🧘 The invisible home flex

👋  Good morning. If you live in Boston — take a whiff. The city topped the list of the best-smelling cities in America, according to online casino McLuck. The analysis scored cities on cleanliness, air quality, green space, and “garbage disposal satisfaction,” as well as the amount of candle stores, bakeries, florists, and perfumeries. Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia rounded out the top five, and SF’s 19.8 bakery score is proof chocolate chip cookies do fix everything. 

NEWS FLASH 

🌋  Digging deep: Geothermal startup Endurance Energy is drilling a well nearly one mile deep under the Pacific Ocean, hoping to tap into an underwater volcano to power its generators. Geothermal energy isn’t new; it just hasn’t been successful at scale. One Stanford expert labeled this effort “a slightly dingbat idea” while Endurance’s founder said it’s more of a “learning pilot” anyway. Since they’re drilling off the Oregon coast not too far from the location of “The Goonies,” we’re not ruling out all of this being some front for a treasure hunt.

🪿  The trick to robotics is… having them be kinda cute?: San Francisco startup The Robot Works shared a prototype home robot named Goose, a delightful-looking bot resembling its namesake bird — a rolling white base carrying a long neck with an orange gripper that looks like a beak. Initial capabilities range from companionship and security to household tidying and senior monitoring (fall detection, stove checks, etc.). Goose is in pre-production and doesn’t yet have a price tag.

🤖  Every AI needs its AI chaperone, apparently: Nvidia announced the Open Agent Safety Platform, an AI tool built to enforce safeguards and keep other AI agents contained. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said — presumably while swimming through a pool of gold coins — that Nvidia’s new platform won’t let other Nvidia-powered agents misbehave. In related news: startup Red Queen Bio is using AI to design antibody drugs to protect against AI-created bioweapons. OpenAI is heavily invested in the more-AI-is-the-solution-for-AI scheme.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• What an honor: Prada treated 100+ of its top customers to a lavish trip to Milan Fashion Week — a perfect trap for the superrich fans, who were then given the opportunity to buy $20k handbags and $100k custom-made skirts.

• Nothing some dipping sauce can’t hide: Irish frozen food maker Strong Roots introduced Feel Good Fries, made with regenerative potatoes and algae oil. Strong Roots’ latest products are all designed to cut out cooking oils, a gift to our stained wardrobe if not our appetite. 
  

• How important is family, really? Airfares over the holidays are tracking toward a 10-year high in the US, with the average round-trip flight over Thanksgiving weekend running $402, $95 more than last year. Airlines point to higher jet fuel costs.
  

• On a slippery slope: Top US ski resort operation Vail Resorts saw profits nearly halved year over year and the outlook isn’t looking much better — preseason ski pass sales for the upcoming season are down 12%. As we’ve covered previously, it’s a tough business only getting tougher.
  

BUST DOWN BLOCKERS

The art of not losing your marbles

It’s a delicate tightrope act, building up a beautiful business without melting into mush.

We understand the struggle — and so do these five founders, who’ve dealt with the grind, anxiety, imposter syndrome, and burnout that are basically baked into the game.

Compiled for your sanity:

• Why a Google leader almost quit her dream job
• On “becoming your alter-ego” to succeed
• Turn breaking points → breakthrough moments
• Modern tech for better mental health
• Personal burnout score sheet
• Five ways to reset and recover

Here’s how to take a beat, assess your state, and break down common mental blockers.

Reset your mental health

THE BIG IDEA

Invisible wellness is the latest must-have for homebuyers

Everyone has a must-have checklist for a new home: spacious backyard, laundry room, a mortgage that won't crush your soul.

But for those with money to burn, the latest must-have in luxury real estate is "invisible wellness" — discreet health and wellness features baked into the home, per Sotheby's International Realty.

• In 2025, 60% of homeowners said features that improve health and wellness were their primary purchase motivator, up 17 points from 2022.
  
• The global wellness real estate market hit $876B in 2025 and is forecast to reach $1.8T by 2030.
  
• The market grew by 23% from 2024 to 2025.
  
• The US accounted for ~29% of home wellness spending in 2025.

We're not just talking about a dusty Peloton-turned-clothing-rack or that neck massager you bought during the pandemic, either.

While home gyms are still desirable, people increasingly look for properties that offer invisible wellness — House Beautiful's biggest design trend of 2026 — amenities that are directly integrated into the design from the outset:

• Whole-house air and water filtration systems
  
• Direct access to nature and biophilic design — architectural features inspired by nature that improve health and well-being
  
• Dedicated quiet zones and sensory rooms
  
• Integrated health-monitoring tech
  
• Spa-like amenities

If you're not yet bucks up enough to design your own invisible wellness fortress of solitude, you can still deck your halls with some emerging wellness tech:

• Sunday Light offers a 34k lumen lighting fixture ($6.9k) that emulates natural daylight to boost cognitive, circadian, and metabolic health.
  
• Medical tech company Casana raised $46m for a smart toilet seat ($199) that monitors your health, including blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate.
  
• The Morpheus Lounge chair ($9.5k+) features embedded vibrational plates and light therapy goggles to calm the nervous system.
  
• Sleep tech company Kimba is raising money for a device that diffuses fragrances designed to support sleep and calm the limbic system.

Forbes notes that more affordable wellness real estate is emerging as well, as developers design communities with wellness design principles, including green spaces, biophilic elements, and social infrastructure.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here trying to fit one of those Costco saunas into my apartment.

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

On TV, your social feed, that billboard… prediction markets are being pushed seemingly everywhere. The betting boom is a slippery slope, and regulations are lacking. 

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

How little you could pay to sleep on a private jet, the only catch being that it won’t actually transport you anywhere, except for maybe the '80s. PytchAir — a retired Boeing 727 parked in Bristol, England, that’s rumored to have once belonged to Pablo Escobar — was converted into an Airbnb with all its original glitzy trappings preserved from the decade of excess.

Some guests have complained about the lack of air conditioning. However, it didn’t dampen demand this summer, per CNN. While nights aboard the aircraft may have been hot, for some, the allure of stepping into what may have been the infamous drug lord’s former den was apparently too cool to pass up.

HOW YOU HUSTLE

You guys are always up to cool things. This is our weekly spotlight on a Hustle reader's ambitious venture.

Founder: Krystal King

Building: The Rubber Duck Museum — the world's first and only historical rubber duck museum and gift shop, featuring thousands of ducks, based in Point Roberts, Washington.

Edge: What started as a small display inside a gift shop named after the founder's daughter became the whole business — people were driving across an international border just to see it.

Biggest win this year?: "Opening in the mall. We went from a shop at the end of a road most people never take to a space with real foot traffic, and we found out fast that the reaction is the same everywhere.”

Working on something cool? Tell us here.

AROUND THE WEB

📅  On this day: In 1954, the world’s first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the US navy.

⬛  Game: Check the boxes. Faster!

🙃  Random but fun: Get passive-aggressive password feedback.

🐜  Get ready to squint: Your favorite web games, ant-sized.

🐱  Aww: He’s judging you.

SHOWER THOUGHT

Ten years ago we thought $600 was a lot to pay for a phone. SOURCE

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

Editing by: Sara "Health is wealth" Friedman.

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