The Best One Yet - ⛳ “Unhappy Gilmore” — Golf’s Saudi sportswashing. Jones Road’s micro makeup. Waymo’s truck brains.

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

The golf industry is going through its biggest drama since Shooter McGavin, because we’ve entered the age of sportswashing. Jones Road’s cosmetics is tired of paying Kim Kardashian for makeup promos, so they’re paying your buddy down the street. And one division of Uber doesn’t get enough love: Uber Freight is partnering with Google’s Waymo for self-driving truck brains.$ELY $GOOG $UBERFollow 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's Friday, the real Friday, June 10th, and today's pod is just the best one yet. Today, you can watch this episode right here on Spotify. Yeah, you can't. And then you can join us for a T-Boy Live over on Instagram. What timing are we talking? 3 o'clock Eastern, noon Pacific, at T-Boy pod right here on Instagram.

Jack and I will see you there, I guess, like, either way. In the meantime, first story, what do we got? The golf industry is going through its biggest drama since Shooter McGavin. Welcome to the age of sports washing. Our second story is about the one division at Uber that never gets any love. Uber Freight. They just partnered with Google's Waymo for self-driving brains. For our third and final story, Jones Road Cosmetics is tired of Penn Kim Kardashian types millions for makeup promo.

So they're going to pay your buddy down the street and a million other buddies down the street. Before we hit that wonderful mix. The perfect mix to go into a weekend with it. I love this mix. We know how you're feeling right now. Right now, you're chilly. You're chilly. It's the first week of summer, but it feels like the first week of January.

You don't have carpal tunnel. You have frostbite. According to the Wall Street Journal, the top complaint of people returning to the office, it's not that they have to commute again. It's not that Todd keeps microwaving his leftover tilapia and it's stinky. No, it's the thermostat. That's right, because when you were working from home, you preheated your sofa to the perfect temperature for you.

But here's the deal. at the office, you can't control the temperature. It feels like the Sahara outside. But it's cold as winter fell inside. Great for Elsa. Bad for us muggles. Yeah, so the reason these two cold offices are too frustrating, Yetis? Because the science proves that the offices are set way too cold. Get this, Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. Turns out, after 40 years of research, scientists have determined the optimal office temperature. The office temperature that every office should be set at is 71.6 degrees. We're talking 71.6 degrees.

That is the Goldilocks productivity number. But clearly your company's facilities person has it cranked down to 61 instead. Stroll into the office, you've been schvitzing while you're outside. And then that schvitz freezes the moment you're walking to the door. So the next time you're strolling into the office and you're tossing on that turtleneck. Stop.

And remember this. The only way that evil prevails is if good people do nothing. This is your moment. be an office hero. Crank up that thermostat until someone stops here. Let's warm up our 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 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, Saudi Arabia just launched a brand spank and new golf league. Professional golf is now being used. for sports washing.

Oh, besties and yetis. Untuck your shirt and deplete those khakis. We got a controversy shaking up the golf industry. Does anybody have a quarter? I forgot to bring a ballmarker. The PGA tour. They just, get this, they suspended 17 of their all-star golfers. This is the biggest golf drama since Chubbs got his hand bitten off.

Bill Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, a bunch of other legendary guys who are way better than you. They are out of the PGA tour. And so is any other play. player who joins Saudi Arabia's runaway professional golf league. Okay, we'll sprinkle on a little context here. The PGA Tour, it is the NFL, the NHL, the NBA, the MLB of golf. They run every major U.S. golf championship you called in sick from work to see. The problem for the PGA tour is something called Live Golf.

It's a new league financed by Saudi Arabia. Okay, now here's what Jack I found fascinating about this story. Saudi Arabia is basically taking its oil money and diversifying its assets by pouring it into nine irons. There's one thing we know about the live golf league for sure. It's the richest golf league of them all. The real story here is the money in this golf game. Saudi Arabia is tossing out cash like their Oprah. Here's the strategy of Saudi Arabia's new golf league. Find professional golfers and pay them double to join team Saudi. Okay, Jack, let's talk about Dustin Johnson, like a former number one in the world. How much was he getting paid when he played on the PGA tour golf tournaments in the United

States? In all of his prize checks that he's ever cashed, he's made $74 million in his PGA career. And Jack, how much money is Dustin Johnson getting paid now by the Live Golf League in Saudi Arabia? Live is reportedly paying him $125 million up front. One check that's almost double. his entire golf career until now. Okay, Eddies, we know what you're thinking. That's just one player.

Jack, how about our buddy Phil Mickelson? Our buddy Lefty? Yeah, Lefty Lucy. Lefty made 94 million in prizes over his 30-year PGA career. Okay, that was over 30 years. How much money is Phil Mickelson making $200 million? Sit down, stand up and sit back down again. Up front.

Okay, the Masters tournament, the legendary Masters, the Green Jacket, Gold Jacket, who gives up? You get paid $2.7. million dollars if you win the masters. Live has so much oil money, they're going to pay any tournament winner $4 million, almost double the Masters. Jack and I jumped in T-boy style, get this. Even if you shank a shot on the 18th hole in the Live golf tournament, you still get paid

$120,000. Grandma, grandma, grandma. Saudi Arabia's New League, they're literally buying golfers. And if that big oil money turns you from the PGA to live, you're a sustainable. suspended from the PGA. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the golf industry? We have entered the age of sports washing.

The young leader of Saudi Arabia is using sports to cleanse his and his country's reputation. Because Saudi's government is guilty of human rights crimes. So many we can't list them here. Yeah, this phenomenon of cleansing via sports is called sports washing. Sports are so universally beloved. that Muhammad bin Salman thinks his ownership of this golf league can make us forget about the crimes he's committed. And Jack, we've seen this sports washing before, like recently with the Olympics. China keeps on wanting to host more and more Olympics to cleanse their human rights reputation.

And we've seen sports washing with individuals like hedge fund manager Stephen Cohen. Stephen Cohen is the guy who the show Billions is based on. Yeah, he is. That's him. His reputation is stained by insider trading crimes. So we bought the New York Mets last year. Well, Saudi Arabia is doing the same thing. Sports washing to cleanse its reputation. For our second story, self-driving trucks could be coming first.

Because Waymo just partnered with the trucking industry for driver as a service. Yes. Waymo. Jack, when I say Waymo, what do you think? Because you know what I think? Whenever I hear Waymo, I think Nickelodeon character. Yeah. I'm trying to think like what words is this mashing up.

Like as it, you're going to have to pay Waymo. Stick a ride with Waymo. It's not a verb. It's a lifestyle. Waymo, it's the name of Google's self-driving car division. Yeah, it's reportedly worth alone. If it were its own separate company outside of Alphabet. This is wild.

It'd be worth $100 billion to $200 billion. Yeah, that's 30 lifts. And the cool thing about Waymo is they're not building a self-driving car. They're building a self-driving car brain. Yeah, because Detroit. It's not known for its brains. Detroit is known for its brawn. Yeah, so Waymo's like, hey, Detroit, you, you focus on the cars.

Do your car thing. We at Google, we will focus on the self-driving technology. And that has led to a new business, a new business from Waymo and Google, not software as a service, driver as a service. Das. Das. And that's what they call it. That's not like our T-Boy term.

Although I wish we'd come on. That was pretty good. So Waymo wants to help other car companies make their cars. self-driving capable for a huge fee. For a huge fee, which led to the big news. Waymo has just partnered with Uber to make the trucking industry self-driving. That's right. Because Uber has one division that nobody ever talks about.

You know, we were talking about Uber's Bachelorette game the other day. Everybody on their new feature. But, you know, the part of Uber that gets no love is freight. And, Jack, how is Uber freight doing? It's the fastest growing part of Uber by far. So besties and yet is you know Uber, it connects. riders with a taxi. Well, Uber Freight connects truck drivers with merchants who need something trucked. So like Uber gets you downtown. Uber Freight gets two tons of lumber across the country.

So here's how this Uber Waymo partnership would work out. Basically, anyone who needs to move stuff would open up the app and instead of hailing like a Toyota, they would hail an 18 wheeler. And the dream with this partnership is that you tap on the phone and a tractor trailer will show up at your warehouse. And then here's where things get a little freaky. That tractor trailer, you know, it has no driver. No, but it does have cameras, sensors, a bunch of hardware and a bunch of software that Waymo installed on the tractor trailer. Like we said, Waymo's not doing the cars. They're doing the brains. Yeah. And Waymo is already outfitting the trucks of Daimler, J.B. Hunt, Freightliner, and a bunch of other big truck companies you've never heard of. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for all of our

buddies who have been waiting for self-driving cars. The winner of the race to self-driving won't be cars. It'll be huge trucks. For so many reasons, those 18 wheelers could be the first transport to go driverless. The first big reason, we have a truck driver shortage. So there's not going to be that much resistance if robots come in and help out. And the second reason, trucks are less risky. They drive on highways, so they're making fewer turns and there are fewer pedestrians to hit. The third reason, we could transform the HOV lane. We could create a new lane separated from the rest just for these robot trucks. This is pretty cool. It's actually a thing. It's called platooning. And check, how does platooning work?

It's a thing in like academia. And the dream is that 20 tractor trailers could line up with just like a foot in between each one, like a train. Like a train. And move together like a unit across the country on Nernstate 80. Yeah. So Google's secret is it's under the radar future profit puppy. It is Waymo. And Waymo might make tractor trailer long haul the first to go driverless. And now worried about our sponsor, Robin Hood. We see ads all the time. All over the place, $10 off this $5 promo code for that, Jack. You can buy three suits.

You can get one free. But something we always thought was cool about Robin Hood, the free stock promo. Yeah, this was wild. The promo isn't like some X amount of dollars. It's one stock. If you signed up for Robin Hood, they'd thank you with a single share in a publicly traded company on the house. And that free stock promo, it actually helped drive Robin Hood's growth and got new users

in the stock market right away. One of the most creative moves in promotional history. So when Robin Hood became our sponsor, naturally Jack and I said, we got to do the free stock giveaway. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, you want to get started, go to robin hood.com slash t-boy and get cash to select your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOY. Certain limitations apply all investments involved risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story before the weekend, Bobby Brown, Jones Road makeup is making a pivot.

Because macro influencers show you the Instaversion. Micro-influencers show you the reality. Can we talk about Bobby Brown, Jack? Bobby Brown, the queen of cosmetics. One of the queens of cosmetics. Her 10 natural lipstick shades revolutionize the cosmetics industry. 1995, she sells her makeup line, Bobby Brown, to Estee Lauder for a whopping 75 million bucks. Not bad.

Yeah. 2020, Bobby Brown starts getting that entrepreneurial itch again. So she launched her own company for a second time called Jones Road. Yeah, Jones Road. It was basically clean beauty, the idea of like no makeup, makeup, makeup without the cake up kind of thing. And she's recently noticed a marketing issue. Yeah.

Influencers are paid to promote on social media. That feels scripted when they do. Influencers are kind of more like spin influencers these days, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When they post, it feels fake. It feels like they're trying to spin you into a sale. They spun you, and it's like obviously an ad. Yeah, they're also showing off the Insta-perfected version of the product.

Good point. That's true. That's true. Which is not at all the experience sometimes that the customer is going to feel themselves. So what Jack and I found fascinating about this story is that Bobby Brown's Jones Road is making a pivot. From influencer marketing to not quite influencers. Yeah. Jones Road, the makeup company, has switched entirely to micro-influencers, like tens of thousands of followers, not tens of millions of followers. Here's the price tag. A dollar. I'll give you a dollar for every hundred views you can get wearing our product. Right.

So they're like spreading this out. They're not paying one big influencer a lot of money. They're paying a lot of micro-influencers just like a little bit of money. Let's look at Neri. Nehuri. Here we go. Her TikTok bio says that she's a newlywed, a dog mom, and that she likes beauty, fashion, and family. We've all seen someone like Neri.

Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. She's got 16,000 followers. And they're on TikTok. I'm jealous. It's not Addison Ray, but it's better than us. Addison Ray is not jealous. Yeah. Well, turns out Neri is making $500 for every Jones Road video she's making of like their lip cloth.

Not bad. The tinted moisture bomb has become Neri's profit pocket. She just puts it on at front of the camera and posts it. It's not the macro. It's the micro-influencer. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the whole cosmetics industry? The pendulum is swinging from aspirational to authentic. Yet is the underlying force that has always driven influencer marketing is aspiration.

Like most advertising historically, they showcase a product with an idealized version that you can aspire to. But increasingly, bigger advertisers are looking for authenticity. Yeah, they're changing it up a bit. They're showcasing the product with a realistic version. You'll actually experience yourself. Because they're targeting Gen Z. And Gen Z is less focused on like a perfectly edited Kendall Jenner pick and more on neighborhood Naomi's actual use. We want to see what the product will actually look like on us.

So someone who actually unboxes and looks like you and is doing it in their like totally messed up living room that they haven't cleaned up? That's the next best thing to trying the product on yourself in real life. The way we see it, the pendulum is swinging from aspirational to authenticity. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend? An autocratic oil regime known for human rights abuses is paying golfers double the money. It's your classic case of sports washing. For our second story, Waymo has partnered up with Uber, freight. They have long haul tractor trailer trucking. That could be the first to go self-driving.

Our third and final story is Jones Road. They're not paying macro influencers. They're paying the micro guys. Yeah, there's a pivot in marketing from aspirational to authenticity. And before we go, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Elizabeth Alfano over in lovely Chicago. Push and play. Here we go. Here's the best fact yet. You'd save more water by skipping one family chicken dinner than by skipping showering for six months. Should we up out the numbers here? Jump in T-Boy Stoss, McCona, a little context, Jack? This is an incredible fact. Here we go. Okay. Jack and I jumped in even further. How many gallons of water are used to raise a chicken jack? Well, you got to feed the chicken water and you got to

feed the chicken food. And the food requires a lot of water to grow. Okay. So it's 5,000 gallons of water to raise one 10-pound chicken. And the average shower, when we're like, thinking about the takeaway, is how long and how much water does the average shower take? 17 gallons. So by our math, you can do 294 showers equivalent to the water needed to raise one chicken. So I think she's right. And it turns out salads, use a lot less water, even though you got to wash them with all that water. Yeah, salads require 1 20th the amount of water as chicken. So here's the takeaway, Jack.

But chicken tastes really good. I was going to say, we should all just be filthy and eat salads. It's called, I guess a compromise. Besties and Yetis, you look fantastic today. We hope you're not freezing wherever you are, but just crank that thermostat. Turn off the shower and need some plans. Jack and I will see you on T-Boy Live on Instagram later today. It'll be great.

I can't wait to see you. 3 o'clock Eastern 12%. We're going to celebrate some wins. We'll see you there. And before we go, congratulations to Yeti Gift Chujor, who's graduating in Deshaunbe Tajikistan. Huge shout out to Alex. From right here in my house, she's my wife, she got accepted to the breadloaf environmental writing conference.

She's got to be whipping up the poems. There we go. And congrats to Damia Nichols for his first solo art exhibition in Chicago. And Jamie Schiff, last day of J.P. Morgan Chase gets some dishes. Happy 10-year anniversary to Bettina and Jonathan in Paris, France. And Madison News, congrats on graduating as valedictorian. Congrats to Ryan Ribnick and Sahil Sharma, who are both graduating from UCLA. business program. And Ricardo Herrera Coto,

congrats on graduating from Tuck Business School. And happy birthday to Elvaro Garcia Maldonado in Marbella, Spain. And Dylan Damador over in Los Angeles. And Justin Young in San Francisco. And Izzy Dow, enjoy that three-layer chocolate Brooklyn Blackout birthday cake tonight. Happy birthday to Ellen Hanley in San Bruno, California. And Raquel, turning 26, in New York City. And Cahookey Chris to Chris Scott in Los Angeles.

Curtis over in West in Connecticut. Happy half birthday to Violet Campos, six months old, looking cuter than ever. And baby Balter was just born in Washington, D.C. First word? Yeah, shmovie. This is Jack.

Nick and I both own stock of Robin Hood. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time we swiped up to buy a stock on Robin Hood, whoa. Yeah, Jack, you get like that, like little vibration, boom, you've done a trade. It wasn't just an incredible app. Robin Hood added incredible resource.

It started with the Help Center. Everyone has that. Then came Robin Hood snacks, digestible financial news. Then came the news feed, providing free third-party news from trusted sources. And then came Robin Hood Learn. A huge trove of articles explaining what the heck in ETF is. Yeah, spoiler. It's like a stock smoothie. Jack and actually wrote the article in that way. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, want to get started, go to robinood.com slash T-boy and choose a free stock. That's robin hood.com T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC. Member SIPC and by the way Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or

the podcast. Great work. Great job, dude. I helped you out there in that final line. You did. You needed it, dude. I was like, I was like against the I totally bailed you out there.

And then it like gets to me in the final line. I was great. Thank you.