👋 Good morning. Did you feel fewer butterflies before that big presentation yesterday? It could be that you’re finally building up confidence, or it could be due to the rapid decline of butterflies. Seriously, our winged friends are in trouble according to a new study: Total butterfly abundance across 554 species fell 22% in the US between 2000 and 2020.
🎧 On the pod:Why boomers are looking for blue collar jobs.
NEWS FLASH
🎤 Bad voices: A Consumer Reports study is alleging that many popular voice cloning tools don’t have any “meaningful” safeguards to prevent abuse from bad actors. Of the companies tested — Descript, ElevenLabs, Lovo, PlayHT, Resemble AI, and Speechify — only Descript and Resemble AI had implemented steps to prevent misuse. The other products allowed researchers to easily create a voice clone using public audio, and didn’t use any tech to confirm that users had consent to generate a clone, other than checking a box. Consumer Reports offered a list of suggested changes, such as a requirement to upload audio from a unique script to prove one’s right to a voice or watermarking AI-generated audio.
📸 Get their good side: Ever notice that Wikipedia’s celebrity portraits are often unflattering, outdated, or just plain odd? This is usually due to Wikipedia relying on publicly licensed images — often taken by random people using their phones — as opposed to the kinds of photos professional photographers snap. WikiPortraits, a group of volunteer photographers, is attempting to fix that problem by attending star-studded events and taking quality photos, per404 Media. Thus far, they’ve taken ~5k photos and placed 1.5k+ across Wikipedia articles. Those photos have also been used by smaller media outlets that can’t afford Getty Images or similar subscriptions.
✈️ Grounded: An unexpected strike at Hamburg Airport in Germany impacted 40k travelers on Sunday. The walkout came a day before Monday’s strikes across 13 German airports. The strikes were organized by Ver.di union, which represents passenger service and cargo screening employees, as it negotiates for better safety protocols and increased pay and time off. An airport spokesperson called the surprise strike “dishonorable” due to how it affected passengers, while a trade union official countered that it was needed for the strike to be “effective.”
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Hope you’re not out of shampoo. CVS is ditching the store part of some of its stores and opening ~12 pharmacy-only locations. The launch follows the closure of 1k+ CVS locations and the layoffs of thousands of employees as drug stores continue to struggle.
UC San Francisco researchersenabled a paralyzed man to control a robotic arm by imagining himself grasping, moving, and dropping objects. The brain computer interface device worked for seven months without being readjusted — a new record for the tech.
Redfin will be acquired in a $1.75B deal by Rocket Companies, a $31B Michigan-based finance and real estate holding company that also owns Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Money.
FASHION FACTS
Death to the cringe classic logos
Sure, a Birkin bag will always be baller and Neverfulls may always be everywhere. But the new flex is less like yelling, “I’m rich,” and more like whispering, “I’m hip.”
Powerhouses crushing quiet lux: The Olsen twins’ The Row already has a $1B+ valuation, while New York-based Khaite has cleared $100m in revenue. Bridging the fashion x tech gap: Resale platform Mercari is all in on AI. Coperni keeps going viral (robot dogs/spray-on dresses). For chef’s-kiss craftsmanship: Peep minimalist statement pieces by Vietnamese-American designer Peter Do, and artisanal African techniques in lines by Grace Wales Bonner. Sustainability champions: Reformation and Veja are going green and raking in a hefty nine figures per year.
See full summaries inside — plus three trends to watch.
A century ago, General Motors capitalized on the idea of “planned obsolescence” — releasing a product with a purposefully shortened shelf life to encourage consumers to eventually buy a new version.
That principle now drives basically all of tech, but planned obsolescence might even be coming for things that once seemed worryingly permanent.
Born to die
High-end plastic furniture maker Heller adds an enzyme into its manufacturing process that accelerates the rate of biodegradation, perFast Company.
Why? Plastic pollution is choking the Earth and potentially killing us, so Heller wanted to do more “good for the planet.” Heller’s furniture looks and costs the same as other brands, but the company says it biodegrades over about five years instead of much longer.
Now you can feel better about buying these ~$1.5k lips, or this ~$1k… shape.
Worry Free Plastics, which makes the enzyme, is happy to hype it up:
Depending on the landfill, a standard plastic water bottle might take ~450 years to decompose.
The enzyme could lower that to just over seven years.
It even works on supposedly compost-friendly bioplastics.
Despite this take on planned obsolescence…
… Heller doesn’t envision its furniture as an eternally replaceable product like a Chevy or smartphone.
The chairs won’t instantly disintegrate like a paper straw. The enzyme only triggers in an oxygen-free environment like a landfill.
Heller wants to show the enzyme’s viability and encourage other furniture makers to try it.
Now we just need to grab the 360m metric tons of plastic waste created annually and coat it in a biodegradable enzyme!
Most concerts performed by a vegetable orchestra, per Guinness World Records. This honor goes to the Vegetable Orchestra, a musical ensemble in which — as you may have guessed — every musician plays an instrument made out of a vegetable.
The band formed in Vienna, Austria, in 1999 as a joke with just four members, but has since expanded to 11. Instruments are carved from fresh produce — e.g., a pumpkin drum, a leek mandolin, etc. — before each performance as they tend to only last about six hours. Instruments are later composted, while any unused veggies are made into soups served at performances.
So, the next time you’re looking for a new hobby, how about carving a carrot into a recorder?
AROUND THE WEB
🏳️🌈 On this day: In 1973, the first meeting for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), then called “Parents of Gays,” was held in New York.
🗞️ Newsletter: Join the 300k+ innovators following Scott’s Newsletter, covering mental models, performance, business, and entrepreneurship. Sign up today.
📸 Wow: The winners of the 2025 World Nature Photography Awards.
🐱Aww: The most important thing to pack is yourself.
QUOTE OF NOTE
That’s what inspired Trish Costello to found Portfolia, a VC investment platform focused on women and women’s health.
When it was founded in 2014, Costello was a part of an — unfortunately — exclusive club: just 6% of decision makers at VC firms were women, perThe New York Times.
And 11 years later, the stats are still subpar for women in the industry. Only ~19% of today’s VC investment partners are women.
But Costello’s hunch was correct: From 2018 to 2023, investment firms supporting women’s health in the US and Europe increased 314%. Portfolia has made 185 investments in 118 companies valued at $65m — nearly 70% of which are women-led.
SHOWER THOUGHT
It must suck to be an air conditioner repair specialist. You spend your day working in buildings that have no air conditioning. When it’s fixed and finally cool, you leave.SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Sam Barsanti and Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben “Learning the radish bass flute” Berkley.
