🐰 “El Supertazón” — Bad Bunny’s business. Anthropic’s book destruction. Chipotle’s $100K rule. +Football Birkin Bags

Summary

The Best One Yet – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Best One Yet
Hosts: Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell
Date: February 6, 2026
Episode Title: 🐰 “El Supertazón” — Bad Bunny’s business. Anthropic’s book destruction. Chipotle’s $100K rule. +Football Birkin Bags

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Overview

In this vibrant pre-Super Bowl episode, Jack and Nick cover three big, buzzy business stories:

1. Anthropic’s dramatic path to building better AI by literally destroying over a million books—and publicly trolling OpenAI in a big Super Bowl ad.
2. Chipotle’s doubling-down on raising prices while targeting high-income customers, in stark contrast to Pepsi’s recent price cuts.
3. The marketing paradox and global business savvy of Super Bowl halftime headliner Bad Bunny, who’s outgrown Taylor Swift by turning his constraints into viral growth hacks.

The episode is peppered with cultural observations (like the rise of luxury handbags among NFL players) and actionable business takeaways, all while maintaining the hosts’ signature energetic banter.

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Key Topics, Insights & Timestamps

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Football’s Latest Fashion: NFL Birkin Bags

[01:15 – 02:25]

• Main Idea: NFL players are now flaunting luxury handbags—Birkin, Prada, Coach, Hermes—turning stadium tunnels into fashion runways.
• Quote:
  • Nick: "It turns out this season the handbag was the breakout star of the NFL." [01:41]
  • Jack: "The locker room tunnel is the new catwalk." [02:23]
• Memorable Moment:
  • Jalen Hurts, Stefon Diggs, Will Anderson—all cited for their designer bag of choice.
  • Nick jokes: "You gotta put your mouth guard somewhere, right? Man, there’s a pocket." [02:08]
• Tone: Playful, tongue-in-cheek—highlighting the juxtaposition between football’s traditional masculinity and high fashion’s femininity.

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Story 1: Anthropic vs. OpenAI – The Super Bowl Ad Beef & Book Destruction

[04:32 – 10:02]

Ad Showdown

• Anthropic ran not one but two Super Bowl ads, directly mocking OpenAI for adding ads to ChatGPT.
• Quote:
  • Jack: "It’s an anti-ad ad." [05:25]
  • Nick: "Sam Altman…felt emotionally bruised." [05:37]
• Sam Altman fires back online with a lengthy response.

Project Panama – The Secret Book Scan

• Court documents reveal Anthropic bought and destroyed 1 million physical books ("Project Panama") to train their AI model, scanning their contents and recycling the physical books.
• Quote:
  • Jack: "This is a mind-bogglingly large and secret campaign…in 2024 and it’s called Project Panama." [06:09]
  • Nick: "Anthropic was eating Jane Austen for breakfast." [08:54]
• The approach differs from OpenAI, Google's Gemini, or Elon Musk's Grok (which are trained on different swaths of internet data).

The Lawsuit

• Authors and publishers have sued Anthropic over copyright infringement, and a warehouse photo of mountains of de-spined books surfaces in court.

Takeaway

• "You are what you eat. And each chatbot has a different diet." [09:01, Jack]
  • Claude (Anthropic’s chatbot): trained on books = more literary, "Phi Beta Kappa English major."
  • Grok: trained on tweets = snarky and crude.
  • Gemini: YouTube transcripts = casual and ‘YouTubey’.
  • OpenAI: "has pretty much eaten everything except for those million physical books..."

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Story 2: Chipotle’s $100K Rule – Picking Sides in a K-Shaped Economy

[10:02 – 14:06]

Chipotle and Its "Favorite Customers"

• Chipotle earnings show sales slumping for the second time in 3 quarters. Instead of cutting prices (like Pepsi just did), Chipotle is raising them yet again (+2%).
• Quote:
  • Jack: "Chipotle is not getting cheaper at all. In fact…they’re raising prices by 2% this year, which…is like the 10th time since the pandemic began." [10:51]
• Chipotle is strategically focusing on higher-income demographic (making $100,000+), and acknowledges it in their earnings call—mentioning "$100,000" five times.
• Quote:
  • Nick: "Chipotle…is willing to let the guy with the student loans trade down to Taco Bell for the time being." [12:31]

K-Shaped Economy Context

• "The wealthier are doing better… The middle is getting squeezed. So Chipotle is picking sides." [11:43–49, Jack & Nick]
• Yetis get a side-by-side business lesson:
  • Pepsi targets a wide, budget-conscious market: it cuts prices.
  • Chipotle targets the top, premium-seeking market: it raises prices.
• Quote:
  • Jack: "Pepsi aims for scale, mainstream… Chipotle's aim...is to go premium." [13:52]

Takeaway

• "Add it all up SES and in this economy you probably have to cut prices or raise them, but either way, you have to pick a side." [14:06, Nick]
• Memorable Banter: Imagining caviar on carnitas and joking about luxury upgrades.

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Story 3: Bad Bunny, Inc. — Branding Paradox & Growth by Constraint

[16:07 – 21:31]

The Zero-Dollar Super Bowl Gig & Streaming Domination

• Apple pays big bucks ($50M/yr) to sponsor the Halftime Show, but the performer (this year, Bad Bunny) gets paid only in global PR.
• Halftime bumps artist streams massively (Kendrick up 400% post-performance).
• Quote:
  • Jack: "None of that money goes to the headline performer. Zero. The gig is free because you are paid with, oh, a whole lot of publicity, baby." [16:34]

Bad Bunny’s Business Blueprint

• Most-streamed artist globally (4 out of last 6 years), ahead of Taylor Swift.
• Origin story: church choir → grocery bagger → SoundCloud → "Bad Bunny" name (after Halloween costume trauma).
• Multifaceted business:
  • Super-lucrative tours (one Puerto Rico residency boosted PR's GDP by $300M).
  • Restaurants: Gekko in Miami, a luxury spot.
  • Talent agency: prominent signings in Latin sports.
  • Brand deals from Gucci and Calvin Klein to Cheetos and WWE.
• Memorable Moment:
  • Nick: "I can’t think of many Cheetos eating Gucci owners who also know a stone cold stunner." [19:27]

Brand Paradox as Strength

• Bad Bunny is a branding paradox, spanning high fashion and roadside snacks, music and sports management.
• Quote:
  • Jack: "Bad Bunny is a branding paradox and it’s working." [19:44]

The Growth Hack: Constraints Breed Creativity

• Sings only in Spanish; limited U.S. market by choice.
• Limited tours—fans travel to see him.
• These self-imposed constraints spur viral growth and strong identity, mirroring tech’s best viral products (e.g., BeReal, Wordle, Twitter’s old character limit).
• Quote:
  • Jack: "Constraints breed creativity." [19:53]
  • Nick: “Orson Welles once said that the enemy of art is the absence of limitation.” [20:41]

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Recap of Takeaways

[21:00 – 21:35]

• Anthropic vs. OpenAI:
  • "Anthropic will troll OpenAI this Sunday. It got here though, by destructively scanning a million books." [21:00, Jack]
• Chipotle vs. PepsiCo:
  • "PepsiCo is lowering prices, but Chipotle is raising them. Same problem, different solution." [21:12, Jack]
• Bad Bunny:
  • "He was the number one most streamed musician for the fourth time in the last six years, beating Taylor Swift... Growth hack: constraints breed creativity." [21:23–31, Jack & Nick]

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Additional Noteworthy Bits

Spotify Sells Physical Books + Page Match Feature

[21:39 – 22:02]

• "A lot of people read a physical book alongside the book they're listening to as an audiobook... Spotify added a page match feature..." [21:44–54, Jack & Nick]

Super Bowl Betting Apps & Grocery Store Stunt

[22:02 – 22:26]

• Kalshi and Polymarket prediction apps; wild promotion: free groceries day at a New York store.

Roman Trevi Fountain Tourism Fee

[22:30–22:42]

• Rome instituting €2 tourism fee to visit the Trevi Fountain.

Best Fact Yet: ENIAC and AI’s Energy Leap

[22:47 – 23:26]

• From basketball court-sized computers burning the electricity of 100 homes to today's trillions of calculations per second on a single chip.
• "Our planet is way overdue for another hardware revolution." [23:18, Eddie Richard Blythe]

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Notable Quotes Recap (With Attribution & Timestamps)

• "This season the handbag was the breakout star of the NFL."
  — Nick, [01:41]
• "It’s an anti-ad ad."
  — Jack, [05:25]
• "Anthropic was eating Jane Austen for breakfast."
  — Nick, [08:54]
• "Chipotle is willing to let the guy with the student loans trade down to Taco Bell for the time being."
  — Nick, [12:31]
• "Bad Bunny is a branding paradox and it’s working."
  — Jack, [19:44]
• "Constraints breed creativity."
  — Jack, [19:53]
• "The enemy of art is the absence of limitation."
  — Orson Welles, quoted by Nick, [20:41]

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Tone & Style

The episode is energetic, witty, and insightfully irreverent. Jack and Nick banter with a mix of business-school clarity and cultural comedic timing, making complex business stories not only understandable but highly entertaining.

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Useful for Listeners Who Missed the Episode:

• Get the full story: Key themes (AI competition, consumer segmentation, global pop branding) and specific case studies (Anthropic's book destruction, Chipotle's $100K upmarket shift, Bad Bunny's paradoxical brand-building).
• Breadth & depth: Contextual explanations, analogies to pop culture, and the concrete impact of these strategies.
• Keep up the jargon: Understand “K-shaped economy”, why Super Bowl halftime is a marketing mega-platform, how AI diets shape chatbot personalities, and how brand limits can unlock massive engagement.
• Great for both business junkies and pop culture fans.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Nick]

This is Nick.

[Jack]

This is Jack.

[Nick]

It's Friday, the real Friday, February 6th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T, boy.

[Jack]

The top three pop business news stories you need to know today.

[Nick]

All right, Jack, pause the pod. Without the calendar. Olympic opening ceremony tonight, super bowl on Sunday. We got Valentine's Day in just over a week.

[Jack]

Men's Olympic downhill competition on Saturday, which is the most exciting event in my opinion.

[Nick]

I mean, the only thing not having fun in February so far is bitcoin.

[Jack]

True. It fell big again yesterday.

[Nick]

Ben, the bitcoin. You're hurting us, buddy. Jack, three fantastic stories for today's pod. What have we got on the show?

[Jack]

For our first story, Anthropic just dropped a Super bowl commercial diss track on OpenAI.

[Nick]

But the real story here, Anthropic destroyed a million books to get here, literally.

[Jack]

For our second story, it's Chipotle's new strategy. Telling anyone making under 100 grand to go to Taco Bell.

[Nick]

Instead, Chipotle is raising prices again.

[Jack]

And our third and final story, we're looking at the business of halftime performer Bad Bunny.

[Nick]

And this story includes Gucci luggage, gas station cheetos, and a $0 Super bowl check.

[Jack]

It's the business paradox of Bad Bunny, Inc. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories, I mean, no one.

[Nick]

Else is doing that mix. I love the mix. Before the weekend.

[Jack]

Jack, you're gonna see a lot of surprise things at the super bowl this weekend. Not just during the halftime show.

[Nick]

You'll see hail Marys, flea flickers, maybe a butt fumble or a tush push. If you're lucky.

[Jack]

If you're lucky. But the biggest surprise is, is probably going to be the handbags.

[Nick]

Trend alert. NFLers are carrying luxury handbags like never before.

[Jack]

That's right. The most masculine sport is going for the most feminine fashion accessory.

[Nick]

Yeah, it turns out this season the handbag was the breakout star of the NFL.

[Jack]

Earmuffs. Dad, you're not going to like this. Jalen Hurts carried a coach carryall into the stadium earlier this year.

[Nick]

Jack, Stefon Diggs has an Hermes Kelly purse. That's his.

[Jack]

Go to Will Anderson. He prefers Prada and their double flap bag with two handles.

[Nick]

If you have to ask, you can't afford it. We're talking clutches, pocketbooks, luxury handbags at a whole new level, baby.

[Jack]

The devil already wore Prada. Soon, Drake May, Will, apparently.

[Nick]

I mean, Jack, you gotta put your mouth guard somewhere, right? Man, there's a pocket.

[Jack]

Now, this trend started either in The NBA or European soccer. But I can't believe it's come to the gridiron.

[Nick]

Think it started with Emily in Paris. All the footballers are fans, Jack. Because the only thing a linebacker clutch is harder than a ball these days it's a Birkin Yeti's.

[Jack]

The locker room tunnel is the new catwalk.

[Nick]

Super Bowl 60. It's not going to Sports Illustrated. It's going to Vogue. Let's hit our three stories. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the northeast met in the 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 Liz if you know, you know. Cause we ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the.

[Eddie Richard Blythe]

Show.

[Nick]

Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor, Yeties. Jack had a lifelong dream of owning a ski house. But then he married a skier who's better at skiing than him, which put.

[Jack]

The pressure on to really own a ski house.

[Nick]

Okay, but still, ski house is very expensive. So what helped make Jack's dream doable? Airbnb.

[Jack]

I bought the chalet in 2024 and I use it very often with my own family. But when we're not using it, I I hosted on Airbnb. Especially those three day weekends when ski houses are in most demand.

[Nick]

The additional income Jack earns from hosting his home on Airbnb, it helps make owning the secondary property possible.

[Jack]

President's Day weekend coming up.

[Nick]

Nick. A lot of people want to go skiing. Jack.

[Jack]

I've done a ton of skiing this season already. I want to go to Florida with my family. The extra income I earned from hosting on Airbnb helps offset those travel costs.

[Nick]

Four adults, four children from just outside Boston. Boom. They just booked a stay on Jack Chalet.

[Jack]

Primary home or secondary home? If you've got space, you've got opportunity. Hosting on Airbnb helped make my dream possible.

[Nick]

Besties, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host.

[Jack]

Switching between.

[Nick]

Tools for one project gets disjointed, especially on tight deadlines. Grammarly built.

[Jack]

A game changing writing surface tailor made for professionals to help you move ideas forward and sharpen your writing. You can brainstorm ideas, summarize meeting notes in seconds, or strengthen a proposal without context. Switching. Easy to get started and even easier to finish. Sign up for Grammarly free and get.

[Nick]

Your Professional writing from draft to done, visit Grammarly.com that's Grammarly.com. For our first story, Anthropic made huge headlines for Troll and OpenAI in their super bowl ad.

[Jack]

That's a great story, but an even better one. Anthropic's quest to destructively scan all of the world's books. Oh.

[Nick]

Yet is the theme of this year's super bowl is beef. Because the number two AI brand is beefing it up with the number one AI brand.

[Jack]

Anthropic spent $10 million with NBC to throw shade in a 30 second commercial.

[Nick]

Because Anthropic ridiculed OpenAI's plans to launch ads on ChatGPT. And they did this for through two Super bowl commercials.

[Paige Desorbo]

Boom.

[Jack]

Roasted. It's an anti ad ad.

[Nick]

Yes, it is.

[Jack]

From Anthropic. You know what I mean?

[Nick]

Yeah, because it's mocking ChatGPT for adding ads. That's the ad.

[Jack]

Basically, Kendrick Lamar did last year's Super Bowl. But Anthropic's commercial is a diss track.

[Nick]

Yes, it is, Jack. And Sam Altman. Yeah, he felt emotionally bruised. He reacted on Twitter very defensively to the whole thing.

[Jack]

We got links to Anthropic's two Super bowl commercials and Sam's 400 word reply to those commercials in the show notes.

[Nick]

But besties, pause the pot because we are way more interested in one W that got Anthropic to this specific place.

[Jack]

One detail that we only know because it was revealed in court documents, because.

[Nick]

To build its AI, Anthropic bought 1 million physical books and then destroyed them.

[Jack]

This is a mind bogglingly large and secret campaign that anthropic did in 2024 and it's called Project Panama.

[Nick]

Doesn't sound sketchy at all, Jack. So there's some wonderful reporting here from the Washington Post. It captures the story, but Jack and I dove in t boy style.

[Jack]

OpenAI launched ChatGPT. They downloaded the entire shadow library online, known as Libgen.

[Nick]

Jack, what is a shadow library? To sprinkle on some context.

[Jack]

It's a massive online library of digital books that are all pirated.

[Nick]

And at the time, about a decade ago, OpenAI was an academic nonprofit. So to train their large language model, their AI, they had to upload millions.

[Jack]

Of books and nobody really was concerned. But then when OpenAI started straying from their nonprofit roots and became profit hungry, some early OpenAI people left and launched Anthropic.

[Nick]

And the first thing Anthropic did, what was it, Jack?

[Jack]

The same thing OpenAI did. They went to that same shadow library, downloaded millions of books, and fed that digital text into Anthropic's LLM.

[Nick]

But here's the key. In 2024, Anthropic wanted to differentiate their chatbot. Make it smarter, make it book smarter.

[Jack]

So they launched Project Panama, a secret goal to buy a million physical books, scan the pages of those books, and feed the digital text into their large language model.

[Nick]

Yes, this sounds like the plot of like a nerdy James Bond, but it is real. And here is how it went down.

[Jack]

First, they did a really smart thing. They hired the guy who like 20 years ago, did the Google books project of scanning millions of books into Google.

[Nick]

Yeah, Remember that, like, free service we had in college? Well, that guy started working with Anthropic and bought a million used books and destroyed them by slicing off the spines.

[Jack]

He split Tolstoy in two. Which begs the question, why destroy books? Are you anti book Anthropic?

[Nick]

The reason they bought up the books and destroyed them, Jack, was because it's hard to scan books in a photocopier. Like, we've all been there. Like, is this thing working?

[Jack]

It's easier to scan a book if it's just a stack of pages that are not bound to each other.

[Nick]

I mean, honestly, we'd love to. To the guy Anthropic hired to spend six months destroying and copying books.

[Jack]

Yeah. Really weird gap year that that guy did. Destroying those books and scanning them.

[Nick]

Don't tell anyone. It's all being done in a top secret warehouse.

[Jack]

Actually.

[Nick]

True.

[Jack]

Right. So the reason we know about this is that authors and publishers have sued Anthropic in court, arguing that feeding these books into the LLM is an unlawful use of their books.

[Nick]

So this court case, it even revealed an actual photo of a giant warehouse with millions of de spined books.

[Jack]

And every day trucks and trucks took the pages and sent them to a recycling. It was like a really weird operation.

[Nick]

Basically, Anthropic was eating Jane Austen for breakfast. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Anthropic?

[Jack]

You are what you eat, and each chatbot has a different diet.

[Nick]

Yeti's Anthropics Claw chatbot, It's believed by some to be better at writing than other chatbots are.

[Jack]

And now that you've heard this story, the reason for that is clear. Claude has a very book heavy diet.

[Nick]

Because Anthropic was chewing Moby Dick books. They are high quality yetis. They're written by humans who put in work. They're edited by Humans. They are chosen by human publishers.

[Jack]

On the other hand, Grok's diet is totally different. Elon's Grok is a very tweet heavy diet, so it's inclined to be crude and troll people just like the text.

[Nick]

It's consumed Google's Gemini. It's consumed the transcript of every YouTube video. So it sounds pretty YouTubey.

[Jack]

And OpenAI, having started years before, the rest of them, has pretty much eaten everything except for those million physical books in that warehouse.

[Nick]

Sebastias, if you want your chatbot to be a Phi Beta Kappa English major.

[Jack]

You choose Anthropic because you are what you eat. And Claude has read every book in the bookstore, literally.

[Nick]

For our second story, Chipotle's earnings just revealed it has a favorite customer. People who make 100,000 bucks a year or more.

[Jack]

Because in the K shaped economy, you have to pick a side.

[Nick]

Yetis, earlier this week, Jack and I did a whole story on PepsiCo. The first deflation situation.

[Jack]

Pepsi cut the prices of Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos and Fritos, uh ohs by 15%.

[Nick]

Because consumers have been pushing back on prices and buying store brand chips to save money.

[Jack]

Instead, Chipotle's earnings showed a similar price pushback from consumers.

[Nick]

Yes, they did. Comparable sales fell for the second time in 3, 3/4 at Chipotle.

[Jack]

So Chipotle is going to cut prices just like Pepsi did, right? Pivot to budget burritos.

[Nick]

I'm sorry, Jack, pause the pod. That ain't the situation in the burrito line. Right now.

[Jack]

Chipotle is not getting cheaper at all. In fact, yesterday they announced the opposite. They're raising prices by 2% this year, which by our count is like the 10th time since the pandemic began that they're raising prices.

[Nick]

This time the burrito's buying me. I mean, your post workout, Sofrita's burrito bowl. Jack just got a whole lot pricier. I know.

[Jack]

Guac was already out extra. And now this. It's extra.

[Nick]

Extra.

[Jack]

So why does Chipotle think that raising prices in this economy is an okay thing to do?

[Nick]

Well, this is what Jack and I found fascinating. Yetis, Chipotle has a favorite customer. And that customer is making 100k.

[Jack]

That customer is the Goldman analyst who has a Hamptons weak timeshare.

[Nick]

And that customer is the millennial Millie with the sapphire reserve card next to the Amex platinum card.

[Jack]

It's the dink kicking it in Cabo this weekend. That's who Chipotle knows is crushing burrito Balls three days a week.

[Nick]

And so it is. At this point, Jack and I should sprinkle on the context about the K shaped economy.

[Jack]

You've heard it before. The wealthier are doing better. They're the upper leg. The low income people are doing worse. They're the lower egg.

[Nick]

The middle is getting squeezed. So Chipotle is picking sides.

[Jack]

They're choosing people making 100 grand or more.

[Nick]

In fact, in Chipotle's earnings, they revealed that 60% of their customers are high income households making over 100,000 bucks a year.

[Jack]

They mentioned $100,000 five times on their earnings call.

[Nick]

We counted it, they said it five times. Of this new data that they got last week about that $100,000 income, they're making this move, Chipotle is confident to.

[Jack]

Lean more into those high income earners in a quote unquote, more meaningful way.

[Nick]

But Jack, what about for the people making below 100,000 bucks a year? Like, are they even like allowed into Chipotle anymore?

[Jack]

Chipotle said that tax refunds are supposed to be bigger this year, so that can pay for the 2% price increase.

[Nick]

So Chipotle is willing to let the guy with the student loans trade down to Taco Bell for the time being.

[Jack]

Basically, that's what Chipotle said. Yes.

[Nick]

Kind of an adio situation. But we should also math the math on this thing, right, Jack? You want to whip out the whiteboard?

[Jack]

Chipotle must figure they could cut prices to make that lower 40% happy. Those making less than 100 grand. But if they did, they'd be leaving more money on the table. From the upper 60%.

[Nick]

Chipotle stock is down 32% in the last year. They realize they have to do something. They have to make a change.

[Jack]

So they're going upstream instead of trying to go mainstream.

[Nick]

Chipotle, why stop here? I mean, you keep going upstream. Caviar on that carnitas, Jack.

[Jack]

No, that is not a good flavor combination. Nick.

[Nick]

Yeah, I know you. You want the barbacoa made with a five wag you've flown in from Japan. If I know you, I thought it was barbacoa. This is why we can't get into 11 Madison Park, Jack. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Chipotle?

[Jack]

In the K shaped economy, you have to pick a side.

[Nick]

So yetis. This is wild. We've got two case studies this week in two brands facing the same exact problem, but opposite decisions.

[Jack]

Pepsi saw a sales decline and lowered prices. Chipotle saw a sales decline and is raising prices.

[Nick]

So we know what you're wondering. Like if your business is facing the same problem, which one is right? Do you go with Pepsi or do you go like Chipotle?

[Jack]

The answer is yes. Both Pepsi and Chipotle were right because it depends on your customer.

[Nick]

Pepsi aims for scale, mainstream, a wide audience, so they're following down the K.

[Jack]

Curve by lowering prices. Chipotle's aim, on the other hand, is to go premium. They're more Shake Shack than McDonald's, so they're following up the K curve by raising prices.

[Nick]

Add it all up SES and in this economy you probably have to cut prices or raise them, but either way, you have to pick a side. Now a quick word from our sponsor, Monarch Our New Year's Resolution plan you ary we plan and book all our travel for the whole year in January.

[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Jack]

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[Nick]

I see you in that transaction tab. Jack, what's going on that transaction tab?

[Jack]

All of my spending is in that transactions tab, including the way too much I spent on the hotel room with the water view.

[Nick]

Honey, what's going on with my mini bars?

[Jack]

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[Nick]

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[Nick]

For our Third and final story before the weekend, Bad Bunny is performing the super bowl halftime show. But what about this man's business?

[Jack]

We found the growth hack that made Bad Bunny bigger than Taylor Swift.

[Nick]

True story. But Jack, let's start with Apple, because Apple Music has sponsored the super bowl halftime show since 2023 for like 50 million bucks a year.

[Jack]

Yeah, but none of that money goes to the headline performer Zero.

[Nick]

The gig is free because you are paid with, oh, a whole lot of publicity, baby.

[Jack]

Kendrick Lamar had one of his tracks that he played at the super bowl last year rise in streaming platforms by 400% after the Super Bowl.

[Nick]

And this year, Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, AKA Bad Bunny, is doing the same.

[Jack]

The unofficial prince of Puerto Rico.

[Nick]

Now, Yetis Latin music is just 9% of total streaming in the United States. And yet Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist of the year last year on Spotify.

[Jack]

In the last six years, there's only been two people to hold that crown. Bad Bunny won it four times and Taylor Swift won the other two.

[Nick]

That's right. Bad Bunny is beating Taylor Swift. And it all goes back to a church choir in Puerto Rico where he began singing.

[Jack]

In high school, he was bagging groceries in Puerto Rico while writing lyrics on the side and eventually uploading his tracks to SoundCloud.

[Nick]

He dropped out of college and eventually came up with the name Bad Bunny for his musical career. And why was that, Jack?

[Jack]

Well, Nick, when he was a kid, his parents made him wear a bunny costume for Halloween.

[Nick]

That's rough.

[Jack]

He did not like that costume. So he became the Bad Bunny.

[Nick]

And he knows that this was a marketing opportunity because he realized every time someone saw a bunny, they would think of him instead.

[Jack]

And basically every lawn I've ever seen has had a bunny scamper across it at some point.

[Nick]

But here's what fascina. Bad Bunny Inc. Isn't just a diversified business, is it, Jack?

[Jack]

It's the most strategically paradoxical business we've ever seen.

[Nick]

Yes, music is bad bunny's number one source of income.

[Jack]

In December alone, his 10 live shows he did grossed $100 million, according to Billboard.

[Nick]

And he could have made way more, but he did a 31 show residency to support Puerto Rico after the hurricane.

[Jack]

In 2025, which boosted Puerto Rico's GDP by $300 million.

[Nick]

Okay, so Jack and I then dove deeper into Bad Bunny's business and we realized Pitbull walked so that Bad Bunny could run.

[Jack]

Is that what we realized, Nick?

[Nick]

Yeah, I think that's an early takeaway here, Jack. Bad Bunny isn't doing an energy drink collab like every other celebrity out there.

[Jack]

He is doing a restaurant. It's called Gecko in Miami, where six bites cost $160 as the tasting menu.

[Nick]

But interestingly, Bad Bunny also launched a talent agency for Latin American athletes based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

[Jack]

It's called Remus Sports. It's the UTA for Latino athletes.

[Nick]

MVP winner Ronaldo Acuno Jr. He's on the team.

[Jack]

All Star Fernando Tatis Jr. Also on the team.

[Nick]

Both signed with Bad Bunny's talent agency. But Bad Bunny is also partnered with a range of brands so wide they seem to conflict with each other.

[Jack]

On the one end, Bad Bunny has a sponsorship with Gucci for luggage and Calvin Klein for underwear.

[Nick]

But Jack, Bad Bunny is also hawking Cheetos at gas stations and promoting the WWE World Wrestling Entertainment. In the ring, he's not just a.

[Jack]

Celebrity or a guest cameo or like guest host of. He actually wrestles. Including a fight he did at the Royal Rumble and at Wrestlemania.

[Nick]

I'm sorry, Jack, pause the pod. But I can't think of many Cheetos eating Gucci owners who also know a stone cold stunner.

[Jack]

I might be the only one.

[Eddie Richard Blythe]

Actually.

[Jack]

I like all three of those things.

[Nick]

Any marketer would say this is a mistake. And yet Bad Bunny is spanning luxury labels and budget ones like no other person or business can.

[Jack]

Bad Bunny is a branding paradox and it's working.

[Nick]

So, Jack, mike check, mic check, what's the takeaway for our buddy Bad Bunny, Inc.

[Jack]

Constraints breed creativity.

[Nick]

So, yetis, how has Bad Bunny gone so viral? Well, one fundamental reason is that he's turned a limitation into an accelerator.

[Jack]

He speaks English, but he only sings in Spanish, potentially limiting his audience.

[Nick]

And that Puerto Rico concert tour he did, the masses had to fly to Puerto Rico to see him. He didn't go anywhere else.

[Jack]

But those limitations have differentiated him and driven awareness of him and unlocked growth for him.

[Nick]

And you know what? Jack and I have seen the power of limits in businesses as well. Like remember the social media app Bereal? You could only take one picture a day. That made it go viral.

[Jack]

Wordle, you could only play one game per day. That made it go viral.

[Nick]

Twitter started with just 140 character limit and dating apps are now cap and swipes these days.

[Jack]

The haiku poem, remember 5, 7, 5. It's limited to just 17 syllables. That's how you can create beauty.

[Nick]

Basties. Orson Welles once said that the enemy of art is the absence of limitation.

[Jack]

The greatest growth hack is that constraints breed creativ it works for apps in Silicon Valley and it's working for Bad Bunny also in Silicon Valley this Sunday.

[Nick]

Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the Real Friday?

[Jack]

Anthropic will troll OpenAI this Sunday. It got here though, by destructively scanning a million books. Yeah.

[Nick]

Cause you are what you eat. And Anthropic's Claude has eaten every single book in the bookstore.

[Jack]

For our second story, PepsiCo is lowering prices, but Chipotle is raising them. Same problem, different solution.

[Nick]

Because in the K shaped economy, you gotta pick a side. And Chipotle is choosing 100K.

[Jack]

And our third and final story is Bad Boy. He was the number one most streamed musician for the fourth time in the last six years, beating Taylor Swift, the Bad Bunny.

[Nick]

Growth hack constraints breed creativity.

[Jack]

But besties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.

[Nick]

First, speaking of books, Jack, Spotify is now selling physical books.

[Jack]

Yes, because a lot of people read a physical book alongside the book they're listening to as an audiobook.

[Nick]

We did not know that was a thing. But congratulations, you now have a solution.

[Jack]

This is key though. Spotify added a page match feature to show you what page you should start at to pick up where you left off in your audiobook.

[Nick]

And second, Kalshi and Polymarket, the two predictions apps, are getting a lot of attention for this weekend's Super Bowl.

[Jack]

The Patriots or the Seahawks. Who are you putting money on for the big game?

[Nick]

Kalshee and Polymarket also just opened grocery stores. What? Yeah, that's right. In a wild marketing move this week, Kalshee made groceries free for a day at a grocery store in New York. If you want us to cover the story, drop a comment.

[Jack]

And finally, the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics is tonight in Milan, Italy.

[Nick]

Because Rome is putting the first ever tourism fee on their famous Trevi Fountain.

[Jack]

So if you're visiting Rome this summer, like I might, then you're gonna have to pay a €2 fee to see it.

[Nick]

Now time for the best fact yet. This one, sent in by legendary Eddie Richard Blythe from lovely Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[Eddie Richard Blythe]

With all the buzz surrounding AI's insane electric usage, I'm reminded of the ENIAC, unveiled to the world in 1946. Built from thousands of vacuum tubes, this computer size would fill half a basketball court, required the power of 100 homes, and delivered just 5,000 calculations per second. Now, if that sounds fast, a modern computer chip the size of your fingernail can do trillions of calculations every second using a Fraction of the power. So I think our planet is way overdue for another hardware revolution.

[Jack]

That is insane. Also, the ENIAC computer he referenced, it's actually an acronym. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer.

[Nick]

The best fact yet within the best fact yet. Yetis. You look fantastic this week. And Jack, I also thought you looked fantastic back when we were roommates. And you would go to the football games in college. And you would bring that coach bag with you. The Kate Spade. That's the one you used to bring, right? That's where you brought your equipment. I can never remember.

[Jack]

Dad, if you're listening, this is all misinformation. Got the photos, Jack, We've got the photos.

[Nick]

Besties, if you haven't yet, you gotta buy tickets to our live show in New York and dc. We're almost sold out and we want to see you there.

[Jack]

March 11th, Arlington Drafthouse. Nick and I will see you there. April 8th, Irving Plaza. Nick and I will see you there.

[Nick]

And if you're wondering, yeah, we'll bring the Birkins for the live podcast show because we gotta put our microphones somewhere. Happy Five Star Friday. Drop down to give us a rating and review and Jack and I will see you on Monday. Can't wait. And before we go, a happy birthday to legendary Eddie Sasha gang in Saratoga Springs, Utah, fifth year in a row, getting a shout out on the pod. Congrats, Sasha.

[Jack]

Happy 27th birthday to Jake Nembhard in London, celebrating in Thailand with his girlfriend. A couple of the T boys together.

[Nick]

And a happy first birthday to Stefan and Corey Hoffman's baby in Chicago. That baby already doing logistics.

[Jack]

And happy birthday to Ally patron in New York City.

[Nick]

And Kelsey Albertson had the best birthday yet over in Queens.

[Jack]

Happy birthday to Sarah and Camille in Maryland, a mother and daughter with back to back birthdays.

[Nick]

And happy birthday to Joe Morford over in San Francisco, dad of the year, because his daughter Bella is listening over in New York City.

[Jack]

And happy anniversary to Emily and Alex who are celebrating in San Diego and filling themselves with cheese and meat and wine.

[Nick]

And Deirdre Allen's retiring down in Austin, Texas, but we'll be seeing Deirdre in the front row of the Austin show. Jack. Can't wait to see you there, Deirdre. And a big shout out to Zack.

[Jack]

Isaacs, the Middlebury Panther, who I met last week at Middlebury. But the whole movement team is crushing it.

[Nick]

Yes, they are. We'll see you in San Francisco. Zach.

[Jack]

It's a Panther.

[Nick]

It's a Panther. I don't know and Raj Shankaran, the yeti who tipped us off to the NFL handbag story. Thanks for the heads up.

[Jack]

And a correction from Ali Dalglish, who's pointing out that Carrie on Sex and the City. She didn't drink martinis, Nick. She drank cosmos.

[Nick]

Same glass, different drink. But in our defense, I'm a total Samantha.

[Jack]

And finally, a shout out to Wilder. Nick, a live mouse was in our car today. Wilder was freaked out, and in the backseat he said, I'm trying to be brave, but I'm not feeling brave right now.

[Nick]

The pod son, though, is so brave.

[Jack]

You can be scared and brave at the same time. And that's what you were yesterday.

[Nick]

Wilder. Wilder. That sounds like the plot of a future Pixar movie.

[Jack]

This is Jack. Nick owns stock at Shake Shack. We both own stock at Chipotle and Apple. And we both own some Bitcoin.

[Eddie Richard Blythe]

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