👋 Good morning. As you gear up to down some hot dogs over the long weekend, know that Joey Chestnut, the 17x winner and reigning champ of Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest, is likely doing the same. Though Mr. Chestnut is doing so with a slightly tarnished reputation: He’s on probation after pleading guilty to slapping a man on the face during a night out. Luckily for fans, a judge granted him permission to leave Indiana so he can defend his title at Coney Island on July 4.
P.S. All this talk of hot dogs has us booking some OOO time for Memorial Day. See you back here on the 26th.
NEWS FLASH
🐣 Which came first? Colossal Biosciences hatched chicks from an artificial egg, which it calls a “first-of-its-kind incubation platform” that, despite lacking a shell, can develop a bird from an embryo. Colossal will use this technology in its effort to de-extinct avian species, including the South Island Giant Moa. That’s apparently a challenge because Moa eggs are ~80x the size of a chicken egg, meaning no living bird is big enough to act as a surrogate.
🍫 Do-ba-dee-doo: Ferrero Group and Netflix are partnering to refresh the Wonka candy brand. Originally launched as a Quaker Oats Co. subsidiary in 1971 ahead of the release of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Ferrero acquired the brand from Nestlé in 2018. Netflix will debut a new Wonkaverse animated film and a reality TV series in which we hope no one turns into a giant blueberry.
🖥️ Cyberpunk, here we come: Flipper, best known for its Flipper Zero signal hacking device, is making the Flipper One, a small Linux computer with numerous potential uses, depending on how tech-savvy you are (or choose to become). While it’s not available yet, the company is documenting its development — and seeking input — online. Eventually, it hopes to sell it for ~$350.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
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Checking in: Airbnb is adding boutique hotels in 20 cities, luggage storage in 15k+ locations, and car rentals to its platform, building on its expansion into experiences, grocery delivery, and airport pickup services.
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Trade ya? Sam Altman is offering the current batch of Y Combinator startups $2m worth of OpenAI tokens in exchange for equity in their companies.
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A beautiful new unicorn: Beauty and wellness booking marketplace Fresha just raised $80m — bringing its valuation to $1B+ — to help salons and spas manage appointments, payments, and customer relationships.
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Everybody’s got a pod… and for good reason. The podcast industry generated an estimated $9.2B in global sales last year — a 23% increase — with 73% of the growth coming from video-related revenue.
DESIGN WITH CLAUDE
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Prompt it. Ship it. Claude Design.
Anthropic dropped a hit mid-April. The latest perk for paying Claude users is making any visual, and pretty darn well.
But rather than ask for critters and cartoons, why not whip up assets for your business? Introduction to Claude Design covers seven powerful use cases including:
- Tailored pitch decks
- One-pager marketing offers
- On-brand social media assets
- Visual strategy roadmaps
- Landing pages built to beat competitors
You know what good looks like. Make it real.
THE BIG IDEA
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Tech founders are going to etiquette school
When you hear “tech founder,” you probably imagine some hoodie-wearing nerd sitting hunched over at a computer while downing energy drinks — not a well-dressed, well-rounded business savant with good taste.
Soon, that may no longer be the case: To learn the soft skills they overlooked while building their businesses, a new class of entrepreneurs is heading to etiquette school, per The Wall Street Journal.
Trading Red Bull for red wine
VC firm Slow Ventures hosted its second etiquette class in NYC this March, following a successful first go-round last November. During the four-hour course, ~50 attendees (representing just 30%-50% of all applicants) received lessons on:
- Public speaking, hosting, and fundraising
- How to dress, maintain eye contact, and give a firm handshake
- Wine tasting, caviar bumps, and more
The goal: to master “the noble arts of polite conversation, graceful composure, and… genuine human engagement.”
(For those who didn’t get into the class, Slow Ventures also offers a “modern etiquette handbook,” which sold 700 copies in its first month.)
Why soft skills matter
Because technical prowess alone is not enough in the age of AI, which has made sociability more relevant than being good at computers for founders looking to stand out and win over investors and customers in a saturated market.
Plus, as Silicon Valley’s sphere of influence grows, so do those of tech leaders, who in recent years have found themselves with seats at tables from the White House to the Met Gala, making their ability to act and look the part an increasingly important part of the job.
Just look at:
- Mark Zuckerberg, who went from the unlikable tech genius portrayed in The Social Network to a swagged-out business leader and guest on popular podcasts.
- Jeff Bezos, the once-schlumpy ecommerce entrepreneur turned muscular fashion insider and friend of the Kardashians.
“They’re practically statesmen compared with the dorks of yore,” as WSJ put it.
But not everyone is convinced…
… that learning how to perform culture or manners is important for entrepreneurs, like Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, who said founders are “just here to make stuff,” not “to impress anyone by how fancy our shit is,” in response to the course.
Regardless, the demand is there — and, for a group of people who stand to wield enormous power but also need to be told to “replace emotional conversations with LLMs with journaling,” a little lesson on social etiquette might be good for us all.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Drop the to-do list and step away slowly: That thing might actually be making you less productive. Here’s why.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Inches of water that the Tesla Cybertruck’s Wade Mode is able to operate in, at maximum — not 65 feet, which is the depth of the Texas lake that 70-year-old Jimmy McDaniel drove his EV into to test the feature. To no one’s surprise but maybe his, the truck flooded and broke down, requiring city officials to fish it out and landing McDaniel in jail for the night, per Business Insider.
What could have inspired such a horrible idea? Perhaps Tesla founder Elon Musk, who once claimed the Cybertruck would be “waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat.” A better idea for next time: reading the instructions.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 2012, the Tokyo Skytree, a 2,080-foot-tall broadcasting and observation tower, opened. It is the tallest tower in the world.
☁️ Chill out: with this calming description of what the sky was like yesterday in any given location.
🌤️ Maps: An interactive map of past solar eclipses.
🏙️ That’s interesting: Inside Toyota’s utopian Woven City.
🐕 Aww: Excellent teammate.
SHOWER THOUGHT
Many bad events in history could be chalked up to "one jerk ruins it for everyone." SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Sara "Pinkies up" Friedman.
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