The Best One Yet - 🔶 “The Trump Trade” — The 2nd Trump-conomy. Ferrari is Europe’s #1. The boring-name startup trend.

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Trump’s victory triggered the best stock surge of 2024… but we’re breaking down Trump’s economic plans.Ferrari just became the most valuable car company in Europe… even though it’s the smallest.The new trend in startup names: Boring… We “name-storm” what happened to fun startup names. $SPY $DJIA $RACELooking for a long-form listen? Check out our new episode on The Jeep 🚙: The car that saved the world.It’s our latest episode of The Best Idea Yet. Listen here: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks Episodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.—-----------------------------------------------------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/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, November 7. 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. Jack, big day, big week. Let's get right into it. Three stories for today's show. What do we got? For our first story, Donald Trump's electoral victory triggered the biggest stock market surge of 2024. This election, it all came down to the economy. So Jack and I will break down Trump's plans for all of it. For our second story, Ferrari just became the most valuable car company in all of Europe. Even though Volkswagen makes more cars in one day than Ferrari makes in one year. And our third and final story is the new trend in startup names. They're boring. They're boring. Like, what happened to fun startup names?

This story isn't about brainstorming. It's about name storming. If you know, you know. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories, fantastic mix of stories. Love the mix today, Jack. Nick and I have covered Trump's first term on this podcast. And we've covered Biden's term on this podcast. And now we're entering another Trump term. Now, besties, we don't know what exactly is to come, but we will be here every day to cover it for you. We're going to wake up at 5 a.m. like we always do. We're going to start our research. We're going to do our headline

hammer. We're going to prep the pod and we're going to record the show. Just like we always do. For the U.S. economy, the next four years are uncharted territory. And that's either scary or it's exciting depending on your perspective. But you, our listeners, will get the same us, the same show, the same T-boy. No matter what, today's episode is the best one yet. Like we said, though, we've never been here before. Trump plans to appoint Elon Musk, a regulation skeptic, to cut government waste. And he plans to tariff every country, both enemies and allies. He's talked about politicizing the Fed, our central bank, to influence the economy. So we don't know whether we'll get a golden age, as Trump promised in his victory speech yesterday. Or if we'll get a good,

a darker reality that economists predict. But besties, here's what Jack and I do know. We do know that as we enter this new era, we're here for you for all of it. We'll deliver all the important news you need to know, the interesting news you'll want to know, and the surprise news you didn't know. We're going to arm you with the info, the insights, and the stories so you can form your own opinion. And we'll whip up our own original takeaways based on our 15 years in business. Doing all of this together. So Yeties, today's episode, it's our best one yet. Until tomorrow's Good point, Jack. And we're grateful to be with you for all.

Jack, I love doing this with you. Let's hear 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 a 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. For our first story, with Donald Trump elected president, stocks and crypto just hit all-time highs. So we're breaking down the knowns and the unknowns of a Trump economy.

All right, Jack, let's start in 1992, when four words helped Bill Clinton win the election over George H.W. Bush. It's the economy, stupid. Stupid. 32 years later, though, it's that same phrase. that's why Trump beat Harris. It appears that the economy was the number one reason people voted for Donald Trump. More specifically, it was inflation. Jack, can you share that story with the Yetis that you shared with me earlier about your morning routine today? This morning at the gas station, a truck full of Trump supporters rolled in, and one of them came up to the counter with the Red Bull.

He asked the cashier if the price of his Red Bull had fallen yet since Trump got elected. He was like joking around about it, right? Yeah, he's like the prices are going to come down, right? Trump's in charge again. Yeah, Bessies, this was the growth. grocery receipt election. The president got decided in aisle 6. Basically, people want to go back to the lower prices of the Trump era. Now, we should explain, Jack, that that's not going to happen. No, it's not. Price levels in our economy, they don't fall unless we're in a horrible recession.

They just rise less quickly. But, as is generally the case, the candidate promising the most change won the presidential election. And change is coming. Because not only did Trump win, Republicans won the Senate, and they're probably going to win the House too. Now, Yeties, here's how Jack and I approach this new Trump economy. Everything in our economy, it is connected. So one Trump policy proposal leads to the next Trump policy proposal. And here is how markets reacted to Trump's electoral victory as soon as it happened. The most certain change to come to our economy is probably an extension of the corporate tax cut that Trump passed in 2017.

So on Wednesday, the Dow jumped 3.6 percent because companies are going to keep more of their profits and then pay less in taxes. The Dow rose 1,500 points. It's best day in two years because shareholders prefer profitability above anything else. But those tax cuts are a cut to government revenue. So the big question then, Jack, is how is the government going to compensate from losing all this tax revenue? They're going to compensate with debt. Economists say that extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts is going to cost $4 trillion. And that is why interest rates on U.S. government. government bonds, our debt, rose on Wednesday because we'll have to issue new debt to compensate for the tax cuts. Since we're borrowing more, bond investors are charging more in interest. And that's

already happened. But, besties, there were also some specific winners and losers in the stock market. Tesla sold 15% on Wednesday because Elon gave the Trump campaign $130 million. And he's probably going to get some preferential treatment on regulations, exemptions on tariffs. Who knows? But that was part of his big investment. Elon is the golden child of the new White House. Now, speaking of Elon, Jack, Elon could end up leading a newly formed government efficiency department that he also proposed to Trump. He calls it the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge on X, which also happens to be the name of Elon's favorite cryptocurrency, the Dogecoin. Speaking of crypto, Bitcoin reached an all-time high right after the election results came in, $75,000, as Trump promised crypto-friendly policies

throughout his campaign. And because Ben, the Bitcoin jumped. Robin Hood and Coinbase stocks rose 20% each on more crypto trading activity. Oh, an increased economic activity in general meant that bank stocks rose two on Wednesday. In fact, J.P. Morgan stock jumped, in fact, J.P. Morgan stock jumped 12% yesterday, which is the biggest jump. we've seen out of the biggest bank in America ever. But there were losers, too. Clean energy stocks tanked yesterday as Trump plans to roll back environmental incentives and environmental regulations.

Yeties, as we've told you before, nothing in this economy is isolated. It is all interconnected. But the biggest economic splash with a lot of ripple effects is our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies in the Trump economy? Trade War II is about to begin. Now, Basties, you've been with us for a while. We covered Trump's trade war in his very first term as president, and we called it Trade War I. Now we're calling it Trade War I.

Yeah, we are. Yeah, we changed it. And in Trade War I, Trump taxed a limited number of Chinese imports as they entered our country. But this time, Trump plans to tax everything we buy from China up to 60 percent. And tax everything else we buy from overseas, even from our allies, with a 10 percent tariff. Now, economists believe that this will raise prices. which would then require higher interest rates again to bring down that price inflation. We just went through all this. This is what we just went through after the pandemic, by the way.

But Trump thinks the economists are wrong. He says everyone misunderstands how great tariffs are. And one thing he points to, it's the clear winner of tariffs, which is a clear winner of tariffs. And who is that, Jack? Smaller, US-only companies that neither import nor export, so are relatively unharmed by tariffs. But the big question, besties, it's going to be this. is trade war two going to help the majority of Americans? We can only answer that question with some data,

so we'll cover the story as it develops. In the meantime, Trade War II is about to begin. For our second story, Ferrari just had its best quarter in history. Ferrari is now worth twice as much as Volkswagen. Ferrari has become the most valuable car company in Europe, and it's all thanks. It's all perfectly symbolized by a $13,000 sticker. Wait until you hear about this sticker yetis.

But Jack, let's start off this story with a hero stat. Volkswagen Group produces 9 million cars per year. Ferrari produces 12,000. It's an order of magnitude of difference. But could you sprinkle on a little more shocking context for us over there? This is just mad. Volkswagen makes more cars in one day than Ferrari produces in a year. Akhtung!

And yet Ferrari is worth more on the stock market than Volkswagen is twice as much more. Because Ferrari stock has gone from zero to 60 this year. It's up 30% so far, and the company is now worth $82 billion. That's Europe's most valuable car company. And the latest news? No big deal. Ferrari delivered its shiniest quarter ever. This week, Ferrari announced they made $1.8 billion in revenue last quarter and brought in $400 million of profits. On just 3,000 cars sold in three months, Jack, that's not an earnings report. That's a work of art that deserves to be in the Uffizi. They don't mass-produce cars.

No. Each one is like done by a single Italian craftsman. I think Da Vinci does the chassis. But yet since Ferrari was founded, they've only made 300,000 cars in their entire history. And yet, little Ferrari, picola Ferrari, one of the smallest car makers, is now the continent's biggest car brand. So what drove Ferrari to this record-setting quarter? Basically an episode of Pimp My Ride.

who's basically exhibit coming out and doing a whole lot of personalizations for the folks out there. Turns out one-fifth of Ferrari's revenue now comes from customizations that buyers request for their car. From color to carburetor, it's like Burger King. You can have it your way over at Ferrari, apparently. Let's start with the color. 20 years ago, 90% of Ferrari's produced were red. That's like the classic Ferrari color. Makes sense. There's a reason for it, by the way, I read in that Ferrari book. I'll tell you about it on another pod. But today, only 40% of Ferrari's come in red. Jack, if I walk into a Ferrari dealership and say,

ah, maybe I want that Tuscan green paint? That'll cost you 15 grand extra. Okay, Jack, what if I want to put a metallic U on my Ferrari? 50 grand extra. You know, Jack, I could use some sunlight. I like a nice roof. What's the panoramic roof customization going to cost me? A million dollars.

It's 20 grand extra. It's 20 grand. But our personally favorite customization price, what is it, Jack? You can get a 6-inch yellow Ferrari racing shield. that classic logo of theirs, painted on both doors of your car for a $13,000 upcharge. We repeat $13,000 for a glorified sticker on the door that you're probably going to bang it to your garage. You can buy an entire car for that price. One sec, Jack, I'm just trying to make my Ferrari look like a telotubby for half a million bucks.

I don't really get that, but it is funny. Purple polka dots, there it go. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies with the slamming salmon chassis over at Ferrari? Pricing power is a superpower. Now, you had to use in business, everyone talks about competitive advantage, value proposition, differentiation, but the end goal of all of that is pricing power. Pricing power is the ability to charge a higher price and have customers still buy your thing. Now remember, in the fundamental law of economics, the higher the price, the lower demand,

supply and demand. But if you have pricing power, you can defy that law. Now, the car industry is notoriously competitive. companies don't have pricing power in the car industry. I mean, Jack, if the price of a VW Passat goes up $1,000, you're going to buy a Toyota Camry or a Honda Accord instead. But Ferrari is unique. They have such wealthy customers and such a unique value that they have pricing power.

You're like Ferrari, they can raise the price $10,000. They can charge your $13 grand for a sticker, and you're not ditching for Lamborghini or Audi, are you, man? You're still buying a Ferrari, even though they jacked up the price. And that pricing power, It translates to enormous profits. What kind of numbers are we talking, Jack? Ferrari makes $118,000 in profits per car.

The Telatubi Ferrari, it's going to be a profit puppy. I think Volkswagen makes like $500 per car. So besties, it is a rare but powerful piston of business. And that piston is pricing power. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, there is a new trend in startup name. And that new trend is boring. All of the new startup names are just boring.

Startups have stopped being fun. So we need to talk about namestorming. Now Yetis, Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, great writer, once asked, what's in a name? Well, Bill, a lot, actually. Yeah, in a name, you got to do marketing, customer research, focus groups. You've got to involve the founder personalities. It's not as easy as Romeo and Juliet, Bill. It ain't that easy.

But when it comes to company names, America's oldest corporations, they didn't even try to get creative decades ago. The OG Blue Chips, they didn't have names. They had descriptions of the company. For example, GE. General Electric. Or FedEx. Federal Express. That's what they do.

Or IBM. International business machines. That's literally just their function. You don't even need to Google it. But then, besties, in the 1980s and the 1990s, we experienced the first wave of fun. company names. We call it the creative era. That's when we got Apple, Google, Amazon, and who could forget, Yahoo! They had an exclamation point at the end of it. Oh, by the way, Jack, can we include Ask Jeeves in that category? Does that fall in there? No, we cannot. Sorry,

Jeeves. Then in the 2000s, we got wild startup names. The wild names. Basically, naming your company became an exercise in absurdity. In the crazy era, we had Bumble, Barkbox, Survey Monkey, Shazam. Isn't that Shaquille O'Neal's like alter Superman ego? I feel like he owns the copyright to that. Oh, and what is Equibby? I don't know what a quibby is, but I kind of want to touch it. Jack, Lyft, they even put a Y in their name. Oh, don't even get me started with eliminating vowels.

Well, Lyft, they're still worth one left. That's true. I don't know what Equiby is, but I kind of want to lick it. But besties, this is what Jack and I find fascinating about this story. According to CrunchBase, there is a new trend emerging in startup names. And what is it, Jack? They're not creative names. They're not crazy names. They're boring names. Yeah, they're boring names.

Think about the big venture capital deals we've covered on the show this year. Something's off with the names. I mean, Jack, I'm looking back on the stories we've covered. It's been Open AI, SpaceX, Anthropic. Those are the new startups we're covering. These sound like medical supply companies, not exciting startups. I mean, Jack, it's like Aladdin verb. It's not a name. We even covered a fundraise by safe super intelligence. That's like those old companies. It just describes what they're doing.

One sec, Jack, I'm starting an AI company, and I'm naming it Bland AI, and our logo is a scab. Our logo is a scab. Yeah, these startup names have lost their luster. There's less marketing, more Excel spreadsheet. So Jack and I had to ask the question, why are startup names in their boring era? Well, the answer is actually kind of exciting. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are? Everyone in the startup world.

There's an entire industry for namestorming. Ah, namestorming. Yet it is namestorming is the activity of coming up with a name. It is both an art and it is a science. There's actually entire companies dedicated to consulting on names. They basically study name trends. They're namestormers. And these namestormers, they have identified a few reasons for this boring startup name trend.

First, consumer startups prefer fun names, but fewer consumer startups are launching right now. Second, all the fun names, they're kind of already taken. Like, they've already used up all the short, whimsical Hulu, voodoo, moodoo, boodoo game. Like, all those names are already used, taken up. Venture Capital, they recently got burned by startups that had fun names. Like, a lot of the fun-name startups we've loved covering, they're not doing all too well these days, are they, Jack?

Quibi, Barkbox, Casper, Beepie, Jucero, Jucero, these are all out of business or barely hanging on. I want to hug them, Jack, but not all of them exist anymore. So startups may be trying to communicate that they're serious business people by having more serious company names. Safe, superintelligence. That's how a namestormer would explain the current trend of boring names. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday?

The Trump election sparked a stock market surge to record highs. But the biggest impact on the economy, it's going to be Trade War II. For our second story, it's Ferrari. They're now Europe's most valuable car company, even though it's Europe's smallest car company. Ferrari, it's got one of the most powerful superpowers in business, and that power is price and power. And our third and final story, startups are using boring company names these days, aren't they? And the namestorming industry, it's got an explanation for it. By the way, this is coming from a couple guys who named their company the best one yet.

We're thinking differently. Think different is a trademark term of Apple, so be careful over there, buddy. Come at us, Tim. Come at us, Tim. But yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Vice President Kamala Harris called Donald Trump yesterday to concede that he'd won the race. She stressed the need to unite as she urged her supporters to accept the outcome.

So it looks like this time, we'll have a peaceful transfer of power. Second, it's Fed Decision Day. Believe it or not, our central bank makes a huge decision today on interest rates. Yeah, we were shocked by this because it's an extremely awkward situation, isn't it, Jack? Donald Trump appointed the chairman of the Fed, Jerome Powell, in 2018. But now Donald Trump has turned on Fed chairman Jerome Powell and is publicly second-guessing his monetary decisions. The Fed is supposed to be independent from politics, so this is a very tricky situation.

And finally, Starbucks, famous for their holiday cups, just launched their holiday cups today. We got four of them. There's four green and red-themed cups. Are there Christmas trees this year or snowflakes? I think it's gingerbread cookies, but either way. this annual tradition goes back to 1997, so the holiday cup at Starbucks is older than the Pumpkin Spice Latte. And Starbucks estimates it improves sales up to 10% because those cups are just warm and fuzzy. I kind of want to hug them too, Jack. Now time for the best fact yet.

This one sent in by Scott Baylon from lovely Oceanside, California. Speaking of cups, Jack. Utah not only loves Coke Zero Sugar, Diet Coke, and crumble cookies, like we mentioned on the pot earlier this week. But Utah is also who should be credited with the popularization of the Stanley Tumblr. More specifically, a group of Mormon moms from Utah. That's right. Yet he's a group of moms from Utah run an Instagram account called At the Buy Guide, which is loved the Stanley Tumblr that we know today. But in 2019, Stanley discontinued that famous tumbler. So the by guide ladies, they wanted it back so bad, they contacted Stanley and ultimately bought an entire production run of Tumblr's. That's right. These Mormon moms

put up their own money to buy thousands of Stanley Cup inventory, and then their followers bought all of the cups. From them. And that's when Stanley realized, maybe we should revive these huge Stanley mugs, and they started targeting women with different colors. Wow. Next time you sip your Stanley, make a mama in Utah. Yeties, wow.

We know this has been a big week, a lot of history in just a couple days. If you're looking for a break or an escape from the news, check out our other show. The best idea yet. 45-minute deep dives of business triumph. We just did a story on the true origin of the Jeep, which is a wild American tale. We left a link in the episode description, and Nick and I will be back right here tomorrow morning.

Can't wait. And before we go, a congratulations to Yeti's Jake Whitney and Maddie Hibbs, who were from Charleston but got engaged on the beautiful island of Mekanos. And happy 25th birthday to Teia Frye in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who's riding a bike with no handlebars. And Rendronin's turning nine years old in Cincinnati, Ohio, robin candy stores like she's from home alone. Kevin!

And Vignishram Krishna Morti over in San Francisco is always starting the day with T-Boy and celebrating the best birthday yet. Happy 30th birthday to Akriti Agrawell in Phoenix, Arizona, who's launching a podcast for her nonprofit. And a congratulations on a legendary sixth birthday for Eugenio Neri down in Miami, Florida. soccer star, team captain, six years old. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today,

make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Bumble. Nick owned stock in Barkbox, and we both own stock in Apple, as well as some Bitcoin.