The Best One Yet - 🎹 “Wordle… but for Bohemian Rhapsody” — Spotify’s trivia acquisition. Pepsi’s double-dipped chip. Dollars vs Euros.

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Trivia: What startup did Spotify just acquire? Answer: A music trivia game that rhymes with Wordle (because “discovery” is audio’s biggest problem). Pepsi just revealed a shockingly strong quarter because it’s double-dipping its chips — and we’re letting them do it. And American tourists traveling to Europe are about to enjoy 18% off everything, but there are 2 sides to every coin (literally).$PEP $SPOTFollow The Best One Yet 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.

In person. Here we go. We're going to talk over each other. There we go. Three, two. This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, July 13th. And today's pod, today's pot, in particular, today's pod, is the best one yet. It's a T-boy. Grab your torn T-shirts, by the way. And the $18 plant-based creamies. Jack and I just arrived in Los Angeles. Three days, we got a T-Boy offsite. We've been here for one hour. We have. We already spent two hours on the 401. True story. Are we adopted?

a rescue. Are we getting bro-tox? Are we? Is today's pod the best one yet? Yes to all three. For our first story, Spotify just acquired a trivia game that involves music. Okay, Jack, trivia. What startup did Spotify acquire? For our second story, Pepsi stock just jumped because they're double dipping on us big time. And we are holding the bag, literally. And for our third and final story, for the first time in 20 years, here it is. One U.S. dollar equals one euro. Fantastic if you're an American tourist.

Not so fantastic if you're an American company. But Nick, before we hit that wonderful mix. Here we are in the flesh. Honestly, I love this mix in particular. You've seen that sparkly, glittery image on your Instagram. I saw this today, Jack. It's like a rainbow of colors and a cloud of unicorn sparkles. We're talking, of course, about the James Webb Space Telescope.

Yes, we are the largest telescope in the history of the world. It took 30 years to build this. thing. Okay. It's in space now. Real story. And it costs $10 billion. It's one lift. It makes the predecessor the Hubble telescope, honestly, look more like a kaleidoscope. Now, the first photos, they just came out for NASA. Big. It looks like a futuristic Van Gogh fantasy painting. Wow. But it's actually this universe. It looks like a Lisa Frank sticker album exploded, but it's actually this universe. Yeties, we got a warning for you. When you understand the gravity of what is in these space photos.

I know it's coming. It's going to make your head hurt. Because these photos bend the space time continuum. These images show stars from 13 billion years ago. We repeat, it took light 13 billion years to travel to this telescope that's up in space. And that one pick, that one glorious pick. It's beautiful. We see dozens of tiny bright dots.

Yeah, and each of those tiny bright dots is really an entire galaxy. So we're on the planet Earth in our solar system, in our Milky Way. galaxy, which is surrounded by hundreds of other galaxies. With thousands of other surrounding solar system. With millions of other planets and stars. All of that is captured in this one glorious picture. But that single photo is just one grain of sand in this whole universe. Which infinitely expands with infinitely more grains of sand.

Of infinitely more galaxies. My head is hurt. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one. Yeah, my 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. For our first story, Spotify, just acquired hurdle, which is the wordel for music? This acquisition isn't for growth. It's for discovery. Jack, is this the real life?

I don't know. Is this just fantasy? Is that Melton Johnson? Caught in a landslide. Oh, Queen. No. Escape from reality. Bohemian Rhapsody, it's Queen.

Yiddies, open your eyes. Look up to the skies, and you will see that that is Hurtle. What we just did is Hurtle, which is a musical theme trivia game inspired by Wirtle. Yeah, it's Wirtle, but for hearing. Hurdle randomly selects a popular song and plays you the first second of that song. And here's how it goes down. You guess the song, if you're wrong, they give you a couple more guesses. They give you another second with each wrong guess, and you get six guesses total.

not too shabby. And then at the end, they let you tap to listen to the song on Spotify. Okay, so hurdle with that wordel zucking has basically required millions of users. That's what they got. I think this is different enough that it's not a zucking. I actually think it's impressive. Like, this had a nice little spin on the world move. It's ironic. The price of the acquisition is undisclosed. So we don't know how much Spotify paid. But it did just become Spotify's very first gaming acquisition. Now, there's lots of ways Spotify can approach an actual. They could just do a total buyout, they could take over the company, they could just use the IP, a whole bunch of options.

Spotify is treating this acquisition, Hurtle, like it was a musical artist. Yeah, they're kind of like, hey, keep your creative independence. You just keep being you share. Hurdle will remain a separate website for now, just like Werdle after it got acquired by the New York Times. Yeah, and Hurtle will remain free and its own brand. Spotify is not going to change it to like Sprirtle. It just doesn't roll off the tongue. but hurdle is also going to end up in the Spotify app.

Because Spotify needs to make some money from this acquisition. And Jack is a fellow Spotify shareholder. How is that Spotify stock of ours doing? It's down big. Yeah. Spotify is trading below where it started trading in 2018. Ipso facto Spotify, they need a smash hit. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Spotify?

The biggest challenge in audio is discovered. Yet he's audio. It is an intimate medium. There is an intimate media. There is deep engagement. We love, we're interacting with you. It's deeper than like newsletters or any other media. I absolutely love audio.

But for podcasts and music, audio can be hard to discover because audio doesn't share well. Exactly. Audio is different than every other media for that reason. Because you got Instagram pictures, you got YouTube videos, you got Twitter text. All of those things go viral every day. But audio rarely goes viral. Yeah. Well, Spotify knows that if you don't discover news,

music and you just listen to the same old songs, honestly, it gets kind of boring. If your playlist becomes stale, you might think to yourself, why am I even paying Spotify? So hurdle isn't just a game. It is a tool for finding fresh music. Spotify acquired hurdle to help it solve audio's discovery problem. For our second story, inflation is honestly the best thing that has ever happened to Pepsi. Pepsi is pulling a double dip when it comes to chips. So we got to call them. out for. We're going to call it out. In the meantime, though, we're also going to call out, uh, hey, Pepsi, grab the top shelf Mountain Dew. Their earnings were worthy of a pizza party.

Stuffed crofts in the office. Come on down. Pepsi announced second quarter earnings yesterday, and revenues jumped by 13%. Okay, this is a $200 billion company that just grew 13%. If you ignore the big loss related to their one-time selling off of their Russian business, it's like forget it for now. Then their profits jumped last. quarter too. And Jack, a key reason why Pepsi is living the high mountain due life. They raised prices on average of all their products by 12%. But here's the key. We're all still paying those 12% higher prices for Tropicana. One division of PepsiCo is Frito Lays chips. Okay, how they don't? They sold 1% fewer bags of chips last quarter. Okay, so you think that'd be a

bad thing. But they made 14% higher revenue because they jacked up the prices. And a key reason for this is because Americans are thinking twice about buying big ticket items like cars and houses and washing machines. But the CEO unapologetically explained that he can keep selling Doritos, which are an affordable treat. Yeah, because you don't notice the 12% price of your Doritos because your face is covered in flavor. Also like, what's $2.24 compared to $2. But Yetis, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. It turns out Pepsi's profits benefit from a very interesting natural human economic craving. One study got published last month

that showed that Americans during the Great Recession, their diets got worse. Yeah, apparently economic anxiety leads us to consume more processed, more fatty foods, which Pepsi happens to have as a specialty. Pepsi has Quaker oats,

and you know I love oats. It's a healthy problem. Cold oats. You just throw in some bananas, you throw in some maple syrup. They also have bubbly, the sparkling water. Again, also healthy. You can mix them together. It's extra healthy. But just about everything else on its snack menu

is chicken soup for the recession sold. Yeah. So your crypto wallet? Yeah, it shrank last quarter. We're there with you. Pepsi's chips and dips grew last quarter. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies pumping out products over at Pepsi? Pepsi is pulling a classic double dip.

Now, besties, when Jack and I see a chip get double-diffed, we've just got to call it out. We can't stand by and just watch this. And we're calling out Pepsi because they're winning on both sides. They are raising prices and shrinking the size of the product. Okay. To repeat, Jack and I already told you that Pepsi's raising prices on your Cheetos. But they're also shrinking the size of that Cheetos bag. Classic shrinkflation. They're doing it.

Shrinkflation is when you don't change the price of the tostitos. Instead, you just put fewer tostitos in the bag. But here's the problem. Pepsi is raising the prices of the Tostitos and they're putting fewer Tostitos in that tube. Pepsi is double dipping us right now. Okay, but honestly, Jack, we're buying it. We're still buying. We're guilty here.

We're guilty here, too. That's why Pepsi thinks sales will rise another 10% this year. Hey, Pepsi, take one dip. Then end it. Take one dip and be done with it. And now word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Nick and I got to know Vlad and Bayshut, the co-founders of Robin Hood, when we worked there for three years. And there was this one business principle we heard from them.

And we just, we honestly loved it. A, B, L. Always be launching. Always be launching. That's what keeps. customers engaged, it keeps investors happy, and it keeps competitors kind of concerned. Always be launching is also consistent with Robin Hood's mission to democratize finance for all. Yeah, not just stock trading, also options, crypto, spending, wallets, and more.

They launched a lot of stuff. And that's something we heard, we saw, and we adopted. Yeah, this week, we relaunched the podcast as the best one yet and launched a video pod right here. More to come. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, want to get started. Go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash TBOY. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC.

By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or this podcast. For our third and final story, for the first time in 20 years, one U.S. dollar equals one euro. It's called parity. And it's fantastic if you're traveling to Europe this summer. Okay, trivia yet is when you're like, need a conversation starter today. ask this, what financial market is bigger than the stock market? The answer is foreign exchange. Yeah, it's currencies.

Because for every $1 that is spent globally on stocks, get this, $5 are spent to buy other currencies. Every day, big money managers trade $6 trillion worth of one currency to get another currency. And funny thing about those money managers, right now, they're buying U.S. dollars and they're selling European euros. Those big money managers think the USA is better equipped economically than Europe. Right. And pretty straightforward reason here, right? Europe faces a cold, expensive winter because there's no Russian oil and no Russian gas. Here in the United States? We're doing better than that.

So investors are putting their money on the United States, literally. They're putting their money on the U.S. dollar. So Yeties, that means that for the very first time in two decades, the euro isn't beating the U.S. dollar. One U.S. dollar gets you one euro right now. Translation. Cancel Cabo, honey, send me to Santorini. The winner of this currency parody is American tourists going to Europe. Okay, can we talk about study abroad like a decade ago?

I was in Berlin. It was great. I visited you. I loved that. You did. It was great. You were in Florence. I didn't get the chance to visit you.

I know. I regret it. But back then, you needed a dollar and 40 cents to buy one euro. Yeah, if like a late night donor kebab was 10 euros, then you'd swipe your card, eat the kebub. But what would you notice in your? your bank account, check your bank account. It's down $14 for that 10 euro cabal. Okay, let's flash forward to today and take a train down to Florence. In Florence, you're going to buy that 10 Eau-Popper deli. And if you do this summer and check your bank account. What are you going to see?

It's only going to be down $10. And Yetis, it's not just the cheap late night eats for poor college students that are enjoying this moment. It's everything in Europe from wine to hotels that are cheaper for Americans today. Okay, compared to one year ago, American tourists in Tuscany are now getting an 18% discount because of what we just said. And compared to us when we had that terrible facial hair in college and no money. It was rough. It's a 40% discount compared to when Nick and I were in college. Full disclosure, Jack, Molly and I just booked a trip to Milan.

Basically because of this. You are buying the dip here big time. Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone in the United States or Europe? There's two sides to every coin, literally. Bestie's funny thing Jack and I should also mention, that strong U.S. dollar, it is great for American tourists, but it's not as good for American businesses. Because if the U.S. dollar is stronger than the euro,

that means the euro is weak. Yeah, so while Americans feel rich in Europe, Europeans feel poor in America. So it's cheap for you to pop over to Paris, but it's expensive for Pierre to pop over here to Pittsburgh. Yeah, and it's not just European travelers who won't come to United States. United States. It's also European businesses too. If Air France needs a new airplane right now, what are they going to do? It's cheaper for them to buy a European airbus than an American-made Boeing. There are two sides to every coin, literally. Jack, can you whip up Los Takeaways for us over there?

Spotify just acquired hurdle, which is wordle, but for music. Yeah, it's to help solve audio's discovery problem. For our second story, PepsiCo's profits are up because they're raising prices and shrinking And Betsy's pulling a double dip on the chip. And honestly, we're letting them do it. And our third and final story, the U.S. dollar has achieved parity with the Europe. Great if you're traveling to Amsterdam. But there are two sides to every coin, in this case, literally. Now, time for the best fact yet.

This one sent in by Dolly Wang and Gigi Young over in Shanghai, China. Dolly and Gigi, by the way, told us that they were locked down together in these recent COVID spikes in Shanghai. One way they cheered each other up was with ice cream, which is, you know, just part of everyone's daily routine this time of year. Contrary to popular opinion, ice cream wasn't invented in the United States, and it certainly wasn't invented in Vermont. No. And it wasn't invented in Iceland either. But ice cream was actually first created in China. The first known historical ice cream was in 200 BC. Yeah, here's the recipe. It was a milk and rice mixture that was frozen and then packed into the snow.

They didn't have freezers back then. They used the natural freezer. So cold dairy plus flavor, that's an ice cream. Best eating out of a cone. There we got. How's the mid-year's resolution going, by the way? It's great because I'm eating less like mindless ice cream out of the pint. That doesn't sound great.

I'm only like eating it at a parlor. Like you care more about the ice cream you're eating. It's the quality, not the quantity. Exactly. Or can you do the quality and the quantity? I could, but I'm not. Okay. Sounds like a discussion after your pond.

I haven't brought cones to my house, which I don't plan to do. Sounds like I know what I'm getting you. Yeties, you look fantastic today. You look fantastic in person. You're glowing. This is a great in-person partner. There we go. Yeti's H-Y-H-T-B-O-I.

That's how you share the pie. Have you had the best one yet? If you know, you know. Nick and I'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, Yeti Emmett McKay just passed his driver's test over in Tennessee. Congratulations to Dada Lin. Originally from Taiwan, just got their U.S. green card. Oh, and Jack, Derek and Bree Lewis are celebrating an anniversary in New York City

just before Derek heads off to business school. Get this. After months of studying in Indianapolis coffee shops, Felicia Clarissa passed her CMA exam. And Yeti's, Bailey Zander, was just laid off on Friday. But if any startup is looking for an HR expert, you can find her on LinkedIn. Bailey Zander, she's a Yeti and a bestie. And a happy birthday to Noah Sheehan over on Amelia Island, Florida. Happy birthday to Rob Sanchez in St. Petersburg, Florida.

And Griffin Harrow's also got a birthday in Florida. Palm Beach Gardens. There we go. And Lucy Montana Varner, turn in one year. year old over in Edmond, Oklahoma. Happy birthday, Lucy. Make today a T-boy. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Spotify

and Robin Hood. And now, word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Funny little thing about the Robin Hood logo. Okay, go look at it right now. Most people, you just see a feather. Robin Hood's feather and a cap. Pretty classic. But it also looks like something else. If you

look closer, closelyer, you may see an arrow pointing up to the right. Yeah, the Robin Hood logo. Nice little Easter egg in there. It's not just a feather. It also symbolizes bullishness. There's a little arrow in there. If markets are up or down, it's nice to be optimistic. We always love that little detail in the Robin Hood logo. Honestly, it's all about the little things in life. If you're not on Robin Hood yet, want to get started. Go to robinood.com slash T-boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk.

Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us. or this podcast. They should do a perdle and it's like, so it's like, yeah, it's like, V. And so it's like, oh, that's T-boy. It's just you going like, take away.

And this. Oh, that's T-boy. That's the T-boy pie. That's the T-boy pie.