The Best One Yet - 🧀 “Revenge of Mac & Cheese” — Kraft’s nostalgia revival. Grindr’s 1st date. Elon’s $1B IOU.

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Apply to be Social Media Manager for The Best One Yet podcast: https://tally.so/r/3yX9OgKraft-Heinz is done with healthy and pivoting back to processed foods: Weiners, Mac & Cheese, and Lunchables are back thanks to The 80/20 Rule. Gay dating app Grindr didn’t just invent the Swipe — it just went public and the stock surged 500%. And Thursday was “The Elon Exodus” as 1,200 Twitter employees quit because they don’t want to work 24/7. But Elon’s focused on the $3M he pays in interest every day for his Twitter loan.$KHC $GRNDFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodListen to us on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5RllMBgvDnTau8nnsCUdse?si=7189762d4a9f4a7f&nd=1Or listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1386234384?ign-itscg=30200&ign-itsct=lt_pWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form: https://forms.gle/tywqQ9CpMmFDAPXz5Got the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that too: https://forms.gle/N2Unhwm9DbDw4P8R7Learn 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. Welcome back. It is Monday, November 21st. And today's pod is the best one yet. It's a team boy. I could smell the gravy. It's Thanksgiving week over here.

We got a holiday short and week people. Yeah, it is. We got a couple of bummer updates, though, from last week's pod stories. Jack and I should mention, there is no more beer allowed at the Qatar World Cup. And there's literally no more Taylor Swift tickets, like period. Jack and I felt a certain urgency to make today's pod literally the best one yet. Yeah, we did. It's a T-boy, Jack, what's the first story for today's show?

Kraft Hines is going all in on processed food. Jack, pass the lunchebles because delicious is the 80-20 rule. And our second story is Grindr. The gay dating app just went public on stock markets. Or the best fact yet, Grindr invented the swipe. Our third and final story, first, Elon fired half of Twitter, then half of the remaining half, just quit Twitter because Elon is losing three minutes. million dollars a day personally.

But before we hit that wonderful mix, Yetis, I think we made this one the best one yet. This is a great mix, Jack. It's a tough job market right now. Yeah, we know. It's tough out there in tech. That's why we are thrilled to announce that the T-Boy show is hiring. Like, literally, the best one yet is looking for the best one yet. We are hiring our first social media manager.

Jack and I need a sorcerer of social to sprinkle on some magic. Are you a Yeti with a YouTube yearning? Are you a bad? You can break down a direct message. You know what ticks on TikTok? Or do you know what goes on the gram? If you do, Slam and Salmon wants you to join the T-boy team. Yeah, you're gonna slip into some DMs, you're gonna slide right into some top trends.

When you have the keys to our account, if someone asks you about Guac, you can comment that it's extra. If you see Zucking out there? We'd love if you could say Zuckin. And if you see someone sitting down. Feel free to stand up and sit right back down again. By the way, bonus, if you can help us get unbanked. help us get unbanded from TikTok.

Yeah, TikTok didn't like that story we did about banning TikTok. What she wants, she gets. This new social media manager is going to be a Yeti. They're going to be a bestie. They're going to listen to the show and make it flourish on social. So Jack and I whipped up the job application. It's live right here in today's episode. We got a link in the description.

Now, Nick and I cannot compete with Chick-fil-A's three-day work week. But together, we can make Thursday the new Friday. The job app? It's in the episode description. In the meantime, Jack, let's hit our three stories. is done trying to get healthy. They're pivoting back to their old school processed food. All right, Jack, for Thanksgiving. What's going to be our Thanksgiving trivia? You're going to stump your uncle with this one. Ask them to name a stock that's actually up this year.

Ask them to name a stock that's actually up because the whole market is down 18% this year. But Kraft Heinz is up 5%. Kraft Heinz has got that Mayo momentum, baby. Yeties, this is the fifth largest food company in the world. It is. And the brands that they own, they sound. like your dad reading off the 1950s New York Yankees rock. Crafts macaroni and cheese. Heinz ketchup, Jeff. Oscar Meyer Wienerwistle.

Philadelphia cream cheese over there. Jello. Lunchables. Caprice Sun. They own all of it. But in 2015, the sales of Kraft Heinz started to dip. And it's all because of us. Yeah, it's basically because of us. Millennials were leading the charge against Kraft Heinz's processed food. Jack, I came home one day and found you on our couch ensconced

in organic Greek yogurt. Yeah. If you named your kid kale, you're the problem for Kaft Hines. The 1950 classic Kraft American cheese singles. 17 ingredients, that became the enemy. That was the problem because cheese shouldn't have 17 ingredients. It's the only food that can actually put over yourself to survive a nuclear attack. So Craft Hines was chasing the organic food trend. They were ashamed of those powdered packs of cheese thing that makes her craft smack a little too orange.

But just last week, the CEO of Kraft Hines, admitted that was all a mistake. The CEO said they should have stuck to their guns. He said, we're apologetic. We got distracted by the new and the niche. It was also a failing strategy pivoting to clean foods. The stock fell badly as Kraft Heinz pretended to be a clean food company. Well, not anymore.

Here's what Jack and I found fascinating about that quote. Craft Heinz is now pulling a 180 right back to processed foods. Kraft Heinz is busting out their dusty old 1950s. unloved brands and reintroducing them to us with some stunt marketing. Now, Jack and I did cover an element of this story earlier this year. We covered it with the Velveeta, right, Jack? The stunt marketing. Yeah, there were collaborations with a hint of crazy.

Yeah, for example, what kind of stuff, Jack? The Velveeta Martini. Yeah, you drink processed cheese while you eat a processed cheese. Kraft Hines also introduced to us the Oscar Meyer Popsicle. They turned a hot dog into a cold dog. And who could forget the Kraft mayo. juicy couture sweatpants. Straight out of Long Island.

Smooth spread, smooth pants. Clearly, Kraft Hines is done apologizing for that uncured Oscar Meyer weiner they love. Quite to the contrary. They are celebrating their boomer brands. And Jack, how's the bottom line looking over there? It's working. Yeah. For the first time in years, Kraft Hines sales actually are up this year.

So, Jack, can you help us stick that darn straw into a Capri Sun and whip up the takeaways for us over there? The healthiest rule of them all is the 80-20 rule. Ah, yet he's the 80-20 rule. 80% of your success tends to come from just 20% of your efforts. For Kraft-Heinz, it's a handful of products that drive almost all the profits. Get this. Half of Kraft-Hinz's revenues come from just eight brands out of 200 brands. So Craft-Hein's has decided they're done pushing those 192 brands that don't sell.

Instead, they're going to pour all their resources into that elite group, there's big demand for processed foods. Kraft Heinz is done trying to cater to us. They're pivoting back to processed. They're embracing the 80-20 rule. For our second story, Grindr, the first gay dating app, just had a fantastic first day on the stock markets, maybe the best day of the year.

Grindr doesn't have customers. Grindr has a community. How poetic is this stock market story? The best performing newly listed stock on Wall Street this year, by far is Grindr. Launched in 2009, Grindr is the $2 billion pure play LGBTQ stock. It is the first gay app to list on the New York Stock Exchange. And they celebrated with the first drag show at the New York Stock Exchange. Yeah, you got to do what you got to do.

At one point, get this, the stock of Grindr on its very first day was up 500%. And it ended the day at 36. which is three times higher than the $10 less price. Jack, this wasn't a coming out party. This was a coming out parade. And it was a brave thing to do. It was brave because, Jack, what's it like going public these days? It's complicated.

Yeah, it's complicated. Like, it's harder than dating in Brooklyn. If you live on the Upper East Side. That would be a logistical haul. That's like three subway transfers, right? It just shouldn't do that relationship. I mean, yeties, look at the dating sector on the stock market this year. Okay, Jack, for example, Match, the biggest dating stock.

of all. It's down 60% this year. Bumble is down 30% this year. The whole NASDAQ tech focus stock index. It's down 30% this year. And we just reported that dating has put a fifth of millennials in debt. But Grindr looked at the situation and they were like, you know what? We're just going to go for it. Love? It makes you do crazy things sometimes. So Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. We're talking about a company with $150 million in sales that grew from last year. They have 11 million active app users, nearly one million of whom pay to use the app. And that was a 34% jump from last year. And they just cashed in on $350 million of fresh funding from this SPAC.

Grindr just gave old school Wall Street the best performing new stock of the year. Ticker symbol, grind, which drops the I, not the E, like their name. You know what I mean? That's not confusing. You said that like it was like so insightful. They chose a different vowel. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our? Our buddies over at Grindr.

They're not selling to customers. They're selling into a community. Yet these founders often have to face this very specific challenge. Do you go wide or do you go deep? Do you have a broad offering to reach a broad customer base but not get that deep with the customer or do you go deep with just one customer? Well, Grindr, they decided to do the latter. Instead of a dating product for all, they focused on dating for just the LGBTQ community.

And by focusing on the unique needs of the people, they focused on the unique needs of the other. that group, they built some deep engagement. For example, Grindr built features specific to the gay community, like safe warnings for when you're traveling abroad and you're using the app. And those thoughtful features won them some customer love, which is why Grindr spends nothing on ads. Honestly, Grindr's so ubiquitous in the gay community, it gets free market. Like in that recent movie bros, that was free market. Billy Eichner, whole plot lines in that gay rom-com circled around the Grindr app. Grindr went deep, not wide. And that. won it committed users.

They're not selling to customers. Grindr is selling to a community. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. You can do just about anything from your phone, but some industries, they've just been slow to move. The finance industry was slow to move from phone to computer and then from computer to app. Robin Hood wasn't.

It's the Silicon Valley based brokerage that's been updating app since it was born in 2015. Using the Robin Hood app for your stocks and crypto is almost as easy as downloading it. So you can invest to your pace on your terms by downloading the Robin Hood app. 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 Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y limitation supply. Stocks are offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood crypto.

All investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story to kick off the week, we just witnessed the great Elon exodus of Twitter. 1,200 Twitter employees quit on Thursday. 1,200. And it's all because of one number.

There's a fire on the internet right now. Everyone is looking at that fire. And that fire is Twitter. It's a phenomenon we're calling tech rubbernecking. Yeah, we're calling it tech rubbernecking. Everyone is stopping and turning their head to look at what's happening on Twitter. You got record numbers of people logging in to watch the Elon show, but then no one's staying in a help.

They're just driving right on by, Jack. Last week, Yetis, Elon gave employees at Twitter an ultimatum. They asked them to either commit to hardcore and insane working hours or quit. Look, if you're not on board with working nights, weekends, extra weekends, holidays, and your mom's birthday, this may not be the place for you. Well, guess what? A lot of people weren't on board. Full disclosure, Jack and I do not have this policy for our new social media hire at T-Boy.

Yeah, you're not going to have many ultimatums with us. Yeah. Well, the New York Times jumped in T-boy style, and they spoke to some. some PFWTMs, some people familiar with the matter. Apparently, 1,200 people weren't on board with working nights and weekends. So they said, peace out, I'm dumb with this. 1,200 people on Thursday night alone. By the way, if you reach out to Twitter for comment, they have no comment because they have no more PR team.

This company has been dismantled in a way we've never seen before. Now, Jack and I decided to jump in T-boy style ourselves into the numbers and here's what we're noticing. Twitter had 7,000 employees right before Elyle's. Elon acquired it last month. Okay, so today, how many employees did they have, Jack? By our math, two-thirds of those 7,000 employees are gone. In fact, the crew running Twitter is so small right now. Experts think the site might break, like any day.

But maybe it won't break. Right. Jack, let's sprinkle on a little more context here. Back in 2012, which is around when Twitter went public, I think, they had 1,000 employees in about 200 million monthly active users. And, Jack, what are their key numbers today? They have twice as many employees, even after all the firings and resignation. and about the same number of users.

So a decade later, with today's better infrastructure, it's quite feasible. Twitter can just continue operating with the bare-bone staff it has. Yeah, the website may not break. However, misinformation and bad actors are way more sophisticated than they were back in 2012. So Twitter may not break while you're driving by doing that tech rubbernecking,

but your feed could become awful. Yeah, because no one is patrolling the streets of Twitter. But the way Jack and I see it, All of this cost cutting, all of this firing, all of this pushing people out, it all comes down to one number. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies still working hard over at Twitter? The one number motivating Elon right now is $3 million a day. Okay, Yetis, remember, Elon had to take out a $13 billion with a B loan to buy Twitter.

That's a $13 billion I owe you. Now, you may have debt, Yeties, and if you are, you may be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars month in interest, which stinks. Well, Elon is paying $100 million a month just in interest. Just in interest, he's paying $100 million a month for his Twitter loan. He's paying a billion dollars a year just to keep owning Twitter. Now, Elon already paid way too much to acquire Twitter, but this is the loss that keeps on losing because of the interest. Because Elon is spending $2.7 million every day just in interest payments. That is why he is so obsessed. with cutting costs, firing people, and finding new ways to raise revenue.

That's why he's firing more employees, firing users, and firing check marks. Because the one number motivating him right now is $3 million a day. He pays just an interest. Three million a day. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for the holiday shortened week? Craft Heinz is done going after millennial foodies. The 80-20 rule. It shows them it's all about processed food. For our second story, Grindr just went public jumping 200% on its first day of trading.

It doesn't sell the customers. Grindr sells to community. Our third and final story is Twitter. They've lost about two thirds of their employees in just a month. It's all because of $1 billion. The price Elon keeps on paying to own Twitter. Just to own it. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in as a voicemail.

Push and play. Let's do it. This is Chiago from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm originally from Brazil, and today I have the best FIFA World Cup fact yet. There have been 21 World Cups in the history of the event, and three teams have over half of the wins. Brazil with five, Italy with four, and Germany with four. Excited for the World Cup coming up. So the World Cup started yesterday.

It did start yesterday. It did start yesterday. And do you want to know who has the fourth most World Cup victories? I was very curious, and I thought you might know this one too, Jack. What is it talking to us? There's only eight teams that I've ever won. I knew you were going to sprinkle on some context first, but let's do it. Brazil's number one, Germany and Italy are tied at number two. Right, right.

Argentina and France both have two. Okay. So does Uruguay. Oh, my, so you know what it is? It's the luncheables. It's the Capri-Sun and the luncheables. That's how they're doing it. And then England and Spain have one each.

All about the processed foods. Yeties, you look fantastic today. And if you want to apply for our social media, media manager position. We got it right here in today's pot. Or if you know somebody who should apply, send him the link for us. We would love that. Slam and Sam wants you. And before we go, congratulations to Frankie Maraza and Zach Morris and two Yetis who met working at a nursing home. They just got engaged. Congratulations. And congrats to Rhett Kickleiter and his fiancee Brianna, longtime Yetis who just closed on their first house in Akworth, Georgia. And Jack, Crystal Langley,

is celebrating her birthday in a hot air balloon to overcome her fear of heights. Happy birthday to Jay Hainesworth, stationed in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Jay, thanks for your service. And happy birthday. And Amanda Smith is turning 30 over in lovely Santa Monica, California. Happy 28th birthday to Annie, who's on her way to Brooklyn right now. And Chloe Vashti is in her car over in San Mateo celebrating that birthday. Happy birthday to Emo Ochanaka from Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

And Joshua Suther, keep celebrating that birthday down in Baltimore. Happy birthday to Rowan Eblen, who's walking somebody's dog right now in Marion, Ohio. And Amelia is turn in 10 in Golden, Colorado. Happy birthday to Carl Wells, who's fishing in Florida. And Marcus Dolphins listening to us on a bike in Hickory, North Carolina. Happy birthday. And Brooke Bonafocci is having the best day I've ever heard of in my entire life. Yeah, she had a birthday.

She just got married and has a new dog and a new house, and it's all in Chicago. And guess what? Her new dog does logistics. This is Jack. I own stock of Bumble. and I both own stock of Robin Hood. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Jack, rule number one about a kitchen renovation,

tell your friends about your kitchen renovation. We know the cabinets are expensive. Well, in the pandemic, a lot of companies renovated their businesses focusing on apps and digital. Robin Hood didn't have to. It was built digital from the start. Robin Hood's mobile first and intuitive design makes investing a little easier for every stage of your investing journey. Whether you want to trade options, ETFs, or stocks through Robin Hood Financial, or buy

and Bitcoin on Robin Hood crypto, you can do all that right on the Robin Hood app. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOI. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, all investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood. We are not employees of Robin Hood. Dude, speaking of setting and like loving this job.

Yeah. So on my flight that got canceled, I met a Yeti. And then I met in Young, like his guy, TJ, entrepreneur from New York. Do you have the hat on? Next flight. Next flight. I mean another Yetty. And then we hit tweet from someone saying, I didn't want to disturb you on the flight,

but I loved the slamming salmon T-boy hat. Really? You believe that?