The Best One Yet - 🤓“The Next iPhone” — Zuck’s Orion AR glasses. Northeastern University’s M&A. Terminix’s pest pop.

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg just unveiled a $299 headset, new Ray Ban AI glasses… and a prototype of “Orion” holographic glasses.The biggest pest removal company on earth has a problem… Rentokil has too many roaches.The US News & World Report College Rankings just came out… we noticed Northeastern University now has 14 campuses.Plus, the newest Erewhon smoothie isn’t a celebrity beverage… It's an electric car flavor.$META $RTO $GM—-----------------------------------------------------GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday. September 26th, then today's pod is the best one. Yeah, this is T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Jack, grab your flannel and some slamming salmon. Because our Seattle live hotline show is tonight.

That's right. Tonight, we're interviewing Tori Dunlap, the financial feminist about money and personal finance. Yet he's that episode. It's going to drop next week on your feed for everyone to hear. We're sold out. Yeah, we are. But if you can't make it, you can still join us for the after party.

Jack, we're going to, where are we going again for the after party? We're going to Good Bar. Good Bar! Good Bar! We'll probably get there around 830. And after that, we'll hit a Pike Place to toss fish to a player. In the meantime, Yetis, we got a fantastic show for you right now, Jack. Three Stories for the Pod. For our first story, Meta just unveiled their wildest product yet.

They're called Orion and their smart glasses of the future. Jack and I think that Meta's newest creation is version one. of the next iPhone. For our second story, the biggest pest removal company on Earth is Rento Kill, but they've got their own problem to exterminate. Rento Kill's problem is merging roaches with rodents. And our third and final story. The U.S. News and World Report College rankings just came out.

And one university is rising because it's acting like a corporation. This story is about Northeastern University. Yes, it is. The most capitalist college in the country. Wait to hear this. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. I mean, what a mix of stories. No one is doing that mix of stories.

We got rats. We got colleges and we got met. That is insane. Zuck, Zuck, Zuck. Yadis, you're not in L.A. Unless the beverage you're drinking is cold pressed. Juice cleanses were a fad, but the juice lifestyle, it lives on. It lives on in Southern California.

In lovely Los Angeles. But what about a juice inspired by an electric car? Because Aeroon, the wellness-themed luxury grocery store, in L.A. is partnering with Chevrolet. That's right. This Saturday, you can drink electric juice. The official drink of the Chevy Equinox electric car. And we repeat, the fanciest grocery store in America is making a Chevrolet themed smoothie. Can I sprinkle on some context? Jack, I would love you to pour some context into a blender and whip it up for us. Airwad, the L.A. grocery store, they're famous for creating celebrity drinks. Yeah, when we were in L.A. last time, we tried their Haley-Bieber

glazed-skin strawberry smoothie for like $23. Next up is the Kendall Jenner Peaches and Cream $18 smoothie. But this Chevrolet smoothie, it's different. Does it taste like lithium? I think it smells like chassis. It is designed to energize and recharge, according to Chevy. A couple dollops of dashboards. And a scoop of carbonator.

I mean, Jack, when your bottle's almost empty, is that range anxiety? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I might need a refill on my car smoothie. Honestly, we think Erwan should make an Amtrak smoothie next. Oh, if they make an Amtrak smoothie, what do you toss in a nap? I think. Charcoal.

Oh, Amtrak runs on charcoal. Although I think charcoal's already in the Kendall Jenner smoothie. It should point that out. Hey, Los Angeles, it'll look fantastic. Jack, let's hear 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.

It's 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. At Meta's annual product event,

Zuck just unveiled a surprise feat of engineering, technology, and design called Orion. Orion is the power of the Apple Vision Pro, but it fits in a pair of glasses. And we will tell you all about it. But yet he's... Funny thing, Jack and I noticed, at Meadow's annual big product day, it felt more like a fashion week about Zuck's wardrobe, didn't it, man? Yeah. Because Zuck showed up to MetaConnect wearing his best oversized t-shirt.

He didn't say Zuck on it? He kind of looks like he's dressing like the fourth member of RunDMC. Well, in his giant oversized triple XL black t-shirt, Zuck told journalists what meta his company has been working on. First, you unveiled an updated VR Quest headset. Zuck cut the price of their virtual reality headset by $200 from the last one, so it's only a $300 headset. And Zuck is proud of that low price point.

He made smirking digs at Apple the whole presentation because the Apple Vision Pro is 10 times more expensive than the latest Quest headset. This Quest headset, it's a headset. It's got goggles covering your eyes, hand controls for hand motions, and it lets you work in virtual reality. But the bulk of the presentation wasn't about goggles.

It was about glasses. First, the latest version of Meta's Rayban AI sunglasses. The meta-rayban sunglasses, which are more popular than you realize, and the newest ones have one specific use case. The vacation use case. That's the use case that we think is the most compelling about the meta-rayband glasses.

We covered these glasses last month. They're rayband wayfares with an outward-facing camera, so you can have a phone call with somebody, and they'll see everything you're seeing if you're like traveling on vacation. And there's a speaker on the arms that let you listen to podcasts and take phone calls simply while wearing classic-looking ray-band glasses.

And if you see something cool, just want to take a pick, hands free, you can tell the glasses to take a picture. With glasses that just look like Rayban glasses. But here's what's new to these glasses after yesterday's event, AI translation. So Jack, let's say you and I are back hanging out on vacation in Italy, and you hear an Italian waiter starting speaking to you and they're like, hey, que voy for maniore per se no te de chena, and you're like, whoa, what's going on? Yeah, and I don't speak Italian. But these glasses do speak Italian. And they'll translate to English in real time so I can hear it in my ears.

So like if Jack says, I want a margarita pizza to share, the glasses will say to the waiter, Vorei a pizza margarita per de Vider. It's got a speaker that both I can hear as the English speaker and the waiter can hear as an Italian speaker. And they'll translate in between. So these are Rayban Wayfair glasses with an AI assistant built into them. And it can do other things for you on vacation. Like let's say you're parking at the airport. And then when you get back two weeks later, no idea where I parked.

You can ask your glasses, where did I park? And they'll remember and guide you to your parking seat because they saw it with the cameras. So Zuck's new Rayban glasses are powerful, but maybe the coolest use case is when you're on vacation. Our early prediction, the meta-rayband sunglasses are the hit tech gadget gift of this Christmas. But Jack, what do we think will be the hot tech Christmas gift in 2030? The next big thing that Zuck announced yesterday. Because he had another surprise. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Meta?

Zuck just unveiled the first version of the next iPhone, but their glasses. Yeti's Zuck truly had a one more thing moment in yesterday's presentation. He unveiled a prototype for something called Orion. This was a complete surprise. Those Meta Rayburn glasses, they're just a precursor to Orion. And Orion are glasses that are the best of both worlds. They're like a headset, but they're glasses. There's no wires coming out of it.

There's no big battery and there's no heaviness. Meta managed to miniaturize the Apple Vision Pro into normal looking glasses. Yeah, Zuck calls them holographic glasses. The lenses are clear, like regular glasses, but there are holograms that can be overlaid on the lens you look through. Now, we should tell you, this is not for sale. It won't be for sale for a while. True. But Zuck made it, and he called it a glimpse into the future.

He also called it the next great computing device because it's basically a fully functional iPhone embedded into attractive looking eyeglasses. You can do everything you want on an iPhone, hands free because the screen is your lenses, but you can also see the whole world. Frankly, the way Jack and I see it, these glasses, they pass the ugly test

and they still got technology built in. So Meta Stock hid an all-time high Wednesday on this total surprise product they're working on. Because Orion could be version one of the next iPhone. But glasses. For our second story, Rent-A-Kill is the biggest brand in pest rodent control. Literally, they created the pest extermination category. But one Wall Streeter, who's probably never swatted a fly himself, is trying to take over the

company. Yet it is a funny thing. You know, Jack and I study a lot of history and finance, and we can pinpoint the exact date when the pest control industry began. 1906. 1906. That's when rat poison was. was vented.

Yeah, and an entire industry was born, exterminators. Prior to that, you'd, like, run at the rats, hold a broom up in the air. Ah, I'd try to scare him away. Hey, Mickey, like, oh, my cheese. But yet he's renticill was founded a few years later by an entomologist. A man who studied bugs for a living. And in 1946, Rentickil got the greatest client in pest killing history. We found this on the company website.

Renticill got a contract to read the entire island of Iceland of rats. That's when the revenues picked up. And in 1966, they got a contract to keep pests out of Buckingham Palace. I'm not talking about Boris Johnson. Those mice really go after those corgis from what I hear, Jack. And in 2006, Rent-A-Kill invented what they call the world's most effective mousetrap. It's a publicly traded company. Based in the UK, worth $13 billion.

That's right. This pest-killing company is worth three lifts. Full disclosure, when the bat was in the house, I called Rent-A-kill because it said it was 24-7. They weren't available for two days. 24-7 my butt. I had to just grab the broom. There are just a lot of bats out there, apparently. But yet, here's what Jack and I have found fascinating about this story. The biggest move in Rentikil's 100-year rat-crushing history was acquiring Terminix.

Terminix. That's basically the U.S. version of Rent-A-Kill. But they're less focused on rats, more focused on termites. Yeah, we jumped into their earnings. These are basically complementary pest problems we've got here. And Rent-A-Kill spent $7 billion to acquire Terminix. three years ago. And it's not going well. It's not working because Rent-A-Kill stock price rose by 10x in the 10 years leading up to that acquisition. But in the three years since the acquisition, the stock has been cut in half. Which leads to the news. This week, a Wall Street activist investor named Nelson Peltz bought stock in Rent-A-Kill so that he could demand changes from the company.

Does Nelson Peltz understand termites, we think? Like I mentioned, he's probably never swatted a fly. But there is one thing that Nelson pelt's the financier does understand. M&As and integration. So Jack, what's the, oh my God, what is that? Jack, right on your leg. Is that a rat? Oh, no, it's a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Rent-A-Kill?

The mothership can't be too far from its children. Yeties, certain industries are highly conducive to mergers and acquisitions, like the manufacturing and tech industries. When Facebook acquired Instagram, they told the Instagram employees. to come over to Facebook headquarters. It was pretty easy. Yeah, when Volkswagen acquired Porsche, the VW execs just, like,

visited five factories and an office, and it was that easy. That's all they had to integrate. But when Rent-Ill acquired Terminix, they acquired 12,000 employees spread across 47 U.S. states. Because Besties, pest control is a locally fragmented industry.

You must be physically near the pests, so there are a lot of local pest control options. There's 380 Terminix local offices. Yeah. They're full of different styles of mouse traps and a whole bunch of bat-snatching experts. And that's the problem. Rent-to-kill simply has not integrated them. Three years later, they're still functioning like two different companies, Rent-to-Kill and Terminix. Rent-to-kill executives live eight time zones away from Terminix employees. That's big reason why the stock is halved.

Because when a company has hundreds or thousands of children, the mothership just can't be too far away. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, the most exciting college in America right now, it's Northeastern University. Northeastern's plan to beat the Ivy League is acting like a corporation. Oh, Yeties, you know what it is right now. It's the most competitive day of the year. The U.S. News World Report College rankings.

You're texting your buddies you went to school with and wondering, if one of us hadn't attended, would we be higher in the rankings right now? Look at those losers over at Vandy. Prince is number one. MIT's number two. Harvard's probably number three because they're always in the top three. Williams is number one liberal arts college. But there were a lot of upsets this year.

I got to text my father-in-law that Brown beat Dartmouth, which is always a good feeling every year. Every year. But one school stood out the most. It was number 54 in the university rankings. Northeastern University. Northeastern University. Because Northeastern is the most capitalist school in the country.

It is run like a quarter. and it is hot right now. Established in 1898 in Boston, Massachusetts. Just outside Boston. I actually went to an OAR concert at their hockey arena once. The Huskies. The fight in Huskies, Jack. Well, a century later, Northeastern is having a moment.

Because a few years ago, Northeastern made one strategic pivot that no other school was willing to do. Act like a multinational corporation with an aggressive merger and acquisition strategy. Basically, they went less McGill, more McDonald's. Less Pomona, more Pepsi. Could you please grab a diploma and sprinkle on a little context for us about what's going on at

Northeastern? The backdrop in higher ed is that higher ed is suffering, especially colleges in the middle, they're getting squeezed financially. In the year Jack and I graduated college, 2011, that was peak enrollment in the United States for colleges and universities. In the decade since then, there are a million fewer students attending college in America. That's a 7% decline. In fact, last year, 161 mid-sized colleges closed. And that is a trend that's expected to continue as enrollment declines. But Northeastern decided to acquire some of those struggling schools instead of having them closed down. That's right. Last year, Northeastern acquired Mills College in California, adding a West Coast

campus to offer their students. Based in Oakland, it's actually older than Northeastern is. Mills College also included artwork from Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera worth $27 million. Yeah, that Northeastern got to add to their balance sheet. This year, Northeastern acquired Merrimount College in New York City. They've renamed it Northeastern University of New York. Which included some valuable Manhattan real estate on the Upper East Side facing Central Park, also to add to their balance sheet. Get this. To finance more mergers and acquisitions of other colleges in the future,

Northeastern just issued $200 million in bonds. They're very much acting like a corporation. Undergrads can now choose to study across four different campuses that Northeastern owns. And graduate students, they can choose from 10 more campuses that Northeastern owns. And because they expanded the campuses globally, they've allowed higher enrollment of international students, who are the profit puppies of the academic industry. International students overwhelmingly pay the full tuition sticker price. So Northeastern's making more money more profitably off of the international students. And they can use some of that foreign money to subsidize financial aid for

domestic students. Northeastern, they're defying the college slowdown. by acting like a corporation with mergers and acquisitions and international expansion. Go husky. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies? Over at Northeastern. When the Tam changes, you must change too. Tam. Total addressable market.

The total addressable market for students used to be 15 million U.S. college students. Now it's 14 million in shrinking. If Northeastern didn't change, they'd face the same financial pickle that caused 161 schools to close last year. Instead, Northeastern bought campuses for bargain prices, and now they can offer a differentiated multi-campus curriculum. Northeastern has gotten so popular with those 14 campuses, they don't have enough space for students. Yeah, that's true.

They're using hotels as extra dorm rooms. There's like literally a Sheraton Hotel at Northeastern for students. In fact, Northeastern says that 50 other colleges have approached them. Do you want to buy us? It's all because Northeastern did what no college was willing to do. Act like a corporation. Yes, Northeastern is still a nonprofit school with a higher education mission. But it's also got a corporate growth strategy that's working.

Jamie Diamond would be impressed by. Because when your total addressable market shrinks, you've got to change to. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Yesterday, meta unveiled a cheaper headset, smarter glasses, and a prototype of Orion. Orion. This could be version one of the next iPhone, but in normal looking glasses. For our second story, it's rental kill. The world leader in pest control and extermination, they botched their terminix acquisition. Because the mothership can't be too far away from its children. And finally, Northeastern University is acting like an inquisitive corporation. They now have

14 different campuses. Because when the Tam changes, you must change too. But Yeties, this pot's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Caroline Ellison, the girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried was just sentenced to two years in prison for the FTX crypto fraud. Her boyfriend and her boss, because I think she was an executive as well. Hey, Charlens, get on this. Sam got a 25-year sentence. She got two years. Also, strange side note, but Sam Bankman-Fried and P. Diddy are actually in jail together right now, sharing a jail that is dorm style. Second, the U.S. Congress just passed a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown. September 30th could have been the shutdown day, but...

But Congress kicked the can down the road again to December. So we're going to do this again with the lame duck session after the election before the inauguration. And finally, next week, we may face the biggest strike in U.S. shipping history and East Coast port strike. Port workers at 36 major U.S. ports on the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico may strike starting October 1st. Here's the wild part. If they do strike, this would affect one half of all of America's imports. The biggest impact would be on fruits. car parts. And these ghosts, you eat a lot of fruit in your car. Didn't we just cover a car smoothie?

It's all coming full circle, Jack. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by legendary Yeti, Sean Benino in lovely Oakland, California. Today is the final game for the Oakland Athletics in the city of Oakland. Get this. In the 1970s, all three of Oakland's teams, the Oakland Athletics, the Raiders, and the Warriors won championships in five straight years. But now, Oakland has lost all three of those teams. They lost the Raiders to Las Vegas, the Warriors to San Francisco, and the A's are moving to Las Vegas starting next season. But Oakland, you are Oakland. You're the town. You don't need those teams. You got so much more going on. Oakland is one of the most ethically diverse cities in the United States with over 125 languages spoken there. Also,

Oakland has some of the greatest companies in the country based there. Pandora is based there. Chlorox is based there. Kaiser Permanente and Blue Bottle Coffee. And Jack, what about Pixar is five minutes north of the city. Not too shabby. Nick and I went to an Oakland game in 2019. Yankees athletics. Unreal game. The fans actually brought brooms into the stadium because they hoped to sweep the Yankees.

I can't remember if they did enough. We took our Yankees hats off. Yeties, you look fantastic for the new Friday. If you haven't yet, drop down and give us a five-star rating and review because that is actually how we help grow the show. We hope to see everybody out in Seattle tonight. And if you can't make it to the event, we'll see a good bar. At 8.30. We'll be there.

And that live episode drops on the feed next week. Jack and I, we'll see you tonight. And before we go, a happy 30th birthday to Yeti, Janet Moe, down in San Jose, Sharks, California. Happy 30th birthday to Sam Baca in Fort Collins, Colorado. And Chase Carrot is turning 27 years old in lovely Las Vegas, Nevada. Happy 23rd birthday to Jasmine Asirau in Toronto. Shout out to the country of Thailand, which is officially legalizing same-sex marriage starting on my birthday. January 22nd. Great news. Not too shabby. And also, Yetis. We asked you what new emoji should have been added, but they forgot to add this year. What should they have added instead of beets and dead trees? Well, Jack, Rebecca says they should have added a plum emoji. Laura says they should have added a white wine glass. Well, actually, a lot of people said that. And Jesse says they need an ozempic emoji. But what does an ozempic emoji look like? Not a white wine glass.

This is Jack. Nick and I both on stock of Apple. Part of that, what would you do if you say? saw mouse, you're like, run at the rats with a broom and just shout. Ah!