments like this with side hustles like you're talking about. So you're saying it's a great time to build. One more dear demoted for you both. Hey Nick and Jack. I listen to T-boy and
Damn, you guys are smart and well read.
What do you rely on as your source of information?
What should I read or listen to every day to sound smarter at work?
T-up.
T-up.
What is it?
Listen to our show.
Yes.
Because we have some advice for people who want to find the right news and information,
but we know that your time is limited.
Nick and I spend our full day job finding the perfect mix of stories for a 20-minute podcast.
We literally say content is king, but curation.
is queen and we are curating it for you.
We have a wildly diverse diet of news and information that we spend hours consuming
every day, including on the weekends.
We consider it like our personal board of advisors.
We have like an automotive blog sitting at that end of the boardroom.
We have a tech podcast right there.
Nick has the biography of Enzo Ferrari over there.
I listen to a conservative-leaning podcast.
I listen to a liberal newsletter.
We consume so much information from so many different perspectives so that we can figure out what are the three stories our audience needs to know.
And how can we give them that that 20-minute news shot that just prepares them perfectly to understand the trends, the exciting stories, and the boring stories that are actually really important that you need to know about.
Wow.
So if you want to become an LLM like Nick and Jack has with consuming every source of your human AI.
Yeah, if you don't have time to do that, listen to T-Boy, I think is the answer.
One lesson Jack and I have learned in this daily pursuit of the most interesting business stories in the world is that Jack and I like to say the formula for interesting is bold plus specific.
And what we look for when we're going to choose whether or not a story will be one of our three for the day.
And it's something you can look for in your lives when you're looking for interesting news is we like to find the bold and specific example.
For example, we did a story the other day on how fashion chains are launching coffee shops.
So high-end or low-end, they're launching shops.
The data point that led us to that whole story was about Ralph Lauren's Ralph's coffee
and how they were doubling the number of stores and the retention rates were a super high number.
We took that hero stat, researched it further, discovered there was a whole story here of Zara launching it, Gucci launching coffee chains.
And we turned that into a story for the pod.
And Jack and I think that's part of a healthy news diet when you're, if you're not listening to
our show, something you can do on your own, which is pursue when you see the one interesting
detail or data point, go down that rabbit hole a little more and you'll find there is usually
a bigger, broader story with a bigger, broader takeaway there.
I think something that you both have that's just, I love witnessing firsthand is just
such sheer curiosity.
That's what made you start this podcast, what made you start your second podcast, being
curious about the world and things and trying to find things that excite you.
will make your day a little bit more fulfilling, I think.
Totally.
And you're just tastemaker kings.
You really are.
Pursuing curiosity is a very proactive move, Natalie.
And whether or not you listen to our podcast, we do have advice for how to be well-rounded
information-wise.
And that is to break your social media silo.
Our algorithms have pigeonholed all of us.
They have figured out what we like to click on and what we like to view and then just fed
that's tons of that same thing. We're all in these information silos based on our algorithms.
To break out of that, you need to proactively search for an account that the algorithms are
not feeding you to diversify your information diet. So like Nick and I have an automotive blog,
an international newspaper, a British economic magazine of which that is a category of one,
by the way, everyone knows that's the economist. It's a very proactive thing. Like you're going to have,
a very not homogenous information diet unless you actively pursue new perspectives.
Matt and I try to read The Economist every Sunday night.
And by that, I mean Matt reads it to me because I have zero interest.
But it makes me smarter, which is good.
Final question.
Answer or not.
Just says two of my favorite pods.
Ask T-Boy their favorite stock or ETF.
When Nick and I were in our 20s, we were highly active stock jockeys, let's call it.
Yeah.
We pursued lots of individual stocks because we believed we could outperform the rest of the market.
Just like every cocky 20-year-old.
Spoiler.
I mean, it's going to go up, right?
It only goes up.
That's what I was told.
We're the smartest two dudes here.
We got this.
Jack, this just came across my desk if you got one minute.
Let me tell you about finance class that you can't beat the market and it's futile.
But we didn't believe it until we tried it in our 20s.
failed.
Yeah.
Well, honestly, in my 30s, I have stopped trying to beat the market.
And my favorite stock is Berkshire Hathaway, which is half private equity firm, half actively
managed stock portfolio, led by a 94-year-old investing legend.
You can basically for free, with no management fee, piggyback off the smartest mind in
the United States, which is Warren Buffett.
And for the last 59 years, his return, owning that stock, is double as good as the S&P 500.
It's not a stock back recommendation, but that is where most of my money is.
What's a single share of that now?
They've got the B's.
Oh, that's right.
The B share is $300 or something.
Okay.
The A share is like $500,000.
$500 for a share.
Yeah, yeah.
Funny detail about Jack's, my investing, which we always kind of shocks people.
But, you know, Jack and I, like, we invested in a car charging stock during the pandemic.
When we were bullish in buying electric cars and we're like, this is going to work.
hasn't gone anywhere. Peloton, we were all in on that at a pretty good point during the pandemic.
Still holding on, hoping someone will do something with it. But, you know, that isn't done much.
Our best performing stock, S.P.Y, the ETF and the S&P 500, the most boring of stocks has been
our best performing stock. That's Reddit's favorite stock too. So. And honestly, the key thing Jack
and I do is, you know, like people BTD buy the dip. Jack and I like to say now we BTD, we buy the
date. We basically invest on specific dates on a calendar year consistently. So instead of choosing
based on what the prices of the stock, because anytime we tried to buy at the bottom, it's kind of
gone down further. We just take that variable out of the equation. We don't even think about it.
We just buy on the first of the month kind of a thing. And if you're holding long term, it doesn't
really matter where the buy-in price was because eventually you're hoping it goes up from there.
So rather than stressing yourself out about BTD buy the dip, another thing you can do is
BTD buy the date and just focus on buying stocks at specific dates.
Now, I got some recurring buys.
I have a caveat to all this, which is early in your investing career, buy a single stock
of a company you friggin love.
And eventually it's hopefully going to go up.
And when it does, sell it and then splurge on something for yourself with that game that
you do.
Oh, totally.
Because that's sort of like you need to bask in the glory of.
capitalism by like making a $300 return and just buying that frigging paris-sneed.
I think it's how we bought these matching shinola watches. Jack and I like got a nice
business dev.
I'm course you have matching watches.
Why would they?
I love it.
I love it.
Okay, we want to do promoted or demoted our tried and true segment with you too while we have
you on.
This is just quick answers.
Do you like it?
Do you not?
A lot of these might come from some recent T-boy episodes.
Promoted demoted.
The teenage mutant Ninja Turtles.
Who's your favorite?
Nick, you have a disclosure to me.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, I mean, I only wore Ninja Turtle underwear
for the first four years of my life without fail.
And I think that's pretty common from what I understand.
I was a big Ninja Turtle guy, too.
I don't know if it was four years straight, but.
So, you know, just because we're on a role here,
let's promote Ninja Turtles.
And the reason why is when Jack and I did a story in the Ninja Turtles,
it is the first company, the first brand we'd ever heard of,
that was started as a complete joke.
Like, the guys who created it
just were riffing on a couch
and trying to come up with the dumbest idea.
They were stoned as hell.
They were definitely, yes.
They were stoned as hell.
And they said, I'm going to make a cartoon about turtles.
And then they said, wait, ninja turtles.
Hang on.
Teenage Ninja turtles.
Wait.
Teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Let's name them after Italian Renaissance painter.
They called it the dumbest idea they could think of.
And it became a billion dollar.
And something's so dumb like that, you kind of just got to promote it.
That's like Ross writing sales are dope from your...
As stupid as possible.
Yeah, but me taking it seriously.
You guys in your head of move.
Sadness is the best acronym I've ever come across in your higher life.
It is.
We were so impressed with it.
It just works.
It's USA Patriot Act and sadness.
Yeah, please.
Two best acronyms ever.
That's what's going to take to get it past.
That's what it's going to take.
I have one final one here as the only nine.
on business schoolgoer of the group. I'll let you,
you three answer. Promoter demoted, going to
business school. Say promoted. Minimal
contact. You don't get to give a ton of context here.
I'm going to promote it personally. I'm going to promote it so that
Michigan likes me as an alum.
So you invite you back to finally speak. It's all about the network,
guys. It's all about the network.
Promoted for the sake of the kids who may apply.
Yeah. Love that. Love that.
Well, Nick and Jack, you've been amazing. Thank you for coming on our
podcast. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.
Absolutely killed it. People are going to be blown away.
They actually got smarter for once on a demoted episode.
They did.
They're going to freak out.
We did so much fun.
And we had so much fun to having you guys in our podcast.
But also, one moment, like, can we just pivot the spotlight a little bit to how much we
respect you guys in terms of what you bring and create into the world?
And there's an example Jack and I were thinking of in particular, which is no one enjoys ads.
They are kind of like the bottom of the content totem pole, right?
You know, like that's not the highlight.
And yet, you two have managed to.
to turn advertising into a form of content that we look forward to listening to when we listen
to every episode of yours.
And that is a skill that, like, as peers, we deeply admire about you because it says you're
willing to do like the tough things.
Absolutely best in class branded posts.
The funniest posts I can remember that you two have done have been paid posts.
I'm thinking of when Ross tried to sell Nat some chomps beef jerkeys.
Oh, yeah.
That was so good.
Ross's Mr. Coffee morning routine
I can't believe they approved that.
And then recently, the two co-workers
whose entire personality at work
is I'm too busy for this, that was Staples, right?
Stables.
Stables.
How do you come up, do you like write the
chat?
You know,
we just think about the insufferable versions of ourselves,
which is us.
Yeah, we go from there.
We go to the negative trope and then we kind of weave it in.
Yeah.
We think of all the motorheads out there,
like something that we should
additionally appreciate about these two as an incredible podcasting pair are that they put the time to
something that honestly most podcasters don't care about and and a lot of podcasters try to act like
they're reading because they like think they're above the ads yes and we don't we don't like that
approach but like you guys do such the opposite of that so for all the motorheads out there
just another reason to love these two yeah thank you manage to offer your product for free
monetizing through ads that people don't always like but you make that entertaining too so that's really
And on that note, just put in promo code.
Promote.
Promote demoted at checkout.
Thank you guys.
Free shipping guys.
Free shipping.
Think about it.
Think about it.
Promote.
Where can we find you?
We know your podcast.
You want to shout out your personal socials?
Where can we pay you guys for what you just said about us?
Yeah.
Like where can we like turn that into a social clip?
Yeah.
Follow the best one yet.
We're also known as T-B-O-I, T-Boy, at T-Boy, at T-B-B-B-B-B-O-O-N on Instagram,
TikTok and everyone on social.
The show is the best one yet,
aka T-boy, you can find it.
That's all you gotta follow.
Follow the best one yet.
You can find nix of my personal handles from there.
The quality you guys put out every day is just...
We pour our heart our soul into our brain
into every episode.
And enjoy our new show,
the best idea yet,
which every week,
the most viral products of all time,
Jack and I tell you,
where they really came from.
And that one has been a blast.
We just did Frapachino this week,
which...
Oh, my old dream.
We just probably lost all of our
motorhead listeners because they're now going to just transition to the best one yet. But this was great.
It's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do. And we would support it. Yeah. We would support it.
Thank you both and enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for having us guys. Thank you, boys. Yay.
Great job, Jack. Thank you, Ross. What an episode. Yeah. I feel smarter. I feel kind of ready to take on the day.
I feel elated. I feel uplifted. I feel like I need to maybe drink a coffee. Yeah.
They're goals. They're aspirational as hell. They're goals. I love them. Every time I talk with them, I feel
better. And I think you can all feel better by listening to their podcast. Truly, I cannot plug it
enough. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, people do 1.5 speed when they're trying to just like digest things
quickly. I do 0.5 speed for them. Right. Then it sounds like a normal speed. It sounds like a normal speaking
voice. But like I said, they waste no words. They say a lot of words. They waste not a single one of them.
Zero. It's all just so concise. So to the point and so digestible for a simple mind like myself.
I am a simple minded. We are simple minds here. Thank you to our first time listeners.
Yes. If this is the first time you're listening to a,
us. We do have other guests that have previously graced the pod. Simone Stoles off talking about the good
enough job, how your career doesn't have to be the only thing that defines you. Vivian, too,
if you liked some of those finance tips, she is a finance expert. Hers was a great guest
episode. And we also do corporate hotline episodes. Where we get crazy, raunchy corporate stories about the
things that happens at the office and the holiday parties, etc., etc. Makes you a little less bad about
blacking out at your company holiday party. Exactly. Let's read one shout out, get everyone out of here.
This one is submitted by IU Little 5 exclamation point.
Congrats Tommy D.
and Claire on your engagement.
Congrats, guys.
And shout-up to anybody who listens to T-Boy as well as demoted.
You're obviously the cream of the crop,
the most educated and also lowbrow in terms of your humor.
All the Yeties and the motorheads.
We hope we can do a meetup one day soon.
