The Best One Yet - 🍎 “Teacher’s pet AI” — Alpha’s 1st AI school. Ford’s assembly tree. Chanel’s 250-page magazine. + GCal dating.

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, Saviche Wednesday, August 13th. 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. Oh, Yeties. I am currently suffering from an illness that rhymes with Pringles.

Starting point is 00:00:20 I googled shingles for the first time this one. You don't want to. You do not want it. Nick, I really appreciate your coming to the mics. You've been hibernating all day, saving your energy, resting up. I mean, the show must go on, Jack. This show must go on. But right now, I've got a rash on my back that is bigger than Jeff Bezos's biceps.

Starting point is 00:00:38 It's like a successor to chicken pox, right? It kind of looks like the Verizon logo got exploded onto my sternum. It is not pretty, man. It is not pretty. Well, dude, you're a trooper, and I'm so glad to be here with it. I appreciate it, Jack. Thanks so much. I do feel as bad as owning Peloton stock.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Oh, wait, we still own Peloton stock. But, Jack, three stories for today's tea boy. What do we got on the pod? For our first story. first school with AI instead of teachers is already here. It's called Alpha School. So we wanted to find out what a school teaches kids if the teachers are chatbots. For our second story, Ford Motor Company is disrupting its most famous invention, the assembly line. Introducing the assembly tree. So we'll tell you why Ford needs to cut the price of their cars in half and how they're doing it with a tree.

Starting point is 00:01:26 And our third and final story is Chanel. Chanel just launched a physical magazine. and it's 250 pages. Related news, Chanel doesn't even have a TikTok. Because legends never meme. But yet it is, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, fantastic mix of stories, Jack. Prognosis? The best one yet. It's Wednesday. It's the middle of the week.

Starting point is 00:01:49 You're wondering what your calendar looks like through the weekend. Meeting, meeting, conference call, meeting, meeting, all on your Google calendar. But if you're on Gen Z, you put everything in your... Google Calendar. Dinner, movie, pregame party on the G-Cal. We mean everything, Nick. Shots, dance floor makeout, late night 2 a.m. pizza all on the G-Cal.

Starting point is 00:02:11 Wall Street Journal did some hard-hitting report. They found that Google Calendar has become the life map of everyone in college for all of their activities. We're talking color-coded blocks for 24 hours of each day for each thing. At Williams College, one guy sent a girl he liked

Starting point is 00:02:26 a G-Cal invite for hookup. And she responded, Yes, confirmed. Boom. Those 27 minutes were blocked on both of their calendars. Now, full disclosure, Jack and I also use G-Cal to run pretty much our entire lives. Yeah, every recording session, every lunch we have together, every dinner. And I got full visibility on Jack's everything.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Dude, I used to have the find-buy access to you, but at some point you cut that off. No, no, no, no, no. It was an Apple update. It was an Apple update. I get excited about, you know, sending the date-night invite to a restaurant to my wife. Like, that's fun. I think it's cool. But no, college kids have taken this to an extreme that we've never seen.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Yeah, they're not having spontaneous late-night burritos unless it's on the G-Cal. This is type A. Actually, it's type A plus. But, Jack, there is one risk to sending someone an invite to the pre-game power hour on a G-Cal. The risk isn't that they say no. No.

Starting point is 00:03:20 It's that they say maybe. And in that case, you need to share a Google Doc with that person to explain why it's even worth it. Yeah, give them it an access if they say yes. Let's just make it a Google Hangout. Jack, let's hit our three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm.

Starting point is 00:03:38 It's the best one yet, but the best is a norm. 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. Alpha School is the first school that uses AI instead of,

Starting point is 00:04:16 of teachers, and it's $40,000 a year just to enroll. Here's what the future of education might look like based on this for-profit private school. Now, yeah, it is, if you're a parent and you've created an AI avatar for yourself on a casual Saturday afternoon, then you've probably already enrolled your child in Alpha School. Alpha School. It is the first major K-12 private school that is proudly AI-first aggressively. Using AI isn't cheating at Alpha School. It's fully expected. Like if you're not getting your algebra lessons from a bot, you are getting an F. Well, it's in 2014, actually. It's unclear what Alpha School did before AI arrived. Not exactly clear,

Starting point is 00:04:57 but post-chat GPT, Alpha School is in growth mode right now. They have three schools so far in Austin, Texas, Brownsville, Texas, and Miami, Florida. We jumped in T-Boy style to the expansion map, and they got 13 more schools planned for this fall. New York City, Washington, D.C., L.A., San Francisco, Phoenix, Raleigh, Dallas. Now, interestingly, Alphersonally, Dallas. Now, interestingly, Alpha school boasts that their students score in the top 1 to 2% of the country. But there is a major selection bias here. Remember that $40,000 a year price tag? Cha-ching, cha-ching.

Starting point is 00:05:27 These are the children of wealthy techies, not a cross-section of America. Now, so far, they have a few hundred students enrolled, but the business model, it is scalable. It's scalable because there's no teachers. Best is, if this sounds less like a school, more like a venture capital-backed startup, that's because it is. Alpha School is part of the for-profit corporation called Legacy of Education,

Starting point is 00:05:50 and they're seizing the chance to disrupt education. So there are no human teachers in the building. The academics are all led by AI. Like, you're taught by Professor Art Iificial bot. Alpha school students spend just two to three hours a day learning about reading, writing, math, and traditional school subjects. But those reading, writing math, and traditional school subjects are part of a personalized education plan for your child from a bot.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Because everyone has their own bot, you're not teaching to the average student. Each teacher has their own AI instructor, which ensures each student is challenged appropriately. So like you're not being bored by lessons that are too basic, but you're also not being overwhelmed by lessons that are too advanced. It's kind of a Goldilocks situation. It's not one size fits all. It's custom sizing for every student. And for the staff, this AI school ends your busy work. There's no grading. There's no lesson plans. The AI does that. Although we notice there are humans in the building.

Starting point is 00:06:46 They're called guides, and they're there for the human part of the experience. Guides get paid over 100 grand to give students motivational and emotional support as they're working away their arithmetic on their iPads. Add it all up, and Alpha School says that with an AI instructor, they can teach in two to three hours what a regular school teaches in seven. And with the extra time, the kids learn stuff that schools have missed out on, like public speaking, financial literacy, teamwork, and outdoorsy stuff. We don't, we personally don't think teachers can be fully replaced by bots, but Alpha School does.

Starting point is 00:07:18 There's no way Mr. Kip is being replaced by Mr. Chatchip. You told me so much about Mr. Kip. What a guy, Jack. But Alpha School also teaches one big thing that AI can never do. We hope. So Jack, what's the takeaway and the lesson from our buddies over at Alpha School? The first AI school is teaching kids to specialize in one thing. Yeti's key highlight to the curriculum here, the biggest project of the year is called a masterpiece. Students at Alpha School work all year on a passion project that is due at the end of the year.

Starting point is 00:07:53 We see this as a signal that as in the age of AI, reading, writing, math, and science, they're not as critical as they were before. AI can do those things, but what AI cannot do is produce human passion. That's why one student at Alpha Schools built a bike park as their masterpiece. Another student built a special kind of unique dating app. We're talking like 13 year old kids building this stuff. One theme of the future of work is that with AI doing the grunt work, there's still a place for expertise. And that is why the first AI school is teaching kids to specialize in one thing.

Starting point is 00:08:32 For our second story, Ford just announced plans to build a family of $30,000 EVs, half the price of their other Ford cars. How? By disrupting their most famous invention, the assembly line. Yeties, let's set the scene for you back in 1913. One year after DiCaprio boarded the Titanic, Henry Ford invented a new way to build things. Instead of each man building one car, each man assembled one part. Yes, that was the assembly line, a moment of zen for logistics.

Starting point is 00:09:08 And a vastly more efficient way to produce things. The assembly line. It made possible the famous Model T car, a vehicle priced at less than half the typical car at the time. Well, we got an update. A hundred and twelve years later. Ford needs to cut the price of their cars in half again. So, our buddies over at Ford are disrupting the assembly line that they created. On Monday, Ford introduced the assembly tree. The tree, baby. Now, Jack, I got to sprinkle on some context here. You went to business school in Michigan, so in my eye,

Starting point is 00:09:40 you're the most smartest car person I've ever met. Can you tell us why does Ford have to cut the price of their car in half? B-Y-D, that's why. China has figured out how to make a car way cheaper than America can. The average new Ford sold today in America is 56 grand, man. Car inflation has been out of control since the pandemic. But interestingly, the opposite situation has been happening in China. The price of a new car falls there every year. You can now get a $10,000 car from like four or five different brands. And that is why Chinese cars have been eaten up market share in every country, chewing up chassis. And soon, they're coming to America. So Ford is disrupting their 100-year-old invention, the invention that changed the world. Instead, this new assembly tree will build a car on three lines instead of one, the front, the middle, and the back of the car.

Starting point is 00:10:34 It's a concession that electric cars are fundamentally different than gas-powered cars. Yeah, yeah. So they should be put together a different way. It's like a moment of reflection. I feel like this is a takeaway they got out of therapy, Jack. And what is the result when you make that change from an assembly line to an assembly tree? Ford hopes that they can make cars with 20% fewer parts, 25% fewer fasteners, and 40% fewer hours of human labor.

Starting point is 00:10:59 Save on time, save on parts, save on people. That is how you compete with a Chinese car company. Maybe, just maybe, build a profit puppy. Here's what the CEO of Ford said yesterday. It represents the most radical change on how we design and how we build vehicles at Ford since the Model T. And you know what, Jack? I think current Ford's great, great granddaddy would be pretty proud of that. Actually, as a Michigandah, I can tell you he was a tree guy.

Starting point is 00:11:23 Big tree guy. Huge tree guy. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Ford? When the going gets tough, the tough get investing. Now, yeties, eight years ago, Ford built factories across North America because of Trump's new NAFTA trade deal. Four years ago, Ford went all in on electric because Biden's big energy bill encouraged it. But today, Ford's now being punished for both of those. Trump's tariffs are going to cost it $2 million this year, and Biden's electric vehicle incentives have ended.

Starting point is 00:11:54 On top of the punishing policy whiplash, China competition is intense. So, with profits squeezed and cash. short, you'd be surprised that Ford is dropping five billion bones to disrupt their own assembly line. It's counterintuitive. It is. But spending is the only way Ford will survive this. Because if it doesn't invest, it'll slowly decline and Ford will be forgotten. Instead of that, here's what Ford's doing. When the going gets tough, the tough get investing. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, Chanel's newest product ain't clothing. It's a 250-page arts and culture magazine.

Starting point is 00:12:40 We'll tell you why this fashion legend doesn't do memes. They do magazines. Now, Yetis, Jack and I have told you about the luxury lull. Well, sales of Chanel's luxury products actually fell last year. For the first time since 2020, by the way, Jack. Founded in Paris by Coco Chanel, this luxury brand actually moved across the channel in 2018. They're now London-based. Not possible, Jack.

Starting point is 00:13:02 They're a $19 billion business that is five times as big as Burberry, four times as big as product, and twice as big as Gucci. And yes, they're still a private company 115 years later. You can spot a Chanel handbag because of its big double C logo. One of the C's is right, one of the Cs is backwards and they interlock. And they're both on a quilted leather bag. Basically, how else would you describe Chanel, Jack? The Audrey Hepburn of luxury.

Starting point is 00:13:26 Yeah, like if Gucci is your wild cousin throwing around neon stuff at Thanksgiving, Chanel is the chic grandmother who's just wearing Purals at the head of the table. How relatable. But the newest idea from Chanel is a product you cannot wear and you can barely hold. It's a huge magazine. 250 page arts and culture magazine. It's thick enough to be a coffee table book or honestly a weapon. Sit down, stand up, and lift with your legs if you want to read this thing.

Starting point is 00:13:54 And the concept here is clever. But first, let's say what this magazine is not. I like what you did there, Jack. You see, this is not a catalog. The pages are not filled with stuff you can buy or the latest Chanel collection. What it is is Vogue Magazine meets The Economist with the sprinkling of indie cinema. You see, the editorial in this thing is all indirectly related to Chanel. Basically, it's the kind of stuff Chanel wears would talk about when they're grabbing a double-digit latte out together.

Starting point is 00:14:19 It's full of cultural essays. There's a story on AI generated art here, another one on the business of sculpture there. And there's a whole lot of pearl porn too, right, Jack? Oh yeah, close-ups of pearl necklaces. But Chanel is treating the magazine like a collector's item because it's only available at 20 independent bookstores. Get this! They're making this huge investment for a 250-page magazine,

Starting point is 00:14:42 but you can't even buy it online. They won't mail to either, like Restoration Hardware does, even though I ask them stop. In fact, the first and only place you can buy this in America is at the Casa Magazine Tiny Bookshop in New York City. Now, part of this is zagging while others dig. It differentiates Chanel from Louis Vuitton. and Hermes. And part of it is the bigger comeback of the magazine in general.

Starting point is 00:15:03 Physical magazines and catalogs are resurging. They're having a comeback. But part of the reason is actually our takeaway, which is inspired by a rap song. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy is over at Chanel. Legends never meme. Yeties, Chanel's TikTok page only has one video. That's it. One post. We're talking the biggest social media platform here where people spend most of their time, Chanel isn't even there. On the other hand, Louis Vuitton, Valenciaaga, every other luxury brand is playing and posting on Instagram every day. What those guys are doing is inserting themselves into viral stories, but Chanel stays above it all. And we understand what Chanel's trying to do here. Yeah, here's the strategy. Social media

Starting point is 00:15:46 is dominated by short-term memes, not long-term brands and values. So Chanel is making a statement. They're saying we're about enduring culture, not passing trends. Or to pay. paraphrase a rap song, Legends Never Die, and Legends Never Me. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Saviche Wednesday? Alpha School teaches kids with AI, using human guides for the emotional and behavioral part. It's the first AI school teaching kids to specialize in one thing. For our second story, Ford is disrupting their most famous invention. They're going from assembly line to assembly tree to cut the price of their cars in half.

Starting point is 00:16:29 Because when the going gets tough, the tough get investing. And our third and final story, Chanel's 250-page physical magazine highlights the fact that they're off TikTok. Because legends never die. Legends never meme. And they never meme. Exactly, Jack. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First stocks rose on Tuesday on the inflation report.

Starting point is 00:16:54 You see, consumer prices actually rose 2.7% in July, compared to. to last year. That's less bad than expected. Tariffs continue to have a low impact on consumer prices. So let me add this up for a sec, Jack. We got a weak job market, mild inflation. Those could be ingredients for an interest rate cut. Stocks rallied Tuesday on hopes that the Fed will cut interest rates at their next September meeting. And second, perplexity, the AI startup just made its wildest offer of the year. They want to buy Google's Chrome browser from Google. Perplexity, thinks they can win the AI race if they own the browser that you already use the internet with. And you know what? Google is under pressure from the government right now thinking it's a monopoly,

Starting point is 00:17:38 so they may be forced to sell their Chrome browser. So perplexity is like, do it right now under your own terms. Don't wait till the courts make you sell it. We'll take it off your hands right now, a piece of cake. But what makes this so wild is that perplexity is worth $18 billion, according to their private market valuation. But they're offering $34.5 billion to buy Chrome from Google. They've got some deep-pocketed VC backers. And finally, Taylor Swift announced her brand new album on her boyfriend's podcast.

Starting point is 00:18:08 Taylor doesn't really do podcasts, but she made an exception for new heights, the one hosted by Kelsey Brothers. Trust us, we've DM'd her. She doesn't always respond. Now, she showed a picture of her new record that was blurred out during the video podcast. It's called The Life of a Showgirl,

Starting point is 00:18:25 the drop date is TBD, but definitely, definitely, definitely before October 13th. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by the massive rash across my back, also known as shingles. Rhyms with Pringles. So Nick and I did some research on shingles. It's basically the comeback tour of chicken pox.

Starting point is 00:18:45 Yeah, you see, shingles is actually caused by the same virus that gave you chickenpox as a kid. It's just been hiding under your skin on your nerves for decades waiting to make a return appearance. In fact, the reason you have the rash in a line is that it follows a nerve on only one side of your body. So what are the symptoms of shingles? How much time do you have? Like migraines, headaches, chills, I vomited four times and painful rash.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Dude, is it contagious? If you start touching my scabs, Jack, it's not going to look good for you. Okay, is there a vaccine. Okay, there is. I didn't get it, though, because it's mainly just given to older people who are the ones who tend to get shingles. And how long does it take to go away? Well, a couple weeks for a rash, but five days for your headaches, although there is an antiviral. I already jumped on that helps it all go away faster.

Starting point is 00:19:28 It helps ease the symptoms, I hope. Yeah. Well, dude, you're a champ. Thanks again for being my colleagues today. Always, always here for it, Jack. Now I'm going to go pop into some Pringles. That was me. Too soon, Jack.

Starting point is 00:19:42 Yeties, you look fantastic today. And if you've got a buddy with a painful skin disease, send them today's show. And if you're a marketer who works at Pringles, yes, you can be a sponsor on the show. This could be the whole kickoff moment. I think we just gave you brand affinity. You can drop down and give us five stars.

Starting point is 00:19:58 That's how you grow the show. And Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, a happy birthday to Legendary Yetty, Sebastian, Megan Sidor, turning 28 up in Rochester, New York, baby. Happy birthday to Dylan Steinfeld in Atlanta, Georgia, who submitted many of our best facts yet. Legendary Yetty. And Sabrina St. Peter, in Clarkson, Michigan.

Starting point is 00:20:21 She always has an app for something, including her birthday. Happy birthday to Andrew Mahler in Sussex, Wisconsin. And Mara Chabin just turned 30 years old over in the fun town of Nashville, Tennessee. And a big shout out to the guy on YouTube who commented that I need to straighten out this shelf right here. The one with the pink hat in the background? Well, you know what? Jack heard you. He did it.

Starting point is 00:20:43 And now that shelf is human eye level. I didn't put a level on it, but I'm pretty sure that bubble would stay right in between those lines. I think we're not to make a correction for the next pod, Jack. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a team. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. own stock of Ford.

The Best One Yet - 🍎 “Teacher’s pet AI” — Alpha’s 1st AI school. Ford’s assembly tree. Chanel’s 250-page magazine. + GCal dating.

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