🏡 “She’s Zexting Me” — Zillow’s gossip pop. David’s $725M protein bar. Circle’s stablecoin IPO.
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This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Monday, June 2nd, 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. Well, Jack, you've got the glow of someone who went to a farmer's market over the weekend. I did, but it was another rainy farmer's market. Oh, I'm so sorry, man. Did I tell you? We've had 11 straight rainy Saturdays. I know. I feel guilty because we went to the beach in San Francisco.

I feel a little dizzy. But we do, Jack, have three of the best stories we've ever done on this show. So, Jack, what is on today's T-Boy? For our first story, every part of the housing market is ice cold right now, except for one, Zillow.com. Zillow, their stock is up 70% this year because when it comes to houses, gossip is good.

For our second story, it's David. David is a very high protein protein bar. And they're now worth more than the RX bar, a valuation of $725 million. Because a lab invented a new kind of protein and this bar bought that lab.

And our third and final story, IPOs are back, baby. And the one that you got to know about right now is Circle, the stablecoin company. So Jack and I are exploring what the heck a stablecoin actually is. Or as the Germans call it, stablecoin. Ha ha ha ha.

But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Whoa, what a mix of stories to kick off the week. I love the mix, Jack. Welcome to June. It is peak intern season. Intern season. Every bar downtown is filled with new suits and pencil skirts. I remember my first suit.

Joseph A. Bank lured me in with one of their buy three suits, get one free deal. And I remember your first suit. Not one of them actually fit. I was swimming in that thing. So to inspire all the interns out there, Jack and I have found the most valuable intern of all time. The MVI. We found the best intern story yet. Get this, yetis. Sprite's newest soda.

was invented by interns. That's right. Coke's senior creative director just said so in an interview with Ad Age. Their interns invented the soda. Here's the context. Last week, Coca-Cola launched Sprite plus tea, a soda plus tea combo. Which is begging to be spiked with some kind of alcohol, by the way, Jack. It really is. But,

Sprite actually got the idea six years ago from their summer intern cohort. That's right. Sprite's summer interns of 2019 pitched Sprite Plus T in their final intern presentation. Now, at the time, the executives gave the interns the old slap on the back and said, nice work, youngsters. Email us the PowerPoint. Have fun in school this fall, kiddos. I love the energy those kids brought to the office. Good kids, good kids. Let's not pay them. But...

Sprite just turned that intern project into a product. Yes, they did. And we know what Sprite should do next, don't we, Jack? Pay those interns. Hey, Coca-Cola, why not send those interns a cut of the Sprite tea sales? Track down that 2019 internship class on LinkedIn. Yeah. Send them some checks. A big fat check. They already go down as intern royalty. True. Send them actual royalty checks. Good luck to all the interns out there. Jack, let's hit our three stories.

Don't go to Joseph A. Bank.

First, a quick word from our sponsor. Airbnb. Nick, can you share that wonderful quote about hospitality we heard recently? Jack, I think I read this in the Danny Meyer book, but he said something like hospitality is anticipating someone's needs beyond expectations. I love that quote.

When I have a guest booked to stay at my place, I try to meet that hospitality standard, and I do so by letting them know ahead of time events happening in the area. Uh, pro tip, your favorite jam band is playing at your favorite burger place Wednesday night? Probably let your guests know about that one. I also completed a full travel guide within my Airbnb listing, sharing my personal favorite recommendations and secret spots.

What kind of stuff's in that travel guide, Jack? That swimming hole is so remote, you can definitely swim in the nude and you won't get any issues. Yeah, I know George Costanza shrinkage that we know of. Yetis, your actual house, your apartment, your condo is just one part of the Airbnb hosting experience.

I've really enjoyed the soft parts of hospitality, anticipating my guests' needs beyond their expectations. If this sounds your style and you enjoy a naked jump into a stream, you can become an Airbnb host too, as long as you got a place. I'm proud of my 4.92 rating, and my wife is proud of the revenue we're generating with that rating. Yetis, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.

I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. Listen to Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky wherever you get your podcasts.

For our first story, the housing market is down, but one housing business is shockingly up, Zillow. Zillow stock has gone through a full renovation because gossip when it comes to houses is good.

Yetis, here's the reality. One industry has been hit harder than any other in the last three years because of high interest rates and who is it, Jack? Real estate. That's right, NBB. Nobody is buying. In March of this year, the number of homes sold in the United States fell to the lowest level in 17 years. Not since the depths of the 08 financial crisis has the housing market been this cold. But there's one exception.

Zillow.

since 2022. Yeah, that was back when your buddy Timmy bounced for the suburbs. See you later, Timmy. Enjoy Westchester. Now, the goal for Zillow is to become the real estate super app that buyers, sellers, and realtors all use. Basically, the McMansion of housing apps, Jack. And it's working. Whether you're buying or renting, you are scrolling Zillow, and we got the numbers to back it up. But here's what Jack and I found shocking about Zillow.

Zillow has the key ingredient to actually become a top media.

Because the website visits that Zillow gets is insane. You're going to sit down, stand up, and move out again, baby. Get these numbers from the Washington Post. What do we got, Jack? Zillow gets 10 billion website or app visits every year. Can you sprinkle on some context to that number, please, Jack? 10 billion visits per year is more than the New York Times, the top news agency in the world. I don't know, the country, whatever. Yeah, it is basically in the same ballpark as Instagram or TikTok.

millions of us these days are mindlessly opening up our phones and clicking the Zillow app. It's like a social media app. We're just scrolling. Yeah, that three-story condo is a thirst trap. As a result, the average home listed on Zillow gets 1,000 views. I think we need to make this even more clear, Jack. I mean, Zillow has 227 million monthly active users. Can you sprinkle even

more context onto this wild story. That's double the number of monthly users as Threads, Meta's Twitter app. It's almost as many as Netflix subscribers. And it's half as many as Spotify, the biggest music streamer in the world. Now, besties, we know where this trend began. During the pandemic, you got addicted to Zillow porn. It has a great house. It has radiant heat on the first floor and the basement. And it's on three acres of land. Honey,

You got to see this. Oh my God. But unlike that Peloton ride you used to do, Zillow scrolling is a habit that actually stayed. And it changed how we talk about real estate. Because before real estate listings were on the internet,

Talking about house prices was a taboo subject. But now, Jack, the most recent selling price is published for all homes, for sale or not. Even if you're just visiting your buddy for dinner, you can see what they paid. Yeah, if you want to like stock the new friends you're thinking about befriending, you can find the price of their home on Zillow.

And when that neighbor's house goes for sale, it becomes like page six. The whole neighborhood is judging that place. The whole neighborhood starts going full Nate Berkus on that house on the corner that's for sale. Are they asking $1.2 million? That is crazy. And I'm sure, Jack, you go through the same thing as me. Molly is constantly zexting me about homes. Yeah.

Yeah, she's X me like five times a week. No, Alex does for me too. I'm like, Alex, we're not in the market. She says it's about dreaming and manifesting for the future. I know. I know. Molly will X me five houses. They're all out of our budget, but Hey, I look at that living room layout and I'm like, that's pretty hot choice of marble, man. Because of Zillow, everyone in town knows what everyone's house is worth and they know what the inside of the house looks like. But that's

That wasn't a thing 20 years ago. Neither of those were a thing 20 years ago. Which leads to our takeaway. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Zillow? Gordon Gekko once said, greed is good. It turns out gossip is good too.

Yeti's Stanford professor, Michelle Gelfand, thinks that zillification of real estate is actually good for society. We dove into her research about gossip, and she says that ultimately, gossip is about information and knowledge. Interestingly, her research found that the more information a community has about each other, the closer they work together. If you know about how people take care of their homes and what the inside of their home looks like,

You know more about that person. It's a transparency thing, actually. Basically, gossip has evolved to help neighbors work together. This is a good dating example here, right, Jack? Well, if you Zillow stock your date's house before you go on that first date with them...

you might be less skeptical of the unknowns of that person and potentially be more relaxed and open during the date. And Jack, who among us has not soft-launched a relationship by sexting him a link to your future starter home? So, Yetis, Zillow changed what we scroll on our phone and how we talk about real estate. And that neighborhood transparency, that gossip about each other's most valuable assets, their homes, may be good.

For our second story, David, the extremely high protein protein bar, just hit a wild $725 million valuation. Their secret protein ingredient shows why a business doesn't need one moat, they need three. Now, yetis, Jack and I have noticed that for fellow millennials, the candy aisle has been replaced by...

by the protein bar aisle. I haven't bought a candy bar outside of Halloween in like 10 years. Yeah, yeah. But I have bought some protein bars that are very candy-ish. Yeah, because the protein bars are the new sweet treat. Like Kind Bars are drizzled in caramel. Go Macro Bars are drizzled in chocolate. Go Macro Bar is basically just like raw cookie dough in bar four. It's a post-workout cookie. Like there's one degree of separation away from like a Cliff Bar and a Snickers bar. So we weren't shocked by David Bowie.

Their flavors include cookie, cake, and blueberry pie. And they're wrapped in gold foil, kind of like a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory candy bar. But this bar is named David after the statue that Michelangelo...

What did he whittle it? No, you carve it. We'll work on the verbs later. And the reason that's important is because Michelangelo evokes perfection. David is a protein bar with eight identical abs. And here's what they're getting at. This protein bar has 28 grams of protein and just 150 calories. That's the best ratio in the business.

We'll come back to that in a moment. Remember those numbers. But right now, David Barr is on pace for 100 million bucks in sales in their first year. I mean, Jack, is this the fastest growing food product we've seen? I actually have eaten one and it's kind of like, it's...

It's almost like just protein powder. Did you whittle it or did you eat it, Jack? Well, here's the news. David Barr just raised $75 million at a $725 million valuation. This protein bar is going to eat you, Nick. Interestingly, the founder of David Barr is the same guy who invented RXBAR, which he sold to Kellogg for $600 million a few years ago. So today, venture capitalists are lining up to give this second-time founder big money.

But besties, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. It wasn't the money that they raised, it's what they did with that money. They immediately bought their key supplier. So yetis, to understand why, we really need to talk about a new nutrition trend

we call ratios. Last month on the pod, we did a story about Khloe Kardashian's new popcorn, which is sprinkled with protein dust. Okay, but here's the reality. Anyone can add protein to something. So the new focus of fitness fanatics and Ozempic users is the protein to calorie ratios, which leads to a new thing called EPG.

EPG is a newly invented food ingredient. It looks like fat, it acts like fat, but it has 92% fewer calories than fat. And it is this new food technology that allows David Barr to have the top ratio of protein to calories right now. And the top maker of EPGs, it's a company called

And David Barr just bought them with this fundraise. Now David Barr controls the top supplier of their key ingredient. As their CEO put it, we're taking all the supply. It's like Michelangelo bought the only marble quarry in Italy. That's exactly what it is. And he whittled it all. Ha ha!

Let's whittle away the takeaways. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at David Bar? A business doesn't need one moat. They need three.

Hey, Eddies. As you learn in business school, every CEO wants a moat, a competitive advantage that prevents rivals from entering the market. Royalty used moats to keep away barbarians from the castle. Businesses use moats to keep away the competition. But David Barr's founder just said this on a podcast. He said, today you need multiple moats and we have

They say that their first moat is their brand. Those gold wrappers, they signify perfection, and they differentiate them from the rest of the bars. Their second moat is distribution. Because of their previous business with Kellogg, they have a distribution network nationwide. And the final moat is that they control the only company making EPG, their super protein ingredient. So, Bessie's added it all up, and there's a reason why King Arthur put sharks and alligators in his castle moats. For startups today, your castle of a business...

needs more than one moat. 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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For our third and final story, Circle. A 12-year-old stablecoin company is going public on the New York Stock Exchange. It's another example of disrupting finance joining mainstream finance. Yes, it is. But Nick, what the heck is a stablecoin?

But in order to do that, Jack, let's go back to 2013 when Jeremy Allaire, a liberal arts grad, thought that Bitcoin was a little bit weird. Too bad, because Bitcoin was $100 back then, and it's $100,000 today.

But Jeremy loved the blockchain infrastructure that Bitcoin was built on. So he tried to modernize the money. And he did so by founding Circle 12 years ago. It was to become the leader of stablecoins. All right, so now we should sprinkle on that context, Jack. You know, stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are backed one-to-one by a fiat currency. So for each stablecoin, there's normal government-issued money behind it. Like a dollar, a yen, a euro, whatever.

And now, besties, you've heard of stablecoins, but you may be wondering, what exactly is a stablecoin? So Jack and I jumped in T-boy style to Circle's S1 IPO paperwork. First of all, Circle is profitable. They're targeting a $7 billion valuation when they hit the New York Stock Exchange later this month. That's right, they're about the same size as Lyft. And the goal of Circle is simple. They want to take money and put it on the internet. Or as they put it, they want to create an HTTP for money. Now, you might be thinking,

Isn't money already on the internet? Oh, well, you would be wrong. Because, sure, you can log in and check your bank account online, but the money in your bank account is not digital at all. Have you noticed the two-day delays for a check to be cashed?

Or the two-day delay you get for purchasing a stock and waiting for it to be settled? Or after brunch, when you try to transfer your Venmo balance to your bank account? Yeah. That takes five business days. And it's because our dollars are slow by design. Right, Jack? The government must have the ability to sanction bad guys and freeze their money. The result is that the pipes our money flows through were created back in the 70s and the 1980s. That's why you're still waiting for your paycheck to clear, even though you know it should...

be in your account already. Yeah, like where is the money? Yeah, where's my money? So the point of a stablecoin is to honor the regulatory and compliance rules of money, but also to speed up money for the consumer. And theoretically, if they achieve that, there could be big macroeconomic benefits. Right, because faster money means more spending, and more spending is good for the economy. Well, back to Circle's business model. Yes, Jack. You're not the client of Circle.

The financial institutions are. Exactly. What Circle really does is sell a bank a digital layer on top of their existing system in order to let the money move faster. And how would they do it? They'd do it with blockchain, a Bitcoin invention. Hey, get this. We noticed that Circle mentioned the term Bitcoin just nine times in their IPO paperwork.

But they mentioned blockchain 316 times. I mean, as we're saying this, Jack, I think this is the analogy. With stablecoins, it's like Netflix.

Fiat money is the DVDs Netflix used to send. But a stablecoin is the streaming that Netflix now instantaneously does. So the DVD is like the physical $100 bill. Yes, Jack. But the movie's availability on Netflix.com is the stablecoin. Exactly. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Circle? The crypto that could finally be a currency isn't Bitcoin. It's ironically the US dollar.

Yetis, the reality is that cryptocurrencies aren't currencies. They're speculative assets like gold or stock. The reason I bought Bitcoin? I hoped the price would go up so I could sell it for more someday. Well, that's not a currency. You know, that's an asset. But Circle's flagship cryptocurrency, their stablecoin, is the USDC, the US dollar coin. Because everything Circle offers is one-to-one backed by fiat currency, aka paper money issued by the government.

Circle simply creates one token for each dollar and then lets it move as quickly on the internet as a text message. Now, Circle is openly lobbying for U.S. stablecoin legislation to go through Congress. That's crucial for them. But Circle shows us how the crypto that could actually function like a currency isn't Bitcoin. It's the U.S. dollar.

For our second story, David Bromley.

bar is the hottest product, not an AI chatbot. It's the protein bar worth $725 million. Because like King Arthur taught us, a business doesn't need one moat these days. You need three. And our third and final story is Circle. They filed for IPO. They're trying to digitize our existing US dollars with stable coins. Because the crypto that could actually be currency is ironically the US dollar coin.

But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, legendary yeti Taylor Swift finally owns her music again, thanks to the Eris tour. Remember Taylor got in a fight with the media executive who owned the rights to her music? And then Jack, didn't she start republishing albums? That was the Taylor's version to take back control. She's done like 10 of them, but now she doesn't need to do her final couple of albums.

because she owns all of her music again. Congratulations, Taylor. And second, trade war update. Keeping up with the tariff dashians. Because China won't send us rare earth metals, we won't let them attend our universities. That's according to Axios reporting. And that's key, by the way, because Chinese students typically pay full freight to attend our universities. And here's another update.

Trump jacked up tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to 50% on Friday. So court rulings aside, the trade war definitely escalated last week. And finally, Haribo just recalled their European gummies because they accidentally sprinkled some cannabis in there. Yeah, Haribo's gummy bears. Parents and kids in the Netherlands felt queasy after eating some of their soda-flavored fizz gummies. Apropos that it happened in the Netherlands...

by the way. Yeah, well, they tested the gummy bears and it turns out somehow like cannabis got in the gummies. Ralph, we told you to be careful. Everyone is okay, by the way, although these horrible gummies did accidentally become edibles.

Now time for the best fact yet, which, because it's Monday, means T-boy trivia. What do we got, Jack? Which of the following fashion brands is not named after a real person? Okay, which of the following brands in fashion is not a real person? All right, who we got? First is Ralph Lauren. Second is Liz Claiborne. Third, Kenneth Cole.

And fourth, Tommy Bahama. Okay, Yetis, drop your answer in the comments. Which was not a real person? Which fashion brand? Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, Kenneth Cole, Tommy Bahama. Three of those are real people. One of them is completely made up. And we'll tell you the answer on tomorrow's pod.

Yetis, you look fantastic out there. Jack, you whittled so many good takeaways today. Just really just impressive stuff. Besties, if you're interning this summer, tell a buddy in your internship class to HYH-TBOI. Have you had the best one yet? That's how we grow the show. And then drop down to give us five stars and a rating. We love reading your reviews. Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Remember Sprite. Jack and I will see you tomorrow.

And before we go, a happy 12th birthday to legendary Yeti Phoebe Moritz in Wilmington, Delaware, who's been promoting T-Boy to all her friends and cousins. Thank you, Phoebe. And a big shout out to Mary Catherine Hilbin Jordan for getting engaged in Richmond, Virginia. And a shout out to Sam, a legendary Yeti I ran into in the Presidio yesterday. Jack, he lives in Pacific Heights. Fantastic best.

Congratulations to Savannah Westwood for running a business for 10 years down in Orlando, Florida. And Leslie Dutt from Port Republic, Virginia has got a new job doing logistics. Congrats to Rachana Pandya in Dallas, Texas, who got a new job, get this, making AI. And a congratulations to Lola Ray for the high school graduation in New York City, future biz major over at George Washington University.

And if anyone else wants a shout out, we've got a form in this episode description. Just fill it out and Jack and I will get you on the pod.

This is Jack. I own stock of Lyft. Nick and I both own stock of Zillow, Spotify, and Apple. And we both own a Bitcoin. A 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.