The Best One Yet - 🐔 “#HoldTheDeal” — Elon’s Twitter buyer’s remorse. Beyond Meat’s jerky jerk. Sonos’ kinda smart speaker.

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Elon put his Twitter deal on hold because he’s got billion-dollar buyer’s remorse (and it could leave Twitter in shambles). Beyond Meat’s betting the plant-based farm on a jerky that it love/hates. And Sonos’ new smart speaker is kinda dumb… and that’s exactly the point. Enjoy the pod, Besties and Yetis.$TWTR $SONO $BYND $TSLAFollow us 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.

Okay, are we ready to hit this? Are you ready to hit this? I'm ready to hit this. Get your mic in front of your face. Are you ready to hit this? Oh, man, we did a 50 state recount over Sunday brunch, basically. We're like about to hit the pod. Jack's like, my fingers hurt. Oh, your fingers hurt where your back's about to hurt because you just got landscaping duty.

It's a love. We do it for the love. Here we go. Three, two. This is Nick. Jack. It's Monday, May 16th. Welcome back, and today's pod is the best one yet, Jack. Tb. O Y. For our first story, Elon tweeted on Friday that the Twitter deal, it's on hold. Elon, he's got a billion-dollar buyer's remorse.

For our second story, Beyond Meat just launched Jerky. But one problem, Jack, Beyond Meat, just launched jerky. For our third and final story, Wall Street is cranking up the volume on Sono Speaker. It turns out the backlash against big tech is really good for medium tech. It's a good time to be medium tech right now. Yeah, not medium, not margin, medium tech. But before we hit that wonderful mix, wonderful mix to kick off the week, this one's special. 3,530, 3,531, 3,000, 3, 532.

The polls are closed, the votes are counted, the carpal tunnel is settling in. We spent the weekend counting votes manually, Nick and me, for what to name us. Jack, we got absentee ballots flying in from Europe. Provincial ballots from the Marine Station in the American Samoa. We just finished counting. Okay, the vote got so close. So close, Jack and I had to open up a situation room. With 100% of precincts reporting, the results are final.

Jack, let's get the envelopes. I got my envelope over here. It was a 5347 nail biter. So, Jack, the besties got 1,633 votes. The Yeties got 1,000. 899 votes. Ipso facto, the Yetis got more votes than the besties bite the narrowest of margins. Now, Nick and I should clarify, we're clumsy counters.

We're going to give ourselves a plus minus three percentage point margin of error on this thing. It's a statistical tie. The 3,532 votes were split down the middle. Okay, so Jack, we could do a tie break. We could put one bestie and one Yeti in the octagon and let them settle it old school. Or Jack, we could combine the names. Yes, these, betties? Ooh, both kind of work.

But we have an even better solution. A Yeti named Bestie. A mascot that's a Yeti whose name is Bestie. Yeah, it's a Yetty named Bestie. It works. The best one yet, listener, is a Yeti who goes by Bestie. Jack, that's not a compromise. That's an upromise.

We didn't expect the results to be so shockingly close. And we didn't expect the passion to come from all the voters like this. So instead of give Yetis the win by a hair, We recognized an awesome opportunity. Yeah, we did. Really? We're going to use both besties and yetis. We got a mascot who's got a name.

It's like alter egos, Jack. Like Bruce Wayne and Batman, Nick. Yeah, it's besties and yetis. Why not be the only pod with two nicknames? So besties, yetis, let's get our three stars. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm.

It's the best one yet, but the best that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%. That's a fact. T-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, Elon says his Twitter deal is on hold. And he's not telling us why. If Elon does walk away from this deal, Twitter's going to be left in shambles. Early morning, Friday, 5.44 a.m. Eastern Standard, Jack? Yes, Eastern time. Okay. The most important tweet in the world was tweeted.

Elon tweeted. That his deal to buy Twitter was on hold. Yeah. And then he tried to back this up with some material like he was. He linked to an article about fake users and spam bots that are on Twitter. Okay. Twitter has some fake users and some spam bots. And two weeks ago, Twitter publicly estimated that the number of fake accounts made up less

than 5% of total Twitter users. Okay. First of all, Jack, I actually thought it would be more. Second of all, that's actually kind of old news. Yeah. If Elon did his research before offering to buy the company, he would have seen that Twitter has shared that same estimate going all the way back to 2013. Okay, so now at 544 in the morning Eastern Standard Time, Elon is saying the deal is on hold because of these fake Twitter users.

So that's probably not the real reason because that's been known for years. So here is what actually it looks like is the reason the way Jack and I are seeing things. We think Elon has a billion-dollar buyer's remorse situation. Yeah, because the whole stock market has full. fallen in the last few weeks, especially tech and social media stocks. Since news broke of Elon's interest in Twitter, the stocks of meta, Pinterest, and Snapchat, Twitter competitors are down 16, 23, and 40%. In the same time period, Jack, how's the Twitter stock doing over there?

It's doing fine. Twitter has not fallen. No, Twitter's price is around the same place where it started the year while every other social media stock has fallen. The reason is clear. Twitter stock is being held up by Elon's price. Elon's acquisition offer. And Elon's acquisition price that he offered to buy Twitter at is $54.20.

So the stock is staying close to that because every shareholder is about to get $5420 from Elon. Okay. So, Jack, it's like Elon showed up at the open house, said he wanted to sign papers to buy that house. Sign papers to buy that house. And then the housing market just crashed. Elon's got buyer's remarks. Yeah. So while Elon's stock in Tesla and Doge Corner plummeting his Twitter deal, it kind of feels,

maybe overpriced. Definitely. So now he's trying to get out of the deal because even the richest man on earth prefers buying things on sale. Now, to sprinkle on a little more context here, we should point out that the deal could still happen. In fact, Elon said he wants the deal to still happen. Yeah, he replied to his own tweet like a couple hours later and said he still wants it to happen. Elon may not be allowed to like back out right now. If he does back out, he'll definitely have to pay a billion dollars to Twitter because that's the breakup fee. There is literally a one billion dollar breakup fee if Elon cancels the deal with Twitter at this point. But he might not be able to. And if he tries, Twitter could sue Elon for breaking their contracts. Early takeaway here. The real winners?

The lawyers. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Twitter? If this deal doesn't go through, Twitter will be left in shambles. Besties, yetis. Here's what Jack and I are thinking. No one is talking about the human element here, which is actually critical to Twitter's business. Twitter has been all consumed by this Elon drama. The last. last six weeks. Twitter's workforce. And it's like awkwardly lame duck management team. They must be like emotionally exhausted right now. For six weeks, the top story on every new site has been about Twitter failing to live up to their potential. And Elon's been saying that only he can fix it, but now Elon may be out. Also, Twitter employees, they have stock options. They thought they were

going to cash out with this deal, but now that may not happen to. So if this Elon deal doesn't happen, Twitter is left in shambles. Wayoffs? resignations and still no strategy. For our second story, Beyond Meat plummeted 20% last week. But then it surged 20% last week. Because jerky is the best thing for its business and the worst. Okay, 2019, remember where we work? Jack, we both swiped right at the same time on Beyond Meat stock at the IPO. First time I ever bought stock on an IPO day.

It was with you and we made a bunch of money on day one. And it's falling right back down where it started. Yeties, no one is getting the meat sweats for peas these days. Because besties, everyone keeps saying, if you got the soy, keep it in the soilent. That's why Beyond Meat's profitability plummeted last quarter. Yeah, it did. And it plummeted all because of one single product. Jerky.

Jerky. They did a collab with Pepsi over at Beyond Meat for the first ever plant-based jerky. Beefy jerky. Not beef jerky. More like beet jerky. We're talking like dehydrated legumes. But the marketing, production, and jerkification of this one product was extremely expensive. Jack, can you please share the absolutely hilarious thing?

The CFO of Beyond Meat said about his very own jerky. This isn't tough love. This is just tough to say about your company. This is very mean. What do you say? He said that the Beyond Meat jerky launch was unprecedented, expensive, and inefficient. This is talking about their very own jerky. But what Jack and I find fascinating about this story is that Beyond Meat,

meat is bet in the plant-based farm on plant-based jerky. Because every product Beyond Meat sells fell in sales last quarter. Yeah, but jerky is the only one that's up because jerky is the only thing that's new. So jerky sales went from nothing to something, which is something. Everything else went from something to something less last quarter. And we noticed that Beyond Meat has just poured resources and tens of millions of dollars of cash into this new jerky. Now, with Beyond stock at a three-year low, oh, we know. Jerky is beyond. hopeful hero. Help us jerky one, Kenobi.

You're our only hope. So, Jag, what's the takeaway for our buddies? Over at Beyond Meat. Can convenience convert curious customers? Jerky, it's the most innovative product they've cooked up at Beyond Meat because it's the only convenient one. Jerky is the only product

that doesn't require heat. Jerky is the only product that doesn't have to be prepped by a line cook at McDonald's or grilled on a backyard web. And Beyond Meat has jerky in 56,000 locations, including gas stations. So you can grab and go. And guess what?

No expiration date because of all that sodium. Right. It'll kill you slowly. But it'll last forever, which is great. These things are handheld, they're pocketable, and they're snackable any time you want. So if you're plant-based curious, that's a pretty convenient way to try a new thing.

Beyond isn't just betting the farm on jerky. They're betting on convenience. Now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Okay, so Jack and I got into the news business with our previous company. Markets now. Our goal was basically to democratize financial news for our generation.

Cut the jargon. Talk about the profit puppy. So when we first connected with Robin Hood, there was a chemistry there. We were doing for financial news what Robin Hood was doing for the financial system.

Robin Hood was democratizing finance for all, and it started by eliminating trading commissions and building a beautiful app. Remember, we had the same color green. The green was destiny. Destiny, absolutely.

So we sold market snacks to Robin Hood, and we launched Robin Hood Snacks. The equivalent of proposing, getting married, and building a family together in just three years. Much more to come.

on why we're thrilled that Robin Hood is our exclusive sponsor. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet to get started, you can go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and choose a free stock. That's robin hood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View the fee schedule at RBNh.c.co slash fees. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC.

By the way, Robin Hood no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story to kick off the week, Sonos' high-end speaker business, just hit record revenues. Sonos isn't big tech. They're aggressively medium tech. Very medium tech. And they love that about themselves. Okay, Sonos targets, as they say, the affluent.

Their words, the affluent. Their words, 13 million affluent households have a Sonos speaker system right now. Yeah, their speakers, pair well with a bottle of vintage shutting off to pop. Based in San Barbara. This is the tech company you work for. If you're an engineer, you know coding, and you also have a wine seller. Right, because, yeah, you got one speaker in the living room, one speaker in the bathroom, and then one in the pool house cabana with the sleep in causing.

And two in the wine cell. Well, this company just announced record second quarter revenues. Sales jumped 20% from last year. Yeah. And so the stock, it actually searched 20% last week, one of the few that was up. Remember we said last week, if you can't be with the home you love, honey, love the home you're with? Yeah, I do remember that, cross. Well, speakers that make your screen porch sound like a symphony is where.

one way to love the home you're with. But Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style to the earnings report, and there was one number that jumped out to us. We were shocked by how much they're spending on research and development. We were shocked by Sonos' splurging on research and development because the newest Sonos product does less. According to The Verge, they're launching a smart speaker next month. That's not that smart.

It's actually like kind of a dumb speaker, but it's like got a little bit of intelligence. Right. Like Alexa and Google, they have connected speakers. But Sonos' voice assistant isn't going to connect to the cloud like the other ones. Yeah, so like you can tell the new Sonos to play the next song, but you can't ask it about the weather. You can tell the next Sonos speaker to turn up the Adele music, but you can't ask your Sonos speaker, who's that guy who she just moved in with? Exactly. So, Jack, the focus here is the basic functionality and privacy. They think at Sonos that a not-so-smart speaker will be.

boost their penetration into those affluent households. Yeah, so yet he said besties, don't think of this as Alexa, think of this as a faux Alexa. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Sonos? Privacy has become a competitive advantage. So when Amazon has a prime day, it's like they're just giving away Alexa speakers. The reason that echo speaker is so cheap, the price is subsidized by your personal data. Exactly. It only costs 50 bucks, but Amazon plans to make more money with the data it collects and your usage. already give all of our emails to Google, all of our messages to Apple, and all of our DMs to

Facebook and the Facebook family of apps. Well, people increasingly don't want their spoken convos harvested by big tech so it can serve you up some mattress, mattress, mattress, mattress hat. The affluent are willing to pay Sonos more because Sonos isn't big tech. Sonos is aggressively medium tech. Jack, can you whip up the T-Boy takeaways for us over there? Elon's trying to back out of the Twitter, dude. And if you managed to pull out, Twitter is going to be less.

and shambles. For our second story, Beyond Meets jerky launch. It's really expensive and inefficient. Can convenience convert curious customers? For our third and final story, Sono sales hit a record high last quarter. Because it's aggressively medium tech and privacy, that's a competitive advantage now. Now, time for the best fact yet, which Jack and I whipped up when we were about four hours into the vote counting over the Sunday brunches. In the United States Senate, if there's a 50-50 tie, it's the vice president. who casts the tie-breaking vote. Yeah.

Now, in the history of the United States, there actually been a whole bunch of ties in the Congress. Since 1789, the Senate has been tied 50-50-291 times. So 291 times the Senate was totally split. Or is Jack and I like to call it, a Yeti named Bestie. Besties, Yetis, you'll look fantastic today. And thank you for all the votes for this new exciting journey. Next up is merch.

And we actually might ask one of you to design this thing with your pen and pencil. Because it's going to be a Yeti. And its name is going to be Bestie. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. If you know, yes. And before we go, good luck to Besti Yeti, Carissa Timp, who is taking the MCATs right now. And congratulations to Jorge and Elizabeth Pardo, who are celebrating their new company one year in in New Jersey. And Chris A, enjoy that new job up in Boston, just outside Boston.

Congrats to Preston McNair. We got a new job in Digital Ferrarian. And a happy birthday to Dylan Lester down the street in San Francisco. And happy birthday, Hanon Malden in Florence, Alabama. Alex Johnson enjoyed that 25th over in Wisconsin. And happy birthday to Austin Frederick in Chicago. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon. Nick and I both own stock of Apple, Twitter, and Robin Hood, and Nick on stock up Beyond Me. Now, a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Four years ago, we sold our company and we joined Robin. A lot of people asked, when did we decide that selling was the right move? So it was actually in our meeting with the co-founders, that's what sold us. Vlad and Bejou, also former roommates, also met in college.

Also, we're hanging out in New York City's East Village after the financial crisis. And they just figured out how the financial system worked. So Vlad and Bejou saw that Wall Street bigwigs, they were getting their fees waived. And they figured out a way to waive commissions for everyone else, too. So we saw a big, bold vision and decided to join these guys. that's where we spent the last three years until now. It makes sense now that Robin Hood would sponsor our newly independent podcast. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet, you can get started by going to robin hood.com slash

T-boy choosing a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View the fee schedule at RBNhd.co slash fees. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC member SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or this podcast. Dude, I was about to say this is like a lame snack bag, but then I got to the end.

I mean, this is, that was brilliant, too. Okay. Great. Yeah, it's kind of like this leads to a punchline. That was clever, man.