The Best One Yet
🎩 “Cheat on Anything” — Cluely’s cheating app. Home Depot’s secret garden. The Fed’s Batman independence.
Wed, 23 Apr 2025
Cluely’s founders got suspended for building an AI cheating app… but now it’s venture backed.Home Depot’s biggest division will shock you… it’s their $20B/year secret garden.President Trump tanked markets Monday for threatening to fire the Fed… so we explained central bank’s independence with a superhero.Plus, using “please” and “thank you” in ChatGPT is costing the company tens-of-millions of dollars…$HD $SPY $CMGWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… The Ninja Turtles 🐢Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Susper Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.—-----------------------------------------------------Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the Cheat On app and why was it created?
Home Depot's flowers and shrubs are shockingly its biggest business. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories to come back to. Love the mix, Jack. Feels weird saying this, but Jack, stop being polite. I'm sorry, Jack, but can you please be more specific? Stop saying please and thank you to ChatGPT. because those words are costing them millions. Thank you, Jack.
Get this, yetis. Sam Allman is losing tens of millions of dollars just by processing your politeness. We treat ChatGPT like it was our sixth grade teacher. Even though it's a robot, your mama still taught you manners. So we say things like, ChatGPT, could you please tell me all the emperors of Rome?
thanks or wow chat gpt thank you for listing all those emperors can you give me all of the gladiators of rome please now nick like 20 of those two sentences from you and me were just pleasantries but they require the same energy to process as the root question did what we are saying besties is that your politeness it is expensive and ai actually uses nearly two percent of global electricity
So every extra word in our query has an impact on the grid. Your politeness is adding to your carbon footprint. Now, we asked ChatGPT, what if all 400 million of your users typed please just once per day? And what did ChatGPT tell us, Jack? It would result in $80,000 of extra processing costs. That means one please per user per day, they lose 30 million bucks a year.
It's the most expensive etiquette ever. So besties, instead of chat GPT, could you please tell me all the emperors of Rome thanks? Simply say, all emperors of Rome. Those pleases, they ain't profitable. So mom, earmuffs if you're listening. But not saying please and thank you is actually the polite thing to do. Sam Allman made us do it.
Jack, let's hit our three stars. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in a dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50%, that's a fat tip. T-Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, cause we ready to go.
We can't wait no more, so just start the show.
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Chapter 2: How did two Columbia students turn a suspension into a business?
It says that this app is to help you cheat on anything. Yeah, it's the rare case where the brand cuts to the chase more than any brand we've ever seen, Jack. This AI assistant is not about productivity. It's about helping you cheat. We should explain how exactly does this thing work, Jack.
Well, basically, an invisible window opens up on your computer with an AI assistant who is watching and listening to everything that's happening and giving you the information you need at the right moment. It's basically an AI wingman. Like Gary from Veep. But less creepy. It's like if Socrates had a burner phone and could call you during the SATs.
It gives you the information you need in real time to ace that job interview, ace the sales call, or ace your take-home exam. Now the key, their kind of AI competitive advantage, is the invisibility. It is undetectable to the job interviewer or the company or the school where you're cheating. And here's the business model. 20 bucks a month for unlimited usage of this powerful cheating tool.
Who knew cheating could become a subscription jack? In fact, they just published a marketing video that was pretty slick, and it went viral on Twitter this week. In the video, Lee uses Cluley, the app, to ace a first date. Like, to cheat on romance, basically. It's the CEO of the company, and he's at...
a restaurant on a date, and the AI is listening to his date's questions and then flashing to him the answers to her questions. Yeah, like, what kind of questions, Jack? What does he think? Well, he knows that she loves tulips because the app tells him that her Instagram is filled with pictures of tulips. Basically, he cheated.
He can talk about a fake job that he doesn't actually have because the app keeps feeding him with information to make him sound smart. Yeah, he's acing the date, but he's also cheating the date. Add it all up, for 20 bucks a month, this AI app will help you cheat. On everything. And that made us think about everything. So Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over in AI?
AI has blurred the line between cheating and advantage. Yetis, we know what you're thinking. Cheating is lying. So this is wrong. But if you think about it for a sec, doesn't all innovation actually start as cheating? When calculators were invented, they were considered cheating. So was spellcheck and so was Google. Like Googling for information. All once considered cheating. That's right.
The final determination of cheating is not the thing itself, but the rules around the thing. The rules change to make the cheating act a perfectly legitimate activity. We think it's probably going to be the same with AI. AI right now feels like cheating, but not necessarily in the future. In the future, it'll be like, yeah, of course you used AI to nail that interview.
And yet, artificial intelligence also blurs the line of cheating to an even further degree. Like, how about this one? Is chat GPT cheating when it turns your family photograph into a Pixar-style image? but without paying Disney for it. Kind of a gray area right now. So the Cluelay app to cheat on everything is this existential question in a nutshell.
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Chapter 3: What is Home Depot's $20 billion secret garden?
Chapter 4: Why is Trump's threat to fire the Fed significant?
Their stores belong in nine different climate zones, and they supply specially bred plants that will survive your overwatering or the lack of sun that you're exposing them to. The idea is that you cannot possibly kill that wisteria. It's kind of like gardens for dummies. Like, you can't go wrong. Yeah, just give it sun and a whole lot of water.
Now, if they can turn your annual customer into a perennial customer, then that Home Depot investment in flower breeding is worth it. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the Home Depot? Every business needs an anti-Amazon thorn. Now, Yetis, the real reason why Home Depot's garden center is its biggest division? It's not just your passion for copies. It's that Amazon can't do it.
Apparently horticulture is Amazon proof. It just doesn't happen through e-commerce. Buying flowers, plants, or seedlings, it's a purchase we prefer to make in person. Oh, and logistically, the 650-pound bags of mulch, that can't be shipped on Amazon. Have you seen that shipping price? You also want an experienced human who's local so you can come back to them.
to give you advice on the overseeding and the overwatering. You're not trusting Reddit on anything like, you know, an orchid. Now, the best part for Home Depot, you come in for the pansies, you leave with the pressure washer, too. And that is why, like Home Depot, every business rose needs an anti-Amazon thorn. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Savice Wednesday?
Two Columbia students created an app to help you secretly cheat, and now they're venture-backed. Because AI has blurred the line between cheating and advantage. For our second story, President Trump's threat to fire the Fed caused markets to tank. But now he says he won't. The Fed's independence, it lets it do the unpopular thing we actually need. And our third and final story.
The Home Depot's biggest division, it's shockingly the garden section, which brings in $20 billion a year. Because every rose needs an anti-Amazon thorn. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. Ding, ding, ding. The most anticipated name of earnings season just dropped. That's right. We got Tesla earnings hot off the rack.
Tesla's car revenues fell by 20% compared to last year. Their worst drop ever. But big update that made the stock actually rise despite the bad result. Elon announced he's winding down his work at Doge starting next month. So less politics, more CEOing the company. And second, Chipotle is expanding for the first time to Mexico.
Now, we should point out Taco Bell failed in Mexico and Domino's failed in Italy. Yes, we should point that out, Jack. So Chipotle is hoping to break the curse of American brands failing in the country they're supposed to be from. Or as one Mexican politician put it years ago, American fast food bringing Mexican food to Mexico is like trying to sell ice in the Arctic.
And finally, an update on anyone snacking on Flamin' Hot Cheetos right now with a side of Skittles. The FDA is phasing out the use of dyes in snacks and candies by the end of next year. Now we should point out, this is purely cosmetic. The food is still going to taste the same. It'll still have the same nutrition ingredients too.
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