The Best One Yet - 🏴‍☠️ “The Day the Internet Broke” — AWS’ outage. Canyon Ranch’s menopause resort. TiVo’s last day. +FBI’s art crime team

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Canyon Ranch is opening a $500M hotel in Austin, but for just 1 customer… Women.The internet broke yesterday because of Amazon Web Services… It’s too connected to fail. TiVo, the TV pioneer, just sold its last TiVo… It’s a case study in “moats vs islands.”Plus, the Louvre theft in Paris isn’t unique… Art crime has been hitting an all-time high.$AMZN $MAR $NFLXNEWSLETTER: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 Tuesday, Teap Boy, Tuesday, October 21st. 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. Okay. We almost couldn't record the pod today because internet. We're recording an hour late because of our first story. Oh, yeah, our first story. Why don't we hit our three stories? What do we got in today's pod? For our first story, if you couldn't log in, buy stock or ask Alexa anything. yesterday, that's because the internet was broken down. What's going on, Alexa? Amazon Web Services had an outage that broke one-third of the internet. So Jack and I want to talk about a solution. For our second story, Canyon Ranch, it's the luxury wellness brand that's opening a $500 million resort in Austin, Texas. But this half a billion dollar hotel is just for women, specifically over 30. And our third and final story is TiVo. Tebow basically invented the Pazs button for television, and they patented that DVR technology.

But now TiVo is dead, and it's a case study in when moats become islands. But Yeti's, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Oh, thank God we found some internet, Jack. I love the mix of stories. We got lucky. We got lucky. I didn't know there was a scarcity of internet until today. We're going to need more internet.

No internet, please. Yeties, art imitates life, but sometimes life imitates art, right? So you probably have heard about the wild robbery straight out of Oceans 11 that just happened at the Louvre. Thieves stole priceless jewelry from that famous museum in Paris over the weekend. Not possible or possible. They were in and out in seven minutes and left with a crown that held 3,000 diamonds. It was actually a D&M from the 18th century, Nick. It's like a fancy tiara, if you know, you know.

But yet he's the most visited museum in the world. This happened in broad daylight. We're talking the home of the Mona Lisa the Mona Lisa. and yet these guys pulled it off. But it turns out stealing art is a booming global industry. Jack and I jumped in T-boy style and it all begins in the year 2020. In 2020, we were all stuck at home. Except thieves who liked Pablo Picasso. They got outside. If you had a thing for impressionists, you got some sticky fingers. More robbers hit up museums, dug up historic sites, and rated old mansions than ever, starting in 2020. In fact, in the first year of the pandemic, illegal excavations

jumped 3x over in Africa. Kind of makes sense. It does. Finance has gone all digital, so it's hard for, like, low-tech fees to steal stuff. The vaults are empty. So bad guys pivoted from banks to Baroque period paintings. The FBI actually has an art crime division to stop these criminals

who didn't get into RISD and still are really part heard about it. It's like Law and Order SVU, but for Rembrandt and Botticelli's. So in the last 20 years, this FBI division has recovered 20,000 pieces of stolen artifacts worth over a billion And the New York Times did an interview with that FBI arts team last year. And Jack, how do they think things are going?

Business is booming. Not too shabby. Besties, experts are saying that France has just one week to find those stolen jewels or they'll be gone likely forever. So if your buddy got engaged last weekend, yeah, double check the stones. Hey, Kara, how many carrots you said that thing was? I'm sorry, 3,000 diamonds? I'm going to have to zoom in on that picture. Jack, let's sit on three stories. 15 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 an norm.

Jack Nick, that's it. 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. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

Our first story, websites, apps, e-mail. They all stopped working yesterday. It felt like a third of the internet called in sick. The reason was an outage from Amazon Web Services because some tech is too connected to fail. Oh, yet is you felt it. We felt it. Even your mom who was barely online felt it.

The internet broke yesterday. Not because something awesome happened. Yeah, good point, Jack. But because something extremely lame did. The technical term is DNS issues at AWS Amazon Web Services. Specifically, DNS issues at US East One, which is the availability region of Amazon's cloud computing that covers the Eastern Time Zone. Okay, first, trigger warning, if you hear DNS issues, it's going to give PTSD to anyone

who works in DevOps over at a tech company. There's a, what's it called, like a code red room? But you've got to get to ASAP right now. Oh, yeah, yeah, we got a code red to go right. So naturally, Amazon explained this huge issue using language that nobody could really understand. But what we could all understand is that one thing, third of the internet stopped working yesterday morning. Literally. How many things stopped working exactly, Jack? We'll provide a list that's just the very tip of the iceberg. Okay, get this, besties,

among the world's top 100,000 websites. Amazon Web Services powers 34% of them. So basically one-third of the world's internet had an error 553 message yesterday. Sit down, stand up, and unplug us again. Yeties, with Amazon Web Services not working, Amazon services were not Not working. Ring security cameras. Alexis voice assistant. Amazon.com. All nada.

Okay, but also popular apps, nothing to do with Amazon. We're not working. Roblox, Fortnite, Snapchat, Reddit, dualingo. None of them worked. Finance industry, you want to buy some stock on Robin Hood or trade some Bitcoin over on Coinbase?

Not working. Canva, DoorDash, Starbucks, Spotify, down, down, down, down. If you wanted to buy Bitcoin while ordering burritos listening to a Beyonce album, yesterday was the worst day ever for you. And you couldn't get a pumpkin spice latte. Even the decentralized blockchain was down for many yesterday. Good point, Jack, because you need the internet to see what's going on on the blockchain. And it wasn't just America either, was it, Jack?

The United Kingdom's government websites were down, and they're an ocean away from U.S. East One. Now, Bassi's Jack and I did our best to jump in T-boy style. We actually to put the podcast on pause because we couldn't send the files to our editor, who it was wild. Now, officially, the outage lasted for three hours and 25 minutes, starting at 3.11 a.m. Eastern time yesterday. But it lingered all day. We couldn't send these files. We could barely do the recording. It was way longer than that. Get this, even Gmail and Google.com had huge spikes in reports on downdetector.com. And how could that be, man? Like Google and Microsoft, they have their own cloud computing businesses, right? They don't use AWS, but the internet's invisible tubes are so tied up right now

that if one fails, the others fall to like a game of twister. Or is it a game of Jenga? Are you touching my leg? I think it's Connect 4 while playing Jenga on a twister board. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone who couldn't do anything online yesterday? Cloud computing isn't too big to fail. It's too connected to fail.

Now, Yettys, the Fed regulates our banks. Our states regulate our electric companies. But who regulates cloud computing? The three cloud computing giants act as critical, invisible infrastructure to the world's economy. Now, typically that kind of designation, a critical infrastructure, it comes with some heavy regulation. Because of their systemic importance, we regulate the hell out of banks. They must have redundancies and extra safety and security measures in place. And for the same reason, states regulate our electricity companies.

But our legislators haven't set up similar oversight for cloud computing. Now, Nick, is the market regulating itself? absence of regulation? Now, Jack, I'd say no, because this has happened to Amazon Web Services in 2020, 2021, 2023, and now 2025. But with only two competitors, none of the outages have affected AWS's huge market share. Besties, Amazon Web Services is the backbone of the internet. When it stops working, the internet calls in sick. Sick days are awesome. I mean, I love a sick day. It was actually kind of nice picking up a book yesterday. I'll see you in two days. But Nick, we're lucky this one only lasted a day or less for our economy's sake.

Yeties, it is time to regulate cloud computing. They're simply too connected to fail. For our second story, Canyon Ranch is opening a $500 million resort down in Austin, Texas, targeting one specific customer, women over 30. Because the biggest opportunity in hospitality is milestones. Uh, yaddies, Jack and I've been looking at the numbers, and alcohol consumption is at all-time lows. Massage prices are at all-time.

Haz. Wellness is the new nightlife. Nick, I went to a sound bath a couple months ago. I just sit on the floor with my legs up against the wall, listening to like vibrating noises for like an hour. Jack did that at 9 p.m. on a Saturday to sprinkle on more context. So it makes sense that Canyon Ranch has raised $300 million in venture capital money for its fourth wellness resort. Founded in 1979, Canyon Ranch is the OG when it comes to wellness retreats. Yeah, they got one in Lenox, Massachusetts, one in Tucson, Arizona, and one they had in Santa Cruz, California. Now, yet, for 20-somethings, a wellness retreat means going to Tulum for a yoga thing. Okay, but what does it mean for 30-somethings these days, Jack? Spending two grand a night at this all-inclusive extreme spa. I'm sorry, sir. Would you like your

Botox during after or before your deep tissue Swedish mud massage? I don't know, Nick, but the website shows a bunch of women doing shavasana on mattresses that are floating in a pool. Yeah, Molly got invited down there once. I tried to be her plus one. Didn't work, and there was an argument. So here's the news, Basties. Canyon Ranch is now building a $500 million resort just outside Austin, Texas, with the largest spa in the state. 40,000 square feet, or in Texas terms, one football field. That's the size of the spa. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the facial injections. Now, Basties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this half a billion dollar resort. Jack, why don't you tell them?

It's actually part hotel, part hospital. You see, Yeties, for the last 46 years, Canyon Ranch customers were two-thirds women. Yeah, like your typical girls trip looking to splurge like White Lotus Season 3, if you know, you know. So this new fourth resort in Texas, it's focused just on women. Yeah, they recognized who the power user actually is and they made something just for them. But it's not just for them to meditate. It's for them to medicate. It's for them to medicate. this time too. That's right, because when you go to this new Canyon Ranch resort, you would be getting blood work, bone density scans, and sleep screenings. The spa menu? Yeah. It's like something out of Grey's Anatomy. I mean, we're talking prescription-based therapies they're giving it. You've got to

bring your health insurance card over to the hot tub, man. The differentiator here is they're focused on specific women's health needs. It's kind of first of its kind. Fertility, postpartum, and menopause. That's the focus. And they're catering to a wealthy customer who's willing to to fly to a specific Canyon Ranch for their specific needs. That's right, because they've rebranded each location. Tucson is for longevity. The Lenox Mass location is for burnout, and the New Austin location, overall women's health. But what Canyon Ranch is showing us is the blurring of the line between the wellness

industry and medical treatments. Like trends have hopped back and forth between the two. Mental health evolved from antidepressant pills to meditation apps. But weight loss has evolved from gym memberships to OTHES. Zempic treatments. And now Canyon Ranch's challenge is to merge both of these industries into one single service. Can it coexist in one business? We don't know. Side note, by the way, Canyon Ranch is selling $3 million condos on the new property to help pay the upfront cost for the half a billion dollar resort. Which means there's probably going to be a golf course. And no, we don't have any coupon code.

So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Canyon Ranch? Milestone moments mean willingness to pay. Now, yeties, a reality that Jack and I know is two guys who are married, women just have more physical milestones than we do. In a 20-year period, a woman may go through fertility changes, pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause. What do we go through, Jack, in that period? The biggest change we see is some gray facial hair. Don't look. Maybe some dance floor injuries, too, because you're denying the fact that you're getting older. In fact, the world population of menopausal women is expected to jump 9% in the next five years. And finally, the market and capital is paying attention to that. Because Jack, people tend to pay a premium when approaching life's milestones,

right? And Canyon Ranch has found a way to target multiple milestone moments for women. Besties, you can only go through milestones once, but people will pay to go through them the right way. And you know what that means, Jack. It's a profit puppy. Dude, I know what's coming now when you say you know it's coming. You know it's coming. You can only use it once. And that was, that was the chiching button. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and And final story, it's TiVo. The pioneer of on-demand, television, and DVR has sold their very last TiVo. TiVo is a warning that if all you do is protect your technological moat, you'll end up alone on an island.

Yeah, it is, Jack and I should sprinkle on some technological historical context here, shouldn't we, Jack? As mid-range millennials, yeah, let's do that, Nick. Tevo, it became a verb around the same time like Googling did, right, man. Years before Uber, people were like, oh, don't worry, I TiVoed the Yankees, so we don't have to rush to get home. Then Mo, Schmenmo, it was all about the TiVo. TiVo, the original television recording innovation. Founded in 1997, IPOed in 1999, TiVo was a publicly traded company worth a billion dollars. How about we just have Matthew McConaughey prove the cultural impact of TiVo to our Yeti listeners out there?

Push and play. They hook up the TiVo yet? Good gosh. What? What? The TiVo. They hook it up? No.

The guy didn't come. What? TiVo is a business that is all but dead. Pretty much the only thing TiVo still does is defend their old patents. But yet is here's the patent in question. U.S. patent number 62333389. It was both TiVo's greatest accomplishment and its eventual undoing. Known as the Time Warp patent, this was the patent that let people pause, rewind, and record TV.

Up until this patent? Yeah. TV was just a fix. fixed schedule, you could not pause it. Well, we repeat to Gen Z Jenny out there. In the pre-streaming era, this was the first time you could pee on your own schedule. Yeah, you didn't have to time up your bodily functions with the commercials that occurred every nine minutes.

That was the innovation of TiVo. Great technology. But from 2004, until literally today, they've just been suing for patent infringement. Meanwhile, while TiVo is in court defending that one precious patent, streaming became a massive industry starting with Netflix. And Jack, you don't need a TiVo if you're enjoying strange for things on Netflix, do you, man? And that's when the cable TV using customer that TiVo relied on began cutting the cord. Tevo was so busy defending its patent in court, it missed the whole streaming revolution pivot. Tevo was in prime position to become like Roku. Yeah, Jack, they could

have been turning dumb TVs into internet-connected smart TVs. That was an option. But it didn't. Instead, Instead, it kept on selling these DVR recording boxes and defending their patent in court. And now TiVo is no mom. It's owned today by a patent troll who makes money only through lawsuits. Yeah, the mistake, well, Jack, at the end of the day, what was the mistake? All the resources that should have been going to research and development instead went to legal defense. Yeah, legal and no offense to lawyers out there. Jack and I are both the sons of lawyers, but they're not exactly growth hackers, are they, Jack?

They're not thinking about upside. Don't sue us for that one, by the way. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at TiVo? Defend your moat, but don't become an island. Yeties, U.S. patent number 62333889. Great technology. It provided convenience to customers and profits to TiVo. It was Tebow's precious.

And it made sense to defend that great patent in court. But you have to look beyond your technology to see what the rest of the market is doing. In the early 2000s, every traditional cable company was trying to cross that moat and steal TiVo's technology. But the disruptors, like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, they weren't interested in TiVo's moat whatsoever. It was irrelevant to streaming. So Basties added up and patents are a powerful advantage, but they can distract you from bigger market forces outside of your moat. Don't let your moat turn you into an island. Jack, it's T-Boy Tuesday. Could you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Side note, Nick and I had to switch.

from our normal recording software to a different one. Yeah. Because halfway through the story, the website crashed because of this AWS thing. AWS caused huge internet issues across the world yesterday. One third of the web was down. Cloud computing. It's not too big to fail. It's too connected to fail.

For our second story, Canyon Ranch is opening its fourth location in Texas. Its wellness meets medicine. And they're catering to women's milestone moments because milestones mean willingness to pay. And our third and final story, TiVo has sold their last TiVo. Its DVR patent was its greatest invention, but also its eventual undoing. Besties, defend your technology, yes, but don't let it distract you from the bigger things happening in the market. But besties, this pod's not over yet.

Here's what else you need to know today. First, Apple stock shockingly closed it in an all-time high yesterday. You know, we've been joking about how like every year the Apple iPhone event is like very marginal, right, Jack? We've also been joking about their non-existent AI strategy and their headsets that, yeah, I've only seen one in the wild. What headsets? But apparently the iPhone 17 is their best launch in years, according to early sales numbers. Full disclosure, I just got one. The iPhone 17, their sales are outpacing the 16 by 14% so far. Full, full disclosure, I'm recording this podcast on my end with an iPhone 17.

Apparently, this is a super upgrade cycle. And second, forget gold. The real metal everyone cares about these days are. rare earth metals. And yesterday, the United States signed a deal with Australia for a rare earth metals deal worth $8.5 billion. And now, Bessies, remember last week, we told you about how China has 90% of the rare earth metal market, and they are now restricting exports to the United States next month. We said we need Operation Warp Speed 2.0 to start mining and processing them here in the states, but Trump signed a deal with Australia in the meantime, which is a good short-term win. And finally, 10 days to Halloween. And we just feel.

found the most surprising business story yet. An engineer at Rivian has a wild side hustle. This is great. He engineers pumpkins to be gigantic. Yeah. Brandon Dawson designs electric trucks at Rivian on his day job, but he also grew a 2,300 pound pumpkin over the weekends. Which is record setting.

It is. It won the top prize at the World Championship pumpkin competition, which is right at Half Moon Bay. Apparently I missed it last weekend, Jack. I'm shocked. They didn't Instagram target. you with giant pumpkin tournament ads. I'm just not an agriculture guy.

Now, time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by Jack and me because we thought you gotta know this today. Right now, as we record this show, Game 7 of the American League Championship series is happening in baseball. Now, we don't have a winner yet, but here is a wild fact about the Seattle Mariners

who are playing in that game. Seattle is the only active Major League Baseball team to never make the World Series. We repeat every other of the 12th, 29 teams have made it to at least one World Series. The Yankees have made it to like a billion of them. Even the Rockies made it once. The Dodgers made it once. The Marlins have made it twice.

But Seattle has never gone to the World Series until maybe right now. Despite being the most caffeinated team in the league, they have just not made it all the way. Yeties, you'll look fantastic today. And if you have got the best fact yet, we want to get that fact,

maybe even your voicemail on this podcast. How do you do, Scroll down to the show notes and tap the link. We have a Google form. It's easy to fill out. Yeah, submit your facts. Submit your voice recording. We love getting those on the show. The only thing we don't want you to send us is stolen artwork.

We don't want any stolen artwork. I don't want to be a part of that laundering situation. We can't be involved. I love doing laundry, but not this laundry. Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti, sushi, Suda, Siri Sop in lovely Los Angeles, the meta product is a lot.

designer of the year. And happy 34th birthday to Devin in San Diego, California, crushing this busy season. And Chloe Gandalfi's turning 13 years old celebrating the big one in Covington, Louisiana. You shall pass, Chloe. You shall. And a shout out to my legendary professor from business school, Professor Judd Kessler, who just wrote a book, Lucky by Design. It's about the hidden markets that determine who gets what in everyday life. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a tea boy. Including Professor Judd Kessler, even though. though that was the hardest class in business school, Jack. It's called magic. What grade did you get? And it's a story for another time. This is Jack. I own stock in Netflix and Reddit. Nick and I both

stocked Apple, Robin Hood, Spotify, and we own some Bitcoin. Bitcoin named Ben.