The Best One Yet - 🥗 “Ronald slaughtered his salads” — McDonald’s people pleasing. NextDoor’s new neighbor. Florida’s “Real Zero” trademark.

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

McD’s is cutting a bunch of items from its menu… and we noticed it’s all about slaughtering the salad. While stocks are falling, 3 big investors just bought up shares of NextDoor — Because its neighbors aren’t trolling. And the 1st state to go carbon zero looks like it’ll be: Florida.$KIND $MCD $NEEFollow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We got great material on the fact that our title of our podcast is a sentence. What's the name of your podcast? It's a paragraph. That would be hilarious. What's the name of your podcast? This is a stanza in a poem. First company whose name is a paragraph long. All right, here we got.

Three, two. This is next. It's Wednesday, mid-June, June 15th. And today's pod is the best. one yet. It really is better than yesterday's pie. Except stocks. Stocks. They're at their lowest point in a year. Not going to lie. It's not looking good out there. Okay, people are asking, what are we doing? Jack just ran into a Yeti in Madison Square Park. Asked, what are we doing? And we are nothing. We have seen stock market downturns before. The biggest thing to avoid is selling

your stocks at a low. Thankfully, we got enough cash to pay the bills. In the meantime, Jack and I, we're doing nothing. Now, we are in New York. Yes, we are. And today we're going to walk by the stock exchange. The literal Wall Street is like right over there. You like yell at stocks to stop doing what they're doing? You want to hold them a sign? Hey, stocks go off. This is Nick and Jack.

First story. What are we got? Next door stock rose on word that three venture capitalists bought the dip. One difference between Nextdoor and every other social media company? No trolls. For our second story, McDonald's just quietly slaughtered the salads from their menu because the healthy era is over. Jack, the egg.

McMuffin? In. Jack, the Egg White McMuffin? Out. And our third and final story. Florida. Florida is about to become the cleanest state in the country, thanks to one company. Next era, it's the biggest utility company on planet Earth, and they're shutting down oil, gas, and coal.

Florida! Florida. But before we hit that wonderful next next next. Playoffs. IKEA, the Swedish furniture company. You love it. Yeties, nothing is more satisfying than putting together an IKEA table. is nothing is more frustrating than putting together an IKEA table.

Well, IKEA, they pioneered affordable chairs and you get to assemble them yourself. With the IKEA assembly manual. No words needed because it's a universal language of those little characters. But get this, Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. IKEA is pioneering another industry. IKEA just announced they're getting into baby names. This is real. IKEA literally built a name bank of 800 baby names.

Those 800 baby names are. based on IKEA products. Okay, so there is a shortage of nightstands, but there is no shortage of newborn. Ikea thinks their furniture can inspire your infant's name. Okay, Jack, let's check out the list here. For example, forget Michael, go with Mom. Forget Katie, go with Kivik. Forget Tony, go with Trotten. Be the only kid whose name has five consonants in a row. Sure, your child's future. It's going to be tied to a Scandinavian fjord. And yeah, they're going to have to figure out how to type But IKEA, it's not just a brand. IKEA is an internationally known language.

That's right. So when your kid studies abroad, hopefully, he's going to be like a rock star. She's going to be a legend. Let's in our three star. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the northeast met in the dawn. 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. For our first story, Jack 3, major. venture capital firms just bought the dip on next door stock. Because neighbors don't troll each other. Won't you be my neighbor? Yeties, by the way. They sometimes troll each other. Jack and I were enjoying some lovely sweet green salads down in the financial district.

We're talking to each other. We're trying to prepare this story for the pot. And we're wondering, is anyone buying the stock market dip right? It's tempting. I mean, the S&P 500 is in a bare market. It's down 20%. So Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style. and we noticed something that some venture capital firms were doing.

Last week, we saw that three venture capital firms are buying the dip on one particular company. Big time buying the dip. Including Mary Meeker and Greylock of venture capital firms. Okay, so get this. It's public information when shareholders of companies buy or sell like huge amounts of stock. And three major shareholders just bought major amounts of next door stock. $40 million of next door stock. Three major VCs are buying.

in the dip of Nextdoor. Okay, so now Jack and I went full Mr. Rogers on this. Next door is the social network for neighbors. Now, they spacked on to public stock markets. They were one of the last spacking companies, actually. They did it in November of last year. And they don't describe their users as like monthly active users. They're a little more creative.

They say monthly active neighbors. In fact, we control after neighbors like by far their most said thing. Yeah, it really is. They love neighbors. Here is why Jack and I found this story so fascinating. Nextdoor is unlike every other social media company because it's limited. It's geo-fenced. You can only be in the social network of your neighborhood.

Yeah, the upper-y side, that's like your thing. That's who you're hanging out. It's kind of the opposite of the Metaverse. It's like extremely physical. Yeah, it is. And so once they verify your address, they let you post about, you know, that coyote that you saw that your neighbors did not. What was that noise?

That's what you can post on next time. I signed up for Nextdoor, literally just to get the weekly emails. And then I forward them to Jack, because the subject lines are absolutely hilarious. Like, Jack, here is that subject line I say you the other day. One of them said, update, it was a squirrel. Oh, that's what the noise was? The next one just said, someone left Oreos on three garages. Strange?

That is strange. I have joined in the meantime. And the main one that I get, actually, is a little frustrated. Somebody says, pick up your dogs, boom. Apparently, people are annoyed about this person walking around the marina with, like, like AirPods not in. The ticker symbol of this company is K-I-N-D, kind. This is a nudge for neighbors on this social network to be kind with their posts.

It's now down the stock 77% since they went public, like most not yet profitable tech stock. But three venture capitalists clearly think it's going up because they bought $40 million of this beaten and battered stock. So the way Jack and I see it, perhaps they see in next door something that they don't see in other social media companies. Feels like a takeaway moment. So, Jack, let's takeaway for our buddies over next door. It's not anonymous. It's accountable. Yeti's social media is packed with trolls.

It's awful. They make it a toxic place. Everyone's talking about it. And trolls can thrive for one fundamental reason. Trolls are anonymous. Never in human history have we been able to insult each other with anonymity at scale. Let me repeat that. Never in human history have we been able to insult each other with anonymity at scale.

Even if there's a name on your account, if you live 2,000 miles away, that's still anonymous. Right. Next door, though, they limit who you can interact with to only people who live in your neighborhood. Literally, physically, they are there. Now, they do have a profit problem. Losses keep growing just like other tech companies. But they don't have much of a troll problem because neighbors are accountable with each other. It's not anonymous.

It's accountable. For our second story, McDonald's just cut basically. every single healthy item from its menu is history. McDonald's was being a people pleaser. Yeah. And that could be problematic. All right, Jack, over the last 10 years, McDonald's, they've been under some pressure, right?

They've been under pressure. They've been under pressure to add stuff to the menu that's not going to supersize you. Keep the Big Mac, but add an option to sub the fries with a little bit of kale. Keep the Coke, but give people an option to do half Coke, half Diet Coke. What a little arugula to kill you. Here's the news.

McDonald's is adjusting the food. menu nationwide to have fewer items on the menu. Okay, so Jack and I were curious. You know, they're slimming down the menu. What is it going to look like now? This isn't just slimming down the menu. This is a salad slaughter. Okay, Jack and I are going to sum up what we discovered.

So McDonald's didn't say this at all, but Jack and I are calling it. It's the end of the era of healthy options. Yeah. Here are the specific items that have been cut from McDonald's menu. Hit us, Jack. All the salads. All right. The fruit and yogurt, perfect.

Really? The grilled chicken sandwich. That's pretty good. The egg white McMuff. McMuffin. They're all gone. Yeah, if it's not deep fried, it is M-I-A. If it photosynthes it's done for. Well, sliced apples

and oatmeal, those are the only heart-approved items that'll stay. They're there. Those are the two healthier items that will stay in the happy meals. That's how much ketchup you put on them, but yeah. But McDonald's gave Bloomberg three reasons for cutting these items from the menu. First, Jack, straight up, cost.

Fruit costs more per pound than meat. Okay, then time. Tossing a salad takes a lot of And then finally, the last reason they're cutting all these healthy items is the workers. Okay. Have you tried separating egg yolks from the egg whites? It's like a balancing act. You got to do this like nine times. And then there's that one big glob that just won't separate eggs. The heads are laughing at you. They think it's a joke. Well, there's a tight job market and they don't have time to train people to separate these healthy

items. Ipso facto Jack, the egg McMuffin. It stays. Jack, the egg white McMuffin? It's gone. So McDonald's is. slaughtering these salads, but analysts expect that its profitability is going to rise, not like overtime, immediately. Because it's less cost, it's less time, and it requires less worker train. Get this, their profitability is expected to rise 14% in the next three months.

Healthy isn't healthy for profits at McDonald's. So Jack could not have said that better. So what is the takeaway for our buddies over McDee's? You can't be a people pleaser with products. All right, besties. get up close here. Interesting thing Jack and I should share with you. Jack is a people pleaser. We've talked about it a bunch. It's wonderful. I love that part about Jack. But for Jack, it's also, it's complicated, right? I thought it was a strength of mine. Yeah. But being a people pleaser can be a

weakness too. Jack, tell us a little more. Okay, for example, you go on like a vacation. All right. If you're a people pleaser, you might feel the pressure to visit everybody you know in that city or that place you're traveling to. But what about like your relaxation? Yeah, and those people may not want to see you. Yeah. What about your family's like joy? You don't just want to please your friends. What about you?

Yeah. Right? And those people may not want to leave their homes to see you. So Jack and I were looking at the situation. McDonald's is people pleasing too, but with products. Yeah, McDonald's wanted to please health conscious diners and make them feel welcome at McDonald's. But it's healthy items are less profitable for McDonald's and customers didn't even want them

in the first place. Salads are popular, but they're not popular. popular at McDonald's. So McDonald's, people pleasing, it was hurting its core business. And you have to take care of yourself. Self care isn't selfish. McDonald's, it's done being a people pleaser. And now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. So for the last three and a half years, Jack and I were running a startup within a startup, basically. We turned our company market snacks into Robin Hood Snacks, the news arm of Robin. And at Robin Hood, we co-hosted the Snacks Daily Pod that you got to know and love. At Robin Hood, we also got to high.

an awesome team of news people who run the Robin Hood Snacks newsletter. Wild fact here. The biggest newsletter in America, Robin Hood Snacks. A key detail, though, not many are aware of is the editorial independence. So Jack and I set it up so that we could independently cover the most interesting and most important news stories of the day. Robin Hood's commitment to free, digestible news snack style was an awesome differentiator. Yeah, if you're not investing in Robin Hood yet to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and choose a free stock.

That's robinood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member S-I-P-C. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, avocado, Sue McDonald's. Actually, the world's largest power utility company is shutting down all of its oil, its gas, and its coal plants.

Florida, power, and light. Wanted credit for it. So they trademarked a new term. Florida Power and Light. I love how utilities companies just like get right to what they do. They keep it simple. Well, they're owned by a corporation called Next Era Energy. And this is the biggest utility in the United States and in the whole world.

It's like if we named our podcast, two guys with microphones. Well, thanks to Florida Power and Light, when Tom Brady plugs in like his electromagnetic face mask thing, over in Tampa, he can thank Florida Power and Light that it works. Well, the reason Jack and I wanted to cover Florida Power and Light, Light is because they just made the boldest climate pledge by a power company that we've ever seen by far. They just pledged to eliminate all carbon completely by 2045. They're going full cap to plant on us, Jack. Right now, Florida Power and Light, they have oil plants, they have gas plants, they have coal plants. But in the next 20 years, they're going to literally, gradually retire and demolish them.

In the meantime, they're building insane amounts of solar and wind to replace all that oil gas and coal. And then they're going to pepper the state of Florida with big batteries just everywhere. So wherever you are, there's something to plug into with clean juice. The 5 p.m. shuffleboard court at the Boca Vista powered by the sun to win. Funny thing, besties, that Jack and I should mention about this Florida power and light situation. Florida is going to become the state that has 100% climate zero customers. Yeah, like you'd expect this in Oregon, but in this case, Floridians are going to have no choice. They're going to have to be super environmental because their power company is super environmental.

Yeah. So like Tom Brady's pretty big house, it's going to be fully carbon-free because the electricity from Florida power and light is completely carbon-free. Right. So now if Tom just electrifies his other things like his car, his lawnmower, he'll become the first carbon-free Super Bowl winner ever. And Jack, he definitely stopped eating meat. Oh, for sure. Yeah, after that stray hand sack at Super Bowl 42. He's carbon-free after this. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our potentially carbon neutral buddy Tom Brady and the entire state of Florida? Florida Power and Light. They want credit to this big decision. So they're trademarking this big decision. Yeties, Florida Power and Light. They know this announcement could just get tossed in with all the other climate pledges going on.

Add this company to the list of hundreds of others making climate pledges. But this is Boulder. It's unlike any of the other climate pledges because this doesn't rely on carbon offsets. That is key. ExxonMobil and the other oil companies, they're going to reduce their fossil fuels a little, but they're mostly going to rely on planting trees to offset their carbon. So Florida Power and Electric, they know this is so big, so they trademarked an entirely new term. It's not net zero. It's real zero. Real zero. They now own that term. Like, real zero means clean, period.

Florida Power and Light, they want credit for this bold move, so they're trademarking real zero carbon. Jack, they are owning the idea by literally owning the idea. Jack, can you please all of us and whip up the takeaways over there? Nice, nice what you did there. Three VCs have money they want to invest, so they just bought the dip of Nextdoor style. Nextdoor's differentiator. It isn't anonymous. It's accountable.

For our second story, McDonald's. They're cutting all the healthy items from their menu. It's done being a people pleaser. Our third and final story, Florida Power and Light is going real zero. They want credit, so they're trademarking it. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one's sent in by J.C. Karim in Laverne, California. Push and black.

Hello, tea boys and tea girls. This is J.C. Karim again. And my snacked fact of the day is the tongue is actually the strongest muscle in your body. To be honest, don't really have anything else to say about that. On a related note, the only body part to name itself. This is the best, best fact yet. I can't believe you're going to drop it. We got this one years ago.

This one's really good. The brain. JC. Fantastic. Best fact yet. Yeties, you look fantastic today. If you haven't yet, remember to tell your buddies, H.Y.H. D.B.O.R.

Have you had? The best one yet. Jack, we got Mary Lane. Good dinner tonight. We got to, let's do it. West Village. City biking downtown. Let's hit the city bikes.

We got to hit the bikes. Dibs on the e-bike. That's fair. Actually, I don't want the e-buck. Okay. I like a good schvitz. Such a people, please. And before we go, congrats to Yeti, Mandy Birch, celebrating 10 years at the same company.

Celebrating with a vacation to Croatia. Ooh, and Sally and Matt, happy third anniversary over in Chandler, Arizona. And congrats to Matt Lewis and Sarah Berry, who just got engaged while feeding giraffes at the Columbus Zoo. They just won life. Oh, and Shane Buckley, a happy birthday in Cork, Ireland. And happy birthday to Kane Waterbury in Charleston, South Carolina. And happy birthday to FinTech entrepreneur Akash Gupta. San Francisco, who we just ran into in San Francisco near our office.

Happy 24th birthday to Twins Davis and Brittany in Atlanta, Georgia. They're not roommates. They're roommates. And happy 33rd to Dave O'Connell in Closon, Michigan. Oh, and Jack, Aurora Kershner is turning one in Mastic Beach, Long Island. Happy first birthday. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Robin Hood and I own stock of next. Sarah. And now word about our exclusive sponsor, Robin Hood. Look, we're not tech guys. We're not engineers. Nick, I'm no product manager. You look great, but we're not technically. When our computer's not working, Jack and I turn it off and then we turn it back on again. But when we moved to California to join Robin Hood, we were in tech's mecca. So we were soaking up as much about the tech industry as we could. One thing we saw about the tech industry at Robin Hood was insane customer focus. Every product launched, every tweak made to the app was a laser-focused

move on customers. Robin Hood would be interviewing hundreds of users to figure out of one tweak of one button in the app would improve the experience. Inside of Robin Hood, we saw that everything the company did was focused on the best outcome for you, the customer. If you're not investing on Robinhood yet, to get started, go to robinode.com slash t-boy and choose a stock. That's robin hood.com T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member, SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or or this podcast. Great job.

Great job. Did you hear what you say, Geddies and I said fast. I was like, that is so good. You inspired the he and she. That was perfect. Yes.

As soon as you said it, dude, it was brilliant. Because that parallel, it's like parallel structure with an inversion. I freaking love a parallel. That was so good,

dude. That was so good.