The Best One Yet – “Doo-Doo-Doo” — Baby Shark’s IPO. 85% off Ozempic. Lyft CEO David Risher. +Restaurant Hottie AI

Date: November 7, 2025
Hosts: Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell
Podcast: The Best One Yet

Episode Overview

This episode dives into three top pop-business stories:

• The surprising IPO of Baby Shark, analyzing how a viral kids’ song turned into a $400 million global business
• A landmark government deal slashing the price of blockbuster weight loss drugs by 85% and what that means for Americans
• A candid Q&A with Lyft CEO David Risher about their first profitable year ever and the company’s evolving partnership with Waymo's self-driving cars

The hosts also tackle a quirky AI app that rates restaurants by the "hotness" of their diners, delivering fresh business insights in their signature witty, fast-paced style.

Hot Take: Restaurant Hottie AI App (00:30–03:07)

Discussion Highlights

• AI is now being used to find restaurants with the "hottest looking people," not just the best food.
• Looks Mapping: A new app that scrapes diner photos from reviews, rating patrons' attractiveness using "superficial standards" across thousands of restaurants in NYC, LA, and SF.
  • Example: Fenelli Cafe in Soho scores an 8.7/10 for "hotness".
  • Celebrity hotspot Jelena in LA only gets a 5.9, while Chick-fil-A down the block gets 6.2.
• "When you go out to dinner, do you want to fit in or do you want to stand out?" – Jack (02:42)
• Underlying the absurdity: Is this ethically dubious? A sign of AI's disruptive (and weird) future?

Memorable Quotes

• “All the models are eating at Mira May. The cute couples are at Catonia, and all the hotties… we see ya… you’re eating over at Honey Brains.” – Nick (01:52)
• “I mean, Jack, all the models are eating at Miramay.” – Jack (01:54)
• “It’s always nice to be a tiny bit hotter than your peers.” – Jack (02:49)

Story 1: Baby Shark's $400M IPO (05:50–10:35)

Key Points

• Baby Shark, the viral kids' song and #1 YouTube video of all time (16 billion views), just went public for a $400 million valuation.
  • Profitable: $70M revenue/year, 20% profit margin.
  • Disney-style "flywheel": 3,000+ licensed products – that's 30x more than the average Disney character.
  • Pinkfong (the company) owns the characters, not the underlying tune (which is public domain).
  • Samsung owns 17% of Pinkfong.
• Despite attempts to expand, 77% of company revenue still comes from the original song.
• The “right amount of annoyingness” makes the brand stick.
  • Marketing Lesson: Annoying jingles (Cars for Kids, Mentos) purposefully exploit memorability.
• Takeaway: “If something’s annoying, it’s also memorable.” – Jack (09:31)

Notable Quotes and Moments

• “Being annoying can actually be a competitive advantage.” – Jack (06:01)
• “They only own the characters around the song. The Baby Shark tune is actually an old campfire song that’s been around for generations… like Old MacDonald.” – Jack (07:23)
• “Annoyingness is often an aspirational metric. And that metric is measured.” – Nick (10:04)
• “Just the right amount of annoyingness is actually memorable.” – Jack (10:32)

Story 2: Ozempic's Price Cut – Government Negotiates 85% Off (10:35–14:50)

Summary

• The Trump administration negotiated dramatically lower prices for popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs (like Ozempic):
  • Medicare/Medicaid patients: down from $1,000/mo to $245/mo (Medicare copay: $50/mo)
  • For private payers: down to $350/mo (or $150/mo through DTC sites)
• This could accelerate widespread adoption (currently 1 in 7 women, 1 in 10 men in the US are already on these drugs).
• The US is finally copying European-style government price negotiations for drugs – “socialized medicine” for one drug class.
• Takeaway: “Just like pizza, wine, and kindergarten – we stole this idea from Europe.” – Jack (13:49)
• Winners: American consumers. Losers: Big Pharma shareholders and… Hot Pockets?

Key Quotes and Segments

• “One out of seven women in America is on Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound or one of the other GLP-1 weight loss drugs.” – Nick (11:13)
• “Every day is Prime Day for Ozempic. 85% off.” – Nick (12:51)
• “Why is Big Pharma massively cutting prices of their blockbuster profit puppy drugs? Because President Trump told them to… and threatened big targeted tariffs if they didn’t do it.” – Nick (13:37)
• “It’s socialized medicine, but just for GLP-1 weight loss drugs.” – Jack (14:42)

Story 3: Interview – Lyft CEO David Risher: Profits, Market Share & Waymo (16:44–25:12)

Discussion Breakdown

Lyft’s Best Year Ever (16:56–19:25)

• First profits in Lyft’s history: $1B in free cash flow over 12 months, a huge reversal from past $300M losses.
• CEO David Risher credits “customer obsession, customer obsession, customer obsession.”
• The rideshare market is still massively under-penetrated (2.5B rides/year split between Lyft & Uber, versus 160B car rides annually in the US).

“People take 160 billion rides in their own cars every year in the US. Two and a half billion [are rideshare]. This is a huge, huge market.” – David Risher (18:22)

• Lyft has increased “driver preference” to 27% over competitors.

Waymo Partnership “Situationship” (19:47–24:32)

• Lyft is both cooperating and competing with Waymo (self-driving cars), depending on the city.
• In Nashville, Lyft manages Waymo fleets (charging, maintenance, “fleet management”).
• Looking toward a “hybrid network” with both self-driving and human-driven cars; Lyft will partner with multiple vendors, not build its own cars.
  • “We’re going to be polyamorous… because we’re not in the business of building cars.” – David Risher (24:08)
  • “It’s less of a drama and more of a romcom with a happy ending…” – Nick (22:16)
• On self-driving tech: "Your choice is either embrace them or ignore. I recommend embracing if it’s a good product because if you ignore, you wake up one morning and...you're Kodak." – David Risher (23:05)

Lyft’s Culture

• Risher actually drives for Lyft to understand driver/rider experience first-hand.

“I started driving actually before I became CEO ... I just wanted to feel what it felt like ... I don’t reveal it until about two minutes till the end. And then all hell breaks loose.” – David Risher (25:02)

Rapid Headlines (26:04–27:24)

• Tesla/Elon Musk: Shareholders approved Elon’s $1T incentive plan; Tesla to build “gigantic factories” for in-house chip production.
• Government Shutdown: Hitting air travel; 10% of flights may be canceled as air traffic control staff go unpaid.
• Meta vs. MPAA: Meta got a cease-and-desist from the Motion Picture Association for using "PG-13" to describe Instagram content policies.

The Best Fact Yet (27:32–28:08)

• Where does “TASER” come from?
  • It’s an acronym: Tom A. Swift’s Electric Rifle, after a 1911 sci-fi novel character.

Final Takeaways & Closing Quotes

• “Baby Shark’s competitive advantage is the balance of annoyance.” – Jack (25:23)
• “When the government can negotiate with healthcare prices, those prices come way down.” – Nick (25:37)
• “Lyft’s saying: you do a lot of things, Uber. We're just going to focus on the one thing – and that focus has taken market share.” – Nick (25:48)

Memorable Moments and Style

• Playful banter and pop culture riffs (“Do do do do do”).
• Unexpected business insights (the economics of annoying jingles, socialized medicine, rideshare network scale).
• Notably, Lyft CEO David Risher’s warmth and openness in interview.
• Engaging comparison of business quirks to cultural trends.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Restaurant Hottie AI: 00:30–03:07
• Baby Shark IPO: 05:50–10:35
• Ozempic Price Cut: 10:35–14:50
• Lyft CEO Interview: 16:44–25:12
• Headlines: 26:04–27:24
• TASER Fact: 27:32–28:08

Tone: Witty, fast, slightly irreverent, always looking for the quirky business angle. Each segment ties a pop-culture twist to a business lesson you can remember and share.

Perfect for anyone wanting today’s biggest business stories with a healthy dose of fun (and facts no one else is talking about).