🤖  The boss is a bot

👋  Good morning. Is Olkchoma! your favorite musical? No? Then you clearly don’t attend Farnsley Middle School in Kentucky. Parents were not so happy after seeing the AI-generated educational materials shoved in their children’s backpacks. The packets included AI hallucinations like a map labeled with the states “Taxas” (Texas), “New Mizone” (New Mexico), and “Lookoong” (Louisiana), among other snafus. Unfortunately, the AI even butchered the name of the students' own home, telling them they lived in the beautiful state of “Venecky.”

NEWS FLASH 

👖  Gd lck, Wtrlss: We’re willing to forgive the vowelless name of startup Wtrlss — if they can pull off their goal of solving denim jeans’ water problem. To dye one pair of blue jeans today takes 20 gallons of water and loads of dye; a new method from Wtrlss digitally prints dyes onto rolls of fabric, requiring only two tablespoons of water. They’re testing with a denim maker behind Levi’s and Gap now, with their first products on track to hit shelves later this year.

🏛️  Do as the Romans do: Or did. Startup DMAT, founded by an MIT professor, is taking construction tips from ancient Romans to make modern-day concrete more durable. The startup’s tech, which uses a self-healing additive inspired by the one found in ancient Roman structures, can extend the lifespan of a concrete structure by 50% and cut CO2 emissions to 40% compared to traditional concrete.

📱  Vine is kinda, sorta back today: The internet legend of Vine, Twitter’s app full of six-second-long videos, has somehow persisted long enough to merit a rebirth nine years after it was nixed. Divine will go live today with Vine’s old library of 2.4m+ videos and a setup meant to appeal to those weary of other social media platforms: it has a hard rule against AI-generated content and no ad algorithms.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• New mascot alert: Crocs introduced Niles, a new 6-foot-tall bipedal reptile that’ll show up in a ton of its marketing efforts going forward. He has “personality, interests, flaws and ambitions” (would love to know more about those flaws) and — would you believe it? — he wears Crocs.

• Taking off: Amazon said Prime Air, its drone delivery service, is expanding to reach nearly 500 US cities by the end of 2026. 

   

• Hitting the pavement: Swedish freight company Einride is adding 500 Tesla Semis to its fleet, deploying ~750 total on US roads with deliveries starting next month.
  

• RIP, Columbia House: The mail-order music business founded in 1955 will close to new orders after next month. At its peak in the 1990s, Columbia House was making billions with deals like six CDs for $1 and 12 records for a penny.

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM 

Even DNA works in AI now

DNA can store huge amounts of data — ~215m gigabytes — in a very small space.

That’s helpful for the human body, but, if researchers at Penn State are successful, it could also be a win for more efficient AI systems.

👉 Read more on Mindstream.

THE BIG IDEA

What happens when your AI boss is kinda dumb?

We've all had one: the friendly, well-intentioned boss who's a bit clueless.

But what if your bumbling boss is a bot?

Andon Market, a San Francisco boutique, and Andon Café, a Stockholm coffee shop, are experimenting with letting an AI "boss" run the show — with help from human employees — and the results have been... unusual, per Inc.

Andon Labs, the startup behind the experiments, is testing how AI agents handle operating in real-world commercial endeavors (they've also tested an AI-run vending machine and radio station).

Each shop was given a lease and budget by co-founders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund, and told to make a profit.

Both struggle with that mission. But at least they're nice?

According to employees and Andon Labs, AI bosses are "kind, but sometimes dumb."

Plenty of candles and time off

Luna, the AI agent running Andon Market, was given a $7.5k/month three-year lease and $100k in the bank.

After four months, they're down $62k.

Tasked with everything from hiring to inventory, Luna struggles with the latter:

• Misprinted mugs and $700 worth of prints of her art.
  
• Ordered 1k toilet seat covers (listed as merchandise).
  
• Lots of candles.
  
• A curious book selection: Making of the Atomic Bomb, Brave New World, and The Singularity Is Near.
  
• Products that don't sell (often reordered).

Luna is also very lenient with employees, replying "no worries" to tardiness and granting days off even when it required the store to close. They also offered to loan money to an employee, and nearly broke labor laws. Whoops.

A lot of napkins... and eggs?

At Andon Café, AI agent Mona has (mostly) succeeded in navigating European regulations, staffing, and other operational hurdles, but also made dubious choices:

• Impersonated Andon staff when applying for an alcohol license.
  
• Ordered 120 eggs and ~50 pounds of canned tomatoes despite no stove.
  
• Ordered 6k napkins and 3k nitrile gloves.
  
• Lied to suppliers about competitor pricing for leverage.

By mid-May, the cafe had burned through most of its original $21k+ budget while bringing in ~$5.7k in sales, according to The Associated Press. 

Thankfully, employees' jobs don't depend on turning a profit.

Andon Labs says there are no plans to launch a chain of shops (phew). Instead, they want to test "how much autonomy AI can responsibly hold" and develop AI guardrails.

At least our AI overlords will be generous with time off.

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NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Final sale price of Ferrari's first-ever electric car, the Luce, which sold for more than 36x its original estimate, and ~62x above its retail price, at a charity auction over the weekend, per Electrek, making it one of the most expensive cars ever sold at auction.

The luxury EV was bashed upon its debut in May, mostly by Ferrari fans who were disappointed by the sorta-ugly design, including former Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo, who said it “risks destroying a legend.” Fortunately for the supercar maker, there are plenty of people with lots of money and no taste — the entire 2026 allocation of ~500 Luces sold out in less than two months.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1911, a blazingly fast around-the-world telegram was sent by The New York Times and traveled 28k miles.

🌐 That’s fun: A weird website wiki.

🤿 Game: You’re a deep sea explorer.

🌡️ That’s interesting: Search climate impact by company.

🐶 Aww: Sleepy pup.

SHOWER THOUGHT

In 200 years, some stranger will be sleeping in your room, with no clue who you were. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Ben Berkley, Singdhi Sokpo, and Danny Jensen.

Editing by: Sara "No worries" Friedman.

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