🤑 An easy but queasy $50

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👋 Hey, get out there and show some conviction today. Be like gridiron champ Tom Brady, who, despite incurring massive financial loss and continued legal hurdles through his entanglements with the collapsed billions-bilking crypto mess known as FTX, is getting back up on his crypto horse. The steadfast former QB is again investing in an online financial institution — this time throwing in on Catena Labs, the “first AI-native bank” (whatever that means). Oh, and gotta be clear when we’re talking FTX: we’re wishing you conviction, not convictions.

🎧 On the pod: Why big-box retailers and convenience stores are investing in fuel pumps amid an EV revolution.

NEWS FLASH

An ice cream scoop balls up chocolate ice cream.

🍦 Not mad about having a reason to lead with that picture: There’s a bright spot in the otherwise-stagnant US restaurant industry and it just so happens to be the primary reason life is worth living every day: dessert. Nearly two-thirds of the dessert establishments tracked by food data powerhouse Technomic saw positive growth last year. One possible explanation? Young diners are increasingly skipping expensive full meals in favor of cheaper sweet treats. Cookies — specifically, Crumbl — have propelled the dessert category’s gains in previous years, but multiple ice cream brands, led by Van Leeuwen, outpaced Crumbl’s growth last year. Are we rooting for team cookie or team ice cream? Yes.

😱 This is… not comforting: Cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler found one hell of a data breach. Specifically, he found 184m+ usernames and passwords just sitting around in an unprotected online database. The 47.42 GB file had login info tied to pretty much every top-tier online service — Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Roblox, banks, health portals, and more. Fowler believes the data was corralled by malware and it has since been taken offline. Never a better time to make sure your passwords are more complex than your pet’s name and your birth year.

👀 What’s up, WhatsApp? After 15+ years, Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp finally has a dedicated iPad app, WhatsApp for iPad. Now, users can enjoy many of the features available on iPhones, including 32-person video and audio calls, screen sharing, and more. Meta may also be developing an Instagram app optimized for iPad for those of you who’d like to watch much larger kitten videos, but that’s still just a rumor, per The Verge.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Good luck with that: 77% of Americans want tech companies to slow AI development down to make sure they get it right, per an Axios Harris poll, leaving just 23% rooting for what’s gonna actually happen.
Pretty cool: Femtech startup Hormona raised $6.7m to expand its at-home hormone tests. This is somehow less exciting than the news Hormona generated last month: two SpaceX astronauts used their testing strips to see how women’s endocrine systems fare in space.
Say it ain’t so: Southwest “Bags fly free” Airlines will start charging passengers $35+ for checked bags today after 50+ years of not doing that. The carrier’s proud differentiator was no match for this financial reality: other US airlines made $7.3B in baggage fees last year.

GET WEIRD WITH IT

7 times a weird idea worked

If you’ve never seriously considered desert island tourism or dog music composing as possible career paths — get in line, but also, maybe let’s try it…?

Somehow, each of these seven strange professions are pulling in 6-figure incomes:

The professional bridesmaid 💁‍♀️
The desert island tourism operator 🏝️
The tennis ball recycler 🎾
The divorce coach 💔
The pet musician 🎼
The seasonal Christmas tree seller 🎄
The dump trailer entrepreneur 🚛

Explore the origin stories, business models, and startup costs for real-world inspiration.

7 oddball jobs

THE BIG IDEA

A man holds out his hand to accept a $50 bill.

Would you sell your data for $50/month?

In the digital age, data is gold, and companies know it — hence why they frequently steal, mine, and sell it, and the global data broker market is worth an estimated $430B+.

But if players like Google and Meta are making billions off of our data — shouldn’t we be able to monetize it, too?

Generation Lab, a youth polling company, thinks so. That’s why it’s offering consumers cash in exchange for their data through its newly launched product, Verb.AI, per Axios.

How it works:

Users receive $50+/month (depending on usage and other factors) to download a tracker onto their phone that logs the things they buy, stream, and browse for, and the apps they use — all anonymously, of course — while excluding things like online banking activity.
The app uses that data to create digital twins for users, which it stores in a central database.
Companies can then query Verb’s dataset for specific information on a target demographic, and it will return relevant, real-time data.
The platform already has ~1k users and is aiming for 5k by September.

A win-win?

Generation Lab claims data tracking provides a more accurate pulse read on trends and consumer behaviors compared to asking, analogizing traditional polling to a doctor asking a patient about symptoms and Verb to “an MRI machine.”

Plus, CEO Cyrus Beschloss told Axios he thinks people should be fairly compensated for their data — which, as consumers, we’re here for.

But will the youths buy into it?

Most likely. Unlike older generations, who remember a time when there was a separation between our digital and IRL lives, these digital natives have fewer qualms about sharing their personal info.

And while they might have the know-how to protect their privacy, they don’t really care.

Nearly 90% of Gen Zers are open to sharing their personal info with social media companies.
Around 33% of Gen Z doesn’t mind being tracked by websites or apps, compared to 22% of non-Gen Z, per Malwarebytes.
Over 40% of Gen Zers said they shared access to personal info in exchange for something like a discount code or to use a free service.

So, if you’re already cool with companies sharing your data, why not make a buck, or $50, while you scroll?

🔗

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Share of the 31.1m reviews across Tripadvisor in 2024 that were fake, per the Tripadvisor Transparency Report 2025.

That’s more than double the amount of bogus reviews found in 2022, but it doesn’t indicate a growing problem. According to Tripadvisor VP and head of trust Becky Foley, it’s due to improvements in its system’s ability to detect fake reviews and stricter policies against “incentivized” ones.

Two interesting things we learned, per CNBC:

Tripadvisor has investigators who act as review brokers to catch and learn about people who write reviews for money.
AI reviews aren’t allowed, but most aren’t fake. Rather, they’re real travelers using the tech to improve their writing.

HOW YOU HUSTLE

We don’t need to tell you — our readers are amazing. So amazing, in fact, that it was worth dedicating some real estate to. Here’s our weekly spotlight on a Hustler doing something big.

Who: Josh Howes

What: Watch Hill Proper

Origin story: "We were bored during Covid lockdowns so we decided to start a whiskey bar. It turned into a high end restaurant with the largest selection of American whiskey in the world."

Why: "Not enough whiskey available."

One truly innovative thing: "We offer an immersive experience where the seating is like being in a large family room."

Advice to a fellow entrepreneur: "Grow but grow slowly."

Want to be featured here? Tell us how you’re hustling.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1934, the Dionne quintuplets, the first quintuplets known to have survived infancy, were born in Canada. The government made the four girls wards of the Crown and turned them into a tourist attraction.

🧅 How to: cut an onion, minus the tears.

🧩 That’s cool: Play Uno on YouTube using your keyboard.

🖌️ That’s interesting: An interview with Chris Maple, who designed the Pokémon logo.

😍 Aww: Have you ever seen a baby badger?

QUOTE OF NOTE

Like a freaking Corvette, doing zero to 60.

How fast robotrucks are entering the market, according to John Samuelsen, head of the Transport Workers Union of America.

Beyond job automation, the union leader told the New York Times he also worries about the safety aspect of self-driving semis on the road. And he’s not alone: A recent AAA survey found 61% of US drivers are scared of the tech, which McKinsey estimates will represent 13% of US semis in the next decade.

Thousands of pounds of metal barreling down highways with no driver — what could go wrong?

SHOWER THOUGHT

Many items start valuable, become obsolete, then regain worth as collectibles — life's way of recycling value. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Ben “Data? I hardly know her” Berkley.

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