The Best One Yet - 🇸🇪🛋️ “IkeaWëWørk” — Ikea’s coworking launch. Dutch Bros’ Starbucks dunk. Warren Buffett’s special letter.

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Ikea’s got its own malls now, and is adding a branded coworking space to them — Ikea just launched a rival to WeWork because coworking isn’t a product, it’s a feature.The #3 coffee chain in America? It’s Dutch Bros — The Broistas at Dutch Bros are catching up to Starbucks by obsessing over the drive-thru.And Warren Buffett just wrote his annual letter to shareholders — It reminded us of Warren’s legendary “20–Slot” mindset of patient investing.Plus, Pitbull is opening a restaurant inside a Walmart (true story) — What celeb do you think should open a restaurant… and in what retail chain?$BROS $SBUX $BRK.ASubscribe 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, February 27th. And today's pod is the best one yet. It's a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Jack, just touched down in San Francisco. And from what I can tell it, this is not artificial intelligence, Jack.

This is real Jack. I am in person with you. I'm also sunburned. Okay, I noticed you got a little burn. I dropped off the family in Florida. I spent one day on the beach in two hours. I got brutally sunburned. Jack, I have something for you.

One second. Actually, I brought it sunny here too, so I got some sunscreen for you. How did you know I did this? A little aloe, just a little aloe. SPF 50 is what my minimum SPS is. In the meantime, Jack is here. We've got a fantastic show for you. Jack, first story, what do we got?

For our first story, IKEA is launching its own IKEA decorated co-working space called, hey. Because IKEA is trying to pull off a Wii work. For our second story, the brilliant investor, Warren Buffett, just issued his 60th annual letter to sharehold. So Jack and I read all six. 8,889 words so you don't have to. For our third and final story. Guess what coffee chain is the fastest

growing chain in America? Who is it, Jack? Dutch bros. Dutch bros. Dutch bros did the opposite of Starbucks and Duncan, and now Dutch bros, catching up to Starbucks and Duncan. But besties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a fantastic mix of stories. You're glowing right now. We can save the sunsgris.

You know, sometimes you're rolling across your feed, and you see a headline, and you have to reread that headline, it's that crazy. Jack and I found a headline that this is one that we had to reread. Pitbull is opening a restaurant inside a Walmart in Las Vegas. We repeat, Pitbull, the Latino Hip Hop Sensation, is opening a restaurant in Las Vegas inside a Walmart. What? It's an aisle six.

Hey, baby, baby back ribs. Pit bulls making pancakes, Jack. This is the biggest restaurant to celebrity celebrity couple since Ben Affleck and Dunkin' Donuts. Dahl. Now, one more twist to that headline. The restaurant is called Miami Grill. Okay, but this restaurant is in Las Vegas and it is inside a Walmart. And if that wasn't confusing enough, here's another twist.

Get this. Back in 2012, Pitbull partnered with Walmart on a fan sweepstakes. Do you remember that? Pitbull promised he would perform a live concert at whatever Walmart location got the most likes on Facebook. And 12 years ago, the internet mess with him and sent him to do a concert in Alaska. So the Miami native Pitbull had to go to Cody. Alaska to perform a concert in a Walmart because of Facebook. Well, it all comes full circle because 12 years later, Walmart again is partnering with Pitbull on a restaurant in a Walmart.

They're two of the most confusing headlines we've ever encountered. But yet is before you go all Gordon Ramsey on review in this new restaurant, Jack and I should point out, Pitbull has some innovation here. Many celebrities have owned a restaurant before. Yeah. But this is the first celebrity restaurant inside a retail chain. The way Jack and I see it, this Pitbull Walmart restaurant is kind of like... Taylor Swift opening up a cafe and Target.

Oh, J-Lo opening a juice bar inside a Best Buy. So, let's get the brainstorming juices flowing. Yeties for Teaboy Tuesday, Jack, and I want to know. What celebrity not Pitbull should open up a restaurant? And what retail chain should they open that restaurant in? What should the next great restaurant and celebrity-celebrity couple be? Hey, Mark Cuban. I've out some Cuban sandwiches inside of Costco. Hit us up at T-Boy podcast.

Let us know what celebrity should launch a restaurant at what retail chain. Let's make a night you won't remember. We'll be the one you won't forget. Is that Pipple? Pipple, you overpooked my steak. Let's in our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm.

It's the 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. For our first story, talk about headlines you got to reread. IKEA is now launching malls and its very own IKEA co-working brand. That's right. IKEA, the furniture retailer, their newest product is their take on WeWork.

Hey, Jack, I got to ask, whip out the cargo shorts. When was the last time you were at a mall, man? An outdoor luxury mall. The Stanford Shopping Center? Must be nice. I took you there once, right? That was really nice. It is a gorgeous.

Nick, they don't have like a toy store. store. They have a Tesla store. You're doing like a juice cleanse before you leave that place. Yetis, American malls, though, they are struggling right now. Except for the fancy outdoor ones, traffic at America's malls are down 4% last year, and they're down 12% from the pre-pandemic days. So we got to ask, and so did the Wall Street Journal. What is the savior for your local mall, Jack? According to the Wall Street Journal, it's IKEA. Yeties, IKEA is now in the mall business.

Where did this come from? The parent company behind IKEA owns 30,000. three shopping malls across the world. Here's the strategy. Build or buy a mall and then stick an IKEA store in there as the anchor reliable tenant. When I was a kid, my local mall had Macy's as the anchor tenant. Apparently, IKEA wants as the anchor tenant. They actually just did this right down the street in San Francisco. They got one right here. That's right.

IKEA bought their first American mall. It's in San Francisco. So they're bringing DIY dressers downtown to San Fran. Here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. Um, IKEA isn't just adding malls. No, no, no, no, no. IKEA's first American mall also has a co-working space. IKEA's newest product isn't a couch.

It's co-working. IKEA is pulling a Wii work right in downtown San Francisco. This is great. The new IKEA co-working, by the way, the name of this new brand is hay, exclamation point. It's hay exclamation point. So it's hey. In Swedish, it's hay, it's hay. And Nick and I looked at early renderings of this business.

It's like a we work that studied abroad in Scandinavia. It's got pine wood. It's got clean lines. Jack, this space is so minimalist. The succulents are beige. At the San Francisco location, there's 500 desks that go for $400 a month. So they're bringing hustle culture into the retail space right next door over in IKEA. Plus, IKEA is going to double debt because the space is filled with IKEA furniture.

So you try before you buy. Jack, can you set the scene for us? You're going to take a conference call on the looper chair. Yeah, you're going to make your sales calls from the flueger sofa. So you're paying IKEA every month to work from their furniture, and then you're going to end up buying the furniture. Oh, but that's not all in the IKEA. Hey, co-working spaces. Every IKEA mall also has an IKEA themed food court, too.

You're going to be munching down on IKEA meatballs for lunch, followed by a team Fika breakover at 3 p.m. That's the IKEA inspired mall future that none of us signed up for. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy Adam Newman? I'm sorry, our buddy IKEA. Co-working isn't a company. Co-working is a feature. Like a chair. Yeah, it is last year, Jack and I told you about the bankruptcy filing of WeWork.

The ultimate co-working brand. WeWork proved that profits and co-working is hard. The economic model never worked out for WeWork. Here's the interesting thing. IKEA is now testing whether that co-working concept actually has a different value. Instead of a standalone co-working company, co-working can be a feature of something bigger. Picture this, yet is IKEA co-working.

It doesn't have to make money. because the IKEA mall subsidizes it. But the IKEA Mall benefits by hosting workers who are buzzing around who have money in their pockets. Yeah, they're going to buy that fluger sofa after they make the calls all day from that fluger sofa. But they're also going to bring some energy to a mall, which looks bad when it's empty. So this IKEA story actually tells us something much different about an entire big industry. IKEA is proving that co-working doesn't have to be a separate, distinct business. Co-working may thrive best as a feature, not a company, kind of like a chair.

For our second story, Warren Buffett just wrote his annual letter for the whole world to read. Warren Buffett's letter reminds us of a mind experiment for patience in investing. All right, Eddie's great resolution for yourself. Here it is. Every year, write a letter to your future self to read. Have you ever done this? I haven't done this. Have you ever done this?

I have not done this. We haven't done this, but you should do it. Honestly, it's not too late, right? I guess you'd like hold yourself accountable to the pledges that you're going to make for the year. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, it makes sense. Anyway, he's right a letter for yourself to read in December about your dreams and goals.

And Warren Buffett has done this every single year since 1965. It's a letter addressed to the shareholders of his company, Berkshire Hathaway, but it's an open letter that the whole world can read. Well, over the weekend, Warren Buffett published that letter. And the highlight was Hustled the record profits for Berkshire Hathaway, his investing company. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is now sitting on $170 billion in cash from all the profits they did. That's a record, Jack. Did you sprinkle on more context for us, please? With that cash, Berkshire could buy all of Uber or all of IBM or all of Nike.

But Warren Buffett doesn't want to buy those companies, so he's putting that money into government bonds and he's just waiting. Yeah, until he finds a company attractive enough to acquire. But yet is Jack and I noticed that Warren Buffett's letter this year was a little different than usual? Because it wasn't just about the financials, it was also about two people. This is the first annual shareholder letter since Charlie Munger died. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's best friend, his right-hand man to Berkshire, who passed away last year at 99. Warren said in this letter that Charlie was like the architect of Berkshire's investment philosophy.

Warren said that he was just in charge of the construction crew. It's the architect who deserves credit for the beautiful building that Berkshire has become. Now, interestingly, the second person who Warren described in his letter was the model, the ideal, and the perfect investor in the stock market. His sister Bertie. Warren mentioned his sister Bertie 20 times in this year's letter. She bought stock of Berkshire at the beginning and hasn't sold it. And guess what?

It's up 4 million percent. The reason Bertie is a perfect investor is her patience. That's what Warren was highlighting. His sister Betty doesn't buy and sell. His sister Betty buys and chills. And Warren is like that too. It's illustrated by two of his favorite stock investments he's ever made. All right, get this, Yeti's.

Warren Buffett bought 9% of Coca-Cola back in 1998, and he hasn't sold a share since. 26 years later. And get this, Warren Buffett bought 20% of American Express stack in 2001, and he hasn't sold the stock since. Both of those holdings have appreciated tremendously for 20 years and paid the company handsome dividends. But Warren hasn't sold them,

because Warren believes good investors buy and chill, just like his patient sister Bertie. And I love the takeaway that's coming up right now. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are anyone in the stock market? This story reminds us of Warren Buffett's 20 slot rule for investing. One way to think about investing is if you had a ticket, but with only 20 slots on that ticket that could be punched. Think about it. Each time you buy a stock over the course of your life, you have to punch one of those 20 slots.

And you only have 20 slots for the entirety of your life. So it's like if you could invest 20 times in your life, That means you'd be really careful with those 20 investments because you only have 20. You wouldn't jump on some investing trend you saw on Twitter just because everyone else was jumping on that trend. Yeti, sit down, stand up and sit down and let this sink in. If you could only make 20 stock trades in your whole life, what would you make? That's the kind of philosophy that would really make you think about what is the company I want to own. Warren Buffett's 20 slot rule is a mental exercise for how we could think about investing.

It's a lesson in patience, which is perhaps Warren's number one investing strength. And it's definitely birdies. For our third and final story, the number three coffee chain in America, guess what? It's Dutch Bros. And Dutch Bros is beating Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts in all the crucial coffee categories. For coffee. Yeah, it is Dutch Brose. It was founded back in 1992 in Oregon.

They started, get this, as a push cart coffee truck. There's two brothers. They started the company, and they used to work on dairy farms. So they called the company Dutch Bros. Yetis, today Dutch Bros is a publicly traded coffee chain grown from the West Coast to the East Coast. They just announced that their sales grew 28% last quarter. And in just the last three months of last year, they opened 37 new locations. But we notice that Dutch Bros still act a lot like bros.

It's heavy on the bros. They don't have baristas. They call their baristas broistas. And actually, when they IPOed, Jack, Jack and I noticed they mentioned the word mind-blowing nine times in their official Wall Street IPO paperwork. Their signature coffees sound less like drinks, more like wrestlers. The annihilator. The double torture.

Jack, I interest you in the caramelizer. How do you take your coffee, by the way? Stone cold, iced, stone cold Steve Austin. These are all on the menu at Dutch Bros. Coffee. Now, yet he's added all up and everything about this company we kind of love, but it doesn't sound that serious. But the numbers, they do sound serious. Get this yetis. This company Dutch Bros.

Has 831 locations. That is twice as many as our buddies over at Krispy Cream. And they're growing so fast. They have doubled the number of locations since their 2021 IPO. Oh, FYI, you can't open a new Dutch Bros location unless you've worked there as a broista. It's baptism by the bean. But they hope to open 4,000 U.S. locations before it's all said and done. Let's jump further into the numbers.

Starbucks and Duncan, they're... They are much bigger than Dutch Bros. They have 16,000 and 9,000 U.S. locations. But per capita, Dutch Bros is the largest coffee chain in America. Their revenue per location is tops at $1.9 million. Jack, can you sprinkle on some cinnamon and context for us? They make twice as much money per location as Starbucks does. Dutch Bros is twice as lucrative per store as Starbucks.

Plus 65% of orders come from members of Dutch Bros. Loyalty Program. Dutch rewards. Oh, and how does that compare to our buddies over at Starbucks? Everyone wants orders happening in the loyalty program. Dutch Bros. is twice as high as Starbucks. Holy Frappuccino. Starbucks only has 35% of orders coming from their loyalty program.

That's decaf. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Dutch Bros? Resisting conformity is a competitive advantage. Be yourself. That's what we're trying to say. Be yourself. Resisting conformity is a competitive advantage. Be yourself.

How does Dutch Bros. Sale twice as much as the average Starbucks location? It's because every Dutch Bros. location is drive-through and pickup only. There's no cafe to come sit down and hang out with your laptop and use my Wi-Fi. Yides, here's the key. Since the beginning, Dutch Bros has always prioritized speed by only having drive-through locations. Every Dutch Bros is a drive-through first location. So they all stayed open and they all boomed during the pandemic.

Well, now after the pandemic, every fast food restaurant wants to be drive-through first, so they're like adding drive-thru lanes for the first time ever. Which costs a lot of money and isn't always possible. Now, you could call Dutch Bros. Drive-Thru Focus luck. You could say it was just good timing with the pandemic. But we think it's more than that. Because how many times did Dutch Bros. investors say, hey, can't you be more like Starbucks? How many times did they feel pressure to open up a sit-down location like Dunkin' Donuts? But Dutch Bros. didn't. They resisted conformity, and they stuck to their unique Dutch Bros. model. In other words, be yourself. That's the lesson here. Jack, can you whip up

the takeaways for us for Tea Boy Tuesday? IKEA's first American mall is in San Francisco, and it has an IKEA branded co-working space, too. Called hey. It's called hey. Because co-working spaces aren't a product, they're a feature like a chair. For our second story, Warren Buffett's company has a record $170 billion in cash that they haven't invested yet. Warren's practicing patience, just like his 20-slot rule of investing. And our third and final story is Dutch bros. They're nearly 1,000 U.S. locations are beating Starbucks and Duncan per capita. They're resisting conformity as a competitive advantage.

They're being themselves. Be yourself. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Ben the Bitcoin jumped past $54,000 yesterday for the first time in over two years. It's not clear why Bitcoin is rallying, but the rally has pushed the stocks of Coinbase and Robin Hood up quite a bet this week. And second, were you affected by the major phone outage from AT&T last week? AT&T wants to say they're sorry.

So they're giving everyone affected $5 of bill credits. That's it. Five bucks. And finally, Albert Einstein's School of Medicine in the Bronx just got, get this, a $1 billion donation. It's from a former professor and she has one condition. Free tuition in perpetuity. If you want to study medicine at Albert Einstein, you'll never pay tuition again. Thanks to this wonderful donation.

Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Rob Payne in lovely St. Pete's, Florida. Have you wondered why we have leap years? Well, the earth takes exactly 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds to circle the sun. The occasional February 29 ensures we don't lose six hours every year. Without a leap year, the accrual of the six hours every year would eventually cause the seasons to completely drift from their alignment. For example, summer in the United States starts around June. But without leap years, after a few hundred years, we will have summer in November.

Leap year, it's the great corrector. Apparently, if we didn't have leap year, we wouldn't have Christmas, Jack. We'd have Christmas in July, actually, which was always my dream growing up. Yeties, it is leap year week, so we are getting the leap year day later this week. Thursday, we get one extra day of February than usual. Which means we're going to shout out some Yetis for birthdays, who we haven't shouted out in four years, jazz. I know, our buddy Steve Hardin, we went to college with him. He's turning nine.

He's a college graduate who's nine years old. Yeties, you looked fantastic today. And remember, for T-Boy Tuesday, we want to know what celebrity should open up what restaurant in what retail location. Adam Sandler should open a subway restaurant at the Peebley restaurant at the Pee. PGA golf stores. If Pitbull can serve a medium rare steak in Isle 6, then Adam Sandler can pull it off too. If you know, you know.

H-Y-H-T-B-O-I. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. Before we go, a happy birthday to Emma in New York City, who is celebrating with all her besties with a huge dinner out. Have fun. And happy birthday to Nisha and Mira Nishtree, twins in North Carolina and South Carolina. And Angelo Mada Gota is from Belgium, but living in an Indian. Indonesia and celebrating a 31st birthday and a new real estate company. Happy 26th birthday to Sydney Garden Hour in Sacramento, California.

And Kelly Henry's driving the kids to school in Anchorage, Alaska right now and doesn't want anyone to know it's her birthday. We'll keep it between us. And congratulations to the UNC fencing team who just beat Notre Dame to win the national championship. And Matthew Chappah just hit 1,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, low budget logistics. And Bon Voyage and good luck to Steve Ropeppy, who's flying to Japan for the Tokyo Marathon. And Jonathan and Cassie Halley just fought a home in Knoxville, Tennessee, with room for their two puppies.

And congratulations to Joe and Alexis Norman, who just had their first baby up in Minnesota, Evander Aurelius James Newman. And get this, Avander was born at 2.42 a.m. on 2.24, 2024. That boy is already a living legend T-boy. This is Jack. I own stock of Krispy Cream and Nick and I both own stock of Apple and Robin Hood. And we both own one Bitcoin whose name is Ben.