Episode · 2026-07-17
Never-Ending Pasta: $100
Never-Ending Pasta: $100 | Whatnot Acquires Shaped | Kourtney Kardashian's Lemme Sued
Rundown
Chris and Colin run through Olive Garden's $100 unlimited pasta subscription, Whatnot's acquisition of AI recommendation startup Shaped, a caffeinated tooth-health pouch called Chip, a $15K luxury golf cart trend, and a new class-action lawsuit against Kourtney Kardashian's Lemme over its GLP1 marketing claims. Later segments cover an OpenAI $230 keyboard built for its Codex coding agent and a discussion of Gary Vee's growing footprint in the DTC ecosystem, plus a debate on whether a YouTube-independent creator platform could ever work, with guests Cody Whitick, Jimmy Kim, and John weighing in throughout.
Takes from this episode
Olive Garden's $100 unlimited pasta offer is a loss leader that only works if they follow it with a monetization mechanism like a membership or paid package to keep people hooked afterward.
Something has to come out after because capturing the top of the funnel is great. Getting these people into it hooked, but you've got to figure out how to keep them hooked afterwards for this to make money, right? This is a loss leader.
Whatnot acquiring an AI recommendation company like Shaped is a smart, bullish move for live shopping's future.
It is interesting to say the least and I am very bullish on live shopping in general.
The Chip caffeine pouch is missing a spicy/burning ingredient (like cayenne) that would make the product stand out and succeed.
The only thing I will say is that I wish that it did was that it burned. You need a little burn... Something that's going to burn my mouth.
There's a real, growing consumer trend of excitement around the $15,000 luxury golf cart category.
Apparently multiple people are excited about the $15,000ish dollar luxury golf cart segment. We've been seeing this a lot. Very interesting.
Ad costs today are cheap relative to where they're headed, echoing Gary Vee's early conviction on Facebook ads, so brands should spend aggressively now before costs rise like real estate.Prediction
He's telling us all, 'You think they're expensive now, guys? This is like buying real estate in Malibu.' Things are going to get expensive. They're not expensive now. Spend as much as
YouTube's distribution advantage is so dominant that no independent creator-led platform has stuck, though one built by someone like Mr. Beast could finally succeed and would be welcomed by creators wanting better ad-split control.
The distribution that comes from being on YouTube is so incredible that I just don't think anybody could ever effectively wean itself off... if someone did do it successfully, I think it would be very welcome.