The Best One Yet - 🪷 “The White Lotus Effect” — HBO’s tourism bump. DeepSeek’s copy/paste. The Bacon IPO.

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Friday, the real Friday. January 31st, and today's pod is the best one yet this is a T-boy. Here's the top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Oh, I know what's happening this weekend. Is this part one of the Datchelor party? Is that what's going on?

Starting point is 00:00:20 There we go. Yeah. Okay. I'm having six buddies from college up for a ski weekend. It's the quiet before having a third baby storm. Remember, four weeks before the due date of a baby, you must go on a datchelor party. It is required by the doctors, and we hear it all the time. I don't think it's going to be a quiet before the storm. It's a storm before the storm.

Starting point is 00:00:38 But we've got three fantastic stories for today's show. Jack, what's on today's T-boy? For our first story, White Lotus Season 3, premieres two weeks from this Sunday on HBO. But the White Lotus effect has already arrived in Thailand, and it turned travel existential. For our second story, we now know how Deep Seek caught up to chat Chippy T so quickly. The old copy and paste. And it reveals the curse of the first mover. And our third and final story. The biggest IPO of 2025 so far is a bacon business.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Smithfield Foods is now a publicly traded pork stock. Links or Patty? Trick question, both. Jack and I jumped into the world's biggest sausage stock for you. We found some wild stuff. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories, Jack. Shakespeare once asked, what's in a name?

Starting point is 00:01:27 Well, in professional sports, there's actually a lot. a name. Mostly chance. Yeah. And merchandise. But yet he's the Utah Hockey Club finally decides on their permanent name this weekend. Because the newest NHL team, the Utah Hockey Club, still doesn't have a name. But over the next four days, the fans will vote for the new name. And what's the wildest part, Jack? Only fans in the arena get to vote. That's right. Over the next four home games, fans in the stands are the ones who vote on the team's name. That's it. So if you're in the stands at the next Utah hockey game, you vote on a permanent name for the club. Basically, the future of the franchise depends on 18,000 rowdy and potentially drunk fans.

Starting point is 00:02:07 Well, it's Utah, so I don't know how drunk they'll be, but... But Jack, the three name options, what are they going to be voting on? First is stick with the current name, the Utah Hockey Club. That's the same as the current name. It's bad. The second option is the Utah Wasatch. Which is the name of the local mountain range. It's a Native American term for mountains. It's a pretty good option. The third choice is our favorite.

Starting point is 00:02:27 The Utah Mammoth. Ah, as in the Utah Woolly Mammoth, the Mighty Mammoth. Unclear if you add an S for the plural or not. What's the plural of Mammoth? Mammie. But merch opportunities for the mammoth are huge, Jack. Mammoth coats, Mammoth milk.

Starting point is 00:02:43 How about a Tuscan Tonic in the club box? Jack, this team could resurrect a mammoth for the home games and have it drag the Zamboni across the ice. Funny twist in the story, though. The team originally wanted to be called the Utah Yetis, because Yeties are cold and hockey's called. But they couldn't get the Yeti trademark and was that? Sorry, Utah.

Starting point is 00:03:02 You're going to have to speak to our lawyers. Don't let them have it, guys. But besties, what do you think the Utah hockey name should be? Which name would you choose for this entirely new team? It's a fake vote for us, a real vote for 18,000 lucky youths. Drop a vote in the comments. In the meantime, it's democracy on ice. Let's in our three stories.

Starting point is 00:03:21 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 an norm. Jack Nick, that's it. 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.

Starting point is 00:03:41 We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. Our first story. The White Lotus Season 3 is already driving a 20% surge of tourism in Thailand. It's the White Lotus effect. It's beyond experiential travel. is existential.

Starting point is 00:04:14 Yeties, there are four words that describe the TV show The White Lotus, and here they are. Sex, money, and room service. Someone's going to get undressed. Yep, someone's going to die. I don't know who, Jack, but someone's getting a toe licked. The White Lotus is created by Mike White, a reality show contestant on Survivor who turned into a Hollywood writer and director. It's now one of HBO's most reliable top shows.

Starting point is 00:04:42 Yeah. Because season one and season two drove viewership. up 50% to 10 million viewers per episode. Could you sprinkle on a little more Jennifer Coolidge context for us over there? 10 million viewers per episode is more than succession on streaming and more than NCIS on cable. So it's a big deal. But when it comes to the White Lotus, the real star isn't Porsche and Albi's Love Triangle or Tanya's glasses. The real star is the hotels.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Season one took place at the Wailea Hotel Resort on Hawaii. Lovely. They got Infinity Pools. Season two took place at the San Domenico Hotel. Sicily. It's got a view of Mount Etna, stunning vistas bellissimo. And season three, starting in two weeks, will be at Kosumwe Resort in Thailand. But here's what we find fascinating about all those beautiful hotels. They're all owned by the same company. Yeah. The Four Seasons. Season three premieres in two weeks from this Sunday, February 16th, at a Four Seasons Hotel. And here's the wild part. There is an economic phenomenon from the White Lotus when it comes to

Starting point is 00:05:43 tourism. That's right. And we call it the White Lotus Effect. Get this, Nick. After seasons one and two in Hawaii and Sicily, visitors to those two regions rose by 20%. We repeat, there was a 20% jump in tourism just because one TV show on a streaming network was filmed there. And 20% is huge.

Starting point is 00:06:04 It is huge. 15 million people visited Sicily in 2023. Yeah. 20% more than 15 million people? We're talking 3 million additional tourists just because of the White Lotus. Three million people saw Rocco and Valentina's lovely tension, and then they booked a trip to Teramina.

Starting point is 00:06:20 Honey, this is where that kiss happened. Full disclosure, this is Nick. We did two of those hotels. I'm disappointed you didn't go to hotel number three. Can I throw in some full, full disclosure? We stayed at the San Domenico Sicily Hotel two months before they filmed the season there. So what are you trying to say?

Starting point is 00:06:36 It's even cooler that you were there? No, what I'm trying to say is we got it a little bit cheaper. Prices that hotel are now up 300% True. Even hotels hundreds of miles away in Bangkok are already seeing a surge because of the White Lotus season that hasn't even happened yet. Huge missed opportunity for the U.S. airline industry. Great point, Jack. There's no direct flights from the United States to Bangkok. But besties, Jack and I think the White Lotus effect reflects something even bigger than this combination of clue succession in Gilligan's Island. Is that what the White Lotus is? Basically. It says something about society and millennials. So Jack, what's the takeaway from? all our buddies seeing the White Lotus effect. Millennials made everything experiential. Now we want

Starting point is 00:07:19 it existential. Yeties, Jack and I have seen how Hollywood-inspired travel happened before. Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, Game of Thrones sent you to Croatia. Emily and Paris made you go to Paris. But in the White Lotus, there's something more substantial. There is a cross-industry mega deal between Hollywood and hospitality. Okay, this is what we found fascinating. The Four Seasons Hotel signed a real global partnership deal with HBO. That means the hospitality and media industries combined in a way we've never seen before. Now, it's all related to the White Lotus, but I wonder if the next House of Dragon season is going to have a four seasons on Dragonstone. Which they would sign a deal on. Well, Jack, right now, this weekend, you can book a White Lotus

Starting point is 00:08:03 weekend at Four Seasons hotels. It's like $4,000 and you're immersed in a white lotus theme. It mimics the experience in the show, minus the dad. Yeah, some from the FBI's got to look into this White Lotus. Now, a generation ago, Yetis, our parents wanted materials, then we millennials wanted experiences. But now this has gone a step further. For the entire weekend, your life is transformed into this TV show. That's not experiential. The next trending consumerism is existential.

Starting point is 00:08:31 For our second story, OpenAI just accused China's deep seek of the worst sin in tech. And here it is. Copy, paste. Every industry is vulnerable to the curse of the first mover. Now, Yeti's last weekend, China's Deepseek shattered the American sense of AI superiority. We called it a Sputnik moment. In fact, this Chinese AI app is still number one in the app store ahead of number two, ChatchipT. Remember, this caused the entire stock market to drop earlier this week.

Starting point is 00:09:05 Well, here's the latest. ChatchipT's parent company, OpenAI, accused Deepseek of the greatest crime in tech. Specifically, they accused this Chinese app, its new rival, of distillation. According to the Wall Street Journal, distillation is when a new system learns from an existing one by asking it hundreds of thousands of questions and analyzing the answers. Jack, we got to translate on that tech speak over there, please? In other words, DeepSeek knows as much as ChatchipT does, because it's copied ChatchipT's entire brain. Boom, there it is, Besties. When we first covered Deepseek, we could not believe that they built the same artificial intelligence as Chad GPT at one one hundredth of the cost.

Starting point is 00:09:48 Well, this would explain it. It was distillation. They copied the whole thing. But pause the pod here for a second, Jack. Are we saying that Chat CheapT is accusing China of copying their AI? Yes. When Chat CheapT has copied pretty much everyone to create artificial intelligence. They've scraped the entire internet without anyone's permission, basically. I feel like Scarlett Johansson is laughing right now. Good point. Pretty, pretty, pretty ironic.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Now, yet is Open AI did not provide evidence of their accusation, but David Sacks, who is Trump's new AIsar, agrees with their accusation. So Open AIs new top priority is to make copying their AI a lot harder. But you know what? That's actually really hard. It could be a whack-a-mole situation. As soon as Open AI closes one vulnerability to copycats, the copycats find another way to copy. And then if OpenAI and Google fail to stop you from copying their AI tech, well, then they'll have no incentive to keep innovating and building more AI tech.

Starting point is 00:10:54 Yeah, this is a really big deal. Are you pausing the pot a second time, Jack? Think of it like building a bridge to artificial intelligence. Constructing that bridge is really expensive. Right, Jack, because instead of bricks, this AI technology. Bridge requires fancy Nvidia computer chips that cost $100,000 bucks each. So why would Open AI lead the charge and build the bridge to artificial intelligence if once they're done, the competition can use it for free? That's the risk of distillation. That's the risk of someone being able to copy and paste your AI. Now, we call this the first mover curse. Ah, the curse of the first mover. When it makes more economic sense to be second than it does

Starting point is 00:11:36 to be first. But that led Jack and on. to a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over in tech? The first mover curse is way more prevalent than you think. Yeties, some property simply isn't protectable by law, so it gets copied. For example, in the news industry. Yes. The Wall Street Journal might invest big money to report on a big scoop, but then any TikToker or any podcast can use all the information from that article for free for their own business. The TikTok, is basically a better investment because they didn't have the cost of the journalism. Or another example, Walmart.

Starting point is 00:12:14 Sam Walton copied the exact business model of Costco and Costco's predecessor. Why? Well, because you can't trademark a business model. And of course, we created a special word to describe Mark Zuckerberg's copying. I'm looking in the dictionary under Z and I see Zucking Jack. Distillation is a fancy word, but copying someone else's business goes way back. The first mover curse, you know what? It's more prevalent than you think.

Starting point is 00:12:42 Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story before the weekend. Smithfield, the world's biggest pork producer, brings home the bacon. Literally. They just brought it home. And they just IPOed. Thanks to a strategy, they took from the car industry. Abe Froman.

Starting point is 00:13:04 Jack, does that name mean anything to you? Is that the sausage king of Chicago? That is exactly who that is, Jack. But Smithfield Foods is the Sultan of Sausage. It's officially an $8 billion publicly traded pork powerhouse. That's right, yet he. Smithfield just became the biggest food IPO in the last four years. It is now a pure play publicly traded pork stock.

Starting point is 00:13:28 They sell bellies, butts, hams, loins. They raise the whole hog on their 39 farms. That's right. Actually, we should point out this pork company does make some beef too. Nathan's famous all-beef hot talks? They're made by Smith. But when it comes to this poor company, they are a piggy bank. Jack, let's talk the numbers here. Last year, they did $14 billion in revenue and made a record profit. Now we should also point out

Starting point is 00:13:51 this is a Chinese-owned company, but now that they've IPOed, they'll be less likely to be caught up into trade war with America. It was Chinese-owned, but it's very much American. There are 39 farms, 37,000 workers and 10 million hogs predominantly in the United States. Besties, if you've had a McDonald's McRib, if you've had an I-Hop sausage, if you've enjoyed the famous Costco hot dog soda, $1.50 cent combo, you've eaten Smithfield's pork. But there's more under this natural casing than you realize. Yes, there is.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Because Yet is, you know, as Jack's freshman year roommate and having visited you in Berlin, Jack, I've seen you cook a Broughtwurst or two. I feel like this is your area of expertise. What is this Smithfield Pork Company's true innovation? I also grew up in a literal sausage fest with three brothers in my house. So, Jack, what is this poor company's innovation? They're not focused on market share. They're focused on meal share.

Starting point is 00:14:46 Meal share. Yet is, Smithfield is a huge player in the meat market. Get these numbers. 20% of packaged meats in America are Smithfield products. That's right. If you're sinking your teeth into a sub, there's a 20% chance. That's a Smithfield salami.

Starting point is 00:14:59 But as we reviewed the IPO paperwork, we saw a term we'd never seen before. Day part. They mentioned it nine times. Yeah, day part. As in Smithfield products are eaten during all parts of your day, the day parts. Smithfield boasted to Wall Street that they're eaten for breakfast, lunch, snack time, and dinner time.

Starting point is 00:15:17 Pork is eaten in all four of the main meals, and that's a differentiator. Bacon owns breakfast, ham owns lunch, hot dogs and sausage dominate dinner. Chicken, on the other hand, it's never been a breakfast food in America, and it's not snacked on here either. Yeah, and, oh, unlike all the other meats, we mentioned, pork has also transitioned into a topping. Bacon bits. I mean, pork's quite versatile if you think about it. So, besties, the biggest pork company on earth, they aren't winning with more market share.

Starting point is 00:15:45 They're winning with more meal share. My brothers and I can attest to it. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the pork industry? Smithfield borrowed a strategy from the car industry. Brand graduation. Yeties, Audi and Volkswagen, their cars are made with many of the same parts in many of the same factories because they're owned by the same company. Yes, Audi does add some features.

Starting point is 00:16:08 Audi logo so they can charge you more, but it's the same cars of Vokes. Well, the goal of this strategy is to get you to start with a cheaper Volkswagen, and then as you grow up and make more money, you graduate to buying a fancy Audi. And Smithfield does the same thing with pork. Get this. They own over a dozen different pork brands. Okay, that's a lot. It surprised us. We also were shocked like why this pork company said the word brand 134 times in their IPO paperwork. Pork is a commodity. Yes. But each brand is a different price. point, despite being the same underlying product. So, just like a car company, Smithfield wants you to graduate from one decent brand to the next premium one. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways

Starting point is 00:16:50 for us for the real Friday? White Lotus season three starts in two weeks, but it's already driving tourism in Thailand. That's the White Lotus effect. It shows how millennials have moved beyond experiential into existential. For our second story, it's open AI. They've accused China's deep seek of distillation, which is copying their entire AI model. It's the perfect example of the curse of the first mover. When the first mover bears the cost that no one else has to pay. And our third and final story, Smithfield is now a pure play public-traded-traded pork company, whereas I call it the Duchess of Pork. They've got 12 pork brands, so you can graduate from a Volkswagen brought to an Audi Frankfurter. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet.

Starting point is 00:17:36 Here's what else you need to know today. First, we woke up yesterday in a way you probably did too, seeing horrible news. An American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter in Washington, D.C. Here's the latest as of this recording. All 64 people on the plane are presumed dead, as well as the three people that were in the helicopter. Including a few elite members of the U.S. figure skating team also on that flight. It's an awful story, the most fatal aviation disaster on U.S. soil in 23 years since September 11th. The reasons for the collision?

Starting point is 00:18:04 still under investigation. We'll update you when we know to. And second, overlooked detail from Microsoft's earnings yesterday. LinkedIn. Get this, LinkedIn brings in an estimated $16 billion in revenue each year. That makes LinkedIn three times bigger in terms of revenue than Snap. True. And three times bigger than Twitter's last revenue announcement. Oh, other tech news, by the way, Apple had record earnings, although their iPhone sales fell. And finally, Super Bowl ads are hitting $8 million a piece. That gets you 30 seconds. That's a record expensive price tag for a Super Bowl commercial. They're already sold out and we're expecting AI ads just like we saw crypto ads a couple years ago. The same teams are in this year's Super Bowl, but new tech in the commercials. Great point

Starting point is 00:18:52 check. Now time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by Jack and me because it's our favorite part of the latest episode of the best idea yet. The founder of Red Bull had an incredible growth hack. This is brilliant. He used to go around parties and leave empty Red Bull cans all around the bar floor. When Red Bull launched America, they would go to bars at college towns and just leave empty cans so you'd think that people were drinking Red Bull even though they hadn't drank yet, and then you order more Red Bull. So then as you're walking across the dance floor to get a drink at the bar. One more, Tony. You see all these Red Bull cans on the floor and you're like, I guess I should get this hot drink that everyone's drink. But the cans, you know, it was framed.

Starting point is 00:19:32 Red Bull vodka. I guess everyone else is having a Jack. It was staged. That's the word. Staged. Yeties, that was just one of our favorite parts on the true origin story of Red Bull. And you can hear the whole story on the best idea yet, our weekly show. We got a link in the episode description. Check it out. Yiddies, you're looking fantastic over there. Jack, for the Datchelor Party, are we thinking Thailand? I think in Thailand.

Starting point is 00:19:58 No, no, no. No, no. I don't know. Four seasons. I think if we do the four seasons, it's a write-off? Yeah. Okay. Besties, we'll see in Thailand, celebrate the wins. Have fun this weekend.

Starting point is 00:20:13 And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Yeti Liz down in lovely New York City parting the night away. And happy birthday to Peter Trent, who's turning 33 at San Jose, California. And Jacinia Yeret is turning 36 years old over in Braintree, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. Happy birthday to Sagar Kumar in Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. And Jackie Alvarez is celebrating on the longest beach in America. Happy birthday, Jackie.

Starting point is 00:20:44 Happy birthday to Russ Bacon. Ironically, a vegetarian in Alameda, California. You're welcome for the Smithfield story. And Brendan Ang in New York City's got a new job and is listening to us right now at 2X speed. Nick, Russ Bacon is a vegetarian. He doesn't like the Smithfield story. Sorry about that one, Russ. And Michael Molito in San Diego is going to win the Royal Rumble and go to rest of on his birthday. Michael, I've been to two WWE events, but it was back when it was WWF. Oh. I saw Bill Goldberg do the jackhammer.

Starting point is 00:21:16 And yeah, I did it the whole summer on the trampoline after that. And Wilson, the Yeti I saw in the ferry building. Great to meet you. And he's got an awesome pod. It's called the Fish Sauce Pod. Hey, good luck to Claire, who's got a tennis tournament in San Francisco. We think she's going to crush it.

Starting point is 00:21:31 And a happy gotcha day anniversary to Taylor Raven and Penny, who are celebrating down. Nashville, Tennessee. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick and I both on stock and Apple. Wow, is that so? Oh, I see what you don't know. What's your name? You see what I did there? You see what I did there?

The Best One Yet - 🪷 “The White Lotus Effect” — HBO’s tourism bump. DeepSeek’s copy/paste. The Bacon IPO.

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