The Best One Yet - 💼 “Hot Cubicle Summer” — Big Tech’s remote reversal. Denver’s championship formula. Reddit’s epic blackout.

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Google just announced you better clock-in at the office… or you may lose your bonus — It’s big tech’s Great Reversal on remote work. The Denver Nuggets just won the NBA finals, but the real story is their owner — He’s won 3 major championships in under 2 years, and we found his formula for winning. And Reddit is facing an epic blackout from a major protest — So can a anti-corporate culture survive a super corporate IPO? $GOOG $META $AMZN Want merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.com Follow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypod And now watch us on Youtube _____________________________________ 0:00 - Intro 1:27 - 1 Million Pennies 4:10 - Denver Nuggets Owner 8:25 - Google's Returns to Work 14:25 - Reddit Blackout 17:55 - Takeaways 18:46 - Best Fact Yet 20:09 - Shoutouts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, Savi-J Wednesday, June 14th. And today's pot is just the best one. Yeah, it is a T-point Jack. Yes. Yes. Yadis, we just got the inflation report yesterday.

Oh, the inflation report just dropped. It is the celebrity of economic reports these days. Here's the news. Inflation is down to just 4% in May. Not too shabby, Jack. That is less than half. half the inflation we had during the peak last year. Don't even get us started on the eggflation situation.

This is great news and stocks jump to a 13-month high on it. Egg prices just had their biggest drop in 72 years. The photography, Asco is fixed. Jack, what's the first story for today's show? The Denver Nuggets just won their first NBA finals, but the owner has three other championship teams. So we just found that owner's secret to winning in everything. For our second story, it's Google.

Google just said if you don't show up to the office and scan your badge, you may not get your bonus. Yeti's big tech is making a big reversal on being remote. And our third and final story is Reddit. Reddit says it's the front page of the internet. But half of Reddit just went dark, and why is that, Jack? Reddit is protesting Reddit right now. Reddit is protesting Reddit. But before we hit that wonderful mix.

This is just a wonderful mix? What a fantastic mix of stories, Jack. First, somebody's got some penny problems. Oh, there is a funny problem. problem facing a family over in California. What's going on, Jack? One family in California just discovered a million pennies are in their basement. Jack, let's kick it over to KTLA, Channel 5, the voice of lovely Los Angeles. This family was clearing out the home of their late father and their late father-in-law. But they had no idea that this father happened to stash away 50 huge

bags of pennies. Huge bags of pennies. Like the stuff a bank robber takes away from the bank in a cartoon. Yeah, the kind of stuff you see at the end of a Spielberg movie to notify you there's going to be a sequel. Now, the family crunched the numbers and estimated there's a million copper pennies they have to deal with now. Jack, add the one, carry the nine, a million copper pennies, that would be about how much money over there? That's $10,000. Not too shabby. One million free pennies. That is power you can't buy, Jack? Or is it? Oh, because $10,000 of free pennies is actually a penny problem. Do you know how much that weighs? Yeah, can we get on the scale, get off the scale over here?

Each penny weighs two and a half grams. So one million pennies is two and a half million grams. Two and a half million grams is six thousand pounds of pennies. Sit down, stand up, and herniated disc again, Jack. Nick, they're in the basement. How do you get them up the stairs? You don't get them up the stairs, Jack. You move the house.

Oh, and if you did get it up the stairs, there's no bank that's going to take 6,000 pounds of pennies. A J.V. is not going to accept that many pennies, Jack. And there's no CoinStar machine big enough to handle that. kind of brass. It could approach the CoinStar machine, but then you would break the CoinStar machine. So at this point, the family's just trying to get rid of the pennies. At this point, the family will pay you to take away the pennies. They've actually said a price tag because a million pennies, that should cost $10,000. A million pennies, ipso facto, $10,000. That's the price tag.

But there's no buyer yet, because one million pennies isn't a present. One million pennies is a punishment. And that's why we're saying a million free pennies is actually apparently a penny It's a penny paradox. Yes, it is the curse of Lincoln. Leave a penny. Take a penny. Hold the change. Keep the change. No, keep it. I don't want the change. I don't want the pennies. Let's hit our three stories. Hold the pennies. No, keep them. 15 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 is an norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%. That's a fact. That 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, the Denver Nuggets, they just won their first ever NBA finals. But we're looking at the owner of the Nuggets, and we're looking for his secret to success. But Jack, before we kick off this story about the Denver Nuggets, can we talk about what Denver is actually most famous for?

It's not the Mile High Stadium. It's the city. with the creepy airport. This airport's apparently like the headquarters of the Illuminati. There's a lot of conspiracy theories about what's going on with the artwork and the sculptures inside the airport. I heard it was designed by lizard people. Classic coming from a guy who grew up with a lizard as a pet.

Jack, if you stare at the horror sculpture outside, United will cancel your flight. If I say it twice, I'm going to get cursed. I'm not even going to say it again, Jack. I can't even repeat it. I'm saying, I'm off the mics. But yet he's now Denver is in the news for their championships. The Denver Nugger. They just won their first ever NBA championship they took down Miami.

Nicoliochich was named MVP, but the owner of the Nuggets is the biggest winner of them all. Now, yetis, this is what we think is interesting about the Denver Nuggets. Stan Cronkey, the owner of the Denver Nuggets, has won with many other teams as well. Get this, Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style. The owner of the Nuggets has won six different national championships. Three, just in the past 16 months. Follow us here. Last year, Stan Cronkey's Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup.

And last year, Stan Cronkey's Colorado Mammoth won the National Lacrosse League championship. But here's where things get interesting. It's not just in Denver where Stan Cronkey's teams are winning national championships. This guy owns the L.A. Rams, too, which won the Super Bowl less than two years ago. Boston, you like to call yourself the city of champions? Well, Stan Cronkees won the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, and now the NBA championship. Three out of the four biggest sports leagues in less than two years. Not too shabby.

But there's more, shockingly more. Because it turns out Stan Cronkey may own more teams than any other human being. Stan Cronky owns the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. And Arsenal FC. Of British soccer. And two e-sports teams, probably because his nephew told him to. He's like, whatever. I'll just buy teams if a six-year-old tells me at this point.

Add it all up, this man has assembled a sports. empire that's now worth an estimated $13 billion. And in just the last three years, that sports empire is estimated to have gained $3 billion in value. Now, we should point something out. This man is also a ruthless profiteer. Yes, he is. Jack, do you want to take it from here? He moved the Rams from his beloved hometown of St. Louis to Los Angeles to make more money.

And he also puts the team's ownership structure under the name of his wife, since NFL owners aren't allowed to own. other sports teams. He's also an architect of the ill-fated super league, which was the ultimate sellout of European soccer. Jack, if Stan Cronky caught a foul ball at a baseball game, instead of giving that fall ball to a kid, he would put it on eBay. Now, despite those Scrooge moves, this man does know something about winning. And that means Jack and I had to find a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the sports industry? The key to Stan success is coaching continuity. It's continuity. So yet he's Jack and I just told you. This one man, he has won six championships in four different sports, in two different cities. We think we found

his secret formula. He commits to his coaches. The coaches and managers who run Cronkey's teams have ten years that double the league averages. The average coach with one of the four major sports is with their team for just three years. But Jack, the coaches of stands, Nuggets, Rams, and Avalanche teams? How long have they been with his teams? They've all been with their teams for at least six seasons. Six seasons. And the general managers who lead the front office of Stan's teams? They've been with their teams for at least a decade each. This one detail may be the secret to winning, not just in sports, but also in business.

The key to Stan's success is business continuity at the top. Business continuity. For our second story, the remote one. Work revolution has become a remote work battle. And the great reversal on remote work, it started with Google. Jack, can we talk about the summer theme this year? It's not really hot girl summer. It's not really hot vac summer, is it?

Hot cubicle summer. What's going to hot cubicle? I like what you're thinking there, Jack. Hot commute summer. Hot commute summer. It is a hot work summer, Yeties, because last week, New York City office occupancy hit 50% of pre-pandemic levels for the first time. It's a win for the back-to-office movement and for business districts,

but it's still just 50% full, Nick. The subway's a little more snugly, but it's not totally as snugly as it used to be. But maybe not for long, because more companies in every industry are starting to tell their employees to return to the physical office. Strap on the suit panties, we're seeing two different approaches to back to office,

and Jack and I, we got to break them down. We're seeing carrots and we're seeing sticks. What we're seeing is perks and we're seeing punishments. For instance, Salesforce. They're doing it with carrots. They're doing it with perks. Trying to entice you in. And how are they doing this?

This week and next week, Salesforce will donate $10 to a charity of your choice for every day you're physically in the office. A donation has been made in your name to the human fund. Money for people. But Google, on the other hand, in the South Bay, they're using sticks, not carrots. Oh, Google is taking a different approach. And here's that sticks approach. Come into the office or your paycheck gets punished. The official policy for most Googlers has been to be in office at least three days a week.

But for over a year, people have been playing hooky. They're not really showing up all three days a week. So last week, Google announced a new policy. If you don't come in, you're going to get a bad performance review. If you don't come into the office, you may not be getting a bonus. Now, you may be asking, how are they going to know if you come to the office or not? Well, funny thing. Google knows more about every one of us than any company on it.

Yeah, you got to swipe the badge to end of the office. They're tracking you. If there was any company that was going to pull this off, it was going to be Google. Like, these guys were made for this. Harry, you can't hide from Google. Now, in announcing this policy, the chief people officer of Google acknowledged that work from home has some benefits. It has child care benefits. You can recruit a diverse workforce.

You can eliminate workers' commutes. But she also pointed out that work from office, Sid has some wins. Decisions can be reached quick. and work can be done better in person generally. But here's the funny thing, Yetis. Jack and I have noticed it's not just Google making big back to office pushes right. All of big tech seems to be getting workers to come back to the office right now. Met us three days a week. Amazon's three days a week.

Lyft is three days a week and the CEO said he prefers four. And Elon prefers seven. Elon prefers eight, Jacks. So what is the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone working in Big Tech? Big Tech has pulled a great reversal on remote work. Yetis, here is the most ironic thing about this. Big Tech was the first industry to go remote and promote remote. Big Tech literally led the work from home movement three years ago with their products and their HR policy.

But now with so many layoffs, tech employers have all the leverage. So in 2021, Zuck said that he was committed to remote work for all Facebookers. He, in fact, himself liked working remotely. But then this year, Zuck did the opposite. In fact, he cited Metta's very own data on working remotely versus the office. Zuck flip-flopped. He said in-person workers outperformed those who joined remotely. Maybe because of the labor market, maybe because of productivity.

But big tech has pulled a great reversing. A great 180, a big switcheroo, a total changeup. From remote first to office first. For our third and final story, Reddit. Reddit is the front page. of the internet, but Reddit is facing an epic three-day protest. As Reddit strives to IPO, it faces the ultimate catch-22. Yeti, is this going to sound like something out of like the art of war?

You know, this is going to be pretty existential. On Reddit, nobody's in charge, but everybody's in charge. I love that thinking, nobody's in charge, but everybody's in charge. Reddit is like the Craigslist of social media apps, and here's why. Because Yeti's Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, all of those social media platforms It is the algorithm that chooses what trends and what gets seen. But on Reddit, it's not the algorithm that decides. It's you that decides.

Exactly. Because on Reddit, you're the one who's upvoting or downvoting an article, and that's what leads it to trend. Right. Check out Reddit.com and click the All tab. It shows the most upvoted posts of that moment on the whole internet. And that is why Reddit is called the front page of the internet. But on Monday, all that stop.

It all came to a close. Because more than 7,000 of the top Reddit pages went dark. Reddit, it's experiencing this huge epic three-day protest. And one of the protesters protesting, Jack? They're protesting a new plan by Reddit to start charging for something that used to be free. Now, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. This protest, this big Reddit protest, is being driven by Reddit's most important users. The moderators.

The moderators. Reddit users. love and believe in Reddit so much that they're willing to volunteer on behalf of the platform. It's just like your fantasy football league. Everyone has that one buddy who just wants to run the league. They want to be the fantasy football commissioner. That buddy volunteers. Well, Reddit moderators, they volunteer too to run Reddit subpages and set and enforce content rules there. Actually, Jack, now that we're saying this, this is just like Wikipedia. Like it's the same kind of Wikipedia style management by the super users. It's decentralized. Yeah.

Like we said, everyone's in charge, but no one's in charge. Which is so different than Mark Zuckerberg's social media platforms. Exactly. Here's the key difference, Yeti. Zuck pays for content moderation. Zuck has an army of independent contractors who police content, and honestly, it's not working very well. But Reddit has a volunteer army that moderates out of passion. That's why this protest is so damning for Reddit.

The single price change has caused 28,000 moderators to join the protest. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Reddit? Can an anti-corporate culture go through a corporate IPO? That is the real existential question here, Yetis. Because Reddit was founded in 2005. It is visited by 57 million people every single day. So the founders want to cash in on the thing they've built by going through an IPO. And yet therein lies the problem, because Reddit's plans to IPO present a catch-22.

To earn Wall Street's love, Reddit is. is going to have to act more corporate. It has to act like the man. But a core reason Redditors love Reddit is that it's not acting corporate. It doesn't act like the man. Reddit just tried to profit on one product and users responded by shutting Reddit down.

Which is why we're wondering, can an anti-corporate company do a corporate IPO? We'll see when Reddit tries later this year. Let us know if you think they can do it. Hit us up at T-Boy pod. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there for Civeche Wednesday? And Cronky has won a Super Bowl, a Stanley Cup, and a bunch of other huge silver trophies. Yet he's the secret to his success in business and in sports?

Continuity at the top. For our second story, Google is leading a back-to-office push for Big Tech. It's a great reversal by Big Tech on remote work. And our third and final story is Reddit. They're facing a major protest from their most important users, moderator. So Jack and I are wondering, can an anti-corporate company survive a super corporate IPO. Because every IPO is super corporate. And you're actually not allowed to wear jeans on the New York Stock Exchange. They gave an exception to Levi's, but that's the only one. Good point. That's a good

fact of the day. I like that one, Jack, I'm stock of Levi's. Jack, I'm stock of Levi's. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Yetty, Gabe Reed from lovely Mountain View, California. Nick, there's nearly 200 countries in the world, but only 30 of them have legalized the institution of gay marriage. Which leads to the trivia. question of the day, which country was the first country to legalize gay marriage? It was not the U.S., which legalized in 2015,

thanks to a Supreme Court decision. No, it was not what country was the first, Jack? It was the Netherlands. They were first to legalize same-sex marriage back in December of 2000. Not too shabby. What a way to kick up the millennium, Jack? The Dutch. Always ahead of the

game. It's like they skate faster, they build windmills faster. Have you seen those pancakes? They're fantastic. They bike better. Don't even get it started on the waffles. They have three names. Holland, the Netherlands, and the Dutch. Not too shabby.

Yeties, you look fantastic today. Oh, and by the way, if you want a shout-out on the pot, if you've got the best fact yet, if you just want to send us stuff, go to t-boypod.com. That's where you should have. First of all, our website's beautiful. We want you to check it out.

But we have forms to submit best facts yet and shout-out requests. We got them right there, all in slamming salmon. for all the Yetis out there. Nick and I, see you there, we'll see you tomorrow. Or maybe both. Can't wait. And before we go, Jack and I got to whip up the first ever bridesmaid proposal on a podcast. What do we got, Jack? Bring out the flowers. We got a question for Gabby Chang in Castro Valley, California. Gabby, we're down on one knee.

Will you be Chakina's maid of honor for the upcoming wedding? Will you stand next to your sister on her big day? To have and to hold forever and ever. And happy birthday to Alec Giodano, who's celebrating over in Hawaii. And Anthony Tici enjoy that birthday down in Austin, Texas. Get some barbecue. And Ryan Burnett, the 10-year-old, is celebrating his 100th episode of T-Boy on his 10th birthday in Wimberley, Texas. And Beth Atkinson is celebrating her birthday in Binghamton, New York, in a T-Boy hat with a glass of pina.

I want to see a pick of that right now. That is a good setup. And a happy birthday to Mason, the Little... Chihuahua in Miami, Florida. And finally, Matthew and Jordan, congratulations on getting married down in Mammoth Lake. We want to see some wedding picks.

Have a fantastic wedding weekend. This is Jack. I own stock of Levi's and I own stock on Amazon. A donation has been made in your name to the Human Fund. Money. For people.

For people.