👋 Happy Monday and St. Patrick’s Day. And, if you’re a member of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union, we hope that orange dye from Saturday washes out of your clothes. Since 1962, members of the union have dumped 40 pounds of vegetable-based orange dye powder — the recipe is a secret — into the Chicago River to achieve that iconic neon-green hue for the holiday weekend.
🎧 On the pod:Breaking down what’s new in AI, including Apple’s delays, AI art, and Microsoft’s latest developments.
💡 Sitting on a genius business idea?
Enter The Hustle’s Big Break — 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 (and more) to help get it off the ground.
🚁 Your UK commute is about to take off: Virgin Atlantic is partnering with startup Joby Aviation to bring air taxis to the UK. Customers will be able to book a seat in an all-electric Joby aircraft — which takes off vertically and can reach speeds up to 200mph while being 100x quieter than an airplane — through the Virgin Atlantic website and app. The companies are planning a network of landing locations around the UK, flying people to their destinations for prices comparable to “existing premium ground ridesharing options.” While an 8-minute jaunt from Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf might have many ready to pay up, the companies will need to wait until Joby acquires FAA’s type certification to take flight.
🤖 You know, it has a point: Cursor, an AI code assistant, reportedly told a user trying to “vibe code” — describing the software function to an LLM instead of coding it yourself — to write his own code to ensure he understood and could maintain the system. The user filed a bug report on Cursor’s product forum that went viral. If true, Cursor could be a wise teacher — or it could be replicating the human users of programming forums like Stack Overflow if such forums were part of its training.
🚂 Wild West: Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the railroad company owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, has been repeatedly robbed by gangs associated with the Sinaloa Cartel. The robberies have been on the rise since 2023, with thieves using saws and bolt cutters to lift shoes, gaming equipment, and more from trains mostly in the southwest US. In 2024, there were 65k+ railroad thefts, up 40% from 2023, and totaling over $100m+ across the nation’s biggest railroads.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
You went to your local bar on Friday, and four astronauts lifted off for their space flight en route to the International Space Station. The crew is heading to relieve Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been waiting for a ride home since June.
Hope lawyer isn’t your dream job. Not only did we hear the hours can get rough, but getting into law school isn’t looking like a cakewalk, either. The number of applications to the almost 200 law schools in the US rose 20.5% over last year.
Ouch: Starbucks will pay $50m in damages to a delivery driver who sued after he “suffered severe burns, disfigurement, and debilitating nerve damage to his genitals” when an improperly secured lid caused hot drinks to spill on his lap.
NAIL YOUR MAIL
Make endless on–brand emails with AI
Yes, the tech is essentially there. And yes, you can do it yourself.
At this point in AI’s takeover, it seems almost no industry is immune.
And wine is no exception. Don’t panic: Your pinot noir is safe — AI might actually make winemaking easier, perThe Associated Press.
The tech is taking a hands-on role in various stages of the viticulture:
Scout, an AI-powered farm-management platform, processes thousands of images in hours to count and measure the number of grape clusters, allowing winemakers to forecast their yield for the season earlier and more accurately.
VineView analyzes aerial imagery of vineyards to provide insights into disease prevention, irrigation needs, and vine health.
Autonomous AI-powered tractors, robotic arms, and ChatGPT are all helping out on the vineyard, too.
AI’s support could help vineyards become more sustainable, cut back on waste, automatically monitor water usage and leaks, and more precisely deploy fertilizers and pesticides.
And it gets to the root of one of the wine industry’s biggest obstacles: Replanting a vineyard after vines are hit by viruses or diseases can take at least five years, making early detection key.
Smart vines
Some large farming companies, like John Deere, have already adopted AI. The company’s Smart Apply tech on its tractors uses sensors and algorithms to identify the foliage on grape canopies and spray for better crop retention.
But for small winemakers, AI might not be a sure thing. Pricy tech that requires educating workers anew on processes is a riskier bet.
Ready or not, AI is getting into the wine game. And it’s not just coming for vineyards: An AI wine-tasting system took on professionals at the French Blind Tasting Championship last week.
Straight from HubSpot’s CMO: How AI will revolutionize the future of business — and how you can get in on it.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
How much Americans lost in investment scams in 2024, up 24% YoY and more than any other kind of fraud, per the FTC. Victims lost an average of $9k.
Investment scams convince victims to fork over money in the hopes of making big returns later, often hyping cryptocurrency or other digital assets. AI has been a boon for scammers, who can now create deepfake videos or audio.
The FTC urges people to be wary of any investment opportunity or request for money that seems urgent, comes with threats, or can be paid only using an unusual method, such as crypto, payment apps, gift cards, or wire transfers.
AROUND THE WEB
📸 On this day: In 1973, Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo “Burst of Joy.” It depicts Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, just released after five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, greeting his family.
👀 That’s cool: A 3D model of San Francisco’s Sutro Tower.
🗞️ The eyes and ears of Wall Street:Semafor Business, a twice-weekly guide to the policies, power brokers, and deals shaping Wall Street. Trusted by 60,000 executives, each issue delivers timely analysis directly to your inbox. Subscribe for free.
🧩 Game: This daily puzzle requires you to figure out the words in brackets. It’s tricky at first, but gets easier as you solve it.
You know what’s more comforting than a screaming baby? A cuddly, sleepy puppy on your lap.
That certainly seems to be the preference among young people in China, where the population has fallen three years in a row, the marriage rate is at its lowest level in nearly 50 years, and the baby formula market saw a 21% drop between 2021 and 2024, perBloomberg.
What’s going up, though, is the amount of pets. China’s four-legged friends are set to outnumber toddlers nearly two to one by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and the pet economy is projected to increase almost 40% by 2030 to $49B.
That means companies once focused on baby products — like formula — are pivoting to wares worthy of a fur baby.
If you think China’s 4.7m pet-related companies are all peddling dog food, think again. Businesses are offering everything from doggy kindergarten to animal acupuncture.
SHOWER THOUGHT
One of the worst feelings is your sleeves sliding down your wrists as you wash your hands.SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben “I’ll raise a glass to that” Berkley.
