The Best One Yet - 🟥🟦🟩 “The world’s 1st mobile game” — Rubik’s Cube’s toy surge. Elon’s GrokBot fundraise. Airbus’ all-time high (literally).

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

The world has a new #1 airplane company: Airbus — Airbus’s market value just passed Boeing for the 1st time ever. We want to talk about their 12-year waitlist.The Rubik’s Cube toy that’s messed with your minds is surging right now — It sells $75M/year by defying the screen.And xAI, Elon’s chatbot company, is reportedly raising money at a $15-20B valuation — But with AI, you are what you eat (and Grok eats Twitter).$BA $EADSY $SNMSFSubscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, Tea Boy, Tuesday, January 23rd. In today's pod, it is the best one yet, Jack. Oh, and have we put together a tea boy today, man. We're serving up the top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Jack, how's your Tea Boy Tuesday? What's going on?

This morning, I had an accidental cold plunge, okay? You do not want to make that happen accidentally. Orange Theory Group Fitness. I went into the shower afterwards. Hot water's out. Oh, God. Oh, God. Before you know, I am screaming under that cold water, but I've never felt better.

It's a baptism by cube. Ice cube. That is brutal, man. An accidental cold plunge. I feel incredible. The best part about surviving a cold plunge is you get to tell everyone you do cold plunges, Jack. First story for today is T-boy of a show. What do we got, man?

For the first time in 50 years, Boeing is not the most valuable plane company in the world. Yet is Europe's Airbus is now number one, and it's got the time. coolest waitlist in town. For our second story, it's a new AI startup, reportedly worth $20 billion, and it's owned by Elon Musk. It's called Grock, the AI chatbot, and it could be the secret to saving Twitter. And our third and final story is the Rubrics Cube. It's the least digital game ever, and it's selling more than ever.

Besties, if you can finish a Rubik's Cube before we finish this podcast, we'll send you a free T-Boy hat. Well, we're going to require proof, and we'll send you two T-Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee. Boy hats if you finish it in a cold plunge. But besties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a fantastic mix of stories today. Love the mix, Jack. Nick and I are going to ask you to count your subscriptions right now.

And don't worry, this isn't an ad. All right, Jack, I'm checking right now. It's Netflix, Hulu, I got Amazon Prime. And Applebee's. Applebee's. That's right, Yeties. Applebee's the restaurant. Get this.

Just launched a subscription. For $200 bucks a year, you can be a member of Club Applebee. 200 bucks a year and they'll treat you to 30 bucks of free food once a week every week all year long. That's the deal. So you subscribe to the sizzling fajita Fiesta plate. You subscribe to the double glazed babyback rib. But honestly, this isn't that novel. This isn't the first ever restaurant subscription. No, you were holding this in. What do you want to share with the group, Jack? Why don't you tell us?

The Olive Garden invented the restaurant subscription. Yeah, he's the never-ending pasta pass introduced in 19, That is the original restaurant subscription. It was ahead of its time. It was the Netflix of Nyoki. It was the birch box of bowling yazy. But back to Applebee's. Nick and I crunched the numbers on that Club Applebee's deal.

So 30 bucks of free food weekly. 52 weeks a year. That's $1,500 of value right there. $1,500 of value and they're charging $200 bucks the whole year, Jack? Sounds like an amazing deal for you and me. A bad deal for Applebee's, right? It sounds like a really bad deal for Applebee's. But here's the thing. Customers forget that they bought that pass in the first place.

Yeah, he's according to the data. Customers forget they have subscriptions, but they keep paying for those subscriptions. 42% of us on a regular basis pay for stuff monthly even after we stopped using the thing. And Jack, I'm still paying for Hulu. I haven't really been watching Hulu. That is why Applebee's just launched a restaurant subscription. Because roast beef can be recurrent revenue, baby. So, for T-Boy Tuesday, we want to know from you. Yeah, it is. What restaurant would you pay a monthly subscription for? What restaurant would you subscribe to and not forget because it's that good?

Maybe a shake-shack-shack subscription? Would you get 7-11 24-7? A slurpy subscription, Jack? How about a Michelin-starred monthly subscription, Nick, for you? Very bien, I'd want to. Let us know what restaurant you would pay monthly for at T-Boy Pod. Hit us up at T-Boy Pod and Jack, let's hit our three stories. The Olive Garden did it first. Remember that. The OG is the OG.

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 50% That's a fat tip T-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 For the first time in 50 years Boeing is not The number one most valuable aircraft company in the world It's Europe's Airbus now

They have done the unthinkable And stolen Boeing's crown Jack, I don't want to whip out the old GPS here, but you were an econ major, right? Right. You were a history. I was a history major. But together, we both took a whole bunch of polycyc classes, didn't we? It was the thing you did at liberal arts schools. Everyone takes a polycycloths or a blast. So Nick and I could tell you that the European Union wasn't just formed to create peace across Europe.

No, no, no, no. Yeties, the European Union was also formed as an economic block to compete with the United States. Case in point, Nick. Airbus. The airport. manufacturing company. Back in the 1960s, Germany had an airplane company. And France had an airplane company. Oh, and Spain also had an airplane company. We should point that out. Each of those companies was great companies, but they were all tiny compared to America's Boeing.

Jack, this would be the equivalent of like if New York State had an airplane company. In California had an airplane company. In Wisconsin, had an airplane company. That's how the Europeans felt. So in 1970, France and Germany shook hands and decided to combine airplane companies. And Spain and England were like, hey, we got a couple airplane companies. Can we join you guys? Is that cool?

And that's how Airbus was created. It's basically the European Union of airplanes. Literally. So besties, for the past 50 years, there's only been two major aircraft companies in the whole world. We've had Boeing and we've had Airbus and that's it. You're probably flying on one of those two. That's it. It's basically a Rider Cup situation.

You got Team America and Team Europe. That's it. It's like the two golf teams except it's just the two. big airline makers. Boeing's got the 747. Airbus has the A380. Same size planes, two different names. Pretty straightforward. Boeing's planes are all named

after the number seven. Oh, they love the number seven. They got the 737, the 747, the 747, the 747, the 777, the triple seven and the old 787. It's a classic. And Airbus loves the letter A. They got the A380, the A350, and the A320. So it's a great rivalry. We've got to tell you. But historically, the winner has always been Boeing. European socialism just couldn't keep up with American capitalism when it came to profits.

As recently as 2018, Boeing was twice as valuable as Airbus, according to their stock prices. Sit down, stand up, and buckle up again, putting your tray in the upright position. Jack, can you repeat that stat for us again? Just five years ago, Boeing was twice as valuable as Airbus. But not anymore. Because for the last five years, Airbus has delivered more planes than Boeing has. And on Monday, Airbus overtook Boeing to become the most valuable aircraft company in the world for the first time ever. It's a huge and first win for Team Europe in the Aircraft Wars.

So, Jack, this is your co-pilot speaking. Can you please tell us the takeaway for our buddies over at Airbus? How popular is Airbus right now? They're so popular, they have a 12-year wait list. Yet, he since the Alaska Airlines incident, the other. week. Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes have still been grounded. But airlines like United Airlines and Delta Airlines, they don't have much choice. Like their only alternative to Boeing is Airbus, which has a 12-year wait list to get a new airplane. No joke, pasties. They have 8,000 commercial aircraft orders they haven't

fulfilled and they only produce 600 planes a year. You thought the one month wait to get a reservation at Carbone was difficult. You're not getting a new Airbus plane until 2036. Despite the 12-year wait list, some airlines are switching from Boeing to Airbus. Airbus's waitlist is getting longer, and Boeing's waitlist is getting shorter. Boeing's five years of safety issues and delays is causing customers to switch, and the waitless numbers prove it. And that is why rival Airbus has become the number one most valuable aircraft company in the world for the first time. For our second story, Elon Musk's AI startup is reportedly about to hit a $20 billion valuation. But what this story really teaches us is that when it comes to AI, you are what you eat.

Jack, before we jump into this story, I'm checking the calendar here. Nearly two years ago in April, Elon announced he was buying Twitter. Since then, he's driven down Twitter's cultural relevance with his chaotic management style. And he's driven down Twitter's business prospects by cursing out advertisers. But, of course, Elon fans think this is all part of a master plan. And here's the master plan. Jack, can you whip out the super secret whiteboard to reveal the master Twitter plan, please? The real value of Twitter to Elon is not as a social media app.

It's as a training ground for GROC, which is Elon's AI chatbot. That's right. Heady's Elon doesn't just run a car company and a social media company and a space company. He also runs an AI company called XAI, and their core product is a chatbot named GROC. Twitter premium users can use GROC right now to ask questions about what's happening in the world, and I'll answer. It's a little bit of personality, doesn't it, Jack? How do you describe this thing? He's going to answer with some A.

Yeah, it's got a little sass to it. Like, if you talk to this Grog chatbot, it's going to be like an angry Andy Cohen from Bravo. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I do. It's like the fifth O'Doyle brother. It's Elon approved. But here's the news. Bloomberg is reporting that Elon has now raised $500 million to grow this AI company, XAI. Although we should point out that Elon says this Bloomberg report is fake news.

Fundraise or not, XAI could be the secret to salvage his failed Twitter acquisition. And here's why. Because Yeti's valuations for AI startups, you want to put the word AI in your pitch deck if you're raising money right now. Bloomberg says this latest fundraising round for XAI would value the company. company at $15 to $20 billion. Jack, can we sprinkle on some shocking context to that number, please? That means Elon's brand new AI company would be worth more than Twitter, which is 18 years old. Elon's brand new AI startup is already bigger than Twitter. So if Twitter dies, he might still have XAI to salvage the returns for his investors.

And here's the key connection, besties. Elon is actually using X and all your tweets to train this AI company. Because artificial intelligence needs training. It's no good if it doesn't get trained. Grock needs to learn. Learn Grock needs. When we were kids, we read books, we studied, and we read articles to get smart in school. You jumped into some Jane Austen, some Moby Dick, a little Econ 101 textbook.

That is how you absorbed information and got smart. Artificial intelligence has to do the same thing to get smart. It has to consume digital content in order to learn. That's how it works. And then it can answer your dumb questions. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy is over at XAI? When it comes to AI, you are what you eat. Yeti's OpenAI has the leading chatbot out there.

It's the fastest growing app ever. It's chat GPT. It's a train chat GPT. Its parent, OpenAI, sign deals with news publishers, like Business Insider and the Associated Press. Open AI has not signed a deal with the New York Times, which is now suing OpenAI for using New York Times article. to train their chatbot. Either way, OpenAI is feeding their chatbot verified information from

top news institutions. On the other hand, XAI, it's taking, can we say like a very different approach, Jack? Elon isn't feeding his chatbot journalism. He's feeding his chatbot tweets. Right. Yet he's Elon thinks that XAI will be the most up-to-date chatbot in the world because its source of information is so fresh. But his chatbot might act like a Twitter troll because it derives all its information from Twitter. Because Yetis, when it comes to AI, it's exactly like your grandmother told you. You are what you eat.

For our third and final story, sales of one toy are surprisingly surging right now, and that toy is the Rubik's Cube. The Rubrics. I always call it the Rubrics Cube. Honestly, until we did this story, I did not know I always spell, Jack. We're looking at what is driving the sale

of this one hard-to-pronounce toy. All right, Jack, the record amount of time, the fastest anyone has ever completed a Rubik's Cube. What is it? I saw it on YouTube a few months ago. I wouldn't have believed that unless I saw it, someone put the whole thing together in 3.1 seconds. 3.1 seconds.

Done. Boom. They just finished Rubik's Cube. And they just finished it again. You all have seen the Rubik's Cube, a three by three colored cube that twists while you twist your frontal lobe. If you hold a Rubik's cube as you walk around the world, people just assume your IQ is like 20% higher than it actually is.

People assume you've conquered the Rubik's Cube, even though you probably have it. You can wear a Rolex or you can wear a Rubik's Cube. Trust us, go with the Rubik's Cube. Rubik's Cube turns 50 years old this year because it was invented in 1974 by a Hungarian architect named Erno Rubik. Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. We got the numbers. And the Rubik's Cube was a viral hit like in year number one. The first year at commercialized, 1979, they sold 300,000 units.

A lot of units back then. And as of today, Rubik's Cube has. sold over 500 million cubes in that 50-year history. Not too shabby. Funny thing about this toy, you don't have to plug it in. There's no battery. There's no computer chips. All those fun, funky electric games you had the Game Boys, the Tomogachis, you don't have them anymore, but you still have your Rubik's cube. It just sits on the desk waiting to be played with anytime. During the pandemic, it was the antidote to screen time for stuck at homers out there. And sales continued to surge. Last year, they jumped 14% to $75 million.

Get this, Yeti's, half of the entire brain teaser toy market is owned by Rubik's Cube. But besties, Rubik's Cube isn't some independent toy from Hungary anymore because three years ago, it got acquired for $50 million. It's owned by a company called Spin Master. It's the fourth biggest toy company in the world, actually. It also owns Paw Patrol, kinetic sand, which Wilder loves. Classic. Etch-Skatch and Melissa and Doug. This is a publicly traded Canadian toy company that is eaten up Rubik's Cube.

and added it to its engaging toy portfolio. They also recently licensed with the YouTube sensation, Miss Rachel, to develop a line of toys for tots. But Jack, what do you and I think is going to happen with all of this Rubik's Cube IP that they acquired just three years ago? Take me back to 1974, Hungary. I want to see a biopic of the origin of this toy.

That's what we want to see. Like, we think they're going to give Rubik's Cube the Barbie movie treatment, don't we, Jack? Show me a young Erno Rubik in his prime. And turn it into a rom-com with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey solving a couple cubes. That's not where I would have gone. Nothing brings people together like a stressful toy. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the Rubik's Cube?

The Rubik's Cube is actually the first ever mobile game. Yet he's mobile gaming. You know, you think about games you play in your smartphone, like during a subway ride. That is mobile game. Games like Candy Crush, Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds. Those are mobile games. Well, Rubik's Cube, it could have adapted to the digital. It could have turned itself into an app just like all of those digital mobile games.

Instead, Rubik's Cube leaned into its difference. It's a physical analog object. And where others saw a liability, Rubik's Cube recognized an asset. You know, just like Candy Crush, Rubik's Cube competes for your attention every day. But since Rubik's Cube never went digital, it stands out even more. Now Rubik's Cube dominates a space with less competition and more visibility. Your desk, the top of your desk. And that is why Jack and I think the Rubik's Cube.

is actually the first ever mobile game. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? For the first time ever, Airbus is now more valuable than Boeing. Yeah, these airlines, they want Airbus so badly. They're willing to wait 12 years for them. 12 years. For our second story, it's Elon Musk's X-AI. They're reportedly raising money to develop GROC, their AI chatbot.

GROC eats tweets all day, and when it comes to AI, you are what you eat. And our third and final story is the Rubik's Cube. It turns 50 this year and sales are still booming. The first ever mobile game never went digital. And that was its growth tag. But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, the 49ers versus Packers game on Saturday.

It set a TV record. Get this, 37 million households tuned into that game. That is the highest rated non-sunday TV program since the 1994 Olympics featuring Tanya Harding and Nancy Carrigan. Oh, remember it like it was 30 years ago, Jack. And second, the Dow, top 38,000 points for the first time ever. This bull market just keeps on ripping, baby. Stocks are now 43% higher than they were at their pre-pendemic highs.

And finally, Macy's was offered $5.8 billion to sell itself, and Macy's said, no, we're going to pass. Wow. Macy's, a brick-and-mortar department store, said no to a $6 billion acquisition offer. Jack, I think you and I have a follow-up question for Macy's. Hey, Macy, what do you want exactly? I mean, they got the Thanksgiving Day parade. That's pretty valuable. Maybe that's all they need, honestly. And they got that real estate at 34th Street in New York City, literally miracle at 34th Street. Yeah, Macy's, you should ask for more money. You know,

you should ask for seven. We really pull the 180 right there. Yeah, yeah, that's how you negotiate, Macy's. Good for you, Macy's. Good for you. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Corey Carroll from lovely Colorado Springs, Colorado. Yesterday, Nick and I covered the business of Haribo, the gummy bear company. Haribo Gummies, it's the biggest confectioneryeryery County on planet Earth. Well, there's actually a fantastic tradition at this company's headquarters in Germany. Okay, this is great. Yeties, get this. Every year, Haribo asked local children to bring in chestnuts and acorns to the Haribo gummy bear factory. We repeat, they encourage local children to gather chestnuts and acorns from the woods and then bring them to their gummy bear factory. Well, in exchange for those nuts, Haribo gives those children free candy.

What a wonderful exchange. This is lovely. And then they donate the nuts they gathered to wildlife parks to feed the animals during the winter. This feels like something from a fairy tale, Jack. I don't even believe it. Do we have any numbers, man? A few years ago, 20,000 children showed up donating 300,000 acorns and chestnuts. Oh, my golden gummy bear, Jack.

That's a whole lot of nuts for candy. This should be a children's book, a Christmas book. It's like trick-or-treating without the tricking, Jack. We love it. Yadies, you look fantastic today. And Jack, what do we want to know from the besties out there when it comes to T-Boy Tuesday? If you could get a restaurant subscription, what restaurant would you subscribe to? What restaurant would you pay a monthly subscription for?

Hit us up, let us know, at T-boy Pod. And by the way, if you were filling out a Rubik's Cube, there is one minute left in this podcast. has for you to finish. That's it. The shoutouts are one minute long. Yeah, yeah. Hurry up. If you get this done in one minute, let us know. No pressure, but Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Happy T-Boy Tuesday, Jack and I will see tomorrow. And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti, Kevin Murray, over in Oklahoma City.

He just moved back and is listening to the best playlist yet. And Joey Eifuel is turning 52 years old. Happy birthday in Queens, New York. Happy belated birthday to Jim Gruy in Logan, Utah. And E.C. Samson is celebrating the birthday down in Sugarland, Texas. Happy birthday to John Hancock, our signature writing founder father from Braintree, Massachusetts. Just outside boss. And congratulations to Savannah Westwood, who is transitioning her dog walking service over to her employees.

And a special shout out to Manny and Connie, who are getting a brand new golden doodle puppy down in Orlando. And to anyone else celebrate something today. Make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix and Nick owned stock of ShakeShack. For some reason we drop the K whenever we have

geographical blocks. I don't know why. It's the same thing, right? I don't know why either, man.