The Best One Yet - ⛈ “It will rain at 3:18pm… in 1 year” - Salient’s super weather app. HP’s perfect conference room. Sheryl’s automation complication.

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Salient just raised money to predict the weather… for a year from now. Just after Elon said you can’t work from home, HP dropped $3B for a company that pimps out your conference room for remote work. And Sheryl Sandberg has left Facebook and also left this legacy: Automation is insanely scalable but insanely vulnerable.$FB $POLY $HPFollow us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @tboypodListen to us on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5RllMBgvDnTau8nnsCUdse?si=7189762d4a9f4a7f&nd=1Or listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1386234384?ign-itscg=30200&ign-itsct=lt_pWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form: https://forms.gle/tywqQ9CpMmFDAPXz5Got the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that too: https://forms.gle/N2Unhwm9DbDw4P8R7Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've gotten out of two tickets this way, but it didn't work the third time, which was my first ticket in like seven years. Radical honesty. I literally, when they approach, I just profusely apologized. Literally three times. It's worked twice. I am so sorry. I made a huge mistake.

I was going over the speed limit. I feel terrible. I'm wasting your time. This is a waste of all of our time. I'm so sorry. Do you explain why you are speeding? Maybe. I can't remember.

They probably asked. I think I just said like I didn't realize it. I definitely realized it. So by radical honesty, you mean radical dishonest? I think radical manipulation. I think you realized. All right, none of this can be recorded. The mics are hot, man.

The mics are hot. These things are on. Three, two. This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Friday, the real Friday. June 3rd. Today's pod is the best one yet.

TBOI, Nick, before we hit this door, we got a bunch of corrections. Guess who designed the Vince Lombardi Trophy in 1966? It's one name, Tiffany. Tiffany did the NFL's championship trophy. The same company that made your girlfriend's necklace is making the trophies for the NFL too. So thankful. My dad is not hearing this right now. Did Big Ted have a connipion, Jack? He would if he knew this.

Big Ted is going to have a connoption. In the meantime, today's pod, Jack, Jack, first. First story, what do we got? Salient Predictions is a company that just raised money for their super weather app. Besties, what if you knew right now what the weather would be on the 4th of July next year? Yeah. Or our second story, Hewlett Packard just realized the future of work may come down to one thing. The perfect conference room.

And our third and final story is Cheryl Samper, the OG chief operating officer of Facebook. She just left meta. Here's her legacy for all of tech. Scalable meets vulnerable. Very interesting, Nick. Very curious, Jack. Before we hit that wonderful mix, though. The perfect way to kick off a hot pod summer Friday, Jack.

It's only June, but we already have the best movie of 2022. We do, Jack. What's the movie of the year? Toilets. Toilets, get this. An Oscar-winning director is making a movie on Japan's toilets. And what's it called, Jack? Tokyo Toilet.

We're talking 120 minutes of full-length feature, film starring toilets. Not Tom Huddleston, not Kate Winslet or Tim Tebow. No, no, no. It's starring toilets. In the United States, Yetis, the toilet is taboo. Yeah, we don't talk toilet. We don't touch toilet.

You can't even find a toilet. If you got to go to the bathroom in public, you have to beg some store clerk to make an exception to the rule. I'm going to be really quick. It's just one sec. Yeah, I'll buy a muffin. And then you're sitting sorely on a cold, hard, plastic bench with a hole. And then you run out of the room.

the place because you just used the bathroom for 30 seconds. In Japan, however, the experience is completely different than the toilet experience here. Yeah. In Japan, public toilets are shrines to humanity's two big needs. They're dishes of great dignity over there. Yeah, they didn't just put tech in their phones. They put tech in their toilets. Get this. 80% of Japan's toilets wash you. The seeds

are warm, the cushions are shaped, and the flush, it is tranquil. Who knows? You may be listening to this right now from a toilet. How uncomfortable does that make you feel? We know who you are. How comfortable are the toilets on this hemisphere? Not that toilet. Jack, what's the takeaway here for our buddies making films about toilets?

It's about time a toilet got the Oscar-winning respect they deserve. Let's flush our three skis. 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 is an norm. 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, weather startup's salient predictions just raised money for super predictions. If we know the weather six months from today, that could change the whole economy. Besties, the only weather alert push notification that we need.

Is it shorts weather or is it not shorts weather? I actually need, should I bring my umbrella or should I? I leave it at home. That's all I need. Jack, if you knew the shorts weather thing, you don't need the umbrella one. Well, if it's a catch-all. It can rain. You need both shorts and an umbrella. But then that just means your legs need of a good wash, Jack.

That's what that means. In the meantime, salient predictions just raised $5 million. They're a smaller startup than we would typically cover. But what Salient is trying to do has such huge implications for the economy. We had to cover this story. We did. Because right now, Yeties, weather forecasting, it's limited to a 10%. 10-day forecast.

If you want to know what the weather is in three weeks, you got to wait a week for it to show up on your weather act. Meteorologist pulls up some map and makes some cloud emojis appear and boom, that's the weather forecast. Yeah, it's going to be 70s and sunny tomorrow except for the 80% chance of precipitation in the north-by-northwest wind gust. And we've got a cumulus nimbus cloud pattern over here, followed by a system developing over the goal. Salient predictions is trying to disrupt the weather person because they think they can predict the weather up to one. one year from today. We repeat, they're predicting weather a year from now. They are an atmospheric fortune teller.

Now, here is the key to this startup that's based just outside of Boston. Salient has found different variables to predict weather than the local weather guide does. Currently, the local weather guy looks at air pressure and air density to predict rain and temperature. But Salient isn't some Doppler 5,000 weather machine. What is salient looking at, Chad? Salient's going to grab a little high. eyedropper and take a sample from the ocean. Right. They focus on the ocean temperature and water movements to predict the weather,

which gives them a longer time horizon. Salient believes the whole weather industry has been ignoring all the data that's in the water in the oceans. Basically, they've created an Al Roker supercomputer that's focused on the oceans. And so your weather app, open it up right now. It's not going to say 69 degrees. Remember we talked about that. But it will tell you it's going to rain in Cincinnati on Saturday the 16th. Well, Salient says that rain in Cincinnati is coming on Saturday six months from now. But this isn't just like, should I wear shorts tomorrow? This technology could save lives.

Yeah. Remember that Texas freeze jack? The one last year that was just a shocker? The whole state of Texas was frozen and they had no water. Well, Salient says they can predict extreme events in weather like that 30 days in advance. 30 days in advance. Imagine how Texas could have prepared for that freeze. Now, Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style.

There are, of course, skeptics here. You know, historically, weather tech, it improves only linearly. And what Salient Predictions is talking about, this is a step function improvement in weather forecasting technology, which would be remarkable. But if it does work, it feels like a takeaway moment. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our weather buddies over at salient? Knowing one unknown can change the entire economy. Uh, Yeties, we're talking about seeing into the future here. We're talking about seeing into the future.

Okay, very powerful implications, the more data you know about the future. The first clients of salient predictions are going to be insurance companies. Because of an insurance company knows a hurricane is coming in six months, they're going to let that policy expire in three months. They're like, oh, you have an oceanfront property? Why don't you work with this insurance company? But the way Jack and I see this, the power is way more than an insurance. Because of airlines know a storm schedule a month ahead, that could limit cancellations.

If hotels know it's going to be a gorgeous weekend in June of 2023, they can up the rates for that weekend today. If the ski industry expects no January snow, they could rent some machines that make snow from another ski mountain that doesn't need it a month in advance. And can we talk about vacation planning? You never have a vacation with bad weather ever again. Jack, each of these changes in behavior,

it's going to have ripple effects on the ripple effects. This feels like Marty McFly when he messes with one thing in the past and it changes everything about the future. Because knowing this one unknown is knowing the future. And knowing that could change the entire economy. For our second story yesterday, Jack and I were telling you how Elon Musk thinks work from home is a joke. But HP just spent $3 billion to acquire a company that specializes in work from home. Shocker, Hewlett Packard is the opposite of Elon Musk.

HP is the oldest dinosaur of Silicon Valley. Jack, take us back to 1938. Let's pop in some history. It's the Depression, isn't it? Hewlett and Packard, two guys. literally invented the computer in their garage in Palo Alto. Silicon Valley, like Silicon Valley, that's where it comes from. Those two Stanford grads who basically invented computers.

If they invented it somewhere else, they'd call Silicon Valley somewhere else. Yeah, well, nearly 100 years later, HP Hewlett-Packard, is selling enough laptops and enough computers to be worth a whopping $40 billion. That's about six lifts. But boom, Hewlett-Packard just dropped $3.3 billion to acquire a smaller company called Polly. Polly is banking on CEOs who are the opposite of Elon Musk. What they're banking on is hybrid work. More specifically, Polly is trying to perfect the conference room for a hybrid work future.

Basically, here's how the business model works. They're going to come in and they're going to service your conference room. They're going to upgrade this thing. Yeah, they're going to look at your conference room or your home office. It strategically placed cameras and microphones in all the right places. They're like pulling an exhibit on this. They're going to strategically techify the. rooms so James and Janine can brainstorm on a whiteboard from headquarters.

While Scott and Scottsdale zooms into the meeting and Victoria over in the Venice office, she phones into the meeting. So they're decking out this single room like it's a Hollywood studio. So your Zoom meetings feel like actual in-person meetings. Which leads to Polly's mission statement. They want total equality between those who are in the room and those who are not in the room. And they're going to use more cameras than an MTV reality show. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over Polly's? Like a ripe maple tree. Nothing is sweeter than an untapped market. Get this. To buy Polly, HP is paying nearly double Polly's stock price this week.

Polly is selling for such an incredibly high stock price, not because they got a cute mission statement. No, Polly got a $3.3 billion suite offer because it showed an untapped market that HP needs to capitalize on. And that untapped market is conference rooms. Yeah, just check out Polly's investor deck. We jumped in T-Boy style, Jack. What's going on on on slide five? On slide five, Polly highlights that there are 50 million conference rooms. And here is the key.

Only 10% of those 50 million conference rooms have video conferencing capabilities. The other 90% is the untapped market. Jack, that's 45 million conference rooms that could get pimped out with Polly's cameras and mics. That's 45 million conference rooms is HP's untapped. And nothing is sweeter than that untapped maple tree. And now worried about our sponsor, Robin Hood. We see ads all the time. All over the place, 10 bucks off this $5 promo code for that, Jack.

You can buy three suits, you can get one free. But something we always thought was cool about Robin Hood, the free stock promo. Yeah, this was wild. The promo isn't like some X amount of dollars. It's one stock. If you signed up for Robin Hood, they'd thank you with a single share in a publicly traded company on the house. And that free stock promo, it actually helped.

drive Robin Hood's growth and got new users in the stock market right away. One of the most creative moves in promotional history. So when Robin Hood became our sponsor, naturally, Jack and I said, we got to do the free stock giveaway. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, you want to get started, go to robin hood.com slash t-boy and get cash to select your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOY. Certain limitations apply all investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast.

For our third and final story before the weekend, Cheryl Sandberg just resigned from Facebook. Her legacy is that automation is insanely scalable, but it's insanely vulnerable to. 2008, Jack, 2008, Zuck's fashion was, he was going for, he was still wearing hoodies, mostly hoodies. Yeah, the only thing Zuck had zucked by then was the WinkleVye. The OG Zucking. And in 2008, that's also the year that Cheryl Sandberg joined Facebook as the chief operating officer. And look, Jack and I are no LinkedIn, but Cheryl had a ridiculously good resume. She was chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who continues to write op ads all the time.

Oh, and then, Jack, I see a bullet here. It says she built an ad business for a tech startup. Oh, yeah, that tech startup was Google. Yeah, Cheryl basically built Google's ad business. So then she was 38 and joined Facebook when Zuck was 23 years old. And Cheryl became the chief operating officer of Facebook. And Jack, what did Cheryl focus on there? ads. When you think of Sheryl Sandberg, you think of the Facebook advertising machine, which she built with automation. Yeties, automation. It isn't just another resume bullet. Automation

is what killed newspapers. Newspapers needed ads to survive, and they sold those ads manually. You called someone, you negotiated a price, and then boom, you got a page with an ad in a newspaper. All right, Rayban, you got an ad on page A4. This Tuesday, 100,000 people in the greater Springfield area, might see it. Yeah. Well, Cheryl eliminated every inch of human interaction with her Facebook ad machine and everything Jack just said. With Facebook, Rayban gets an ad that will only be seen by adult women who are wearing sunglasses in their profile picture and who recently checked in that they went to Lollapalooza on that sunny Chicago day. And any advertiser could do all of that without a single human interaction. That is how Facebook became a trillion-dollar company.

Exactly. The insanely scaled global ads operation. Facebook became a trillion dollar company because Cheryl built automation. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Facebook? Automation is insanely scalable, but it's insanely vulnerable to. Cheryl Sandberg was a pioneering role model for women in business. The whole lean-in movement. That is Cheryl. That's her movement. That's her movement. She's a mother of two and became the most famous non-CEO in the business world. But sadly, Cheryl's legacy is tied up in the 2016 election, actually in a whole bunch of global elections.

Yeah, that's why maybe you haven't heard much from Cheryl Sandberg the past few years. In 2016, Russian intelligence agents blasted American Facebook scrollers with false, confusing, and divisive information. Nobody noticed or did anything about it until after the election was already over. Because Facebook's system was automated. With no humans involved, Facebook's automation scaled and moved so fast. But with no humans involved, Facebook's automation broke so many things. Jack, can you whip up the Tiffany's design takeaways for us over there? Salient predictions believes they could predict weather up to a year out.

Yeah, knowing that one unknown, that could change the entire economy. For our second story, HP is buying Polly because of the hybrid work future. Like a maple tree, nothing is sweeter than an untapped market. For our third and final story, thanks to the ad machine. that Cheryl Sandberg built, Facebook became a trillion-dollar company. Automation. Insanely scalable, insanely vulnerable. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Aaron and his mom, Angie England, over in Fresno, California.

What should play now. Hey, their best season, Yetis. June 3 is the world's Clubfoot Day. My name is Aaron. I'm a 9-year-old Yeti. I was born with Clubfoot. And I'm Aaron's mom. About one in every thousand babies are born with Clubfoot.

Most children are treated with club foot with small surgeries and casting. Some kids like me have several surgeries. Despite the challenges, many people with clubfoot grow up to be remarkable athletes. Mia Hamm, Christy Yamaguchi, Troy Aikman, Charles Woodson, Freddie Sanchez, Jim Massier, Tom Dempsey, and Michael Hauser, to name a few. Other famous individuals such as Dudley Moore, Damon Wayans, and Sir Walter Scott also face the journey of clubfoot. June 3rd celebrates the birthday of Dr. Poncetti, who is the father of modern clubfoot treatment. So do something fabulous with your feet today and make it a T-Boy. That was fantastic.

I cannot have said that finish for this podcast better than Aaron. Aaron, we can tell you're going to do amazing things just like those famous people you just mentioned. Thank you for the best fact yet. Besties and Yetis, you looked fantastic all week. And Jack and I would love to hang out with you later today on our usual weekly live, T-Boy Live. T-boy Live on Instagram at T-boy Pod at 3 o'clock Eastern 12 Pacific. And Jack and I will see you there. Celebrate some wits. And before we go, Chrissy and Keith are getting married great Gatsby style over in Newport, Rhode Island.

Hey there, old sport. And after a two-year delay, Fabio and Valentina are getting married in Rome. It's that, Fabio. Oh, and, hey, Alexa, Chuck Chiamelieu has a new job at Amazon Music. Congratulations to Michelle the Rock climber Waller, who's graduating in Clovis, California. And Emmanuel Sabwami is graduating. High School in Beaver Creek, Ohio. Got a new master in the house with Jasmine White, who's graduating from Brown.

And Mikey, happy birthday over in Habron, Maryland. Happy birthday to Jared Harmon, who's celebrating in Portland, Oregon. And Dikshigatham celebrating down in Mexico City. Happy birthday to Seth and Lexi Spalding in Austin, Texas. And happy birthday to Kevin Zhang over in Dover, New Hampshire. And big happy birthday to Khalil Bryant in Nashville, Tennessee. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. Nick and I both on stock of Robin Hood. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time we swiped up to buy a stock on Robin Hood, whoa. Yeah, Jack, you get like that, like little vibration, boom, you've done a trade. It wasn't just an incredible app. Robin Hood added incredible resources, too. It started with the Help Center. Everyone has that. Then came Robin Hood snacks, digestible financial news.

Then came the news feed, providing free third-party news from trusted sources. And then came Robin Hood Learn. A huge trove of articles. explaining what the heck an ETF is. Yeah, spoiler. It's like a stock smoothie. Jack and I actually wrote the article in that one. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, want to get started,

go to robinode.com slash t-boy and choose a free stock. That's Robin Hood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member S-I-P-C, and by the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast.