🩸 Dye hard startups

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👋 Good morning. We pride ourselves on delivering only the most important news to your inbox every day. As such, you must know that the Guinness World Records title holders for tallest and shortest living dog had a playdate. Reggie, a Great Dane from Idaho, and Pearl, a Chihuahua from Florida, stood three feet apart but got along just splendidly. That’s all.

🎧 On the pod: McDonald’s has hit a rough patch. Can the golden arches get their shine back?

NEWS FLASH

💳 Sit back, relax, and let your credit card run your errands. Visa unveiled Intelligent Commerce, a tool that lets AI agents make purchases on behalf of customers based on their preferences. The announcement comes after a slew of similar launches: Mastercard released Agent Pay, which integrates payments into customized recommendations; PayPal announced an agentic commerce tool; and Amazon launched Buy for Me, its AI shopping agent. With tariffs driving prices up, maybe it’s best to let your AI agent look at the final bill, anyway.

😮 That was fast: Kohl’s fired CEO Ashley Buchanan, a former Michaels CEO who took over the role in January, after a company investigation found he failed to disclose vendor transactions involving “conflicts of interest,” including a deal that offered “highly unusual terms favorable to the vendor.” Buchanan must now return a portion of his $2.5m signing bonus. Board Chair Michael Bender was named interim CEO.

✋ Pinterest is not here for AI slop. The platform will now flag AI-generated or -modified Pins using a new tool that analyzes metadata. It’s also developed another tool that can detect AI content sans metadata and a feature that will let users filter out content in categories where AI manipulation is common. The move follows user outcry over a proliferation of AI content on the platform that’s made it difficult to find anything useful, considering the deluge of products and materials that don’t exist.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Knock, knock — it’s the future: Sam Altman’s World opened six US retail locations this week to scan irises with its Orb biometric device. Stroll in to have the spherical tech scan your eyeball and create an “IrisCode” that allows you to sign in to integrated platforms like Reddit, Discord, and Shopify.
Not-so-happy meal: McDonald’s US same-store sales dipped 3.6% in the first quarter and revenue fell 3% to $6B. The grim US numbers are a drastic change from the same time last year when US same-store sales were up 2.5%, and an indicator of economic uncertainty and cautious spending from lower-income customers.
Ouch: Xbox increased the price of its consoles and controllers 25%+ globally due to tariffs. The Microsoft-owned gaming company also plans to hike prices of some of its new games closer to the holidays.

LEARN FROM THE BEST

Jess Mah's Billion-Dollar Startup Bundle

4 billion-dollar frameworks for scaling

At the age when you were probably picking your nose while playing “Club Penguin,” future VC and “unicorn breeder” Jess Mah was building her first six-figure business.

Today, she’s cofounded 10+ companies collectively worth $1B+. Peek at four of her VC firm’s most impactful playbooks for founders:

Company creation: What her firm, Mahway, looks for in talent, startups, and CEOs
Talent acquisition: How to attract, assess, and retain top performers
Executive recruiting: Advice on sourcing high-quality candidates
Fundraising + infrastructure: How Mahway fosters operational excellence

Mahway playbooks

THE BIG IDEA

Seeing Red No. 3

The US government recently waged a new war on artificial food dyes, with a ban on Red No. 3 and an “understanding” with the food industry to phase out a lot more.

But there’s still hope for people who love the unnatural hue of their favorite snack food.

Green No. 2 with envy

A number of startups are already developing alternative food dyes, largely thanks to the wonders of fermentation.

Danish startup Chromologics uses fungi to create a tasteless red pigment as an alternative to dyes made from crushed insects.
Israeli startup Phytolon uses genetically modified yeast to generate a wide range of colors, but all GMOs are filtered out at the end.
Michroma ferments fungi to make protein-rich dyes, perfect for plant-based meat.
If you don’t mind the bugs, Sensient Technologies claims it can make “Barbie pink” from crushed cochineal.

Unfortunately, a full transition to natural dyes could take years, the Associated Press notes.

The current supply of alternative dyes wouldn’t cover the demand.
That “understanding” didn’t produce any actual legislation, so there’s nothing to stop companies from still using most old dyes.

What’re ya, Yellow No. 6?

The FDA itself acknowledged that the ban on Red No. 3 specifically is because it causes cancer in rats, but that humans aren’t susceptible in the same way.

Also, while synthetic dyes aren’t good for you, making Cheetos a slightly different color isn’t going to single-handedly make kids healthier.

But it can’t hurt and there seem to be viable solutions, so why not?

🔗

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Frequency of a mysterious, persistent, low humming noise that’s been irritating residents of the Isle of Lewis, a Scottish isle in the Outer Hebrides archipelago. One resident, who described it as “intrusive” and “distressing,” claims it’s keeping her awake at night and giving her headaches, per the BBC.

It’s unclear what the source of the noise is, but it’s not the first time people have been plagued by a weird hum. Glen MacPherson, a former University of British Columbia professor, founded a website that maps the phenomena.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1885, Good Housekeeping magazine launched in Holyoke, Massachusetts, to “produce and perpetuate perfection — or as near unto perfection as may be attained in the household.”

☀️ Useful: Find cafes in the sun or shade.

🧙 Game: Wizard fight!

📸 That’s cool: See the finalists of Smithsonian Magazine’s annual photo competition.

🐈 Aww: He craves simplicity.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Marc Andreessen has entered the chat — several, actually.

The 53-year-old a16z co-founder, an early proponent of the open internet, apparently spends much of his time nowadays posting in various private group chats largely populated by other tech and business elites, per Semafor’s Ben Smith.

They’ve reportedly become safe spaces for the likes of Mark Cuban and Tyler Winklevoss to engage in conversations that might be berated or censored on public forums like X (which is not sus at all). And, according to one fellow chat member, Andreessen is the loudest among them.

SHOWER THOUGHT

When you smile you flash your skeleton. SOURCE

Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Sam Barsanti, Singdhi Sokpo, and Kaylee Jenzen.
Editing by: Ben “Give me Hot Cheetos or give me death” Berkley.

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