đ Good morning. Take it easy this week. And maybe rethink signing up for that marathon? A new study suggests the human brain might start munching on its own myelin â the fatty insulation around brain cells â for fuel during prolonged periods of strenuous exercise. Not that we needed a reason to sit out a marathon, but weâll be using this excuse.
đ§ On the pod:The âbuy now, pay laterâ model is coming for your lunch.
đĄ Sitting on a genius business idea?
Enter The Hustleâs Big Break â a pitch competition designed to help one budding entrepreneur bring their business idea to life.
No business plan required: Just record a 60-second pitch, send it our way by April 4, and you could win $5k in cash to get it off the ground.
đ” What year is it? Napster â the music swapping service, originally launched in 1999 â just got acquired for $207m. In 2025. Known for letting users swap their songs for free, Napster was just snatched up by Infinite Reality: a 3D tech company creating virtual music spaces in the metaverse where musicians and labels can sell merch and fans can attend concerts and listening parties. While Napsterâs original business model shuttered in 2001, it has been resurrected as a streaming platform since 2016, eclipsed by competitors like Spotify and Apple Music.
đ Not berry good: Plenty, a berry-focused vertical farming startup founded in 2014, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with CEO Dan Malech citing âlarger market dynamicsâ and industry-wide fundraising challenges. Plenty also faces lawsuits from contractors who claim they havenât been paid for work on its indoor strawberry farm in Virginia, which it intends to maintain alongside an R&D center in Wyoming as it restructures. The agtech industry hasnât been doing so hot lately; TechCrunchpointed to several other bankruptcies and closures, including Bowery Farming, AeroFarms, and AppHarvest.
đș Bottoms up: We recently reported on Moosehead Breweriesâ Presidential Pack, which contains 1,461 cans of the Canadian breweryâs lager, or one for each day of US President Donald Trumpâs presidency. Itâs only available to Canadians in certain provinces, costs ~$2.4k, and weighs 1.9k pounds â and yet, the company has already sold 10 with 400 interested buyers on a waitlist. Are sales spurred by a legit fear over tariffs or is there just something appealing about a delivery truck showing up with a giant crate of beer?
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Waymo has its sights set on Washington, DC, as its next robotaxi city, with plans to launch Waymo One ride-hailing in 2026. Optimistic, considering the company must first change the city law prohibiting autonomous vehicles without safety drivers.
Please and thank you: OpenAI announced updates for its Advanced Voice Mode AI feature that enables real-time conversations with ChatGPT. It also released âImages in ChatGPT,â its new image generation capabilities powered by GPT-4o that will be available within ChatGPT.
Chinese EV maker BYD reported $107B in 2024 sales, up 29% YoY and besting Teslaâs $97.7B. BYD delivered 4.27m fully electric and hybrid vehicles in 2024, and recently debuted a new charging system that can add 250 miles in five minutes.
BECOME A BEAST
Inside the wild mind of MrBeast
You know him for his stunts (reading every word of the dictionary, etc.), giveaways (cars, houses, fat stacks of cash), ghost kitchens, and most recently, âBeast Games.â
Heâs the most-followed man on the planet â but you probably havenât analyzed his brain like Shaan Puri. Here are MrBeastâs 10 rules to success, spliced from the My First Million exclusive.
Also included are Shaanâs raw interview prep notes, which are pretty cool to see and super helpful.
Sometimes brands attempt to diversify in ways that donât make sense â Cheetos once tried to market a lip balm. Other times, it feels kismet, like Edible Arrangements parent Edibles Brandsâ decision to launch a D2C digital platform for⊠well, edibles.
Edibles.com is currently available to Texas residents, offering a variety of wellness-focused, hemp-derived THC products, including beverages, chews, and enhancers that customers can mix into other drinks.
The company intends to first expand across the Southeast US, launching online stores in Florida and Georgia and a brick-and-mortar location in Atlanta.
This is legal?
Sure is. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp â defined as a plant that contain 0.3% or less THC â meaning that hemp-derived THC products can be sold even in states that havenât legalized cannabis, assuming they havenât also enacted legislation against hemp. But essentially, theyâre the same plant.
Most of Edibles.comâs products are low THC â 5 mg or less per serving â with a focus on wellness benefits, such as sleep, mood, or relaxation, not getting as blazed as humanly possible.
âEven if youâve never heard of any of these brands before, you can shop based on outcome and determine exactly what products you want and which ones might be a good fit for you,â Thomas Winstanley, Edibles.comâs executive vice president, told The Hustle.
Aside from the nameâŠ
⊠the move makes sense for Edibles for a few reasons.
Edible Arrangementsâ first store opened in Connecticut in 1999. Today, it has 1k+ stores across the US. Edibles.com will be able to use the franchise and supply networks it already has to offer same-day and next-day delivery, akin to how Drizly delivered alcohol.
Winstanley sees edibles as a more accessible form of cannabis compared to inhalables for new consumers, and attitudes toward cannabis in general have shifted considerably over the years.
Gen Z consumes alcohol less than previous generations and âdidnât grow up being told [cannabis] was illegal,â Winstanley noted.
At the same time, functional beverages are growing at a quick pace. Itâs a $50B market in the US and is expected to reach $62B by 2027.
We know what youâre thinkingâŠ
⊠and no, Edibles.com does not currently offer artfully curated bouquets of edibles, as the brand is focused on its launch. However, thatâs not to say it couldnât happen in the future.
Safety first: Airlines have spent millions on celeb-studded safety videos â why?
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
The number of Americans who pay for a music subscription, according to a report from the Recording Industry Association of America.
Those subscriptions amounted to $11.7B in total streaming revenues last year, making up 79% of the recorded music industryâs top-line revenue.
But there are two companies dominating the streaming wars: Spotify and Apple Music. Spotify came in on top with its 55m paid subscribers and 36% market share, followed by Apple Music with 30.7% of the market, per Digital Music News via TechCrunch.
Is it a coincidence that streaming is doing better than ever following price hikes from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube? We think not.
AROUND THE WEB
đ On this day: In 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk announced the successful test of his polio vaccine.
đ€ Useful: See if your photos have been used in popular AI training datasets.
đïž Newsletter:Scottâs Newsletter breaks down the ideas, mental models, and frameworks that separate the exceptional from the average. Sign up today to join 300k+ entrepreneurs and innovators.
đ Thatâs interesting: How car companies choose auto names.
Says Sherrie Westin, CEO of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the iconic childrenâs show, which has fallen on hard times.
âSesame Street,â which has provided educational programming to children since 1969, is losing its $30m+ annual contract with HBO as well as federal grants following cuts to the United States Agency for International Development, and recently slashed 20% of its staff in an attempt to salvage whatâs left of its dwindling budget, perThe New York Times.
And while the show is lauded by pediatricians, parents, and media experts, itâs also losing favor among young viewers to YouTube and shows like âBlueyâ and âCocomelon,â which the org suggested might offer more laughs â though, we presume, not bigger brains!
SHOWER THOUGHT
No one ever skips breakfast because breakfast literally means breaking the fast. Therefore, those who say they skip breakfast actually eat it later in the day and call it by another name.SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Singdhi Sokpo and Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben âAre these edibles chocolate strawberries, tho?â Berkley.
