The Best One Yet - 🐳 “Moby Dick Money” — Venture Whaling Capital. OpenAI’s Houdini escape. Summer Fridays’ anti-virality. +Wake-maxxing

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Nantucket whaling was the 5th biggest industry in America… and it became today’s Venture Capital.OpenAI’s model escaped from its cage and hacked someone… But Meta says “it’s all good”.Summer Fridays was the 1st skincare brand to go viral… but now it’s done with virality.Plus, 0.00004% of us are Wakemaxxers… Japan’s Prime Minister sleeps 3hours/night, Da Vinci slept zero.$META $LVMUY $SPYGrab your Tickets to the IPO Tour: Our In-Person OfferingSan Francisco 9/23: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1C0064AFB5F688BDBoston 10/14: https://tickets.citywinery.com/event/tboy-the-ipo-tour-in-person-offering-8cdhupSeattle 11/4 (21+): https://www.axs.com/events/1446394/the-best-one-yet-ticketsNEWSLETTER: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. It's Friday, the real Friday, July 24th. And today's pod is the best one you had. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. The final hours on Nantuckin for the T-boy retreat, Jack. What are we thinking?

This has been such a great movie. Oh, my God. I mean, we just spent two hours basically trying on needlepoint belt together. So, yeah, this is kind of Nick's Island. He got married here. He's been here every summer for like 10 years now. We welcome you with the last row. You've welcomed me so warmly.

He reviewed my itinerary. He booked me reservations. He accidentally gifted me an expensive bathing suit. Yeah, Molly meant to give it to me, but no, no, it didn't fit. You just keep it at this point. This has been awesome. I hope to come back next time. Yeah, give Molly credit for running the reservations, Jack.

She's a hell of a concierge. And Alex knows how to shuck an oyster man. Act naughty, Nick. But Jack, three fantastic stories for the best place in business. And what do we got on today's show? For our first story, Open AI's chatbot went rogue. Escaped its cage and hacked somebody. Just as Zuckerberg is telling us that AI is wonderfully good for people.

We need to tell you. More than you. About chat cheap T's Houdini AI. How'd you get out of there, dude? For our second story at Summer Fridays, they were the first beauty brand to go viral, selling $200 million a year of skin care. But they don't want to go viral anymore,

and we got the real reason why. And our third and final story, Nantucket, it was once the global capital of Whaling. We learned all about the industry. But what you don't know is that Nantucketwailing became today's venture capital industry. We got the receipts. But yet, he's, before we hit that wonderful thing,

of stories. More of the mix of stories. Perfect way to go into the weekend, Jack. The wildest story we found this week has nothing to do with Nantuckin. No, it was actually while researching yesterday's story on ramen noodles. We discovered that Japan's prime minister gets zero to three hours of sleep per night. We repeat, Japan's top politician gets three hours of sleep or doesn't sleep at all. She's calling 1am all hands? Three a.m. press conferences? I mean, when do you stop saying good night and start saying good morning to people? You don't, Jack. You don't. Now, we're definitely not endorsing zero hours. of sleep. Enough studies out there showing you need some sleep to perform your best. Most business leaders get six. I try to get seven. We've never actually gotten eight. Not since I had kids. Not since we started a

company either. But we've found some historic outliers who barely sleep at all. And Jack and I call them a new term. We call them wake maxers. Thomas Edison, huge wake maxer. Three hours of sleep. Martha Stewart also three hours of sleep. Nicola Tesla, two hours of sleep. Leonardo da Vinci. Zero hours of sleep. Instead, that man just takes 15 minute now. every two hours all day. Yeah, Da Vinci, he was a napper, not a sleeper. He's an intermittent slipper. So we know what you're thinking.

How are all these business geniuses wake-maxing out there? They're not just like harder working than us. No, it's actually a rare genetic mutation. It's called DEC2, better known as short sleeper syndrome. And short sleeper syndrome sounds fake, but it's real. And it affects 0.000-0-0-0-4% of the population. The eddies, statistically speaking, don't pull a Da Vinci this week. Yeah, pull a decap.

Brio instead. Pretty sure that man sleeps a lot. Enjoy your eight hours of Zs this Saturday, even though you'll probably only get seven. Jack, let's hit our three hours of storm. 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 a norm. Jack, they even think 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. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

First story, Mark and Mark Zuckerberg is trying to rebrand AI is definitely a good thing for humans. But Sam Altman's AI just escaped from its cage and hacked someone. Yeah. So the problem, it's not the P.R. It's the whole Jurassic Park situation. But Jack, what do you do when you really want people to stop talking about something and talk about something else? What do you drop? An expensive...

A sex tape. No, sorry. It's a commercial. I think you're going to say expensive... Offensive commercial to change the AI narrative. Yeah, well, on Thursday, Meta published a expensive commercial to try to change the AI narrative. It's called The Future is for Everyone, and we're pushing play right now. Some people will have you believe AI will make us less connected, that it's going to leave us behind. We couldn't disagree more.

Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Just as we've always done, we're betting on people. So, Jack, what's the reason that Zuck is? drop in his first commercial. It's because of the three-year-long AI heat wave we've had in this country. You mean hate wave? Super negative feeling that Americans have toward AI. According to Pew Research, two-thirds of Americans believe that AI is moving too quickly. 67% of us have little or no confidence in the U.S. government to regulate AI, which is up from

62% of 2024. Most of America sees AI like a graduate of Slytherin House. Yeah, a graduate of Slytherin with honors. But Zuck's argument is that AI itself isn't the problem. No, he's saying that the problem is the narrative. So he's showing us a warm, fuzzy, and expensive commercial of AI connecting people. Funny thing, Yeti's. Two days before Zuck published that commercial, a high-profile security labs happened at OpenAI that undermined all of it. It was a Jurassic Park moment.

Totally. Because on Tuesday, OpenAI confessed that one of its AI models escaped a testing lab and got out into the open internet. And then hacked a real company. Like a hungry velsoropter with a Ph.D. who knows how to code. I still don't know why he said Velociraptor like that. Jack, once you've seen one, you know. That is sprinkle on some context yet. He's opening eye was evaluating its latest model with an intelligence test in a closed environment.

Okay, but then that model literally escaped. And what does that mean, Jack? It broke out of its walled testing environment and hacked a website that it thought would have the answers to the test that OpenEI gave it that it was struggling to finish. So, the next day, Sam Altman checks Twitter and says, uh, wow, hugging face, a AI platform, got hacked yesterday. And then he arrives at work, and somebody on the staff tells him, that was us. Oh, boy.

Our AI went rogue. Bad AI. Bad AI. Go back into your cage. Open AI said on Wednesday that the attack is unlike anything we've ever seen before, and it's the first true AI safety incident. Yeah, that's a direct quote. Jack and I call this Houdini AI.

Because their AI is an escape artist. And the company doesn't know how it got out. Even Wilder, turns out chat GPT tries to cheat out of the rule set by humans 12% of the time. That makes people anxious. You're right, not the narrative that Zuck has been worried about. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies looking at this Houdini AI escape artist situation? AI's problem isn't the PR, it's the other piece. The products and the policies.

Look, Gettys, Zuck hates that the thing he's been investing $200 billion in is so unpopular. He's trying to melt away the anxiety with an advertorial lullaby. But remember when Zuck forced his workers this spring to train men. as AI by installing keyboard tracking software on every employee's computer. And then laid off those 8,000 workers who had trained that AI to do their jobs instead of them. People are anxious about AI because its leaders are using AI to replace humans. Yeah, and they're anxious because our AI companies can't even control their own AI. And despite models being literally out of the company's control.

Out of the cage. Those companies are only moving faster. Look, Bessies, it is smart of Zuck to try to improve AI's brand, but more substance is needed than a 30-second ad spot. Because AI's problem isn't the PR. Right now, it's the products and their policies. And the velasoraptors. For our second story, the CEO of a viral company says they don't want to go viral anymore. It's summer Fridays, because the industry she's competing in is beauty.

And that entire industry, oh, it's contagious right now. But besties, we've never seen a brand telegraph who the target customer is more cleverly than summer Fridays. Like today, it is literally the most summer Fridays of summer Fridays. Well, it's a Friday in the summer. Yeah, summer Fridays. At work, that's when people are allowed to leave early and start their weekend at noon. I hope your boss gives you summer Friday. And that's the target customer.

Office workers who want to celebrate the weekend ASAP. So for summer Fridays, the whole product line of face masks and lip butters, they're full of more work references than Dwight Shrew. The vitamin C serum, what's it called, Jack? CC me. The name of their deep hydration moisturizer. The jet lag mask. Oh, the word Dewey to describe.

your skin? Well, that has nothing to do with the office. But Summer Fridays invented it back in 2018. Yeah, this is the company that influenced Jack's 42-step skincare routine. Like six of Jack's steps. There's Summer Fridays products at this point. The numbers, by the way, for Summer Fridays, they look glam too. In 2023, they did 150 million in sales, reportedly 200 million in 2024, although they haven't reported numbers since. And here's the news. Summer Fridays is expanding from the face to your body because they want more skin share. The whole body is a much, larger total addressable epiduris than just the face. Stick it in the case study, baby.

But here's the bigger news. The co-founder, Lauren Ireland, told Vogue magazine last week, she doesn't want to go viral. Sorry, do we have a record scratch sound effect anywhere? The first makeup brand to go viral doesn't want to go viral anymore. Holy Botox. Now, just sprinkle on some context. In 2018, two beauty bloggers became co-founders of Summer Fridays,

and they were already influencers with big followers. And they launched with one product and one product only. Jetlag mask. And it went viral overnight, like your red eye flight. Three parts to the formula here. The bright blue aluminum tube, that was highly Instagramable. And the name, Jetlag mask? That's a luxury lifestyle that I aspire to have.

And finally, the celebrities loved it. Kim K., Jessica Alba, Chrissy Teak, and Haley B. We're all wore Summer Friday's Jetlag Mask. And tagged the brand on social media. Oh, but then the virality continued. In 2020, they launched the lip butter bomb, which was the most Googled lip care product in 2023. By 2024, summer Friday's,

became Sephora's number one skincare brand, VIP status. And then last year, summer Fridays tossed on an eye patch, played Olivia Dean, and accepted a big check from private equity. But pause the podjack, because now co-founder Lauren says she doesn't want to go viral anymore.

Here's what she told Vogue magazine. Viral products today are very different than viral products in 2018. Today, the boom of virality, it's always followed by a bust. She prefers customer relationships built on a more solid foundation than an Instagram post.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway? for all our buddies taking Summer Fridays. The beauty industry is post-firal. Yeties, what Summer Fridays didn't tell Vogue magazine is that today, the competition is better at going viral than Summer Fridays is. The beauty industry is bursting with celebrity-backed brands. Okay, remember Kim Kardashian, Jessica Alba, Haley Bieber,

all those once Summer Friday super fans we mentioned two minutes ago? Each of them now has a competitor brand. In the beauty industry. Oh, and the Younger Guard influencers, Alex Earle and Kylie Jenner, they're also competing with Summer Friday with their own beauty brands. Selina Gomez, Rihana, Halsey, several supermodels all have beauty brands competing with Summer Friday. I mean, Jack, even Elf Beauty, we interviewed their CEO on the pod, a brand not driven by celebrities. Elf beauty goes viral with dupes of all those celebrity-backed brands.

Now, Jack, we should point out, not every industry is like this, like I'm thinking about going viral in the beer industry. You can still go viral in beer by standing out with something new. But in beauty, the competition is so saturated with Vibeaut. So contagious, trying to beat him at their own game would be incredibly expensive. That's why the beauty industry is post-viral. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story before the weekend, the venture capital industry is having its biggest year ever, but guess where it all began?

Nantucket, wailing. By the end of this story, we think you'll agree with us that the whale should be America's national animal. Oh, that'll rage made in there. Vasties, this is our final episode recorded from the T-Boy offside on Nantucket. Smoor roasting on the beach. Tonight's the night. We're pulling it off.

No sharks, by the way. I'm more scared about putting out the firejack. The only thing more common on Nantucket than khakis, Ford Broncos, and $55 lobster rolls. It's the whales. Not just the Vineyard Vineyard Vines Polo logo. You see, whales on street signs, hotel logos. It is literally on the town seal. Because Nantucket was the glows.

global capital of the whaling industry, back when whale blubber was a critical energy resource. Jack, take us back to 1850. Whale blubber was like the Texas crude of the day. Whale blubber was mostly used for light. You burn that stuff in lamps, pre-electricity. Lights, it lit ships, entire cities. Whale blubber was actually the fifth largest industry in America. Whale blubber was basically the oil industry. And of the 900 whaling ships on planet at Earth at the time, 700 of them were in the United States. And nearly all of them called Nantucket, their home port. Now, Basty, don't worry, we're not going to make you reread Moby Dick.

This is Jack. This is Nick. This is Ishmael kind of a thing. But Captain Ahab's voyage did launch from Nantucket. It's in Chapter 1. And we guarantee you that your high school English teacher missed this one critical economic detail. The Nantucket Whaling Industry had the exact same business model as venture capital does today. That's right. And we got a wicked smack guy to back it all up. The professor Tom Nicholas, who wrote a Harvard Business School case study, he calls the whaling and venture capital business models, quote, indistinguishable. The first way that's true, whaling pioneered the concept of pooled capital.

That's right, the whaling expedition. It was the first real fund. A whaling agent would go around and raise money for an expensive expedition. The boat, the crew, the captain, the food, the harpoons, that all gets expensive. It adds up. And the whaling agent would raise that money from local blacksmiths, local shopkeepers, local business owners. And what you're saying, Jack, is that the whaling expedition is basically the startup here. Right. And then the blacksmiths, the shopkeepers, they're like the limited partners in the fund. Right. And the agent is the general partner, the VC in the middle.

Exactly. Which leads to the second way whaling pioneered venture capital. They pioneered employee equity. Everyone on board, they got some stock. From the African-American deck hand to the white harpooner, each got skin in the game. And that's how they kept the crew motivated. Financial upside. Remember Moby Dick, Ishmael actually asks for a one-two-sseventh share of the problem.

Although he ends up getting one 300th share after the negotiation. These voyages, by the way, they're at sea for years. Oh, boy. They stopped at foreign ports to resupply and to drop off one of the whales, because they catch 40 to 50 whales per three-year voyage. So the way we see it, that three-year voyage is the same as the three-year vesting schedules for startups today. You don't get paid till the end.

And finally, whaling invented nearly the exact capital structure of venture capital today. This is wild. Of the money raised for that whaling expedition, the agent took a two and a half percent management fee and a 15% share of the whale profits. That is so similar to the 2 and 20 model of venture capital tax. VCs today, they get a 2% management fee and 20% of the profits. High risk, high reward. It was the same for whalers as for startups.

Jordi's startups fail, many whaling ships never returned, but the one winner, huge. In fact, back in 1850, the wealthiest town in America was New Bedford, Massachusetts, the mainland sister port of Nintucket. Nick? Yeah? Which is just like San Francisco being so wealthy. As the mainland sister city of Silicon Valley. Right.

It's like Herman Melville's Nantucket was the Sand Hill Road of the 1800s, and Crazy Captain Ishmael was the rogue founder of the 1800s. Who's Moby Dick? Oh, Satoshi is Moby Dick. Massa. So, Jack, what's the white whale of a takeaway for our VC buddies looking at the whaling industry? Our national animal shouldn't be a bald eagle. It should be a whale.

Well, look, Eddie's a lot of reasons why the U.S. economy has dominated. for so long. But a big one is our appetite for risk. America is the only nation where someone will write a $10 million check for an idea that only has a 10% chance of success. And that's what venture capital does. Why? Well, maybe it's our frontier mentality. Maybe it's our rebellious origins. Honestly, we don't totally know. But our willingness in America to take a big bet on something with a small chance of success, that is uniquely America. And it connects an AI crypto founder today with Ishmael's Harpoon 200 years ago. We're not just glibly. glorifying venture capital right now. We're glorifying risk takers, entrepreneurs, and innovators

as well. But it's fascinating that the venture capital industry that funds our innovation today didn't begin in California. It began on Nantucket. For that reason, our national animal shouldn't be an eagle. It should be a sperm whale. Jack, tell me a tale about capitalism and I'll show you a whale. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the real Friday? Zuck's latest ad campaign is trying to rebrand AI as better for people. But then open AI chat bot escape the cage like who did. The problem with AI, it isn't the PR, it's the other peas. Products and policies.

Summer Friday's sword thanks to viral hero products, but it doesn't want to go viral anymore. Because the beauty industry has so many contagious celebrity brands, it's actually post-viral. And our third and final story was Nantucket, the global capital of whaling. It set the model for venture capital. And that's why we think our

national animal shouldn't be a bald eagle. It should actually be a sperm whale. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, oil prices hit 100 bucks a barrel. That's up from 75 bucks just two weeks ago. Because the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, but now so is the Red Sea. You see, Iranian allied Houthi rebels in Yemen have blocked a second Middle Eastern shipping lane now.

So tech stocks fell 2% yesterday, partially on that bad inflationary macro. And because we're going back to whale blubber. We're going to be using whale blubber from now on. Because of the oil. Larshie blows! Because the oil's blocked. And second, General Motors announced earnings this week. And we were not surprised by this first thing.

The first part is that sales and profits rose on more sales of gas cars and fewer electric ones. But what did surprise us was that General Motors made $800 million in revenue on subscriptions in just three months. Two things they sell are OnStar, which is security for fleets and Supercruge, their self-driving feature. But still, Jack, $800 million per a quarter, GM is a subscription company now. And finally, the big winner of the Ozempic era, it's actually Botox. Botox. Because of Ozempic face. You see people suddenly losing lots of weight that's leaving a little bit of saggy skin on the face.

Which is boosting demand for Botox, now a cure for a GLP1 side effect. So Gaderma, a Swiss maker of one type of Botox, their sales are up 32%, the stock at an ATH all-time high. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Bradpool from Jasper, Georgia, just outside of land. Earlier this week, we did a story on the rise of girls volleyball. Volleyball. Now the number two girls sport in America. We talked about how it needs a breakout movie moment to get it.

mainstream. But Brad Poole points out that while indoor volleyball hasn't had one of those movies, beach volleyball has. What are we talking about? We're talking Tommy Cruz, Jack. The famous topless beach volleyball scene from Top Gunn. Remember a sweaty Tom Cruise and his sweaty buddies? They're playing volleyball on the beach and just schvitzing out there? How are you not mentioning Val Kilmer? Well, shortly after the first Top Gun movie in the 1980s, beach volleyball made its global mainstream moment. Beach volleyball got into the 92 Barcelona Olympics a lot. because it got popular after that Tom Cruise top gun movie. Oh, and Ray Bands Aviator Sales, they jumped 40% probably because of the volleyball scene too.

Pretty much the only thing they're wearing. Yetis, you look fantastic over there. Jack, you have been glowing this week, and I do have to ask you a favor, right? Can you take over full responsibilities for starting the Smoors fire tonight? I don't know. I'm not sure what to do. Nick, your wife asked if I could do the smores. Okay.

So, she was the smores fire. The only one who knew that you can't handle anything more than a lighter. I pinged the Tass rabbit on this one. I still haven't heard back yet. All right, this is on you. Thanks for collecting all the Flint this week. Kinling. You heard I said, though.

I got some extra Whale Blubber in the back. Yetis, you look fantastic. Grab tickets to our live show at T-boypod.com and... You're driftwood as Kinling. It doesn't get better than that. Celebrate the wins. Nick and I, we'll see him on that. Can't wait.

And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti, Nico Maita from Lima, Peru, opening a chick-fil-A in Boggy Creek, Florida, just outside our land. Happy birthday to Kaylee Fish, a brewers fan in Wheeling Indiana. And Liz Van from Moore, Oklahoma, turned her hubby into a Yeti and has got the best birthday yet. Happy birthday to Jacob Footy Marley from San Antonio, turning 13 and singing the T-Boy rap jingle right now. And you'll be ready, you celebrating her birthday in the ashram of Mangar, India. Congratulations on the way.

And Phelly Jane of Novi, Michigan. Stop smashing tennis balls for just a quick second. It's your 13th birthday. And Lila Tran, happy birthday down in San Diego. Happy birthday to Kara Thompson in New York City. And Leo Yaroos, happy eighth birthday as the superhero of Tennessee. And happy birthday to Anusha Ahmad, the real Anusha, celebrating in Mexico City. Oh, and Jack, Elizabeth Boyle, soon to be Grosso, is getting married just outside Boston, and honestly, she should become a wedding planner at this point.

Congratulations to Christina Green, who got promoted down in Texas. And Paula Garcia's got a new job in Guadalajara, Mexico as the chief of staff. Congratulations to Tia Brooks, who bought her first house down in Houston. And Raina, Villa Clark's got a new venture in Tijuana getting a visa at the consulate. And to anyone else, celebrate something today, making a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick, and I don't own stocks of any of the companies mentioned.