The Best One Yet - 🧀 “Not so square” – Cheez-Its’ best year. Tesla’s mission switch. The Crown’s $1B profit.

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Cheez-Its were America’s first nationwide snack… and now they’re having their best year in a century.Tesla stock fell 12% because it has a calendar problem… and Elon’s making a mission switch.The British Royal Family just revealed its earnings… a record $1.4B profit (we’ll tell ya how).Plus, offices are noisier than ever… because they’re emptier than ever. We’ll explain.$TSLA $K $DALSubscribe to our Saturday Newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletter  Watch us on YouTube Submit Facts & Shoutouts Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn (Nick) & LinkedIn (Jack)About Us: From the creators of Robinhood Snacks Daily, The Best One Yet (TBOY) is the daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. 20 minutes on the 3 business, economics, and finance stories you need, with fresh takes you can pretend you came up with — Pairs perfectly with your morning oatmeal ritual. 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 Thursday, the new Friday, July 25th. And today's part is the best one yet. This, this episode, this is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. All right, Jack, I got a question for you. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodcock could chuck wood, Jack?

I don't know, but I'm no architect. I built and installed a woodshed this morning. All right, yeah, Jack sent me a picture of his new woodshed. It's kind of like, I don't know, the leaning shed of peas. Can I call it that, Jack? Full disclosure, we didn't build it. We just leveled it, which was actually quite a job. It was quite a project.

Did you use a level or were you eyeballing this thing, Jack? We used the level, because my father-in-law was there. That is, this thing's almost 90-ish degrees. It looks fantastic, Jack. It looks stable-ish. We put a picture on the ground. Ish. Three stories for today's show.

What do we got on the pod, Jack? For our first story, cheese-its, were America's very first commercial snack. They were created in the 1800s. Now, Cheez-Its is having the best year in a century. And we'll tell you why. For our second story, it's Tesla. Tesla stock fell 12% yesterday because Elon has a calendar problem. Ah, a calendar problem.

But Elon's not just shifting deadlines. No, Elon is shifting Tesla's mission. And our third and final story is the British royal family. Hear! Yeah, can't hear! They just revealed their annual earnings report. No joke. King Charles's Land brought in a reference.

record $1.4 billion a profit. Yeah, that's a real story. And we'll tell you the surprising reason. Spoiler, King Charles is launching a podcast. Who is not? No, he's not. He's not. But yet he's before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories. Love the mix today, Jack. If it's between 9 to 5 while you're listening to this, you're probably annoyed right now. You are annoyed and why is that, Jack? Because your office is way too noisy. It is too damn loud. Forbes, 68% of U.S. employees who work in an office say that their office is too loud. I'm sorry, what was that? Can repeat that? What was that, Jack?

Two-thirds of employees in America want the volume to get turned down in the office. Excuse me, what was that? Can you hear that? Can you repeat that place? Here's the issue. We're taking business calls from the hallway. Here's the other issue. We're taking Zoom meetings without AirPods. Hey, Holly, have you heard of a conference room? And what is that throat thing that Justin always does? You know what it? Justin, would it kill you to buy a loss inch? Oh my God.

Yeties, your office sounds less like a library, more like Lollapalooza. Jack, noise-canceling headphones. We need noise-canceling coworkers. So, full disclosure, Nick and I are guilty of this problem. Oh, yeah, yeah. We both work in co-working spaces. We try to be respectful, but our enthusiasm sometimes comes out as a loud volume. So apologies, Jack and I are too loud around everybody.

But here's the ironic part. The reason offices are so long. loud right now is actually because they're so quiet. Get this besties, it turns out that the fewer people in a space, the louder their voices sound. If 60 people are talking in the office, it blurs into one big background noise. Kind of like a white noise machine jack. It's actually kind of nice. But in this post-pandemic situation, there's only five people in the office. So you hear each of those five people's voices.

And that is why you know that Kathy's haircut is happening on Tuesday and not Wednesday. She canceled it twice. And that is why you know that Kevin's nervous for his first massage he's getting this weekend. Thanks for sharing, Kevin. Yetis, that's not just ironic. That sounds like a Yogi Berra quote. No one goes there anymore because it's too crowded. So, Yetis, the best way to make your office less noisy is actually to add more noise.

That's not just ironic. That's a Yogi Berra quote, isn't it? No one goes there anymore because it's too crowded. That's my dad's favorite line. What was that, Jack? It's my dad's favorite line. I can't hear. I can't hear. I can. Whatever. We'll hit our three stories. I can barely hear this guy.

Fifteen years before this song. 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 Nick Tis. 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. Our first story. Cheez-It is older than you think. Cheez-It's has never been more relevant. We'll tell you why Cheez-It's best year is this year. After a hundred years. But, Jack, let's start with the wild stat you and I discovered as we jumped in T-Boy style. The Cheez-It isn't a square. The cheese-it, we repeat, is not a square. Jack, you want to

sprinkle on the math? It's almost a square, but one side is 0.06 millimeters longer than the other side. Don't believe us, measure it. We dare you. The orange-shade. cheddar-ish, squareish food known as cheese-its. The cheese-it is messing with geometrists nationwide. The cheese-it is the unofficial road trip wingman from when we were growing up, right, Jack? It's the backseat buddy's best friend. It wasn't a road trip unless you were kind of scratching your sister to annoy her with the side of a cheese-in. I used to sneak into my family's pantry to grab a fistful of cheese-its before my mom saw me.

Jack, every cheese-it is a little differently shaped. They're kind of like snowflakes, and we love them for it. It's not the 90s anymore, but cheese-it-es-es-es-es-a-old. but Cheez-It's is still living its best life in the year 2024. It is Cheez-It has become the Taylor Swift of snacks this year. Did you see the Taco Bell CrunchRap Supreme Cheez-It? Because they're doing their first ever collabs over a Cheez-It. It's basically a gigantic Cheez-It with like Carnayasada and veggies inside.

Oh, but that's not all. Cheez-It's even doing a Cheez-It with Hayden Valley Ranch for a Cheez-It. It kind of tastes like a salad. It's pre-dipped in ranch sauce, basically. Oh, and also this year, Cheez-It is going abroad for the first time ever. They're expanding outside North America to Brazil and to the United Kingdom. They're getting Cheez-Its. I'm kind of shocked the Brits had never tasted a Cheez-Hit before, Jack. I was shocked about that one. Me too. But closer to home, Cheez-It even has a pop-up diner they installed

in upstate New York. That's right. Cheez-in is serving of waffles, pancakes, with a little bit of crumpled Cheez-It's on top. Now, Cheez-It's owned by a Kellogg spin-off company called Kellanova. Kellenova. It's basically Kellogg's minus the cereals. They just do snack food. And now, just like its rival goldfish, Cheez-Itzitz is a billion-dollar-a-year brand. But yet, the wildest part about this story, is that Cheez-It, hitting its stride in 2024, is actually a hundred years old. In fact, Cheez-Its was America's first commercially scaled snack. Bring us back to 1841.

Jack, I thought you'd never ask. That is when Dr. William Wolf moved to the lovely town of Dayton, Ohio. He started baking crackers and distributing them to patients as medicine. Now, Jack, we should sprinkle on a little 19th century context to this cheez-it story right now. Back then, crackers were deeply associated with religion. Like, the body of Christ, the cup of salvation. You didn't snack on crackers because they were part of like Christian communion wafers. Like, that was a different thing, man.

But Dr. Wolfe used them for medicine. And then when he died, one of his patients craved those snacks. He used to eat at the doctor's office. So he bought Dr. Wolfe's cracker recipe and founded the company the Dayton Crack. Cracker Company and named their best cracker the Cheez-It in 1921. 1921. It was the first time a product used an intentionally misspelled word because they spelled cheese it with a Z. Again, 100 years ago, the Z, not very common. No Gen Z, no Zelaniels, no the whiz. All they had was Zebras. That's it. And no one had even seen the zebra.

But Nick, why did he choose that cracker to trademark as the Cheez-It? Because interesting thing, Jack, The particular recipe for the Cheez-It happened to have an 11-month shelf life. It was the first snack that lasted so long you could ship it across country and scale the product nationwide. And as an America industrialized after World War I, Cheez-It became our first nationwide snack available in every single U.S. state. And that was the story. For 100 years, Cheez-It barely evolved.

The only change the product ever had was changing the box from a green box to a red box. For some reason, Cheez-It Box used to be green, and now it feels oh so right that it's red. You know, the airplane was also invented in Dayton, and that's gone through some changes in the past 100 years. Although to this day, no one knows why there is a dimple on every single Cheez-It. But we've all tried to stick our tongue through that little hole and failed. And failed. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the billion-dollar brand Cheez-It? It's never too late to innovate.

Now, yeah, it is, there were Kellogg Old Guard, workers who said, hey, don't you dare mess with our cheese it? The cheese it's been working for a hundred years. Don't fix it if it ain't broke. But the innovators over at Kellogg, they won out, and they push Cheez-It to new limits over the last year. This year, there are new flavors, including Cheez-It snapped, which is a chip-like cracker. It's basically a stretched-out cheese-it. They also launched Cheez-It puffed, which is like a cheese-it blown up with air, like some kind of a helium balloon check. It's like a cheesy puff. Yeah, it is like a cheese-buff. Those Cheetos, they're getting kind of jelly about this thing.

Cheese-It's brand collabs. Their activations, their marketing stunts. They've reminded Cheez-It lovers of their love for the Cheez-Eat. All while not harming the things about the brand that made you love it in the first place. Here's the lesson of the 100-year-old Cheez-A hitting her centenarian groove right now. Besties, it's never too late to innovate. For our second story, Tesla fell 12% yesterday after another bad earnings report. Elon's always been shifting deadlines, but now he's shifting the company's entire mission.

Hey, Yetis, when it comes to money, Jack and I got your back. If you want a deal right now, don't go to Filene's basement or T.J. Max. Head on over to Tesla. Head on over to Tesla. And why is that? For months, Teslas have been massively on sale. Oh, the Tesla big summer blowout. Oh my God, it's like Jay Crew. I get emails all the time. You can buy a model Y for just $37,000. after the federal tax credit. That's right. Oh, wait, Jack, one second. I'm getting a...

I just saw a Tesla on Timu for $3. No, you didn't. But you can finance a Tesla for 2% interest right now, which is way lower than anything else you could find anyway. You know, the lease on our Model Y is up in like two months?

They've been calling me every week just to get a new car. They are so desperate to get me a new car. Tesla is in discount mode. And those discounts have helped sales, but still, Tesla's car revenues fell by 7% last quarter. And all that discounting did damage to the profits the most. Profits fell by 45% in Tesla's second quarter. But here's the wild thing, Yetis. All of that

was before the shocking slash unshocking Elon Trump bromance that came out of nowhere the other week. Q3 is going to be even worse, as would-be EV buyers are alienated by Elon's politics. Besties, here's why Jack and I wanted to cover the story. The real challenge facing Tesla isn't politics or marketing or sales, the real challenge is calendars. Because this week, Tesla confirmed news reports that Tesla's Robotaxi is delayed. Again. Again. Boom. Back in April, Elon said that Tesla in August would unveil their first Robotaxy. Very exciting. Which he dubbed the Cybercab. But now, three months later, on the brink of August, the Robotaxie has been pushed back until October. Why did Elon announce it just three months ago if there was no way it was going to happen?

Now, Elon also said this week he'd be shocked if Tesla couldn't launch robotaxies by next year. But we wouldn't be shocked. We would not be shocked. Because in 2019, five years ago, Elon said the same exact thing. Okay, on this podcast, Jack and I basically covered this story five years ago about Tesla's robo taxis. They're coming any minute now. Elon said in 2019, he felt very confident in autonomous robo taxis for Tesla next year. But like other calendar problems at Tesla, that was wrong too.

Now, maybe it will happen in October, and maybe it will be an epic robotaxie. Maybe it'll be the first car with no steering wheel. Or maybe Tesla's robot taxi will just never come, Jack. Because at this point, Elon's timelines, like when he says something will be delivered, it's meaningless. You're waiting for Godot, but Godot's a cyber taxi. Oh, by the way, by the way, Tesla's human-shaped, human-sized humanoid robot. they're working on, that's delayed too. Ah, another calendar problem.

But even bigger news than Tesla's constantly shifting timelines is Tesla's newly shifting mission. And that is our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over in discounted Tesla? Tesla's value isn't based on its business. Tesla's value is based on belief in Elon. Yet he's, funny thing Jack and I noticed, you can tell Tesla's mission by Tesla's name.

Like back in 2003, Tesla was founded as Tesla Motors, and its mission was a car company. But seven years ago, in 2017, they dropped the word motors because Tesla was becoming a sustainable energy company, not just a car company. But now, as Tesla car sales fall for the very first time ever, Elon is insisting Tesla isn't a car company, and it's not an energy company either. Now, Elon is saying that Tesla is an autonomy company. It's an autonomy company, apparently. Here's another thing Elon said in April. He said by far the biggest differentiator for Tesla is autonomy. Now, many believe Elon that there will soon be 7 million Teslas that can drive themselves autonomously on our roads. And those 7 million Teslas will be coming soon, like Elon says. And many believe that Tesla's factories will be run by humanoid autonomous robots, not human beings, very soon.

And that belief is why Tesla is worth a shocking $700 billion in the stock market. The biggest car company in the world by value. By far, too. Because so many people still believe what Elon promises. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, the British crown just announced its biggest profit in royal history. We'll tell you why cash isn't king.

Cash flow is king. And it is luck. Everyone's talking about France right now. French Olympics, French politics, Jack, aren't you going to France? I'm not sure. I think I remember you mentioning that. I leave on August 11th. I arrive on August 12th. Calendar marked. But across the channel, the British Royal Monarchy just published their annual report. Because King Charles III isn't just the King of England.

No. He's also the CEO of the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate. It is a portfolio of real estate for commercial use, and it functions kind of like a company, like a public. trade a company. And they just announced publicly their annual report, which included regal revenues, princes of profits. And the emperor of Ibadah here, Jack. Get this. The crown? The British royal crown. Yeah. Generated $1.4 billion in royal profits last year. One point four billion in profits. That is Megan Markle money, Jack. And that's up 148% from what they made last year. It's more than doubled Louis the 14th. He's pretty jealous over in France. They say God save the king. Yeah. Without much money, he does need save.

Without much money, they should make their own Netflix shows, Jack. This is the biggest amount of royal money since the sword in the stone. So it's interesting. Although the royal family owns those huge profits we just mentioned, the royal family doesn't keep those profits. Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. This setup is a deal between the king and the kingdom that he rules. The royal profits that the royal family owns,

they pass on to the British people. But here's the key. 12% of the Crown estate's profits go to fund the royal family. All that pomp, all that ceremony, it's expensive. But the Crown funds themselves with their own profits. And that 12% of funding, that is how England threads the needle of democracy. It also has a monarch. They call it a constitutional monarch.

We call it a 12% profit split. So, of the $1.4 billion in royal profits, 168 million actually go to the Royal family. That's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. And this annual report also details how they spent that money last year. Oh, let's talk about it, Jack, because $60 million of that money was budgeted for renovations. Buckingham Palace needs a new roof. And $37 million of that money is spent on staffing. Those tunics don't starch themselves, Nick. And $5 million, that was spent on travel expenses. A trip to Kenya? Yeah, that sounds like a ride-off. And finally, $1 million was spent on the King's Coronation last year.

Fortunately, Westminster Abbey waived the venue fee. That is a marketing expense. But here's the big question. Yeah. Where did that $1.4 billion of profits come from? Jack and I were like $1.4 billion in profits. Uber would kill for that kind of money. Are they selling royal autographs?

What's going on? Yeties, Jack and I found the answer. And the answer for the $1.4 billion in royal profits is wind farms. The Windsor family has a bunch of commercial wind farms that they're generating electricity and selling it from. Get this, for the last 20 years, King Charles has leased out seabeds along the British Isles for wind farms to be built. A whole bunch of offshore wind? It's thanks to King Charles and there's an old ancient real estate.

So ironically, the royal family is actually being fueled by clean energy to hit record profits. But those land rovers up in Balmoral, those are not funded by clean energy. Although, Jack, did you hear one of the Land Rover is actually using biodiesel? I don't know what biodiesel is. Off with his head! Biodiesel sounds like a product made by BP. I think I know what King Henry VIII would do with you, Jack.

So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the royal family? Cash isn't king. Cash flow is king. Yeti, Steve Jobs once said, cash flow is the lifeblood of any business. Jack Welch once said, the three most important parts of a business are its cash flow, it's cash flow, and it's cash flow.

I love that one. Well, cash is a moment in time number. Cash is how much money you got in your bank account right now. Cash flow is the amount of money you generate over a given period of time. So like cash gets depleted, but cash flow keeps the bank account fully full. The British Royals, Yetis, they have a complex history. Yeah, they gained a lot of their wealth by taking it with swords and then guns and then cannonballs. But today, the Royal Family can't just rely on plundering and taxes anymore, the royal family must generate cash flow. And they do it with that clean energy real estate portfolio. Sebastian, if you're boasting about how much money you have, you got it all wrong. How much money you have coming in is what really matters to a business. Because the way Jack and I see it,

revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity, but cash flow is royalty. Cash flow is king. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Cheese-its are old. They are old. But they're the new hero product in Kelanova's Snack Division. The lesson from this 100-year-old brand? It's never too late to innovate. For our second story, as Tesla's car business deteriorates,

Elon points to autonomy, which was delayed again. But Tesla's stock price, it isn't based on its business. Tesla's stock price is based on the belief in Elon. And our third and final story is the British Royal Family. They generated $1.4 billion in profits last year, thanks to their wind farm real estate. The Crown, it is the perfect example of how cash isn't king. Cash flow is king.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Your Majesty Cash Flow. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, one day before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, we just got an update on the Winter Olympics. The 2034 Winter Olympics will be hosted by Salt Lake City. And the 2030 Winter Olympics will be hosted by France.

Okay, Salt Lake City already did the Winter Olympics in 2002. And France is doing the Summer Olympics right now. And France has done the Winter Olympics three times already. This will be their fourth. It's kind of like movies these days, Yetis. The Olympics are doing sequels. Fast and the Furious France. Nine.

And second, July 22nd, this past Monday, was Earth's hottest day in at least 100,000 years. The global average temperature on July 22nd was 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest ever recorded. And that temperature broke the previous record from the day before, which was set on July 21st. Two straight days, two hottest days in world's history. And there's another reminder that stakes of climate change action or lack thereof. Jack, I was schvitzin in the studio on Monday. And finally, Delta continues to be the airline hit hardest by this big IT outage from last week.

In fact, get this. Delta is expected to lose $500 million from canceled flights this week. Because they have to refund canceled flights and pay for your hotel and pay for your inconvenience. That is 10% of Delta's total profit. It's bizarre. They spent a bunch of money to protect themselves from like hacks or whatever. Yeah. But that thing they protected themselves with was the problem. We're going to need a few more Bisk off cookies. They probably wish they would have just not paid for the cybersecurity.

at all. And just spent it on Biscop cookies. That would have been a better use of the money. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by Erica Moran from lovely Phoenix, Arizona. We told you yesterday that California has the most Olympians, but Colorado is close number two for these summer games. In fact, Colorado sends more Americans to the Olympics than 168 countries do. Probably asking why. Why Colorado? We get it for the wintertime? Yeah, we do. But we don't totally get it for the summer games. It turns out track and field athletes, especially long distance, runners like to train at altitude in places like Colorado and Flagstaff, Arizona. Because if you can run fast and long at 7,000 to 12,000 feet of elevation, yeah. Then running on a flat service at sea level is just a

piece of cake. Colorado, it's basically the Ethiopia of America. Wait, is Ethiopia high? Yeah, because, you know, they do the long distance athletes in Ethiopia. They do the, uh, the altitude training in Ethiopia. I didn't know that. If you're in Colorado, though, if you know, you know. And all of this is why Flagstaff, Arizona, a shockingly high place, is sending six athletes to the Olympics this year. Yeah, it is. You'll look fantastic for the new Friday. And if you are the loudest person in your office right now, then you should yell at us

a shout out or a fact to get on the podcast. Yeah, we have a link in the episode description for you to easily submit your best fact yet. And we would love to get you in the show. If you got the best fact yet, or if you got a birthday, Jack and I want to get it on the pod. So click that link in the episode description. And then take your next Zoom. call in a conference room.

Or not. Jack and I probably won't do that. Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, a happy national intern day to all the legendary bestie and yeti interns out there, especially our own intern. Riley, the Middlebury Panthers shredding things up and I had mine hammer every day. Riley,

thank you for all you given to the T-Boy pod. We love having you with us, man. And Tara and Kyle and Belleville, Michigan are getting married this weekend. We can't wait to see the picks. The ceremony is going to be beautiful. Happy birthday to Kelsey Black in Flugerville, Texas. It's a belated birthday shout-up from her bestie buddy,

Savannah Westwood. Two of the most legendary Yetis ever were so pumped that you guys get to hang out. Savannah's thinking of you. And Gia Wadilla is turning one-year-old in lovely Los Angeles, California. Congrats on that first birthday to the parents, too. And happy birthday to Cliff Bird in Asheville, North Carolina.

He's the newest resident of that wonderful city. This cornhole champion knows that life's too short for bad call. And happy birthday to the legendary mom of twins, Hillary Bartlett, in San Francisco. The New Yorker in San Francisco, who's really a New Yorker at her core. And happy birthday to Mary Walsh, another Middlebury Panther living in Greenwich. Ah, Mary. And Amanda Juan Olsen Cordes from Philadelphia is traveling to San Francisco right now.

She waved to us as she went by our studio, Jack. We missed you, Amanda, but have a blast in the city. And to anyone else who celebrates something today, make it a tee boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix and Nick own stock of Delta. Your stock ownership has really cursed the company. Yeah, I would say my Jack motivated stock ownership. Nike?

That's a curse, man. I think you need to dollar cost average maxi for his birthday. Every year buying a share to make up for taking the stock.