The Best One Yet - 😼 “New car, who dis?” — Jaguar’s rebrand controversy. The Manly Nurse Surge. Bravo’s real estate app.

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Jaguar finally unveiled its epicly rebranded car… but was the publicity worth the price?The number of male nurses in America has tripled… and they’re coming from the manliest jobs.Influencer Ryan Serhant just launched a real estate app… he’s pivoted from reality TV to tech founder.Plus, we got the data on Christmas tree prices… and they’re dropping 2% every single day.Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Polaroid: Invented (sort of) by a 3-year-old 📸Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.—-----------------------------------------------------Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, so VK Wednesday. December 4th, 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. Well, Jack, to quote Karen Smith, on Wednesdays, we do wear pink. Looking good over there. Yeah, you too, right? New Jersey. For those watching on YouTube right now, Jack, wearing slamming salmon. I'm wearing slamming salmon and we're feeling fantastic. We also got three fantastic stories. Great point. Great point. Jack, what do we got on today's T-boy? What's on the For our first story, Jaguar, the 100-year-old British car company has controversially burned down their brand. But Jack and I are asking the big question. Did Jaguar burn down its brand or did it actually light it up? For our second story, we're looking at male nurses.

Because the number of male nurses in America has tripled in the past 20 years. And this is actually a double win for the future American workforce. And our third and final story. Bravo and Netflix reality TV show host, Ryan Sourhant, is known for million-dollar real estate listing. But can an influencer launch a real estate app? But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories. No one else is doing this mix.

The week after Thanksgiving, every family has to face an existential holiday question. It's actually an existential argument. When to buy the Christmas tree. Do you buy immediately and get as many days of it? Mary as possible? A whole month of mistletoe and ornament's not too shabby. Or do you buy later when it's closer to the festivities? I'm kind of still eating Thanksgiving leftover. It doesn't feel like Christmas tea drop and shine. Turns out yet,ies, there's another key variable you have to consider when timing your Christmas tree purchase. And what is that, Jack? The price. Price, get this besties.

According to the payments company Square, the price of a Christmas tree declines every single day until Christmas. The most expensive day to buy a Christmas tree is the most ironic day for something to be expensive. Turns out the average price on Black Friday last year was $112 a tree. Black Friday is the most expensive day to get a Christmas tree. Black Friday, great for shopping deals, bad for spruce deals. So if you go straight from Turkey to tinsel, you're paying the most for your tree. But after that, the price of that pine is dropping 2% every single day.

Wish I'd known because I bought two Christmas trees on Black Friday. Must be nice, Jack. Must be nice. If I had waited until Christmas Eve, that's when trees are really on the clearance rack. Yeah, tree prices have actually fallen 55% by the time 1224 rolls around. So, here's the question. Do you maximize joy by buying early? Or do you minimize price by buying the tree late? Do you buy a $112 natural Black Friday Christmas tree? Or a $50 Christmas Eve tree? Jack, do you optimize for the costs or do you optimize for the Carolyn? O Tonnenbaum, Otonbaum. Yes. When are you buying your Tonenbaum? Yiddies, hit us up in the comments. We want to know.

Do you buy a tree now or do you buy a tree later? And if it's in between, we got to hear a date. Or do you buy a tree five days ago, like I did. Sorry, two trees. Now you're just showing off. Jack, let's in our three stars. 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 Nick, that's it. I don't even think they anything. 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. For our first story, after a wildly controversial month, Jaguar, I'm sorry, Jaguar has finally unveiled the future of its cars. People hated Jaguars rebrand.

They didn't like it. So we're asking the big question. Is any press really good press? Now yet is, over the summer, I read a book about the history of Ferrari. And Jack, do you know what the founder of Ferrari Enzo Ferrari said? The most beautiful car he ever saw was? You told me it was Jaguar. Yeah, the Ferrari founder's favorite car he ever saw was a Jaguar. Jaguar founded 102 years ago in England. True. It's the race car with a Pouncing cat coming out of the hood. Besties, this brand, it became the embodiment of Great Britain.

The queen had two of them. James Bond has ridden in three of them. And if Harry Potter showed up at the next Hogwarts High School reunion, he'd be driving a green jaguar. Well, I'd probably be driving a broomstick. I think he'd do a jag-jack. Fun fact about jaguars. Most jaguars you see today are green because that was the original color of the British racing team.

Which is the same reason that most Ferraris are red. Italy's racing team was red. Yetis, you are not a London banker unless you're driving a green Jaguar to your second home up in the Cotswalt. But here's the news. Over the last month, Jaguar shut itself down in the most dramatic move in car history. This was one of the most controversial rebrands since King Henry VIII rebranded the Church of England. He's like, yeah, I'm just going to change the rules of Christianity to benefit my personal marital situation. Well, Jaguar basically did that for you.

its entire car company. Because besties, Jaguar burned down its own brand to start entirely from scratch. Here's what happened. First, Jaguar got rid of their iconic Jaguar logo. There's no more animal in the brand anymore. A century of brand equity, puff completely erased. They also changed the G in the middle of their name to be an uppercase G surrounded by lowercase letters. And then the CEO clarified that the correct pronunciation of Jaguar is actually now Jaguar. Jaguar. Jaguar. It's like if Porsche came out and said, it's pronounced Porsche, everybody. In fact, this rebrand of Jaguar included a video that had zero cars in the video. The video was just flamboyant models with shaven heads wearing pink and colorful dresses.

Jaguar burned down their image of the aspiring car racer and middle-aged banker who they always appealed to. And reincarnated as an avant-garde fashionista brand. Yeties, if you're looking at the new Jaguar brand, it's a good. gonna look like a lip liner that you bought at Sephora. But Nick, it wasn't just a Jaguar rebrand. They're changing their entire business. Because Bestie's Jaguar also shut down all production of their cars. They're not making any new cars right now. The factory is closed while they turn themselves into an electric car company. It's more like a metamorphosis than a rebrand. Jaguar doesn't roar anymore. It meows. And then Monday, at an art show in Miami,

they finally unveiled their first new car. Their concept car of the future. And Jack, what does this new Jaguar actually look like? Looks a lot like Tesla's cyber cab. It's kind of like a big iPad. It's minimalist. It's got a futuristic design. Coolest part? The front seat is separated from the passenger seat with a wall. It's like you're flying business class, but you're in a Jaguar. So besties, Jaguar created controversy. It angered Brits. It burned down its heritage in the biggest British drama since the Magna Carta. But there's two other things you need to know. First, this is a... The isn't the first time that Jaguar has radically changed their name.

No, Jack and I jumped in T-boy style and discovered that Jaguar's original name was SS. But since the Nazis ruined that abbreviation, they originally changed their name to Jaguar. Also, Jaguar is not British anymore. No one has. In 2008, it was acquired by Tata, which was symbolically significant because India is a former British colony. But the bigger question Jack and I got to ask, after one month of anger, confusion, and intensity was all this press actually worth it?

So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Jaguar? That's actually the wrong question, Nick. Because one man's bad press is another man's good press. Yeties, over the last decade, Jaguar's car sales have fallen 80%. The U.S. market share of Jaguar is just 0.05%. Less than one out of a thousand new cars sold in America is a JAG. The brand has become irrelevant.

Yet over the last month, Google searches for Jaguar hit their highest level since Google's been keeping track. So coverage of Jaguar's rebrand, it was negative. It was bad press. But that bad press was from car buffs, and car buffs aren't buying Jaguars anyway. But for a new potential customer base of future Jaguar buyers, this was actually good press. We don't know if this surge and brand buzz will convert to sales. They got to deliver a good electric car first. But we do know that Bad press and Good Press are relative to which audience you're actually trying to talk to. And if the old school car press hates this new Jaguar, then new school future EV buyers might actually like it. Because if a brand is trying to pivot to a new customer, one man's bad press is another man's good press.

For our second story, the hot new job for men, it's nursing, male nurses, yeties, it is a merse surge. But the biggest surprise isn't the male nurse surge. It's which men specifically are becoming nurses. Now, Jack, how about we start this story by sprinkling on some context? Should we turn things over to our buddy Robert De Niro? Let's play this clip from Meet the Parents. Push and play. You know, Greg's in medicine too, Larry.

Oh, really? What feeling? Nursing. That's good. No, really. What feeling? Nursing. Well, 24 years ago, besties, when that movie came out, nearly 95% of all nurses were women.

Economist called nursing a pink-collar job. The data just shows that historically, men gravitated toward being a doctor and women toward nursing. In German, the word for nurse is cronkenshester, which means sister is in the name nurse. But the reality is nursing, it is a rough and tough job for anyone. I mean, the pandemic was brutal. It was terrible. And it's always been a profession that seems. both life on the one hand, but death on the other hand.

And yet, society considered it feminine until now. Because here's the news. The number of registered male nurses in America has tripled in the last 20 years. Sit down, stand up and put on some scrubs because men now make up 15% a registered nurses in America, according to the Wall Street Journal. When we were growing up, one in 20 nurses were men. Today, one in seven nurses are men. So add it all up and check.

Gay Lord Falker, he was kind of ahead of his time, wasn't he? Dudes, they're putting on scrubs. Merces are multiplying, baby. But here's the even bigger, shocker. What is it, Jeff? The men who are switching into nursing happen to be the most manly macho men of all. They are manly men in tight, because besties, increasingly, men are leaving male-dominated blue-collar industries to join women-dominated pink-collar industries.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed a bunch of male-nour. is down in Georgia, and they happen to be former metal welders. And other men jumping into nursing are ex-military, ex-firefighters, ex-building and destroying things with their hands. They saw the importance of nursing, which traditionally just wasn't a dude field. And double interesting? The men going into nursing tend to enter nursing mid-career. Good point, Jack.

These are not male nurses who are getting out of college and jumping in at 21 at the nearby hospital. The average age of a first-year male nurse is in their early, So, Jack, we should point out what is the main reason why this is happening? As always, it's about money. Yeah, the average registered nurse in America has a $95,000 salary, which is 50% higher than the nationwide average salary. But the other reason why 35-year-old dudes are switching their factory gloves for hospital

scrubs is our takeaway. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in every industry? Men switching to nursing is actually an AI bull case. Yet he's the bigger reason why blue-collar guys are jumping into nursing, it's because nursing is AI robot proof. One steel worker who became a nurse told the Wall Street Journal, I'm looking for something safe from automation. And that welder we mentioned earlier thought his job was at risk of robotics taking over,

so he jumped into nursing. It'll be a blow to many blue-collar workers if automation and artificial intelligence replace their once reliable and consistent careers. But this pivot to male nursing, this MERS surge right now, it is a shining example of a win-win-win-double-win. Because we have a nationwide shortage of nurses right now. So men switching into nursing, it protects that workers' future employment

and fills a critical employment gap that we have. Best is so much of the discussion of artificial intelligence and automation these days is the fear of jobs lost. But the MERS surge, The surge in male nurses is a bright spot. Yes, it is, Greg. Maybe it's even a model for the future. Greg Focker, you've been redeemed.

Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, Ryan Sourhant, of Bravo and Netflix fame, just launched an app for real estate agents. Because there's a huge underserved workforce that could really benefit from some tech. Ambesties, you're going to want to send this to your favorite real estate buddy,

and then you can charge them a finder's fee after they listen to the episode. We'll give you a second to send this pod to them right now. It's got a wonderful view. Yet he's owning Manhattan, million dollar listing. Those are both Bravo and Netflix shows hosted by Ryan Sirhant. Ryan Sirhan, handsome man, the Martha Stewart of Manhattan real estate, basically. Kim Kardashian of Condos. Can we call him the Salt Bay of Buildings?

You just did, Nick. Yeties, Ryan offered $10 million to whichever. agent in his TV show could sell a $250 million penthouse in New York City. Ryan Sourhan, he's the 40-year-old Silver Fox who spun his TV fame into his own agency known as Sirhant Real Estate, which is actually the number six firm in New York. But here's the news. Ryan Sourhan just closed another deal and this one does not... Doesn't have a good view. It doesn't have a good view. Although the view is $45 million. It was actually a $45 million fundraise from two venture capital firms for his new

tech startup. That's right. The reality show Real Estate Influencer is now a tech founder. He launched an app called Simple, which awkwardly has a period in the middle of it. It's kind of an annoying spelling, but we'll get to that later. In the meantime, this app replaces admin work for salespeople. He uses tech and AI to give a real estate agent time back so they can actually sell. Never fill out a form again. Never fill out a form again. Those words are music to the ears of real estate agents. Because here's the interesting thing if you do not work in real estate yeties. Real estate salespeople, they have unfortunately become administrative people. You got contracts, you got documents, you have to email those documents.

You got to get signatures from every party three or four different times. It's a bunch of admin work. So the point of the new app is less contracts, less documents, less emailing around for signatures so you can focus on selling. Simple is building an AI powered app that you can speak to and it'll do all the admin work for you. Now, the moment for this is key in the industry, and why is that check? The National Association of Realtors had to settle an antitrust lawsuit this year. We covered it on the pod.

And the result is more paperwork for real estate agents to handle. Now, to sprinkle on more context, Zillow has already identified this opportunity. Zillow, the $20 billion real estate tech giant, has something similar already. It's called Dot Loop. They handle the back-end real estate agent work. But Ryan's team, they would get on Instagram. Instagram and tell you that that's old tech. His app is AI enhanced, which is basically location, location, location. Yeah, AI is the ocean view. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies in real estate and beyond? The next frontier of tech is serving the untechie. It is home selling. It is an inherently person to person to person business. Tech can't replace real estate agents. There's simply too much money on the line. You want a human handling your case.

And the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies at an open house, and chat sheet BT can't do that right now. But those human real estate agents can go much further if they've got some tech on their side. Jack, how about another example of a tech company serving the untechie? Service Titan, which is SaaS software for tradespeople. They just filed to IPO at a $5 billion evaluation. Yeah, interestingly, Service Titan is serving HVAC technicians with technology so they can spend more time in that boiler and less time on bureaucracy.

Yet he's for years. Highway 101 in Silicon Valley, it's advertised software targeting people who are already working in software. But the way we see it, the next frontier of tech is the untechie of industries. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Saviche Wednesday? Jaguar is going through a metamorphosis from old school car company to new school EV company. One man's bad press is another man's good. Press. For our second story, 24 years ago, just one in 20 nurses in America were men. Today,

one in seven are men. It's the Merse surge. Men switching from manufacturing to nursing is the perfect example of the AI work reshuffling. For our third and final story, Ryan Surhant, he just raised venture capital money to launch simple, a real estate app for agents. Because the next frontier of tech is serving the untechie. But yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else. you need to know today. First, the courts in Delaware just once again blocked Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package. This summer, 72% of Tesla shareholders voted that Elon should get that gigantic bonus. But the Delaware courts are doubling down. They say the package set up in 2018 was compromised because the board was too close to Elon. So Elon is appealing probably to the Delaware Supreme Court

and probably amplifying anti-Delaware tweets on X. He's probably tweeting about this right now. And second, Stoli vodka officially filed for bankruptcy. Stolichnia is now Stolichnjada. The main problem was the Russian brand. It's gone into the toilet after the Ukraine war began. Yeah, not good for Russian vodka. But interesting detail here.

Stolich Nia vodka is actually headquartered in Luxembourg, and it's made in Latvia. Pour one out for Stoli. In Soviet Russia, vodka drink you. And finally, it's Spotify Rapped Week. The moment that the whole world finds out what you listen to. You don't know which day it's going to be, but at some point this week, Thursday, Friday, maybe even tomorrow, or today. So if you're a closet, Sabrina Carpenter, ultra fanboy like Nick,

but you don't want anyone to know about it. You better start playing some other music right now and leave it on repeat for like three days. Or just come out right now. Like, I'm just fully embracing it. Like I listen to Sabrina, big fan, huge espresso, all day, every day. I'm more than a big fan. I do think she's really creative. You're basically Domingo at this point.

Just have to say, direct from Domingo. Now, time for the best fact. Yeah, this one sent in by Anne Oland from Philadelphia, but now living in Phoenix. Actually, Jack, you know, Anne told me this one in person. She did? Yeah. When we were on Dan Tucket for Thanksgiving, we're out at a restaurant, Anne recognized me, came on over.

We had a fantastic chat at our table. It was so nice. Yeties, we love seeing you in the wild. Thanks for coming up, Ann. Here's the best fact yet. When it comes to letters, where do we get the term lowercase and uppercase? The term lowercase and uppercase are actually very literal, and they go back to the very first printing press. Capital letters were kept in the top drawer in those early printing presses because capital letters were used less often.

So they were kept in the uppercase. And uncapitalized letters were kept in the bottom drawer, close to the printing press because they were used the most often. So they were kept in the lowercase. There you go. Capital letters were called uppercase. because they were kept in the upper case. That's all we got to say about that. It's all about drawers, actually. Like most things in life.

Yeties, you look fantastic today, but we got to hear what your tree date is. For me, it was five days ago. Which was basically like buying a piece of real estate, Jack. That was by far the most expensive tree. No, but the trees were actually pretty low priced because they were grown here in Vermont. No transportation cost.

I'm sure that's what the salesperson told you, Jack. And you had to cut your own tree. So just like Aldi, I traded labor for a deal. You paid a premium to get the full tree experience is what I'm hearing, Jay. Not B.Y. Oslo. Besties, are you maximizing for tree joy or are you minimizing for tree price? Let us know in the comments. We've got a poll going on Spotify right now.

And remember to send this episode to your buddy who works in real estate. Ryan, check your DMs. We just hooked you up. H-Y-H-T-B-O-I and Jack and I will see tomorrow. And before we go, a happy birthday. to Little Teddy Panzer celebrating the big day down in Montclair, New Jersey. Little Teddy. Is there our buddy's son? It's Mike and me his son. It's Mike and me his son. That's who is.

I love the name, Teddy. Oh, great name, great guy. And a happy retirement to Paula Hauer in Grasden, Wisconsin, who's leaving nursing after many legendary years of helping a whole bunch of people. How are you doing? She's doing great. Happy 10-year anniversary to Scott McKenzie Henderson in Lehigh, Utah. And Michael Dravo, thank you for the super thoughtful. thoughtful words in the comments on Spotify. We love seeing what you're thinking. Thanks for dropping in every day. And a big shout out to Howie Wee, who's listening from China and really hopes that we

don't get banned in China. And yetes, if you want a shout out in an upcoming pod or you've got the best fact yet, just fill out the form. We've got a link in this episode description. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix, Nick on stock and Zillow and Nick and I both on stock in Spotify.