The Best One Yet
🧠“Severed” – AppleTV+ dirty secret. Ben & Jerry’s chocolatey lawsuit. Nvidia’s AI Super Bowl.
Fri, 21 Mar 2025
Ben & Jerry are trying to buy back their company… and it reminds us of The Super Bowl of AI just went down… Nvidia now plays with Disney, Taco Bell, and Barbie.AppleTV+ is the only Apple product *losing* money... because it’s missing a Growth Mindset.Plus, there are a dozen real-life companies in America named… Lumon. #Severance$UL $NVDA $AAPLWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of MTV 📺 “How Video Killed the Radio Star” 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 are the key stories covered in this episode?
This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Friday, the real Friday, March 21st. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. I'm sorry, Jack. Did we set a record this week? Record number of recordings? That's right. We did five T-Boy episodes, two TBIY episodes. Oh, we got a special one today, man.
And today we're interviewing an executive, a CEO and co-founder of a legendary business. Oh, that episode's going to be amazing. We're interviewing him later today. And besties, you'll get that episode in just a few weeks. Eight episodes of production in one week? That's a personal record. One sec, Jack. I got to grab a lozenge. In the meantime, we got three fantastic stories for today's T-Boy.
Jack, what do we got on the show? For our first story. Apple TV Plus has a really big night tonight. Huge. It's the season finale of Severance. But did you know that Apple TV Plus loses a billion bucks a year? Apple TV Plus is Apple's only money-losing business, and we'll explain why. For our second story, Ben and Jerry sued its parent company in the biggest corporate drama of the year.
Because Ben and Jerry's acquisition deal reminds us of Barstool. And our third and final story, NVIDIA just hosted what used to be their annual tech conference, but what is now the Super Bowl of AI. Because NVIDIA is borrowing a strategy straight out of Barbie. Yeah, that Barbie. But Yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories, Jack. Love the mix today.
The most viral show on TV right now is Severance. Severance, the Severance season finale. It is tonight. Severance is a sci-fi dramedy directed by Ben Stiller about work-life separation. Literally, your brain is split into two. One part for your work, one part for your life. Your innie only experiences work life. While your outie only experiences life outside of work.
Your work self has no idea what's going on with your at-home self. Because your brain is severed. But whether you watch the show or not, there is one looming character you need to know about. Don't worry, besties, no spoilers in today's show. That character is Lumen. Lumen. And it's a scary company. Oh, Lumen's very scary. Lumen is the evil corporation in Severance.
But while Lumen is fictional in this show, there's a bunch of actual Lumens in real life. In fact, the Wall Street Journal counted dozens of Lumens that really exist in real life corporate America. For example, there's Lumen Design over in Pennsylvania. Or Jack, there's Lumen Dental up in Detroit. There's Lumen Telecom down in Louisiana.
There's even a Lumen in Poland that saw job applications jump 300% this year. Because applicants love severance and they want real Lumen to be on their resume. In fact, Jack and I took this further. There's actually a long history of fictional Hollywood companies in the real world. Yes, there is. There's a real Waystar company in Idaho. Just like the show Succession.
And there's a real Acme company in San Francisco. Just like the show Looney Tunes. Jack, I just discovered a Vandelay Industries over in Mumbai, India. Can you believe that? Importing, exporting? Classic. Thinking about just focusing on the exporting? Yeah. It's exactly their specialties. So, Yetis, we hope your Audis enjoy the final episode of Severance tonight.
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Chapter 2: Why is Apple TV Plus losing money?
And we'd always wanted to do that because those two are best friends just like Nick and I are, except those two didn't get into medical school and had no idea how to run a business. Well, they turned that ignorance into the largest ice cream company in America, and today it's owned by Unilever. But hold the fish food, please, Jack.
Because Ben and Jerry's just sued Unilever, their parent company, accusing them of wrongly firing the Ben and Jerry's CEO. And Jack, could you open up the lid on this pint and tell us what is in the lawsuit exactly, man? The lawsuit says that Unilever fired Ben and Jerry's CEO for his politics, not his performance.
They further allege that Unilever unlawfully blocked Ben and Jerry's Instagram posts about free speech and Palestine. And four years ago, Ben and Jerry also sued Unilever for stopping their social media posts about Black Lives Matter. This is like a kid fighting against their parents. Yeah, like the kid wants to do the protests on campus and their dad's like, um... I'm paying tuition. Go to class.
Yeah. Except Ben and Jerry's have a trump card on their parents like no other child-parent relationship. And Jack and I found it in the fine print. 25 years ago, Yetis, in the merger agreement, when Ben and Jerry's sold to Unilever, there was an unprecedented legal clause. This clause was called the Mission Driven Governance Clause.
It was something Ben and Jerry specifically wanted that would split their company into two different scoops of control. Okay, on the one hand, Unilever would control the business. That was one scoop. After all, they're buying the company. So Unilever gets to decide what kind of dairy goes into the ice cream, how many chocolate chips, and how much cookie dough in the Chunky Monkey.
But Ben and Jerry's also created another board that would remain independent of Unilever to oversee the brand. And this independent board was in charge of Ben and Jerry's social activism. where they would advocate for progressive causes. Right, like the independent board would be in charge of the Ben and Jerry's Foundation, which donates to progressive causes as well.
And it's this independent board and this unique separation that explains why Ben and Jerry's social handles talk just as much about social justice as they do ice cream. Like they're posting about UNICEF on the one hand more than they're posting about caramel swirls over there. And so 25 years later, Ben and Jerry says that Unilever's blocking of their social posts violates that merger agreement.
And they allege the CEO was fired for his role in social activism, not for his performance. Which is another violation of the merger. All this drama, it is a big reason why Unilever is actually spinning off Ben & Jerry's into a new separate publicly traded ice cream company. They're metaphorically disowning this child who never listens to them.
Oh, side note, by the way, Ben & Jerry, they want to buy back the business, don't they, Jack? How epic would that be if Ben & Jerry's, 25 years after selling Ben & Jerry's, buy back Ben & Jerry's? And then they launch like a new flavor called Contempt Mint Chip. It's the low-key Unilever flavor. One more order of lawsuit soft serve, please.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Severance on Apple TV Plus?
Chapter 4: How is Ben & Jerry's suing Unilever?
Denny's set up food trucks like it was Giant Stadium outside the artificial intelligence event. And that Denny's cameo was a nod to Jensen, who came up with the idea for his company over a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's. Yeah, he is the CEO of NVIDIA. He wore leather to the event, and he's basically become the Taylor Swift of CPUs.
We thought at the end of the event, he would pull a Gronk and spike one of his $40,000 chips on the turf like a football.
Our prediction, next year, they're going to have cheerleaders cheering on the new NVIDIA chips coming out with the GPUs.
So very high expectations NVIDIA set for themselves. Again, they called it the Super Bowl of AI. But for all those stakes, we got to say, they delivered. Because NVIDIA involved consumer businesses in a way that would make Chris Collingsworth cry. Hmm. You like what I did there, Jack? You barely landed that.
So the first thing NVIDIA did was they shockingly partnered with Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. NVIDIA is going to power the drive-thru of all Yum! Brands restaurants. NVIDIA chips are going to optimize all the operations at these fast food chains so a human doesn't mess up your chalupa order. Then NVIDIA announced another partnership with General Motors, the car company. NVIDIA
NVIDIA is suddenly going to be powering General Motors' self-driving cars. NVIDIA's GPUs are going to be in your next Corvette, handling the hands-free cruise control. And finally, out of nowhere, NVIDIA launched a new robot with Walt Disney. You got to watch the video. It's wild. It's called Blue. It's about half as tall as a human being, and it looks like WALL-E mixed with R2-D2.
And the reason they're doing this? Well, NVIDIA chips will power Disney World robots from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot. And every one of the robots is going to have two NVIDIA computers inside it. Next time you're talking to Tinkerbell, she's going to have a couple NVIDIA chips in her back.
So nobody expected Taco Bell, Cadillac, and Disney to be on stage at this computer chip conference in San Jose. However, Jensen's $3 trillion chip company is doing way more than chatbots these days. They use this conference to show you that AI is going to be everywhere. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at NVIDIA hosting the Super Bowl of Artificial Intelligence?
NVIDIA has found the Barbie effect, but B2B. Yetis, remember this detail from the 2023 Barbie movie? Barbie did a record 165 collaborations before the movie. Every company that could launched a pink partnership with the Barbie movie. Yeah, they did. They wanted their value to increase by association with Barbie. That, what Jack just described, is the Barbie effect.
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Chapter 5: What is the Mission Driven Governance Clause?
The buyer is Bill Chisholm, a six-foot man in finance who may or may not have a trust fund, but definitely went to Dartmouth and Wharton. Yeah, it's exactly who you'd expect would buy the Boston Celtics. Yeah, to sprinkle out some more context, this is the highest price ever paid for a North American sports team. There are other North American franchises more valuable.
They just haven't sold for an amount this high. Yeah, the Yankees are worth $7.6 billion and the Cowboys are worth $10 billion. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one whipped up by Kevin Dolan over in Yonkers, New York. Why is the NCAA basketball tournament referred to as the Big Dance? Well, the nickname Big Dance goes back to Marquette's coach, Al McGuire, back in 1977.
When asked if he would wear a lucky blazer throughout the tournament, he responded, you gotta wear the blue blazer when you gotta do the Big Dance. Well, that year Marquette went on to win the national NCAA title. They won the big dance. And so the March Madness basketball tournament has been referred to ever since as the big dance. So besties, if you've got the best fact yet, hit us up.
We got a link in this episode description. We want to get you on the pod. Yetis, you look fantastic today. And Jack, you look fantastic. I believe we've got a little surprise coming to the Yetis this weekend, don't we, tomorrow? We're dropping a sample, a free Costco sample of our Best Idea Yet episode. Yeah, we're dropping a sample of our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet.
That's coming tomorrow, so check it out on this feed. And in the meantime, Jack, it's the weekend. Let's celebrate some wins. We recorded more shows this week than we ever have in our lives. Eight episodes. Hey! Great episodes. Stay tuned for this CEO one. This is going to be a great interview. Have a great weekend, Nick, and I'll see you Monday. Can't wait.
And before we go, a happy 17th birthday to Keelan C. the Yeti in Lake Worth, Florida, celebrating the wins. Happy birthday to a father and son, Antonio and Augie Maldonado in Austin, turning 32 and five years old. Enjoy some barbecue. And Kiara Boy is down in Provo, Utah, has never missed a T-boy, so we would never miss that birthday.
celebrating happy birthday to sarah keel of knoxville tennessee the mother of three wonderful gray cats and jet fries turning seven years old celebrating in the anaheim hills of california happy birthday jet and happy birthday to peter chow in dallas texas and john doherty happy 30th birthday to newton new jersey never missed an episode again john will never miss your birthday
And happy 40th birthday to Amen Silva, who's celebrating on the islands of Hawaii. Not too shabby. And Willa G., happy fifth birthday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Willa, thanks for listening and being a Yeti. And Chrissy Dohler is getting her hair blown out tonight for the real Friday. And congratulations to Catherine Hedrick and Clellan McMurray in Alexandria, Virginia, who are getting hitched.
And Brie and Jeff Thomas down in Princeton have their first date night of 2025 and are celebrating a T-boy pod-iversary. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon, Disney, Unilever, and Netflix. And Nick and I both own stock of Apple.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can be learned from Ben & Jerry's lawsuit?
The city of San Jose, California has been covered in green and black NVIDIA flags all week. 25,000 attendees. Hotel prices hit 2,000 bucks a night down in San Jose. And it really has felt like the Super Bowl because there were ticket scalpers. That many people wanted to get in to see Jensen Huang speak. There were even tailgates.
Denny's set up food trucks like it was Giant Stadium outside the artificial intelligence event. And that Denny's cameo was a nod to Jensen, who came up with the idea for his company over a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's. Yeah, he is the CEO of NVIDIA. He wore leather to the event, and he's basically become the Taylor Swift of CPUs.
We thought at the end of the event, he would pull a Gronk and spike one of his $40,000 chips on the turf like a football.
Our prediction, next year, they're going to have cheerleaders cheering on the new NVIDIA chips coming out with the GPUs.
So very high expectations NVIDIA set for themselves. Again, they called it the Super Bowl of AI. But for all those stakes, we got to say, they delivered. Because NVIDIA involved consumer businesses in a way that would make Chris Collingsworth cry. Hmm. You like what I did there, Jack? You barely landed that.
So the first thing NVIDIA did was they shockingly partnered with Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. NVIDIA is going to power the drive-thru of all Yum! Brands restaurants. NVIDIA chips are going to optimize all the operations at these fast food chains so a human doesn't mess up your chalupa order. Then NVIDIA announced another partnership with General Motors, the car company. NVIDIA
NVIDIA is suddenly going to be powering General Motors' self-driving cars. NVIDIA's GPUs are going to be in your next Corvette, handling the hands-free cruise control. And finally, out of nowhere, NVIDIA launched a new robot with Walt Disney. You got to watch the video. It's wild. It's called Blue. It's about half as tall as a human being, and it looks like WALL-E mixed with R2-D2.
And the reason they're doing this? Well, NVIDIA chips will power Disney World robots from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot. And every one of the robots is going to have two NVIDIA computers inside it. Next time you're talking to Tinkerbell, she's going to have a couple NVIDIA chips in her back.
So nobody expected Taco Bell, Cadillac, and Disney to be on stage at this computer chip conference in San Jose. However, Jensen's $3 trillion chip company is doing way more than chatbots these days. They use this conference to show you that AI is going to be everywhere. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at NVIDIA hosting the Super Bowl of Artificial Intelligence?
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