The Best One Yet - 🧙‍♂️ “Killing the magic… of Magic” — Hasbro: The Gathering. Twitter’s fake Mario. Alexa’s nightmare dream.

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Hasbro stock fell 10% because it’s messing with Magic: The Gathering. Twitter’s latest problem is fake-but-verified accounts (like Super Mario giving us the finger), which makes Twitter a dangerous place for brands. Amazon is reportedly laying off 10,000 people, mostly on the Alexa team — Another dream lost to a tech nightmare.$HAS $AMZN $PEP $LLYFollow The Best One Yet 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.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy Tuesday, November 15th. And today's pod is the best one yet. Nick, you look great today. I'm glad to be on the poverty. I love that sweater last week. I can't wait to hit this pod with you today.

All right, first story, what are we got for today's pod? An investment bank just wrote a stock report about Magic the Gathering. Magic the Gathering. The fantasy card game hath been cursed. For our second story, we just learned that Amazon Alexa has more employees than Airbnb and Snap combined. But Alexa's dream is Amazon's nightmare. For our third and final story, last week, we told you about Twitter's fake LeBron James fiasco.

So this week, we're going to tell you about Super Mario's fake middle finger. These are real stories. These are actual things. Honestly, that sounded like a fake pod, but it's a real pod. It's a real pod. But yet he's, before we hit that fantastic mix. A wonderful mix for a real podcast, Jack. Are we in your pants right now?

Sorry, more specifically. are Jack and I in your pocket in your pants right now? Because after all, this is a podcast. Yeah, so you're listening to us on your phone, which is in your pocket, which is in your pants. But are we in your left pocket? Or are we in your right pocket? I like the question, Jack, which pants pocket do you keep your phone yet?

Which pants pocket do you keep your phones? You'd think it'd be a 50-50 situation. 50-50, you only got two options here. Like half of you put us in your left pocket, half of you put us in your right pocket, right, Jack? But it turns out there is a clear favorite side of our pants. Quarter of you put us in your front left?

Quarter in your back left? Quarter on your front right? Quarter in your back right? No, that's not it either. Uh-uh. According to a survey by Marquez Brownlee, two-thirds of us put our phone in one particular pocket. One pocket has got the power.

Two out of three people park their phone in one specific pants pocket. Get this, best. He's. Nearly 700,000 human beings answered this poll, and it was not even. close. Are you ready for the answer? Talk to me, Jack. What kind of pants pocket? The winning pocket for mankind is the front right pocket. Sixty-five percent of you are front-right pocket faithful. Nick, I'm indifferent on left and right. I was curious, Jack. But I'm a very strict

back pocket guy. Very interesting because you can herniate a disc when you're sitting down with that kind of a thing. I'm okay with a bulge in the back. I'm not okay with a bulge in the front. I always thought you had some phone junk in that podcast trunk, Jack. But yet he's, Nick and I want to stop talking about ourselves. We want to know about you. So for T-Boy Tuesday, we want to know into which pants pocket do you place that phone? Front right. Front left? Back right. Back-left. No pocket at all? Do you put it in your pocketbook instead? Don't tell us you leave it on top of the toilet. Yeah, between the couch cushions. That doesn't count anything. Which pocket is your portable parking spot? Hey this up at T-boy Pod on Instagram or Twitter. We'll tell you

always if you tell us yours. That's T-Boy Pod to vote on the ultimate parking pocket. In the meantime, let's say with three stories. For our first story, toy company Hasbro, just saw it stock tumble 10% because they're messing with the magic. When you find your magic, yeah, Jack. You don't mess with it. You don't mess with the magic. All right, so, Yeties. Jack and I were trying to sprinkle on some context here.

Jack, how many people play lacrosse across the world? I don't know, man. You tell me. The sport of lacrosse, four million people play lacrosse. I was proud of that number. Okay. You want to know how many play the card game, magic, The Gathering.

How many people play Magic the Gathering, the card game, Jack? Almost 10 times that. 35 million gamers. Yeah, for each kid, Rip and Twine, nine are enchanting centaurs with their magic cards these days. Magic the Gathering. If you've never played it, who are you? Yeah, it's a trading card game created in 1993. They made dragons famous before Westrose did.

Yes, they did. You are a wizard using playing cards to battle other. wizard players. You're going to cast a spell here. You're going to summon a creature over there. This is a less physical game than Dungeons and Dragons. Good point, Jack. But it's scarier than a Dementor. It's a complicated game. It's a complicated game. I had a magic the gathering face. We all had a magic face. Oh, you did? I have a magic face. Honestly, I had no idea of them. I forgot. I got confused and I asked my mom for help. I was just like tried to find the coolest like a card. Yet he's magic the card game. It isn't a fantasy game though. Magic the game is a

franchise. Magic is owned by Hasbro since 1999 and has become Hasbro's top profit puppet. Get these numbers, Jack. How much sales does Magic the Gathering bring in for Hasbro every year? 15%. And how much profit does Magic the Gathering bring in for Hasbro every year? Even more. It brings in 30% of corporate profits. Yeties, $1 billion of magic cards are sold every single year. More magic cards are sold than the entire company Canada Goose every year. But yet he's here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. Hasbro's stock plummeted yesterday on a Bank of America report that Hasbro, they're ruining the magic.

Wall Street-based Bank of America says that Hasbro is killing its golden goose. Apparently Bank of America thinks that corporate over at Hasbro is growing magic too fast, pushing too hard, and breaking the magic brand. Exhibit A, Hasbro is printing too many magic cards. Historically, Hasbro would print like 15 new card boxes every year. That was it. Now it's tripled that. It put out 40 new boxes this year.

And here is the shocking thing. It's not just too many cards that they're printing. They're actually printing two weird cards. They've made so many new different creatures to play in this game that they're struggling to conjure new ones out. All right, Jack, what was that new card we discovered? It was called Sky Shark. It's a sky shark, Jack? Well, isn't it obvious?

It's a flying shark. Yeah, it's half bird, half shark, and it's like Ariel the mermaid's worst nightmare. And all the new like ogre vampire shark barnacle cards are crashing the market. Yeah, because Yetis, now we have too many cards. So there's too much supply. So the price and the value of magic cards has been dropping. And that stinks for collectors and for magic card stores, which want a valuable product. Jack and I should also point out, it's not just that there are too many magic cards

or that the cards are too strange, Hasbro is getting greedy too. It's like the Lannisters of Westrose. Hasbro is charging $1,000 for the 30th anniversary Magic Gift Box set. Full disclosure, Jack and I don't speak High Valerian or Magic these days, but the community behind Magic is not happy. We jumped into the Reddit channel Magic the Redditing. Yeah, Jack.

It's full of outrage at these corporate moves. So, Jack, what's the take? for our buddies over at Hasbro. When you find magic, don't mess with it. More specifically, Yetis, don't let short-term thinking crush a brand's long-term value. Hasbro is pushing to maximize profits of magic today, and that could hurt profits tomorrow. Because corporates' profit-maximizing moves are antagonizing their core magic community. Magic players think Hasbro is more Sara, less Dumbledore.

Less Gandalf, more Voldemort. Short-term, yes. Hasbro's profits continue to be boosted by more magic sales. Long term, Hasbro could be killing the love for the brand that they've depended on. Hasbro has found magic, but it's messing with it. And that could end up killing the magic of magic. And that could lead to the end of the world of Warcraft. For our second story, forget April Fool's.

The biggest pranks of the year, they happened over. last weekend. They happened on Twitter and those pranks explain why companies are avoiding Twitter. Jack, do you remember when we attended our very first prank party? Yes, I do. I do. It was your buddy Nick Marino's birthday. How would you explain a prank party to the Yeti 7th? So it was the Nick birthday. Yeah, not mine. Another Nick. Yeah, the other Nick. Unbeknownst to him, everyone had to do something prankish, but not like obviously, like not say it. All right, what was your favorite prank from the prank? party, Jack. It was the guy who kept on changing shirts. Like, he'd keep on walking into another room, change his shirt and walk back in with a new shirt. I mean, like, why is this guy changed? Or when we put

stuff in the water, so everyone's water turned to jello, but Marino didn't know why everyone's water was turning to jello. He was concerned. We'll come back to pranks in a moment. In the meantime, Jack, what was the good news for Elon Musk and Twitter last week? Last week, Twitter had more active users logged in at one moment than ever before. But Jack, what was the bad news for Elon Musk? and Twitter last week. Everyone was logged in to watch their Twitter feed burn. Okay, Twitter over the weekend, it was like Ashton Coutcher took over the algorithm. Everyone with a brand checkmark was getting punked by some newly verified account.

For example, let's look at soda company Pepsi, who tweeted out over the weekend these strange words, Coke is better. Why would Pepsi tweet out Coke is better? What was so confusing is that it came from Pepsi's account, which was a verified account but a fake verified account. Ah, then let's look at Chequita, the banana giant of the world, which tweeted out that it had overthrown

the government of Brazil. Again, confusing, because this came from the Shakita Banana verified Twitter account, but a fake verified Twitter account. Let's turn to another fake but verified account, this time from Nintendo US. And what did Yoshi pull off over at Nintendo Jack?

Nintendo US tweeted out a picture of Mario giving us a... all the finger. Again, strange, because this came from the official verified Nintendo account, but a fake verified account. The biggest verified but fake move of the weekend was from the account of Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company. Eli Lilly tweeted out on Friday that they are excited to announce insulin is now free. A major medical company giving away its top product that all diabetic people need. They're giving it away for free. So close. Spoiler, they are not. They are because that came from Eli Lilly's verified account, but a fake verified account.

This is all because for $8 a month, you can buy a checkmark and you're not verified. It's just you pay for it. Just like we told you happened with LeBron James also last week. But this time it happened with big brands, and that means it messed with the stock market. Shares of Eli Lilly, for example, dropped 10% on that fake but verified tweet. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over Twitter? is now a dangerous place for brands to be. Yet he's the worst news that Elon faces right now.

It's advertisers leaving Twitter. Because Twitter, it still depends on ads. Now, Elon says advertisers are leaving due to activist pressure. But a top ad agency said over the weekend, the real issue for Twitter is brand safety. Yeah, because it all comes down to feelings. Like, that's what brand advertising is all about, making you feel something. Geico insurance pays billions of dollars to make you associate their brand,

with positive feelings. And after 20 years of funny commercials, Jack, they've succeeded. Like, you prefer the Geico Gecko to Jake from State Farm. That's the whole point. They want you to finally, when the decision comes, choose their product because of your positive feelings. But then someone creates a fake Geico Twitter account and then gets that fake Geico Twitter account verified?

And then that fake but verified Geico account tweets out a picture of their famous lovely gecko eating a salamander? Boom, billions of lovable, positive Geico Gecko feelings are suddenly gone in one very fake but very verified tweet. Twitter's chaos is driving eyeballs to the platform, but it's driving brand advertisers away. Twitter has literally become a brand threat. Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood.

You know, honestly, your salad, it says so much about you. Nick, you like to blaze your own trail. The salad bar. I'm ordering a salad. I go off menu, man. Like a combo of kale and croutons that has never been made before. Me? I'm not reinventing the wheel.

I like to go club. Classic. If Sweakerian thinks it's a good combo, Jack's not going to change that. Kind of like investing strategies. Some want to build a custom portfolio of stocks, crypto, and options. Others don't want to reinvent. Just give me the most standard ETF. Whether you're tweaking your one-of-a-kind portfolio every day or prefer a more hands-off approach, Robin Hood has the tools. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet to get started, go to robin hood.com slash t-boy to choose your free stock. That's robinid.com slash T-B-O-I. Limitations apply. Stocks offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC.

Crypto offered through Robin Hood. All investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story, Amazon's biggest layoff ever just revealed something shocking about Alexa. Alexa's dreams have become Amazon's nightmares. Hey, Alexa, can you remind us how old are you?

Alexa's eight years old, but has the intelligence of a 65-year-old double-old. PhD. Okay, honestly, maybe Alexa is like Amazon's greatest invention, we could say. It was inspired by science fiction. Literally. Like, Alexa began on a whiteboard in Seattle in 2014 when they were trying to reinvent a Star Trek computer. C-3PO. Yes. Without the body. Right. Now, 300 million devices in the world are connected to Alexa. For every American, yes. There's an Alexa device. But yesterday, the New York Times reported that Amazon is letting go of 10,000 people. That's the biggest layoff Amazon. has ever done in their 30 years. And interestingly, the bulk of those firings are actually going to occur in the Alexa division.

And that's when Nick and I realized some shocking information about Alexa. Get this, Yeties. 10,000 people work just on Alexa. Amazon's got more Amazonians working on Alexa. Yes, Jack. Then Airbnb's entire workforce. Sorry, Airbnb and Pinterest's entire workforce combined. combined. Combined. Which leads to a big question, Jack and I were wondering, is Amazon's Alexa

a business success? Because every brag metric about Alexa also has an asterisk. Let us explain. The stated goal of Alexa was to be the number one virtual personal assistant on the planet. And can we say, did it succeed, Jack? Definitely. Definitely succeeded. Literally the number one in market share. Alexa, you're doing fantastic. Keep doing it. But the primary use of Alexa, like the number one use case, it's not planning your next business trip or like taking care of your account. No, the number one use of Alexa devices, according to Amazon, is changing music. Alexa's a virtual volume button. Another example, Amazon said last week that 50% of Alexa users have used it to shop at least once.

That's impressive. That's impressive. Like you're doing your shopping there. But Amazon hasn't put out any sales figures. And anecdotally, this just doesn't happen. I don't know anybody who's ever used Alexa to buy something. Have you ever done it? No.

I don't want to explain to Alexa the difference between like a waffle iron and a regular iron. Just tap your phone instead. It's way quicker and easy. Oh, and finally, Yetis, in the last year, Alexa interactions are up 30% not too shabby, Alexa. That's what Amazon says. But again, they didn't provide underlying data or figures, which we know Amazon has. You know you got those Amazon. You got those figures on some PDF somewhere.

It could be that like last year, 10 people told Alexa to preheat the oven. And this year, 13 people told Alexa to preheat it. Yeah, percentage growth is easy when the numbers are really small. So honestly, as much as Alexa is succeeding, Jack and I are looking at these brag numbers and we're a little bit skeptical. It's number one. Yes. But it's got 10,000 workers working on.

And it's not just how many workers are working on it. Amazon's Alexa is losing a lot of money. Those 10,000 workers contributed to a $5 billion loss reportedly in 2018. Alexa lost more money than one lift is worth. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Alexa? More nightmares mean fewer dreams. Yeties, the more financial nightmares companies experience right now, the less likely they are to invest in dreams of the future.

Amazon stock has lost nearly half its value in the past year. Half its value. It's the first company ever to lose a trillion dollars of market value. That is a financial nightmare. So Amazon is cutting back on its dreams. The potential of Alexa was Amazon's big dream. It was its moonshot and now it's getting severely cut. And honestly, Amazon's not the only one.

Because the Metaverse is Zuck's dream, but now he's cutting 14% of his workforce. The crypto industry was supposed to change money forever, but FTX's nightmare is going to make that dream harder too. Yeah, we're seeing tech projects become nightmares out there. And those nightmares could sadly kill dream projects too. Jack, can you whip up the T-Boy Tuesday takeaways for us over that? Hasbro might be pushing its golden goose magic a little too hard. When you had the magic, don't mess with the magic, man. Let the magic be magic.

It could end up killing the magic. It could end up destroying the magic. For our second story, on Twitter, pranksters can impersonate a brand for just $8 a month. And that is why Twitter just became a dangerous place for brands. For our third and final story, Amazon Alexa is reportedly about to lose a bunch of workers. Financial nightmares are killing off tech streams. Now time for the best fact yet

Which Jack and I whipped up Just like a follow up To what we were telling you earlier About your wallets and your pockets Yeah Nick and Jack From right here in the show Literally right here in the studio Earlier we told you about pocket preferences

Two thirds of us put our phone In the front right pocket Your phone, it's got that front right real estate baby But your wallet has your back It does, it does, it does Literally Nearly two thirds of people Put their wallet in their back pocket

It turns out For what it's worth I don't carry your wallet Jack's being a cargo short rebel over there, putting wallets and phones and just random pockets these days. Hold on. Let me take off my hat so I can hand you my wallet. What? So the odds are, two-thirds of you have this pod playing from your front right pocket. And the odds are, two-thirds of you also got your money in your back. If you're neither of those, hit us up at T-boy Pot and let us know.

Yet is happy T-boy Tuesday. And if you want to vote in our poll on which pocket you put your phone in, go to at T-Boy-Pod. Jack and I will see you there. Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, happy birthday to Danny Hottachak from lovely Topeka, Kansas. And I wish I was with Jeffrey Tran tonight because he's grabbing a fried chicken sandwich for his birthday in New York City.

You can't go wrong with a fried chicken sandwich. Go to Numpang. And a happy birthday to Sam Vita, turning 17 on his way to school in Florida, New York, right now. And happy sixth birthday to Jesslyn Figueroa in Angleton, Texas. With an extra shout out to Jesslyn's West Brazo, Sucson. Dragon Soccer team, which just came in first place. Jesslyn won, the other team now. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Nick and I both own stock of Airbnb and Robin Hood.

Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Okay, so Jack and I both worked in finance for a while. And we know the six-monitor Bloomberg jockey with charts, numbers, balances, and more charts. They got coffees in both hands while they're executing some complex trade on a soybean future. Well, we're not trying to impress with our Mission Control Trading Center. Just give us an app, please. Robin Hood, with its mobile first and intuitive design, it lets you trade with just a few quick taps on their app.

And even if things still don't seem easy, Robin Hood has your back 24-7 with its live and robust customer support. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to Robinhood.com slash T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's Robin Hood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, all investments involved for us. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood,

and we are not employees of Robin Hood.