👋 Good morning. To celebrate America turning 250, a 900-pound cylindrical time capsule is being buried in Philadelphia this July to be dug up and opened in 2276. Contributions from all 50 states, the five U.S. territories, Washington, D.C., and the federal government were mostly paper letters, postcards, posters, and poems, though there were some less conventional objects. Maine's contributions included a bone from an endangered North Atlantic right whale and Arkansas sent a diamond. No Labubu, unfortunately, though we think that really would’ve thrown the people of the future off.
NEWS FLASH
🔨 That’s metal: Foundation Alloy raised a $22m Series A round to scale its novel manufacturing process, which makes metal alloys by repeatedly smashing metal powders together rather than melting them. The startup says the technique uses ~10x less energy than traditional alloying and can produce stronger, more heat-resistant materials for products from drones and semiconductors to chef’s knives and luxury watches.
👀 If it’s true that snitches get stitches… then Microsoft is about to look more stitched up than Frankenstein’s monster. Maligned when it was first teased last year, Microsoft Teams’ Workplace Check-In feature — which will allow company leadership to see whether employees are in the office — is finally moving forward, expected to roll out this month, per PCWorld. The tattletale tech will be turned off by default, but admins who wish to use it can have Teams update workers’ locations when they’re connected to company Wi-Fi.
😬 An underachieving superteam: Your mind possibly went to the New York Mets but this is actually about Meta’s hyperexpensive AI unit, which is, according to a Wired report, not going so great. Mark Zuckerberg spent the last year making $1B+ in bets to attract an all-star “superintelligence” team, which multiple employees have described as “soul-crushing,” with one saying Meta is “literally the gulag”… which is perhaps a stretch? Still, Zuck himself at least acknowledged record-low morale and owned some missteps in a leaked company memo.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
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Quiet on jet: NASA’s experimental X-59 supersonic jet, designed to break the sound barrier without producing a sonic boom, successfully flew at a speed of Mach 1.4 during a test flight.
- Grand theft AI: A startup founder is attempting to use Anthropic’s Claude to vibe-code a Grand Theft Auto-style video game before the real GTA 6 launches in November. It’s a much-anticipated release after 13 years: GTA V sold 230m+ copies and generated $6B in revenue.
- Seattle’s new drink order: Former Axon president Luke Larson is building a matcha beverage chain, Vale, in Seattle, and plans to scale from a handful of cafes and mobile matcha bars to 1k locations next year, and, ultimately, thousands of robotic self-serve machines.
- SpaceX is busy: Days after it debuted on the Nasdaq in the biggest IPO ever, the company announced it will acquire AI startup Cursor for $60B.
GET NOTICED NOW
15 tips for earning more attention
It’s not cake, earning hearts and thumbs. Millions of businesses are crying and clawing for views, so you have to stay distinguished.
Set your brand apart with 15+ attention-grabbing stunts that cut through the fluff. This full guide covers real plays per social channel, including:
- Storytime and next-phase posts on LinkedIn
- Question threads for X, Facebook, etc.
- Temp-gauging on Reddit and Hacker News
- Signal boosting through your own network
- Simple TikTok product demo videos
- Hot takes that tend to drive intent
- “How I built it” slide decks
Get more eyes on what you’re building.
THE BIG IDEA
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The returnable container revolution
When it comes to the "3 Rs" of waste management, recycling often hogs the spotlight.
But a new pilot project aims to change that by helping restaurants reduce mountains of plastic waste generated by single-use takeout containers by reusing sustainable ones.
Sure, you're doing your part with reusable totes and water bottles, but those disposable containers from takeout orders pile up. According to an Upstream report:
- 1T, as in trillion disposable containers are used annually by US restaurants and food services, weighing ~9m tons
- $24B/year is spent on disposables by restaurants and food services
- $6B is spent by businesses and governments on solid-waste costs from disposables
- 20B pieces of litter are from disposable food-service packaging
Check it out
Reuse Maine, a pilot program led by University of Maine student researchers, encourages diners to borrow reusable stainless-steel food and beverage containers from restaurants like a library book, per Island Institute.
- Customers sign up for the free Recirclable app
- Place an order at participating restaurants
- Select containers needed and receive order
- Rinse and return containers to participating businesses within two weeks to avoid a $15/container fee
The subscription lending model is being tested at 17 restaurants and over 100 customers have borrowed more than 500 containers so far. After the pilot, restaurants can purchase the containers.
The program hopes to show that reusable containers can help save businesses money and reduce plastic waste.
A UMaine survey found that restaurants spend an average of $2k/month each on disposable food packaging and ~$6k collectively on waste management services.
Who else?
- Recirclable, used by the pilot, has a reusable program operating at 27 restaurants.
- That program was inspired by efforts in Europe, like German startup Vytal, which leases reusable containers.
- DoorDash is experimenting with reusable containers in California in partnership with startup Dispatch Goods.
- French startup Pyxo aims to build the biggest network of reusable containers.
- Denmark's New Loop offers businesses a reusable container service with a refundable deposit.
- India's elaborate tiffin delivery service is a precursor to modern reusable container systems.
And while you might think, "Hey, what about those compostable food container programs we've heard about over the years?" proponents of reusables argue that compostables aren't a sustainable solution given the cost, resource demands, and difficulty in composting.
Guess it's time to give that third R a shot.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
A $5 tchotchke? No way. A $4.99 tchotchke, however, will be coming home with us. Here’s a look into the psychology of charm pricing.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
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Estimated value of the ~12m classic cars that will be passed down between generations over the next 15 years, per Bloomberg. That represents a tiny fraction of the $90T Great Wealth Transfer, but ~30% of all collectible cars in the US.
Plus, a new old ride isn’t all loved ones stand to inherit: The vehicles often come with deep nostalgia but also thousands of dollars worth of routine maintenance, leaving soon-to-be owners with the predicament of whether to keep the heirlooms on wheels for their sentimental value, or sell them amid a booming vintage car market. (Cue the world's second-tiniest violin.)
HOW YOU HUSTLE
Our readers are always cooking up cool ideas. Here’s our weekly spotlight on a Hustle reader working on something big.
Who: Valentina Ramunno
What: The VA Hub
The elevator pitch: “The VA Hub helps founders scale without adding full-time headcount by providing structured, high-quality virtual assistants trained for operational execution.”
The problem they’re trying to solve: “Founders don’t lose momentum because they lack ambition — they lose it because operational execution quietly overwhelms them. We solve the capacity bottleneck that happens between growth and sustainable scale.”
One truly innovative thing they’re doing: “We don’t operate as a gig marketplace. We train and integrate assistants into structured workflows, allowing businesses to delegate consistently — not transactionally.”
What are you working on? Tell us here.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in 350 pieces to New York Harbor.
🔬 Haha: Fieldwork Fail is a collection of times scientists screwed up. Apparently, one glued themselves to a crocodile.
📩 Newsletter: Compound Interest brings you the trailblazers behind the world’s most consequential companies.
🐑 That’s interesting: What exactly was the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary?
🐈 Aww: A playful kitten.
SHOWER THOUGHT
The average assumed age of someone with 67 in their username has shifted from 59 to 12. SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Danny Jensen, and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Sara "Waste not, want not" Friedman.
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