The Best One Yet - 💄 “The Carrie Bradshaw Index” — Where to Live Solo. Amazon’s Prime Day retirement. Pizza by the Slice. +Jack’s Nvidia Poem.

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Amazon was sued for fake deals on Prime Day… it’s time to retire Prime Day.Where can Americans afford to live solo in 2025?... Introducing The Carrie Bradshaw Index.Restaurants are opening pizza shop side hustles… because pizza by the slice is a profit puppy.Plus, since it’s Q4, Jack wrote some publicly traded poetry… on Nvidia$DOM $SPY $AMZNNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Friday, the real Friday. October 10th, 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, you know what's tonight? You know what's tonight, Jack? What? It's the Datchelor party. Jack's the Datchelor Party. There we go. So, Yenys, Nick has a Datchelor party tradition, which is wonderful. It's right before the baby's born. The dad gets to go out with his buddies right before a new baby comes in the house and loads responsibility onto his plate. Oh, we're having a wild steak dinner at Cotonia until 10 p.m. Jack, and then I got to be right home. Now, to be clear, Nick had to delay his Datchelor party because he got sick right before

the baby got born, remember? But Jack, you know what they say? The Dajler Party must go on. So it's happening tonight. I'll give you the update on Monday. Can't wait, can't wait. But Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got on the pot? For our first story. Amazon Prime Day came and went this week. Did you even notice it? Because if you did, the deals you got were. hot air, according to a new class action lawsuit. Which is why Amazon needs to pull a Michael Jordan on Prime Day and retire this thing. It's time, guys, you're at the top of your game. For our second story, it's the best economic model in the restaurant industry right now. Pizza by the slice. Fancy

restaurants are opening pizza slice shops nationwide because there is dough in the dough. And a third and final story. There's a new financial metric we want to talk about. The Carrie Bradshaw index. What's the cost of living solo like the gals and sex in the city, well, Jack and I will break it down for you. City by city. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix to go into the weekend with, honestly, best mix we've ever done, Jack. Last week, we celebrated the start of the fiscal fourth quarter. And we did it T-Boy style by reciting a publicly traded poem. Yeah, I wrote an ode to Ford, and I was very proud of it. But I still owe my publicly traded poem, and I'm finally ready to reveal it. Yeah. It's called

Invidia, I'm not kidding you. You had me at the title, but go on. Invidia, I'm not kidding you. You power our economy's heart. Your GPUs or our IOUs, Jensen said it from the start. From video games to Hall of Fames, the rise came prompt by prompt. Your artificial is judicial. Those trillions, oh, they've chomped.

Analyst beats government sheets. Jim Kramer named his dog after you. Google, Microsoft. Altman Zuck, they would give their dog to you. So please, oh, please keep selling chips, because it powers our economy's heart. Your calculus is our stimulus. Now put it in the cart.

Jensen, oh, Jensen, your leather jacket slaps. If this is not a bubble, all you'll get from us is claps. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Bobby Frost over here with the Iantic And damn it are not too shabby, Jack. Besties, thank you for enjoying the publicly traded poetry. We'll whip up some more for Q1 of next year.

But in the meantime, Jack, what do you say? We hear three stories. Let's do it. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is a norm. 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. Can't wait no more, so just start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, Amazon Prime Day, it came and went this week. Did you even notice, Yetis? If you did notice, you saw fake deals, fakeflation, and a real lawsuit.

True story. That's why we think it's time to retire Amazon Prime Day. Like a young Michael Jordan. Well, a pre-Washington wizard's. A prime. Yeah. A prime, Michael Jordan. Now, besties.

It's Amazon Prime Day. Again, I'm sorry, Prime Day's plural. Or is it Amazon Prime Week? What are we going with on this one? What just happened this week was actually called Prime Big Deal Days. And it happened on October 7th and 8th this year. Also, Amazon already did a Prime Day back in July. Basically, Mercury's and Retrograde, Amazon's doing a Prime Day.

And in July, it was actually called Prime Day, but it was four days. It's all very confusing. And shocker, Amazon's probably going to announce record sales for this Prime Big Deals Day, but that's probably just driven by inflation, not by sales volumes. And don't forget, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, whatever Amazon does, they do too. They just zuck their prime days with their own version. But besties, if you did happen to buy a cute top or a thing you won't use on Amazon Prime Day, lured in by that 33% off deal, Jack and I, we got some rough news for you.

Because Prime Day is full of fake sales. Real thing. Or fakeflation, as we referred to it. back in July. And Amazon, you can't sue us for that because all of this is according to a new class action lawsuit filed last month in Washington State. Here's the issue. We mentioned in our July coverage of Prime Day that the higher price you see on Amazon that's crossed out, it was never the real price. It was a fake price. Let's jump in T-boy style. For example, the Dyson V-11 cordless vacuum advertised on Prime Day this year as 37% off a 600.

$130 original price. But Nick, the internet doesn't forget. No, it doesn't. The website Camel, Camel, Camel, tracks the price history of everything sold on Amazon, including that Dyson V-11 cordless vacuum. And I'm sorry, Jack, but that vacuum apparently has never been priced $630 until this September a month ago.

So here's what Dyson did. They jacked up the price, but only right before Prime Day, so that technically, on Prime Day, they did drop the price by 37%. It's a fake deal. In fact, the Washington Post found out that the deals on Prime Day can actually be the opposite of deals. The lower price that you see, it's actually higher than it's traditionally sold on regular days.

But Amazon and Dyson know that you only peruse for vacuums on Prime Day. So they actually increase the prices on Prime Day, but advertise the discount by using a fake reference point. Yeties, today the T-Boy podcast is a bagelian podcast is a bagelian. percent off the million dollar normal price that we charge you for a download. Add it all up besties and it appears prices on Amazon are getting manipulated more than picks of that Jack dude with a puppy and his mom on a dating app. It's fakeflation when the higher price on the price tag was never the actual price at all. So Jagga, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Amazon Prime? Amazon should retire Prime Day and quit while they're still on top.

Let's pause for a sec though, Jack. Why did Amazon invent Prime Day in the first place to drive signups of Amazon Prime. Mission accomplished. Capital One reported recently that in America, there are 180 million Prime users. That's nearly every American household. So it's done. Plus, Prime Day is not even differentiated anymore. Every big box store copies it and it's just a margin destroyer. Now look, yeties, it's not Amazon who deceived us with the fake discount on that vacuum. It was Dyson who did that. But it hurts Amazon's cred. And the existence of Prime Day is why Dyson did it in the first place.

So Amazon, quit while you're kind of ish on top. Yeah. It's time to kill Prime Day. Retire like Jordan when he turned 30, basically. Retire like Jordan after he made that incredible shot against the Utah Jazz. Put out a press release with the quadrillions of dollars saved and just say, mission accomplished off to retirement. For our second story, amid a struggling restaurant industry,

One format is shining profitably, and that format is premium pizza by the slice. Fancy award-winning chefs are launching pizza joints because of unit economics. Oh, yeah, it is. There is no food that economists love more than pizza. Not because of the taste, by way. It's actually just because of the numbers, right, Jack? Well, at every university, you can always find free pizza somewhere. That's fair point.

Some department has a talk, and there's free pizza you can go find. And on this pod, we have talked to you about pizza trends like delivery pizza, how it's tariff-proof. And frozen pizza, which is recession-proof. Also, we've covered the pizza paradox on this podcast as well. During the pandemic, pizza sales surge, post-pandemic, pizza pulled back. Jack, it's been a while since I've been in an economics 101 classroom, but I'm pretty sure economists love a pie chart or two. Which is shaped like a pizza. Besties, here's the news.

One famous chef just told the Wall Street Journal that the actual. economics of traditional restaurants simply don't work anymore. And that was the founder of the meatball shop in New York City, who said that. But here's what Jack and I find fascinating. The savior for the restaurant industry in this age of inflation is actually pizza. Slices of pizza. To be precise. You see, Eddie's, the new food trend in cities is famous restaurants opening pizza shops as a side hustle.

In New York, the Michelin Star Chef Wiley Dufrain is famous for $400, I'm sorry, am you reading this right? Foam-covered prefix meals. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Jack. Foam-covered. You pay extra to eat less at his restaurants. But his newest restaurant concept, Jack, is called Stretch Pizza. And what is that?

It's three different 10-foot-by-10-foot holes in the wall across the city that just sell pizza by the slice. Also, down the street in San Francisco, flour and water, a restaurant famous for serving $300 bottles of imported Italian wine. What's their newest restaurant concept, Jack? pizza chain that serves late-night slices with arcade games that you can play there. Jack, I did my birthday party there this year, and it was hilariously also like the cheapest birthday I've ever done. Fine dining chefs are launching slice shops like their little kits, like Kevin McAllister saying extra cheese, please. More cheese, please. But besties, Jack and I should point out the key here.

We ain't talking one dollar slices from St. Mark's pizza that you vomit up at 2 a.m. are we, man? We're talking premium slices of pie selling for five bucks a slice. Let's look at the menu at prime pizza over in Los Angeles. Their sausage kale pizza is made with fermented dough and a special super secret grandma sauce for five bucks a slice. At stretch pizza in New York, it's six bucks a slice for an everything bagel piece of pizza. So besties add it all up and believe it or not, those pizzas by the slice can be more profitable than the award-winning restaurant that they were born out of. Because of inflation and because of our takeaway. Yeah, there's dough in the dough.

So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the premium slice of pizza? Pizza by the slice is the rare consumer and business win-win. Now, yeah, here's the deal. The restaurant industry, it is super low margin. But premium pizza slice shops can be a profit puppy. Fewer workers, smaller kitchens, and just a handful of simple ingredients. Yep, it's lower costs. So from the supply side, a slice shop, yeah, they can produce a more profitable product than a restaurant can.

But on the demand side, people are preferring pizza by the slice, especially in this economy. I mean, Jack, let's look at lunch. Let's say you get two slices of that $5 premium pizza slice. Boom, the consumer gets a $10 lunch, which is less than like a sandwich or a salad at most places. Or what if the pizza place sells eight slices for $5 each? That's $40 for one pizza. That's more than you'd probably sell a full pizza compared to the slices. So the premium pizza, it's combining three economic forces.

First, the cost savings of a small pizza shop. Second, the value of a two-slice lunch or dinner. And third, the revenue of eight slices being bigger than the revenue of one pizza. Primo pizza by the slice. It's the rare consumer business win-win. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story before the weekend. We're looking at the newest financial measurement out there, and it's called the Carrie Bradshaw Index.

City by city, the Carrie Bradshaw, index tells you if your income is high enough to live solo and still live your best life. Now, Yeti's come on a journey with us. You're strolling down Bleaker Street in the West Village and one block past Magnolia Cupcakes. You're going to hang a right and you're going to see the coolest apartment we'd ever seen in the city. We only saw it on TV though. It was for Carrie Bradshaw's apartment from sex in the city. Someone else lives in that townhouse now, but everyone is still on the stoop, taking picks. And the Economist magazine agrees because they've turned that Sex and the City Character's apartment into an economic term. It's called the Carrie Bradshaw

Index. Now, Basties, Jack and I should point out as the economist subscribers, their magazine is famous for doing this kind of a thing, right? Like, they invented the Big Mac Index, too. The Big Mac Index, taught in every economics department, shows you the purchasing power across the world with the local currency pegged to a universal item, like a Big Mac. The Big Mac hamburger. So this Carrie Bradshaw Index, well, it measures the price of apartment. in top cities based on wages and rents in those cities. It compares the mean income in a city with the mean rent of a studio apartment in that city. Where Kerry first conquered Mr. Big, if I'm correct, which I'm actually not 100% certain on Jack. Let's get back to the Carrie Bradshaw

index from the economist. Please, Jack, what was the result in the Carrie Bradshaw Index? It looked at the top 100 U.S. metro areas, and 41 of them are considered unaffordable, up from 38 of them last year. Cancel my Jimmy Chew order. Yet he's Wichita, Kansas is the most affordable of America's top 100 metro areas. True, you only need to make $35,000 a year in order to afford a studio apartment there. The least affordable city is New York. Now, that was not shocking, but what is shocking is the amount of money you do need to make to live solo in New York City. You need an income of $151,000 a year to live in a studio apartment alone in New York. New York City. Now, full disclosure, besties, I have never lived alone in New York. Jack's never lived alone

in New York. We've done the whole bunk beds. I actually have never lived alone in my whole life. I've lived you for like half your life. I had four years of bunk bedding with Tuck, four years of bunk bedding with my brother Teddy after that. Then two years of bunk bedding with you and then more roommates through college and then roommates after college and then my girlfriend who became wife. But I think like half of it was with me, Jack. You see, having the roommates, it spreads out the fun. And, and it spreads out the cost. Yeah, finding roommates is a right of passage for young people in all the desirable cities. But in New York City, the median wage is $60,000. So you would need to make two and a half times more than that to afford living alone. Let me say that again. You need to make two and a half

times more than the median wage in New York to afford to live alone. Oh, and that doesn't even include the late night cosmos with Miranda over at Baltazar, Jack. And if you zoom out from New York City, 41 top cities in America have unaffordable rent on average, according to the Carrey Bradshaw Index. Which leads us to two conclusions. The first of which is that either rents have to fall or wages have to rise,

or second, the definition of what is affordable is outdated. Well put, Jack. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies living solo in the city? Pour out one for the single people because it's simply unaffordable to live alone, period. Now Yetty's on this show,

We've talked to you about dinks and dinkwads and dinkwadasses and the high cost of being a parent as well. But what about the single ladies and the single guys? This story shines a light on their economic plight, too. You see, the truth is that living single in the city requires way more than 30% of your income. The 30% number that financial advisors have used, it's simply outdated with today's painfully expensive real estate realities. A more realistic number today is 50% your income, which stinks. Which also reminds us that old adage and baseball jack, like, If you could pitch 95 miles per hour, that was fast. But now every team has like five random pitchers who can throw 98.

It's like statistical inflation. So, Basti, the 30% affordable housing ratio. It might make sense for couples with combined incomes. But it's the wrong percentage if we're talking about the realities for single people. Yet he's poor one out for the single people because it's simply unaffordable to live alone in the city, period. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the real Friday? Amazon Prime Day. I mean, prime days. I mean, prime big deals day. It was full of fake deals and fake fliction, according to a class action lawsuit. Amazon, you got to retire Prime Day. Quit while you're still on top. Retire like a young Michael Jordan. For our second story, high-end restaurants are opening pizza slice shops that are actually more profitable than the restaurants. Premium pizza by the slice. It is the rare consumer business win-win. And our third and final story.

It's the Carrie Bradshaw Index. It shows that for 41 cities in America, you cannot affordably live like a gal from the sex in the city. So borrow one out for the single people. It's simply unaffordable to live alone in American cities. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Friday just had its worst day on the stock market ever. Fast and furiously, the stock dropped 16% yesterday.

reason, electric Ferraris. The CEO announced that they expect to sell less than half as many as they expected before. Because apparently here's the problem. If you buy a Ferrari for the engine, what if you don't get the roar of the engine with the EV? Right? Like, that's the issue here, I think, right? I mean, I think it was a stretch to think that anyone would pay 300 grand for an electric Ferrari. Hey, Ferrari, we got an idea. Launch a $6,000 baby stroller instead. And second, lays potato chips. Just got a rebrand to embrace their real potato. Were you made with fake potatoes before? Yeah, yeah, it's one of those announcements where we would like to jump in T-Boy style and find out about the old potatoes, please.

It's one of those announcements that didn't clarify, confused. And finally, according to a new study, you are most likely to listen to podcasts at lunch. Edison Research surveyed Americans over the age of 13, and 29% of American podcast listening happened between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. their local time. Which is a higher percentage than who's who listen in the morning, which is, 24% of people. So odds are, you're listening to this pot at lunchtime, a $5 slice of fancy pizza. If you know, you know. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one is an audio fact sent in by legendary Yeti, David Pitluck. Nick and Jack, Dave Pitluck from Baltimore here to follow up your story about the last call for EVs. You guys said there's like just as many chargers as gas stations.

Sounds like a guest to me. Let's follow that up with The Best. fact yet. According to the California Energy Commission, last month, they announced that there are now 68% more charging connectors than gas pump nozzles in California. That's a little over 200,000 plugs in total, plus an estimated 800,000 installed in single family homes. 800,000. I mean, Jack, you could basically in San Francisco pull up to a blue bottle coffee and charge your car if you wanted to. There are sources of anxiety living in California. Range anxiety is not one of them. Yetis, you look fantastic all week. And if you want to know the best way to help T-boy,

it's to help grow the show and tell a buddy, H-Y-H-T-B-O-Y. It stands for Invidia. I'm not kidding you. The poem of the century. All right, Jack, I'm going to get showered up for this Datchel party. Do you think you get presents at a Datchel party? Do you receive presents?

No, I think the presents and fun from your buddies. Lame. Okay, well, I'm expecting presents. In the meantime, besties, you did look fantastic. Celebrate the wins. and Jack and I will see him on that. And before we go, a shout out to legendary Yeti's Josh Suey and Callie Mora in Millville, New Jersey,

who are listening to this tea boy on the way to the best wedding yet, their wedding. And happy birthday to Sidney Jones, who's turning 29 in Philadelphia, PA. And Cody Rose has got a birthday and just had a baby, lovely Elena born in fantastic Germany. And happy 10th birthday to a modul Ishmael, who's turning 10 in Katie, Texas,

with his cat Oreo. And to the puppy, Cristiano Nazradine, is a.k.a. the chicken in Savannah, Georgia, celebrating a birthday. Happy 26th birthday to Alyssa Reza in West Hills, California. And Caleb in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has got the best birthday yet. And happy 24th birthday to Kate Casey.

Just outside Boston. They're starting a new adventure, cross-country. And Jack, I'm hungry for Tamano Yamanaka's cooking. Traditional Japanese food, she's serving it at her first farmer's market in Dallas, Texas. Happy first anniversary to Dan and Nuvia Keppley in Dayton, Ohio. And Alexandra and Ronald Ruzales in New Jersey are celebrating their 10th anniversary and the best birthday yet. And Sidney Brown, congratulations for getting on the Kent State Homecoming Court.

And Michael and Caitlin Brown and Fredericksburg, Virginia have got their fifth and fantasticalist anniversary.