The Best One Yet - “🟩🟩🟨⬛🟩” - The Wordle dilemma. DoorDash’s original content. Tech’s overindulgence hangover.

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

The New York Times just told us that buying Wordle brought in tens of millions of new users, but was Wordle worth it? The answer is _ _ _ _ _. DoorDash isn’t just delivering to you anymore — It just jumped into the kitchen to whip up your next fried chicken & waffles (with hot sauce and honey). And tech stocks just had their worst day in two years because after overindulging… comes the hangover. $DASH $NYT $SPY $QQQFollow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It is Monday. Welcome back May 9th. And today's pod is the best one yet. T-B-O-Y. For our first story, DoorDash, won't just deliver delectable dinners anymore. No, now DoorDash, they're cooking up revered restaurant recipes.

For our second story, the New York Times just updated us on its acquisition of Wordle, the most viral game of the year. Jack, what's a five-letter word for dilemma? For our third and final story. Last week was the worst week for tech stocks since the week before that. Yeah, because we overindulged. Now we're suffering a hangover. But before we hit that fantastic mix.

Now this is a mix to start a week, Jack. This is a mix. Shakespeare once asked the question, what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I'll tell you, Shakespeare can't help us with this name problem. No, he can't, because we need a name for you, our audience, ASAP. Correct. For years, you were the snackers. Yeah, you were digesting our snacky business news. It made sense.

But now that we've transitioned to the best one yet, TBOI, we're updating our contacts. Yeah, a new phone, who does? You have been incredibly helpful with hitting us up for ideas of what you should be called. Jack and I were blown away. Some of you said you should be called the T-boys. Others said T-boys and T-Gurls. Tyler Bradley and Elise, you said that everyone live. listen to this pod should be the T-Bays. The best audience ever. But Jack, how about T-Pows? Or T-Buddies? Dina thinks you should all be T-Boy City. Because T-Boy City's on your

Atlas. Johnny Henderson, he thinks everyone listening is the onesies. Wonsies works for pajamas. It does. Might as well work for a podcast audience. Or Jack, we could just Zuck-Zuck on this one. Teammates. Yeah, teammate. It kind of works. That's actually kind of good. Not too shabby. Put that on the whiteboard. I don't want to suck-z-z-z-z-back. Yeah, that would be awkward. But two names have been getting the most love from the formerly known as Snackers. And here are those two names. The besties and the Yeties. The besties or the Yeties.

Are you the best besties yet? Or are you the best one yeties? Besties or Yeties. Nick and I cannot decide. We spent all weekend on this. So we said, you know what? Let's have all of you decide instead. So we're about to have the biggest ever podcast audience nickname,

ever. It's completely unverified. The Guinness Book of World Records hasn't even responded to our DMs. We're pretty sure this is the biggest podcast audience nickname election ever. And here's how it's going to go down. Starting today, we got a five-day election going on on Instagram, on Twitter, and on YouTube. Go to at T-boy Pod on Instagram, on Twitter, or on YouTube. Yeah, are you the besties or the yeties? You just got to vote. We'll add up all the ballots at the end of the week by hand. Just go to at T-Boy pot on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Let's elect our three stories. Because you're the besties or you're the eddies.

15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is a norm. 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. For our first story, DoorDash just told us that you're going out, but you're still ordering in. Oh, and by the way, they're not just dashing anymore. They're cooking, too. Great first date joke if you, like, kind of want to impress the other person across the table. What's the joke, Nick? Okay, okay.

If someone asks you your favorite type of food on the date, you say DoorDash. I'm glad you're not single anymore. Follow-up favorite cuisine? Grubhub. Okay. Surprise news about DoorDash. Revenues jumped 35% last quarter despite our return to normal. Because apparently people just keep ordering in despite going out more. You might be watching Les Bridgeton by day, but you're still crushing that pad-tie takeout by night.

Jack, how many orders did DoorDash whip up in just the last like three months? 400 million, which sounds like a lot. We have no context. But 400 million is a lot of orders. Feels like a lot of orders. Here's the real surprise, though, from DoorDash. They just opened up a ghost kitchen in the borough of Brooklyn. Big change for DoorDash.

So here's the deal with the ghost kitchen. You can't like get a booth at the ghost kitchen. It's not for the customers out there. You're not going to get a booth by the window. This is a signless mystery kitchen that just whips up food for delivery apps. But here's why that's so important. It means that DoorDash isn't just delivery anymore. DoorDash is now working the stoves.

Now, DoorDash has at least three ghost kitchens now, but this is the first one outside of the Bay Area. where they live. And at this new Brooklyn DoorDash Ghost Kitchen, DoorDash employees are going to be making recipes of iconic culinary institutions. DoorDash employees at this ghost kitchen are going to make pizza from Little Caesars. They're going to be making the fried chicken from pies and thighs in Williamsburg. They're going to make the desserts from Milk Bar. That birthday cake truffle check, that is my food pyramid. And DoorDash will now make it and then deliver it to you. Yeah. DoorDash is like whipping up the chocolate truffles and then they're sending them to you after they made them.

So, first, DoorDash delivered restaurant food. Then it offered space to cook restaurant food. But now, this is a huge step more than that. DoorDash is now cooking the food itself. With recipes, they license from famous restaurants. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over at DoorDash? Unlike Uber Eats, DoorDash has original content. Yeah, it's a creator on Netflix.

That was a platform for third-party shows. Used to be. DoorDash used to be a platform for just third-party foods. But then Netflix made that huge change a few years ago. Netflix started making its own shows and shmovies, which we now call original content. Guess what? Now DoorDash does content too. The content is the calories.

And now with this Ghost Kitchen, DoorDash does original content. Just like Netflix. DoorDash isn't just a gig platform middleman anymore. They are creating original content too. It's a huge decision and a different. differentiates Doordash from every other delivery app. For our second story, the New York Times has a couple updates about its two brand new toys, Jack. The Athletic and Whartle.

What's a five-letter word with no profits? Okay. The New York Times bought the athletic this year. That's a sports blog, sports podcast company for $550 million. Honestly, the New York Times, they spent a lot of money. They spent half a billion dollars on that deal. And this was the first earnings report last week where they mentioned the athletic. And Jack, what did the New York Times say about buying the athletic? This was basically the first sentence.

Our profits shrank 88% because the athletic was really expensive. It was so much money. No buyers or more. No buyers remorse. But it was a lot of money. But the athletic is not the headline acquisition for the New York Times this year. No, this is what Jack and I found so fascinating about this story. The biggest deal for the New York Times was really word.

A potentially game-changing acquisition for the New York Times was for just a few million bucks. I mean, Jack, you don't have in-laws unless you're texting each other. Your whortle results every week, day. Whartle. Six guesses to guess a five-letter word. It's a game so simple. It's magnificent. Oh, you want to share our pro tip, Jack?

You should share the pro tip. This isn't our pro tip. This is a good pro tip. It's from our buddy, Sean. Yeah, Sean. Start with later, chimp, and sound. Because those include the 15 top most user. letters in the English language. It saved me today. All of the vowels. Jack, can I buy a vowel?

Today, did you get today? I haven't played yet today. Earmuffs. Badge. So, Wordle is the word game sensation of the world right now. And Wordle was invented by a loving husband whose name happened to be Wardle. And Wordle grew into something way bigger than this husband can handle. So we sold it to the New York Times this year for just a few million bucks. But here is the key hero stat that Jack and I just got from the New York Times. Wordle brought the New York Times an unprecedented tens of millions of new users in the first quarter. And let's keep something pretty critical in mind, Jack. The New York Times only has 9 million subscribers right now.

Exactly. So, Wordle just brought in tens of millions of potential subscribers to the New York Times. Now, Yeties and Bessies, that sounds fantastic, but it does lead to one problem. When the New York Times acquired Whartle, they promised all the Whartle fans it would stay free. For now. For now. For now. Which means that the New York Times is making almost nothing off the millions of wordal users.

For now. Or now. So Jack, what's the takeaway for the New York Times? For now. Here's the New York Times' wordle dilemma. To paywall or to cross-send? Can we talk about our lives right now? You wake up, you open a browser each morning on your laptop, you Google the word wordle,

you play one game of wordle, then you text your results to your buddy. Timmy, and then you move on. That's it. That's your Whartle daily situation. But The New York Times is a publicly traded company. It can't just sit back and not monetize one of the most viral games of the year. That's why we have a warning for Wordle fans out there. Yeah, we do. You're about to get paywalled or you're about to get cross-sold.

Because the New York Times is either going to put Wordle behind a paywall, so you're going to have to pay to play. Or they're going to throw a bunch of ads at you while you're playing Wordle for like random companies or other New York Times services. To paywall or to cross-out? That is the New York Times' wordal dilemma. Now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Okay, so Jack and I got into the news business with our previous company.

Markets now. Our goal was basically to democratize financial news for our generation. Cut the jargon. Talk about the profit puppy. So when we first connected with Robin Hood, there was a chemistry there. We were doing for financial news what Robin Hood was doing for the financial system. Robin Hood was democratizing finance for all, and it started by eliminating trading commissions and building a beautiful app. Remember, we had the same color green.

The green was destiny. Destiny, absolutely. So we sold market snacks to Robin Hood, and we launched Robin Hood Snacks. The equivalent of proposing getting married and building a family together in just three years. Much more to come on why we're thrilled that Robin Hood is our exclusive sponsor. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet to get started, you can go to robin hood.com slash tee boy and choose a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees.

View the fee schedule at RBNh-D.C-O-S-E-O-S-E-E. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story to kick off the week, it seems like everyone over-indulged in the pandemic. Now the economy, businesses, and stocks are all nursing a brutal hangarer. Okay, so here's how Jack and I like to go into the weekend. We like to go into the weekend celebrating some wins.

But then we look back at Thursday and stocks had their worst day in two years. Not exactly a win to celebrate. I'm getting messages that either I have to sell stock or put more cash in my account. Not a good message to receive. Jack Kramer, I'm not familiar with that individual. So last week, Jack and I were telling you about how we all overinduled during the pandemic. We did. Congress and the Fed. They basically gave us a little too much stimmy, a little too much stimulus. Right. Then the economy recovered very quickly. And suddenly we were all revenge spending on like a fire pit and three Pelotons.

My Peloton needs another Peloton. Now, it wasn't just the DC policymakers, though, who were overindulging over those two years. Companies, a whole bunch of companies got ahead of themselves with some overindulgence. Some companies thought the party was going to continue. So they kept ordering shots of Fireball, even though everyone had kind of left. Let's kick it out. with Amazon. Last week, Amazon announced they have too many distribution centers and too many fulfillment workers. We repeat, Amazon has too many people working for Amazon. They got too many of

those giant box fulfillment centers shipping your boxes. Those giant fulfillment centers are expensive. So Amazon announced last week their first quarterly loss in seven years. Okay, so that's Amazon. Jack, can we kick it over to Netflix? $17 billion on new shmovies last year? Why not? Why not? Oh, and managers had a anything goes pay policy where they could pay anything to hire talent. You get a raise and you get a raise and you get a raise. That's overindulgence. And now Netflix stock is down 73% in just six months. And Nick, we got to turn to our old employer, Robin Hood.

We do. Because get this, Robin Hood grew its workforce by 6x during the pandemic. Well, the stay-at-home trading frenzy went away. So Robin Hood just laid off 300 people. And this story is just not complete unless we talk about Peloton. Peloton was so determined to sell you a fourth bike. What do we got to do? That they were dropping the price of bikes throughout the pandemic like it was QVC.

Well, then the Peloton CEO had to step down. The stock price, it plummeted like it fell off the bike, twist at an ankle and was still stuck staring at your pit stains. Do you start the day with Wordle? I start the day with a reminder that Peloton stocks at a 52-week level. I hate we all. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our budget? who are all the investors in the entire market. Welcome to the first stock market hangover in years.

Here is the mistake that policymakers, CEOs, and investors have been making. They thought that pandemic trends would party on way longer than they actually did. Yeah, so the economy, it's bloated with cash, which means inflation. Companies are bloated with too many costs, which means losses. So investors just woke up to a big economic market hangover. The return to normalization, it's like sun pounding us through the windows. And it isn't really clear what the Advil is. Jack, can you whip up the T-boy takeaways for us over there? DoorDash keeps gobbling up more and more of the delivery market. Yeah, but DoorDash is doing a new thing. Original content. It's making food. For our second story, the New York Times profits fell because of one expensive acquisition and one

cheap one. And now the wordal dilemma to paywall or to cross-sail. Our third and final story, policymakers, CEOs and investors, they've all over-induled. during the pandemic. So now we're all nursing our first market hangover in years. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Nick and Jack. It's actually set it by us. Yeah, this one worked out really nicely.

All right, Nick. Most popular baby name is 2021. Okay, the most popular girl's baby name of 2021. What is it, Jack? Olivia. Yeah, Olivia. There we go. And, Jack, the most popular boy's baby name of 2021.

What is it? honorable mention is wilder. Shock one up for the Podson. But the most popular boy's name is Liam. The reason we're bringing up these baby names is because we need that new name for our audience. You used to be the Snackers. Now you're the besties or you're the Yetis. You're the Yetis or you're the besties.

Or you may be some writing candidate that's going to just blow this whole election out of the wild. No writing candidates. But we want your vote this week on Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube. Go to T-Boy Pod on every social platform and vote for your name. for yourself. I think you're allowed to vote more than once. This is highly unofficial. It's being hand-counted by Jack and me. Whatever the outcome, you are always the besties yet. You look fantastic.

Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Can't. And before we go, congratulations to legendary listeners and Mid-Panthers, Mia and Mike Panzer, who just had a baby girl, Sophie Ella Panzer. And congrats to Henry Cohn and Lizzie Whitley just got engaged down in Auburn, Alabama. And congrats to remote. Owen and Stephanie got engaged in beautiful France. And Jocelyn and Jake, they're tying the knot this week in New York City.

Huge congratulations to Hannah Thornberg and David Greer, who just had their first baby, Avery. And John and Tamar enjoy that first wedding anniversary down in D.C. Happy anniversary to Katie Ann and Stephen. It's their anniversary. Not their birthday. And good luck to Jackson Fippin and the whole University of Virginia ballroom dancing team competing in England. And Dina De Leon, congratulations. on your first quarter of work at Accenture.

And happy birthday to Sidney Hoffman from just outside Boston. Boston. And happy birthday, Danielle Colaprico in New Jersey. And Miguel Mazas turning 30 and graduating from Booth. And happy birthday to Kat Tana Tienza in Chesapeake, Virginia. And happy birthday to Jenny Bacchakas over in New York City. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-Ball. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Netflix. and Nick and I both on stock of Peloton and Robin Hood. Now, a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. So four years ago, we sold our company and we joined Robin. A lot of people asked, when did we decide that selling was the right move? So it was actually in our meeting with the co-founders, that's what sold us. Vlad and Bejou, also former roommates, also met in college, also were hanging out in New York

City's East Village after the financial crisis. And they just figured out how the financial system worked. So Vlad and Bejouzu saw that Wall Street bigwigs, they were getting their fees waived. and they figured out a way to waive commissions for everyone else too. So we saw a big, bold vision and decided to join these guys. That's where we spent the last three years until now. It makes sense now that Robin Hood would sponsor our newly independent podcast. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet, you can get started by going to robin hood.com slash

T-Boy choosing a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View the fee schedule at RBNHD.co slash fees. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LL. member SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or this podcast. I hope it's not like 51.49. Or would that be cool?

That'd be kind of cool. Because I don't want to just be the podcast host of half the nation, you know. Week two tiebreaker. We choose three listeners to debate it in the octagon.