The Best One Yet - 🌬️ “Giving up smoke” — Snoop Dogg’s head-fake. Chardonnay’s top-selling grape. Wall Street’s kindness counter.

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Remember last week when Snoop Dogg announced he’d given up smoking? — Turns out it was a wild marketing move that just pumped one stock up 15%.1K acres of Napa wine country just sold for $400M — Because Chardonnay isn’t just a grape, it’s also an insurance policy.And there’s a strange trend this corporate earnings season: A drop in compliments — CEOs are getting fewer kudos, kindness, and compliments than ever right now.$NAPA $BF $DTC $SPYSubscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, November 21st. And today's pod, it is the best one yet. It's a T-boy, Jack. Yiddies, first we're going to open the episode with some breaking news. Breaking news, Jack and I have declined the role of co-CEOs of OpenAI. Nick and I believe our greatest talent is hosting this podcast, not running chat GPT.

But also real breaking news, Sam Altman already has a new job after he got fun. fired by chat GPT. Microsoft hired Sam Altman crazy early on Monday morning to lead a new AI in-house team. Yet he's Jack and I. We wanted to update you on that, but we've prepared the best show yet. So Jack, what's our first story for today's show? For our first story, a wine company just bought 1,000 acres of Napa wine country ripe with white grapes. Because Chardonnay isn't a drink. Chardonnay is an insurance policy. For our second story, the number one theme of this corporate earning season, it wasn't cash, it was compliments. CEOs, they just aren't getting as many compliments as they used to get.

And our third and final story, one week ago, Nick and I were shocked to hear that Snoop Dog was giving up smoke. But it turns out that was all one big head fake. And that head fake boosted one company's stock on Monday by 14%. Wow. But Yeties, before we hit that exciting mix of stories before Thanksgiving. No one is doing that mix. Wonderful mix of stories, Jack. Right now in New York City, they are preparing for their famous Thanksgiving Day parade.

Fun fact about the Thanksgiving Day parade. What is it, Jack? They inflate the balloons, those giant character balloons, they inflate them on Wednesday, the day before the parade. It's kind of like a native New Yorker tradition. You go to the Natural History Museum and you watch the balloons getting weighted up on the day before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. And those giant balloons are just freaking out birds all night. They're like, what's going on over there? Eighty first street. It is not a good place to be a pigeon, Jack. Now, apparently Nick's mom, Alice, she was a balloon handler one year. She like held on to a balloon

and prevented it from flying up into the air. Well, they had to add weights to her body suit to prevent it from carrying her into the air, Jack. It was tough. Now, what balloon was it? Well, she trained for six months and actually she did the first ever Kiki balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day. Parade. Peaky. It was her first time doing it. They kind of put, you know, the freshman and the challenge. She's a rookie holding that balloon.

You know what I mean? I'm going to look this up after the pod. But yet is the real hero for this parade isn't Nick's mom. It's helium. Helium, Yeties. Get this. After the U.S. government, Macy's buys more helium than anyone else in the world.

We repeat, sit down, stand up, and float away again. Macy's is the number two helium buyer in the entire world. Because that Pau Patrol balloon, it ain't anywhere if it ain't got helium in it. But yet is Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. And we discovered that when you dig into the helium industry, the story gets even deeper. Helium is actually a hero. Because helium is literally lighter than air. Gravity can't stop helium.

And helium is the second most abundant element in the whole galaxy. Helium is universal, literally. And helium is even a lifesaver. Get this. You can't operate. an MRI machine without helium. And yet, despite the abundance and the importance of helium, helium is only found in three places on planet Earth.

60% of the world's helium is in Wyoming and Texas underground. If you're seeing a balloon today, thanks Wyoming and thank Texas. So Nick added all up, these wonderful parade balloons on the Thanksgiving Day parade, they're a metaphor. Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies who are going to be watching those balloons on Thanksgiving day? It's what's on the inside that counts. Jack, grab another hit of that balloon.

What's it are three days? It's before this song. Two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural. 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. Last week, we saw the biggest wall. Street wine deal of the year. Because Chardonnay isn't just a wine. Chardonnay is an insurance policy. Jack, you know what this story's kind of like? It's like a wine maker, a liquor maker, and an investment banker walk into a bar. What ends up happening? They walk into a bar, literally.

Ladies, we're about to tell you about a deal that involves your entire parent's liquor cabinet. On the one end of this deal is Brown Foreman, a $30 billion liquor legend most known for owning Jack Daniels. And on the other side of this deal is Duckhorn Vineyards, a $1 billion pure play wine stock with the ticker symbol Napa. This is Jack. I own stock of duckhorn because wine just tastes better when you own it. Apparently it opens up more when you own a few shares. That's what we're trying to say. Now here's the deal yet is, Duckhorn Vineyards is paying $400 million to buy Brown Foreman's wine business. Now, Jack, as someone who used to be the wine salesman of the month over at the Olive Garden 14 years ago, can you tell us what $400 million is

in the wine industry these days. That's going to get you 1,121 acres in Sonoma and six historic vineyards producing grapes up there. And Jack, what's the interesting detail about this $400 million wine deal? All of the vineyards produced chardonnay. It's all chardonnay. They heard about this through the grapevine. Literally. They were popping champagne about champagne.

Now, the jewel of this acquisition is a vineyard called San Diego. Noma Cotrere. Famous for their fruit forward French oak style. Are we getting like a classic nap of buttery finish on this thing, Jack? Everyone describes Chardonnay as buttery. It's like the only word. It tastes like you stuck your head and tied a popcorn tin. I'm pretty sure it's a non-dairy beverage.

But Yetis, let's jump into the details. Jack and I, we're not somaliers, are we, Jack? We're not soms. But we smell a trend in the wine industry. Actually, we waft a trend in the wine industry. Because this is the third big Chardonnay deal of the year. Hold the Tannins, Yetis. Earlier this year, Sonoma's Toad Hollow vineyards,

they got sold for a really big amount of money. And Napa's Rombauer vineyards also got sold earlier in the year. And both those vineyards happened to be Chardonnay vineyards. So Jack and I are wondering here, what is up with Chardonnay? It's actually the most popular wine on earth. Yeti's Chardonnay. It's one of the oldest wines on Earth.

It's closely related to the Pino Grape. we should point out. Now, before we're recording this podcast, I thought Chardonnay was a wine. I didn't know it was a distinctive type of grape until Nick educated me. It is Pino's baby brother, and that is how we like to enjoy it. And Chardonnay is the most popular wine on earth. It's the most planted, most distributed, and most drank wine of all other varieties. Sorry, Sarah, Chardonnay brings home the numbers. We even have data to prove it. According to Drisley, Chardonnay sales have quintupled since 2020. Apparently during the pandemic, you sat back on the couch, you ditch the merlot, and you whipped open the Chardonnay. Buttery, apparently. And it's not just consumer taste yet. He's big liquor money love Chardonnay too.

So, Jack, can you ferment the takeaway for us for our buddies over in the wine industry? Chardonnay isn't a grape. It's an insurance policy. Yeties, get this. Chardonnay isn't just the most popular grape on earth. Chardonnay is also one of the most flexible grapes on earth. Chardonnay is like the stem cell of the wine industry. It can turn into anything. For consumers, Chardonnay has one of the most flexible tastes out there. Store it in steel to give it a light finish or store it in oak for that buttery thing you crave.

For distributors, Chardonnay is totally opportunistic. You can have a $1,000 shardinet bottle from Burgundy or $2 chuck in a box of wine. And for grower, Chardonnay happens to be the most flexible grape with the climate. It can grow in low-rain hot summers or in what. wet or milder ones too. Add it all up, Yeties, and that is why Wall Street's favorite grape deals right now are all Chardonnay. Chardonnay is a financial hedge. It's not a grape. It's an insurance policy. For our second story, the number one theme of this earning season, there are not enough compliments. CEOs usually hear lots of nice things like, Great Quarter, guys.

You did it, guys. But not this year. Now, Jack, I don't. Don't remember what your love language is. I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. I know what your love language is. I know what it is. It's not words of affirmation. No, no, no, no. It's a couple acts of service.

But yet he's, if you are love language is words of affirmation, trigger warning. Because when companies announce quarterly earnings, they have a conference call in the same day. Yeah, they do a conference call. And that call, it gives big Wall Street analysts and money managers a chance to ask the CEO, some questions about the company. Nick and I have listened to a bunch of those conference calls live. And we often read transcripts and control F the transcript to see how many times funny words were surprisingly mentioned. And Jack, if we're going to share this with the Yetis, how do these conference calls on earnings calls? How do they typically go? After the CEO finishes their opening remarks,

the operator will say something like this. The next question is from Stacey Collins, an equity analyst at Morgan Stanley. And then Stacey will say something like this. Stacey here, just want to say a great quarter guys, solid performance all around. Now, Stacey's not sucking up because money managers are genuinely thankful when the companies they own do well. Because it helps them and their clients get richer, so they typically drop a lot of compliments on the earnings calls. Fantastic quarter guys.

Just want to get that out of the way. But yet he's here's what Jag and I found fascinating. There is a surprise new stat about all those compliments. This year, the amount of praise on those comments. conference calls has been paltry. I get this. The finance junk is over at Bloomberg counted the number of congratulatory remarks on all these earnings calls.

Call it a kudos counter. How many kind words were uttered by analysts on these corporate conference calls? Nice job. Great work. Big congrats. Mazel Toff. What a win. Let's go.

Here's the problem. The amount of kudos fell by 25% last quarter. That's a huge drop. The amount of kudos on these earnings calls just. at its lowest level since peak COVID. A typical earnings call this year has gotten just one compliment from analysts. I feel like we should take that personally, Jack. There's only one compliment that they're given on these earnings calls right now.

That's it. Now, the reason this feels like an egregious corporate injustice. Yes, Jack. Corporate earnings have been really good this past quarter. Fasties, Jack and I are looking at the numbers here. And 82% of S&P 500 companies have beaten expectations with strong profits this quarter. the stock market has been crushing it in November. Stocks are just 6% away from a record high right now.

So when you look at all this data, shouldn't Wall Street be kissing the rings of these CEOs, Jack? Shouldn't they be tossing out? Oh my goodness, what a fantastic quarter. I just want to thank you before I give you my question. You guys are amazing. CEO my God. Instead, Wall Street analysts are like ungrateful teenagers,

scrolling their phones, not enjoying the dinner of the home that they're sitting in right now. Would it kill you to give two compliments, guys? Where's the appreciation? No respect these days. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies who are publicly traded companies? Wall Street is reading the room. Yet is. After two years of worrying about a recession, economic worries have started that kind of creep back in.

And by not congratulating CEOs, Wall Street is acknowledging those economic worries. Look, the number of layoffs are climbing and the unemployment rate has ticked up, so it's kind of a bad look to be congratulated. congratulating millionaire CEOs right now. It could also look tone-deaf if you're fist-bumping profits when a war in the Middle East is happening. Plus, next year's toxic presidential election is already flooding the airwaves with some negativity. So even though profits are up and stocks are up right now, Wall Street is reading the room. Yeties, when the economy's wobbly and politics are scary, we can literally see it in how Wall Street speaks.

For our third and final story, last week, Snoop Dog, shocked the world. He said he was giving up smoke. This week, we learned it was an elaborate marketing collab, and it's already generated $60 million in value. Yeties, let's go back probably two decades here. S-W-E-D, what does it stand for, Jack? Smoke weed every day. It's how Snoop ended the 2001 hit the next episode. Yeah, Dr. Dre was there. He witnessed the whole thing. It was quite a collaboration, not too shabby. That's because 20 years before Colorado legalized weed, Snoop Dogg had built an entire brand on smoking it.

In fact, rapper Snoop Dog even has a $100 million venture capital firm specifically focused on making marijuana investments. That's why we were so shocked last week when Snoop Dog announced this on his social media accounts. Jack, what was the Instagram post exactly? After much consideration and conversation with my family, I've decided to give up smoke. Please respect my privacy at this time. I couldn't believe it. Snoop Dog is done smoking. I did not see this coming. You didn't see this coming? We texted each other. We didn't know what to do.

And since he said, please respect my privacy, we didn't ask questions about it, you know? Like, you know what? Let's not ask questions. He's right. We should back off and give him this space. Apparently that's how you get privacy as you just asked for it. Yeties, this was such a big deal that Snoop Dog was done with weed. It hurt the entire cannabis industry. Cannabis stocks actually fell after Snoop's single Instagram post. Because if weed's biggest booster is done with weed, what does that say about weed? Not good.

But yet, he's lots jumping T-boy style here. Yeah, what did he say in his post? What was the exact word? In hindsight, his exact words, Jack, were, I've decided to give up smoke. He didn't say smoking? And he didn't mention weed? You know, honestly, I figured it's just because we're not like really cool, hipper with it. And then that bit at the end about respecting his privacy, it made us miss what was missing from

his actual announcement. Well, because we were respecting his privacy. We were doing a good thing, Jack. Well, yesterday, Snoop dropped the punchline on all of us. Get this. What Snoop meant when he said that phrase was he was giving up on Campfire Smoke. Because Snoop is now the sponsor of solo brands, a direct-to-consumer smokeless fire pit company.

Yeties, Snoop is now sponsored by a fire pit company that doesn't make smoke. So, like, he still smokes weed. He's just not going to have. have to inhale smoke from his fire pit because there is no smoke. Snoop's not quitting on weed. He's just adding a smoke-free fire pit to his back patio. So his announcement wasn't a lifestyle change that said something negative about weed. No. It was a celebrity collaboration with a furniture company that tricked us all. From CNN to the best one yet. It was great. It was impressive.

We fell for it. But we're not going to give up on takeaways. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy's Snoop Dog and everyone in the marketing industry. This is one of the rare cases when we can quantify the exact value of virality. Yeti's solo brands is the company behind the fire pit that's sponsoring Snoop Dog. And Solo Brands happens to be a publicly traded company. Which means it has a publicly traded stock whose value changes minute to minute in real time and we can all see the price of the stock. Well, on the news yesterday that Snoop Dog's post was a market. marketing stunt, the stock of solo brands searched 14%. For that $420 million company, the 14% stock price surge is worth $60 million of added market cap. Yety $60 million of value were just created

by this Snoop Dog head fake. And why is this so valuable? Because we're all talking about Snoop, something funny, and solo smokeless fire pits. And Wall Street figures that that boost in brand awareness will sell smokeless fire pits down the road. Now, to see if this stunt marketing actually translates to real sales, we'll have to wait for their next earnings report. But in the meantime, Wall Street thinks that the publicity was worth $60 million to be exact. It makes it one of the rare cases when we can quantify to the exact dollar, the value of virality.

Jack, can you whip up the terroir? I mean, can you whip up the takeaways for T-Boy Tuesday? Duckhorn just acquired a thousand acres of Sonoma. of vineyards from Brown Foreman. Because Chardonnay isn't a grape, Chardonnay is an insurance policy. For our second story, the number of CEO compliments on conference

calls is at the lowest point since the pandemic. Because Wall Street is reading the room. And our third and final story is solo brands. It gained $60 million in stock market value from Snoop Dog's Giving Up Smoke Post. It's the rare case when we can quantify

the value of virality. But Yeties, this pod not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, as Jack and I mentioned at the top of the pod, Sam Altman and his right-hand man just took new jobs at Microsoft. It's a crisis for Open AI. 500 workers there demanded that Sam be rehired or they will quit the company. And second, Argentina elected a new president, far-right libertarian Javier Millier. The self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist ran on a platform of eliminating the central bank. and replacing their peso with the U.S. dollar.

And finally, the viral post of the day is a car that caught on fire and everything got destroyed except for one thing in that car. The big Stanley water mug in the cup holder was fine. That's all that survived, the Stanley mug. It was a nice free ad for this Tumblr company. The car turned to ash, the water bottle survived, and now Stanley is buying them a new car. Really nice PR moment.

They couldn't have paid for. Nicely done. Now time for the best. fact yet, this sent in by three different Yetis. It's actually three different corrections from yesterday's shop. The first correction, the gap, they don't actually own intermix the store anymore. They sold it to a private equity firm. Second, the Red Bull Racing team, they actually have six F1 championships, not three.

And finally, the turkey is not a flightless bird, is it, Jack? It actually can fly, kind of. It like does a jump, Air Jordan style, but it's not going to many. different counties. It's in the air for an impressive amount of time, considering how big its body is and how small its wings are. It's not leaving the zip code, if you know what we mean. The fact that this bird flies, even more reason it should be our national animal. Correction to the correction, Jack, it jumps. It jumps. It jumps and glides. Yaddies, you look fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. And remember, just like helium in a balloon, it's not on the outside. It's what's inside that

counts. It's actually the same with grapes. They're red or they're green. They taste delicious. Or turkeys, which taste even better when they're not flying. And before we go, a happy 21st birthday to Claire Emory, who's celebrating while she's studying abroad down in Australia. And happy birthday to JLB, who's celebrating their birthday in the car today in Virginia. And Samir Desai is a legendary New Yorker celebrating that birthday over in Brooklyn.

Samir dressed up as you and me for Halloween. Best compliment. Wait, was it you or was it me? I think it was both of us at the same time. And Tillman and Bergita are celebrating their 11th anniversary in Seattle. They're going out for a big dinner. And congratulations to Brandon Hall and Stephanie Shea, who just got engaged in lovely Bodega Bay over the weekend.

Wonderful location. Brendan bought a stunning rock, and he timed up the purchase perfectly. That's a long-term haul. And sending our condolences to Yeti Nikale from Panama City, Panama. Like me, Nicale just got stuck on an airport. plane seat, a window seat, but with no window, just a wall all over him. Seat 17A, what are you doing?

It should be banished, like the 13th floor is banished from elevators. This is Jack. Nick and I both own ETFs of the S&P 500, and I own stock of duckhorn wineries because it just tastes better when you own it. Dude, you know, this was a lot for me to say, because 400 million actually is long. Oh, you could handle it? You want me to get your Tup me in your line It's Thursday

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