The Best One Yet - 🏙️ “JamieLand” — JPM’s Return-to-Office Tower. Scoreability’s LinkedIn for Athletes. Walmart’s Store of the Future. +Pumpkin Spice Weddings

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

JP Morgan Chase’s new skyscraper just opened… including 19 restaurants & custom scents.Scoreability is LinkedIn of high school athletes… Because college sports is a for-profit growth industry.Walmart just launched the “Tire Center of the Future”... It’s the omni-channel labradoodle of retail.The hot new month to get married? October… It’s the pumpkin-spice wedding trend.$JPM $WMT $AMZNNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Monday, October 13th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. I'm sorry, am I co-host in this podcast with the Maya Angelou of the stock market over there?

Are you teetting my horn from my poem again? Jack, your poem on NVIDIA went viral over the weekend. I didn't want to tell you this. I wanted to save this for the show. A Yeti came up to me on Friday and said that you're a little. NVIDIA poem was the highlight of their month. So it went viral with an audience of one, at least. No, no, you got to see this thing yet.

We're posting it on T-BoyPod on Instagram. Jack's publicly traded poem on Nvidia. Invidia's stock did fall after you recited that poem, I should point out. Oh, shoot. The whole stock market fell actually on Friday. But besties, Jack and I have three fantastic stories to kick off the week. Jack, what's on the pod? For our first story, J.P. Morgan Chase just opened its new headquarters building

in New York City. It's 1,400 feet tall. It's got 19 restaurants inside the building. Jack and I call it Jamie Land, and its opening will influence every white-collar worker in America. For our second story, what if collegiate athletics got their own version of LinkedIn? Well, a startup called Scorability has raised 50 million bucks to get you committed to Clemson with one click. And our third and final story is Walmart, because they just unveiled the car center of the future and it's coming to 2,600 locations.

Because Bestie's Walmart ain't a purebred retailer. Walmart is a mixed-breed labradoodle. But yet he's before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories. Perfect mix to kick off the week, Jack. We know where you were last weekend. Wedding, baby, because it is pumpkin spice wedding season. October has quietly crept up there as a top month to get married.

June and September, you have long been the most popular. months for marriages out there. But October is surging, and the context is wild. Jack, why don't you sprinkle it on, baby? The tradition of June being the most popular wedding month isn't just about the weather. It actually goes back to ancient Rome. You see,

Juno was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. And June conveniently happens to be a month of warm weather. I mean, Jack, remember then 2009 movie Bride Wars? Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, battling over one wedding weekend at the Plaza Hotel in June, but with only

four weekends in June, we got a scarcity problem here. September became the number two most popular month. Because July and August were just too hot. But Jack, now September has its own weather problems. Hurricanes. With climate change, there's increasing odds that rain will ruin your big day for a September wedding. Although if you're getting married next year in September, don't worry, you'll be fine. So October has emerged as the Goldilocks month for weddings. It's not too hot in October. You won't sweat through the dress. But it's not too cold either. You can still go with the open-toe shoes. Plus, you benefit from off-peak pricing.

And you know what that means, Jack? Oh, yeah. Now, the only risk to your wedding happening in October weekend? I know what it is, Jack. You want to tell the Yetis? It said Uncle Ned shows up in a borderline offensive Halloween costume. Besties, you gotta get specific about the October

dress code. Uncle Ned sends his best from the grave. What are we working with? What are we working with? Jack, let's hit our three stories. Two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm. Jack, 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. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, welcome to Jamiland. America's biggest bank, J.P. Morgan, just opened its brand new New York City skyscraper. It should be called

Back to the Office Tower. Because this building is going to influence every worker in America. Now, Yetis, Jack and I, a few years ago, worked at banks. And at the time, Goldman Sachs simply had the best office in the city. I walked past it every

day. There was a mural in the lobby that was definitely custom commissioned, and I wanted to go in there like a museum. It was like the Equinox Spa of Opices. They had their own ferry to ferry them across the Hudson River. But Yeties, here's Here's the update. Now it is J.P. Morgan Chase's new skyscraper, or as we call it, Jamie Land, that is taken over the man. It's at 48th Street and Park Avenue. It can hold up to 14,000 employees,

and it's just one building. For context, that is more capacity than Apple's headquarters on that campus in Silicon Valley. They broke around in 2021, completed in August, and finally, this month, people are moving in. Nick, it took three times as many people to build this tower, than it took to build the Empire State Building. Jack, this J.P. Morgan Tower is taller than the Empire State Building. At 1,400 feet, this is like as tall as the World Trade Center was. But besties, what Jack and I find fascinating here is something bigger than the engineering. It's the amenities. Because there are more creature comforts in this building than a four-season's five-star hotel. It's like the burbary of buildings. Get this. The gym is 40,000 square feet, two times larger than a typical

Planet Fitness. Now, Yeties, maybe the wildest feature of all is this. A custom smell. That's right. They commissioned, what do they call them in France? A nose? So that every pitchroom in the whole building has the same hint of hybiscous. There's even an art collection gifted by the Rockefellers throughout the tower. Yes, that is a real Monet. And it will motivate you. But Yeties, the real story here is that Jamie doesn't want you working here. He wants you living here. Yeah. The tower? It's open 24-7. And every life necessity is included in the building. It's a subliminal message that, yeah, you should be in this building pretty much all the time. There's no excuse to go home, but frankly, when you hear these details, you may not want to go home. I mean, Jack, the key is the restaurants. Can we talk about the food situation? There are 19 different restaurants in this building. On three floors, that's like more than in most of Soho, man.

It's more than your typical, like, shopping mall food court, too. Although it's way fancier. you don't want to take the elevator? No problem. There's a cafe on each of the building 60 floors as well. There's a sweet green restaurant inside the building. Dirt candy, the award-winning vegan restaurant, you can't get a reservation at downtown. They also got a location in the J.P. Morgan building. There's even a Starbucks on the 14th floor so you can pumpkin spice those spreadsheets. Now, Basties, we checked in with our buddies who worked there. And to navigate all of this, you had to use an app that J.P. Morgan built just for the building. And according to the financial employees must provide their eyeball and fingerprint biometrics to access the building.

So, uh, yeah, outsiders, not welcome without a sponsor. But Jack, once you're an insider inside the building, the circadian custom lighting mimics natural light. So your 18-hour day doesn't feel like one fluorescent blur. Yeah, if you're wrapping up that IPO pitch deck at 2 a.m., you got twilight vibes on your 37th floor cubicle, which is soothing. And yes, you can still order the Starbucks for a Rappuccino besties, this is not just a building, it is a neighborhood. J.P. Morgan bought five nearby buildings. It's an urban campus. It's a multi-block campus. Call it Midtown Morgan, call it JP Village. We're calling it Jamie Land.

For New Yorkers, this new tower shifts the gravity of power, from west side to east side. Yeah, looking at you, Hudson Yard. It's awkward. And for the rest of the country, this tower shifts the status quo as well. And that is our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over up on the 60th floor of J.P. Morgan Tower? The future is like pottery. It doesn't just happen. It's shaped by people. Yeti's Jamie Diamond is the longest serving big bank CEO. He's the only one left from the great financial crisis and he is a fascinating person. Since he took over 20 years ago, the stock of J.P. Morgan has nine-xed. It's worth nearly a trillion dollars today. Biggest bank in the country. In addition to

that business success, Jamie is also the leader of corporate America in general, specifically on return to office. Well, his $3 billion skyscraper is the biggest investment yet in the return to office movement. You see, Bessies, if your CEO is uncertain about their return to office situation, or if you're a founder and you're uncertain about it, and you're not sure big offices are needed in an AI future? Well, Jamie Diamond just gave three billion reasons to think that physical office real estate is the future of corporate America. Make it or not, this tower will probably shift the pendulum toward in-office culture. Yeties, there's millions of companies that will determine America's corporate future,

but to look toward leaders for guidance. You see, the future, it doesn't just happen. It's shaped by individual people like Jamie Diamond making big bets. For our second story, Scorability has raised $51 million in venture capital money to scale the LinkedIn for athletics. With college sports looking more like pro sports, scoreability has found a lucrative new marketplace. Now, Yetis, Jack, and I can tell you from personal experience that for high school athletes

trying to get recruited to play sports in college, oh man, dude, it is a slog. Unless you're like the 28th Manning brother and coaches are coming to you, you as the athlete have to email coaches your game tapes. You have to attend, like, expensive camps on the weekend. Jack, you probably have got a Salesforce account just to keep track of all. I was trying to convince coaches, even played lacrosse in New York City. Whether you got recruited to play sports in college depends just as much on your networking skills as your 40-yard dash time. Oh, I'm sorry, little

Johnny. How'd you get into Georgetown for water polo? Well, my mom took her class in video editing and mailed my highlight tape to 100 programs. Hey, Jack, you want to admit something for the Yeties, though? Why don't we pause the pod and you can share your little secret? When I visited Middlebury College to meet the football coach? Yeah, your little secret. I slipped index cards into my shoes to appear one inch taller. That was my brother's idea, by the way, and it got me in. Well, Yeties, one startup has realized that when there are two sides of a market struggling to connect, that is a platform opportunity. Which leads to the news. A startup called Scorability, just raised $40 million. And their product borrows a bunch of tricks from the tech world.

You see, like other industries, sports recruiting is now happening mainly online. There's no more coaches traveling to your living room to pitch you to come to Penn State to play football. That's not happening anymore. Recruiting is happening remotely and increasingly on an app like scoreability. And scoreability offers standardization. Like Airbnb requires a property listings, scoreability requires uniform metrics about high school athletes. So coaches can compare and contrast and filter results based on academics,

athletic performance, or geography. Scorability also has data verification. Like StockX requires authentication of sneakers, scoreability lets players verify their measurables. Like height, vertical jump, wingspan, you prove they are real with video evidence on the app. Which I suppose would have caught my index card trick. It also has the same business model as tech.

Like Zillow, only one side pays. For Zillow, it's the realtors. For Scorability, it's the coaches in the universities. Add it all up, and a platform has now arrived for college sports recruiting. I wonder if they have endorsements. Like, I tried to tackle my buddy Timmy. He absolutely pancaked me. He belongs at whatever program you're working for.

Jack, what you're saying is this is the LinkedIn for lacrosse, right? We'll take it. We'll take it. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Scorability? College athletics is now a growth industry, and it's for profit. Yet is Scorability already is 1.2 million athletes and 3,000 colleges signed up to the platform. But the reason venture capital has invested 51,000. million dollars in discorability. It's not amateur athletics. No, as the investors put it,

this is a huge multi-billion dollar opportunity. Yet he's as recently as 10 years ago, alcohol sales were banned at NCAA games, players were banned from being paid, and players couldn't transfer without taking a full season off. Okay, but everything Jack just said has now changed, right, man? In fact, LSU just signed the first Jersey sponsorship deal in NCAA history. Basties out all up and scoreability's long-term value is in taking a piece of college sports commercialization. Because college athletics is a growth industry and it's for profit. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, Walmart just launched the car setters of the future.

Walmart is adding techiness to their 26th. tire centers. This story highlights how Amazon is the internet. Costco is bricks and mortar, but Walmart is both. Walmart is a Labradoodle. Now, Basties, we should point out we've got a lot of you listening right now down around

Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, right, Jack? Enjoy the mountain biking this weekend, I bet. Yeah, we bet you did some mountain biking. And on Friday, our LinkedIn feed was stacked with messages like this. A big thank you to all our cross-functional partners who work tirelessly the last few months to make this launch possible.

Yeah. Classic LinkedIn. And the this that's referred to in that LinkedIn message is a new store concept, the auto car centers of the future. They're open today at 10 Walmarts in Arkansas. And if this works, they're going to expand it to all 2,600 Walmarts that have tire and car service centers. So Jack and I were curious, like a techified car center of the future?

Is this like a rocket chip car center? Flying cars? driving car center? What are we working with here, Waymo? What's going on? Well, to understand the strategy, let's look at the goal. The goal of these new car centers is to save customers time. And the target for a digitized car service center? Parents with kids. Those with the leaf time. In fact, parents happen to be the biggest spending demographic of retail customers, so it makes sense to target them. And here's why they're targeting parents. Every time you need to get your car, something done with your car, they say, yeah, just lead the vehicle with us and we'll have it ready for you by

5 o'clock. Okay, but if you're a parent, that doesn't work, Jack, right? No, you need your car to drop off your kids at school and pick them up afterwards, and no, you can't just take an Uber. You need the car seats that are set up in your car already. I learned that the hard way last year. So Walmart is letting you schedule your car service on an app and do the entire thing contact list. Here's how it's going to go down. You're going to park your car near the Walmart car center, check in on your app at your scheduled time, and then drop off your keys in a locker designated for you. And then, Jack, while your car's getting worked on, what do you end up doing? You shop, because you're at Walmart.

You hit up I-L-6 during your car's oil change. The app then pings you when the chassis is fixed. You go back to your locker an hour later, and then your key is waiting for you. Boom. Your car got worked on while you did your Walmart shopping anyway. What this is really, and this is the powerful strategy here, is captive retail, right, Jack? Customers have no choice but to fill up their shopping cart. the two to three times a year they do their car service.

So it's also kind of a bit of a double dip from Walmart, isn't it, Jack? Walmart got your oil change and your Sunday grocery shopping. Kaching, kaching, double dip, double dip, profit puppy. But this is also Omni retail. Yes, it is. And that is a cue for our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our techie buddies over at Walmart? Costco and Amazon, they're purebreds.

Walmart is Mexican. breed. Now, Yeti's Omni Channel is a frustratingly jargony concept, but is basically using the internet to make in-person shopping more efficient. Omni Channel, it's like a Labradoodle. You get the best of both worlds. You get Labrador-like athleticism, but poodle-like hypoallergenicness. Yeah, Omni Channel is online and offline shopping. Now, Amazon Dabbled with Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go Whole Foods, but none of those brick-and-mortar physical efforts really worked. Costco has dabbled in online shopping. It's available technically, but Costco's experience is very unchanged from 20 years ago. However, Walmart is the one big box giant truly fluent in both physical retail and digital

retail, and it's working. Walmart always dominated physical retail, but they invested massively in online and e-commerce when Amazon arrived. On the digital side, they've got a techie-style Bougy campus down in Arkansas doing the unsexy but important work of building tech features. And the result is Omni Retail. Walmart's shopping strength is both in person, online, or some kind of a mix of both. Oh, and what's the other result if you're a shareholder, Jack? Walmart stock is nearly tripled in the last three years to an all-time high. You see, Costco and Amazon, yeah, they're pure breads. But Walmart is the only mixed breed in the big retail pack. It's the Labradoodle. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us to kick off the week.

JP Morgan's new headquarters sets a new standard in office amenities. We call it Back to the Office Tower. Jamie! Or we call it Jamie Land, because the future is like pottery. Doesn't just happen. It's shaped by individual people. For our second story, it's scoreability. They've raised $51 million as they create a recruiting platform for NCAA programs,

basically LinkedIn for athletics. Because coming from a recruited athlete in Jack and a walk-on and me, college athletics is now a growth industry and is for profit. I was walk on too, bro. I tried to recruit myself. They didn't reciprocate. You're also kind of in high heels based on the story about the cards. And our third and final story is Walmart. They're techifying their car and tire centers to save busy parents' time. Amazon and Costco, they're the purebreds, but Walmart is a super nut. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, congratulations and happy birthday to the bull market. That's right, the stock market's upward run has now gone on for

three years straight, a three year anniversary. Three years ago yesterday, the stock market hit a low. Since then, the S&P 500 is up 88%. Now, a funny quick update here, the stock market tanked two and a half percent on Friday after President Trump unleashed new tariffs on China. 100% in extra new taxes on stuff we import from China. He was very mad and markets did not like the escalation. But But still, it's been a wild three-year run. And second, speaking of China, the NBA just returned to China after a six-year break. Because China banned the NBA in 2019 after one general manager criticized the country's handling of protesters that were happening in Hong Kong.

But things have cooled and there's a lot of money in China. So there were two games over the weekend and Yao Ming was pumped. So is Alibaba, which won the NBA's AI deal over in China. And finally, Levi's Gene Steve. stock dropped 10% after announcing earnings. It got torn like a pair of ripped jeans. Levi's warned investors that tariffs will start to hurt profits in the all-important fourth quarter holiday season. But what Jack and I found most fascinating in the earnings is that it's not the pants. It's all about the tops. Get this. Nearly half of Levi's sales are from tops, not bottoms.

The jean jackets back, baby. Now time for the best fact yet, which because it's Monday means tea boy trivia. Jack, what do we get on the pod? Do you know what? a bug bounty is. Jack and I learned about this a few years ago when we started working in tech. It's when a tech company offers a prize if you find a mistake in their code. Why would a tech company pay you for telling them about one of their mistakes? Okay, here's why. Because if they don't spot a typo in their code and you don't spot it, then the hackers will. And then they'll hack you and hold you ransom for millions of dollars. That's why tech companies like Apple do a bug bounty. And here's our trivia question for you.

What is the top bug bounty that Apple will pay you for finding an issue in their code? If you find something off in Apple's app, what amount of money will they pay you? The answer is in tomorrow's pod. Yeties, you look fantastic. And if you're on the 48th floor of Jamie's Tower right now waiting for that sweet green order and you want to help today's show, Jack, what can you do for the pod? Grab the link to this show, drop it in your favorite, text channel and send it to your buddies with H-Y-H-T-O-Y. Have you heard the best one yet?

That's how we grow the pod. Nick and I, see you tomorrow. If you know, you know. And before we go, a happy 30th birthday to legendary Yeti, Liz Glover, celebrated in Denver, in Denver, Colorado, long-time Yeti here. And happy 25th birthday for the ninth time to Amanda Gerard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Great year, love the mid-20s, and Oscar Balthazar and Mexicali, Mavis. Mexico is not just a fantastic father-in-law, also celebrating the best birthday yet.

And congratulations to Spencer, who's visiting the United States from France, and he just heard that he and his wife are having a baby. Congratulations, guys. Was so cool to hear it. And a big shout out to Greg Hager and the whole Foxfold team for closing a $5 million Series A for their awesomely refillable tissue dispensers. Okay, apparently you can find these things in 20,000 restaurants, including no booze. Because believe it or not, the biggest source of wage. in the hospitality industry? Yeah, Jack. His unused toilet paper.

They always give you a new roll. I have never heard that, but I'm just going to roll with it, Jack. Jack and I will see you tomorrow. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Apple, and we both own ETFs of the S&P 500.