The Best Newsletter Yet

Happy Saturday Besties,

We’re gonna help ya not be last-minute on some things…

• Make that Mother’s Day brunch reservation (T-15 days)

• Order that graduation cake (before Susie’s sells out)

• Order your ‘fit for your Bestie’s wedding (before Lulu sells out)

• Ask off for the Friday before Memorial day (T-31 days)

🚕 Hold the cab — We just finished a huge week in NYC: A Live show (watch) and an interview with a billionaire entrepreneur (watch). If want behind-the-scenes content from our week, scroll to the very end of this email.

This week’s newsletter is 15% of the best of the pod and 85% things we had to share off the record. 

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🔺 Chipotle just hit an all-time-high — with sales climbing 14%

• 🌯 No chicken on break: The day after Chipotle released earnings, the company asked employees not to eat chicken and instead “temporarily select another protein option for their meals to preserve our supply.” The Chicken Al Pastor was popping off. Chip got bad press for the odd rule, so just reversed it.

• 🌯 The meat of the sales were driven by Braised Beef Barbacoa and Chicken Al Pastor (limited edition). Chipotle funnily noticed that sales spiked for Barbacoa after adding “Braised Beef” to the name…because people didn’t know what barbacoa was before. (Pro tip: you can ask for a sample…we’ve done it before).

• 🌯 Burrito-flation: The new minimum wage law for fast-food workers in California went into effect in early April. To offset that, Chipotle (and other food chains) raised menu prices in the state by 7% — a chicken burrito now costs us $11 in San Francisco.

  All eyes are on the auto-cado coming soon 🤖 🥑

The fertility rate of American women is at an all-time-low

In 2023, the average birth per woman was 1.62, according to provisional data — down 2% from 2022. This is the lowest rate on record, ever since the government began tracking births in the 1930s.

• By Age: Women in their late 30s & early 20s have children at nearly the same rate — though early 20s women are decreasing in rate, while late-30s women are increasing their birth rate.

• Short-Term Reasons: Women’s participation rate in the workforce hit an ATH (all-time high) last year… and you don’t have to tell us about the ATH childcare costs.

• Long-Term Impacts: Lower fertility rates would have economic effects (like our ability to fund Social Security). Though, immigrants could help offset this — which the U.S. has seen an influx of in recent years.

President Biden signed a bill that could ban Tiktok… meanwhile his campaign is still active on the app. The law would force the Chinese company that owns TikTok, Bytedance to sell the platform within 270 days or face a national ban.

• Worth noting: Nearly 1/3 of Americans under 30 use TikTok as a primary news source, according to Pew Research.

• Mixed messages: Biden’s critics say the move is hypocritical since his campaign is using the platform to reach young voters.

• But about the first bullet point: Proponents of a ban say our geopolitical foe shouldn’t control what news Americans see, especially one so skilled at online censorship as China. (and last time we were in China, the country still banned many of America’s social media apps)

Last week we asked: Do you own any Bitcoin? And here are some of your responses…

• 🐶 “No, but I have some doge.”  

• 😔 “I had a friend who quit his job to be a Bitcoin advisor in Utah, and met Andrew Yang. I’m pretty beat up I didn’t buy in on him a little.”

• 🧐 “I’m like Warren Buffet, if I don’t understand it I don’t buy it.”

This week’s poll question: Whether or not you think it should, would you care if TikTok got banned?

The Meta-morphosis of Mark Zuckerberg — Meta had earnings this week but Zuck’s style choices took the headlines. The wardrobe analysis piece was in The New York Times this week.r

• The Viral Chain Moment: This week, Zuck took to the ‘Gram to announce“Big A.I.” news, sporting a chain necklace…and the comments section had a field day. Gwen Paltrow even compared him to her ex Chris Martin. Since then, Zuck has explained that he is working on making chains as a gesture to his kids.

• Zuckerberg looks like “the buddy you want to call if you’re doing backyard construction” — those are how Managing Partner at Menlo Ventures, Venky Ganesan, describes the look.

• Intrigued? The article goes on to talk about Zuck’s shopping tips, brands he’s loving (like Vouri), and the moments that have transformed him into the fashion larvae he is today.

Viagra was invented by accident. It was initially supposed to help solve heart problems, but a test group discovered an other use (and wouldn’t give back the leftover pills).

• 🫢 Stand up…and sit back down.“They found a lot of the men were lying on their stomachs,” John LaMattina, Head of R&D at Pfizer during the clinical trials said on an old episode of STAT Signal Podcast (listen at 7:15)…

It’s actually a quote from Plato: “The right question is more important than the right answer.”

With AI rapidly catching up to Human I, philosophy will keep us ahead (and employed).

That’s why our Tesla earnings breakdown this week wasn’t simply a breakdown — we found a parallel that Tesla’s current issues are the same as Netflix’s issues in 2022. ChatGPT probably could have summarized Tesla’s earnings just fine, that’s why we found (what we think) is an AI-proof takeaway. By storytelling and creating parallels, our TBOY-takeaways are more memorable & meaningful to you. It’s all about the questions you ask…

🤔 And here’s our full story about why Goldman Sachs wants you to study Philosophy.

• Holiday:🍗 Last Day of Passover (Tuesday), 👷‍♀️ May Day (Friday)

• Observances: 🌏 Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month begins

• Sports: 🏒 Stanley Cup Playoffs & NBA Playoffs. #LGR

👂 Monday: The best kind of new stocks…is Korean Pop music.

👂 Tuesday: The best lesson for Nike’s falling stock…is from The Beatles.

👂 Wednesday: The best new Ozempic side effect…is a Baby Boom.

🎬 Thursday (LIVE SHOW in NYC): The best thing bankers should study…is philosophy.

🎙️ Friday (BILLIONAIRE INTERVIEW): “People underestimate the risk of the status quo”…. with serial entrepreneur, Marc Lore.

And one more thing. We mentioned this last week, but we want to make sure every buddy has a chance — Reply BTS to this email for behind-the-scenes from NYC. 🗽

But most of all, thank you to all the legendary Besties and fantastic Yetis who came out in NYC (including the Artichoke Pizza after-party) — That was honestly the most special night of our careers. We can’t wait to see you again.

🙌 🙌

—Nick & Jack