The Best One Yet
⚾ “Torpedo Bat” — NY Yankees’ innovation. Q2’s Stagflation risk. Drone Delivery’s burrito vs blood.
Tue, 01 Apr 2025
The New York Yankees set a home run record… Thanks to a new data-optimized torpedo bat.The #1 term you gotta know for Q2? “Stagflation”… when unemployment and inflation both rise.One drone delivery startup is beating Amazon in the sky… but should serve houses or hospitals?Plus, Kim Kardashian’s Skims is launching a Wall Street Shapeware line… $SPY $AMZN $GOOGWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of 📱iPhone: The Device Steve Jobs Didn’t Want to Build. 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 innovation did the New York Yankees introduce?
Okay, that dry cleaning better be a write-off. Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got on the pod, man? For our first story, the New York Yankees just set a home run record, but it's all thanks to their new baseball bat. So we're covering the torpedo bat and the NASA-trained AI analyst PhD team behind it. For our second story, the first quarter of 2025 ended yesterday.
the second quarter begins today and the one word that could define the economy for the next three months is stagflation and our third and final story one drone delivery startup zipline is beating amazon and google in the sky but jack and i will tell you why drone delivery isn't really about the burritos but yetis before we hit that wonderful mix of stories
Fantastic mix of stories for a T-Boy Tuesday, Jack. The biggest product launch of this year, it changes the look of business forever. Literally. Because Skims just launched financial fashion. We repeat, Kim Kardashian is launching Skims Wall Street. That's right. Skims, the shapewear brand, is making something for banking bros and financial females.
Jack, could you sprinkle on some context for us over there, please? Kim Kardashian founded Skims as a women's shapewear brand six years ago. Today, it's worth $4 billion and it's rumored to be prepping for an IPO. But recently, Skims has expanded from undies to everything. They've partnered with Nike, the North Face, with Dolce & Gabbana.
But now, Kim Kardashian wants to disrupt the office dress code. So Skims' latest shapewear line is designed specifically for Wall Street work. Ha! Jack, you're going to have to strut out on the runway and give us an example of this stuff. The ex-finance bro in me is thrilled for the sweat-wicking spreadsheet shirt. Because you're spending all day in Excel, that's a workout.
These aren't for me, but I'm thrilled for the liquidity leggings. Yes, you don't have to feel that liquidity squeeze. My personal favorite, the insider trade. A fresh pair of underwear to change into after your sweaty commute to work. I mean, Jack, I like that Skims already did thong underwear, but now they're doing a thong briefcase. I'll take that.
And of course, thanks to this new line, you can replace your Patagonia vest with a skim spandex one. It's not a big short, it's a big skort. Because besties, according to a Wall Street Oasis poll, 91% of bank analysts complain of sock chafing during the work. So Skims new silk sock is wrinkle-free for that 85-hour work week. Apparently Jamie Dimon wears them when he's never working from home.
Yeti's Kim Skims. It's the new Brooks Brothers. Because the biggest product launch of the year is Skims Wall Street. And if you want to see this new lineup, Jack and I are actually modeling it right now. I'm wearing a silk tie, but I'm wearing not a thread of cotton. Jack, the spandex is so soft, the SEC is going to investigate me.
If you want to see our blue steel, check us out on Instagram at tboypod. We're repping this new line. Jack, you are looking fantastic over there. Yetis, let's hit our three stars.
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Chapter 2: What is stagflation and why is it a concern?
Fans of every sport probably fell in love with their game because they found it beautiful in some way. But what happens when the play on the field gets dictated by AI algorithms and data science? Earlier this year, we did a story just like that. We did? On the NBA. how basketball has a three-pointer problem. Yeah, Jack, why don't you remind the Yetis about that specific story?
Scientifically speaking, shooting threes makes you more likely to win the game. But shooting so many threes is making the game more boring, and it's resulting in fans not tuning in. Well, similarly, every baseball team is probably about to buy these New York Yankee torpedo bats. This is probably going to be the season with the most home runs ever. And the result?
Well, a game with more home runs is fun until each home run has less value and therefore is less fun. It was really exciting seeing Judge hit 60 home runs the other year, but now he's going to hit 80? Like, that's kind of messing with the fans. Now, one solution we proposed before is the league step in. They fix this market failure and create rules to stop the science.
Because the alternative is every team following the same algorithmically optimized formula, the game is going to lose its art. In a way, imperfection of the game may have been the perfection of the game. Because the beautiful game is becoming the optimized game. For our second story. As we finish the first quarter, Jack and I are predicting that the theme of the second quarter will be one word.
Stagflation. If we get stagflation, it's like a house that's flooded and on fire at the same time. We'll explain. Yeah, it is Q1 2025. Let's recap it now that it's over. Economic chaos. We got whiplashed worse than a professional bull rider. First, things looked rosy. In January, stocks jumped 6% on hopes of deregulation and tax cuts.
But since then, stocks have fallen 10% on trade war 2 tariffs on and off again like whiplash. So as we enter Q2 and we look at the data, how are things looking? Well, Jack, it kind of is not exactly a warm spring weather situation. Nick and I jumped into the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey. Okay.
The first thing that the survey shows is that two-thirds of us think the unemployment rate will rise next year. That's the highest level since 2009. Not since the 2009 Great Recession have so many of us thought unemployment was going to increase. Now, at the same time, Americans also think that prices will jump up to 5% higher next year.
Higher unemployment rate and higher inflation at the same time? That would be an economist's nightmare. And funny thing, because that nightmare happens to have a very particular name. And what is that, Jack? Stagflation. Ah, stagflation, the S word of economics. The last time we had stagflation was in the 1970s.
Okay, but before we go back to the 70s, Jack, let's just talk about today for a moment because the period of inflation we've all been living under for the last few years, it wasn't fun. It felt like 10% of our paycheck disappeared because grocery prices are so damn high. Okay, but at least we had a paycheck during this period. Right.
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Chapter 3: How is drone delivery evolving in competition with Amazon?
Because zipline is a private startup whose autonomous drones fly to a delivery site and then lower a package slowly, 300 feet, to place it gently on your front lawn. It's actually a wild miracle to watch. You basically get your pad thai from the sky. They've raised $500 million. They've done 1.4 million drone drops. They're operating in seven different countries.
And Zipline has also partnered with Walmart. That's right. In this Arkansas or Texas town, drone is a delivery option when you go to Walmart.com. We're not kidding over here. Locals are actually sitting in the Walmart parking lot to watch this armada of Zipline drones exiting the warehouse and going to find somewhere to drop off. But yet, here's the shocking part of the story.
Zipline is working and it's winning. The shocking part of the story is that Zipline is beating Amazon and Google when it comes to drone delivery. They've raised $500 million. Meanwhile, Amazon and Google have roughly unlimited money to throw at this problem. But yet, Nick and I have been covering the news for a while. And we're interested in tech innovation like this.
And the funny thing we noticed is that the article on drone delivery from the Wall Street Journal mentioned the word burrito three times. Why are we so obsessed with quicker burrito deliveries? And Jack and I realized we've actually been hearing about this burrito drone delivery for years now. We looked back and we found an article from nine years ago about burrito drone delivery.
All right, Jack, can you share with the Yetis what was the headline of the Bloomberg article on drone delivery from back in September 2016? Alphabet and Chipotle are bringing burrito delivery drones to campus. Now, Jack, could you read the equivalent headline from the Wall Street Journal Soon, your burrito bowl could arrive from the sky.
So, besties, nine years later, has there been, like, any progress with burrito drone delivery? Is the real news here that drone delivery has made no progress in nine years? And yet we have this obsessive appetite for burritos being delivered by drones in the air? That's not the story, actually. No, there's actually a totally different story to tell about drone-delivered burritos.
So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone's Wanting drone delivery. You can only choose one story. Yetis, for nine years, Zipline has been saving lives. That's right. They deliver medications, drugs, vaccines to save children and mothers through drones over in Africa. It's pretty wild. In Africa, Zipline doesn't deliver to houses. They deliver to hospitals. Right.
They deliver blood packs to... to hospital patients who need their lives saved. Yeah, not burritos. And yet, all the press and all the venture capitalists seem interested in one storyline about drone delivery. We're obsessed with burritos over here. Speedy burrito delivery. So there's two wildly different stories when it comes to this company.
One is serving a stoned teen in Westchester who wants their burrito delivered slightly faster. Yeah, the other is a mom in a remote hospital that needs medical supplies ASAP. So when it comes to drone delivery, the story in the press is about quenching your hunger. Okay, but the story on Zipline's own website is about saving lives. It's a drone delivery.
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Chapter 4: What is Kim Kardashian's new Skims line about?
And a big shout-out to Erica and Rosemary from Ohio and Atlanta, who both bumped into us in Chi-Town and gave us a quick HYH-TBOI. Jack and I were prepping the pod, and Jack was talking really loudly. Shocker. And someone's like, I think I recognize that voice. There you go. Thanks for listening, Eric and Rosemary. And congrats to Lise Keeney, who launched a dating app called Goblins.
She heard our story last week talking about Tinder fatigue, and it turns out she's found a solution. She matches people through video games. So if you loved Crash Bandicoot, then swipe right on Super Mario Guy. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon, and Nick and I both own stock of Airbnb and Chipotle. And I'm a lifelong Yankees fan.