🚬 Quitting while ahead

👋 Happy April Fools’ Day. We promise this isn’t a prank: We want to talk to you about the weirdest, wildest, and most intimate ways you’re using AI in your personal life. Fill out this survey for a chance to be featured in one of our original stories. And be sure to check the toilet for Saran wrap, just in case.

🎧 On the pod: AI can now translate prompts into custom physical products. What does this mean for designers?

NEWS FLASH

🧥 Style icon Jensen Huang frequently wears a black leather jacket, inspiring at least 21 online retailers to market similar garments using the Nvidia CEO’s name and ad copy like, “Be the boss of the fashion world,” per 404 Media. You can get your very own knockoff for less than $100, which probably means it’s going to be crap. Fashion expert Derek Guy told 404 he suspects that these brands — none of which he’s heard of — are all “scam sites or one of the many places using workshops in low-wage countries to do rip-off versions.” We’ll just have to become the CEO of one of the world’s most valuable companies and buy the real deal if we want to look as cool as Huang.

🏠 That’s a lot: Mortgage company Rocket Cos. will acquire Mr. Cooper Group Inc. in a $9.4B deal, creating what Bloomberg is calling a “mortgage behemoth” that will handle one in every six US mortgages. Rocket acquired Redfin Corp. last month in a $1.75B deal, and has started using AI to save its underwriters time.

🏠 Looking to relocate? How does Pawnee City, Nebraska, sound? The city, two hours north of Kansas City, Missouri, and home to fewer than 900 residents, is offering $50k in down payment assistance to new residents. Its Vision 2030 initiative is meant to start a “rural renaissance” and fight a 50-year population decline. The program received 115 applications between March 14 and March 27 and is open to homebuyers who fall within certain income caps depending on household size. While the average home value in Pawnee City is $102.7k, the program’s website lists new builds priced at $325k. The down payment assistance is tempting, but the ability to say you live in Pawnee as a “Parks and Recreation” fan might be even stronger.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Ciao, Bezos: Venice, Italy, said it will host Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding in late June but denied reports that it would throw the city into chaos. Venice promised only 200 guests will be invited, and that “the event will be absolutely respectful of the fragility and uniqueness of the city.”
Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet-backed AI drug discovery company, raised $600m in its first external fundraising round. The company said it will use the new funding to “turbocharge” its AI research and development, aiming to eventually cure all diseases — with AI’s help.
Coyote vs. Acme, famously squashed by Warner Bros. Discovery for a tax write-off, has been acquired by Ketchup Entertainment and will have its theatrical debut after all. Meep, meep.

GO VIRAL

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See the 50 viral LinkedIn posts we compiled to inspire more attention-getting content that cuts through the fluff.

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THE BIG IDEA

A hand emptying a pack of cigarettes into a trash can.

Can quitting smoking be cooler than smoking?

Truth Initiative’s antismoking campaign was launched with the goal of making smoking seem aggressively uncool for young people. Then vaping happened.

But even addictive trends die fast, and one startup wants to fix quitting.

Making quitting cool

Nicotine replacement therapy company Jones just raised $10m for its new, cooler way to stop you from smoking, per Forbes.

Co-founder Caroline Vasquez Huber felt the existing packaging for NRTs was “shameful” and made it look “like you have a disease.”
Jones’ approach? Sell the same FDA-approved nicotine replacement mints, but package them with a stylish tin (alongside an app, which likely does most of the heavy lifting in getting you to quit).
Suddenly you’re not a smoker treating an addiction, you’re a cool person popping a cool thing from a cool box.

Not that Jones is ashamed: The company sells “quitter” merch, stamping its logo on hats, totes, and water bottles.

So it’s really just the old aesthetics of quitting that are the problem.

Quitters…

… who want to quit without looking weird may seem like a hyperspecific market, but Jones did raise that $10m and Forbes says the company is likely worth ~$45m.

Its investors include Good Friends, a VC firm started by the founders of Harry’s, Warby Parker, and Allbirds, which says a lot about the vibe here.
Jones is also developing a premium $295 lozenge tin that can be worn as a necklace, which it handed out to models backstage at New York Fashion Week.

So Jones is cool, but there might be a reason why typical antismoking aids have zero vibes whatsoever: What if Jones convinces someone to pick up smoking just so they have an excuse to use it?

Obviously, that’s absurd and no one would do that, but… just please don’t.

🔗

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

The amount of square feet leased to defense and aerospace companies in 2024, up from 7.1m in 2022.

What are those companies looking for, exactly? Large open-floor plans, high ceilings, sterile rooms, lots of power… and space to make weapons, rockets, and drones go boom, according to The New York Times.

They’re also gobbling up office space for less action-packed responsibilities, with 426.8k square feet of office leases coming from the aerospace and defense sectors between the end of 2023 and 2024.

As far as who’s moving in: new tech and a growing aerospace industry saw a record 274 startups raise funds in 2024.

AROUND THE WEB

🚬 On this day: In 1970, cigarette ads were banned on TV and radio in the US.

😱 That’s interesting: Remembering horror hotlines.

🧩 Game: Place the tiles to create words.

👀 Chill out: with random vintage media clips.

🦔 Aww: A visitor.

QUOTE OF NOTE

"I guarantee you, there are people that are leveraging Christianity to get closer to Peter Thiel."

Silicon Valley — the capital of an industry that’s long favored secularism and science over spirituality — is experiencing a Christian awakening, per Vanity Fair. What’s more, the religious revival has birthed a new type of event: a sort of Bible study-networking hybrid, led by industry leaders like Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and venture capitalist Trae Stephens, where gospel lessons are preached through the lens of tech and concepts like innovation and investing principles are likened to divinity.

But some, like one Christian entrepreneur who spoke to VF, suspect many are only attending such events not to get closer to God, but to St. Peter Thiel and other industry Goliaths. Heaven forbid the very probable thought.

SHOWER THOUGHT

You probably would get bored watching a timelapse film of your life. 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 “My invite to the Bezos wedding got lost” Berkley.

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