🌭 “Profit Puppy” — Nathan’s Hot Dog high. Lululemon’s Costco dupe-suit. Cloudflare’s AI shield.
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This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, July 3rd. 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. Three. Count them. Three weeks until our live show in Chicago on July 23rd, 2025. We just booked our special guest for that Chicago show. The CEO of the buzziest company in the buzziest industry. But not Sam Altman. Ha ha ha ha ha.

But it is the buzziest company in the buzziest industry. Snag your tickets for T-Boy Live in Chicago. We got a link in the episode description. We cannot wait to see you there. But in the meantime, we can't wait to see you here. Jack, what do we got on the show for today's T-Boy? For our first story, Nathan's hot dog eating contest is tomorrow, the 4th of July. But it's stocked.

is at an all-time high. So we'll tell you how Nathan's business is booming thanks, shockingly, to Ukraine. For our second story, Cloudflare just invented the most important breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Because Cloudflare's newest product is a bot-proof vest. And our third and final story is Lululemon. Lululemon just pulled off the biggest lawsuit of its Lulu life.

It is suing Costco. Oh, besties, this ain't a lawsuit. This is a dupe suit. Because Lulu wants to kill the knockoff forever. Knockout the knockoff. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories for a three-day weekend, Jack. If you're going to the movies this weekend, it's okay to be late. In fact, it turns out 30 minutes.

minutes late is right on time. Because the average movie in America doesn't begin until a half hour after the scheduled show time. That's right. The average film now faces 30 minutes of previews. 30 minutes of previews. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the pre-show content is also their profit puppy.

Because theaters are squeezing in eight to ten trailers and four to five commercials in that puppy. It's a promo parade. It's a teaser tornado. Jack, you can't see Jurassic Park without a mattress, beer, and pharmaceutical ad these days. Yeah, if this film lasts longer than four hours, consult your doctor. It is.

so many trailers, you forgot what film you're there to see in the first place. I think it's a Marvel one. It's always a Marvel one, Jack. And that extra half hour of ads, it actually drives more concession sales. Because you ran out of Junior Mints before the seventh trailer began. At least AMC is being honest about it.

They're going to warn you right on your ticket. Here's the news. New tickets are now alerting you that the start time isn't 7 p.m., it's 7.30 p.m. They're like, it starts at 7, but it really starts at 7.30. Yeah, yeah, no problem by us. So you could literally watch the whole TV show before the movie begins. So yetis, don't worry about being fashionably late to the theater this weekend. Jack and I call it cinematically late. Because 30 minutes late is right on time. If you know, you know, 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. Start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

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How is he going to pay for it? He's going to list his house on Airbnb. So, Basties, if you're going on vacation this summer, join the millions who host on Airbnb. Host your whole space. Host your extra space. Host any space. The income from putting your home on Airbnb could pay for your whole vacay. I've been doing it for three different properties now.

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Now, quick break, switching topics to one of our favorite sponsors, Vital Proteins. All right, Eddie. So Jack has become an extreme collagen user. This guy's adding Vital Proteins collagen to each morning coffee. And Jack drinks a lot of morning coffee, I should point out. Yeah, I have three cups a day. I have a tub of mocha and a tub of chocolate. Both make my coffee taste chocolatey.

And there's a bunch of protein in each scoop too. So Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides is a supplement that has four benefits all in one helping support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. That is how my face got doodler than a donut. Mix it into your coffee, to your smoothie, or just go straight to your face. By taking Collagen Peptides daily, you can support your hair, skin, nail, bones,

bone, and joint health. Get 20% off by going to vitalproteins.com and entering promo code T-boy at checkout. That's vitalproteins.com, promo code T-boy for 20% off. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

For our first story, on the eve of their Super Bowl, Nathan's Hot Dog stock just hit an all-time high because Nathan's Hot Dogs found a surprise customer in Ukraine.

Now, Yetis, full disclosure here, I'm not a relish guy. Are you, Jack? I realize I don't even know that. Are you? No, but I like pickles, which is basically just the poor man's relish. I don't know what we're going to call that. No, I think it's the rich man's relish, actually. That's a primo move right there. Classy co-host, my friend. But America, Yetis, America, we've got three holidays devoted to food. Thanksgiving is devoted to turkey. Halloween is devoted to candy. Fourth of July is devoted to hot dogs.

Yeah, cranberry sauce is cute and Thanksgiving, but nothing is more American than stuff in your face with 78 sausages. Like our nation's biggest eater, Joey Chestnut. Which leads to the nation's hot dog eating contest happening tomorrow. It's a Coney Island, New York tradition. It goes back 109 years. It's basically a marketing stunt with mustard. And somehow Joey Chestnut eats like 70 dogs and buns.

Without throwing up. Well, on ESPN, this has been broadcast since 2001. At its height, it got 3 million viewers. But last year, the 16-time champion Joey Chestnut ditched Nathan's for a Netflix-streamed hot dog eating rival on Memorial Day. Which leads to the news. First, Joey Chestnut is back in the Nathan's hot dog eating contest. And second, Nathan Stock...

is at an all-time high. And that got us fascinated. Get this, yetis. Nathan's stock is up 40% this year. It's the Palantir of pork, basically. Actually, it's an all-beef hot dog. It's the Bitcoin of beef dogs. And it's skinless beef. I didn't need to know about skinless. It's a little TMI. But here's the surprise plot twist, yetis. Nathan's new market...

is Ukraine. That's right, Ukraine. The biggest hot dog loving country outside of the USA. Okay, wild story the New York Times found. Right before the war in Ukraine, a 35-year-old gas station entrepreneur contacted Nathan's. And what was what he requested, Jack? To expand.

And now Nathan's is carried in 27 of his gas station stores across the country. Customers know because there's a hot dog statue outside of each gas station. Yeah, the size of a human. It's like a six foot tall hot dog, man. And as Ukraine battles Russian aggression...

A hot dog, a Nathan's hot dog, is an affordable and efficient protein option. And interestingly, since it's an all-beef dog, they can sell it to the Muslim communities nearby. It's basically a halal hot dog. Plus, there's something poetic here, because Nathan's was founded over 100 years ago by a Polish immigrant during World War I. In fact, what was the story we discovered on this, Jack? Oh, this is great. To settle an argument over who was the most patriotic, legend has it that four immigrants held a hot dog eating contest...

at Coney Island. That was the original Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. But...

Back to today, besties. It turns out it's not war-torn hot dog love in Ukraine that's driving this huge Nathan sales surge, is it, Jack? It's what all that reflects. Because Nathan's stock, we discovered, is at an all-time high because its real business isn't hot dog shops. It's the name. Nathan's. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Nathan's Hot Dogs? The secret sauce to scalability is licensing.

Yetis, Nathan's doesn't make most of their money from hot dogs. They make it from letting other people make their hot dogs. That's right. They sell the rights to use the name Nathan's and Nathan's Hot Dog Recipes. It's not franchising, it's licensing. We jumped into Nathan's annual report, T-Boy style, and they put licensing as their number one top product.

It's their highest margin product. They mentioned it 42 times. Licensing is 25% of Nathan's sales, but a whopping 75% of Nathan's profits. That's insane. In fact, only 7% of their revenue comes from running their own hot dog restaurants.

Those things are basically big symbolic billboards. Running their own restaurants also sets a quality bar that all the licensees must match. But Nathan's stock, it's at an all-time high, besties. Not because of the dogs, but because it rents out its name. Nathan's real secret sauce isn't ketchup, mustard, or chopped up pickles. The Jack special. It's licensing.

For our second story, the biggest new AI product, it's an anti-AI product. Get this, Cloudflare just built an AI fence. Here's their pitch. If AI companies want to train on your content, they got to pay. Oh, they got to pay to get in that garden.

Now, yetis, this story really begins with something Jack and I do every day. We use AI every day in our research, right, Jack? If you use Google's AI mode, they will actually tell you how many websites they visit to come up with their AI-generated answer. And what did you notice the other day when you were researching a story, man? Google did nine searches and viewed 229 websites...

to find my answer and they did it in like two seconds. And that is why AI is so smart because AI can read the entire internet millions of times instantly to get you one answer. According to Cloudflare, Anthropic, one AI company, they read an article 73,000 times faster

For each one time, they refer someone to visit that website. Now, when you hear those kind of numbers, and if you're an online publisher like the New York Times, CNN, or an independent blogger, you hate this. We repeat, Anthropic reads a New York Times article 73,000 times. For each one time, an Anthropic user ends up on the New York Times. Now, in the past, a Google search would generate website visits directly to your site. But now that doesn't happen anymore.

AI upstreams you and gives you the answer so you don't even need to visit the website. And this is why AI is such a huge threat to the content publishers of the world. They steal and then share your words. So that's why Jack and I got fascinated about this story. Cloudflare, a six

billion cybersecurity company just built a fence to block unwanted AI. Basically, they built a digital fence that blocks AI from visiting your website and eating up your content. And now you have seen Cloudflare before, by the way, right? Like, Jack, it's subtle. It's when you go to a website and they're like, verifying you're a human, this may take a few seconds.

That's what Cloudflare typically does. And they already do that for like 20% of the worldwide web right now. But now they're going to show their clients when AI is crawling their website and how often it's happening. And then here's the key. They're going to give those clients a button they can press to raise a fence all the way up and stop AI from crawling in. Good fences make good neighbors. Yes, they do. Cloudflare made a digital version of a fence. Basically, the Great Wall...

Against AI. Like, here's how you can picture this in real life. So like Vogue magazine, they use Cloudflare. They're actually a client right now. And they block AI crawling because they don't want ChatGPT to read the latest article they wrote about Jeff Bezos' wedding and then give it to everyone using ChatGPT. Now that fence, that anti-AI fence we just described, that was the news. But here is the plot twist. Cloudflare also added a cash register.

Okay, so let's extend our example further, Jack. If ChachiPT wants to peep in on that Vogue article about the wedding dress Lauren Sanchez wore, Vogue could let them in and charge for it. It's called pay-per-crawl.

This is the start of a new internet marketplace, and it's a new way for content publishers to make money. It's a micropayment for every single AI that crawls onto your website. Sure, Anthropic. You can check out my website 73,000 times, but you have to pay me 73,000 times. Yeah, I mean, Jack, to go Harry Potter here, it's like the invisibility cloak of the Wizarding World. Go on. If you're going to fact check me Hermione style, then I'm just going to end the analogy right there.

So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies with the AI fence over at Cloudflare? Facebook and Google are getting a dose of their own medicine.

Yetis, publishers, newspapers, magazines, they thrived for a hundred years by selling ads. But with the rise of the internet, Google and Facebook took over the digital ad market. That changed the media business forever. Instead of selling their own media ads, Google and Facebook took over the ad market. But now, Google and Meta are on the other side of the table.

They need content to train their artificial intelligence. And that's what's so ironic about this, right, Jack? And this time, Cloudflare's pay-per-crawl is going to come in and make Google and Facebook pay for it. Sebasties, the internet flipped content publishing upside down, and now AI is doing the same thing all over again. But this time,

Meta and Google are getting a dose of their own medicine. If Zuck wants the content fruit of that garden, he's going to have to pay to get through that fence. Now, a quick word from our sponsor. Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop?

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Go to www.survivalguidebook.com to get your copy of How to Survive Against the Odds today, or visit your favorite bookstore. For our third and final story, the biggest showdown in business right now, it's Lululemon versus Costco. Lululemon is hoping to set a legal precedent. They're trying to cancel dupe culture. They're trying to down the dupes.

Yeah, it is. Two years ago, Jack and I did a wild story on this show. It was the Lululemon exchange. What was this, Jack? They were encouraging people to come to Lululemon and drop off a dupe and then trade it in for the real thing. Yeah, like you could bring in Amazon knockoff Lululemon Align leggings and then they would give you actual Lululemon Align leggings. It was...

A pretty boss move by Lulu. Exactly. We thought it was pretty cool. Instead of getting mad at Dukes, they kind of owned it. Well, two years later, Lulu's not playing Mr. Nice Gal anymore, are they, Jack? Yeah, Lulu's bad. They hired the lawyers. Round up the lawyers, guys. Yeah.

But they're not going after Shein, Zara, or the dude on Canal Street selling knockoffs. They're going for the biggest knockoff seller of them all, Costco. They're suing Costco. The $400 billion behemoth that is 10 times bigger than Lululemon. So Lululemon is going for the jugular. They're trying to knock out the knockoff.

I like what you did there. Now, if a court decides that Costco's knockoffs are illegal, that would set a legal precedent affecting the entire dupe industry. But we should sprinkle on some legal context. Jack, sew it on for us over there. Counterfeiting is when a product lies.

Like claiming it's made by Lululemon, even though it's actually not. That is illegal, should not happen. But dupes, that is an honest, lower-priced knockoff, and it generally is legal. So when companies sue a knockoff, it's historically been unsuccessful, unless it's like a blatant counterfeit. Yeah, like Adidas has sued dozens of companies, including H&M, for making shoes with three stripes on them, but...

Adidas has lost most of those cases. But Lululemon is alleging that Costco copied everything about their clothing. Everything but the price. And that is key. What Lulu is saying is this ain't no dupe. This is a clone. In the 49-page lawsuit, Lululemon alleges that Costco copied five specific products. And the New York Times analyzed these two products side by

The Costco version and the Lululemon version. They had the same zipper, the same pocket shape, the same waistband, even the same specific crotch stitching. According to the lawsuit, Costco even uses Lululemon's trademark color known as Tidewater Teal, a color shade that overshadows

that only Lululemon uses. Costco, you couldn't have grabbed a thesaurus on that one? Yeah, true. The only product difference was the material. Lulu was Primo fabric. Costco was Costco fabric. So add it all up, and the real difference is the most strategic difference, the price.

Costco's versions were 90% cheaper than Lululemon's. I mean, Jack, I'm scanning these things right now. Lulu's ABC khaki pants are 130 bucks, but the Kirkland version is just 20. Lululemon's half zip pullover is $118. Costco's is 797. Costco's just like giving these things away at this point. This is why people love Costco, but Lululemon does not love Costco. Now, Costco

wouldn't do this, we should point out, if consumers didn't demand it. The dupe has become a badge of honor in today's consumer culture. There's Reddit pages and TikTok hashtags dedicated to spotting and finding and sharing dupes. You're not just buying Kirkland leggings because they're cheap, you're buying them because they're a status symbol that you found a deal. Just like Lululemon is a status symbol that you can afford it.

Costco's version is a status symbol that you found a deal. Or those pickles you put on your hot dogs, Jack. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Lulu? The free rider era is officially finished.

Yikes. The first thing Jack and I thought about when we saw this Lululemon dupe crackdown was actually Netflix. Remember the Netflix password crackdown? Totally. Two years ago, Netflix ended password sharing. And the result? Well, the following week, Netflix had four of its biggest signup days in the history of the company.

company. And like Netflix, for years, Lululemon turned a blind eye and didn't mind consumers having some fun. But we're now in a different era from the 2010s, and there is more competition for every dollar. It's not just Netflix and Lulu cracking down. Amazon cracked down on their generous return policies. So across industries, we're now seeing a crackdown on customer-friendly habits. The free rider era is finished.

Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Which is kind of the real Friday. America's Nathan's Hot Dogs was founded by a Polish man, and it's growing now thanks to a Ukrainian man. But Nathan's real secret ingredient to scaling? It's licensing the name. For our second story, Cloudflare is helping companies stop AI from crawling and stealing their content. It's with an AI fence, and it's given Google and Facebook a little dose of their own medicine.

And our third and final story. Lululemon is suing Costco for selling five products that are 90% the same, but 90% lower price. Lulu's trying to cancel the dupe because the free rider era is sadly over.

But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, President Trump announced a trade deal with Vietnam. Vietnam will not tariff anything that they import from America, but we will tariff everything made in Vietnam at 20%. This deal provides some clarity. It's less than the 46% tariffs that Trump announced on April 2nd, but it's still high. It's up from 0%, so it could increase the price of the sneakers that are made in Vietnam. And

And second, Tesla reported its second straight quarter of shrinkage, a 14% drop in Q2, a 13% drop in Q1. Now, the last quarter, Tesla blamed the falling car deliveries on a factory changeover. But this time, it seemed pretty clear. Consumers from both political parties are kind of tired of Tesla. By the way, show me the Chinese EV brand.

They sold 200,000 EVs in three minutes. And finally, Jurassic Park's seventh movie debuts tonight. Apparently those dinosaurs keep having babies, man. But the first movie was actually the source of a big Hollywood bidding war back in the early 90s between the two most famous directors. Steven Spielberg outbid James Cameron to get the film rights to the original Jurassic Park book. Spielberg paid $2 million and created Jurassic Park the movie. James Cameron...

Made Titanic and Avatars 1, 2, and 3. So he did fine. Life finds a way to keep making these Jurassic Park movies. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Aunt Sammy from lovely Washington, D.C. The biggest 4th of July tradition, even bigger than hot dogs, is fireworks. The rockets red glare. The bombs bursting in air. But Independence Day is actually dependent.

on China. Get this. China makes 99% of our consumer fireworks. Actually, all consumer fireworks. It's the biggest monopoly since the invention of fire by the cavemen. Oh, and wildest part, 99% of those 99% of all fireworks are made in one Chinese city. Liu Yang. It's the fireworks capital of the world. And honestly, it makes sense. China controls the market.

Because China invented the firework a thousand years ago. Gunpowder walked so that firecrackers could run. Now, unfortunately, we still have 30% tariffs on all those Chinese fireworks. But it doesn't make them 30% less loud.

Yetis, you look fantastic today. Oh, and by the way, even though tomorrow is a national holiday, Jack and I ain't leaving you hanging, are we, man? We're not throwing away our shot. No, we're not. And why is that? We are dropping a full episode of The Best Idea Yet on this feed on Hamilton.com.

The Musical. That's right, Hamilton The Musical, the entire untold origin story of the billion-dollar Broadway show. So if you're driving to the beach today, jump over to the best idea you got right now for some road trip listening. But if you're stuck in traffic tomorrow, just stay right here and Jack and I are serving up Hamilton The Musical. And we promise we won't do any singing. Yet. Although Lin-Manuel Miranda will.

And before we go, a happy third birthday to Yeti Aravmeta over in the Bay Area. Congratulations, little Arav. Arav, make this a big one. Make it the best one. And Rebecca H., turning 25 years old down in Texas, is doing a solo trip to New York City. Rebecca, you're going to have a blast on this one. And a big shout out to Kelsey Black from Pflugerville, Texas, who for the second year in a row, her bookstore was nominated for the

best retail shop in Pflugerville, Texas. You know where our vote's going. And Gianna Sini and Chris Winkler just got engaged down in Cabo. Guys, congratulations. Let's see some of those beautiful ring picks. Happy anniversary to Colleen and Jin Chang in New York City. And Estefani DiMaio in Crestkill, New Jersey is a brand new mom. Mamacita, mama, and a mom.

And a big shout out to Audio Dave Sonnefeld in Austin, Texas, who failed his New Year's resolution to start smoking, drink more alcohol, and work out less. Congratulations, Dave. And Kelvin.

down in Ontario has got the anniversary of his first date. Kelvin, congratulations to you guys. I'm sure it was beautiful. And a big shout out to Natalia and Liam Lupa from Muskegon, Michigan. Two siblings who love T-Boy so much, especially our episode on Donald Duck Diplomas. Oh, the triple D, that one was fantastic. Quack, quack to Natalia and Liam.

This is Jack. I own stock of Netflix, Reddit, and Amazon. Nick owns stock of Lululemon. And we both own some Bitcoin. Bitcoin named Ben. If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. We want to get to know you.