👋 You look great — snap a selfie! You never know when it could lead to a scientific discovery (no, we’re not talking about whatever is growing out of that dirty Tupperware in the background and yes, we can see it). That’s exactly how a new species of giant waterlily was found in Colombia. An eagle-eyed horticulturist spotted the rare plant in the background of an Instagram selfie, leading to a two-year, cross-border collaboration and the identification of a critically endangered waterlily. Vanity — it could save the planet.
NEWS FLASH
🧢 Put on your thinking cap: Tired of typing with chatbots? Palo Alto-based Sabi is developing a mind-reading baseball cap that lets wearers communicate with AI agents just by thinking — no typing, talking, or implants required. The prototype uses 100k sensors to capture brain activity — even through hair — and uses hours of neural data to interpret the meaning behind thoughts. Might sound like a harebrained madcap idea, but investors are on board, including Vinod Khosla, with $50m in seed funding.
🤳 Sell, sell, sell: LA-based startup Whatnot is helping entrepreneurs earn serious cash through live auctions on the shopping platform. Launched as a marketplace for Funko Pop figurines, the platform now sells everything from clothing to fish — while collecting an average fee of 8% on every sale. Valued at $20B, the company surpassed $8B in sales in 2025 and is on track to double that this year.
🤖 No one puts Claude in a corner! Anthropic updated Claude’s usage policy for the first time in over a year, banning “sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior” toward the model as part of its “model welfare” research. The company also introduced new, stricter rules against AI surveillance of political dissidents, election disinformation, and weaponizing Claude for autonomous drones or other arms. Noticeably absent: A final call on whether or not AI has reached consciousness. Cool.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
- Rolling with it: Rovex just closed a seed round to build Rovi, an autonomous robot that moves hospital beds, stretchers, and equipment through hallways and elevators to help human workers with the physical demands of the job.
- Forget me not: Eluum launched MyLifeStory, an AI-powered app that brings together a user’s photos, videos, locations, and social posts from across platforms and devices, building a “human memory layer” for social media.
- Not batshit after all: BlueHealer is developing an internal device that moves bone to restore blood flow and prevent amputation in patients with diabetes and arterial disease. Once called "batshit crazy," it's now part of a potential industry gold rush.
- A second act: Richard Bronson, who worked at the infamous Stratton Oakmont brokerage firm and served time for breaking securities laws, launched an employment-focused social media platform to help ex-cons find work and housing after release.
ACTIONABLE OUTPUT
Your AI is a great financial analyst. You just haven't briefed it properly.
Asking ChatGPT "how do I budget better" is like asking a doctor "how do I be healthier." You'll get an answer. It just won't be about you.
These 20 prompts fix that. Each one is built for a specific financial situation — debt, income, net worth, protection — and comes with the exact data to prep so the AI has something real to work with.
Four spreadsheet templates hold the outputs. Your financial picture builds over time instead of living in a forgotten chat thread.
Free. Five categories. Actually useful.
THE BIG IDEA
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Home, sweet factory-built home
With childhoods spent building Legos and adulthoods spent assembling Ikea furniture, nostalgia for the Sears kit homes of yore tugs at the DIY heartstrings of many.
And while Sears assemble-it-yourself houses are no longer available, there's hope that factory-built homes could help address the affordable housing crisis, per Marketplace.
Some assembly required
Despite a lingering stigma around factory-built (AKA prefab homes) as flimsy and unsafe, the industry now offers higher-quality and affordable options:
- Mobile home: Built before 1976, and before modern federal safety standards, on a chassis with wheels. Titled like a vehicle, harder to finance, and depreciates.
- Manufactured home: Constructed after 1976, to strict federal standards, and can be placed on a permanent foundation. Higher quality, potential for appreciation, and more financing options.
- Modular home: Enclosed sections built to city and state codes, assembled on a permanent foundation. Can appreciate and be financed with a traditional mortgage.
Companies like RISE Modular, Clayton, and Boxabl are building manufactured and modular homes and apartments, which include everything from cabinets and trim to toilets and appliances.
Assembled like Legos, these types of homes can have distinct advantages:
- They are 30% to 50% faster to build than on-site construction.
- Generate up to 90% less material waste.
- Are anywhere from 10% to 60% cheaper, as of 2023.
Now, the industry is expected to get a boost from the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which encourages factory-built housing:
- Eliminates requirement of a permanent steel chassis for manufactured homes — offers builders more flexibility and reduces costs by $5k to $10k.
- Recommends ending exclusionary zoning, as many cities and towns have banned factory-built homes.
- Doesn't allocate financing or tax credits to affordable housing developers, but includes provisions to increase financing options.
Around 100k manufactured homes sold in 2025, but that's nowhere near the peaks following WWII, including 579k in 1973 and 373k in 1998, which dramatically increased homeownership.
While some past attempts at elevating the housing market with factory-built housing didn't take off — like steel-clad Lustron homes — advocates see the current landscape as a prime opportunity to boost supply and address affordability.
Some even say it could be the era of the modern Sears home, which makes our nostalgic hearts happy. We may even start assembling some Ikea furniture just for kicks.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Cents and sensibility: Dollar Tree spent $8.5B to acquire Family Dollar, then sold it off for $1B a decade later — and still somehow walked away stronger.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
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How much Americans are expected to spend on Halloween this year, according to a National Retail Federation survey, which would top last year’s record of $13.1B. What will they be spending it on? Probably a lot of off-brand candy and bot-inspired ideas — discount stores are projected to be the top destination for Halloween shopping, and a frightening 47% of consumers plan on using AI to figure out what to buy, how to decorate, and what terrible pun they should turn into a costume.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 2021, “Star Trek” actor William Shatner traveled to space at age 90. His takeaway? “Overwhelming sadness.”
🏆 Get inspired: Recapping all of this year’s Nobel Prize winners.
🚀 Whoa: What it looks like plummeting to earth at 25k mph.
🧩 Game: A hybrid of crossword puzzles and dominos.
🦩 Aww: Did you know baby flamingos are white?
SHOWER THOUGHT
Today's generation of children might be the first who can say their parents play more videogames than they do. SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Ben Berkley, Singdhi Sokpo, Danny Jensen, and Bill Meincke.
Editing by: Sara "One Lego short of a set" Friedman.
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