The Best One Yet - 🕶️ “Smuggle, Inc.” — Mexican Drug Cartels’ biz. Crocs’ microdrama. AI’s Sci-Fi essay. +Self-Blowing Snowblower

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Why are Mexican Drug cartels so hard to stop?... Because they're run like the Fortune 500Crocs' comeback plan is microdramas... 4-minute sultry soap operas of clogsThe Substack Selloff... It's a Sci-Fi newsletter from the Future of AI. $CROX $DRUGMartin Suarez’s book about taking down a narco empire: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/inside-the-cartel-martin-suarezian-frisch?variant=42859015208994 Buy tickets to The IPO Tour (our In-Person Offering) TODAYAustin, TX (2/25): SOLD OUTArlington, VA (3/11): https://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/shows/341317 New York, NY (4/8): https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0000637AE43ED0C2Los Angeles, CA (6/3): SOLD OUTGet your TBOY Yeti Doll gift here: https://tboypod.com/shop/product/economic-support-yeti-doll  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, San Vecay Wednesday, February 25th. 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. You hear that sound? Is that the Bats?

Is that the Black Cod white moly taco I had last night? That was now my love language? It's somebody cracking into a Shiner Bach. It's McConaug. Because we just landed in Austin, baby. We got our live T-Boy show later tonight. The next three episodes of this show are going to be a little more boister. than usual. Yeah, they will, they will. First, because I'm in the room with Nick right now,

which is great. It's a beautiful thing. Tonight, Wednesday night, we're recording the show live. Thursday morning, that live show's coming to this podcast, and Friday morning we have a guest internet. And all of it slathered with barbecue sauce and Stets and hats, baby Jack. Three fantastic stories for today's tea boy. For our first story, Mexican drug cartels have been all over the news this week. So why are drug lords so hard to stop? Well, it's because they run their businesses like a Fortune 500 company. For our second story, the news. The news, product from Crocs isn't a shoe, it's a show. True. A Crox microdrama. Because there are toxic relationships and then there's toxic competition. And our third and final story is the substack

sell-off, a viral doomsday essay about AI destroying the economy. Besties, this wasn't fear-mongering. This is action-mongering. And that was actually a good thing. But yet, he's, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, what a mix of stories. Love the mix. It is bigger in Texas. Another, humongous blizzard hit the Northeast, the second one of the year. Jack Providence just got 30 inches of powder. Broadway and New York had to cancel their shows for a second night in row. Okay, even the news stopped, literally. The Boston Globe didn't print for the first time in their 153-year history.

Honestly, Ben Affleck, that's pathetic. Now, the only one still working the last two days in the Northeast was New York City food delivery bikers. Jack, heroes, they don't wear capes. They wear gloves built into the handlebars. But yet he's the biggest winner of the... The 2026 February blizzard. The only winner.

A self-driving snowblower. True story. It's a robo snowblower. It's a plow bot. It's a cyber cab for clear-in-snow-robo-snow-waymo. This new hardware is made by a company called Yarbo. It costs $5,000 and it's 230 pounds. I mean, this poppy can handle 12 inches of snow at a time, and then here's the key.

It recharges itself. So you turn it on. It blows the snow out of your driveway. And when the battery's low, it returns to its charging station in your garage. When it pops back out to finish the job a few hours later, while you're roasting marshmallows by the fire. So here's the deal. Yarbos having its viral moments right now.

Because one owner was sitting inside by the fire watching TV while the robot was eating up all the snow. Jack, could you whip out the whiteboard and do some snow math for us? I mean, it's expensive. Yeah. I pay to plow my driveway. Sorry, Dad. I know you think I'm soft. I've had to pay for 10 plows so far this year.

They're 50 bucks each. So that's $500 a year you'd save. It'd take 10 winters to pay for itself. So add it all up and it would take 10 winters for this robo snowblower to pay for itself. In other words, you don't do this because it's economically viable. You do this for the neighborhood flex. And yes, Yarbo has a robo lawnmower and robo leaf blower and robo air hater. But the fastest way to get your neighbors to hate you is to get a new $5,000 robo snowblower.

What's that going to sound like, Jack? When you're done, you want to come inside, I'll be sitting by the fire. I got six more waiting for you. Let's get a three stories. 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. I don't even think they need 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. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, it's the substack sell-off, a viral, essay written from the future reveals how AI has decimated the economy in a fully science fictiony way. Because sometimes it takes science fiction to change real life.

All right, Jack, if we're going to tell the story, we're going to go like literary review style, right? So let's summarize all the efforts people have made to try to scare us into action on artificial intelligence. Okay, let's start three years ago, 2023. An open letter from 33,000 scientists demanding a pause on AI because AI is like a nuclear bomb. Well, that didn't work. All right, so let's go back last year, 2025. Anthropic CEO said that half of all entry-level white-collar jobs will be soon wiped out. Okay, so neither of those scary alarm bells registered with policymakers.

How would you describe our government's AI policy, Jack? To have no AI policy. Exactly. To get out of the way of the tech company. Which leads to 2026. Our new approach, what is it? Scaring people into action by painting a picture of complete economic doom. Yeah.

Worthy of a Jerry Brown. Rockheimer Action Film. Oh boy, which leads to Wall Street's Citrini Research, The News of the Week. It was an article published on Sunday called The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis. Bessies, this is a fictional article written after AI has destroyed the stock market, the economy and society, two years from now. This viral article is all Wall Street is talking about, and it's all Wall Street is selling about, too. So Jack and I read all 4,040 words of this fiction that felt like nonfiction. It felt like Orson Wells' what's it called, Nick, War of the World?

Yeah, it's like, is this real? Because I'm peeing my pain. I thought this was the plot of Avengers Endgame, but applied to the economy. All right. So this blog post posted on Substack, it's written as if it's June 2028. Right. The S&P 500 at the time of the writing is down 38% and the unemployment rate has spiked to 10%. But in the article, the downfall actually begins in the moment we're living in today, early 2026.

The article describes ClaudeCode and Open AIs Codex making software that replaces software companies. Exactly. And that triggers a negative feedback loop of replacing jobs with AI, and there just is no bottom to this thing. It actually describes big chunks of our economy as just being friction that AI is going to eliminate. Humans talk and other humans. You're ordered to the barista. That's apparently a problem that's going to go away with AI baristas. So the 4,000-word essay shows AI agents doing all of our commerce.

in this economy. And the result is that one industry of white-collar workers after another is just decimated. Now, we should point out, this essay shows that some parts of AI are pretty good for the consumer. Yeah, in this article, everyone has their own AI agent who ruthlessly negotiates prices with the hotel on your behalf. An AI agent who cancels the subscriptions from your subscription that you never used. An AI agent that knows you so well, they book your own honeymoon for you and save you like $5,000 on that Cabo trip. GPT, thanks for the trip to Cabo. Much appreciated. In the article, DoorDash and Uber Eats are specifically referenced. They get disrupted by AI because somebody vibe-coded a food delivery clone. That's the same

as Uber Eats, but gives 95% of the revenue to the drivers. But then DoorDash and Uber Eats have to lay off all their workers and no one can afford food delivery anymore. A vibe-coded AI app replaces a 20,000 person tech company. And that's not all. A GPU cluster in North Dakota replaces as 10,000 kale-colored workers on Madison Avenue. And then to save their master's money, all the AI agents cut out the credit card companies completely by doing commerce through stable coins. In this AI future, Visa, MX, MasterCard, boom, they're all gone.

But these AI agents, Nick, they might be doing great work for their masters, but they don't drink coffee, they don't buy furniture, they don't go on vacations, they don't spend. Yeah, this sci-fi essay basically paints a picture where AI's doing all the work, humans have no income, and the ripple effects, they're more like waves. The current crisis in 2028 in the article is the mortgage market. Oh, yeah.

At the 2028 time frame they're talking about, like white-collar workers are tapping their 401Ks just to pay for the mortgages for their houses. It's that bad. It's a really scary article, and it finishes with Occupy Silicon Valley being a thing. Yeah, like workers blocking the entrance to Anthropic, open AI headquarters because nobody's happy about the situation.

It's a full-on national crisis caused by AI, and it feels like it's, actually happening when you read it. We said AI has a branding problem. This is that, but with Hollywood level special effects. We've known AI is going to hurt some software companies, but this shows AI hurting every company. I mean, you can't even order a burrito. Well, helping them by boosting their profits, hurting them by wiping out their workforce. Again, a delivery burrito-free world. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are wondering about this AI sci-fi essay? This isn't fear-mongering, it's action-mongering, and that's a good thing. Yet he's, there's a

one sentence from this essay that stuck with us. Here it is. Each company's individual response was rational. The collective result, though, was catastrophic. That is the textbook definition of a market failure in Econ 101. Classic. And what needs to happen is that the government needs to intervene. You see, Republicans, Democrats, and independents all overwhelmingly fear AI, but the White House fears that China is beating the United States in AI. Yes, it would be bad if China wins the AI race, but this essay shows it would also be very bad, or it could be at least, if we win but have no policy to control it. So the essay describes some solutions like a transition economy act where you tax AI to pay the workers who were displaced by it. It also shares a proposed shared AI

Prosperity Act, which treats AI like the Saudis treat oil, a source of our national income. So it ends with hope. You know, right now it is not 2028. It is 2026. All these bad things haven't happened. Yeah, the S&B 500's at an all-time high. It's not down 38%. So what should we do? First, agree on the problem, and then act while we're still in a position of strength. Bastie, sometimes it takes superhero Avengers-level fiction to cause real-world change, not fear-mongering. It's action-mongering. For our second story, a lot different than our first story, by the way. Crocs. Crocs has a new strategy to save their slow-in-shoe sales. It's a crox. Microdrama. Crocs, the Shoe Company, launched a mini soap opera. So we need to talk about toxic

competition. All right, Jack, I'm checking the App Store right now. Six of the top 200 apps, oh, they are spicy, but they got nothing to do with food. They're microdrama apps. Yep. Six of the top 200 in the app store. Basically, mini soap operas that makes days of our lives look like they deserve an Oscar. And an Emmy. We covered this innovative type of streaming network back in the fall, the microdrama moment. It's an app you down. That's free. They're mostly Chinese-owned, and microdramas are short-form vertical shows, but split up into 52 one-minute-long episodes. It's basically airport fantasy novel meets TikTok algorithm, and fortunately, Jack cut out four minutes of his day to watch one for us.

What was it called again? I had a baby with you. I had a baby with you. It's a classic, instant classic, I should point out. What's the plot again? Basically, will the heroine's husband's brother have twins with her mom's step-uncle on this spring break vacation? Right, but it turns out he's a trillionaire and she's a murder. And actually, they've both been sleeping with this same coworker.

The format? Yeah, it's predictable. Uh-huh. It's a replicable format. C-list actors, D-list scripts, but here's the key. Their A-level business model is making Hollywood jealous. Because to keep watching the micro-drama, you must make a micropayment. 99 cents to watch that final episode and find out who the father is.

Spoiler, it's not the mermaid. But there is big money as a result in the microdrama. You're not going to believe this. but revenues of microdramas, which are in six of the top 200 apps, rose 35% last year to $26 billion. Jack, could you sprinkle on some context for us, please? We humans are spending more money on microdramas than we spend on Spotify. Sit down, stand up, and wait, who's the father again?

This is a huge and booming media industry. But besties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating. The biggest development in this microdrama movement is that brands have now entered the chat. The adorable $5 billion shoe business has created their own racy microdrama. I feel like we need a record scratch sound effect right here. It's called Charmed to Meet You. Great name. A microdrama were clogs are the co-star.

Now, this Crox microdrama is based on the true story of a Crox employee. Lexi. She's single and she sees her neighbor's crock's shoes outside his door. But his crocs have no gibbets. So one at a time, she mysteriously begins planting her gibbets into his shoes until he finds out. dialogue ensues over the next five episodes, two minutes long, each on Real Shorts, the Chinese microdrama app. Well, why is Crocs doing this? Lately, their businesses had more holes than their shoes. That's right. Crocs' revenue shrank in 2025 for the first time in 10 years. Maybe two minutes

of sexual attention can revive sales growth. But Basties, Crocs is not the only one, are they, Jack? J.C. Penny launched a Spanish mini-microdrama with Telemundo. Dios meo. Proctor and Gamers. Campbell did a 55-episode rom-com microdrama starring their native deodorant. I don't even know how you do that script, Jack. And this is all part of a bigger trend that we saw after the success of the Barbie movie. Exactly, like we saw with Mattel. Brands are bringing Hollywood in-house. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies?

Are you trying to get, like, sultry and steamy right now? Over in the microdramas. There are toxic relationships, but there's also toxic competition. Yeties, you know about the toxic relationship. It's when you stay in the relationship, even though you know you shouldn't. Well, toxic competition is the same idea. Getting customers to stay with your product against their best interests. Like, do we really think microdramas are such good content?

They deserve more willingness to pay than Spotify does? I certainly don't. No, they should be smaller than Spotify. It looks like they're simply designed in a way that you just can't stop watching. Yeah. Racy content every episode. Teased but don't satisfy it and have cliffhangers every. every minute that you got to pay for. Now, just to explain this further, positive competition is what

you're used to. It's when one car company tries to make the best car possible. In that case, consumers win. Or one podcast trying to make a podcast better than the other podcast. That's positive competition. Toxic competition isn't focusing on making the best product. It's focused on making the most addictive product that maximizes your time spent a lot like TikTok and Instagram. Oh, like besties, no judgment here. Microdromas aren't bad, but they can credit their success on what we call the toxic competition. Like a toxic relationship, you stay in a microdrama for way longer than you want to. You know you are. You know you knew. And more than you know you should. Now, a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, the killing of a Mexican cartel leader has engulfed parts of

Mexico and violence. It also points the spotlight on the business of Narcos. Yes, it does. And we just read a book all about the subject. So here's our book report. Yeah. It's like the Fortune 500 of Narcos. But besties, to sprinkle on some context, just two weeks until spring break. But Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, is looking less like a party zone, more like a war zone. Americans are actually supposed to shelter in place right now. And the reason? Because Nemicio El Mensho Aseguera-Servantes was killed on Sunday in a Mexican military operation. This man was both America's most wanted and Mexico's, because he was the head of the Halisco

New Generation Cartel. Basically, U.S. intelligence helped Mexico with the attack. but gang members have staged six counterattack since killing at least 25 Mexican soldiers. That's the news. Now, how they tracked this guy down, they didn't follow money or drugs. They followed his lover. Yeah, that's the wild plotrist. They found this drug lord by tracking his girlfriend to a hideout house.

US had the intel. Mexico made the attack. But besties, what Jack and I find fascinating is that this news makes us think of something we've been waiting to discuss for a while now. We're students of business. Yes, we are. And we've been curious about the business of illicit drug cartels.

Basically, cocaine incorporated. So, over the holidays, I read a book written by a former FBI undercover agent named Martin Suarez. Jack has been telling me about this, like, behind the scenes before the show starts for a while. Okay, the book's called Inside the Cartel, how an undercover FBI agent smuggled cocaine, laundered cash, and dismantled a Colombian narco empire. Now, we should clarify, the Colombian cartel that this book is about is from the 80s and 90s, not exactly the same as Mexico's cartels of today. However, what this undercover agent revealed was wild and still relevant today, because basically, different countries, different era, but same business model. All right, the author is Martin Suarez. It's his memoir. He spent time in Puerto Rico and in Miami working undercover for the FBI. And he lived a double life for years, Martin, the loving father, husband, and son.

But he was also many, the opposite person, a man working for the Medellin cartel. He smuggled, sold, smirfed, and laundered. Now, those are the four verbs you got to keep in mind for running a drug business. And yes, I said smurf. We're going to get to that in a sec. So, Jack, could you please define each of these key terms? Well, everyone knows what smuggling is, but Manny, this is what he did one time. He brought a boat into the Caribbean Sea as an airplane dropped barrels of drugs into the water. And he had to go fetch all those barrels.

It was backbreaking work. That's how the drugs got into the country. But what is smurfing? Because I thought you made up that term. Well, after the drugs get sold and you have tons and tons of money, you need to divide the cash into piles just under $10,000 and deposit them to different banks. So none of those deposits get reported. Yeah, the smuggling doesn't go anywhere unless you get the smurfing down.

And all of it is very dangerous. Smuggling and selling drugs requires evading the Coast Guard. The FBI, the DEA. Sharks. You have to evade real physical sharks that swim. And smurfing, the other drug dealers know you have a lot of cash in the back of your trunk so they could attack you. But most dangerous of all is just being undercover in the first place.

Reading this book, you see undercover agents are the epitome of bravery. Yep. Martin's work led to 50 drug members getting busted by the FBI. But this led to Jackson, my key question here. Why is it so hard to crush the cartels? Well, they operate like corporations, efficient ones with lawyers. Fortune 500 ones. They are vertically integrated supply chains.

They have a franchise model of local gangs. They have diversified portfolios of drugs, gambling, and farming. And instead of lobbying, they just get in the pockets of some local politician. Yeah, they dish out free hamburgers. Even branding. Like, think about those drug gang tattoos you've seen. Brand equity. Exactly. The definition of it. But for this business podcast, we were most interested in laundering. We're not romanticizing it. We're just curious. How do you turn dirty money clean? How did the drug cartels do it for so long and get away with it? So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies named Marty Bird? The most important person in a drug cartel is the guy

who went to business school and wears a suit. Now, you had it is the reach of the U.S. government. It is wide. The government can stop and seize international wires to cartels any time. To prevent that, the Colombian cartel in this book got into the cigarette business. Yeah, wild true story. The proceeds of the drug sales would be used to buy legitimate cigarette sales from major tobacco companies. The tobacco company would send the cigarettes to Colombia to the cartel who would then sell them legitimately, and that's how they made money. So the business model here, the cartel sends illegal cocaine to the United States and eventually receives legal cigarettes in return to sell for cash. It's like a three-part business to evade law enforcement. It's like throwing

money in the laundry. It gets clean. Launderers devise the scheme to ensure that $3 million wires don't get noticed by the U.S. Treasury. They make what's already look clean. Drug cartels, whether in Mexico, Colombia, or New Mexico, breaking bad, they must have a front. And that front is the money laundering. It's critical to the drug business, and surprisingly, they often wear suits. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for some of It was the substack sell-off. A doomsday essay fictionalized how AI could decimate the economy. It wasn't fear-mongering, though. This was action-mongering. For our second story, Crox launched a micro-drama, highlighting Hollywood's newest media format. It's packaged for maximum engagement and time

spent just like TikTok. This is toxic competition. And our third and final story is Martin Suarez. His memoir revealed the business of drug cartels. The most important part, the laundering. The guy was wearing the suit. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, a final winner of the Milan Olympics, fashion, specifically Montclair. The puffy vest brand sounds French, but it's based in Milan. And they just announced sales rose again, and so did Montclair stock.

It's part of the broader ski-style search. Yeah, despite global warming, everyone's into winter wear, especially Tom Wandskant. Second, so much going on in AI. Here's the rundown. Oh, we got to get more. First, Zuckerberg announced a huge deal with AMD, sending AMD stock up about 11%. Yeah, Zuck's meta is using Nvidia's rival for AI chips,

signing a $100 billion deal and even buying AMD's stock. Also, Anthropic is under heat from the Department of Defense. Major beef with the Pentagon. Yeah, the defense secretary says Anthropic must drop all guardrails around how the Army can use AI.

Or else, they'll use GROC instead. And finally, the vintage tech trend that we told you about just hit a whole new level. Google searches for iPods are booming and they're coming from Gen Z. Did you realize the iPod was made until 2022? I had no idea until you told me that. I thought they were done like a decade before.

Yeah, apparently they've been around for a while. So the secondhand iPods are becoming a hot item. Check your parents' attic because you probably have an iPod that's probably worth a lot of money. And you can resell that thing on eBay for like a grand quickly. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by legendary Yeti, David Lees, who shot us an email. So we created some controversy by accident and Monday show when we talked about ice cream. Yeah, yeah.

We were dissing about rum raisin ice cream. have, we said they shouldn't go together, kind of like the ice cream business. David's a huge rum raisin fan. He's a Wegman's rum raisin fan, I should point out, Jack. And it turns out rum raisin isn't some arbitrary American abomination. Yeah, it's not like pineapple on pizza. Basically, rum raisin ice cream has its origins in Italian history. The first rum raisin combo was actually in Sicily. Where they soaked raisins in rum and then mixed that into vanilla gelata. Bellissimo. The first reference in the United States, it was in an Oklahoma newspaper. Rum raisin. A flamethrasein. A flogins. A flamethrasein. A Flavored ice cream entirely new.

In 1932. Oh, and according to recent Instacart data, the flavor rum raisin is way more popular than you realize. It's number one in Florida and Georgia when it comes to ice cream. Just always doing the Florida thing. Always doing the rum. Yeties, you're looking fantastic right now. Jack, you are glowing and we're not even in hair and makeup yet, man.

So, Yeties, if you didn't get tickets to tonight show because we did sell out, you could maybe meet us at the after party. That's right. We're doing our live show at the state theater in Austin. But the after party is right down the street. At Maggie Mays. We'll be there around 10 o'clock. We'll hang out until Nick gets too tired and has to go to bed.

So, besties, we will see you at the live show tonight. And the rest of you, we'll see you at the after party. And I get to tuck Nick into bed. Salfrey at the wins. Jack and I will see you live. And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti, Athena Morris from Alexandria, Virginia. She turned her mom into a bestie's well.

Happy birthday to not deed sued. The golfer, Bears, fan, and psychiatrist to the street. Stars in Grand Island, New England. Check that, Grand Island, Nebraska. Didn't know their islands in Nebraska, but I'll take a check. Maureen Steyer is a food scientist at Craft Hines who just engineered the year 26, her birthday, doing Chicago. Happy 11th birthday to William Slade in Geneva, Illinois. And Hudson Harris, get some lobster for your ninth birthday up in Kennebunk.

And happy birthday to Derek Burrowski in Denver, Colorado. And Jenny Cordell over in Austin is coming to our live show tonight and celebrating the best. birthday yet. And finally, a big shout out to Ross Alexander and the curlatches for the epic Austin recommendation. Thank you guys. Went to Swarte last night. Fantastic. This is Jack. I own stock of Crocs. Nick and I both own stock of Spotify and Apple as well as ETFs of the S&P 500.