The Best One Yet - 🍪 “She’s Samoas Rich” — Girl Scout Cookie’s billion-dollar biz. Robinhood’s boring victory. Athens’ Airport IPO.

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Girl Scout Cookies are on pace for their first ever billion-dollar year — So we’re breaking down the economics of every box of Samoas.Robinhood just announced a profit and the stock has surged 60% since November — Because Venture Capitalists reward risk, but Wall Street rewards boring.And Greece found a clever way to capitalize on tourism: IPO the Athens International Airport — You can now own stock in a Greek airport.Plus, Tooth Fairy payouts just hit an all-time high (and she’s giving out gifts).$HOOD $HSYSubscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, February 20th. And today's pod is the best one yet. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Jack, my co-host, or should I call you, Mogul maniac Jack?

How is you skiing this weekend, man? How'd it go? It's actually my hometown hill. Memorial Park, $10 lift ticket. It was delightful. This ain't no epic pass. Jack, we were over in Sundance for the first time. Skiing in Utah.

It was beautiful in Utah. Still renting skis, Nick? I'm going to get him. I'm going to get him. Yeah, it is. You're looking fantastic to kick off the week. Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we guess? For our first story, the Girl Scout cookie business is happening right now, and they're about to pass a billion dollars in sales for the first time ever. Those Samoas, they are profit puppies.

For our second story, Robin Hood, the stock trading app jumped 16% last week on the stock market. Because Robin Hood's business got boring. Wall Street thinks boring is exciting. For our third and final story. We've talked a lot about airline stocks. Did you know about airport stocks? Because Athens, Greece just IPOed their international airport. So Jack and I flew to Athens.

No, we didn't fly to Athens. I wish we'd fly to Athens. But yeties, before we had that wonderful mix of stories. A fantastic mix of stories for the four-day work week. We've talked a lot about flations over the past couple of years. We told you about shrinkflation, funflation, Love flation. How about tooth fairy flation, Nick?

Tooth fairy flation, because the tooth fairy is splurging right now. According to good data, we're about to cite, the tooth fairy is dropping Benjamin's under pillows like she was a flying Oprah. Delta, the dental insurance company, turns out they survey thousands of parents every year to figure out the size of the tooth fairy's tooth prize. And get this, the average tooth fairy payment per tooth is a 5x in the last 20 years. Now, I was a kid, we never got more than a dollar per tooth. Jack, full disclosure, I got quarters.

I was getting George Washington's on this stuff. I wasn't getting full bills. Today, the average tooth in America gets $6 under the pillow the next morning. You could buy out your parents for that kind of money, Jack. And that price increase is four times the rate of inflation. That's not a tooth fairy president. That's a stimulus check. That's not a tooth fairy gift.

That's an endowment. Okay, but here's the wildest part. The tooth fairy isn't just getting more generous. He's also getting more creative. I think she's a she, but let's roll with the jack. I like what you're putting out. Get this. Kids aren't just getting cash under the pillow these days.

They're getting entire parties thrown for them. Turns out one out of five kids is now getting money and a gift with those canines. On Pinterest, searches for a tooth fairy party jumped 40% last year to reward little Johnny with a whole festival. Little Lucy's getting 50 bucks and a pony. And a pony? Two mowlers, two ponies. So you lose a tooth. You get money.

And a cake and 50 friends jumping on a bounce house in the driveway. Don't forget the pinata, Jack. You also get a pinata. So, Yeti's for T-Boy Tuesday, Nick and I want to know from you. How much should the tooth fairy leave you? What's the appropriate gift that the tooth fairy should be leaving? Comment on our Instagram post at T-Boy Pod. $6, that seems unreasonable.

We want to know the perfect tooth fairy gift. A ball pet. That we're talking. Hold on to your incisors, Jack. Let's hit our three stories. 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

I don't even think they need to practice 50% that's a fat tip T-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 For our first story We just got the numbers on the business

Of Girl Scout cookies The Girl Scout cookies for the first time ever are going to become a unicorn this year. All right, Jack, let's whip out the calendars here. September, you're drinking pumpkin spice. November, you're eating turkey. Go on. February, you are faced deep in a mountain of Samoas, baby.

You just upset the thin mince community, Nick. And it's a powerful community. Yetis, back away from the Biscop. It is Girl Scout cookie season. Girl Scout cookies officially went on sale earlier this month. Well, yeties, the Girl Scouts are not just a non-profit initiative building confidence, entrepreneurship, and skills. Which, it does all those things, though.

It turns out the Girl Scouts are also a billion dollar business. Get this. For the first time ever, Girl Scout cookie sales are expected to hit $1 billion this year. Hold on to your dosy no peanut butter patties, Jack. Girl Scout cookies are growing a unicorn horn. Jack, before we jump into these financials, can you sprinkle on some context for us, please? A billion dollars in annual sales is more than peppered. farm cookies. It's equal to chips-ahoy cookies and it's second only to Oreos.

Girl Scout cookies is the number two cookie in America. It's number two. Yetis, you do not mess with that green vest. Thin mint, thick profit margins. But Yetis, Jack and I should point out there is some drama when it comes to the Girl Scout cookies this year. For the first time in six years, the Girl Scouts are expected to increase their price for those cookies across America. And not just a small increase, Yetis. We were talking about a 40% price hike on those Samoas. Now the prices of cookies vary by region. They're decided by the local Girl Scout Council and the local bakery that actually cooks the cookies.

For example, in New York City, if you're walking down Lexington Avenue, you're going to see a box of cookies go from $5 to $7 from the Girl Scouts. In New Jersey, the price hike is from $5 to $6 this year. Now here's the interesting thing, besties. The box of the Girl Scout cookies shows the nutritional facts, but the New York Times just crunched the financial facts. Here it is. For each $6 box of Girl Scout cookies, $1.29 of that sale goes to the bakery that cooked it. Because the Girl Scouts, they're not like whipping up these thin mince over in their kitchens with their moms, right?

No, they outsource the cooking, including to Ferreiro, an Italian huge food company that also makes Nutella. So $1.29 goes to the bakery. But $3.73 of that $6 box goes to the shipping and to the restocking and to the credit card fees. And that leaves about $1.30.30 left over at the end as profit per box. Cha-ching, that's 22% profit margins for that box of Girl Scout cookies. Which is actually a smaller profit margin than Oreo. And Oreo doesn't have free sales force. That is why Troop 2988 down at Hendersonville, North Carolina, is trying to upsell you on the caramel delights. She's going to love them.

You should get two boxes. Now, Nick, there's 1.7 million Girl Scouts in America right now. So to hit a billion dollars of sales for the first time ever, each Girl Scout has to sell about $600 worth of sales. It helps that toasted coconut is my love language. How many boxes have you bought so far, Nick? Actually, about too many because they now accept Venmo. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the Girl Scouts?

Everyone who works works in sales. Yet he's even people not working, they're in sales too. If you think about it, life is full of sales moments in disguise. When you ask someone out on a date, when you ask someone for a favor, When you ask someone to hire you all of those, they're sales moments. Because you must persuade someone to do something. And that's what sales is all about. Business and life, they are full of moments where you must always be closing.

You must be selling. And that is why this Girl Scout cookie program is so powerful. It trains girls the crucial skill of sales. When you approach a Girl Scout, you are not getting out of there without them whipping up six different sales tactics on you, right, Jack? You should buy these cookies, first of all, because they're delicious. Second, because my Girl Scout troop needs the money. And third, because I want that bike. Oh, and fourth, if that didn't work, my dad is your boss.

Pay up. That's the skill of persuasion right there, Nick. Yet these sales skills being taught by the Girl Scouts with the Girl Scout cookies, that is more valuable than you realize. Because everyone who works works in sales. For our second story, Robin Hood Stock surged 16% last week after announcing a quarterly profit, not this shabby. Because the most exciting thing about Robin Hood right now is the most boring part of Robin Hood.

All right, Jack, you know how to start this story. Full disclosure. You got it, man. Nick and I worked at Robin Hood for three years in change because we sold our first company to Robin Hood. That company was market snacks. When Jack and I started a Robin Hood, it was just a 200-person startup. But when we left Robin Hood, it was a 2,000-person IPOed publicly traded company. It was actually 3,000 people at that time.

but I like your 200, 2000, so let's stick with that. And yeties, you may have heard this podcast years ago when it was called Snacks Daily, which at the time was part of Robin Hood. And then Robin Hood sponsored our show, but they don't anymore. And today, Robin Hood is no longer associated with us. But Jack and I know a lot about Robin Hood. We still know the key metrics that Robin Hood cares about, and we saw what Robin Hood stock did last week, so we decided to cover this story.

Here's the news. Robin Hood just enjoyed it second. ever quarterly profit. There we go. It caused the stock price to jump by 16% last week. In fact, Robin Hood's stock is up 60% since November. So we know what you're thinking, yeties. What is going on with Robin Hood? Is Robin Hood still the same GameStop meme coin Doge Hodel company that you saw during the GameStop craze? No, it's not, Nick. Robin Hood has changed. And Jack and I think Robin Hood's transformation can be explained by two specific numbers. Three years ago, the metric Robin Hood cared about most was monthly active users. How many people opened up the app each month?

And Jack, why was Robin Hood so focused on monthly active users? Because monthly active users is how Robin Hood made just about all their money. Three years ago, 80% of Robin Hood's revenues came from active users trading stocks on Robin Hood. The more active users pushing by and pushing sell, the more money Robinhood was making. But here was the surprise last week. The number of active users on Robin Hood has fallen by half in the last three years. During the peak meme stock era, over 20 million people were on Robin Hood every month. But last quarter, it was down to just 11 million people. Well, Jack and I have noticed that Robin Hood has a new hero stat, don't they, Jack? They're not as focused on monthly active users anymore.

Now they're focused on assets under custody. Assets under custody. That is actually the opposite of active traders. Assets under custody is how much money is sitting in all of the Robin Hood customers account combined. And this new hero metric about assets just hit an all-time high. The amount of money in Robin Hood accounts jumped 65% over the past year to over $100 billion. And yet he's just to repeat this, that's money that's not trading stocks. That's money that's just sitting there. And Robin Hood had 50% of its revenue last quarter earning interest on all that money that's just sitting there. Robin Hood's business has basically gone from meme stunk to savings account. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Robin Hood. Venture capital rewards risk. Wall Street rewards

boring. Like we said, Jack and I were at Robin Hood for three years when it went from startup through an IPO. We saw the transition from a private company funded by VCs to a public company funded by Wall Street investors. Back then, venture capitalists rewarded risk. They rewarded unprofitable growth at all costs because it was like a rocket chip. But today, Wall Street rewards boring. They're rewarding slow, but profitable growth like a bank. Gettys in general, private markets tend to want you to move fast. Public markets, they prefer stability. Actually, Jack, in general, private markets tend to want you to move fast, but public markets, they don't want you to break things. And Robin Hood Stock Rise highlights it. VCs reward moving fast. Wall Street

rewards not breaking things. For our third and final story, the country of Greece, just IPOed, get this, their airport. We're jumping in T-boy style to the Athens International Airport stock. Oh, Jack, chalk this up to a story I'd never thought we'd cover, but I'm so glad we're covering it. You know what I mean? Well, let me back up to when you and I had just graduated from college. Greece was in trouble. It was the epicenter of the European debt crisis.

It was sad. It was tough to watch. So in the past decade, Greece has made painful cuts. They've suffered financial austerity. And then people have suffered economically. Now, the Greek economy, it's made a whole bunch of progress, but it's still not quite there yet. Greece's national debt is still the third biggest in the world relative to the size of their economy. So yeah, it's interesting story, Jack and I noticed over the weekend.

The Greek government has just come up with a very interesting solution. They just raised money by selling off the Athens International Airport in an IPF. The Athens airport. You can now buy stock in this thing. It's not a $3 billion publicly traded company. Jack has a whole lot of Fedda, man. Party in Mekanos, then buy stock in the airport on the way home. Zeus approves of this move, Jack. Now, this is a unique moment of the show because we've covered airline stocks many times before,

but we've never covered an airport stock. This is what Jack and I found fascinating. It's a whole new industry for us to jump into T-Boy style and Jack. What did we learn about how the Athens airport makes money? According to Athens Airport's financial statements, they made $14 million in parking fees last year. $77 million in collecting rent from the restaurants in Terminal B. They're selling a whole lot of Suvlocki over a Terminal 34B, Yetis.

But interestingly, 72% of the airport's revenue comes from one place, the airlines. The airlines, yet these airport gates are actually some of the most scarce assets in the entire economy. JFK International Airport has 130 gates. That's it. Oh, L-A-X Airport. It's only got 150 gates. That's it. And if you want more gates, there's no room to add more gates. You want a new airport? You'll have to wait 20 years to build the new airport. This is all the tarmac.

It's all we got. The world's major cities have a scarce number of airport gates, and all the airlines have to fight for access to them. And since the Athens airport only is 56 gates. Those airlines, they got to pay a pretty penny to park at them. I couldn't think of a verb, Jack. No, they basically pay, like, a lease to have access to gate 43B for the next 10 years. And they pay more and more money as tourism grows and grows and grows.

So, Jack, can you whip up? some Spanacopa da for us and tell us the takeaway for our buddies over at the Athens International Airport. Greece just IPOed their travel industry. Get this, Yeties. The Athens airport is how 35% of the world's tourists enter Greece, and they only do it through those 56 gates. There's no other way to get to Greece. You're not going to take a boat from Baltimore to Athens, and you can't drive from San Francisco to Santorini. It's just that airport. Plus, a whopping one-fifth of Greek GDP is from those tourists spending money once they get into Greece. So the Parthenon is a beautiful architectural ruin, but the Athens airport is the country's key travel assets. So Greece is selling off its most

important tourism asset to raise money to pay down debt. By IPOing the Athens International Airport, Greece just IPO their travel industry. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us over there? America's 1.7 million Girl Scouts are expected to sell a billion dollars worth of Girl Scout cookies for the first time this year. They're learning the core skill of sales because everyone who works works in sales. For our second story, Robin Hood Stock jumped 16% last week after hitting a profit for the second time. D.C.'s want you to move fast. Wall Street wants you to not break things. For our third and final story, Greece just IPO the Athens International Airport to raise money and pay down debt.

Greece just IPOed the key asset of their entire travel industry. But yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Japan's economy unexpectedly shrank. They're in a recession. And now Japan has fallen to the fourth biggest economy from third. The biggest is America. The second biggest is China.

And the third biggest is now Germany after passing Japan. And second, Nvidia, the computer chip company who stock has tripled in the last year, by the way, just leapfrogged Amazon when it comes to valuation. They also leapfrogged alphabet last week. Invidia is now the third most valuable company in America. And finally, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre just launched a gin and juice brand. They are sipping on gin and juice. 30 years since that song came out, they're commercializing those lyrics.

Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Chris Hart from lovely Austin, Texas. Turns out, when astronauts are up in space, they age slower. Astronauts go up, but when they come back down, they're actually not as old as they would be if they'd stayed on Earth. Now, this isn't the plot of a Christopher-No one movie called Interstellar. Although it also is. It's actually simple physics.

Objects age slower, the less they're affected by gravity. The International Space Station is way further away from Earth's gravity than you are right now. So the secret to keeping skin wrinkle-free. It's not eye cream, which Nick and I have been trying out for a few years. Toss it in the wrinkle cream graveyard, Jack. Less gravity. Just turn the gravity down. How does Jack look so young?

He just climbs trees. He tries to get further from gravity all the time. That's your secret, right, Jack? That's my micro-rinkle strategy. Yeah, it is you're looking fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. And since it is T-Boy Tuesday, what do we want to know, Jack? If a kid loses his teeth and puts the tooth under the pillow, how much should the tooth fairy leaf them? Yeah, what should the tooth fairy leave?

Like a pony, a pinata. Or just a buck? That's what Nick and I got. Or is it like a tooth mitzvah? You know, do you bring a lot of people in and it becomes the whole thing? Wow, you're really amping up the rewards, Nick. I'm thinking way less. You're thinking way more.

Jack, if I'm not getting a cruise out of that incisor as an adult, then I don't know what's how. It's happening. Hit us up at T-Boy pod. Let us know how much the tooth fairy should be giving for each tooth. Happy T-Boy Tuesday, Jack and I will see you tomorrow. And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Carly Milotsky, who's celebrated in the Bay Area and she just had her 113th episode of her podcast, she leads. And happy birthday to Owen Muddows, who's celebrating with a trip to Columbia.

And Alex Crow is celebrating a birthday up north in California in lovely Eureka. Happy birthday to Cameron Radozovic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And Cassie Zahaney is celebrating a birthday over in St. Louis Blues. Happy birthday to Chris Sessney, who's celebrating with a five-mile walk with Mr. Pickles, Little Puppy. Brian Bland just got promoted in Saratoga, California. Celebrate that win. Drinks on Bryant. And happy anniversary to Zach O'Brien and Christy win.

Zach moved from San Diego to New York City to be with Christy. That is a win to celebrate. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Nick and I both own stock of Robin Hood.